Introduction
Environmental ethics is one of the environmental philosophical disciplines that extends the study of the ethical association of humans, too, and also the worth and moral status of, the environment and its nonhuman world. It also exerts influence on various numbers of disciplines which include law, theology, sociology, economics, geography, and ecology.
The Historical Developments of Environmental Ethics
Environmental ethics as a discipline emerged in the 1970s. The discipline of environmental ethics grew up in retort to the work of Environmental philosophical scientists such as Rachel Carson, who speculated on how pesticides such as aldrin, DDT, and dieldrin used in commercial farming, could affect the human health and environment through the food web chain and hence leading to serious environmental problems.
Historian Lynn White, who also played part in the historical development of environmental ethics by arguing that the major strand of Judeo-Christian views had encouraged the overutilization of the natural world by maintaining the supremacy of humans beings over all other creatures on the world and by depicting all forms of life as created for the utilization of humans beings.
Paul Ehrlich, who was a Stanford ecologist, also in print The Population Bomb (1970), forewarning that the growth of human being’s population endangering the viability of terrestrial life-support systems (Stevens 1999).
The environmental ethic field emerged simultaneously in the United States, Norway, and Australia. The inspiration and direction largely came from the former twentieth-century Scottish emigrant Muir and subsequently forester Aldo Leopold who had advocated on conservation and appreciation of the natural environment. Their concerns were aggravated by a combination of aesthetic and ethical responses to the natural world as well as a negative response of offensively economic approaches to the value of the natural environment.
Current Environmental ethical issues
Environmental ethic philosophers have rise concerns over the degradation of natural ecological resources, by formulating environmental policies and reinforcing the implementation of environmental management systems. Environmental impacts have been addressed by the environmental protection act (EPA) in the United States of America.
Hazardous chemical compounds
The manufacture of hazardous chemicals and their successive use and sale in buyers’ products is an issue that is of rising concern for consumers, regulators, governments, and environmental health organizations. There is escalating scientific proof that certain chemicals are harmful to human being health and the environment, and further deed needs to be taken to eliminate and substitute some of these hazardous chemicals as a priority. These hazardous chemicals include pesticides, ozone-depleting chemicals, and PVC and phthalates.
Greenhouse gases and Climate change issue
Climate change is now extensively renowned as one of the most major challenges facing the international economy. Environmental negative impacts include high flood risk, moribund crop yields, and extreme weather patterns, and species extinctions.
The Kyoto Protocol which governing the Climate Change Convention was established at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 in Japan. The developed state agreed to decrease the emissions of greenhouse gas by 5% on common over the next decade. Efforts are being put in place to improve power efficiency and develop cost-effective renewable sources of energy such as solar power and wind, which generate no carbon dioxide (Palmer, 2003).
Mining and quarrying
Mining and the extraction of commodities and lead to negative impacts on human health and the environment such as a wide range of pollution and the effect person’s operations have on the scenery and neighboring communities. Environmental ethics philosophers argue that the environment of extractive industries is intrinsically damaging the environment and human health not just because of the manufacturing process but because of the end-products which serve to increase waste energy, greenhouse gas emissions and discourage recycling of natural resources.
Nuclear power
Nuclear power has turned out to be one of the main controversial industries, is due to radioactive hazardous wastes pollution and accidents, and the industry’s linkage to nuclear power weapons.
Sustainable timber
A critical aspect of the global trade industry in timber is the negative impact it has on the global forests, which are in turn significant natural resources for supporting a wide range of social and environmental lives. Forests, which are extraordinarily rich resources for natural biodiversity which have been threatened by unsustainable commercial logging processes in recent decades.
Pollution
The possible negative impacts of many industrial hazardous pollutants on the environment and public health are well-recognized. The concern is also rising over the negative impacts of intricate organic chemicals compounds such as pesticides and hazardous industrial chemicals.
Water pollution
Water is the most significant natural asset and its contamination has both environmental health and economic negative impacts. The result of water pollution depends both on the level and type of pollutant and the utilization of the water. Sewage discharges have been the main pollutants, leading to the death of fish and other aquatic life, and affect the general marine environment.
Biodiversity
Biodiversity is crucial for maintaining natural ecosystems on which all beings depend. Conserving biodiversity is very significant in ensuring the smooth functioning of the natural ecosystems on which lives depend.
The biggest risk to biodiversity is from alteration in earth use leading to natural habitat destruction, disintegration, or simplification. The next biggest danger is the introduction of foreign species consequential in modification at the ecosystem level, and hence wiping out inhabitant species. Finally, over-exploitation endangers many species.
Anticipated future of environmental ethical issues
An environmental ethics sustainability developments practice such as safeguarding public health and conservation of forest through deforestation and conservation of the natural environmental resources and controlling population growth. The use of appropriate technologies, which do not threaten the natural environment, would have major roles in ensuring food security, protecting human and animal health, and in the reconstruction of the environment to preserve the welfare of the posterity. Sustainable development efforts and actions, including Sustainable agricultural technologies, must be efficient and ecologically reverberation for long-term food adequacy, equitable in the provision of social justice, ethical in respect of both prospective generations and other natural species.
Measures of controlling pollution and maintaining environmental standards in city areas, for instance, control of air and water pollution and hazardous waste management control measures, in fast-growing cities, through combined enforcement of the law, policies, technological and government financial incentives (Porter 2006).
Conclusion
In the vein of many other significant and interesting questions, no solitary discipline could claim individual ownership of the origins of current environmental disasters and the challenges we currently face, the relation between ecological troubles and social injustice, and the displeased question of how a man should relate to the natural environment in their search of pleasure and comfort The move is to link up with a wider society of inquiry may be foreseeable not only in environmental ethics but in other practical philosophical areas.
Reference
Palmer, C., (2003). Animals Environmental Ethics: Washington: Institution Press.
Stevens, E., (1999). Human’s Responsibility for the environment: London: Rutledge.
Porter, G, (2006). Environmental ethics: New York: West view Press.