Ethical issues ignored in sustainability education, research
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Just about everyone agrees that sustainability – cutting energy use, reducing carbon emissions and, in general, keeping the Earth green – is a good thing. But why do we think that? Do we support sustainability for the right reasons?
These are among the questions that Michigan State University’s Michael Nelson addresses in a paper published this month in the journal Bioscience titled “Sustainability: Virtuous or Vulgar?”
Specifically, Nelson and co-author John Vucetich of Michigan Technological University argue that the issue of ethics is a vital component in the teaching and research of sustainability, but one that is sorely lacking.
“This debate,” they write, “has almost entirely neglected a fundamental dimension of sustainability – the ethical dimension. Lack of attention to the ethical dimension of sustainability is stifling progress toward sustainability.”
Or, as Nelson puts it: “If we don’t know where we’re going, we won’t know when we get there.”
Nelson said that from the educational perspective, it’s important that all aspects of sustainability are covered.
“Everything we do sends messages to our students,” he said. “We see our students as people who will go out and do important things in this world. It’s important how we nurture that.”
The ultimate question, the authors say, is this: “Do we care about ecosystem health because ecosystems are intrinsically valuable, or do we care about ecosystem health because it serves human interests?”
While a question such as this is difficult to answer, Nelson said that “we are unlikely to achieve sustainability without knowing what it means.”
In their paper, Nelson and Vucetich consider the most widely appreciated definitions of sustainability, which indicate at least roughly that sustainability is “meeting human needs in a socially just manner without depriving ecosystems of their health.”
While the definition seems quite specific, it could mean anything from “exploit as much as desired without infringing on the future ability to exploit as much as desired” to “exploit as little as necessary to maintain a meaningful life.”
“From a single definition rises two wildly disparate views of a sustainable world,” said Vucetich. “Handling these disparate views is the inescapable ethical crisis of sustainability.”
“The crisis results from not knowing what we mean by value-laden terms like ‘ecosystem health’ and ‘human needs,’” Nelson said. “In other words, is ecosystem health defined by its ability to meet human needs only, or does ecosystem health define the limits of human need?”
Nelson is an associate professor with appointments in MSU’s Lyman Briggs College and the departments of Fisheries and Wildlife and Philosophy. Vucetich is an assistant professor in MTU’s School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science.
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Gail Combs says:
July 6, 2010 at 12:16 pm
No, No, he is at the side where baits are thrown into the river. Don’t be confused!
One day I was downtown waiting for a bus transfer and saw a guy kick a pigeon really hard, stunning it. He laughed and walked off. I know there is no shortage of pigeons, but I felt bad for the bird. Events like this make me realize I consider life to have intrinsic value. To destroy something just to enjoy a feeling of power over nature seems wrong. It seems right to feed the pigeons until I give it more thought and realize it only results in more hungry pigeons. So, I guess I’d just rather leave them alone.
But what about humans? Is there a shortage of humans? No. I could have run around impregnating as many women as possible and fueled the growth of the population, then said “oh no, we need to transform more forests and prairies into farms and pastures to feed my descendants”. So on one hand it seems right to keep the poor children from starving, but on the other it seems negligent to bring so many into the world when there is no shortage of humans. So I think there is great value in taking care of the population but no value in expanding it. You just end up with more hungry people. If some pandemic wiped out 6 billion people, then there would be great value in expanding the small population left behind. I’m glad we don’t have that problem. So anyways, I chose to only have 2 kids, and help raise some that aren’t biologically mine as well.
So it gets down to people looking around and doing what they believe is right, and if they need an ethics professor to figure that out, then fine. But if they have some intelligence, I’d rather people be free to figure it out for themselves, because we’re not going to agree and to force everyone into 1 standard is futile anyway… look at how effective the war on drugs turned out (it wasn’t).
For all the talk of sustainability I never hear the answer to my question “how sustainable is a trillion dollar a year arms race?”.
One of the greatest economic booms was in the 1990’s when there was a 10% reduction in arms spending globally.
For all the talk if they want a sustainable world you need to free up some of the money we spend to kill each other. Sustainability is just a code phrase for population control. How long before “the experts” decide on how many people on the planet is “sustainable”?
The only sane way to reduce the population, unless you are volunteering to remove yourself from the planet, is to raise the standard of living.
Dear Ms Combs & Enneagram,
Fortunately I don’t suffer a kind of paranoia that assumes that anything for the collective good such as sustainability is part of a socialist conspiracy of world domination and wealth control.
Rather I am fortunate to have an open mind that recognises that our actions are seriously undermining the life supporting natural systems upon which we all depend – you and me, rich and poor, capitalist and communist, straight and gay, christian and atheist. I have an open mind that ensures that unless we understand the underlying science and then act upon this then we will have problems (indeed we already suffer by ignoring such scientific facts and natural and social impacts).
I challenge you to show me how we are to live in a finite world with an increasing population seeking higher consumption levels within whilst natural resources continue to swindle. If you can then I would love to hear them.
S. Goldsmith says:
July 6, 2010 at 12:24 pm
“DirkH,
I don’t care who I sound like”
Your decision.
” – it is more important that what I say is correct – these facts”
correct: 1 fact: 1
” I state cannot be challenged as untrue.”
infallibility: 1
” Would you prefer me to because this is more convenient to the unsustainable ways we have developed our economies and how we live our lives.”
cannot parse.
“Lets get away from petty squabbles”
Let’s-sentence: 1
” and begin to face the facts and build a better world,”
fact: 2
“otherwise we are doomed – no argument!”?
infallibility: 2
You really have a funny way to bring across your opinion. Maybe you should try that in an election… i suggest the papal election.
Gail Combs: July 6, 2010 at 7:50 am
Despite all the evidence this is all considered a “Conspiracy Theory”…
The reason conspiracy theories are so prevalent is that there actually *are* conspiracies.
“…the degree to which individuals are physiologically responsive to threat appears to indicate the degree to which they advocate policies that protect the existing social structure from both external (outgroup) and internal (norm-violator) threats.”
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/321/5896/1667
Bottom line of the study: Liberals are much less likely than Conservatives to correctly recognize a genuine threat.
Gail Combs says:
July 6, 2010 at 9:00 am
There are a lot of people, especially outside of climate science (Joe Romm and the like), who use AGW as a means to advance an extreme left-of-center political viewpoint. Large scale government control of how individuals and businesses conduct themselves, and very high marginal tax rates (whether explicit or as a result of ‘regulations’) fit this extreme-left political point of view perfectly. I have zero time for these folks; they want nothing but ‘social justice’ (AKA socialism) by any possible means.
Still, I think there are people of good will who just worry a great deal about damaging Earth’s ecosystems. I think it is not fair to combine only those who are politically motivated with those sincerely concerned about Earth’s ecosystems.
S. Goldsmith: July 6, 2010 at 10:33 am
The truth is that we have exceeded may of the limits the Earth has…
Some of those limits being — what?
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means — especially if you believe in post-normal science.
S. Goldsmith says:
July 6, 2010 at 12:58 pm
“[…] I challenge you to show me how we are to live in a finite world with an increasing population seeking higher consumption levels within whilst natural resources continue to swindle. If you can then I would love to hear them.”
People like you are called Malthusians. Recommended reading would be Julian Simon’s “The Ultimate Resource”. The wikipedia has links to some of his writing online:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Simon
Enneagram says:
July 6, 2010 at 12:24 pm
Gail Combs says:
July 6, 2010 at 12:16 pm
No, No, he is at the side where baits are thrown into the river. Don’t be confused!
___________________________________________________________
I am not confused.
He thinks he is on the winning side, but will find after the dust is settled it is slave collar time just like the intellectuals supporting the Bolsheviks did in the USSR. Once the “revolution” is over they were not be needed and were in fact considered dangerous so the Bolsheviks took measures to prevent challenges to their new regime. History has a tendency to repeat its self so all he has to do is read a bit of history to understand what his fate will be.
Soviet Attacks on Intelligentsia: http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/soviet.exhibit/attack.html
Gail Combs says:
July 6, 2010 at 6:52 am
Yes, Gail, glad you posted that.
And those words by Khrushchev, I remember watching on our first black and white television as he pounded his shoe on the podium at the United Nations. That was when I was but some six and of course I didn’t understand at all what was going on at that time but I will never forget it. Wasn’t that date in about 1958? Never have heard a leader withdraw that threat and think you are right on what’s currently happening.
Consider the causes and issues for which liberals (er, “progressives”) most often pine for and scold the rest of us over the issue of “sustainability”. And then consider the issues where there is no concern for being “sustainable”. Where you find the frequent use of “sustainable”, you will find issues that can be spun and molded to fit the desired policy goals. This is because “sustainability”, like every other reason liberals dream up, is not the real issue. The real issue is something else. Being sustainable is just a great reason to be for or against something until some better reason comes along.
Sorry if this appears to be cynical, but for years the left has scolded us about solar energy. But the instant that solar power plants are announced for some totally barren California desert, the advocates of “sustainable” power suddenly decide that power lines would disrupt “critical habitat”. It must really suck to be a person who doesn’t even know why they are for or against a issue.
S. Goldsmith says:
July 6, 2010 at 12:24 pm
I don’t care who I sound like – it is more important that what I say is correct – these facts I state cannot be challenged as untrue. Would you prefer me to because this is more convenient to the unsustainable ways we have developed our economies and how we live our lives.
Lets get away from petty squabbles and begin to face the facts and build a better world, otherwise we are doomed – no argument!
Greenie Leftists always say and think they know how to “build a better world”, if only the rest of us would let them. In actuality, though, they don’t have a clue, and their “solutions” are always far worse than the problems (real or fantasized) they are trying to fix. And by the way, climate change happens, always has, and always will. Get over it.
Interesting take on sustainability. I wrote on this topic several months ago. My posts do not attract nearly as many comments as do WUWT’s posts, but they are entirely positive on this one.
http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/energy-conservation-is-not-sustainable.html
Nuke:
Thank you for your comment.
Its not clear what you are referring to – if its my belief that we should accept and work with regard to how the laws of thermodynamics work then I don’t believe this is what is known as post-normal science (a new term for me so thank you). Though using PNS – I would always prefer to take more notice of the vast majority of scientists and take actions accordingly than ignore them in case the tiny minority may be correct, such a precautionary principle does ensure that we move forward taking appropriate care. This is incredibly important when we are working within systems that are extremely complex – such as the environment – or even working within challenging environments – such as seen with the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe.
Steve Fitzpatrick says:
July 6, 2010 at 1:11 pm
Gail Combs says:
July 6, 2010 at 9:00 am
There are a lot of people, especially outside of climate science (Joe Romm and the like), who use AGW as a means to advance an extreme left-of-center political viewpoint..
Still, I think there are people of good will who just worry a great deal about damaging Earth’s ecosystems. I think it is not fair to combine only those who are politically motivated with those sincerely concerned about Earth’s ecosystems.
_____________________________________________________________________
I agree. I spend a lot of time with these people at an organic farmers market.
I normally try to open their eyes to the huge swindle called the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and the food safety fraud and bills that would kill organic farming. It is the first step in opening their eyes and they are fairly neutral topics.
It is fairly easy to separate the innocent dupes from those who are dedicated traitors to their nations. For example:
The response from Organic Consumers and La Vida Locavore to the Food Safety Bill Hr 875 was a real shocker. We even spoke to Jill ( La Vida Locavore) personally but they were one hundred percent for the bill and fought the rest of us tooth and nail. This was despite the fact the bills would drive all organic farmers out of business leaving corporate monoculture farms as the only farms left.
Then I did a bit of online research and found out Jill was the UC San Diego Sustainability Coordinator and most likely works with Raymond Clemencon another facultiy member, who was one of the negotiators on the Rio Declaration and Agenda 21.
Maude Barlow a “no dog in this fight” Canadian, is director of both
Organic Consumers Assoc and Food & Water Watch. Barlow has been handsomely rewarded with an appointment as New Senior Advisor to the UN president on October 21, 2008.
After the last decade in the FOOD WARS, I have no illusions, unlike S. Goldsmith. People who support factory farming monoculture and the death of farmers by pesticide poisoning in India are hypocrites with a hidden agenda. It is what you DO not the rhetoric that counts.
Mods: Sorry for the use of the word traitors but I can not think of any other word that fits those aligned with the UN and against their countrymen.
Gail Combs:
Thanks for your time. We are all on the same side regardless of what out backgrounds are. I am happy to be precautious especially when we are dealing with the complexity of the planet. This doesn’t mean that I am a socialist and I am pretty sure that the countries that agree that sustainability is a key issue for their futures aren’t socialist or communists which you seem to directly associate (for the record the UK has a ‘socialist’ government for 13 years and I can’t recall any real changes to the way people lived there or how businesses behaved).
Dirk H:
On a finite planet finite resources run out and environmental systems, unless protected, will deteriorate, undermining our ability to live decent lives (do you agree with this or not). If you don’t agree with this then maybe you could then work out how we will be able to replace phosphorous (an essential element in our industrial agricultural systems) which is expected to reach its global peak in the next 30 years?
Mr Goldsmith claims to have an “open mind”, a clear sign that he does not have an open mind. Then he says we must face certain “facts” or we are “doomed”. What on Earth (pun intended) does he mean?
Life expectancies and wealth have been steadily increasing, across the globe, except for socialist and communist societies. The air is cleaner, the water more drinkable, infant mortality is lower throughout the free enterprise Western Civilization than they were one hundred years ago. There is abundant energy, with reserves of hundreds of years of coal, uranium, and to a lesser extent, natural gas and oil. There is an agricultural revolution underway in genetically modified crops resistant to diseases and pests, with ever higher yields per acre. Hunger and widespread diseases such as TB, Malaria, HIV are mostly limited to socialist and corrupt societies. All of the so-called Third World countries that have embraced free enterprise have advanced into near-developed status or better over the last 50 years.
“Sustainability”, like AGW, is BS, a term used by elitists who imagine they ought to be chosen to run centrally-planned societies to protect the foolish masses. But that experiment has been run, over and over, in utopian socialist societies, one after the other. The result: universal failure of these elites; poverty and squalor in servitude to inhumane government bureaucracies for the masses.
Bruce Cobb et al,
I’m still awaiting what your “better world” will look like. How will it deal with the limits of a finite planet, how will it respond to issues such as ocean acidification and toxic bioaccumulation within humans? How will it ensure that all the 9 billion people that will live on this planet will be able to live to the same standards, presumably using the same amounts of resource and creating similar amounts of pollution by 2050.
If you have got a list of goals to achieve then please can you post them.
Thank you.
Nothing is or ever has been sustainable. Nothing. Nothing that humans can or could do is or can be sustainable.
The sustainable issue is all about power and control, nothing more. As to the definition or meaning of sustainable, I will make reference to Lewis Carroll:
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master that’s all.”
Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. “They’ve a temper, some of them—particularly verbs, they’re the proudest—adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs—however, I can manage the whole lot! Impenetrability! That’s what I say!”
What is ethical is determined by whoever has control.
Arrogant lot, we humans are. Planet Earth can’t be run as a zoo is run.
More on the concept of “sustainability” that is to be achieved by CO2 reductions, and why such laws are a very, very bad idea. This expands slightly on the link provided earlier.
http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/80-by-50-under-california-ab-32.html
S. Goldsmith says:
July 6, 2010 at 2:21 pm
Dirk H:
“[…]If you don’t agree with this then maybe you could then work out how we will be able to replace phosphorous (an essential element in our industrial agricultural systems)[…]”
Read Julian Simon. Think about it a little. Maybe you will find the answer. I know it because Simon spells it out clearly. Read him just like you read everything Al Gore writes.
S. Goldsmith,
I have done a lot of reading and corresponding with a lot of people.
It is not the socialists I am worried about it is the Central Bankers and large multinational corporations behind the socialists that have me really worried. (It is called Corporatism) the Socialists vs Capitalists is really a “lets you and he fight” while the bankers make of with everyone’s wealth sort of thing.
For example Central banker Paul Warburg left Germany and essentially wrote and directed the campaign to get the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 passed in the USA. This Act has drained the wealth of the USA directly into the pockets of the bankers. His brother Max Warburg, helped finance Lenin and the Bolsheviks.
Maurice Strong who I mentioned before was a Senior Advisor to the World Bank. It is rather telling that the deal breaker at Copenhagen was the leaked Danish text that would leave the World Bank in control of Carbon trading.
Check out:
History, HACCP and the Food Safety Con Job for a good overall view of who is in control, what is happening and not just in farming: http://farmwars.info/?p=1565
The Pew Report on Corporate Farming (very long) also shows the transition from family farm to corporate farm creates poverty in rural areas. http://www.pewtrusts.org/uploadedFiles/wwwpewtrustsorg/Reports/Industrial_Agriculture/PCIFAP_FINAL.pdf
The WTO and the Politics of GMO. By F. William Engdahl http://www.publiceyeonscience.ch/images/the_wto_and_the_politics_of_gmo.doc
Where US taxes actually go: http://www.uhuh.com/taxstuff/gracecom.htm
What actually happens when theWorld Bank/IMF takes control of a third world country: http://www.whirledbank.org/development/sap.html
The Federal Reserve scam:
An easy read: http://www.bigeye.com/griffin.htm
A PRIMER ON MONEY: by US House Committee on Banking and Currency: http://www.devvy.com/pdf/2006_October/Patman_Primer_on_Money.pdf