Environmental Ethics PART ONE: An introduction to ethics 1. Here’s the situation: •
•
Imagine there is a large container ship rapidly sinking at sea and there is only one lifeboat left. There is an island with a small human city and a great deal of forest, which can be reached by lifeboat. Decide in which order you would place the below list on the lifeboat. • Assume that while on the lifeboat none of the potentially dangerous creatures will attack or cause any harm to the other creatures on the boat, and that all groups of creatures require an equal amount of space. • Rank the options from 1-­‐10, with 1 being the option you would save first, and with 10 being the option you would be most willing to sacrifice. Provide the reasoning behind your decisions. Present on the ship are: •
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
An intelligent, healthy, morally virtuous human An intelligent, healthy, morally evil human A healthy moose (there is an indigenous moose population on the island) A collie with a permanently lame leg A severely mentally disabled human Ten chickens A breeding pair of an endangered species of bird, once native to the island A human in a coma (who will almost certainly never recover) A breeding pair of common, but beautiful, indigenous songbirds Two breeding pairs of a non-­‐indigenous variety of rapidly breeding wild rabbits (with no known predators on the island, and an extensive food supply). 2. Now, what if… there was a global catastrophe and all life on Earth had been wiped out except the organisms on the ship. This means the island is complete uninhabited. Re-­‐rank the organisms present on the ship providing a brief explanation. Did your ranking changing? Why or why not? PART TWO: Let’s apply ethics to environmental situations. 1. Choose one of the attached cases. a. Lead in the soil-­‐ environmental justice scenario b. Pollution of groundwater-­‐ sewage in the sprinklers c. Farm to Fork-­‐ consequences of the food you eat 2. Read through the case, taking notes on the key players and major issues. 3. Answer the questions included with your case. And be prepared to discuss with your teacher. Lead in the Soil – Environmental Justice In this case, students are property owners who learn that soil on their property is contaminated with lead. They are asked to consider the issues involved in addressing this problem so that further harm is avoided and a fair solution is developed and implemented. The Case Your family has lived in this neighborhood for a long time. Your mother grew up two blocks over and your dad came from right over by the highway. Your dad’s folks remember when the highway cut through and your great uncle Jim’s house actually got torn down because it was in the way of the highway. They gave him some money but it wasn’t very much, so he just rented mostly after that. Now they are telling you that there is lead in the soil around here because of all the cars using leaded gasoline for so long. This is a problem because lead gets in the soil, and then children play in it. They put toys in their mouths or get their hands dirty and then rub their eyes. There are kits you can buy to tell if your soil is contaminated. The problem with lead is that it gets in your bones and makes you sick for a long time, because you have to get your body to replace it with things like calcium, and that takes time. They’ve started an education program at the community center to let everyone know about how this affects them. It just doesn’t seem fair that this is happening in the neighborhood. First they put the highway through, and then the lead from the gas cars contaminates the soil. Nobody wants to live with that, so people are wondering if they should move, and if they could even sell their houses. Others want to stay so they are asking what can be done and who will pay for it. You and your neighbors are being asked to advise policy makers on what would be fair. A policy says how people will be treated, and/or how they should act in situations like this. When your great uncle Jim got bought out so the highway could go through, there was a policy that said he had to sell, but that the state would buy him out at a fair price for his property. Policies say what duties institutions like the government and individuals have to each other in different situations. In your great uncle Jim’s case, the state has a duty to pay him a fair price. In the situation you are in, you have to decide what is needed (education, testing, money, buy outs, relocation help, counseling, clean up, a say in the decision, open meetings) and who has a duty to provide it. Your policy has to have lasting effects, not just fix things in the short run. There is a problem, though. It might be that the presence of lead in the soil reduces the value of the house. It might be that others in the neighborhood will stigmatize those who live in the house. 1. Problem definition -­‐ a. What if the family that owns the house wants to sell it? b. Does the presence of lead in the soil really reduce the value of the house? c. Should it be disclosed to prospective buyers? d. Should the government provide assistance to people who find themselves caught between the duty to reduce harmful lead exposure and the need to protect a family investment? 2. Analysis – a. What are the facts? b. What can be done? c. How do we understand the problem through reasoning? d. How do we uncover them? e. What is relevant? f. Who are the stakeholders? 3. Conclusions – a. What should be done? b. What do we value in a conclusion/solution? c. Appeal to values to choose the best option. Identifying what makes an option the best option. 4. Actions/Follow-­‐up – a. Who is responsible going forward? b. Which aspects are is each party responsible for? Why? c. Is there a foreseeable end? What is that end? Pollution of Groundwater -­‐ sewage in the sprinklers Students are presented with a case of an individual who is faced with making a decision about repairing a broken well pipe that is too close to a septic tank drain field to meet current restrictions under the law. The case is less than obvious because the well driller offers to fix it anyway for a bribe. Students are challenged to consider the role of regulations in preventing harm, the ethics of sidestepping the law, and the potential health issue. The Case You live in a house that has a septic tank and drain field. These work by collecting waste from sinks, showers and toilets and allowing it to settle in a large underground tank. Water from this tank passes through a series of underground, perforated pipes that are embedded in gravel. The gravel facilitates the flow of water from the pipes into the surrounding soil. In principle, by the time, the liquid waste has passed through the filters (perforated pipe and surrounding soil); it is tolerably clean enough for introduction into the groundwater. Over time, solid waste and sludge build up and must be removed from the tank by septic tank cleaning companies. One problem with septic tanks is when it rains, they tend to overflow, and the runoff pollutes recreational waters. It turns out this is a major source of pollution. While states and counties try to deal with this issue for whole neighborhoods by creating sewage systems, homeowners sometimes have to make individual decisions about their septic systems. Your septic tank is in the side yard. In the back yard you have a well: a pipe in the ground that is connected to a pump that pulls water from the aquifer and delivers it for irrigation – watering the lawn and gardens, mostly, though neighborhood children enjoy playing in the sprinklers on hot days. The well was drilled 22 years ago, and is 55 feet away from the edge of the drain field. A worker removing a nearby tree stump accidentally breaks the well pipe. This is too bad, because you enjoy watering the lawn and gardens with this well, and the sprinklers are a lot of fun on hot days. So you hire a well driller to repair or replace the pipe. She arrives to evaluate the job and informs you that the law has changed since the well was drilled and now requires that wells be 75 feet from the edge of drain fields. You do not have a big enough lot to move the well and, in any case, that would require drilling a new well, which would be very expensive. You think you are in a tight spot until the well driller tells you she will repair the old well – even though doing so would violate city ordinance – if you pay her an extra $250. Your task is to figure out what the ethical issues are in this situation, use reasoning, and discussion to come up with solutions and then present them. The following questions may be helpful in your thinking. 1. Define the problem: a) What are all the potential problems in the case, such as breaking the law, polluting the water, people getting sick... b) Develop a central question of the ethical problem, such as “Should you pay the worker to repair the well?” 2. Analysis: Use the following questions to analyze what you know about the case in terms of the central question. a) What are the facts? b) How do we uncover them? c) What is relevant? d) What makes sense in this situation? e) Who are the stakeholders? f) What can be done? 3. Conclusions: a) Generate the options the homeowner has (come up with at least 3 solutions) b) Choose the best solution; explain why it is the best solution and why the others are less adequate. 4. Follow up: Consider what needs to be done about this problem and problems like it in the future from different perspectives. Include suggestions from 2 or more of the following perspectives: a) Policy/Law b) Advocacy c) Environmental justice d) Personal Farm to Fork-­‐ consequences of the food you eat The news is on while you are getting ready in the morning and one of the stories really catches your attention. It’s on a large-­‐scale corn farm that has been using a specific pesticide that has caused 25% of the farm workers to fall very ill. You look in your pantry and notice that most of the cereal you have gets their corn from that farm! You realize you have never really paid attention to where your food comes from. When you get home from school, you go through some of your favorite foods and look up their source. You discover that most of your favorite foods are made by companies that use harmful chemicals and use farming practices that are not environmentally friendly. Inspired, you look at more and more of the foods you eat and realize many of them follow the same harmful practices. The only companies that seem to have a significantly less harmful effect are the organic items and other items you bought last weekend at the farmers market. The problem with those items is they are significantly more expensive than the packaged foods from the big grocery store. Your task is to figure out what the ethical issues are in this situation, use reasoning, and discussion to come up with solutions and then present them. The following questions may be helpful in your thinking Define the problem: We must eat to live. 1. What are all the potential problems in the case, such as breaking the law, polluting the water, people getting sick... 2. Develop a central question of the ethical problem, such as “Should you continue to eat the foods?” Analysis: 1. What are the facts? 2. How do we uncover them? 3. What can be done? 4. What is relevant? 5. Who are the stakeholders? Conclusions 1. What is to be done when some of the very food we eat is grown by means that sicken the growers? 2. Is it possible we have a duty to those growers beyond paying for our food at the supermarket checkout? 3. Do all foods make growers sick? 4. What can be done if you cannot afford the more expensive but less harmful foods? 5. What do we value in a conclusion/solution? 6. Identify what makes an option the best option. Follow up: Consider what needs to be done about this problem and problems like it in the future from different perspectives. Include suggestions from 2 or more of the following perspectives: a. Policy/Law b. Advocacy c. Environmental justice d. Personal