Environment is fast becoming a serious cause of concern for the human civilization. In such a situation, one must certainly learn about environmental ethics. But, unfortunately, not many of us are aware of the existence of environmental ethics, let alone following it.
However, it is imperative to start learning about it at present when our planet earth is actually in real danger. Here are some basic facts about environmental ethics, which will help you understand the environment better, and also be more conscious about all the problems that the environment is facing.
Things to Know about Environmental Ethics
The basic idea of the environmental ethics is that human beings have certain responsibilities towards the environment. This is a kind of philosophy that assumes that human beings have some moral link with environment. Here are some important points about environmental ethics that you should know about –
- The beginning of the study of environmental ethics is often associated to the celebration of earth day on April 22, 1970 because on this day, the organizers of the earth day around the world demonstrated to make people of the world the moral responsibility humans have towards the environment.
- Every day, with their endeavors, humans are destroying the environment. The factories emit foul smoke, and some time the chemical residues of industries spill unto the land and water, and thereby pollute it. This is where human being’s responsibility ought to lie. They should make sure that such things happen as less as possible. The study of environmental ethics tries to teach this to mankind.
- Other than pollution, the major environmental issues of the present world are overpopulation, change of climate, depletion of ozone layer, genetic engineering among other things. All these problems are disturbing the balance of the environment and as a result we are experiencing various disastrous conditions. These are affecting human health and also the flora and fauna of the world in a negative way. The idea of environmental ethics is to making people aware of such disastrous effects, and thus making them responsible to protect the environment.
- There are certain resources in the environment which are limited. These resources include water and natural oil. Because of misuse by human civilization, these resources are fast being exhausted. The study of environmental ethics is not only meant to make everyone aware of this problem, but also to teach humans to conserve such natural resources as much as possible.
- There are two main schools of thought in the study of environmental ethics. One school of thought is anthropomorphic, that is it puts human beings in the center of activity, and puts the responsibility to conserve the environment for their own benefit. On the other hand there is another non anthropomorphic school which talks about respecting every living beings right to exist. They consider even plants and animals morally significant like the humans of the world.
This is then the basic idea of environmental ethics. A lot of scientists are now actively participating in the study and growth of environmental ethics because they are aware of its significance.
