My Environmental Ethic Eng. 308j
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If someone where to ask me about my opinions on the environment they better be sit down because they are going to get a mouth full. Ever since I was little you could ask me about what I thought of the environment and I would have had an answer for you. Granted when I was little I would have told you it is beautiful, it’s fun to play in, and I love it because it is my home. Now if you ask me I would say the same answers but also more. Throughout my life the environment has always been something extremely important to me so it is only natural that my environmental ethic is what it is. I believe that, maybe without knowing, I have always believed in Biocentrism and Ecocentrism, even as a kid.
My opinions and how I feel about the environment starts early in my life. I think it all started with my primal education; my parents. My parents brought my brother and I up in a way where I cannot separate the outdoors from my everyday life. They grew us up to enjoy and love being outside and everything that goes with it. Even family time was spent outside, we eat outside every minute we can, we do every outdoor sport, and we also make up reasons to work outside. I think that my beliefs started at a young age not only because I spent so much time outside but because I was very active in nature and educated about it at a young age. All my life my parents, brother and I have gone on hour long walks through our woods, were my parents would point out tracks of animals, and different types of trees or plants they know. We also chop our own woods, pick wild fruits and berries, ice skated on our pond, when it’s frozen, sail sometimes to no where, just to enjoy being on the water, and watching deer eat apples off one of our trees during lunch. A lot of my life has been formulated around the environment, weather it be the ocean or the forest. My life is all about doing activities outdoors therefore the outdoors is my home. It is something that I live in and with. I want it to look beautiful and feel great like the way it makes me feel so I treat it with respect. It is hard to come up with just one memory that makes me thinking of the environment and how it influences me because my life is what made me who I am, which is a person dedicating her life to improving the planet, mainly dealing with environmental issues.
Before taking this class I would say that my environmental ethics were the same as they are now or at least extremely similar. Although this class did increase my drive, like most environmental classes I take, giving me more motivation to change and to become more sustainable. Education of course has always been a massive influence on me. The more environmental classes I take and the more research I do, the more important it becomes to me and it gives me things to work towards. My love for the natural world has always been apart of me; it has always played a vital role in what my life will be. When I research a topic like the ones I did in this class, it brings out strong emotions I have toward that problem and inspires me to change it. After researching overfishing and seeing something like shark fining it really emanates inside of me my feelings toward how humans treat animals. I believe that animals and nature itself is just as important as humans; humans are animals so I find it ridiculous that we consider ourselves something better than what we are. I feel that everything has an instrumental use to it, but only to a certain extent should it be used. Everything in nature can be used for something, but that is just one level of their worth to me, an important one, but what the world has to offer has more to it than what we, as humans, take out of it.
Throughout history humans have used the world for themselves. Cutting down tress for their homes, killing animals not just for food but also for entertainment, and extracting anything we can that will benefit us. I do not believe in this destructive way of like. My reasons why are best described into two environmental ethics: Biocentrism and Ecocentrism.
I strongly believe all things, living or nonliving, have a value above what it can be used for. Biocentrism supports how I believe humans should be treating animals and plants: it means that everything in the world has value but this value is not based on humans it is based on nature ("ecocentrism"). I do not place a value on something because of what it can give to me. I think all life, human or not, has equal value. I would like to think that the reason people do not treat animals like they treat humans is not because of greed but because they are separated and cannot relate to the animals “we reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes – something known only to her and to the mountain.” (Dobrin ,89). This quote from Thinking Like a Mountain shows that the man in the story did not realized the consequences of his actions until he saw the wolf die in front of him, and then later in life he and society saw the lasting effects of killing off wolves. This is just one example of how using or killing something for human satisfaction is not always good for the rest of the world and the human want for something should not why something is killed or extracted.
Ecocentrism is also something I strongly believe in. It means to think and work for an entire ecosystem rather than humans want ("Ecospherics Ethics"). It is like working on a team, what is best for one person my not be the best choice or the entire team and their sustainability of surviving together. “Human value systems have traditionally been inward-looking, preoccupied with the immediate concerns of the individual, and by extension, of society and culture” ("Ecospherics Ethics"). Ecocentric however has a boarder out look on these viewpoints. Ecocentric is usually my main argument when I talk about sustainable ways of life. In my last two papers I talked specific places on Earth that are being injured by humans that do not think in an ecocentric way. My paper about overfishing is a prime example of how overfishing is hurting an ecosystem therefore having other ripping effects on ocean diversity, the increase of animal extinction, and a decrease in a human food source. In one of the readings from class in Saving Place the story Save the Whales, Screw the Shrimp, is not only a great example of a form of overfishing but it talks about how humans don’t stop for the environment: "When you love something, it had better watch out, because you have a tendency to love it to death"( Dobrin ,205). Another quote from this reading to express how humans abuse the environment is "wild things exist only of you have the graciousness to allow them to"( Dobrin ,208). I also wrote a paper on the killing of Virginian Gorillas in Central Africa, this story shows how even things like warfare and the charcoal making business can not only effect gorillas in the surrounding areas but also the habitat and the people in theses areas. I believe that the entire world is one ecosystem with many more ecosystems inside and each has to work together in order for the world to be successful and survive.
These two environmental ethics that I have gave me different feeling and ideas, than those who do not share my environmental ethics, on many different things we looked at for class. The movie Food Inc. gives a very strong sense of anger, sadness, and determination after watching it. This movies played a lot towards what I think; it not only explained the horrible treatment of animals and how they should be treated better but also how the food industry can not be supported forever by the worlds ecosystems. My environmental ethics also played a role in how certain readings made me feel. Many people in class did not like the tone of Save the Whales, Screw the Shrimp because of the way it was telling the audience what they are doing wrong in the world in a semi sarcastic manner. However I love that pieces, but that is probably because I agree with what the author was saying. It probably also didn’t bother me as much because I make conscious efforts to be environmentally friendly so something mentioned in the book are things that I don’t do, like eat fish or____. I think because I try to be environmentally friendly reading or watching about bad things humans do to the planet doesn’t upset me as much as it does make me happy to see that others share my opinion and are trying to get the word out. I tend to have very strong opinions on different topics and the environment happens to be a topic that I have cared about since before I can remember.
As a kid my life was just a big imaginary world and outside was the setting. I didn’t need a play set, or a fenced in yard like a dog, I had miles of freedom in woods that my parents let me experience to the fullest. I was not given boundaries because my parents let me learn them, understand and respect them. Of course I am not sure they knew what they were creating. At a very young age of about 7 I laid in a bush all day to protest against my dad who wanted to tare the bush up. My parents thought it wasn't very attractive, yet to me it was beautiful, it was playhouse and an imaginary world that I could play in anytime I wanted. I have always been one to be outside and enjoying what it gives to me, like music of the wind in the trees or birds chirruping and how the sun makes me feel happy. The woods give me peace, a place to go, somewhere to be a lone or to play in. My playground as a kid was the rocks, trees, grass, and berries around me. My childhood is inseparable from the outdoors and it still is inseparable from me now even more so now since I understand the importance of the relationships in an ecosystem. Therefore I believe in Biocentrism and Ecocentrism. Throughout my life the environment has always been something extremely important to me and it will continue to be so for the rest of my life
Reference:
"Biocentrism." ecocentrism. N.p., 2011. Web. 8 Mar 2011.
Dobrin, sidney. saving Place An Ecocomposition Reader. New York, NY: McGraw- Hill, 2005. 87-90. Print.
Dobrin, sidney. saving Place An Ecocomposition Reader. New York, NY: McGraw- Hill, 2005. 203-213. Print.
"Ecospherics Ethics." N.p., Feb. 2009. Web. 8 Mar 2011.
