Millennials’ Values Connected to the Environment
Nowadays, most people think about the environmental situation in the world since it began to directly affect people. Environmental issues start to make the world around highly important for people. In my opinion, millennial college students tend to operate with the value of every life—human and inhumane. Moreover, they have seen the negative consequences of the anthropogenic impact on nature and started to value health and well-being with dependence on the environment. Thus, the conceptions of any life and health importance affect the millennials’ thinking.
Eco-feminism
The discrimination and oppression of women have a direct relationship to environmental damage. As such, ecofeminists argue that women are subjugated and oppressed in nature. It became famous as a result of the second wave of feminism and the green movement. Consequently, eco-feminism combines aspects of both feminist and environmental movements while simultaneously criticizing both of them. Furthermore, it relies on the green movement’s concerns about human activities’ impact on the nonhuman environment, as well as feminism’s concept of distinction by gender that oppresses, exploits, and abuses women. Realizing that people are all connected is essential to sustainability (Mason, 2011). This movement must exist because it has a supporting role for the environment. In brief, eco-feminism is based on the green movement’s concern about the impact of human activities on the nonhuman environment in connection with the gender concept.
Deep Ecology
Deep ecology attempts to reflect a broad theological and philosophical viewpoint rather than providing a limited, fragmented, superficial solution to environmental issues. Deep ecology is based on the underlying intuitions and experiences humans have with their essence and with the environment, which constitute ecological consciousness. These ideas on politics and public affairs are a natural byproduct of such a consciousness. In contrast to the dominant paradigm of technocratic-industrial civilizations, which views humans as separate and distinct from nature, superior to and in charge of the rest of creation, ecological consciousness and deep ecology are the opposite. Nevertheless, the idea that humans are superior to the rest of the natural world is part of a broader cultural tendency.
All-inclusive self-realization and biocentric egalitarianism go hand in hand because when individuals hurt the rest of nature, they are also injuring themselves. According to deep ecology, there are no differences, and everything is intertwined. However, since people perceive things as different creatures or entities, this knowledge leads to respect for both animal and human beings as vital components of the whole, without the need to establish species hierarchies with humans at the top. The practical implication follows that people should live in a way that has a minor influence on other species and the Earth in general. (Devall, 1985). This position has a right to exist since the entire human environment is related to the environment, while the supremacy of mankind is in question. Thus, deep ecology’s main concept is that to enhance the environment, people must maintain order.
The Gaia Theory
In the Gaia idea, life on Earth is maintained by organisms interacting with their inorganic surroundings. Namely, the biosphere and the development of living forms have an impact on global temperature stability, ocean acidity, and oxygen gas, among other environmental variables. In the 1970s, these views were unified into a hypothesis called after the Greek goddess Gaia by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis (Lovelock, 2014). Scientists from a variety of fields have used principles outlined by the Gaia hypothesis as a consequence of the latest advancements. However, some scholars feel that the Gaia hypothesis is weakly supported by facts or at odds with it. Therefore, the hypothesis is not well grounded and could not be seriously viewed.
References
Devall, B. (1985). Deep ecology. Gibbs Smith Publisher.
Lovelock, J. [Naked Science]. (2014). Gaia hypothesis – James Lovelock [Video]. YouTube. Web.
Mason, J. [TEDx Talks]. (2011). TEDxGrandValley – an ecofeminist perspective [Video]. YouTube. Web.