Ethic and environment

This chapter on ethics and the environment starts with some rather sobering statistics from the World watch Institute.  This includes rising temperature, population growth, falling water tables, shrinking forests, shrinking cropland per person, collapsing fisheries and the loss of plant and animal species. Our environment seems to be harassed nearly to the breaking point. The ethical and technological query that this state of affairs raises are extremely important and multifaceted.

First, there are still grave disagreements about the extent of the environmental damage that industrial technology has produced. Furthermore, there is no exact way of knowing just how much of a threat this environmental harm will have for our future welfare. And whatever the level of damage, we must surely give up some values to halt or slow it.

To explore these issues, this chapter starts with an overview of the technical aspects of environmental resource use. Then it moves to an argument of the ethical basis of environmental protection. It concludes with a thought of our obligation to future generations and the prospects for constant economic expansion.

The Dimensions of Pollution and Resource Depletion

Environmental harm inevitably threatens the welfare of human beings as well as plants and animals. Terrorization to the environment comes from two sources, pollution and resource depletion. Pollution refers to the unwanted and unintended contamination of the environment by the manufacture or use of commodities. Resource depletion refers to the utilization of finite or scarce resources. In a certain sense, pollution is really a type of resource depletion because infectivity of air, water, or land diminishes their beneficial qualities.

Global warming itself poses a difficult and frightening challenge. Global warming greenhouse gases such as: carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, and chlorofluorocarbons, are gases that absorb and hold heat from the sun, preventing it from escaping back into space, much like a greenhouse absorbs and holds the sun's heat. Most scenarios concerning the effects of global warming predict massive flooding, increase of disease, loss of plant and animal species, and expansion of deserts at the expenditure of agricultural land. These effects will have high human and economic costs. However, to stop the progress of the increase of greenhouse gasses, we would have to lessen emissions by 60% to 70%, a level that would damage the economies of countries around the world. To cut short global warming, experts say that we would need to change our lifestyles and values severely.

Air pollution has been with modern society for nearly 200 years; its costs are increasing greatly. It negatively affects agricultural yields, human health, and global temperatures. The result is a large economic impact and a staggering effect on the quality of human life.

Burning fossil fuels causes acid rain and global warming. Though not as devastating as global warming, it nevertheless is harming many fish populations and trees, corroding bridges and buildings, and contaminating drinking water. Airborne toxins and air quality in general are also serious concerns for human health.

Ozone depletion is also a serious concern. Caused by the release of CFCs into the atmosphere, ozone depletion may lead to several hundred thousand new cases of skin cancer each year and destroy many valuable food crops. Also, ocean plankton, on which the entire ocean's food chain depends, may be severely damaged. Even though CFC production has been nearly halted, we can expect the gasses already released to continue damaging the ozone for the next century. Airborne Toxics are less shattering but highly worrisome air pollution threats; 2.4 billion pounds of airborne toxic substances released yearly into the nation's atmosphere, including phosgene, a nerve gas used in warfare and methyl isocyanine.