ecologists

Cards (4)

    • Shallow ecologists explain climate change as a result of human activity which has increasingly resulted in environmental degradation.
    • This is because they recognize that protection of the environment is ultimately a ‘limit to growth’ and so as a result of anthropocentrism, they accept that human activity and pursuit of profit within a capitalist system has contributed to climate change.
    • This is the view of shallow ecologists such as Al Gore, who admits that the economic development of the world in the last 200 years certainly has cost the environment through climate change and global warming
    • deep ecologists go much further in that humans don’t simply pursue profit but are inherently greedy, and have consumerist and materialist attitudes which punish the earth excessively with exponential and dangerous climate change as a result of anthropocentrism. 
    • Deep ecologists such as Arne Naess also identify anthropocentrism as the only and absolute cause of climate change. In contrast to shallow ones, deep ecologists go further in the Gaia hypothesis which suggest that the earth and nature participates in a process of homeostasis which predates humankind and has been able to self-regulate;
    • Shallow ecologists see the solution to climate change through a reformist lense, as ideas such as sustainable development are compatible with market-based capitalism.
    • Consumers dictate the market and so when they demand change it will be reflected for example, ‘green taxes’ levied on fossil fuels
    • Shallow ecologists like Gore also see the state’s role e.g. enforcing congestion charges and incentivizing solar panels and renewable heating.
    • Shallow ecologists believe reformist policies such as these will allow for capitalism to thrive whilst environmental degradation being limited. 
  • Deep ecologists also contrast to shallow ecologists through the concept of biocentric equality, where each living organism has equal moral worth rather than humans having dominion over the environment; humans should focus on ‘being’ rather than ‘having.’ Therefore, ecologists like Naess believe we should abandon the perpetual goal of economic development in favor of ‘zero growth’ and population reduction as only then would we considerably reduce environmental degradation.