Climate / Environment

Although it has become common to refer to ‘the’ environment, strictly speaking an environment is that which surrounds something and in that sense it is similar to the idea of a ‘habitation’. In each case it is relative to an occupant and refers to a set of physical and other conditions that bear upon the life and functioning of whatever is situated within it, including the climate which is the prevailing weather. Talk of ‘the environment’ implicitly refers to human occupants and to their natural surroundings and in the broadest sense of this to ‘the world’. Similarly ‘the climate’ is used to refer to the totality of prevailing and longstanding weather conditions across the globe. While most discussion is focused on natural phenomena and the impact of human activities on these, there is also concern about the quality of the built environment, particularly in the context of high density housing, urban planning and zoning. The environment of humans also includes institutions and practices (hence the ‘cultural environment’ and the ‘cultural climate’) and systems of values and norms (the ‘moral and social environment’ and the ‘moral climate’). Environmental ethics, however, almost always refers to the natural environment and takes two broad forms: deep ecology and humanistic ecology. According to the latter we should be concerned about the natural environment because of the impact of its degradation upon present and future generations. According to the former the starting point should be the interest and rights of all living beings, and in a more radical version non-living natural entities also, such as deserts, rivers and mountains. On this account human interest are not discounted but nor are they uniquely privileged. In some versions deep ecology is associated with animism (the belief that all living things have souls) and pantheism or panentheism (the belief that the world is or is part of a divinity).