Transcript eco-ethics and sustainability ethicsto protect the biospheric life

ECO-ETHICS AND SUSTAINABILITY ETHICS
TO PROTECT THE BIOSPHERIC LIFE
SUPPORT SYSTEM
John Cairns, Jr.
University Distinguished Professor of Environmental Biology Emeritus
Department of Biological Sciences
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Blacksburg, Virginia 24061, U.S.A.
February 2010
Eco-ethics is the essential foundation for sustainable use
of the planet. Such a foundation must consist of a series of
value judgments to which humanity is committed.1
Sustainability ethics is a utopian vision that requires living
harmoniously with nature, which will exact harsh penalties on
species that exceed Earth’s carrying capacity and violate
nature’s laws.2
 E. O. Wilson3 remarks: “In the end, however, success or failure will come down to
an ethical decision, one on which those now living will be defined and judged for
all generations to come.”
 Eco-ethics is usually used in a local or regional context.
 Sustainability ethics must be used in a global context since it involves the
biosphere, but it usually has local or regional components
.
Eco-ethics and sustainability ethics must be congruent with the best
scientific information if they are to have multigenerational value.4
Sustainable development currently is being approached component by component
– socioeconomic, sustainable agriculture, transportation, forestry, energy use,
cities, and the like – however, leaving a habitable planet for future generations will
require the development of a widely shared paradigm.
The paradigm should be ecological from a scientific point of view.
This development will be facilitated by a discussion of goals and those conditions
necessary to meet them.
The presently shared paradigm is that economic growth is the cure for all society’s
problems, such as poverty, overpopulation, environmental degradation, and the
increasing gap between rich and poor.
A DECLARATION OF ECO-ETHICS
FOR HUMANKIND
 We are creatures of the planet and all species are our evolutionary relatives.
 We recognize our dependence on the biospheric life support system and pledge to act in ways
that enhance its health and integrity.
 We value individual worth and integrity in the context of a biospheric life support system with a
multitude of individuals dependent upon it.
 We know that our spirituality had its genesis in nature and vow not to profane it by destroying
its source.
 We acknowledge that we are part of the biosphere and that participating in its destruction is
self destruction.
 We declare that the interdependent web of life is sacred and should be treated with reverence.
 We pledge to adjust our individual and societal behavior so that it is compatible with
biospheric health and integrity.
 We hold that human independence is an illusion! We have always been dependent on the
biosphere of which we are a part.
A Preliminary Declaration of Sustainability Ethics
 Sustainability ethics is a consilience (literally, “a leaping together”) of econ-ethics
and eco-ethics.
 Sustainability ethics is both homocentric and ecocentric, while eco-ethics is
ecocentric.
 Sustainability ethics is defensible in the context of humankind and the biosphere
co-evolving in a mutually beneficial way.
 Sustainability ethics is not ethically defensible if sustainable use of the planet has
the primary goal of manipulating the biosphere in ways that impair its health and
integrity.
 Since species come and go in the biosphere, the ethics of one species, Homo
sapiens, is questionable because this species proposes the indefinite use of the
biosphere as though it were the only species.
 The pivotal issue of how humans ethically justify exceeding biospheric carrying
capacity for their species must be explored.
Ignoring natural laws (e.g., physics, biology, chemistry) will
place humans in a default position so that Mother Nature
(natural laws) takes over.
 If the preponderance of scientific evidence and common sense are ignored,
Mother Nature will resolve the major crises by unpalatable means to match
biospheric carrying capacity.
 The burden of proof for climate change is now on deniers of the effects of
anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions on climate change.
 Uncertainty will always exist in science as it does in life in general.
 Persons who demand absolute proof of human effects on climate change are guilty
of delaying appropriate action.
 Ethics, influenced by the preponderance of scientific evidence, should guide an
informed public to decisions that will increase the probability of leaving a
habitable planet for future generations.
SOME ILLUSTRATIVE ETHICAL ISSUES CONCERNING THE ARRAY
OF GLOBAL CRISES THAT AFFECT THE BIOSPHERE FOLLOW.
 Increasing anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are causing
global climate change, including global warming and a rise in
ocean levels.
 No specific country is legally responsible for global climate change, but all nations
are ethically responsible in varying degrees.
 Low-lying islands (e.g., The Maldives) and estuaries worldwide (e.g., Ganges Delta)
will become increasingly vulnerable to storm surges and flooding as sea levels
rise.5
 The global climate conference held in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December, 2009,
made no commitment for reversing the trend of rising anthropogenic greenhouse
gas emissions, which will probably continue to increase further the risks to
inhabitants of vulnerable areas such as low-lying islands and estuaries.
 Agricultural productivity has declined worldwide due to droughts and reduced
amounts of irrigation water.
 Ecological overshoot means using resources more rapidly than
Earth can regenerate them.
 In 2009, Earth Overshoot Day was 25 September, which meant that humanity had
used 136% of nature’s budget for the year (www.footprintnetwork.org). The
overshoot is made possible by using natural capital (the biosphere), which
decreases the output of ecosystem services.
 Such actions make a travesty of claims for sustainable use of the planet and
degrade the biospheric life support system.
 Economic growth and overconsumption have enormous, deleterious effects on
Earth’s life support system.
 Overconsumption is primarily the aggregate of billions of individual decisions.
About 50% of the planet’s population goes beyond meeting basic needs for food
and shelter, and the top 1-2% of the population carries consumption to obscene
levels. Is the benefit of overconsumption to a few worth the damage to the
biospheric life support system?
 The biosphere consists of all life (including humans) on Earth.
Biotic impoverishment (loss of biodiversity) impairs the biosphere’s function.
 Biodiversity is decreasing at a rate unprecedented in human history.
 The present biosphere produced conditions in which humankind evolved and flourished.
 When one or more tipping points are reached, the biosphere will go into disequilibrium
and, over evolutionary time, a new biosphere with mostly different species will develop.
 The next biosphere, composed of mostly new species, will probably not produce
conditions as favorable to Homo sapiens as the present biosphere.
 Economists often state that “a rising tide lifts all ships,” but perpetual economic growth on
a finite planet does not “lift all ships” if the reference is to all species or even all individual
humans.
 All species have “economic systems” but differ from the human economic system by being
integrated into the vast array of economic systems of non-human species in the
biosphere.
 Any economic system based on perpetually increasing consumption will fail.
 Viewing the biosphere as a commodity is both unethical and unsustainable.
 Earth is overpopulated. How can the population be reduced in
a humane way in order to be congruent with Earth’s carrying
capacity for humans?
 Population growth is the “elephant in the living room” – everyone sees it, but no one
talks about it.
 The human population has more than doubled in the last 60 years – a unique event in
human history (http://math.berkely.edu/~galen/popchk).
 Economic growth has depended upon population growth, which is unsustainable on a
finite planet with finite resources.
 If humankind fails to reduce human population size to fit Earth’s carrying capacity,
Mother Nature (i.e., natural laws) will do so with famine, disease, and death.
 David Abram notes, after commenting on humankind’s relationship with the life of the
breathing planet: “Only thus are we brought to realize that our vaunted human
intelligence is as nothing unless it’s allied with the sound intelligence of the animate
Earth.”6
 Environmental refugees are not a severe crisis now but will probably be
so in the near future due to sea level rise and droughts.
 Millions of environmental refugees are probable, yet less affected countries are
not prepared to provide food, medical care, housing, and potable water. Helping
nations in need is an ethical responsibility, especially for nations with a high level
of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.
 The human population must be reduced to fit Earth’s carrying capacity, but
inhumane treatment of environmental refugees is neither an ethical nor humane
way to achieve this goal. Surely humankind has an ethical responsibility to help
people who are losing their homeland, their culture, and possibly their lives.
Homo sapiens has survived for over 160,000 years
because it was adaptable and, except for the last
12,000 years, has had superb naturalist intelligence.7
 Homo sapiens has achieved financial globalization but has not moved from
a tribal to a global community with equal rapidity.
 Most evolutionary trials have not been successful; however, with
naturalist intelligence and a resolve to transcend special interests,
humankind might achieve sustainable use of the planet.
Acknowledgments: I am indebted to Karen Cairns for providing review and useful
comments, as well as for transcribing the handwritten first draft of this manuscript,
and to Darla Donald for editorial assistance. Karen Cairns, Paul Ehrlich, and Paula
Kullberg called valuable references to my attention.
References
1Cairns, J., Jr. 2002. A declaration of eco-ethics. Ethics in Science and Environmental
Politics 18Nov:79-81. http://www.esep.de/articles/esep/2002/E20.pdf.
2Cairns, J., Jr. 2003. A preliminary declaration of sustainability ethics: making peace
with the ultimate bioexecutioneer. Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics
18Nov:79-81. http://www.esep.de/articles/esep/2002/E20.pdf.
3Wilson, E. O. 2002. The Future of Life. Random House, New York.
4Cairns, J., Jr. 2002. Goals and Conditions for a Sustainable World. Inter-Research,
Oldendorf/Luhe, Germany.
www.esep.de/journals/esep/esepbooks/CairnsEsepBook.pdf.
5Cairns, J., Jr. 2009. Going, going, gone: the fate of low-lying islands and estuaries.
Commentaries 23Nov
http://www.johncairns.net/Commentaries/Going_Going_Gone.pdf.
6McKibben, B. 2010. Foreword: Gaia in turmoil. Pages ix-x in Gaia in Turmoil:
Climate Change, Biodepletion, and Earth Ethics in an Age of Crisis. MIT Press,
Cambridge, MA.
7Gardner, H. 2006. Multiple Intelligences. Basic Books, New York.