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Reading for this week:
Soule, Michael and Daniel Press. 1998.
What is environmental studies?
Bioscience 48(5): 397-406.
Outline of article
• The origins and development of
environmental studies (U.S. bias)
• Emerging themes, problems, and conflicts
• A discipline, multidiscipline, or interdiscipline?
• Ideological conflicts
• Institutional problems
• Solutions for multi-disciplinary illiteracy
• Conclusions and recommendations
The rise of ecology
Ecology:
• the study of interactions among living
organisms and the biotic and abiotic
components of their environment
The rise of ecology
Ecologists recognized that:
• humans were a part of natural systems
• abiotic and biotic components are linked
and interdependent
• natural systems could be studied and
understood in terms of systems principles
• ecosystems have functional limits
• ecosystems can be perturbed and
destroyed
The rise of ecology
• referred to as ‘a subversive subject’ by
Paul Sears (1964) and ‘the subversive
science’ by Shepard and McKinley (1969):
the insights and implications of ecology
cannot be ignored when looking at every
aspect of human endeavour
Ideological Tensions in
Environmental Studies
Environmental studies covers a broad
ideological spectrum with two main foci:
• Ideologies based in social criticism
• Ideologies based in the natural sciences
Social criticism approach
• Humanistic
• Anthropocentric
• Emancipatory
Often view the world and teach about it from
the viewpoint of the human victims of
discrimination and injustice
Social justice and equity concerns predominate
Natural Sciences approach
• rarely equate intuition (or narrative) and
knowledge; rely on empiricism and science
• accept the premise of evolutionary or
incremental (rather than revolutionary)
improvements in society
• pragmatic - believe that environmental
studies should teach students to be
effective problem solvers and to master
skills and research techniques
Social Criticism vs. Natural
Sciences approaches
• Disputes between these two groups are
often formulated in terms of
anthropocentric versus ecocentric goals
and values, although these labels do not
apply to all members of these groups.
Anthropocentrism
• may consider human welfare and economic
advancement to have higher ethical
standing than the welfare and existence of
other species and ecosystems
• may be embraced across the political
spectrum
• traditionally includes sociologists,
anthropologists who emphasize sustainable
development and poverty alleviation, and
many ecofeminists
Ecocentrism
• reject the claims of absolute human
privilege and rightful domination over nature
• accuse the humanists of "speciesism,"
ecological naivete, and callousness toward
living nature.
• not attached to any particular social science
theory of history or society, but generally
value ‘intrinsic worth’ theorists (e.g. Arne
Naess, Holmes Rolston, George Sessions)
Ecocentrism
• advocates biodiversity, wilderness, and
native plant and animal communities
(ecosystems), including the services these
provide society
• believes that the ultimate causes of
environmental problems are either ancient
human institutions (such as agriculture) or
the genetic, evolved roots of human nature
Ecocentrism
• assumes a universal, deep-seated impulse
toward self-interest in all species, including
human beings, and that greed or
selfishness is genetic and that self-interest
is resistant to cultural fixes or education
• Because ecocentrists believe greed to be
a fundamental part of human nature, they
are less sanguine about the potential longterm benefits of revolutions (which all too
often replace one elite with another).
Social criticism - Issues
• access to land / land ownership policies
• concentration of wealth / economic
monopolies
• social and environmental consequences of
capitalism
• North-South economic imbalances
Social criticism – Tenets:
• tends to favor social explanations (such as
differential access of classes to power) for
the unsustainable forms of human activity
• tend to champion revolutionary political
change and promote bottom-up decisionmaking / participatory development
Social criticism – Tenets:
• suspicious of pragmatism and incremental
change, particularly when advocated by
privileged elites
• favor revolutionary forms of social change,
pointing out that ‘mainstream’ scientists
and activists too readily assume Western
or ecocentric views of nature and the
economy--views that they regard as
inappropriately narrow constructs for
guiding public policy
Social criticism – Tenets:
• prefer intuitive, or deconstructive, methods
over hypothesis-testing, reductionist
methods
• the search for underlying generalities or
principles and for methodological
repeatability is eschewed in favor of
culturally contextualized, occasionally
ethnographic case studies that question
the cultural norms of Western civilization
Social criticism – Tenets:
• critical of scientists and technocrats as
being narrowly "scientistic" and "technist"
and may disparage modern science as an
engine of the dominant, authoritarian
culture
Deep Ecology
• a shift away from the anthropocentric bias of
established environmental and green
movements
• deemphasizes the rationalistic duality between
the human organism and its environment
• emphasis is placed on the intrinsic value of other
species, systems and processes in nature.
• an ecocentric system of environmental ethics
Social Ecology
• it is not the number of people, but the way
people relate to one another that has
fueled the current economic, social, and
ecological crises
• the current ecological crisis is the product
of poor distributive justice and capitalism
• over-consumption, productivism and
consumerism are thus symptoms, not
causes, of a deeper issue with ethical
relationships within societies
Ecocentrism
• a philosophy that recognizes that the
ecosphere, rather than any individual
organism, is the source and support of all
life
• advocates a holistic approach to
governance, industry, and individual
endeavour that respects ecosystem
process and function
• similar to Biocentrism, but includes
inanimate elements of the ecosphere
Humanism
• a philosophy free from beliefs in the
supernatural
• meaning and values for individuals on this
earth defined through reliance on reason,
intelligence, scientific method, democratic
process, and social compassion
Humanism
• affirms the inherent dignity and worth of every
human being
• asserts that we are responsible for the
realization of our aspirations, and have the
ability within ourselves to achieve them
• contends that human beings are a part of
nature, have emerged as a result of an
evolutionary process, and that our values religious, ethical, political, and social - have their
sources in human experience and culture