Environmental Ethics: From Philosophy to Green Movement

Introduction: The Rise of Environmental Consciousness

Prior to the introduction of major environmental legislation, it was a popularly accepted notion that human utilization of the earth was subject to no limitations. The expansion of commercial industries, the procurement of lands for residency, the optimization of geological settings for pedestrian needs, and the constantly swelling demand for space upon which to drive had, for many years after the start of the Industrial Age, taken precedence over ecological concerns in the prevailing conception of sociological advancement. The overarching idea that the earth belonged to humankind to do with as it pleased received little contest in the public forum, with large economic, political, and cultural contingents generally conceding that this was the best avenue for serving the public interest.

Decades of industrialization, however, leading into the economic boom that followed World War II and ushered America into its first great age of consumerism, began to take a legitimate toll on the natural landscape of the nation. Especially in the United States—so valued as a land asset at its founding due to its seemingly endless wealth of natural resources and species diversity—it had been assumed that such bounties were at humanity's disposal in perpetuity. With growing evidence that this assumption was not only false but was bearing deeply destructive consequences for the species and landscapes surrounding us, a new perspective began to emerge. This perspective would become the ideological grounding for the environmental, conservation, and wildlife preservation movements. Namely, a concept referred to as environmental ethics would take root, first as a result of a few influential works of literature and subsequently as a meaningful, multilayered, and coordinated political movement.

Accordingly, we are guided by the definition offered by Brennan & Lo (2002), which establishes that "environmental ethics is the discipline in philosophy that studies the moral relationship of human beings to, and also the value and moral status of, the environment and its nonhuman contents" (Brennan & Lo, p. 1). In other words, prior to the inception of a popular environmental movement, the notion that we as a species have a responsibility to live in harmony with rather than in dominion over our surroundings was broached in a philosophical context first. The advance of this idea in popular consciousness would ultimately produce a compelling and mainstream acceptance of the view that humanity must shift its perspective to one with greater ecological sensibility.

The most practical ways this shift has come to affect everyday life can be seen in how products are packaged, how land is used, and how our natural elements are protected from abuse. For instance, the ideals of the environmental ethics movement may be credited with forcing the adoption of emissions standards for factories and automobiles, which in turn reduced the number of pollutants in the air and the occurrence of resultant health maladies such as emphysema, bronchitis, and certain types of cancer.

This capacity to effect practical change is the primary reason for the emergence of global effort movements such as those represented in Earth First! and Greenpeace. Such groups have been dedicated through activism—and practical political orientation thereafter—to making the philosophical imperatives of environmental ethics a practical reality.

Earth First! and Deep Ecology

The notion of biocentric equality is an underlying impetus of the environmental movement known as Earth First!. According to its website, the organization rejects the arrogance of any entity—corporate, environmental, or governmental—that assumes a human superiority tantamount to negotiating control over nature. Founded in 1979, Earth First! explicitly rejects trivialization under the category of "organization," instead characterizing itself as a movement, a priority, and a family. Under this premise, it purports to be a global group intent upon recognizing that nature is not a resource to be exploited by humanity, but a network of codependent systems and species of equal value.

Subscribing to the tenets of the Deep Ecology movement, Earth First! is sympathetic to and explicitly in favor of actions which, though perceived in the mainstream as radical, are actually directed at liberating the environment from the radical abuses of human institutions. In this regard, it is apparent that there is a direct correlation between the tenets of the modern Deep Ecology movement and the principles offered by early environmental icon Henry David Thoreau. Several years prior to the publication of his landmark 1854 work Walden, Thoreau coined the term "civil disobedience" in an essay which determined that legally or socially subversive tactics may sometimes not only be acceptable but may be considered the only ethical redress to the institutionalized symptoms of a sick society. It is the explicitly stated design of Earth First! to engage the problems of environmental abuse through direct action rather than what its leaders refer to as the indirect methods of structural compliance.

Earth First! advocates pursuit of biocentric goals on all fronts, attempting to interact with the court system, to organize grassroots campaigns in the face of specific threats, and even to engage in non-legal forms of civil demonstration. The movement's ethical position is that there is no acceptable compromise with regard to the earth's health and that it is the responsibility of every individual to take action. As Thoreau had argued, it may be considered unethical to stand by and witness the performance of grave injustices without taking preventative action.

Greenpeace and Social Ecology

More moderate groups, however, have experienced greater success in gaining legitimacy within the global environmental scheme. To this end, Greenpeace—likely the most recognizable name in environmental ethics activism—was formed in 1971, upon the occasion of a nuclear test conducted in Alaska by the U.S. government. One of what would become a sizeable and easily recognizable fleet of ships, the Amchitka stood "witness" to the abuses of our environment as a principle of individual responsibility. It was the view of those party to this action that the organization's policy of bearing witness against crimes perpetrated upon the environment could help it expose and campaign for the reduction of such behaviors.

In accordance with the principles of Social Ecology, Greenpeace views the institutional violation of the environment as reflective of a shared indifference. It therefore promotes the ascendancy of individuals to both sustainable living practices and alignment with its goals of global climate-change prevention, ocean protection, wildlife defense, and the elimination of nuclear power, among many other associated interests. Arguing that there is a direct relationship between the state of the environment and inherent inequality in a number of human institutions, Greenpeace brings to bear some of the ideas of Rachel Carson, whose 1962 watershed text Silent Spring pinpointed the consequences of corporate and governmental negligence.

The Philosophical Roots: Thoreau and Carson

References above to Henry David Thoreau and Rachel Carson are crucial. Though separated by roughly a century, the works of these two writers may be seen as the philosophical basis for the environmental ethics ideology that would ultimately become a practical movement. The concept of environmental ethics was originally established with the proliferation of Thoreau's ideas of simplification and ecological compatibility and thereafter, with the collision of Carson's ideas and the age of reform in America.

In 1962, marine biologist and environmental activist Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, a work that opened the first round of fire against the perception that humanity was the only species of importance on Earth. A book filled with frightening contentions about the irreparable damage already inflicted upon the earth, Silent Spring would be a sensible point of entry into the discourse over environmental preservation. As one of the first popular works of non-fiction to promote the idea that ecological decline will inevitably lead to a decline in human survivability, Carson's book touched off a public awareness of the need to apply new strategies to extending environmental conscientiousness.