Many will agree that Canada needs to do more about our lackluster environmental laws. Boyd, in his piece ‘Enshrine our right to clear air and water in the Constitution’, points out that countries with constitutionalized environmental rights appear to have greater success in environmental protection. I agree with Boyd in that constitutional recognition of a healthy environment is something that we as Canadians must strive for. Boyd lists three possibilities for achieving this: “direct amendment of the Constitution, litigation resulting in a court decision that there is an implicit right to a healthy environment in section 7 of the Charter (which states the right to life, liberty and security of the person), or judicial reference resulting in a court decision that there is an implicit right to a healthy environment in section 7” (2014). It is my opinion that as cumbersome as a constitutional amendment may be it is more realistic than attaining a guaranteed constitutional right to a clean environment via judicial interpretation of section 7. 

As Boyd mentions, there is currently a case before the courts arguing that a refinery in their community is causing pollution which is putting their health in jeopardy (2014). This in turn, they argue, violates their section 7 right to life, liberty and security of person. This will not be successful in court. There is a reason polluting industries are not all being sued up and down town endlessly. This is because even if we were to operate under a judicial interpretation that any action that could threaten your life on any scale was unconstitutional under section 7, it would still be near impossible to prove. Even if you develop a cancer and feel it is a result of living in a polluted community from a nearby refinery it is hard to articulate in court that you developed the illness as a direct cause of industry. The sun gives cancer, how can you confirm in court that your cancer is a result of the pollution and not something else? Pollution is obviously harmful to human health, it therefore seems obvious then that it is violating our section 7 charter right, but to quote Trump: ‘sounds good, doesn’t work’. It is too much of a legal challenge to prove that a life threatening condition was caused directly and exclusively from industrial pollution. Thus legal challenges are not the answer for securing environmental rights. I believe that, as messy as it will be, we have to fight to open the constitution to change if we want to get serious about protecting our air and water.

I also find flaws in the idea that section 35 dealing with Aboriginal rights could be used to secure environmental rights. This would guarantee clean air and water but for only a fraction of the population. “The environment is a cornerstone of [Aboriginal] rights, given that the content of Aboriginal rights is intrinsically tied to the land and to traditional customs and activities like hunting and fishing” (Boyd, 2014). This line of reasoning also seems arbitrary to me. Hunting and fishing is ancestral to every culture. More, culture is fluid so I don’t see why Aboriginal culture would be seen as fixed in time, while every other peoples cultures remain fluid and ergo would not be privileged to the environmental rights being sought as an addon to section 35. I think if we are to have environmental rights it must be for all Canadians, new and old, and not just for a certain demographic, so again I believe the only course of action is to open the constitution. 

David R. Boyd, E. M. (n.d.). Should environmental rights be in the constitution? 3 March 2014. Retrieved from https://policyoptions.irpp.org/fr/magazines/second-regard/boyd-macfarlane/

I love the idea of reversing extinctions. Though in my opinion it must be done with an ecocentric set of morals. This means animals that went extinct due to non-human causes must be left extinct: no dinosaurs, no dire wolves or cave bears, no North American horses, nothing that went extinct because of normal climate changes from the flux of ice ages. Human induced damage should be reversed when possible, as Kasperbaur says, to reestablish a species’ former role within an ecosystem. The integrity of an ecosystem should be a paramount goal of an environmentally responsible society. While we try our best to remove invasive, likewise we should do our best to de-extinct the animals we killed off. Kasperbauer introduced some primary ethical challenges that complicate a desire for de-extinction: I will attempt to nullify what in my opinion were the most prominent three.

The first complication that Kasperbauer introduces is that “for many species, the original cause of extinction still exists” (2017). For his example of a passenger pigeon this means humans as a threat still exist, therefore human over hunting could happen again. I think classifying humans as the threat is too convenient and simple. Culture was the problem. The culture that decimated bison (and the passenger pigeon) is gone. If it were not then the few remaining bison in our parks would not be remaining. Instead of following through with the extinction we are now trying to stabilize the population. Social media of today also strongly discourages practises like overhunting – look how trophy hunters are treated on facebook. The original threat IS gone.

“The second challenge for de-extinction is that there is a risk of species becoming invasive” (2017). Kasperbauer says passenger pigeons would be classified as ‘invasive’ if they caused a negative impact on an ecosystem, he goes on to describe how their huge flocks may consume large amounts of food and habitat other birds currently depend on (2017). This in my eyes would be healthy competition. The other bird species living in the native habitat of passenger pigeons got on before the extinction and they would again with a reintroduction. Other bird species’ populations would certainly fall to make room for the passenger pigeons (resources are finite), but there is no reason to believe they would be pushed to extinction themselves.

“The most challenging moral issue raised by de-extinction is that it seems to entail significant suffering for sentient individual animals” (2017). To this I would argue that evolution happens for one sole purpose and that is to increase fitness and survivability in order to pass on your genes. It is my opinion that the one goal in life, common to all living things, is to have kids; it is the driving force behind evolution. To this end, as having offspring is the ultimate achievement, I do not think suffering is a valid consideration. Suffering would be welcome if it means being given the chance to continue your lineage (your species). More, I think suffering is viewed in this example with a narrow mind. Just because suffering is ‘bad’ does not mean it should be avoided. Sometimes suffering is necessary for the achievement of a greater goal, such as suffering through university.

I think there is no reason not to pursue de-extinction. It should be done with caution, but it must be done in order to restore ecological integrity.

T. J. Kasperbauer (2017) Should We Bring Back the Passenger Pigeon? The Ethics of De-Extinction, Ethics, Policy & Environment, 20:1, 1-14, DOI: 10.1080/21550085.2017.1291831

The article by Harrison and Tanner “Better Not to Have Children”, was frustratingly convincing. The more I read this article the more I found I disagreed with it, but struggled to find flaws in their logic. I think it’s ingrained in humans – as an evolutionary and biological drive – to have children, so when confronted with logic on why not to procreate it can be difficult to come up with equally logical counter arguments. However, I want kids and still plan on having them so I came up with the best rebuttals I could.

I think the claim that humans can be forces of destruction – seemingly our default state – is true to an extent, but gets blown out of proportion by these human extinctionists in an attempt to prove themselves correct. The end of the youtube video “Is voluntary human extinction an extreme stance?”, posted by mr1001nights, states that 20,000 – 40,000 extinctions occur annually (2013). The video takes the same stance as Harrison and Tanner and implies that all of these extinctions were caused by humans. The dire wolf is one such example the video uses. Many would argue the dire wolf went extinct from natural climate change processes during the end of the last ice age. More, the video uses exclusively charismatic species of birds and mammals giving the impression that all 20,000 – 40,000 annual extinctions are non single-celled organisms. This helps win emotional points from the audience to bolster their argument. While humans certainly inflate the number of natural extinctions that occur, claiming anthropocentric causes for the extinctions of species like the dire wolf, in my opinion, attempts to exaggerate our true levels of destruction. If you have to bend the truth and use smoke and mirrors to win an argument your argument is not that strong.

I would further argue that the solution to anthropocentric damage that Harrison and Tanner propose is unattainable and therefore is at best just an interesting topic of discussion for a family dinner, and at worst an unproductive distraction from real solutions. The article argues “the best way to stop the destruction is to remove the destructive force; to remove humans by refraining from procreation” (Harrison and Tanner, 2011, p.113). This would require an unbelievable amount of coordination. Even if all westerners with our overindulgent consumption got on board and stopped having kids, our immigration rates would simply go up to keep the country afloat and a new wave of consumers would be introduced. It would be self harm with no net benefit. Harrison and Tanner themselves acknowledge the amount of agreement and coordination necessary to realize the vision of self extermination is unfathomable: “but even supposing we have sufficient control over ourselves to make such changes (itself doubtful), we have very limited control over how future generations will behave” (2011, p.114). By this logic, actively trying to go extinct by the cease and desist of procreation is as unlikely as us making sustainable cultural changes as we apparently don’t have sufficient self-control. This is effectively complaining about one solution by pitching a new solution that has the same fundamental flaw. We will never all agree to all stop having kids, and since the authors reject the idea of killing other humans to achieve their dreams of self-extinction (rightly so) their solution is simply interesting but useless banter.

As Harrison and Tanner point out “to end a human life is (under normal circumstances) wrong and will violate that human’s rights” (2011, p.114) therefore, they argue, we must adopt a culture and set of beliefs and values that promote self-extermination. This seems more unlikely than simply adopting a culture and set of values that promote self sustainability. But Harrison and Tanner disagree:

“To procreate is to take an unjustifiable gamble that future generations will behave responsibly (more responsibly than us). Given the rather pathetic, late-in-the-day changes humans have managed so far it is unlikely that future generations will do any better” (2011, p.114).

I think our future looks promising. Cultural beliefs and attitudes are shifting. We can simply look to the past to a number of examples of human cultures that lived in balance with nature to inspire us moving into the future. Native Americans are one such, but the pre-Christian Celts of Europe as well. Druids were revered spiritual leaders who preached respect and interconnectedness with all abiotic and biotic elements of an ecosystem’s ecology. We do not need to kill ourselves, we just need to achieve a pan-global cultural shift. No easy feat, but easier and less extreme than purging ourselves into non-existence.

 

Harrison, G., & Tanner, J. (2011). BETTER NOT TO HAVE CHILDREN. Think,10(27), 113-121. doi:10.1017/S1477175610000436 https://eclass.srv.ualberta.ca/pluginfile.php/6160284/mod_resource/content/2/All%20Animals%20Are%20Equal.pdf

Mr1001nights, “Is voluntary human extinction an extreme stance?”. December 18, 2013. Youtube video, 2:46. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsOZ-kn49q4

Jamieson offers valid considerations to the debate of climate change in how to ethically respond to it. He posits three ethical principles that must be properly satisfied before he believes it is ethical to employ ICC (intentional climate change). These conditions for ICC Jamieson lays out are “the importance of democratic decision-making, the prohibition against irreversible environmental changes, and the significance of learning to live with nature” (Jamieson, 1996). 

As an environmentalist, I felt an affinity with the ecocentric ethical theories recently discussed in this class. I attempted to tackle Jamison’s logic through the understanding of ecocentrism and found all three of his conditions to be heavily anthropocentric.  

For his first condition for the acceptance of ICC Jamieson states that it must be done under a democratic decision making process. He fears that “a decision to undertake ICC would likely be made by the same people who are causing inadvertent climate change and have reaped most of the benefits from fossil-fuel driven industrialization: people in rich countries and their political, social, and economic leaders” (Jamieson, 1996). Jamieson argues here that poor countries must be allowed to collaborate and give consent to have their climate manipulated. This is a valid concern and is trying to ensure the maximization of utility across all peoples, but is not egalitarian in the ecocentric sense in that it does not take into consideration the interests of other, non-human, living things. Therefore it could be dismissed as simply overly anthropocentric. More, I believe that ecocentrists would unconditionally require something to be done about the current state of affairs. That something being ceasing harmful industrial activities, not manipulating the climate via science. They believe in the integrity of ecological systems, which are being jeopardized by human induced climate change, and believing in a universal rule of non-interference and respect for ecological systems as a whole, humans thus have an ethical obligation to cease this interference. This is a categorical duty and one that ecocentrists would not leave up to a democratic vote.

Jamieson’s second condition prior to undertaking ICC is a guarantee that it would not implement irreversible environmental changes. A holistic thinker may believe that irreversible changes are permissible, naturally occurring extinctions are normal processes of an ecosystem. One widespread, common sense argument against ICC rests on the idea that it is wrong for humans to interfere dramatically with fundamental natural processes. In reply, some would point out that humans are already interfering with fundamental natural processes (Jamieson, 1996). 

However, unlike natural extinctions, climate change is heavily influenced and escalated by human influence. I believe an ecocentrist would initially disagree with the need to interfere at all as with natural extinctions – if the ICC were to cause irreversible changes or not – because it is interfering with nature and the integrity of ecological systems and the interests of its living components. They would reverse this position with the understanding that climate change is now largely a human driven process. I think an ecocentrist would advocate non-interference by simply stopping the activities that are contributing to global warming, but after a tipping point is reached through negative feedback loops such as the melting of the polar ice, this would change. If irreversible climate changes are imminent from our industrial societies, then I believe an ecocentric theorist would agree that ecological interference to prevent it would be allowable – just as action is allowable to prevent the extinction of a living thing if the extinction was human caused.     

Lastly, Jamieson talks about learning to live with nature. “Many of our environmental problems flow from attempts to manipulate nature in order to make it conform to our desires” (Jamieson, 1996). Non-interference and respect for nature is something ecocentrists would agree with here. Jamieson goes on to say that some manipulations of nature, such as ICC, may be justified, and his attempt at justification I believe ecocentrists would disagree with. He brings up the metaphor of the Earth as a spaceship, with different species as rivets holding the craft together. In this way he is saying biodiversity is necessary, but only at a certain threshold, and until we get there extinctions of animals are of little concern because they do not yet threaten us or the spaceship yet. Jamieson says as we approach that threshold we have an obligation to act – via ICC – to prevent a crash. As mentioned above, I think ecocentrists would agree to interfering in an ecological system if only to reverse what damage we already caused. This however would be morally required to happen before reaching any biodiversity threshold. Ignoring extinctions until they threatened our own species would be too anthropocentric. All species would be considered equal by an ecocentrist, and all would require our moral consideration, not just the last ‘rivet’ before the spaceship falls apart. 

Jamieson, Dale. (1996). “Ethics and Intentional Climate Change”. Climate Change 33: 323-336.

 

I appreciate the intent of Mohr’s article and believe the information presented is needed and worth knowing, however, it is very easy to make a quick and uninformed decision on an important topic by reading such articles. While as an environmentalist I agree with the message of Mohr in his article, A New Global Warming Strategy: How Environmentalists are Overlooking Vegetarianism as the Most Effective Tool Against Climate Change in Our Lifetimes, it is full of bias and leaves out the necessary and relevant information to make an informed decision. Animal agriculture is out of control, we eat too much meat, there is too much animal suffering, and something should be done. However, while boycotting meat consumption may fix some environmental problems and address certain issues of morality, it fails to consider the consequence such an action would have on other environmental factors.

Mohr says “The conclusion is simple: arguably the best way to reduce global warming in our lifetimes is to reduce or eliminate our consumption of animal products” (2005). Eliminating cattle ranching here in Alberta would eradicate what has become a keystone species in our prairie grasslands. Cattle have effectively replaced bison in their maintenance of the ecological services they play in the ecosystem. Estimates of bison populations in the North American prairies pre-European contact are as high as 60 million, given this estimate a study by Kelliher and Clark writing for the Agricultural and Forest Meteorology Journal, found that the historic bison herds would have produced approximately 22,000,000,000 kilograms (or 2.2 teragrams) of methane, as opposed to the 2.5 teragrams produced by cattle (2010). The numbers are relatively comparable. Therefore modern cattle ranching would not be introducing much more methane than was already being cycled by the native bison.

More, bison, and now the cows that have replaced them, are crucial for maintaining several ecological services. Unlike monocultures, grazing fields that are required for cattle in Alberta host natural prairie flora. Birds such as the Brown-Headed cowbird, which used to rely on bison kicking up insects in the grasslands, would have perished if not for the role being filled by cattle. Cattle are important in this way for preserving biodiversity. The cows also ensure the grasslands are maintained inorder to graze on and this preserves their crucial function acting as a carbon sink. For anyone who has studied soils, grasses have surprisingly deep roots and hold a large amount of carbon from entering the atmosphere. Lastly a major environmental issue is our continuously degrading soil conditions as they are worked to exhaustion and subject to soil burn. The natural process offered by a herd of cattle (churning the dirt with their hooves, fertilizing it with their dung, and introducing essential microbes into the soil with their urine and saliva from grazing), all help ensure soil health. These are all services that historically were provided by bison, and that are now offered by cattle, that are essential to a healthy prairie grassland and would be lost with the elimination of Alberta’s beef industry.

Mohr, Noam. (2005). “A New Global Warming Strategy.” Earthsave International Report. http://www.earthsave.org/news/earthsave_global_warming_report.pdf

Kelliher, F and Clark, C. 2010. “Methane emissions from bison—An historic herd estimate for the North American Great Plains”. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology

            Volume 150, Issue 3, 15 March 2010, Pages 473-477.

• Mitchel McArthur