• What are Environmental Ethics?
• Environmental ethics is a branch of ethical thought that focuses on
the relationship between humans and their natural environment.
• It is a holistic approach to understanding and evaluating our moral
obligations to protect and preserve the environment.
• Environmental ethics seeks to bring together the interests of both
humans and the environment, recognizing that both are
interdependent and have intrinsic value.
• A variety of ethical theories, including consequentialism,
utilitarianism, and virtue ethics, define environmental ethics.
• These ethical theories provide a framework for understanding the
moral obligations we have to the environment and how we should
act to protect it.
• Environmental ethics also draws upon the fields of philosophy,
economics, ecology, and law, providing a comprehensive approach
to understanding and evaluating the moral implications of human
actions.
• Types of Environmental Ethics
• Libertarian Extension: Libertarian extension is a type of environmental
ethics that focuses on an individual’s right to do whatever they want with
the environment and its resources. This concept also stresses that an
individual should not impose their own values on others and should instead
respect the choices of others.
• Ecological Extension: Ecological Extension is a type of environmental ethics
that focuses on preserving the natural environment and its resources in
order to maintain the balance and health of the ecosystem. This concept
stresses the importance of humans working with nature in order to sustain
it for future generations.
• Conservation Ethics: Conservation Ethics is a type of environmental ethics
that focuses on preserving natural resources for future generations by
ensuring that current resources are not depleted or damaged beyond repair.
This concept encourages individuals to use natural resources responsibly
and judiciously so there will be enough for future generations.
• Importance of Environmental Ethics
• Environmental ethics is essential for protecting the environment,
species, and resources.
• It promotes sustainable practices and encourages people to become
more aware of the impact their actions have on the environment.
• It emphasizes the interconnectedness of all living things and the need
to respect them. It encourages us to think about our place in the world
and how we can contribute to preserving the natural environment.
• Environmental ethics helps to build better relationships with nature,
recognizing its intrinsic value, not just its instrumental value.
• It encourages us to think beyond our immediate needs and consider
the long-term implications of our actions.
• It teaches us responsibility towards our environment, advocating for
environmentally friendly practices that help protect natural resources.
• Environmental ethics also promotes better public policies and laws,
which help ensure that our environment is properly cared for.
The Importance of Environmentalism
• Environmentalism is crucial for protecting our planet.
• It sets rules and regulations that safeguard our environment
from harm. It ensures we use the Earth’s resources sustainably
without depleting them.
• Moreover, environmentalism plays a pivotal role in mitigating
climate change by promoting practices that reduce greenhouse
gas emissions.
• The survival of all species, including humans, is in danger
without environmentalism.
• This is because there could be catastrophic changes like global
warming, severe weather, loss of biodiversity, and other
devastating impacts from human activities on Earth.
• Protection and Regulation
• Sustainability and Resource Management
• Climate Change Mitigation
Various Forms of Environmentalism
• Liberal Environmentalism
• Liberal environmentalism aims to lessen harm to our planet. It encourages group effort in
fixing issues that harm the Earth and its people. Climate change is a significant target of this
type of environmentalism.
• This issue leads to pollution, water scarcity, deforestation, and biodiversity loss.
• This movement also values the wisdom of indigenous peoples. These groups have long
known how to care for their environment sustainably, and they show us how to preserve
diverse life despite colonization challenges.
• Radical Environmentalism
• Radical environmentalism calls for significant changes in how people treat the Earth. It is a
part of local green movements that take action to protect our environment. Women are
often leaders in these movements.
• This type of green work is just like social justice or native rights work. It wants us to do
more than recycle and save energy. It pushes us to change how we live daily for the
planet’s sake.
• Political Ecology
• Political ecology ties in with caring for our planet. It looks at how we use land, animals, and
plants. We learn from this how to keep nature balanced and healthy. Ecology shows us the
big part humans play in this balance.
• In political ecology, people protect nature by talking to lawmakers. They advocate for clean
air and safe water rules and educate others on their importance.
•
• 13. Anthropocentric and ecocentric perspectives
• Anthropocentric approach to environmental law
• Anthropocentrism is a branch of philosophy and jurisprudence that treats man as the most
important being in the world. Everything that exists in this world, has the prime purpose to
serve humankind. Nature exists for the welfare of humankind and humans are supposed to be
above all of nature’s organisms.
• Various stories are related to the inception of anthropocentrism. One of the most famous ones
is written in the Judeo Christian Bible. According to this story, human beings represent the
image of God on earth and are supposed to subdue all other forms of nature, for fulfilling their
own needs.
• This text has often been interpreted to establish the superiority of humans over all living
creatures on this planet. Value is accredited to nature only when it is utilised for the benefit of
mankind. This implies that nature exists instrumentally to serve mankind.
• Jurists with an anthropocentric approach never admit that an increase in the population of
humans or any human activity is the reason for the depletion of natural resources. Therefore,
they feel that there is no need for any legal measures to curb environmental exploitation by
humans.
Ecocentric approach to environmental law
• Ecocentrism is a branch of thought that finds intrinsic value in all living organisms. It takes a
holistic view of the Earth, as opposed to the narrower approach adopted by anthropocentrism.
• Ecocentrism has a larger view than even biocentrism and zoocentrism. Biocentrism sees
intrinsic value in all living beings, on the other hand, Ecocentrism in addition to this gives due
weightage to abiotic aspects and perceives environmental systems as wholes. Similarly,
Zoocentrism sees intrinsic value in animals only.
• 14. The club of rome-limits to growth
• Most influential organisations begin with the meeting of a few like minds. In 1965,
Aurelio Peccei, an Italian industrialist, made a speech that proved inspirational to
Alexander King, the Scottish Head of Science at the OECD. The two found that they
shared a profound concern for the long-term future of humanity and the planet,
what they termed the modern ‘predicament of mankind’.
• Three years later, King and Peccei convened a meeting of European scientists in
Rome. Although this first attempt failed to achieve unity, a core group of like-minded
thinkers emerged. Their goal: to advance three core ideas that still define the Club of
Rome today: a global and a long-term perspective, and the concept of
“problematique”, a cluster of intertwined global problems, be they economic,
environmental, political or social.
• At the group’s first major gathering in 1970, Jay Forrester, a systems professor at
MIT, offered to use computer models he had developed to study the complex
problems which concerned the group more rigorously. An international team of
researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology began a study of the
implications of unbridled exponential growth. They examined the five basic factors
that determine and, in their interactions, ultimately limit growth on this planet –
population, agricultural production, non-renewable resource depletion, industrial
output and pollution.
• In 1972, the Club’s first major Report, The Limits to Growth was published. It sold
millions of copies worldwide, creating media controversy and also impetus for the
global sustainability movement. This call for objective, scientific assessment of the
impact of humanity’s behaviour and use of resources, still defines the Club of Rome
today. While Limits had many messages, it fundamentally confronted the
unchallenged paradigm of continuous material growth and the pursuit of endless
economic expansion. Fifty years later, there is no doubt that the ecological footprint of
humanity substantially exceeds its natural limits every year. The concerns of the Club
of Rome have not lost their relevance.
•
• Today, the Club continues to be at the forefront of challenging and controversial global
issues. Propelled by a new mission and organisational structure, which today includes
35 National Associations, the Club of Rome has now published over 45 Reports. They
continue to challenge established paradigms and advocate for policies that can
practically address the many emergencies facing society and the planet today. The
Club remains true to its historical intent, while it attempts to lay the foundations for
long-term systemic shifts in global social, environmental and economic systems. In
short, it is an established, respected, international think-tank positioned to face the
core challenges of the 21st Century.
• The organisation includes around 100 active full members with a full-time secretariat
in Winterthur, Switzerland with a satellite office in Brussels, Belgium.
• The limits to Growth: 2022 marked the 50th anniversary of the
Club of Rome’s landmark report, ‘The Limits to Growth’. This
report – first published on 2 March 1972 – was the first to model
our planet’s interconnected systems and to make clear that if
growth trends in population, industrialisation, resource use and
pollution continued unchanged, we would reach and then
overshoot the carrying capacity of the Earth at some point in the
next one hundred years.
• Some fifty years on, the call for a change in direction was more
urgent than ever. The report’s modelling was remarkably accurate
and prescient as the world declares the climate emergency to be
real and global ecosystems to be at breaking point. Fifty years
offered an excellent opportunity to look back, and forward, at the
trends it examined and listen to leading international thought
leaders, scientists and politicians on how we create a new critical
framework for living and thriving within the limits on Planet Earth.
• 15. UN conference on Human environment 1972
• The first world conference on the environment
• The 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm was the first
world conference to make the environment a major issue. The participants adopted a series
of principles for sound management of the environment including the
Stockholm Declaration and Action Plan for the Human Environment and several resolutions.
• The Stockholm Declaration, which contained 26 principles, placed environmental issues at
the forefront of international concerns and marked the start of a dialogue between
industrialized and developing countries on the link between economic growth, the
pollution of the air, water, and oceans and the well-being of people around the world.
• The Action Plan contained three main categories:
a) Global Environmental Assessment Programme (watch plan);
b) Environmental management activities;
(c) International measures to support assessment and management activities carried
out at the national and international levels.
In addition, these categories were broken down into 109 recommendations.
• One of the major results of the Stockholm conference was the creation of the
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
• 16. World commission on Environment and development
• The General Assembly, in its resolution 38/161 of 19 December
1983, inter alia, welcomed the establishment of a special
commission that should make available a report on environment
and the global problematique to the year 2000 and beyond,
including proposed strategies for sustainable development. The
commission later adopted the name World Commission on
Environment and Development. In the same resolution, the
Assembly decided that, on matters within the mandate and
purview of the United Nations Environment Programme, the
report of the special commission should in the first instance be
considered by the Governing Council of the Programme, for
transmission to the Assembly together with its comments, and for
use as basic material in the preparation, for adoption by the
Assembly, of the Environmental Perspective to the Year 2000 and
Beyond.
17. Concept of sustainable development
• 18. Rio summit and subsequent international efforts
• The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), also known as the Rio de Janeiro
Earth Summit, Rio Summit, Rio Conference, and Earth Summit (Portuguese: ECO92), was a major
United Nations conference held in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) from 3 to 14 June 1992. 172 governments
participated, with 116 sending their heads of state or government.
• Rio Summit
• Some 2,400 representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) attended, with 17,000 people at the
parallel NGO “Global Forum” (also called Forum Global), who had Consultative Status. A significant
accomplishment of the summit was an agreement on the Climate Change Convention which in turn led to the
Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. Another agreement was “not to carry out any activities on the lands
of indigenous peoples that would cause environmental degradation or that would be culturally inappropriate”.
• Rio Summit 1992 – Important Outcomes
• The Rio Summit 1992 is also called the Earth Summit. This summit led to the development of the following
documents:
• Rio Declaration on Environment and Development
• Agenda 21
• Forest Principles
• The first document called the Rio Declaration, in short, contained 27 principles that were supposed to guide
countries in future sustainable development. Agenda 21 is an action plan concerning sustainable development,
but it is non-binding. The Forest Principles is formally called ‘Non-Legally Binding Authoritative Statement of
Principles for a Global Consensus on the Management, Conservation and Sustainable Development of All Types
of Forests’. It makes many recommendations for conservation and sustainable development forestry and is
non-binding.
• The Johannesburg Summit 2002, also known as the World Summit on Su
stainable Development, was held in Johannesburg, South Africa from Au
gust 26 to September 4, 2002
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The summit brought together tens of thousands of participants, includin
g heads of State and Government, national delegates, and leaders from n
on-governmental organizations, businesses, and other major groups
1
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The summit aimed to focus the world's attention and direct action towar
d meeting difficult challenges, including improving people's lives and con
serving our natural resources in a world that is growing in population, wi
th ever-increasing demands for food, water, shelter, sanitation, energy, h
ealth services, and economic security
• The 2012 Hyderabad Conference of the Parties to the UN
Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), also known as COP11, was held
in Hyderabad, India. Environment ministers and forests ministers of
about 194 countries attended the conference; international
organizations like World Bank and the Asian Development Bank also
participated. Nearly 10,000 delegates discussed issues relating to
