environmental laws and principles

NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENTAL LAWS

NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENTAL LAWS

i. Environmental laws and principlesa. Conservation Principles and theoriesi. Thecarrying capacityof a biological species in an environment is the maximum population size of the species that the environment can sustain indefinitely, given the food, habitat, water, and other necessities available in the environment.

ii. Thebiophiliahypothesis suggests that there is an instinctive bond between human beings and other living systems. Edward O. Wilson introduced and popularized the hypothesis in his book,Biophilia(1984). He definesbiophiliaas "the urge to affiliate with other forms of life".

iii. Hard-Look Doctrine is a principle of Administrative law that says a court should carefully review an administrative-agency decision to ensure that the agencies have genuinely engaged in reasoned decision making. A court is required to intervene if it becomes aware, especially from a combination of danger signals, that the agency has not really taken a hard look at the salient problems. The Administrative Procedure Act instructs federal courts to invalidate agency decisions that are arbitrary or capricious. Close judicial scrutiny helps to discipline agency decisions and to constrain the illegitimate exercise of discretion. The hard look doctrine is simply a reflection of the courts' view of how an effective and meaningful process of judicial review should be conducted.

iv. Regression takes many forms. It is seldom explicit, since governments do not have the courage to announce backtracking in environmental protection officially for fear of an unfavourable public response from environmental and consumer NGOs. Internationally, it can take the form of refusing to adhere to universal environmental treaties, boycotting their implementation, or even denouncing them. This happened for the first time in the field of international environmental law when Canada decided to denounce the Kyoto Protocol during the Conference of the Parties to the Climate Change Convention in Durban in December 2011. In EU environmental legislation, regression is diffuse and appears when certain directives are revised. National environmental legislation is subject to increasing and often insidious regression: changing procedures so as to curtail the rights of the public on the pretext of simplification; repealing or amending environmental rules, thus reducing means of protection or rendering them ineffective. Exceptionally, such regressions may be validated by a judge: for example, on the 27thApril 2012, the Panama Supreme Court ruled for a provisional suspension of the Protected Area status given to the mangroves of Panama Bay.Faced with this diversity of forms of regression, environmental lawyers must respond firmly and rely on implacable legal arguments. Public opinion, once alerted, would not tolerate reversals in environmental and therefore health protection.

Pimentel, Julie TanyaNatural Resources and Environmental Law1:30-4:30 Saturday

SYNOPSIS OF LAND ETHIC

In a persuasive essay, Aldo Leopold tries to explain how we are ethically and morally obligated to take care of our resources. In his paper, The Land Ethic Leopold explains how we have viewed the land as, strictly economic, entailing privileges but not obligations. This is the main statement in his essay, and throughout the writing he elaborates on this statement. He says we have not given the land (the soils, waters, plants, and animals) the respect it deserves. He talks about our National Anthem and how we sing of our love for and obligation to the land of the free and the home of the brave and then he questions our uses of our resources and in an almost disgusted way, says if you say youre going to take care of it and love it, than follow through. He discusses how land ownership has played a big part of how we now use the land in different communities and poses the question of many researchers; What if the outcome of settling the states, and planting the fields if the plant succession had given us some worthless grasses, shrubs, and weeds to a condition of unstable equilibrium. Where would we be today? He talks about resource conservation as an ethic and the land which contains the most diversity such as marshes, bogs, dunes and deserts may be privately owned. But if the owner was ecologically minded he would, be proud to be the custodian of a reasonable proportion of such areas. He goes on to say some of these lands can be set aside and managed by the government, but it is the land ethic that comes in to play for the private citizen whom owns the biologically rich land. He includes the land as part of the community, and talks about how we should act respectfully to it as part of our community, rather than treat it as just a tract of land with not intrinsic value.

SYNOPSIS OF THE TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS

In his 1968Scienceessay entitled "The Tragedy of the Commons," Garrett Hardin challenged the morality of humankind's freedom to breed, suggesting society's only hope, and only solution, for handling the population problem.1An extension on the topic originally published by William Forster Lloyd in 1833, Hardin boldly delivers a solution to the problem that for the scientific world was a new concept lacking a technical answer. Hardin reaches his conclusions based on the concept that a communal resource of universal ownership will inevitably fall to ruin as each rational owner decides to maximize utilization of the resource so that he/she collects the full reward of his/her action. With each individual acting under this rationale, the collective communes are undeniably limited to a finite resource.Hardin's thesis is present in the article's subtitleThe problem has no technical solution; it requires a fundamental extension in morality.Humanity requires the basic extension of a new value insisting that we surrender the freedom to breed in order that we preserve the other freedoms. We live in a finite world that can only sustain a limited amount.His moral implications and philosophical analysis allow for a well-rooted insight on sustainable development. As a civil engineer, sustainable development is an issue of great significance when assessing global issues challenging human societies such as global climate change, water resources supply, energy supply and use, and the hole in the ozone layer.Hardin's argument and solution to the problem of The Tragedy of the Commons is therefore a pertinent discussion to the civil engineer. The approach taken by him, as shown in his writing, is one that boldly navigates all avenues with no overwhelming bias. Throughout my discussion, I will present the concept of the Tragedy of the Commons from Hardin's article. I will analyze his conclusions in relation to how his argument ties into the role of civil engineering through issues relating to morality and the concept of sustainable development. A conceptual inspiration generated by Hardin's moral assessment will be evident in potentially shaping the ethics of a civil engineer focused on meeting the developmental needs of society without compromising the needs of future generations.The inspiration for Hardin's thesis derived from another article by Wienser and York inScienceconcerning the future of nuclear war. In their article, Wienser and York carefully proposed the dilemma of a nuclear age that has no apparent technical solution. This implicitly suggested that if a plausible solution were to exist, the explanation must lie in another realm of human behavior, a non-technical realm.To quote Hardin: "It is fair to say that most people who anguish over the population problem are trying to find a way to avoid the evils of overpopulation without relinquishing any of the privileges they now enjoy." With human morals in light, Hardin was effective in proposing a solution to the population problem, a quandary complex enough to invoke nearly inconceivable sacrifices in a sense that forces a collective consideration for society. It seems natural to assume no strong inclination to address this problem; however, in considering a finite world with exponential growth and dependency on nonrenewable energy, scarcity will one day become conceivable. It is through ideals of sustainable development that we must address this issue. To avoid adverse effects of overpopulation without sacrificing any privileges is the same as risking everything on one endeavor.Is it normal human behavior in attending a legal gambling facility to make just one bet? Do gamblers at the roulette table place all of their money on one color, one number? No, they typically bet conservatively, hoping to sustain their payroll until an opportunity comes along to make good on a bet. Hardin becomes an icon of sustainable development as he proposes his solution to the population problem with an underlying concept suggesting that society needs to sacrifice our freedoms of breeding to allow freedoms that are more important. His solution suggests meeting the needs of today (sacrifice) to conserve the needs of future generations.The Tragedy of the Commons develops through Hardin's cattle herdsmen illustration in which the logic of the commons spawns tragedy. With these herdsmen keeping their open grazing pastures as full of cattle as possible, they are inexorably forced to answer a question concerning their benefit of adding an additional animal to the herd. The answers, broken into two components, to add or not to add, produce an unbalanced result favoring the addition of an animal. The positive outcome of adding another cow to the herd outweighs the negative overgrazing effect possible from the decision. An essential factor in this conscious decision is the acknowledgement of the imbalance. The rational being knows that the adverse effects of overgrazing will be shared among all."Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons. Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all" (Hardin).A major common that Hardin relates is our environment, vastly threatened by pollution, a direct function of population growth. The moral in judgment again lies on the lap of individualistic thought. It is easy for one's waste to disappear into, let us say, a river. That is however, until the individual considers who will be affected by his actions: his neighbors downstream. There is no concern for pollution. An increase in the population density forced humankind to learn the consequences of this "overgrazing effect." It is concluded that the Tragedy of the Commons could be prevented most effectively through incentive. To avoid pollution, it must be easier and lower in cost to treat the pollutants, than to get rid of them untreated. Therefore, through government and law, humankind will be compelled to work in harmony.

SYNOPSIS OF THE MAITHUNAN THEORY

Thomas Robert Malthus was the first economist to propose a systematic theory of population. He articulated his views regarding population in his famous book,Essay on the Principle of Population(1798), for which he collected empirical data to support his thesis. Malthus had the second edition of his book published in 1803, in which he modified some of his views from the first edition, but essentially his original thesis did not change.

On the basis of a hypothetical world population of one billion in the early nineteenth century and an adequate means of subsistence at that time, Malthus suggested that there was a potential for a population increase to 256 billion within 200 years but that the means of subsistence were only capable of being increased enough for nine billion to be fed at the level prevailing at the beginning of the period. He therefore considered that the population increase should be kept down to the level at which it could be supported by the operation of various checks on population growth, which he categorized as "preventive" and "positive" checks.The chief preventive check envisaged by Malthus was that of "moral restraint", which was seen as a deliberate decision by men to refrain "from pursuing the dictate of nature in an early attachment to one woman", i.e. to marry later in life than had been usual and only at a stage when fully capable of supporting a family. This, it was anticipated, would give rise to smaller families and probably to fewer families, but Malthus was strongly opposed to birth control within marriage and did not suggest that parents should try to restrict the number of children born to them after their marriage. Malthus was clearly aware that problems might arise from the postponement of marriage to a later date, such as an increase in the number of illegitimate births, but considered that these problems were likely to be less serious than those caused by a continuation of rapid population increase.He saw positive checks to population growth as being any causes that contributed to the shortening of human lifespans. He included in this category poor living and working conditions which might give rise to low resistance to disease, as well as more obvious factors such as disease itself, war, and famine. Some of the conclusions that can be drawn from Malthus's ideas thus have obvious political connotations and this partly accounts for the interest in his writings and possibly also the misrepresentation of some of his ideas by authors such as Cobbett, the famous early English radical. Some later writers modified his ideas, suggesting, for example, strong government action to ensure later marriages. Others did not accept the view that birth control should be forbidden after marriage, and one group in particular, called the Malthusian League, strongly argued the case for birth control, though this was contrary to the principles of conduct which Malthus himself advocated.

SYNOPSIS OF THE NATURAL CAPACITY

Natural Capital is the environmental stock or resources of Earth that provide goods, flows and ecological services required to support life. Examples of natural capital include: minerals; water; waste assimilation; carbon dioxide absorption; arable land; habitat; fossil fuels; erosion control; recreation; visual amenity; biodiversity; temperature regulation and oxygen. Natural capital has financial value as the use of natural capital drives many businesses.Current business practices; development patterns; environmental modifications; exploitation of resources from other countries and government policies are degrading or decreasing stocks of natural capital. This not only has financial implications such as increased market prices due to resource depletion, but also environmental implications as services provided by ecosystems are damaged and unable to function effectively which in turn, causes flow on effects. For example, as greenhouse gas emissions increase and areas responsible for carbon sequencing decrease, global temperatures rise, weather patterns change, sea levels increase, terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems re-adjust and land usability patterns change.Natural income is monetary income derived from natural capital. However, protection and appropriate pricing of environmental resources has been largely neglected by economic theories and practices. If economic and societal development is allowed to grow uncheck, stocks of natural capital will continue to decline, resulting in problems for natural life support systems, increased market prices and a decrease in the quality of human life.Not all services or products provided by natural capital can be replaced by technology and some alternatives are either expensive or inefficient.Problems related to the protection of natural capital include the inability of economics to appropriately model and price both market and non-market environmental resources; lack of willingness to pay; lack of knowledge about minimum levels or time spans required for resources to replenish or renew; lack of knowledge regarding the interaction and dependences between resources and their true value, usefulness or necessity; poor management of trans-boundary resources; and inequalities between developed and developing nations.The concept of natural capital is used in other sustainability concepts and tools, including ecological footprints, environmental accounting and eco-efficiency.

SYNOPSISOF THE CASE FOR BIOTIC RIGHTS OF JAMES NASHNashargued that there has to be more than one basis for moral rightsnot only the human right of universal equality. Biotic rights are an effort to redefine responsible human relationships with the rest of4the planets beleaguered biota, and to ground these responsibilities not simply in human generosity and utility but in moral claims inherent in their conation for appropriate treatmentNash fully recognized that patriarchy and anthropocentrism go together hand in glove.Although Nash was critical of some of the uses of Natural Law, he maintained that some version was necessary in order to do social ethics in a pluralistic context.He saw some essential elements of natural law in ecological ethics as an affirmation of objective moral values and norms, which correspond to the conditions for flourishing among relational beings. This includes a rational experiential method for evaluation and justifying moral standards, and a dependence on and dialogue with empirical disciplines in searching for moral norms. It also entails a quest for common moral ground accessible in principle to all humanity and a necessary autonomy from and yet compatibility with basic Christian affirmation of faith.Nash was, however, deeply concerned that various expressions of the natural law tradition were anthropocentric and had nothing to do with ecological relatedness. That is, much of the natural law tradition simply ignored the physical and biological non-human order.Nash called for a universal and immanent moral order, where the words law and nature are distinguished (i.e., law in the sense of moral norms and obligations) natural (moral values should reflect the reality of human conditions and the planets whole biota). These norms could be developed through natural reasoning capacities, without relying upon special revelation, but always utilizing the knowledge gained from the empirical sciences.For example, he called for an ecosystemic compatibility adapting ecologically to natural cycles and constraints and respecting ecosystemic values, an ecologically sensitive theology, the trans-valuing of value , the extension of covenant justice to include all other life forms as beloved creatures- i.e., bioresponsibility , and also reforming our virtues ofsustainability and frugality.

By: Tanya PimentelPage 10