Environmental crisis is a moral challenge
Society has been slow to appreciate ethical implications of climate change and species extinction, says Graham Saul.
The data on rising levels of toxic contamination, ecosystem destruction, species extinction and global warming is not just a collection of scientific facts. It’s an ethical indictment of human values. Chemicals from industry and agriculture are polluting our waterways; grasslands and wetlands are being converted into farms and urban areas at an alarming rate; and climate change is killing people and destroying and displacing communities. As a result, humanity is driving species to extinction at 1,000 to 10,000 times the pre-human or normal background rate. Dozens of species are becoming extinct every day. These horrible developments are no longer the unintended consequences of an expanding human race that is sleepwalking through history unaware of the toll we are taking on the natural world. These problems are knowable. The consequences are predictable. We have a collective choice to do something about them, or not. How we choose to proceed raises profound moral questions about our obligations to one another, to other species, and to our ecosystem. Mainstream institutions and vast segments of society rarely acknowledge the moral dimensions of social movements during the early stages of a struggle. Even issues such as slavery were primarily discussed in economic terms — as opposed to ethical — for hundreds of years. It is hard to imagine, but otherwise well-intentioned people had polite conversations about whether a given country could afford to end slavery, and whether women could be trusted to own property. Recognizing this, it is not surprising that most of society today is still unable to appreciate the moral implications of climate change and mass species extinction. Despite our rhetoric and a promising patchwork of inconsistently applied legislation, we still tend to treat most species as though they are essentially our property. We all too often behave as though we are free to brutalize or drive them to extinction at our own discretion. We are just beginning to appreciate the inter-generational justice issues that emerge from the environmental crisis. Climate change and other environmental problems have obvious implications for our children and grandchildren. They are the ones who will suffer the consequences. It is also the most impoverished people in the world, those least responsible for creating environmental problems, who suffer first and worst, and that clearly makes the environmental crisis a social justice issue. There is an aspect of the environmental crisis — and all of history’s greatest struggles — that lies beyond the jurisdiction of science and politics, and exists inside the human heart. It is the difference between what we can know and legislate as a society, and what cannot be resolved by governments. It is the chasm and the time delay between taking action and enforcing laws to address the legacy of oppression, and removing the stain of racism, colonialism, sexism and speciesism from our hearts. Many social movements have evolved as part of a 500-to-3,000-year struggle to conceptualize and operationalize the enlightenment idea of “human rights.” People struggle and sometimes die coming to terms with or promoting compassion for the differences that exist between human beings. If we find it so hard to treat other human beings with compassion and respect, to truly acknowledge and believe in human rights, imagine how hard it will be for humanity to find a way to engage all of the Earth community in a mutually beneficial way. We have started and must continue to not only grapple with the scientific and political dimensions of the environmental crisis, but also to lead people out of the ethical morass that characterizes our relationship to the natural world. Today’s environmental crisis can’t be seen as anything less than a moral challenge.