Environmental Ethics, Lecture notes of Environmental Science

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Environmental

Ethics

Equity and

Justice

Environmental

Ethics:

Equity and

Justice

Ethics

• Ethics refers to standards of conduct – HOW we ought to live
• Changing the ethics of a society requires changing the views and values of the majority
• MORAL EXTENSIONISM defines how far a person's values extend outside of themselves – to include other humans, organisms, or the environment. - Highly dependent on cultural factors SELF FAMILY HUMANITY WILDLIFE HABITATS PLANET

Sustainable Ethic

• Assumes Earth's resources are limited
• Humans must conserve resources
• Humans are part of nature and must share resources with other living things
• Growth is not sustainable – humans are affected by natural laws

Land Ethic

• A BIOCENTRIC ethic promoted by Aldo Leopold
• The land (including soil, water, humans and other organisms) are a single COMMUNITY
• We must preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the whole community

Environmental Equity

Environmental equity describes the condition in which no single group is burdened disproportionately with environmental hazards Far more progress is being made to improve resource efficiency than to improve resource distribution This is repeated at different geographical levels.

Consumption and limit to sustainability

All modern economies demand ever greater consumption-based expansion, preventing any meaningful progress towards equitable and sustainable resource use. If the bottom 75% increased consumption to match the top 25%, it would result in ecological collapse

Barriers to sustainable development

• Institutional or government resistance
• Inertia of business as usual
• Real and perceived costs of transition
• Addition to economic growth
• Overconsumption
• Difficulty decoupling economic growth from environmental degradation

Environmental Justice

Environmental justice is defined as the fair treatment and involvement of ALL people with respect to the development and implementation of environmental laws, regulations, and policies Equal protection from environmental and health hazards and equal access to the decision-making process

3 Pillars of Environmental Justice

1. Distributive justice
   • Equitable distribution of environmental risks and benefits
2. Procedural justice

• Fair and meaningful participation in decision-making

1. Recognition justice

• Recognition of inequity and difference in environmental justice communities

Bean vs. Southwestern Waste Management Corp.

• 1979 - first lawsuit challenging environmental discrimination using civil rights law
• Opposed a plan to locate a municipal landfill next to the homes of mostly African American citizens in Houston.

Warren County, North Carolina protests

• 1982 PCB protests in Warren Co., North Carolina
• Protests against dumping PCB in Black community in Afton, NC, resulted in 500 arrests
• The Commision for Racial Justice found that race was the most important factor predicting placement of hazardous waste facilities in the U.S.

Enviromental Justice Executive Order, 1994

In 1994, President Bill Clinton signed Executive Order 12898: ” Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low- Income Populations ”

State governments followed suit

• 1993: New Hampshire passed its pioneering environmental justice policy (before
• 2007: 41 states had a policy or program in place that paid attention to the issue of environmental justice
• 2013: All 50 states and the District of Columbia had instituted some type of environmental justice law, executive order, or policy