Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Inhis topic,McKibbenwrotethatourgoalshouldbea“humblerworld,”onewherewehavelessimpact
on our environment and “Human happiness would be of secondary importance.”
46
What is of primary importance?
Minimizing our impact on our environment
. McKibben explains:
“Though not in our time, and not in the time of our children, or their children, if we now,
today
, limited our
numbers and our desires and our ambitions, perhaps nature could someday resume its independent work-
ing.”
47
This implies that there should be fewer people, with fewer desires, and fewer ambitions. This is the
exact opposite of holding human life as one's standard of value. It is holding
human nonimpact
as one's
standard of value, without regard for human life and happiness.
Earlier we saw that human beings are safer than ever from climate, despite whatever impact we have
had from increasing the concentration of CO
2
in the atmosphere from .03 percent to .04 percent. And yet
Bill McKibben and others call our present climate catastrophic. By what standard?
In his topic
Eaarth
, McKibben argues that it's tragic for human beings to do anything that affects cli-
mate, even if it doesn't hurt human beings. He writes, referencing an earlier work:
Merely knowing that we'd begun to alter the climate meant that the water flowing in that creek had a
different, lesser meaning. “Instead of a world where rain had an independent and mysterious existence,
the rain had become a subset of human activity,” I wrote. “The rain bore a brand; it was a steer, not a
deer.”
48
This means that something is morally diminished if human beings affect it.
If fossil fuels changed climate, but not in a way that harmed humans—or even helped them—would it
be right to use them because of their benefits to human life?
On a human standard of value, the answer is absolutely yes. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with
transforming our environment—to the contrary, that's our means of survival. But we do want to avoid
transforming our environment in a way that harms us now or in the long term.
You might wonder how holding human life as your standard of value applies to preserving nature. It ap-
plies simply: preserve nature when doing so will benefit human life (such as a beautiful park to enjoy) and
develop it when it will benefit human life. By contrast, if nonimpact, not human life, is the standard, the
moral thing to do is always leave nature alone. For example, in the 1980s, India had an environmentalist
movement, called the Chipko movement, that made it nearly impossible for Indians to cut down forests to
engage in industrial development. It was so bad that a movement literally called Log the Forest emerged
to counter it. As one Indian who tried to build a road said:
Now they tell me that because of Chipko the road cannot be built [to her village], because everything
has become
paryavaran
[environment]. . . . We cannot even get wood to build a house . . .
our haq-
haqooq
[rights and concessions]
have been snatched away. . . .
I plan to contest the
panchayat
[village
administrative body] elections and become the
pradhan
[village leader] next year. . . . My first fight
will be for a road,
let the environmentalists do what they will.
[Italics in original]
49
This is the essence of the conflict: the humanist, which is the term I will use to describe someone on
a human standard of value, treats the rest of nature as something to use for his benefit; the nonhumanist
treats the rest of nature as something that must be served.
