Significant Ideas:

• Historical events, among other influences, affect the development of environmental value systems (EVSs) and environmental movements.
• There is a wide spectrum of EVSs, each with its own premises and implications.

Overview of 1.1

Major environmental disasters, the media, literature, international agreements and technological advancements have all made us more aware of the impact that humans have had, and are having, on the Earth.

What are some of the major environmental events or pivotal moments that you can think of?

Timeline:

• 1760-1820 Industrial Revolution primarily in Europe and the US
• 1889 - passing of the first nature protection law in the UK - Sea Birds Preservation Act.
• 1889 formation of the Plumage League (to become the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds)
• 1892: Formation of the Sierra Club by John Muir
• 1946: Nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll
• 1947 first photos of earth from space
• 1948: IUCN Founded
• 1952: Great Smog in London kills 4,000, caused by coal burning during cold winter
• 1956: Minamata deaths from mercury pollution in food chain
• 1958: Start of UN Law of the Sea
• 1959 Antarctic Treaty signed
• 1961: WWF Founded
• 1962: Rachel Carson publishes //Silent Spring//
• 1969: Cuyahoga river catches fire due to ignition of oil and chemical pollution
• 1970 James Lovelock's Gaia Hypothesis
• 1972 Mauna Loa observatory began monitoring changes in CO2 levels leading to climate change becoming quantifiable
• 1974: CITES started
• 1977: Greenpeace " Save the Whale" campaign
• 1978: Love Canal
• 1979: World Climate Conference raises awareness of climate change
• 1980: World Conservation Strategy; Friends of the Earth begins confrontational protests
• early 1980's: first mass coral bleaching event recorded in Caribbean and Pacific Oceans
• 1984: Bhopal Disaster 3,000-4,000 die due to explosion of pesticide factory in India
• 1986: Chernobyl disaster
• 1988: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report that claimed that "the balance of evidence suggests that there is a discernible human influence on global climate”.
• 1991: One million tonnes of crude oil dumped into Persian Gulf at end of Gulf War
• 1992 Rio Earth Summit
• 1996: CFCs use eliminated in most countries following research started by Molina and Rowland in 1973
• 1997: Kyoto Protocol
• 2005: Hurricane Katrina hits US Gulf Coast
• 2006: Al Gore's //An Inconvenient Truth//
• 2007: Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch discovered
• 2010: Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
• 2011: Japan- Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster
• 2012: Chipko Movement ; Rio Earth Summit
• 2015 Paris Climate Change Conference

The environmental movement is relatively new and has grown in response to these historical influences.

It promotes the idea of stewardship through the sustainable management of resources, uses scientific evidence to encourage changes in individual behaviour and puts pressure on the political system to change public policies.

Our approach to 'conservation' has had significant impacts on the biosphere and has changed over time as discussed in this article

Preservationists

Towards the end of the nineteenth century environmentalists:

• focused on preservation
• advocated for the preservation of lands and its resources in pristine untouched condition
• insisted that the land had intrinsic value

Conservationists

At the end of the nineteenth century and into the beginning of the twentieth century the preservationist were contrasted by the conservationist who believed in:

• conserving the environment for the value of the goods and services it could provide
• sustainable use of the environment
• management of resources to allow for future development.

Do you think that humans had a more positive or negative impact on the earth?

The case study on Chernobyl below gives you an idea of the depth of knowledge that you should aim to summarise. Remember that Case Studies will need to be revised from so they are worth organising well now.

Important

When producing your own case study it is important to remember:

1. The purpose of the case study – what information do you need to answer questions on the topic.
2. The fact that it is for your benefit – do not make it so long you will not use it when it comes to revision. So be selective in the facts you record, not too few but not too many!
3. Pick a case study that you find interesting - you are more likely to remember the important information then.
4. It is also better if the case study is local to you. When a case study is close to home it is more familiar so again you are more likely to remember the facts.
5. Does this case study demonstrate academic integrity? What is missing?

Case study

Chernobyl Catastrophe

Background information

The Chernobyl Catastrophe was a nuclear accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant on the 26th April 1986 (Figure 2). At the time Chernobyl was in the USSR and so under the central authority of the Soviet Union.

Location

The accident

In 1990 a scale for assessing nuclear accidents was introduced by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) referred to as The International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES). This was to help governments respond with the necessary safety precautions in the event of a nuclear accident.

Chernobyl is only one of two nuclear accidents that has achieved the top level score of 7 on the scale (indicative of a major incident). This means there was a major release of radioactive material with significant health and environmental implications. It was caused by a power surge during testing, that set off a steam explosion and fire. This released much of the core material into the atmosphere, which spread over Western USSR and Europe.

Facts and figures

• Death toll estimate vary between 31 and 56 for immediate death and another 4,000 plus caused by cancers.
• The incidents of cancer in the immediate area are two to five times higher than global averages.
• Two towns were abandoned – Chernobyl and Pripyat.
• There is a 30 km exclusion zone around the reactor, which is still in place today.
• Contamination impacted around 17 million people to some extent.
• Across Europe large areas of vegetation of all types had to be cleared and buried and many food crops had to be checked for radioactivity.
• Farmers in many areas were banned from selling fish and livestock, livestock products such as milk and eggs.
• Many animals were found to have reduced brain size and increased incidence of physical abnormalities.
• Invertebrate populations decreased in the Chernobyl area.
• The incidence of Down syndrome in West Berlin peaked nine months after the incident.

The Chernobyl Catastrophe is surround by controversy to this day and there are many conflicting reports that claim significantly more damage than the initial reports suggested.

This website suggests that the government's response to the disaster was less than acceptable.

Reactions and impacts

• The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in cooperation with the European Union, the United States and Ukraine set up the Shelter Implementation Plan and the Chernobyl Shelter fund. The aim was to make safe the old reactor and the areas around Chernobyl Nuclear power plant.
• The United Nations Development Programme initiated the Chernobyl Recovery and Development Programme. The aim was to support the Ukraine government deal with the long-lasting effects of the catastrophe.
• The International Project on the Health Effects of the Chernobyl Accident was set up to establish the causes of the continuing health problems in the region.
• Globally there was a fundamental change in the approach to industrial safety standards – not just nuclear power plants.
• International organisations and national governments have increased the regulatory procedures for nuclear power e.g. International Atomic Energy Agency and Euratom have instigated new safety procedures and better training for workers. The International Commission on Radiological Protection and World Health Organisation are investigating the health aspects of the incident.
• Italy and Germany started phasing out nuclear power plants.
• Germany created a ministerial post specifically to oversea reactor safety.

An EVS places a value on the environment and that value may be seen from the point of view of:

• The goods and services the environment provides: its aesthetic importance, the recreational provision it offers or resource it supplies.
• Intrinsic value: the idea that something can be of value in and of itself and not because it is of any use to humanity.

Watch the short film 'How Forest Heal People'. What value do you personally place on ecosystem resources like a forest?

What makes an EVS into a system?

A system is a simplified way of visualising a complex set of parts and their interconnections. Systems have inputs, outputs and processes.

Create a systems diagram to summarise examples of inputs, processes and outputs. Add your own examples where possible.

Inputs

Everything around us affects our opinions, the decisions we make and how we live our lives.

We grow up in a particular society with an associated culture and the inherent attitudes and beliefs attached to it.

e.g. Aboriginal people have a more holistic approach to life and belief that humans are part of nature, they therefore have a great deal of respect for the natural environment.

Modern day living has separated us from those roots and that changes our attitudes to the environment. Maybe modern humans feel we can live outside of nature!

Religious groups afford nature different relevance in their lives and it defines humans place in nature and how they should treat non-human beings.

e.g. in Islam Muslims are seen as stewards of the earth that should care for plants and animals.

Friends and family will have a significant impact on how we view many things in life. Apart from the fact that family probably determines your religion it will also have an impact on what access you have to what types of media, what education you receive, what your political leanings are and much, much more. The interests and views of your parents will rub off on you and thus you may adopt their values.

As you move out into the world and experience things for yourself your opinions and values will be changed by your experiences and the people are you. A single friend who is an environmental activist may well change your entire attitude, in either direction (towards or away from their ideas).

Political parties have environmental agendas. Some parties will have definite green policies and make a point of making accommodations for the environment and others will not. Many governments are now actively changing over to renewable energy sources. It may be that people influence these policies, but it is also likely that their messages impact people's opinions and change their attitudes (Figure 3).

Education will give us another set of information, which we can use to formulate our opinions and make decisions as to what value we place on things. If our education takes a scientific slant then we may have a better understanding of environmental systems and the interconnection between nature and humans. Education with a scientific view will give people different attitudes to the environment than one in which technology and the economy are seen as more important.

The media throws information at us all the time; everything from the TV to the magazines and books you read to the social media you follow. It all helps you formulate opinions on the value of things. Facebook has a wide array of environmental pages; there are endless programmes about wildlife and even more books (if you chose to read them). All this will enter your minds almost on a subliminal level and it will impact your value systems.

Your own personality will affect how you see things. Some people are inherently more caring than others and that is going to impact on their desire to help the environment. Some people are very self-sufficient and that may cause them to feel more independent and less in need to saving the environment.

Processes

Once we have the inputs we can start processing them and in the case of environmental value systems that means taking in all the knowledge thinking about and evaluating it in order to make an informed decision as to whether we accept or reject the ideas. To come to these decisions there may be a cost benefit analysis – a framework in which the relative costs and benefits of a situation can be balanced. For instance you may see the benefits of cutting carbon emissions but the cost to you could be walking or cycling everywhere and that cost may be too high so you do not act.

Emotions will play a part in how you value things, which one would you save the Black widow spider or the panda? Why did the World Wildlife Fund choose the panda as it’s emblem?

Outputs

Once the inputs are there and the information has been processed the answers are available, choices and decisions can be made and perspectives and viewpoints formed. How is the environment viewed and valued and what action can be or will be taken.

Intrinsic value

Intrinsic value is a tricky concept and hard to grasp but it is very important to environmental value systems. There are two types of value:

1. Instrumental value: Something is valued because it is a means to an end, it gives you something tangible. Natural resources such as gold, diamonds and fossil fuel are worth millions of dollars so they can be sold to get something else.
2. Intrinsic value: Something is of value just because it is there, you can not sell it to get anything else.

Intrinsic value is hotly disputed, probably because we feel the need to put an actual contestable value on things; it is how our minds work. Many people argue that biodiversity is intrinsically valuable because somehow, somewhere most of us are aware that if that goes we are in dire straits.

The Environmental Value Systems

The table below shows the various environmental value systems and their relation to each other.

Deep ecology: a need for spiritual revolution to fix environmental problems is at the core of all environmental issues. Nature is at the center, equal rights for species. (nature before human)

Soft ecology: self-sufficiency in resource management. Ecological understand a principle for all aspect of living. Shun large scale profti motives for action, for small-scale community orientated schemes.

Environmental managers: no radical political agenda but promote working to create change within the existing social and political structures. Current economic growth can be sustained if environmental issues are managed by legal means or political agreement. (believe that the environment can be used if manage properly)

Cornucopians: a perspective that doesn't really see environmental issues as "problems" as humans have always found a way out of difficulties in the past. New resources and technologies will solve any environmental problems as they are encountered. There is no need for radical agendas, socio-economic or political reform. (don't care for the environment; human come first)

Case study

Resources exploitation:

The ecocentric perspective on fossil fuel exploitation

An ecocentric approach to the use of fossil fuels would be to reduce or stop all reliance on them because:

• They are non-renewable and therefore sustainability is impossible.
• Exploitation leads to significant environmental damage and habitat destruction, even without accidents such as oil spills extraction activity such as mining is highly destructive (Figure 2). Such destruction has moral and spiritual implications for ecocentrics.
• Fossil fuels contribute to global warming and so add to the disruption of nature.
• Ecocentrics support the use of small-scale technology on a local level. Fossil fuel exploitation is unacceptable to them as it is always carried out by large-scale corporation or governments.
• Investment and reliance on fossil fuels gives a false sense of security and detracts from investment in alternative sources of energy.

Case study

The Kalahari Bushmen as ecocentrics

The Kalahari Bushmen are a nomadic people living in the Kalahari Desert in Botswana and Namibia.

Characteristics that make them ecocentric include:

• The kinship system is one of interdependence between small mobile foraging groups where everyone works together for the good of the society.
• Society is egalitarian (all people are equal) and decisions are made by consensus with women and men being equal.
• Men are very skilled at hunting and tracking, they follow the migrating herds and use only traditional weapons – poisonous bow and arrow (Figure 3).
• Women have a deep knowledge of the many berries and nuts they gather fruit, tubers and other wild plants for consumption by the group.
• They make the most off all natural resources – ostrich eggs are eaten and the empty shells used to gather water, they consume up to 104 species of insects e.g. beetles, moths, termites.
• Two thousand year old rock paintings depict the Bushman’s appreciation of nature.
• They have no concept of land ownership but see themselves as part of nature.
• The live in simple stick huts, wear simple clothing mostly derived from nature and all their tools and equipment is made from natural products.

Examiner Tip

To score well on any questions to do with environmental value systems you should have contrasting case studies. The technocentrism or anthropocentrism sections will give you contrasts to the Bushmen of the Kalahari. It is however better to develop your own case studies throughout the ESS course that you find interesting.

Many see anthropocentrism as the most sensible middle-of-the-road option. Criticism from environmentalists such as Dave Foreman and Christopher Manes suggest that this anthropocentric approach is the “underlying (if unstated) reasons why humanity dominates and sees the need to develop" most of the Earth. Much of the discussion centers on the Judeo-Christian value system in which it is believed that God gave humans the planet as a gift, the interpretation of that is up for question. Some say that means we have the right to manage it to suit us, others claim that we are stewards and therefore responsible for passing on the planet to the next generation. As the Native Indian proverb states: “We do not inherit this planet from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.”

Anthropocentrism is a human-centred worldview that believes nature is there not because it has any intrinsic value but because we can use all of its natural resources for our benefit. Humans are environmental managers of sustainable global systems. Economic growth and resource exploitation are acceptable so long as they are strongly regulated by independent authorities. Legal agreements are needed to maintain environmental quality and enforce compensation agreements when adverse environmental or social effects are in evidence. Anthropocentric’s also emphasise the need for population control in order to improve resource management.

Elected government representatives control anthropocentric societies. The government appraises new projects and encourages discussion in a search for consensus among the interested parties. They may use a mix of technocentric and ecocentric approaches and decisions are made based on human health and well-being.

Case study

Modern Western Worldview

Environmental managers

Many of the Western world nations have an anthropocentric worldview, which is largely based on religious thinking. Characteristics include:

• Human life is seen to have intrinsic value whereas other living things are there for the benefit of humankind. It is suggested that this is based on the book of Genesis – humans were created to subdue the earth and have dominion over living creatures.
• Resources are freely exploited for economic development.

• Many countries have population policies – some to bring birth rates down e.g. Thailand others to try and increase birth rates e.g. Sweden.
• There are many independent authorities that negotiate agreements to benefit mankind. A major player is probably the United Nations that oversees many agreements concerning issues from pollution to human rights. A quick Internet search on UN agreements will turn up a wide range treaties and agreements.
• Governments are pushing for sustainability in the shape of increased efficiency of technology, reduced deforestation, reforestation, recycling campaigns, pollution reduction, measures, national parks and conservation areas – the list goes on.

Watch and think about what this video is saying about the anthropocentric worldview.

Case study

Resource exploitation

Technocentrics view on fossil fuels

The technocentrics take the view that all resources can be exploited for human benefit so they propose the continued use of fossil fuels because:

• Technology can find solutions to any of the problems that arise form resource exploitation for instance we now have the technology to clean up oil spills.
• Technology will find alternatives should fossil fuels ever be depleted.
• There is currently an abundant supply of fossil fuels and we have the technology in place to extract it.
• We are developing technology to access previously inaccessible oil and natural gas e.g. fracking.
• Our current lifestyles are dependent on fossil fuels e.g. transport, power, and commodities.
• Countries with fossil fuels have the potential to benefit economically from the resource and thus develop.
• The oil industry is a significant global employer.
• We have to continue using fossil fuels until technology has improved the efficiency of the renewable energy sources.
• Some fossil fuels such as natural gas are a cost effective source of energy.
• Technology is developing that can reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

The following groups in society have differing Environmental Value Systems. CAn you think of other groups in society whos views may differ?

Judaeo-Christian societies:

• Genesis story suggests that God gave the planet to humans as a gift.
• Other biblical stories indicate that humans should make the most of this gift but act as stewards for God's creation e.g Matthew 25:14-30, the parable of the talents told by Jesus.

Buddhist societies:

• sees humans as an intrinsic part of nature rather than as merely a steward.
• emphasises human interrelationships with all parts of nature and considers it unrealistic to see ourselves as isolated from the rest of nature. Reincarnation means a human consciousness/spirit can be reborn as either human or animal.
• compassion is the basis for a balanced worldview
• essential to maintain the balance of life by saving and not wasting or destroying. Nothing has a fixed, permanent or independent existence
• people should act compassionately and work together altruistically, a philosophy of 'uplift to all'
• wilderness nature holds a particularly important role as a place where Buddhists can carry out a variety of religious practices.

Native American societies:

• see the environment as communal and prior to the arrival of the Europeans in the late 16th century, had a subsistence economy based on barter.
• low-impact technologies and lived in harmony with environment.
• Practised an animalistic religion where all things have souls - animals, plants, rocks, mountains, rivers, stars etc.
• created conflict with the colonising Europeans who exploited what they saw as unlimited resources.
• many of the viewpoints attributed to historical figures in Native American society have been found to be misquotes but the philosophy remains accurate.

Communist societies:

• criticised for poor environmental record.
• could argue that the economic principles of communism inevitably lead to environmental degradation when free natural resources are seen as existing to serve the state.
• Communist ideal of equal distribution of resources with no profit motive meant that energy, materials and natural resources could be squandered without care.
• e.g. Buna chemical works in East Germany (prior to unification) dumped 10 times more mercury into nearby rivers than counterparts in West Germany. Cars in East Germany emitted 100x more carbon monoxide than those in West Germany because they didn't have catalytic convertors.
• Is this still true or is it a feature of the Cold War era only? The Communist State in Germany protected the interests of farmers, foresters and fisherman and therefore unintentionally benefited some aspects of the environment.

Capitalist societies:

• seen as environmentally friendly with free market and a system motivated by economic profit
• free market imposes checks and balances to ensure efficient use of resources in order to maximise profit.
• Is this still true or is it a feature of a bygone era only? The rise of capitalism in the former Communist East Germany led to polluting industries organising themselves into powerful lobbies who protected their own interests at the expense of the environment.
• Civil liberties, and the role of democracy may play a more significant role in combating environmental problems than the economic basis of the system

Think and discuss...

Is there such a thing as an unbiased view of the environment?

Can we ever expect to establish a balanced view of global environmental issues?

Look at the environmental news and discuss your EVS in relation to the news event with your partner. If you were in a position of power within the country, what implication would your EVS have on environmental issues?