In the Light of Humane Nature: Human Values, Nature, the Green Economy, and Environmental Salvation - Softcover

Weissman, Arthur B

Softcover

ISBN 10: 161448760X ISBN 13: 9781614487609

Verlag: Morgan James Publishing, 2014

Inhaltsangabe

Despite significant progress in recent decades, the environmental crisis is far from over. We know what needs to change, but we don't seem to know-economically, politically, or socially—how to stop the juggernaut of destructive development and resource depletion. Something continues to undermine our efforts to become a truly sustainable society. In the Light of Humane Nature highlights the positive accomplishments we have made recently in greening the economy and also exposes the underlying causes for our continued march toward disaster. A seasoned environmental professional, Arthur Weissman argues that what causes our environmental problems and stymies solutions ultimately relates to human values and our attitudes toward the world around us, including other humans, other species, and nature as a whole. He provides a twist on the usual environmental critique of society by demonstrating that we will attain our true relationship to nature only when we embrace the highest human values. When our moral and aesthetic values become all-encompassing and not just self-serving, we will indeed be part of nature and not apart from it. Through this engaging work he encourages all of us to live up to our highest human (and humane) ideals so that we may solve our environmental and social problems and become better human beings in the process. In the Light of Humane Nature weaves personal narrative and autobiographical detail with professional and philosophical discussion to describe the growth of the green economy movement and what it still lacks. Throughout the discussion Weissman sticks to essential concepts all can comprehend, and he concludes with a contemporary solution and appeal to the younger generation.

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Arthur B. Weissman, Ph.D. is an environmental professional with over thirty years of experience. As president and CEO of Green Seal, he has led the organization both as a force to promote the green economy and as the premier non-profit certifier of green products and services in the United States. He has also worked for the US Environmental Protection Agency, US Congress, and The Nature Conservancy and has degrees from Johns Hopkins University, Yale University, and Harvard College. His other interests include family, classical music and piano, hiking, birding, reading, and writing.

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In the Light of Humane Nature

Human Values, Nature, the Green Economy, and Environmental Salvation

By Arthur B. Weissman

Morgan James Publishing

Copyright © 2014 Arthur B. Weissman
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-61448-760-9

Contents

Preface, 
Chapter 1 Introduction: And Still the World Burns, 
Chapter 2 An Historical Perspective: From End of Pipe to All of Pipe, 
Chapter 3 Responsible Parties: Who Makes the Economy Green?, 
Chapter 4 Common Consumer Concerns, 
Chapter 5 Our Moral Relationship with Nature, 
Chapter 6 Now All Is Beautiful, 
Chapter 7 Conclusion: The Moral and Aesthetic Imperative, 
Appendix: A Green Platform, 

CHAPTER 1

Introduction: And Still the World Burns

Flames on the horizon from flare stacks reached like wailing arms into the sky and cast a pall with their unearthly glow. Over time they sputtered, then died, and a Light began glowing in their place. It grew ever stronger and warmer. Plants, animals, and people returned.

Approaching the Great City from the west and in view of its famous skyline, one passes through a vast expanse of wetlands and streams, industrial parks and highways, known as the Meadowlands. Strewn as it was with tires and toxic pollutants in the 1950s and 60s, it was a terrible place for a naturalist to grow up, but a good breeding ground for an environmentalist. Hog farms once gave a portion of the area a bad name and permeated the turnpike with malodors. Scum lined the water and decimated whole populations of fish. Factories, waste dumps, and chemical ponds smothered the landscape.

Today egrets, herons, ducks, and other birds are easily viewed from the train in this jumbled ecosystem, signs of a different era that has to some extent cleaned up its act. The farms have been replaced with hotels, warehouse outlets, and a major sports arena, all interspersed with bulrushes and reeds in cleaner water. The river that runs through it has improved considerably, with more fish species returning. While the crumbling elevated highway gives stark evidence that this is still part of the Rust Belt, the new construction and fresher wetlands invite, rather than jar, the eye.

Yet the Meadowlands remains a legacy of decades of degradation. The river is far from clean, with much contaminated sediment accumulated in its beds. Fish populations are nowhere near their pre-industrial levels. The landscape looks better, but it is by no means natural or harmonious. Iconic laws and regulations for clean water and clean air and toxic waste cleanup have improved the scene, but only so far. The area gives hope that human use can become more in design with nature, rather than in total disregard for it; yet the scars are so deep and pervasive that restoration seems a far-off goal.

In the broader context the intense industrialization here is being replicated worldwide in developing countries and parts of developed ones. It is happening anew on the frontier of forest, desert, and tundra, and even in the ocean. Multinational corporations are behind much of this activity, and not all are American or even European. Environmental laws and regulations that now form the protective superstructure in developed countries either do not exist or exist only on paper in developing ones. Combined with social forces such as subsistence agriculture and migration, the world's resources are under unprecedented pressure and stress. Earth's forests, freshwater bodies, estuarine and coastal habitats, wetlands, and grasslands are diminishing or being degraded each year at alarming rates.

Over the past twenty years some developed countries have begun to embrace the concept of sustainability as a positive, preemptive principle for their economies. In Europe this has been manifested in far-reaching laws prohibiting toxic substances in electronics and other products as a way of promoting greener chemistry in ordinary commerce and agriculture. The practice of producer responsibility for manufactured products and corporate social responsibility for the company as a whole have become common, if not universally accepted, aspects of business in North America and Europe.

Green products and services have infiltrated the marketplace in many categories, and green marketing claims are everywhere. Looking at the advertising, one might well wonder whether there remain any serious environmental problems warranting our concern. Corporations, at least in the developed world, seem finally to understand that society demands a shift in their values, where profits and shareholder value are not the only goals of their charter. Even the largest retailer in the world now takes sustainability seriously and has commanded companies in its supply chain to be green or be gone.

And still the world burns.

The world burns as we continue to burn up its once vast reservoir of rainforests, tropical and temperate, and clear forest and natural habitats for agriculture and development.

The world burns as we continue to burn up its once vast reservoir of fossilized fuels, raising our global temperature and rendering our climate more unstable and chaotic.

The world burns as we continue to burn the genetic material of our children and other animals as we disperse toxic chemicals throughout our planet.

And the world burns as we continue to burn through the once vast store of biodiversity and genetic heritage of all other species on the earth through mindless destruction of them and their habitats.

The Meadowlands may be a veiled harbinger of the destruction that awaits us with climate change, species and habitat loss, and pervasive toxic pollution. We have been warned for decades about the continuing deterioration, with global reports and environmental near-disasters such as the Ozone Hole. We know what needs to change, but we don't seem to know — economically, politically, or socially — how to stop the juggernaut of destructive development and resource depletion. In the face of a growing global population and greater material demands from its burgeoning middle class, we face the dilemma of trying to raise the world's standard of living as our material life-support system on earth nears exhaustion and possible collapse. We continue madly on this path, fully within our control, yet in reality clearly out of control. Something essential is missing or dysfunctional within us.

* * *

Our attitude toward nature is lacking in a vital way; in our destruction of nature, something is lost in our souls. We must develop sound moral and aesthetic attitudes toward nature based not on ecological knowledge so much as on human values themselves.

This is not a call for less information and knowledge. While we have learned much in the past fifty years of the environmental movement, nature is so complex that we need even more research on ecosystems, biology, and environmental science. The uncertainty and controversy over climate change — where not merely political — reflect the extent to which our understanding of the earth's systems and dynamics is still very limited.

But more information and knowledge will not necessarily change our behavior nor cause the deniers to cease denying that we face real and critical environmental problems. What is missing is not so much in our heads, as in our hearts and souls.

To some extent, this element has been missing for a long time. Environmental problems are not new. Destruction of nature and our life-support is an old story that dogs human history. As far back...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Morgan James Publishing
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2014
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 161448760X
• ISBN 13: 9781614487609
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 140
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Friedensallee 273; Hamburg; 22763; Deutschland