I find myself wondering how the intelligence of humans, as a seemingly fortuitous and self-improving consequence of evolution, has caused the destruction of the environment and the forced extinction of countless species. I find myself pondering the sheer magnitude of the havoc that we cause and will continue to cause as the demands of society perpetually grow. And I find myself questioning humankind’s actions as an inevitable, but necessary outcome of the survival of the fittest. As compelling as the concept of biospheric egalitarianism seems to me (especially as someone who genuinely believes that humans are not as distinctly important in nature as we think we are), I can’t help but feel the undeniably apologetic undertone of subscribing humanity to the commandments of environmental ethics.
It would be unfair to assume the attitudes of specific individuals based on the overall attitude of a group, but it would be fair to say that humankind as a whole has been advancing the goal of serving its own needs and wants at the expense of the ecosystems around them. In a way, it reminds me just how similar we are to the very animals, plants, amoebas, and fungi that we seek to render inferior and separate ourselves from. The truth is that I don’t really believe that we inherently owe anything to other living things any more than they owe something to us. The true difficulty in judging humankind for damaging the environment rests on how we compare to other living things. It’s hard for me to come to terms with a squirrel truly believing that I, as a human, have any sort of intrinsic value that it must respect. That being said, however, the reality and repercussions of our own existence—as it stands—spells disaster for all living things in the near future, which is power that does not come easily to a single specie. Unlike other species that we share the same goals of survival and self-gratification with, humanity is in a position of both mental and geographic superiority that is unrivaled, and we make sure to use it to our advantage. We revel in our capability to create in excess, consume in excess, and (of course) expel matter in excess. And as the trend has been since the development of human civilization, the ecosystem as we affect it has been deteriorating ever more quickly because of our selfish actions.
Therefore, the crux of the argument for environmental ethics is in fact one for environmental morality. The objectivity in necessitating species to preserve the biosphere is impossible to see in a world where continued survival supersedes the maintenance of the environment and the existence of any other life. Thus, giving humanity the obligation in and of itself to care for the environment is unfair to the intrinsic value of all other life because, in fact, doing so would contradict the notion of biospheric egalitarianism. It aggrandizes our supposed purpose to something higher than what is expected of all other life.
Instead, I believe that caring for the environment is a dynamically assignable responsibility that humans must take up for the very reason that we have geographic and intellectual superiority. It is certainly one thing to feel a duty to preserve nature because of an innermost love for it, but humans are in that position of heightened power when they are absolutely obligated to do so. Thus, while the codes of deep ecology have a sort of objective truth, it would be unfair to assume that they exist for all species; they should exist for humans purely because our past, current, and potential actions had, have and will have enormous repercussions on the near future of our planet. It is simply the environmentally moral thing to do.
However, I hope that humankind is a just a phase in the timeline of the planet that it could get over if and when we are gone. Completely reversing our negative impact on the environment (in our current situation) is as monumental and difficult as it sounds, and in truth, it seems inevitable that the ill-fated offspring of the next generations are going to become more environmentally moral than any of our previous generations could ever have been. However, whether it will be because of a true belief in deep ecology or because we merely need to survive will be a whole other question.
