Blog Reflection- Environmental ethics

Environmental ethics lie right in the middle of Anthropocentrism, Biocentrism, and Ecocentrism.
Anthropocentrism is important because we need to look out for our own species. That is what animals do and that is what is in our nature. We must give food to the hungry, hope to the needy, give life to a baby and give care for free. I did not write these words, it is from a very motivating song that we should get the priviledged to listen to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH9Eckixo-o&feature=related. Xavier Rudd is amazing at inspiring people to protect nature and to take care of people. His song gives a message that we must do good to our planet. By doing so we must look out for each other, adopt a anthropocentric way of thinking without compromising the well being of other species. This would be the Biocentric outlook that to protect our environment we need to adopt the idea that every individual living thing has the same right to live as humans do. They will take care of themselves, we must only let them do so by giving them space to prosper. That would mean to adopt a ecocentric outlook which is protecting ecosystems in whole so that every species can survive and us humans can enjoy the irreplaceable services the ecosystem provides for us.

Online Activity

After looking at these photos and watching this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9TyHzP-8b88b8, it reminded me how inspiring nature can be for myself and for so many more people of my kind out there. Andy Goldworthy first words in this video are: "I don't think the earth needs me but I know I need it." This could not be any more true especially after reading the selections for this blog listing all the services our ecosystem supplies for us. Nature provides us with so much positive things that we cannot put a price tag on it. Trully Andy's art brings me back to the state of mind that it is man and nature, not man vs. nature because man will always lose. His art makes me think of the connection we have with every being on earth. We have to remember that we are just another animal depending on this planet, the only thing we have more is the capability to destroy it. We are using our knowledge in ways that are useless. Andy's art shows the true beauty of nature and it's powerfull capabilities to destroy. His art is not digitally enhanced or altered, it is not produced or changed artificially, or conditioned and disguised, it is not sharp or flat or expected. GoldWorthy's art can be decribed the same way as if you were to describe the word Nature.

His art is capturing, it is very creative and amazingly different than the usual. That is to what you find in nature; diversity, changes and things you would not expect. His art brought me back to when I was a child, when I were to have a grim day or a great day, I would sometimes go in my backyard in the forest and sit back on an oak tree with a piece of paper and colored crayons. I would draw what I would see, and even though I would sit mostly by the same tree I always had something new to draw, everytime I would go there. This is what I did when I was alone, either that or I was building forts with branches I would find on the forest floor. Nothing was permanent, the forts I built are not lying there still today but I still found it in me to do that. Something like Goldworthy's art, it is not permanent but it is a time he gets to spend precious time alone, which is so important, it helps you reflect on yourself and connect with nature. Without those moments, we feel rootless. In those moments we feel the smallest subtleties, like the wind getting stronger, I relate this to when I do Yoga. Yoga is about feeling the air you breadth pass through your body and feeling every bit of yourself, and letting your mind come at ease. Andy does this through his art. Just like his art is not permanent, Nature will not be permanent if we continue the way we are. Although some day man will lose and nature will take over.

Selection 12- Ecosystems and Human Well-being

The world's ecosystems provides us with clean water, food, flood control, disease management, climate regualtion, spiritual fulfillment and natural resources and the list goes on. The need to protect these ecosystems must be implemented by government, economics, social behavior, and knowledge in order to achieve sustainability of these ecosystems.
Over the past 50 years these ecosystems have changed rapidly ad substantionaly. Some humans have benefited from this but in fact many people and regions have been harmed. There are problems associated with the current management of our world's ecosystems: resources are being degradaded and used unsustainably including fresh water, fishing, water purification, natural hazards and pest control. The full cost of the loss and degradation of our ecosystem services are difficult to measure, but they are substantial and growing. Second problem is that changes being made to our ecosystems are accelerating, are irreversible and show great consequences for uman beings. Examples would be disease emergence, alterations in water quality, and regional climate shifts. Third problem to ecosystem degradation would be the principle factor that it is causing poverty and social conflicts.
Environmental degradation will grow worse in the next 50 years, such as climate change, biodiversity loss, land degradation, and excessive nutrient loading will become more severe. The changes needed to fix these growing problems are substantial and are currently underway.
An effective sustainability management approach requires substantial changes in institutions and governance, economic policies, and incentives, as well as social and behavior factors, technology, and knowledge. Actions must be taken in various sectors such as agriculture, forestry, finance, trade, and health. Groups that are dependant on ecosystem resources need to promote, encourage, and implement services which would substantially lessen the severity of the problems.
Over the past 50 years humans have altered the ecosystem more than any other period in our planet's history. These changes include:
1. Land that has been converted to cropland now covers one quarter of Earth's terrestrial surface.
2. Approximately 20% of the world's coral reefs were lost.
3. The amount of water passing through dams has quadrupled since 1960.
4. Since 1960, flows of reactive nitrogen in terrestrial ecosytems have doubled.
5. The atmospheric concentration of carbon has increased by about 32%.
Most of these changes represent loss of biodiversity, either the population size or majority of species is declining, and the Earth is becoming more homogenized such as the extinction rate of species has increased by as much as 1,000 times.
In order to meet the significant increase in population size food production has increased by two-and-a-half times, water use has doubled, wood harvest has tripled and hydropower capacity doubled.
Capital gain has had growing effects to the degradation of ecosystem services, changes in ecosystems, and growing poverty, or inequalities among people.
Among ecosystem sustainability there are three other major worries we need to think about. These are hunger, child mortality, and disease among all of us.
Past actions to slow or reverse the degradation have improved the well being of our ecosystems but they do not keep up to the growing pressure and demands. Substitutes can also be developed to meet our needs but the cost are generally high and negative on our environment.
It is weak human and institutional capacities on management of ecosystem services, under investment, lack of public awareness, and lack of awareness among decision makers that pose threats to the possibility of sustainable management of our ecosystems.

Selection 11: Will hurricane Katrina Impact Shoreline Management?

Erosion was one of the effects of Hurricane Katrina that received the most attention in 2005. There was also many comments made against wetland damage, insufficient storm defenses, or flood control plans, and poor dike construction and maintenance. Global warming will worsen these problems through rising sea levels and more frequent, stronger storms. Current efforts to restore shorelines and rebuild infrastructures are a waste of money and damage ecosystems.

Since Hurricane Camille in 1969 the buildings destroyed were replaced with high-wind building code infrastructures. But these buildings were only built to withstand 120 mph winds. The same scene of debris and concrete pads are all that was present after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The extent of damage inland were the same, if not surpassed, that of Hurricane Camille. Katrina was a major event, but for those who worked with the coastal science committee know that it has happened before and will happen again.

There is also Dauphin Island in Alabama, that has a worst record for reoccuring destruction than Mississippi coast. On the 15 mile long island, Katrina destroyed 150 homes even though it wasnt near the storm's dangerous center. The residence of the island have since moved inland because of the storm's damage and the rising sea level. Dauphin Island has had many severe storms and has been repeatedly rebuilt: Hurricane Frederic (1979), Danny (1997), Georges (1998), and Ivan (2004). This frightening record should be enough to discourage intense future development. Dauphin Island is a classic example of a location that should not have been developed or rebuilt multiple times.

Coastal population have soared along with construction, big cottages rebuild small ones and high rises replace big cottages. City mayors indicate that Hurricanes are "good" for cities in the case of urban renewal. Post storm properties increase without the thought of rising sea levels or future more intense storms.The National Shore and Beach Preservation Association (NSBPA) primary goal of beach nourishment is to save lives and properties. The sad truth is that coastal development destroyed beaches and created risks in the first place. Removing the oceanfront development the beaches will restore themselves. The beach replenishment project does nave negative impact on the environment such as killing all organisms and near-shore ecosystem when pumping sand to an area.

Irresponsible development of vulnerable coastal areas is costing the federal taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars. Many researches suggest that a rise in sea surface temperatures (from Global warming) will increase storm severity and longer duration. Also we have seen a rise in the number of storms which means the future of costal properties does not look desirable. There are several obstacles to prevent rebuilding:

1. The ones who are considering to prevent everyone from rebuilding are considered insensitive. They are simply advocating that the federal government should use the rebuilding dollars more wisely.

2. Those who abandon communities are viewed as defeated but this is insanity. Dauphin Island is a sandbar therefore rebuilding is irresponsible and risk taking.

3. The US cannot continue to support those who want to live and work on the coast. It is not simply an environmental issue, this is an issue of fairness.

4. If you want to live in high risks areas you pay.

Although difficult to decide which communities should be abandoned we have the knowledge and the data to identify which areas we should pull government support from.

The project to restore Louisiana's coastal wetlands and delta barrier islands is likely not a good idea. The 14-15 billion project is thought to do little to mitigate storm impact. If there is such a high amount of money, all the US wetlands should be looked at and the funds should be spent where the rate of success is more likely.

Hurricane Katrina's impact should bring an opportunity to rethink the national coastal policy.

Blog Reflection- Purpose of Connecting

Yes, if we take time to connect with nature our decisions will be influenced for the positive.

This past weekend I went to cut a tree down on the river with my father. I took his quad out and he took my uncles quad, both with trailers in the back. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed doing this not only spending time with my dad but being outside during winter, sliping and sliding on the ice, when eventually finding the perfect tree that will provide us with one or two months of heat for the following winter. My dad thought me at a very young age which trees to cut and which ones to leave and let grow. Due to erosion the tree we chose would have fallen in the river by next summer so we cut this beautiful oak tree that had taken 25 plus years to grow providing us with beauty, while purifying our air from carbon through respiration , providing habitats for many squirrels, birds, owls, and many micro-organisms. I learned at a very young age to appreciate nature and connect with it in a way that makes you feel like a minute being on this planet. My serene place as a child and even more as I grow into an adult is most definetly laying back on a massive oak tree and hearing nothing but chants of birds. I had lost that for a couple years when I moved away, in fact I went to the complete opposite place in the world that was filled with cars, police sirens, four walls, no grass, no trees, barely any birds, I had went to Edmonton to work and make something of myself while figuring out what direction my life should be going. Coming from a quiet, natural location and heading to work in the Alberta Oil Industry was a huge change. It led me more towards wanting to devote my life to natural resource conservation. I don't think I would of ever thought of doing that if I would not of had a connection with nature in the first place, growing up. I appreciate more the heat that the tree provides me, with the simple oldest way of keeping us warm, that is fire. Now some people living in the city might get to appreciate nature when going off camping, or hiking but I grew up with it, it is embeded in me and the next thing that I want to embed is how to do the best I can to teach this to future generations and of course current ones as well. A connection with nature can teach us values that will most definetly influence our decisions about what we chose to eat, buy, trow out, or make us think twice about leaving the tap running.

I have always thought about how people sitting in an office in Ottawa could make decisions about where our waste is deposited, or what is most important, our economy or our environment without having a connection with what nature is and what it is doing for so many of us. The management approach to conservation that we need to take, cannot be understood from books, pictures, attending sessions, taking statistics or from sitting in a vehicule watching the outdoors. The values we need to encode in our management approach can be learned simply from taking time to appreciate the natural beauty of OUR planet earth and building a knowledge that the only way to go is to preserve and conserve life and to have a more biocentric outlook on life. If we do this we will find simple, non-technical solutions to solving this world crisis. By changing our morals and values, we will make more conscience decisions in our daily lives.

Selection #7 Tragedy of the Commons

Garrett Hardin, the author of this selection, controversial views on population, evolution , and birth control earned him an international reputation as an influencial, outspoken critic of the ecological and environmental community. The best known print was the "Tragedy of the Commons" where he explains a story of a pasture becoming overgrazed and destroyed because each herdsmen who's animals grazed on it considered only their families needs and not the future needs for the use of this land. Hardin compared this to the worlds food source from the oceans because the ocean is essentially not privately owned. His research went to prove that more food simply increases the population of the world.

In the past technical problems were solved with technical solutions. Technical solutions is defined by one that requires change only in the techniques of natural sciences, with little or no change to our values, or ideas of morals. The concern is the important concept of a class of human problems that can be called the "no technical solution problems". For example the game of tick-tack-toe would fit this class. It is well known that the game cannot be won, assuming that the opponent understands the game perfectly. In other words, there is no technical solution to this problem.

This class of problems has many more members, such as the population problem. People must let go of many priviledges they now enjoy, in order to solve this problem, because the population crisis cannot be fixed by farming the seas, or genetically modifying plants to grow faster. In a simpler term, the population problem cannot be solved technically no more than winning the game of tick-tack-toe.


We have a tendency to assume the actions taken individually are presumably the best for an entire society. If this assumption is correct, the assumption of each individual deciding what is the optimum population will continue. We need to reexamine our freedoms to see which ones are defensible.

There are both positive and negative results of tragedy of the commons, for example a pasture will bring an income to the farmer by selling the cattle. The negative effect would essentially be overgrazing, which is shared by all farmers using the same land. Each herdsman continues to add another cattle and another without any limits, the problem is the world has limits. Therefore if we continue this idea of individual benefit the society and future generations will suffer. The oceans of the world currently suffer but maritime nations still continue to respond about the freedom of the seas. They claim the oceans have abundant amount of resources, they are bringing many species of fish and sea mammals to extinction. Presently, National Parks have the same idea concluding the tragedy of the commons, since they are open to everyone. We must chose to either sell these parks as private land, or continue to inforce stronger regulations that will keep most people outside the parks.


We can say that pollution is working the opposite of the tragedy of the commons, such as pollution is additioning not diminishing things from our natural environment. We continue to add sewage, chemicals, radioactive waste in water, and dangerous fumes in the air, into our environment which will lead to a world wide tragedy of the commons crisis. Solving these problems means coercive laws, but the laws are always outdated so they must be changed to fit to new perspectives. The pollution problem we are facing is essentially one from an abundance of people on earth all contributing their share of wastes.


Our society is deeply commited to a welfare state, supported by the United Nations, heance our freedom to breed means everyone who is born has the same rights to the commons really locks our world into a tragic course of action. This being said we must supress the human rights of reproduction supported by the United Nations.

We make a mistake when we think we can control breeding of mankind in the long run. It would take us hundreds of generations to reproduce like this, but nature can take revenge and Homo Contracipiens will be extinct. Our desire for children is hereditarily so the message must be passed down hereditarily.

The way we will push family responsibilites is through coercion and not prohibition, with careful biased options. Mutual coercion is plausible, not that we have to enjoy the idea such as taxes. Our system is "like father like son" is the only system invented so we comply to it. We all make assumptions that only perfect systems work.

Selection #6 The Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis

In this reading Lynn White, Jr. the author, argues that Christianity is to blame for the dispositions that have resulted in environmental degradation. The world's religions have given people a view of nature as having no reason but to serve humankind. This attitude, along with the power from modern science and technology , has unraveled an ecological crisis that is continuing to retrograde. Man's unnatural treatment of nature is considerably wrong and has had bad results.

This dialogue begins with Aldous Huxley speaking of a place in England, a serene grass convered everglade, where he had spent many happy years as a child. When he returned in his later days, the area was overgrown with brush because the rabbits inhabiting the area were killed off by a disease called, Myxomatosis, that was introduced by local farmers to reduce the destruction of crops. White, being a somewhat barbaric then added that these rabbits were brought to England in 1176 most likely to enhance the protein diets of the peasants. Humans introduce alien species to an area to solve a specific problem, then when these species begin to be inconvenient or costly they are simply killed off. This enhances the fact that changes in human ways of life causes changes in nonhuman nature. Theses changes happen everywhere and in greater severity. In many regions terracing or irrigation, overeagerly hunting, overgrazing or the cutting of forests by Romans to build ships to fight wars or for expeditions, cause profound changes to our Ecology. The history of ecologic change is still so incipient that we still do not know what has happened or what the results will be.

Natural science, an effort to understand the nature of things, has evolved in several generations and among several people. Similarly, technology has been growing at times quickly and other times slowly. When Western Europe and North America merged science and technology, the theoretical and experimental approaches evolved into our natural environments. Scientific knowledge nowadays means technological power over nature.

When the first cannons were fired, in the early 14th century, they affected ecology by sending people mining for potash, iron ore, and charcoal resulting in deforestation and erosion. Nowadays a war faught with hydrogen bombs would alter the genetics of life. In 1285, London had smog problems from burning coal, presently burning of fossil fuels threatens to change the chemistry of our atmosphere, this significance we are only beginning to understand. Today's growing sewage and garbage deposits are sure to create unmanageable problems.

Our ecological crisis is emerging from our democratic culture and can only be solved if we rethink our principles, our laws.

Our science today is the heir to all the sciences of the past, presumably from Islamic scientists skills and acuteness, such as al Razi in medicine, or other Islamics in optics and mathematics. Today, around the world in whichever language, science is Western in style and method. Since our science and technology was mastered in the Middle Ages, we must study the assumptions and developments of the Midievals to understand their present day impact on our ecology.

Until recently, agriculture has been the chief in occupation. Plowing has gone through much evolution beginning with the use of oxens to machinery nowadays which were enhanced to yield from family size to larger yields. "Formerly man had been part of nature; now he was the exploiter of nature." In the Middle Ages, men are plowing, harvesting, chopping trees and butchering pigs. Man and nature are two things, and man is master nowadays. The religous study of nature was profoundly artistic rather not scientific. From the 13th century on scientists explained their motives in religious terms, until the 18th century religion became unnecessary to many scientists. Human ecology is deeply conditioned by beliefs about our nature and destiny-that is, by religion. Christians, especially in the Western World, have an anthropocentric view. Christianity bears a huge burden of guilt because most Christians believe we are superior to nature, they are willing to use it to extrapolate it for our slightest needs.

Most technology and more science will not get us out of this ecological crisis unless we find a new religion or rethink our old one. Most people do not think this as a Christian view is irrelevant since no new set of basic values has been accepted in our society since those of Christianity. We cannot save this ecological crisis until we reject the idea that nature has no need other than to serve man, since this view is religious, the remedy must essentially be religious.