On the largest scale, the U.S. population is disproportionately responsible for the depletion of fossil fuels and other natural resources in that Americans consume approximately one-quarter of those valuable energy resources despite constituting less than five percent of the entire global population (Attfield, 2003; Poiman & Poiman, 2007).
Besides consuming such a disproportionate amount of natural resources, another major environmental ethics issue arises in connection with the deliberate export of hazardous waste from wealthy countries to poor countries and the outsourcing of dangerous jobs, such as some of those that are strictly prohibited by domestic environmental laws (Halbert & Ingulli, 2008; Poiman & Poiman, 2007). United States military operations have also contributed to new environmental ethics concerns, such as the contamination of soil and water supplies in Iraq and Central Europe by the millions of depleted uranium shells left by tactical aircraft supporting ground troops in Iraq or engaging hostile threats against NATO forces in Bosnia after U.S. military operations in both regions in the early 1990s (Attfield, 2003).
Within the last fifty years, there has been an ever-increasing concern for the preservation of wildlife, particularly with respect to its depletion as a result of human activity (Attfield, 2003; Poiman & Poiman, 2007). More recently, some of those campaigns have been challenged on a conceptual level as being heavily influenced by anthropomorphism that is, essentially,...
In principle, First World societies have established laws and policies designed to protect vulnerable human communities from the detrimental effects of modern industry. On the other hand, comparatively less has been accomplished to equalize the benefits of natural resources on a global scale or to minimize the shifting of environmental risk from wealthy societies to poor societies. Ultimately, the human community must also reach a consensus on the fundamental obligation that contemporary society has to future generations.
References
Attfield R. (2003). Environmental Ethics: An Overview for the Twenty-First Century.
Cambridge, UK: Polity.
Halbert T. And Ingulli E. (2008). Law & Ethics in the Business Environment. Cincinnati:
West Legal Studies.
Nevins J. And Commager HS. (2002). A Pocket History of the United States. New York:
Pocket Books
Poiman LP and Poiman P. (2007). Environmental Ethics: Readings in Theory and Application. Florence, KY: Wadsworth-Cengage.
