Transcript Topic 7_Environmental Value Systems

A
worldview that shapes the way people
perceive and evaluate environmental
issues.
 Influenced by cultural, economic and
soicio-political factors.
 Ecocentrism
Centered
– Nature
• Holistic and sustainable
worldview, minimum
disturbance of nature
• 1. Deep Ecologists
 Natural laws dictate human
morality
 Nature is needed for
humanity and has rights
• 2. Self-Reliance soft
ecologists
 Focus on community
involvement to change
political policies an
practices
 Anthropocentrism-
People Centered
• Humans are responsible
for sustainable global
systems through control
of population and
resource use
• 1. Environmental
Managers
 Economic growth and
resource use can continue
if adjustments are made
to policies (taxes, laws…)
 Technocentrism
– Technology Centered
• Technology can keep pace and provide solutions
to environmental issues.
• 1. Cornucopian
 Man can always find a way out of any difficulties
 For
each of the problems below decide a if
we should solve each problem using the
provided worldview.
• Technocentric: Should we use windmills to produce
more energy?
• Anthropocentric: Should GMO’s be used to grow
more food?
• Ecocentric: Should we create more national parks
to save species and maintain biodiversity on the
planet?
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In1959, the first human patient of
what soon became known as
Minamata disease was
identified. Symptoms included
convulsions, slurred speech,
loss of motor functions and
uncontrollable limb movements.
As a result of wastewater
pollution by the plastic
manufacturer, mercury and
other heavy metals found their
way into the fish and shellfish
that comprised a large part of
the local diet.
Thousands of residents have
slowly suffered over the
decades and died from the
disease.
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Dec. 2, 1984, a Union Carbide
pesticide plant in Bhopal released
45 tons of poisonous methyl
isocyanate escaping from the
facility.
Thousands died within hours,
15,000 in all.
About half a million people were
affected . Many survivors suffered
blindness, organ failure and other
awful bodily malfunctions. A high
number of children in the area
have been born severe birth
defects.
Bhopal remains the worst
industrial disaster ever
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The worst nuclear-powerplant disaster in history. On
April 26, 1986, one of the
reactors at the Chernobyl
power plant in Ukraine
exploded
Nuclear meltdown released
radiation into the
atmosphere.
Thousands of kids have
been diagnosed with
thyroid cancer.
 All
these events have helped to influence
EVS.
• Raised public awareness
• Provided media coverage
• Increased sense of stewardship over the Earth
• Impact local and global governments and
regulations
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Buddhist
• Separation of body and soul
• Birth, aging, suffering and death
all conjoined in one journey
• Humans are not self sufficient or
more important than the Earth
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Judaeo-Christian
• Separation of body and soul,
matter and spirit
• Genesis demonstrates
stewardship of the Earth or
control?
• “Rule over the fish of the sea and
the birds of the air and over
every living creature that moves
on the ground’” (Genesis 1:28
 Reflect
upon where you stand on the
continuum of environmental philosophies
with regard to
 Population control
 Resource exploitation,
 Sustainable development
 Choose
one of the following sample
individuals and place them on the
continuum of environmental philosophies
described above and in Figure 6.
• a Muslim subsistence farmer in West Africa
• a wealthy Christian doctor in Western Europe
• a Buddhist monk living in Thailand
• an agnostic investment banker in New York City
• a Catholic lumberjack in southern Chile