Ecology, Ethics and Hope - Couverture souple

Andrew T. Brei

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1783485507 ISBN 13 : 9781783485505

Editeur : Rli, 2015

Synopsis

Ecology, Ethics, and Hope explores what hope is, how it operates, and whether or not it is important in our response to ecological challenges like climate change, deforestation, biodiversity loss, and pollution. The book offers an accessible and timely overview of this emerging topic within environmental ethics, a platform for further discussion, and refinement of the notion of hope. Hope has started to receive more theoretical attention from philosophers and social scientists. In light of worsening ecological conditions, the concept of hope may offer motivation for us to change our destructive ways and conserve the ecosystem goods and systems we depend on. The authors in this collection take stock of the various accounts of what hope is (or is not), what it does (or does not), and how relevant it is to ecological thinking. The book covers topics including the psychology of hope (how it might operate and change minds), hope as a motivator of positive action, and hope's essence in the context of a virtue- or obligation-focused morality. Contributors: Elizabeth Andre, Assistant Professor of Outdoor Education, Northland College, USA; Jonathan Beever, Postdoctoral Scholar, Rock Ethics Institute, Penn State University, USA; Anne Marie Dalton, Professor of Religious Studies, Saint Mary's University Halifax, Canada; Andrew Fiala, Professor of Philosophy, California State University-Fresno, USA; Trevor Hedberg, Graduate Student, University of Tennessee Knoxville, USA; Lisa Kretz, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of Evansville, USA; Michael Nelson, Professor of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy, Oregon State University, USA; John Nolt, Professor of Philosophy, University of Tennessee Knoxville, USA; Brian Treanor, Professor of Philosophy, Loyola Marymount University, USA

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

Andrew T. Brei is Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy at St Mary's University, TX, USA

Extrait. © Reproduit sur autorisation. Tous droits réservés.

Ecology, Ethics and Hope

By Andrew T. Brei

Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

Copyright © 2016 Andrew T. Brei
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-78348-550-5

CHAPTER 1

The Need to Talk About Despair

Elizabeth Andre

As scientists become more and more certain of anthropogenic climate change, as their projections become more dire, as their warnings become more urgent and as climate-related disasters become more frequent and spectacular, one might think the public would start to share in the concern and start to demand action. Belief in anthropogenic climate change, however, remains spotty and the issue consistently fails to rise to the top of lists of public concerns (Riffkin 2014). This paradox confounds us environmentalists, who wonder what could be more urgent than the potential undermining of the ability of our planet to support life as we know it. Why, we wonder, have our scientific reports, documentaries, books and magazine articles, marches, music festivals and art installations failed to move people to action? We proffer numerous explanations, including the politicized nature of the climate issue, America's scientific illiteracy, anti-science and anti-intellectual sentiment, the denial industry funded by the fossil fuel lobby, financial pressures on families, a dearth of empathy with others who will be more vulnerable than we and other moral shortcomings. We examine our messaging to see if there is a better word for doom (Montenegro 2009).

Could it be, however, that none of the 'causes' of disengagement mentioned above are actually causal? What if they are merely convenient 'outs' for people who, at the most basic level, do not want to be depressed and frightened? We environmentalists seldom acknowledge the effects our messages can have on our (and others') emotions. We have yet to explicitly grapple with the reasons we feel despair. We have yet to create safe spaces for sharing fears and doubts. We have yet to provide adequate tools for transforming those negative emotions into hope.

Perhaps we can learn from ethnographer Kari Marie Norgaard's study in Norway where, although many of the factors blamed for the backlash against climate science in the United States are either absent or much reduced, Norgaard (2006) concluded that Norwegians still avoid talking about climate change because of the unpleasant feelings it produces, including powerlessness, fear and guilt. We must discover how to deal with these negative emotions before our work on any of the aforementioned 'causes' of disengagement will yield results.

If we environmentalists agree with Aldo Leopold that we are like 'the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise', then we need to examine the emotional toll exacted upon doctors of terminally ill patients and acknowledge that we too experience these emotions (Leopold 1953, 165). We need to recognize, as does physician and medical school professor Rachel Remen (1997), that we must prepare our students to deal with their own grief in witnessing loss and in being unable to prevent death.

If we agree with environmental activist Yvon Chouinard that environmentalism is similar to a religion in that we are always striving to become more enlightened and faithful, then we need to recognize the effects of religious stress and doubt. We need to recognize, as does religious scholar Uzeyir Ok, that all moral education systems must help students deal with 'uncertainty, distress, questioning, contradiction, confusion, doubt, anxiety, loss of faith, ... guilt, alienation, loneliness, disloyalty, and unwillingness' (Ok 2004, 201).

SOURCES OF ENVIRONMENTAL DESPAIR

American culture tends to value optimism and to see pessimism as a personal failing (Held 2002). From the reactions of others, people quickly learn to not bring up 'depressing' topics like climate change in 'polite company' for fear of seeming like a Debbie Downer. These social norms isolate those who feel despair and can lead them to use emotional management strategies including denial and distancing from the issue. If we can understand the sources of environmental despair and realize that these feelings do not come from personal weakness, we can begin to create spaces to talk openly about these emotions and begin to create more productive reactions. Sources of environmental despair include the complexity of issues, the intersection of our natural biophilia with destruction and loss, tactics of environmental education, the dominant environmental paradigms and a culture of pessimism within intellectual circles. I'll deal with each issue below.

Let's assume for now that hope is related to a decision to act (we'll explore this later). Research in environmental education suggests that, before a person decides to take action on an environmental issue, he or she must have in-depth knowledge of the issues, knowledge of and skill in using environmental action strategies and a belief that his or her actions can make a difference. These are labelled ownership and empowerment variables (Hungerford & Volk 1990). With a relatively simple environmental problem, such as point- source pollution in a local stream, these prerequisites are easily met. With modern global environmental challenges such as climate change, however, this is a high bar. An in-depth knowledge of the issue would require study not only in climate science, but also in conservation ecology, international and domestic politics, economics, demographics, agricultural science and energy production. The complexity of this quintessential collective action problem makes it difficult to see how one's individual actions can make a difference (Abbasi 2005). With extremely complex issues, we are often left without feelings of ownership and empowerment.

A second source of environmental despair is the intersection of environmental loss and destruction with our natural biophilia, defined as our innate affinity with the natural world and with other living beings (Wilson 1986). For example, whose soul doesn't thrill to an episode of the BBC's Planet Earth? And, after watching, who doesn't feel a twinge of pain at seeing the headline, 'Seven years since the Planet Earth franchise first started production, has the footage become a chronicle of an already vanished world?' (Kaufman 2009). We love other species, and it is painful to see them suffering and dying.

The field of environmental education knows the emotional power of causing someone to love a place and then showing its destruction — research shows it can be a catalyst for turning people into activists (Chawla & Cushing 2009). Environmental educators purposely design materials to open people's hearts and then deliver an emotional hit. We don't know, however, how frequently we can 'hit' people's hearts before they turn away. We may, unwittingly, be contributing to the same disengagement we are working to overcome.

Environmental despair also comes from the two dominant paradigms in environmental thinking: Eco-Marxism and Ecological Modernization. They each can lead to despair, although in different ways. Eco-Marxism argues that capitalism and its reliance on growth is fundamentally incompatible with our finite planet, that we are all on a treadmill of production and are unwilling or unable to get off and that capitalism cannot be reformed. This argument is logical and seems to be supported by history. Derrick Jensen, and other thinkers in this school, resonate with many students who come to believe that, for environmental salvation, 'civilization needs to be brought down now' (Jensen 2006b, xi). As those students, believing the only way forward is complete revolution, are confronted with the reality that change is a difficult and slow process, they can experience apathy, outrage, anger, hopelessness and pessimism (Sheppard 2004, 216).

Ecological Modernization, which on the surface seems much more hopeful, argues that capitalism can be greened and that innovation and technology will allow us to sustainably continue our civilization. Thinkers in this school, such as Michael Braungart and William McDonough, authors of Cradle to Cradle (2002), argue that civilization is the answer to our problems, not the source, and that we can learn from the mistakes of the industrial revolution to design industries that are in harmony with natural systems. How could this seemingly hopeful paradigm contribute to despair? We will have to return to this question once we have explored the nature of hope.

One final source (for now) of environmental despair is a culture within intellectual circles where pessimism is seen as sophisticated and realistic, while hope is considered 'quaint, religious, and naïve' (Johnson 2005, 48). This view is not without merit, as pessimists are often more accurate (Norem & Chang 2002), and the dire assessment of our situation provided by Derrick Jensen may be closer to the truth than that of William McDonough (Shaw 2006). Before we can make judgements about the value of hope, however, we must understand what it is and is not.

WHAT IS HOPE?

Although these words are sometimes used interchangeably, we must distinguish optimism from hope. Optimism is belief-centred and irrational. For example, in the case of climate change, to believe that before the end of this century we will stabilize atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide below 350 ppm (the level scientists warn us we must achieve if we want to 'maintain a planet similar to the one on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted' [Hansen et al. 2008, 217]) would be naïve, demonstrating a lack of understanding of the problem and ignorance of the best predictive models (Anderson & Bows 2008). To truly expect this to happen would be optimism and would, indeed, be quaint.

Environmentalist Bill McKibben, founder of the organization 350.org, however, has this as his goal. Far from being naïve, McKibben deeply understands the issue and the scope of the challenge. He has chosen this goal because it is the only one that makes sense to him (why choose a goal that would do anything other than maintain a planet similar to the one on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted?), not because he expects to achieve it. In this sense, rather than being optimism, this is hope. We find a definition of hope, along with insights into this seeming paradox from philosophy, cognitive psychology and medical literature.

Philosopher David Orr, when contemplating the environmental holocaust, distinguishes between optimism and hope. He admonishes us that there is:

not one speck of ground for wishful thinking of any kind ... but hope can be nurtured by good work, openness to life, and rising above our lesser selves. Hope, real hope, comes from doing the things before us that need to be done in the spirit of thankfulness and celebration, without worrying about whether we will win or lose. (Orr 2004, 297)

McKibben must know, intellectually, that he will likely not win, if winning is defined as narrowly as I have defined it above. He is, however, 'doing the things that need to be done in the spirit of thankfulness and celebration'. This strategy makes more sense if we reject the dominant narrative of tragedy and its metaphor of warfare, with its false dualism and the goal of absolute victory through destruction of an enemy. Instead we frame our endeavours as a comedy, with its metaphor of a game, and its goal of supporting community (Meeker 2004, 297). From a very practical perspective, this view allows us to start working toward ameliorating the problem, even when we do not see a path to absolute victory.

Cognitive psychologists, within Hope Theory, perceive hope as a cognitive process of working toward a goal that is realistically achievable. They hypothesize that the human brain evolved to develop strategies to create pathways to goals, and that the brain is happiest when it is actively working to move along those pathways. This would explain why, often, when a person achieves suicide, his family and friends are surprised because, although they had been worried about the person in the past, in the weeks leading up to the suicide, the person had seemed so much happier. Hope Theorists would explain that, once the person had a plan (to kill himself), his brain became engaged in working out the steps to achieving that goal, and the process of planning created good emotions and, paradoxically, hope.

For a goal to be appropriate for developing hope, it must be challenging enough to absorb one's attention, but not so challenging as to be impossible to achieve. When people's chosen goals are so difficult to achieve that they continually are thwarted in their efforts to make progress, they often experience negative emotions (Snyder 2002). At first glance, it may seem that Bill McKibben's goal is not appropriate for Hope Theory, as it is arguably impossible to achieve. Because, however, McKibben is actively working on smaller goals (for example, by choosing the battle against the Keystone XL Pipeline as a rallying issue), with the end goal of climate stabilization at 350 ppm as merely a guiding compass, he is able to make progress toward his smaller goals. Although smaller than the ultimate goal of climate stabilization at 350 ppm, McKibben's intermediate goals are still ambitious enough to completely absorb his attention and to fully engage his brain in planning and working. Hope Theorist C. R. Snyder finds insights from devout Christians whose ultimate goal is to achieve the perfection of Christ. Even though they believe this goal is impossible to achieve, it guides their choice of smaller goals, giving them enjoyment in the journey (Snyder 2002, 266). This process of active planning and working is the essence of hope, according to Hope Theory. This process itself, and the positive emotions produced through progress on these smaller goals, provides the antidote to creeping disempowerment, despair, guilt and other negative emotions.

Cognitive psychology's definition of hope supports the philosophical stance of David Orr. Both perspectives distinguish between naïve optimism and true hope, which is based in action. Both understandings allow for us to comprehend the severity and complexity of the issue as well as the unlikeliness of a narrowly defined success, and yet still find ownership and empowerment.

OTHER SOURCES OF ENVIRONMENTAL DESPAIR

Now that we understand the difference between optimism and hope, we can explore several more sources of environmental despair including false hope, utopian visions and the ecological modernization paradigm. Hope Theory gives us insights into false hope, defined as having a goal and the requisite motivation to work toward it, but lacking an appropriate plan to achieve that goal (Kwon 2002). Unwitting environmentalists and environmental educators sometimes push audiences toward false hope by impressing upon them the enormity and import of the issue and then failing to show how people can begin to successfully work toward alleviating the issue. For example, Al Gore's 2007 film An Inconvenient Truth spends the majority of its one hundred minutes painting a picture of a future of climate chaos and societal collapse and then, almost as an afterthought, overlays the final credits with about three and a half minutes of suggestions for action, many of which are individually focused, such as changing lightbulbs, buying energy-efficient appliances, weatherizing your home, buying a hybrid vehicle and taking public transportation or bicycling. After spending the previous ninety-six minutes coming to understand the complexity of this quintessential collective-action problem and seeing the inertia in its key drivers, the audience knows intuitively that these individual actions are insufficient. Many of the other suggestions are platitudes, such as 'tell your parents not to ruin the world you will live in', are out of reach for most people, such as 'run for congress', or are inaccessible without specialized expertise, such as 'reduce our dependence on foreign oil' and 'help farmers grow alcohol fuels'. The end result for many who watch An Inconvenient Truth is false hope: a goal (to stop climate change), the motivation to do it and a lack of an appropriate path to achieve that goal. Eventually they must take stock of their effectiveness toward achieving their goal. Lack of progress can produce negative feelings, including the guilt, fear and helplessness that Norgaard found led people to use emotional management strategies including denial and distancing.

Closely related to false hope are utopian visions — common yet counterproductive motivational tools used by environmentalists. Geographer David Pepper critiques various radical environmental paradigms, including ecotopianism, deep ecology and bioregionalism, which use a beautiful vision of the future as a tool for inspiring people to action. Pepper finds these utopian paradigms to be more reactionary fantasies than potentially transgressive or transformative movements. Pepper asserts for the paradigms to be truly transgressive, they 'must be rooted in existing social and economic relations rather than being merely a form of abstraction unrelated to the processes and situations operating in today's "real" world' (Pepper 2005, 18). If the vision is indeed a fantasy, people either can't figure out how to get there, so they don't start taking any action, or if they do try to take action, they experience unrealistic expectations of what will happen as a result of their work. When expectations are not met, they often end up burning out (Breyman 1997, 5).

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Ecology, Ethics and Hope by Andrew T. Brei. Copyright © 2016 Andrew T. Brei. Excerpted by permission of Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc..
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Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Rli
• Date d'édition: 2015
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1783485507
• ISBN 13: 9781783485505
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 192
• Éditeur: Andrew T. Brei
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Allemagne