Environmental Ethics:Issues and Possible Solutions

Environmental ethics deals with issues that are related to the resources which we utilize and distribute. Can individuals justifiably use resources so differently that one individual uses resources many times more lavishly than other individuals who have barely enough to survive? The just distribution of resources has global, national and local concerns that we need to address. There are rich and poor nations, communities and families. In this era of modern economic development, the disparity between the haves and have-nots is widening. This unequal distribution of wealth and access to land and its resources is a serious environmental concern. The question arises is who pays for the cost of environmental degradation? Most sections of the society do not feel the direct effects of degradation of the environment till it is too late. The most sufferers are the poor, especially rural women, and tribal people who are dependent on forests. All these effects can be linked to unsustainable increasing pressures on land and natural resources. These people thus require a different pattern of environment education related to their gaps in information. With the rapidly changing rural scenario the development that is thrust on unsuspecting rural communities needs to be addressed through locale specific environment awareness programs designed specifically for rural school children and adults. This must also use their local traditional knowledge systems as a base on which modern concepts can be built, rather than by fostering concepts that are completely alien to their own knowledge systems. Therefore there is a need for some possible solutions which are admissible for all the nations and communities in the world.