Robert Reich is one of the best progressive policy voices in the United States, and a favourite speaker and writer of mine. Most policy wonks are afraid to tread into the moral realm, but not Reich. Indeed, he has a superb series of video shorts on his website, explaining and critiquing the manifest problems in American public policy. One takes up the distinction between public and private morality head on. Enjoy!
You can learn more about Professor Reich and his views here, robertreich.org.
I have created two new galleries for art on Practical Ethics. The first is named Altered Realities, and is a space for artistic or documentary iPhone photography that uses HRD or post processing (e.g., think Instagram). The second is Wolves, and as its name implies, is a selection of wolfish images I have accumulated over the years.
I hope you enjoy them.
Cheers.
Image: Karin Lauria, Tree Over the Assabet River, 2012. iPhone 4S + postprocessing.
Great Britains Royal Society has released a major report on population issues. Entitled People and the Planet, it states that the earth is finite, and the continued growth of human population and consumption threatens global health and well being.
The report offers four key recommendations:
1. Global poverty must end.
2. Developed and emerging economies must reduce material consumption.
3. Greater political leadership and support is needed for reproductive health and family planning.
4. The health and well being of human populations and the environment are deeply intertwined.
Other recommendations include:
* Urbanization to reduce material consumption.
* Removing barriers to primary and secondary education, especially for women.
* Further research on population and environmental dynamics.
* Establishing alternative wealth measures.
* Developing new socio-economic systems.
There is quite a lot to chew on here in terms of both ethics and public policy, so allow me to restrict myself to three comments.
First, anyone familiar with the history of environmental and development policy will not be surprised at either the subject matter or recommendations of the report. The 1960s and 1970s saw a vibrant debate over limits to growth that continues into this decade. The reasons for this ongoing debate are simple. The earth is a limited ecosystem, humans already use ecosystems services and resources at an unsustainable level (several earths worth), the biodiversity of life is experiencing a huge extinction event due to us, and habitat destruction makes ecological recovery harder every day.
Second, while this is an old debate, our recent planetary rush past the threshold of 7+ billion humans makes this a timely and important document. This is especially so as the report arrives in advance of the Rio+20 Earth Summit. One can hope it will have some impact on the deliberations in Rio, and contest platitudes associated with sustainable development.
Since the 1980s and 1990s, policy makers have tried to sidestep the debate by focusing on sustainable development. In various government and corporate circles, this amounts to a faith in limitless economic growth without environmental consequences. The idea that we can have our cake and eat it too is not entirely false. New technologies, just distribution of resources, public health, lower fertility and the like can dramatically change both the production and consumption side of the equation. It cannot, however, put off the basic truth of earthly limits, the sheer growth of human numbers, or the damage our planetary sprawl does to other life.
There are ideologues who deny this. Christian fundamentalists say the second coming of Christ means we need not worry about any of this. Market fundamentalists assume that economic exchange will motivate a solution. Technological fundamentalists believe we can invent our way out of this mess. Experience has proved them all wrong.
This is not to say we are without hope. Cradle to cradle technologies, ecological modernization (decoupling industrial production from environmental impacts), environmental justice, precautionary policies, and green politics can all make a difference. Collectively, these and other alternatives are referred to as sustainability. Sustainability in this sense is quite different from various kinds of sustainable development that cynically seek to sustain production for the benefit of a few, rather than provide equitable development or environmental protection.
Third, the report does do a good job of foregrounding a concern for human health and well being. And so it should. Human beings have an intrinsic value, and we are all part of a moral community that transcends national or political boundaries. No future policy initiatives on population and consumption will be adequate if they do not place human well being in all its dimensions squarely at the centre of our concerns. And that includes questions of public health and medical care, universal access to education, human rights, equitable development, environmental justice, and the like.
Unfortunately, the report is silent on the well being of other creatures, species and living systems. The biological carrying capacity of the planet was not made solely for humans. Non-human animals and the rest of nature deserve to be at the centre of our concerns as well. Humans — animals ourselves deserve to thrive on Earth, but so to do other life-forms and the living systems that make life possible and pleasurable.
The moral considerability of the non-human world has strong policy implications with respect to population and consumption. An example is food.
A burgeoning human population needs feeding. Developing societies also seem to desire to increase their consumption of meat. Meeting these needs and desires involves industrial agriculture, genetically modified organisms, the destruction of natural habitats, public health impacts, and substantial contributions to global climate change. This does not account for the social and economic injustices for low wage immigrant farm hands, nor the decimation of biodiversity by the bushmeat trade. I could go on.
My point of course is not that humans should not eat, although vegans offer strong arguments against diets that incorporate animals themselves. Rather I am illustrating that when we examine the ethics of population and consumption, we cannot do so in moral isolation from equally important issues affecting non-human nature. As John Muir noted, everything is hitched to everything else.
People and the Planet is the poorer for this ethical lapse. For all its virtues, I fear its impact on that ethical debates that are sure to rage in Rio+20 will be proportionally diminished.
You can find the report at http://royalsociety.org/policy/projects/people-planet/report/.
Cheers
Image. Ecological Footprint. If everyone on earth lived middle class North American lifestyles, we would need approximately 5 earths to sustain them indefinitely. See http://www.footprintnetwork.org.
Must we choose people over the planet?
This is the question addressed by two essays that caught my eye in The Huffington Post during Earth Week. The first is Why Im Not An Environmentalist by Lisa Curtis (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-curtis/environmentalism_b_1443311.html?ref=green) and the second, Earth Day 2012: This Isnt About Tree-Hugging Anymore, Its About the Way We Live by Edward Norton (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ed-norton/earth-day-2012-this-isnt-_b_1442104.html). Curtis is an American blogger and social activist, while Norton is an American actor and the United Nations celebrity ambassador for biodiversity.
Both characterize contemporary environmentalism as primarily concerned with wilderness and wildlife, and thus out of touch with the challenges of global climate change, population growth, and equitable human development. While Curtis rejects the environmental label altogether, Norton seeks to jettison what he sees as its emotional baggage. Nortons essay is particularly smarmy on this account: This isnt about tree-hugging and fish-kissing anymore, its about the way we live. Curtis is more measured but equally polarizing: At some point in the 21st century we became tired with the idea that planet had to come before people.
I must admit to being struck by Curtis and Nortons impoverished understanding of the environmental movement. The movement has always been diverse in its concerns, from wilderness and wildlife to pollution and urban design (to name a few). And while it has adjusted its focus over time to new issues and political realities, it has actually done rather well at balancing prior commitments with new concerns. An example is environmental justice, whose issues and sensibilities have rightly infused and stand alongside the rest of environmentalism.
I also noticed a distinctive ethical subtext to their policy priorities. Both Curtis and Norton enclose their moral commitments around humanity alone. Nortons comments about kissing fish and trees is one indication, while Curtiss stark alternative between people or the planet is another. Politically, this smacks of the jobs versus the environment debate, a false dichotomy that is a favourite theme in conservative circles, and an excuse for not redressing environmental and social harms. Ethically, it creates a a false moral dilemma, unnecessarily pitting humanity against the rest of nature. In point of fact, the earth is teeming with life and living systems that share an evolutionary heritage. Many of its creatures, including us, share a range of emotional, cognitive and social abilities. Think of how we love and communicate with other animals as an illustration of what I am saying Yet the boundary that Curtis and Norton draw around moral community is so tight, it offers only mercenary policy choices about the non-human world.
I have spent over a decade researching and teaching about the environment. In that time I have taught and talked with thousands of citizens, students, scientists and natural resource professionals about the ethical norms of environmental policy. In my experience, very few of them only care about the planet because it provides physical resources and ecological services. They care because they believe all life and living systems have an intrinsic value which we as humans are obligated to respect and protect.
Most of the students and professionals I work with struggle to put these ethical thoughts and feelings into words. That is where I can be of help. Once they are able to fully express their moral sensibilities, they recognize the issues are complex, and cannot be solved through one issue, group or ideology alone. And in spite of their differences over priorities or perspectives, they tend to share a deep moral longing to be in right relationship with the entire planet, human and non-human portions alike.
They express this longing in varied ways. Sometimes it is through the language of spirituality, at other times through the science of ecology or the political idea of rights. Some are focused primarily on people and give themselves over to issues of justice, public health or development. Others focus on helping wild and domestic animals, or protecting distinctive places and wild nature. I applaud all these efforts. To paraphrase Arne Naess, the frontier of social change is long. There are many issues that deserve our attention in both the environmental and social worlds alike. There is no need to bicker over whose favoured issue is most important. If nature and society are as interconnected as environmentalists believe them to be, then (with apologies to John Muir), every problem is hitched to all the others.
Note that a recognition of intrinsic value in a more-than-human world need not and should not come at the expense of people. We have intrinsic value too. Indeed it is this intrinsic value that motivates our concern for human rights, environmental justice, equitable development, and other worthy causes. At the same time, acknowledging our own intrinsic value is no reason to deny it to animals and the rest of nature. We can readily respect and protect domestic animals, wildlife and wild nature, while standing up for the well being of humanity too.
We are not, then, presented with a Hobbesian choice between people or the planet. Rather we are faced with the challenge of doing right by people, animals and nature. Treating the planet as an instrumental resource to human ends is part of the problem, and will not help us meet this challenge even if wrapped up in words like sustainability. Instead, we must enlarge our moral community and embrace all the creatures and ecosystems of our living world. This is the ethical foundation for environmental policies worthy of being termed sustainable.
Cheers.
Image: Earth Day. Green Planet. I found this image on the web while searching for earth day wallpaper. It is taken from Alfoart.com, a site where digital artists share tutorials, templates and their work. I like to interpret the tree of knowledge as a metaphor for the ethical and cultural roots of our environmental problems, the rainbow as a reference to the diversity of life and of cultures, and the moon situating ourselves and the planet in larger spheres of concern.
There is a deeply disturbing news article in The Huffington Post on the routine shooting of pets by police in the United States.
In a story entitled Cop Shoots Dog, reporters Radley Balko and JL Greene examine the apparently common but under-reported issue of companion animals killed by police.
Some of the instances are egregious, such as shooting chihuahuas and chained dogs. Others are premeditated, such as routinely killing all the dogs present during a drug raid, irrespective of whether they pose a threat or not.
From an ethics and public policy point of view, there are at least two problems to address here. First, animals (wild and domestic) are part of a larger mixed community (the term is Mary Midgleys) to whom we have moral responsibilities. When they can, our police should therefore be protecting animals at risk, and avoiding lethal force if at all possible. Dogs being abused by drug dealers and fighting rings are in need of help, and should not be further victimized.
Second, these killings represents a failure of public policy, with few jurisdictions mandating the appropriate training for officers. Note that this training is provided free by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA).
Let me also be clear, here, that I do not think this is about bad cops. I am a strong supporter of the police and other emergency providers. As individuals and as a whole, they routinely perform outstanding service and have been helpful to my community and myself at many points in time.
Neither the excessive use of force in political demonstrations, or the use of unnecessary lethal force against animals, is because of corrupt or sadistic police. There can be, however, a set of norms and training that overemphasizes the use of force. We have seen evidence of this in the reaction of some police forces to the Occupy Movement protests. It should not surprise us then that the excessive use of force may affect animals as well.
There will certainly be times where the use of violence in mixed communities of people and animals is justified. Training in how to respond to such situations is indispensable. So too is adopting relevant public policies at the local, state and national levels to address this issue. Doing so will go a long way towards meeting our ethical responsibilities to the animals that share our individual and collective lives.
Cheers
Image: Dogs Shot By Police Facebook page.
What did you do for Earth Day and Earth Week?
On Earth Day, Karin and I spent the afternoon at Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge. It poured much of the time, so we circumnavigated the boundaries, checked out the trailheads, and watched waterfowl on the Assabet River and adjoining marshes. The swans, grebes and wood ducks were particularly beautiful that day.
To finish up Earth Week, we visited Parker River National Wildlife Refuge, a barrier island off the coast of MA, and home to a fragile dune ecology. The silence on the island, so close to a North American megalopolis (i.e., Washington DC to Boston) was amazing.
Both refuges are spectacular areas managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Featuring diverse habitats and abundant wildlife, they are places of hope for healing our troubled relationship with the natural world.
Cheers!
Images: Puffer Pond, Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge 2012; Plum Island Dunes, Parker River National Wildlife Refuge 2012.
