Introduction

UNIT 1: Environmental Value Systems

An environmental value system (EVS) is a particular worldview or set of paradigms that shapes the way individuals or societies perceive and evaluate environmental issues. This view is influenced by cultural (including religious), economic and socio-political contexts (for example whether individuals are from a less economically developed country (LEDC) or a more economically developed country (MEDC), a democratic or authoritarian society).

An EVS, like all other systems, has inputs (such as education, media and religious doctrines) and outputs (such as perspectives, actions and ) which are determined by processing (learning, decision making, rejecting) of the inputs. Information flows to individuals in societies are processed into changes in perceptions of the environment and changes in decisions about how to react to environmental issues. Some inputs will have no obvious immediate effect on an individual or group while others will lead to direct actions in response to concerns about the environment. Information comes from ideas in film, books and newspapers and so on and some people link those who originate this information to the ‘producers’ in an ecosystem. Other members of society then become the ‘consumers’ of the new ideas.

UNIT 1: Environmental Value Systems

An environmental value system (EVS) is a particular worldview or set of paradigms that shapes the way individuals or societies perceive and evaluate environmental issues. This view is influenced by cultural (including religious), economic and socio-political contexts (for example whether individuals are from a less economically developed country (LEDC) or a more economically developed country (MEDC), a democratic or authoritarian society).

An EVS, like all other systems, has inputs (such as education, media and religious doctrines) and outputs (such as perspectives, actions and ) which are determined by processing (learning, decision making, rejecting) of the inputs. Information flows to individuals in societies are processed into changes in perceptions of the environment and changes in decisions about how to react to environmental issues. Some inputs will have no obvious immediate effect on an individual or group while others will lead to direct actions in response to concerns about the environment. Information comes from ideas in film, books and newspapers and so on and some people link those who originate this information to the ‘producers’ in an ecosystem. Other members of society then become the ‘consumers’ of the new ideas.

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.

Guiding Questions:

How do the environmental value systems different between different societies and how does this affect the way the societies approach environmental issues?
How can conflicts between value systems regarding the exploitation of resources be resolved?
What is your personal environmental philosophy with regard to specific issues in this course such as population control, resource exploitation, sustainable development, and biodiversity and conservation?

Vocabulary:

Environmental Value System, paradigm, ecocentrism, anthropocentrism, technocentrism, deep ecologist, environmental manager, cornucopian, stewardship, tragedy of the commons.

Content

Core Resources

Support Material

Environmental perspectives

Please set up a document folder on your laptop called 'ESS', Inside this folder create a folder called 'Important info'

Download the ESS syllabus into this folder