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Ecological Living: Sustainable Consumption

We are all part of a moral community, as well as members of a society. As individuals, we act as citizens and consumers. We fulfill our duty, as citizens, by being informed, voting, and joining with others in groups that support environmental cleanups, or ecosystem restoration projects, or effective legislation and government regulation. Chapter 10 considers how citizens may help shape environmental policy through their involvement in nongovernmental organizations, governments, and businesses.

This chapter addresses our individual ethical decisions as consumers, and also the responsibility of businesses and governments to support consumption that is environmentally sustainable. What does this mean for those of us who are affluent?  For an answer, we use the worksheet after chapter 8 to construct and test ethical presumptions concerning sustainable consumption.  First, we consider arguments that we have a duty to reduce our consumption.  Economists claim that increasing consumption is necessary for a healthy economy, but chapter 3 argues that our growth economy is environmentally unsustainable.1 If we take both of these concerns into account, what might our ethical presumption be?

Second, we look at a concern for character by comparing the ecological virtues suggested in chapter 5 (gratitude, integrity, and frugality) with what it means today to be a consumer. Are we wasteful? Is our society placing too high a value on consumption?2 Think about persons you admire for the way they live. What choices, as consumers, do they make?

Third, we evaluate our relationships in our consumer society by recalling the concerns of chapter 6. As consumers, how might we contribute to a healthy environment, for the good of our society, as well as for our own health?3 Should our tax laws give businesses economic incentives to promote increasing consumption through advertising?

Fourth, we look at rights. International human rights law affirms that we all have a right to a healthy environment. Yet, this right seems to clash with our right to enjoy the benefits of sustainable development. This conflict may be resolved by accepting that the exercise of our rights, as consumers, is constrained by the health of the natural environment.4

After constructing presumptions concerning our consumption of goods and services, we test these presumptions by considering the likely consequences of acting on them.

DUTY: TO REDUCE OUR CONSUMPTION

Chapter 4 offers three ethical arguments for the presumption that we should not litter. If we state these as ethical presumptions about consumption, our actions as consumers should respect the intrinsic worth of nature, reflect moral consideration for the well-being of future generations, and protect the rights of the poor to an equitable share of the earth’s resources. If our present level of consumption as a society is environmentally unsustainable, and if one or more of these presumptions is reasonable, then we have a duty to reduce our consumption. 

Chapters 2 and 4 present arguments for respecting the inherent worth of organisms, species, and ecosystems. If these arguments are convincing, then we have a duty to practice the three Rs promoted by Bob the Builder—reduce, reuse, and recycle. The moral issue is not merely what changes will protect the environment, but how to allocate fairly the costs of these changes. In this chapter we renew the argument that it is fair to expect industrial countries to assume a greater share of responsibility for funding environmental initiatives. 

Chapter 4 also asserts that we have a duty to future generations to care for the environment. In the same way that we should leave a public space free of litter so others using it after us may enjoy it as we have, we should reduce our consumption so future generations will be born into an environment as healthy as the environment we now enjoy. As this assertion concerns our relationship with future generations, we address it in that part of the chapter.  The third argument in chapter 4 involves our right to consume the earth’s resources.

Most of these natural resources are controlled by corporations, individuals, or governments. If we accept Locke’s argument—that persons owning property, and governments holding land in trust for its people, have a duty to ensure conservation among present users and also preservation of natural resources for future generations —then, for the sake of the common good, we have a duty to constrain our use of both private and public land.

Equity

The Brundtland Report by the UN World Commission on Environment and Development asserts the right to sustainable development for every society. The issue of equity concerns how to apportion responsibility for achieving economic development and consumption that is environmentally sustainable. For the past twenty years there has been a contentious debate between those who argue that the developed countries should bear a greater burden of the costs for achieving these goals and those who assert that all countries have the same duty to seek environmental sustainability.

This dispute is best understood in the context of recent history. In 1750 the living standards of most people in the world were roughly the same. By the 1980s, however, the average person living in a highly industrialized society was “eight times richer” than a comparable person living in a less industrialized society.5 Are these simply facts? Or, is the current disparity in living standards between developed and developing societies6 largely the result of injustice?

If the history of Western conquest, colonialism, and imperialism seems to account for much of the present inequity in the world, then developed societies not only have a duty to provide funds for sustainable development in poorer countries, but also have a duty to reduce consumption if this is necessary to realize environmental sustainability.

Agenda 21

Agenda 21, which was approved at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, affirms such a duty.7 Paragraph 4.3 acknowledges that poor people damage the environment, but argues that unsustainable consumption in developed societies poses the main threat. “Poverty and environmental degradation are closely interrelated. While poverty results in certain kinds of environmental stress, the major cause of the continued deterioration of the global environment is the unsustainable pattern of consumption and production, particularly in industrialized countries, which is a matter of grave concern, aggravating poverty and imbalances.”8

Chapter 33 of Agenda 21 states that industrialized countries have a duty to fund sustainable development in developing countries. “Developed countries [should] reaffirm their commitments to reach the accepted United Nations target of 0.7 per cent of GNP” and “to the extent that they have not yet achieved that target, agree to augment their aid programs in order to reach that target as soon as possible and to ensure prompt and effective implementation of Agenda 21.”9

The United States rejects this moral claim, arguing that using a percentage of GNP to calculate its duty to developing countries would be unfair because the US economy is much larger than that of other countries.10 Other industrial societies, however, have accepted this ethical presumption; Japan, Germany, and France by 1996 were each giving more than the United States for direct assistance to developing countries.11

At a 1996 meeting of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development, which is responsible for implementing Agenda 21, the representative of the US government urged developing countries to look to the private sector for investment capital, rather than to loans from developed countries. This would also mean relying on loans administered by the World Bank, which requires borrowing countries to accept “structural adjustment programs” (SAPs) to force these nations to “implement monetary policy, reduce inefficient subsidies, decrease safety net benefits, divest government holdings, liberalize trade, and implement other export-oriented growth strategies.”12

Supporters of SAPs claim that these conditions lead to “lower inflation rates, increased savings, lower budget deficits, improved trade balances, higher economic growth rates, employment creation, and poverty reduction.”13 Critics argue that SAPs not only increase wealth disparity, but make it harder for poor countries to protect the environment.14 Governments of developing countries seeking to attract foreign investment will not pass effective environmental protection laws, as these increase costs for businesses. Also, governments that must reduce expenditures to meet SAP requirements will not spend money on the environment.15

Agenda 21 asserts that: “Special attention should be paid to the demand for natural resources generated by unsustainable consumption and to the efficient use of those resources consistent with the goal of minimizing depletion and reducing pollution. Although consumption patterns are very high in certain parts of the world, the basic consumer needs of a large section of humanity are not being met. This results in excessive demands and unsustainable lifestyles among the richer segments, which place immense stress on the environment. The poorer segments, meanwhile, are unable to meet food, health care, shelter and educational needs.”16

Agenda 21 not only affirms that nations have a duty to protect the individual right to a healthy environment, but also a duty to create an equitable international order.17 Although the US government rejects these moral presumptions affirmed by Agenda 21, the European Union has accepted the goal of contributing 0.7 percent of the gross national product (GNP) of its member states to direct assistance for developing countries. Is it reasonable to accept this duty as our ethical presumption? If so, then the government of the United States bears the burden of showing that the consequences of implementing Agenda 21 are unfair or onerous.

CHARACTER: CONSUMER CHOICES

As consumers, we have a significant choice to make. We can allow ourselves to be persuaded by advertising that consuming more is the way to be happy, and that our increased consumption will support a better world by stimulating economy growth. Or, we can consume less and live more frugally, in a way that is more environmentally sustainable.18

Rising prices are prompting many of us to reduce our consumption. But what else might motivate us to consume less?19 Religious teachings offer an answer that has long been compelling, and some people so love nature that they freely choose to take more responsibility for protecting animal life. Also, many of us are beginning to eat “lower on the food chain” by consuming less meat, especially beef, as a way of reducing animal suffering and conserving natural resources.

Religious Life

The scriptures of Jews and Muslims teach that serving God leads to the joy of salvation, and Christian scripture adds to this Great Commandment that we should love our neighbors as ourselves. In each of these traditions being faithful involves caring for the earth. The focus of Buddhist teaching is overcoming desire through mindfulness, because the desire to possess the world through mindless consumption is illusory.

It is no accident, therefore, that the virtue of frugality is a goal of religious orders, whether these are Christian, Muslim, or Buddhist. Such orders emphasize living simple lives in natural settings, but promise that such a way of life will awaken a deep sense of gratitude and compassion for all life. Jews reject the ideal of monastic life, but the kibbutz movement in Israel has promoted a vision of frugal, communal life.

Saint Francis is an exemplar in the Christian tradition,20 the Buddha is the teacher for Buddhists, and Sufis represent this way of life in Islam. The Buddha rejected the ascetic life, but counseled restraint in eating and in other pleasures.

Simple clothing, modest meals and often fasting, physical work, and contemplation are the distinctive practices of a “religious” life.21 Today, we may hope that millions of people feel called to join such religious disciplines, as these communities care for the land and are low consumers of nature’s resources.  Of course, a religious person doesn’t have to join a celibate community to live with gratitude, integrity, and frugality. Also, persons not active in religious communities may refrain from excessive consumption in order to protect the beauty and wildlife of nature.

John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, had a mystical love for the wild and affirmed in his private writings faith in the God of creation. “The Song of God, sounding on forever. So pure and sure and universal is the harmony, it matters not where we are” for “as soon as we are absorbed in the harmony,” then “plain, mountain, calm, storm, lilies and sequoias, forests and meadows are only different strands of many-colored Light—are one in the sunbeam!”22

Love of Animals

Jane Goodall’s research with chimpanzees offers another edifying example of someone with great love for nature. As a child, she was inspired by stories of Dr. Dolittle, and in 1960 began living in Tanzania with chimpanzees and doing research at Gombe Stream National Park. “Where many researchers saw ‘primitive’ apes living a simple existence, Goodall found highly intelligent, emotional creatures living in complex social groups.”23

To continue her research and conservation work, she founded the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI), “a global nonprofit that empowers people to make a difference for all living things.”24 Members of the JGI “are creating healthy ecosystems, promoting sustainable livelihoods and nurturing new generations of committed, active citizens around the world.”25

One JGI initiative gives consumers the ethical choice of purchasing coffee grown in the Gombe ecosystem, which is marketed by Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. “Those who purchase this high-quality coffee are supporting cultivation of a sustainable, chimpanzee-friendly crop grown by farmers in the impoverished Kigoma region of western Tanzania. The coffee is shade-grown (meaning trees aren’t cut down). What’s more, as chimpanzees don’t like coffee beans, they don’t raid the fields, thus avoiding human-wildlife conflict—an increasing, life-threatening problem where human and wildlife live in proximity.”26 Fair Trade Certified coffee also supports environmentally friendly, shade-grown coffee in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.27

Goodall acknowledges that there is growing despair because of the threat posed by economic development for wildlife, but she says we can trust in the human brain, the determination of young people, the “indomitable human spirit,” and the resiliency of nature. “So let us move into the next millennium with hope,” she writes. “[L]et us have faith in ourselves, in our intellect, in our staunch spirit. Let us develop respect for all living things. Let us try to replace impatience and intolerance with understanding and compassion. And love.”28

Eating

Whether we have faith in a Creator, or are moved simply by the wonder of life and the power of love, we may choose to eat in a more environmentally sustainable way. This means reducing our consumption of meat and obtaining more of our nutrients lower on the food chain.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports that about half of the grains harvested today are fed to livestock. “Feedlot cattle consume 7 kilograms of grain to produce 1 kilogram of live weight. Pork takes nearly 4 kilograms of grain per kilogram of live weight. Poultry and fish are more efficient converters, needing about 2 kilograms of grain for each kilogram of live weight produced.  Cheese and egg production are in between, consuming 3 and 2.6 kilograms of grain per kilogram of product respectively.”29 The consequential argument is straightforward. If more people eat less meat, the grain harvested in the world can feed more people. Chapter 12 considers the agricultural implications of this issue. 

Today, most of the world’s vegetarians are Hindus, for not eating meat is practiced in the Hindu tradition as a way of improving a person’s karma. “The Vedic and Puranic scriptures of Hinduism assert that animals have souls and the act of killing animals without due course has considerable karmic repercussions (i.e. the killer will suffer the pain of the animal he has killed in this life or the next). The principle of ahimsa (nonviolence) compels one to refrain from injuring any living creature, physically, mentally or emotionally without good reason.”30 The moral presumption of the Hindu tradition is a vegetarian diet. 

We may choose to eat lower on the food chain without becoming strict vegetarians.  Some Jews promote “eco-kosher” cooking.31 Supporters of “cruelty free diets”32 assert the right of animals not to be killed by humans, or oppose the suffering inflicted on animals by the industrial food production system. Whatever the motivation, eating lower on the food chain reduces our per capita consumption of grain, and this means there is more grain for others to eat.

Consumer Power

Consumers may influence markets in other ways. Fair Trade Certified foods are a small niche, but demand for organic food has had a major impact on retailers.33 Consumers can now purchase more energy-efficient lightbulbs, appliances, and automobiles, and some cities allow a switch to green sources of electricity. In response to consumer demand, Home Depot sells lumber that is certified to have been cut in sustainably managed forests.34

In 2002 Dell made a commitment to recycle and reuse 98 percent of the original materials in its computers, if the consumer pays the shipping costs to return a Dell computer to the nearest recycling center.35 Consumers can also purchase products and services “where the making and the use of the product are carried out in an environmentally friendly way.”36 Also, consumers “can insist that provisions be made for the recycling and reuse of consumer products.”37 The European Parliament has laws that require manufacturers to bear the costs of recycling electrical appliances. With consumer support, this could also be the ethical presumption in the United States.

RELATIONSHIPS: OUR NATURAL COMMUNITY

What would it mean to “think like a field” of grain? It would mean being aware of planting, growing, harvesting, soil erosion, and fertility loss. It would also mean a sense of life over generations. Those who cultivate and eat the grain harvested from such a field help to sustain its ecosystem and also belong to this natural community.

“We need to respect hydrological cycles; we need to leave room for the plants and other species that help the [natural] community build and retain its valuable soil; we need to leave room for the many forms of wildlife that help the [natural] community resist stress and maintain its ability to recreate. Much of the land’s yield needs to stay with the land to promote its health; we cannot assume that all of nature’s production is ours for the taking.”38 Thus, our “overall consumption should be limited by the maximum yield of the land consistent with the continued health of that land.”39 Thinking this way may help us challenge the marketing ideology of our consumer society. We can resist the appeal of advertising to consume more and more by giving priority to living within the ecological community of our habitat.

Local: Control and Consumption

Arguments supporting local control over land clash with current regulations of the World Trade Organization, which prohibit domestic restrictions on “free trade.” There are, however, ethical as well as practical reasons for urging greater local control over land-use decisions.

First, outsiders are more likely to sacrifice the environment for short-term economic gain. “The outside producer could simply have an economic advantage, and by producing a good more cheaply render the local producer unable to compete, thereby forcing the local producer either to leave the business or, worse, to lower production costs by disrupting the local land’s health—by becoming, that is, an irresponsible community member.”40 Or, “the outside producer would gain an advantage over the local producer by misusing distant land in some way, thereby again encouraging the local producer to do the same locally to stay competitive, thus disrupting the local autonomy on which land health depends.”41

Second, local control encourages local consumption, and when local products are consumed locally people are “likely to have a greater attachment to the land, a greater sense of how their lives affect the land and how far they can push the land without diminishing its yields.”42 Current government policies, however, undermine local decision-making by favoring corporate food producers and absentee control.

Third, “all sustainability is local.”43 We cannot simply apply abstract economic or ecological principles to a landscape, but need to assess the nature of a particular place. Local people know their environment, and scientific assessments should not ignore their experience.44 Before intervening, we should consider “what is happening upstream and downstream, how we can create meaningful occupations, enhance the region’s economic and physical health, and accrue biological and technical wealth for the future.”45

Fourth, participation in decision-making is a human right. Local people have a civil right under the moral presumptions of international law and domestic laws in most nations to be involved in decisions that affect their environment and access to life-sustaining natural resources.

Advertising: End the Tax Write-Off

Contemporary advertising promotes greater consumption and “the link of consumption with happiness, acceptance, and status; the importance of individual freedom as the lack of restraint, and the needlessness of denial and the acceptability of ‘instant’ gratification.”46 This is thinking “like a mall.” Promoting increased consumption, as the path to a fulfilling life, assaults the traditional beliefs of every religious tradition, but few religious leaders in the West have criticized our lifestyle of overconsumption. An exception is Pope Benedict XVI, who has condemned both Marxism and capitalism for being concerned only with material issues.47

There is a good reason to be critical of advertising and to oppose the government’s subsidy that makes it tax exempt as a business expense. “If advertising convinces us as a society to allocate more resources toward market goods, correspondingly fewer are available to allocate toward non-market goods. And as we know, all resources allocated toward consumer goods are extracted from nature and return to nature as waste. Seen from this light, advertising convinces us to degrade or destroy public goods for private gain. It appears that current levels of consumption in the developed countries are incompatible with a sustainable future; yet reducing consumption levels will be exceedingly difficult in the presence of so much advertising.”48

Therefore, economists Daly and Farley argue that “it would be more appropriate to tax advertising as a public bad. At a minimum we should not allow advertising to be written off as a cost of production.” 49 Advertising is not a cost of producing goods, but an expense incurred in stimulating demand. “World advertising spending has doubled over the past twenty years, growing at a rate three times faster than world population.”50 This trend may be beneficial for the bottom line of advertisers and producers, also television networks, but it undermines our sustainable use of natural resources.

Critics of marketing consumer products in less developed countries also argue that the practices of advertising are destroying traditional values. “For example, Western marketers have sought to alter the frugality of Indian customers by encouraging them to throw away used goods.”51 Given the scarce resources of most Indians, if Western marketing is successful in transforming Indian culture so that people are less frugal, the consequences will be adverse for many individuals and for the society.

Western marketing practices also undermine traditional systems of economic exchange, by characterizing these “as impediments for the development of market exchange systems, [and] as primitive practices to be broken, rather than as alternative need satisfaction systems.”52 One ethical critic of Western marketing suggests that when it clashes with the “core values of another culture,” companies engaged in such marketing “should consider not doing business in that society, or modifying their products and activities to make them compatible with that culture.”53

RIGHTS: TO A HEALTHY ENVIRONMENT

To enjoy a right to a healthy environment, we must empower the government to ensure that our food supply is safe, adequate, and affordable, as there is no “invisible hand” behind free markets to provide this protection. Therefore, it is reasonable to support laws that regulate agriculture, the raising of livestock, food processing, and global trade that brings food into the country, and also to support taxes that enable governments to provide these essential services. 

Similarly, our right to enjoy the fruits of economic development, by purchasing the food that we like, does not include a right to avoid the costs, as a society, of ensuring that economic development is environmentally sustainable. We can only exercise our rights within the natural constraints of the environment. We cannot reasonably expect to have a healthy life as a people without exercising our rights in a manner that maintains a healthy natural environment. 

To put this issue starkly, we should not think of buying a hamburger as our “right,” if we have the money to pay the market price, when our present system of raising cattle for beef is devastating the natural environment. Our consumer rights are constrained by the limits imposed on our globalized society by the impact of our consumer lifestyle on the earth’s biosphere.

Environmental Impact of Cattle

Raising cattle for food is devastating the earth. “Cattle have arguably caused or are related to the most environmental damage to the globe of any nonhuman species through overgrazing, soil erosion, desertification, and tropical deforestation for ranches.”54 An estimated “30 percent of the earth’s ice-free land is directly or indirectly involved in livestock production, according to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization, which also estimates that livestock production generates nearly a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gases—more than transportation.”55 And the cattle population, now about 1.3 billion, is growing.56

Cattle eat about half the world’s grain, and producing a pound of beef takes about seven pounds of grain and 2,700 gallons of water. In contrast, an acre of grains, using much less water and producing no methane, may yield ten times more protein than an acre used to produce beef. An acre of legumes may yield twenty times more protein than an acre used for grazing cattle. If for no other reason than economic efficiency, we should reduce our consumption of beef and eat more grains and legumes.

Critics argue that eating fewer hamburgers would be bad for the economy, but fail to take into account the externalities of producing beef.57 The following social and environmental costs of raising cattle, in the way that we do, are not included in the price we pay for a hamburger:

·        Erosion and loss of topsoil, deforestation, and loss of biodiversity.

·        The subsidized use of ground water and water from aquifers.

·        Subsidies paid to agribusiness for growing corn (which is fed to cattle).

·        Sewage disposal from cattle feedlots into the surrounding environment.

·        Medical costs related to feeding animals in feedlots and eating animal products.

·        Antibiotic-resistant infections caused by regularly feeding cattle antibiotics.

·        Transport costs including the carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere.

·        Emissions released in producing fertilizers for growing cattle feed.58

Simply removing the subsidies in the United States for the use of water to produce beef would raise the cost of hamburger to about $35 per pound.59

Real Cost of Beef

Do we have a right to buy a hamburger at a price that does not cover the social and environmental costs of producing it? Not a moral right, as this leaves these costs to others—to those living near land degraded by cattle ranching, and to future generations that will inhabit a less fertile environment. 

Locke argued that the right to private property should not deny good land for the use of others. Today rainforests are being leveled to raise cattle for beef, and aquifers are being drained to grow corn to feed cattle. Thomas Jefferson believed in the right of landowners to improve their land, but argued against inheritance rights on the ground that these rights undermine democracy. Today four meatpacking companies in the United States control over 80 percent of the market,60 and there is no limit on the “right” of these transnational corporations to lobby Congress for government subsidies on growing corn and raising beef that degrade the environment but provide consumers with a “cheap” burger.

Moreover, eating beef directly affects human welfare. Moral philosopher Mary Midgley writes: “It is enormously extravagant to use grains, beans, pulses and so forth for animal food, and then eat the animals, rather than letting human beings eat the grains, etc. right away. In the present food shortage, and still more in the sharper ones which threaten us, human interests demand most strongly that this kind of waste should be stopped.”61

What should we do? We should stop eating beef. If a sufficient number of consumers were to stop buying beef, demand would decline and, over time, the market and food suppliers would reduce the supply of beef and increase the supply of other commodities in response to increased demand for these foods.  Eating less beef would also increase the supply of grain available for human consumption. Given the global shortage of grain and rising prices making grain too costly for poor people to purchase, we should take this ethical action immediately.62

We should also support legislation that over several years will require producers (of food and other goods as well) to internalize the social and environmental costs of their products. This would not only increase the market price of commodities that are now heavily subsidized, but would also shift consumer demand to more sustainable forms of food production.

CONSEQUENCES: SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION

Following the worksheet at the end of chapter 8, we now test the ethical presumptions that we have constructed about our consumption by considering the likely consequences of acting on them. We distinguish probable from possible consequences, and note when long-term consequences are uncertain. We identify the likely pros and cons of acting on an ethical presumption, and then compare these predictions.

We weigh the value of ecosystem integrity and human rights without using cost-benefit analysis, but rely on this analysis for goods that are adequately priced by markets. We attempt to internalize the costs of economic externalities—cleaning up and restoring environmental damage, creating substitutes for depleted resources, and treating waste that exceeds the absorption capacity of a habitat. Moreover, we refrain from economic discounting that passes on the costs we are incurring to future generations.

Throughout this assessment we place the burden of proof on those claiming that the likely consequences of acting on ethical presumptions promoting environmental sustainability are sufficiently adverse that we should set these presumptions aside. In our discussion, if the integrity of an ecosystem, or a human right, is at risk, then the evidence to set aside a presumption should be compelling.  Otherwise, the evidence only has to be convincing.

Presumptions: Duty

As individuals and as members of developed societies, we have a duty to:

1.   Affirm and maintain the intrinsic worth of a healthy environment.

2.   Care for future generations by consuming no more than is fair for our generation.

3.   Respect the rights of others to use the natural resources we are also consuming.

4.   Abide by Agenda 21 by giving 0.7 percent of GNP to less developed countries.

Pros and Cons.  The first three presumptions would probably help to conserve natural resources, but the long-term consequences are uncertain. Acting on the fourth presumption would possibly stimulate economic development in less developed countries, but under the current system of globalization would probably add to environmental degradation rather than reduce it. 

There are economic costs in acting on these presumptions, but the long-term costs and benefits are uncertain. Some of the economic costs can be set by the market and weighed by cost-benefit analysis, but the first three presumptions largely involve nonmarket values.

The strongest argument against acting on these ethical presumptions is the prediction of largely adverse economic consequences. Acting on the first three presumptions would mean reducing our use of natural resources, which would raise the costs of production and the prices for some commodities. The fourth ethical presumption involving aid to developing societies might stimulate economic development, but the international aid could be squandered or stolen.  Long-term estimates of all these possible costs are uncertain.

Compelling or Convincing Evidence?  Acting on the first and third presumptions involves, respectively, the integrity of an ecosystem and a human right, so compelling evidence is required to set aside these presumptions. The second and fourth presumptions do not directly involve environmental integrity or a human right, so only convincing evidence is needed to justify setting aside these presumptions.

Presumptions: Character and Relationships

To live with greater character and virtue, as members of a moral community that extends consideration to other organisms, species, and ecosystems, we should:

1.   Live with greater frugality for the sake of present and future generations.

2.   Eat lower on the food chain to attain a more sustainable way of living.

3.   End the tax deduction for advertising because it subsidizes greater consumption..

4.   Support shade-grown coffee and other ecological agricultural practices.

Pros and Cons.  The first two of these presumptions cannot be assessed by cost benefit analysis, because each involves nonmarket values. Those who live inspiring lives, like John Muir and Jane Goodall, help keep our hopes alive, but this is a nonmarket good that cannot be measured by an economic calculation.  Eating lower on the food chain would have economic impacts, but it would also improve our health (which is more than an economic benefit) and might help others see that they belong to an ecological community (with values that are not merely utilitarian).

Also, the long-term consequences of acting on the first two presumptions are uncertain. Those criticizing these choices argue either that each will be of little consequence (merely a lifestyle choice), or if widely adopted would cause an economic recession.63 The breadth of these predictions is evidence that our ability to foresee the future is uncertain.

The consequences of acting on the third presumption can likely be assessed by cost-benefit analysis. The fourth presumption may be seen, in terms of consequences, as a lifestyle issue (and so of little consequence), or as a way of challenging industrial agriculture (which might have major consequences).  Chapter 12 considers what this would mean for farming.

Compelling or Convincing Evidence?   The fourth presumption concerns maintaining ecosystem integrity, therefore compelling consequential arguments are needed to set it aside. Convincing arguments would suffice to overturn the first three presumptions.

Presumptions: Rights

To protect the human right of everyone to a healthy environment, we should:

1.   Support taxes and laws to ensure safe, adequate, and affordable food.

2.   Eat less beef to protect the environment and increase the supply of grain for food.

3.   Support greater control by local people over the use of local land.

4.   Internalize (in the market price) the externalities of food production.

Pros and Cons.  The rights to a healthy environment and to sustainable development depend on laws that protect both nature and the production of food using natural resources. Moreover, we cannot expect to exercise our rights without paying the costs of government to ensure the protection of our rights.  Those who argue against local control, based on a prediction of likely consequences, claim that only a market evaluation will assure the best use of natural resources. Certainly, local people may waste their local resources, or may resist a reasonable use of these resources for the sake of others. Yet, local participation in land use decisions is crucial for human dignity, and this nonmarket value must be protected.

Chapter 3 argues for internalizing externalities in all areas of production and assessing these costs to producers, or, if this is not feasible, to the countries where production takes place. These costs should be included in the market price for goods. Those opposing this presumption on consequential grounds argue that it will raise the price of food and other commodities. Those defending the presumption note that industrial agriculture is heavily subsidized, and that these subsidies conceal the real costs of our agricultural system, which are presently being paid in taxes (that are unfairly distributed as government subsidies) or passed on to future generations.

Compelling or Convincing Evidence?  The first three of these presumptions directly assert human rights, so compelling evidence that the consequences will be more adverse than beneficial should be required to set these presumptions aside. The fourth presumption asserts that cost-benefit analysis should include all the real costs, which seems self-evident. As the last presumption does not assert ecosystem integrity or a human right, only convincing evidence is needed to overcome it.

Predicting Consequences

All these consequential evaluations require a detailed analysis, but these brief comments illustrate the reasoning involved in doing environmental ethics.  Subsequent chapters will give greater consideration to some of these issues. We should now realize, however, that it will never be easy to know which consequences are probable, rather than merely possible, and that long-term consequences are usually uncertain. This insight should give us pause, whenever someone claims that predicting consequences is clearly the best way to decide what action is right.

In the following chapters we again construct ethical presumptions based on our duty, character, relationships, and human rights. These chapters, however, will not repeat the explicit format used at the end of this chapter to consider consequence arguments. Instead, throughout each chapter we will “test” presumptions by predicting likely consequences as we consider arguments for what these presumptions ought to be.

NOTES

1.   A recent study “estimated that the human population exceeded Earth’s sustainable capacity around the year 1978. By 2000 it had overshot by 1.4 times that capacity. If 12 percent of land were now to be set aside in order to protect the natural environment, as recommended in the 1987 Brundtland Report, Earth’s sustainable capacity will have been exceeded still earlier, around 1972. In short, Earth has lost its ability to regenerate—unless global consumption is reduced, or global production is increased, or both.” Edward O. Wilson, The Future of Life, 27.

2.   “We cannot survive as a species if greed is privileged and protected and the economics of the greedy set the rules for how we live and die.” Vandana Shiva, Water Wars, xv.

3.   Consider fish. Demand is reducing the supply. Ed Stoddard, “Eating Fish: Good for Health, Bad for Environment?” Reuters (Aug. 10, 2007), online at http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSN0926310820070810, “Until All the Fish Are Gone,” The New York Times (Jan. 21, 2008), online at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/21/opinion/21mon1.html, and Jane Kay, “Salmon Arriving in Record Low Numbers,” San Francisco Chronicle (Jan 30, 2008), A-1, online at http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/30/MNRIUOE8C.DTL. Tuna is often contaminated. Marian Burros, “High Levels of Mercury Are Found in Tuna Sushi,” The New York Times (Jan. 23, 2008), online at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/23/dining/23sushi.html. Intensive fish farming threatens wild populations. Juliet Eilperin and Marc Kaufman, “Salmon Farming May Doom Wild Populations, Study Says,” The Washington Post (Dec. 17, 2007), online at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/13/AR2007121301190.html.

4.   Rights are constrained by reality. “If soil erosion and withdrawal of groundwater continue at their present rates until the world population reaches (and hopefully peaks) at 9 to 10 billion, shortages of food seem inevitable. There are two ways to stop short of the wall. Either the industrialized populations move down the food chain to a more vegetarian diet, or the agricultural yield of productive land worldwide is increased by more than 50 percent.” Such an increase is unlikely, as the “constraints of the biosphere are fixed.” Edward O. Wilson, The Future of Life, 33.

5.   A critical perspective on this change sees it as “a capitalist version of the much-older imperialist exploitation of the weak by the strong.” Tom Athanasiou, Divided Planet: The Ecology of Rich and Poor (Toronto: Little, Brown, 1996), 53–54, citing Paul Bairoch in Robert Heilbroner, Twenty-First Century Capitalism (New York: Norton, 1993), 55–56, in Don Mayer, “Institutionalize Overconsumption,” Laura Westra and Patricia H. Werhane, eds., The Business of Consumption: Environmental Ethics and the Global Economy (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998), 69.

6.   “The average rates at which people consume resources like oil and metals, and produce wastes like plastics and greenhouse gases, are about 32 times higher in North America, Western Europe, Japan and Australia than they are in the developing world.” Jared Diamond, “What’s Your Consumption Factor?” The New York Times (Jan. 2, 2008), online at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/02/opinion/02diamond.html. “If everyone in the world had the same consumption rates as in the United States it would take 5.3 planet earths to support them. . . . [The figure is] 3.1 for France and Britain, 3.0 for Spain, 2.5 for Germany and 2.4 for Japan. But if everyone emulated China, which is building a coal-fired power station every five days to feed its booming economy, it would take only 0.9 of a planet.” Jeremy Lovell, “World Moves into Ecological Red,” Reuters (Oct. 5, 2007), online at http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL04722887.

7.   The duty of developed nations to provide financial support for environmental actions in developing nations is explicitly part of the financial agreement in the Convention on Biological Diversity, which was approved in Rio in 1992. See Convention on Biological Diversity, Article 20, online at http://www.cbd.int/convention/articles.shtml?a=cbd-20.

8.   United Nations, Agenda 21 (Rio de Janeiro: Report of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, 1992), Agenda 21, online at http://www.unep.org/DocumentsMultilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=52&ArticleID=52&1=en.

9.   Agenda 21, Chapter 33, online at http://earthwatch.unep.net/agenda21/33.php.

10.  “Despite its enormous wealth and phenomenal growth in technological inventions, the United States remains far behind other industrialized countries in trying to help poor nations embark on the path of development, a new study by an independent think tank concludes.” Haider Rizvi, “Anti-Poverty Index Scores U.S. Last on Environment Policies,” OneWorld.net (Oct. 11, 2007), online at http://us.oneworld.net/article/view/154119/1.

11.  Donald A. Brown, “The Need to Face Conflicts between Rich and Poor Nations,” in Laura Westra and Patricia H. Werhane, eds., The Business of Consumption, 35.

12.  Ibid., 37.

13.  D. Reed, “Introduction” in D. Reed, ed., Structural Adjustment, the Environment, and Sustainable Development (New York: Earthscan Publications, 1996), ixx-xxv, in Donald A. Brown, “The Need to Face Conflicts between Rich and Poor Nations,” in Laura Westra and Patricia H.  Werhane, eds., The Business of Consumption, 37.

14.  D. Reed, “Global Economic Policy” and “Conclusions: Short-Term Environmental Impacts of Structural Adjustment Programs,” in D. Reed, ed., Structural Adjustment, the Environment, and Sustainable Development, 299–333, in Donald A. Brown, “The Need to Face Conflicts between Rich and Poor Nations,” in Laura Westra and Patricia H. Werhane, eds., The Business of Consumption, 38. As noted in chapter 3, a 2006 report by the Independent Evaluation Group of the World Bank concludes that its loan programs imposing SAPs on developing countries have generally not reduced poverty.

15.  Donald A. Brown, “The Need to Face Conflicts between Rich and Poor Nations,” in Laura Westra and Patricia H. Werhane, eds., The Business of Consumption, 39–40.

16.  Italics added. Agenda 21, Chapter 4, Section 4.5, online at http://www.unep.org/DocumentsMultilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=52&ArticleID=52&1=en.

17.  Holmes Rolston III, “Environmental Protection and the International World Order: Ethics after the Earth Summit,” Business Ethics Quarterly 5(1995): 735–752.

18.  “We Americans may think of China’s growing consumption as a problem. But the Chinese are only reaching for the consumption rate we already have. To tell them not to try would be futile.  The only approach that China and other developing countries will accept is to aim to make consumption rates and living standards more equal around the world.” Whether or not we agree with this argument, “we shall soon have lower consumption rates, because our present rates are unsustainable. Real sacrifice wouldn’t be required, however, because living standards are not tightly coupled to consumption rates. Much American consumption is wasteful and contributes little or nothing to quality of life.” Jared Diamond, “What’s Your Consumption Factor?” The New York Times (Jan. 2, 2008), online at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/02/opinion/02diamond.html.

19.  Adam Werbach, former head of the Sierra Club, is promoting PSP (personal sustainability promise) among Wal-Mart employees, with permission from the management to extend the program to all its stores, encouraging each person “to commit to a behavioral change that would benefit the earth. It could be the decision to carpool, to plant trees, to eat organic food, to recycle—anything that might reduce pollution and waste and raise environmental awareness.” Burr Snider, “Werbach at WalMart,” The San Francisco Chronicle (Jan. 6, 2008), P-14, online at http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/06/CM9TTS800.DTL.

20.  Despite his love for animals, Saint Francis was not a vegetarian. Peter Singer, Animal Liberation, 216.

21.  An old meaning of the word religious refers to persons who take vows to live a life apart from the world according to a discipline promulgated by the Catholic Church.

22.  John Muir, “Mountain Thoughts,” Sierra Club, online at http://www.yosemite.ca.us/john_muir_writings/mountain_thoughts.html. He saw no reason, however, to believe that human beings are more important to God’s purpose than other creatures. “Why should man value himself as more than a small part of the one great unit of creation? And what creature of all that the Lord has taken the pains to make is not essential to the completeness of that unit—the cosmos?” John Muir, “Man’s Place in the Universe,” Sierra Club, online at http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/life/muir_biography.html.

23.  “Jane Goodall’s Wild Chimpanzees,” Nature, online at http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/.

24.  “Animals,” The Jane Goodall Institute, online at http://www.janegoodall.org.

25.  Ibid.

26.  “Africa Programs,” The Jane Goodall Institute, online at http://www.janegoodall.org/news/article-detail.asp.

27.  See chapter 14 in Robert Traer and Harlan Stelmach, Doing Ethics in a Diverse Society.

28.  “Jane Goodall—My Four Reasons for Hope,” The Jane Goodall Institute, online at http://www.janegoodall.org/jane/essay.asp.

29.  Lester R. Brown, Full House: Reassessing the Earth’s Population Carrying Capacity (New York: W. W. Norton, 1994), 163.

30.  “Vegetarianism,” online at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarian.

31.  Some Jews are combining “traditional Jewish dietary laws with new concerns about industrial agriculture, global warming and fair treatment of workers.” Alan Cooperman, “Eco-Kosher Movement Aims to Heed Conscience,” The Washington Post (Jul. 7, 2007), A01, online at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/06/AR2007070602092.html.

32.  “Animal Rights Concerns,” online at http://www.animalsuffering.com/index.php. See Kim Severson, “Suddenly the Hunt Is On for Cage-Free Eggs,” The New York Times (Apr. 12, 2007), online at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/us/12eggs.html. “‘While cage-free certainly does not mean cruelty-free, it’s a significant step in the right direction,’ said Paul Shapiro of the Humane Society.”

33.  Tony Cenicola, “Five Easy Ways to Go Organic,” The New York Times (Oct. 22, 2007), online at http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/22/five-easy-ways-to-go-organic.

34.  Michael Barbaro, “Home Depot to Display an Environmental Label,” The New York Times (Apr. 17, 2007), online at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/17/business/17depot.html.

35.  James Gustave Speth, Red Sky at Morning, 168

36.  Ibid., 167. See, for example, “Responsible Shopper,” Co-op America, online at http://www.coopamerica.org/programs/responsibleshopper.

37.  Ibid., 168.

38.  Eric T. Freyfogle, “Consumption and the Practice of Land Health,” in Laura Westra and Patricia H. Werhane, eds., The Business of Consumption, 194.

39.  Ibid., 193–194.

40.  Ibid., 195.

41.  Ibid.

42.  Ibid.

43.  William McDonough and Michael Braungart, Cradle to Cradle, 123.

44.  A report by the Rainforest Alliance says that in the Maya Reserve in Guatemala “local communities and companies in the reserve have created fire control and prevention plans, improved living and working conditions for workers, increased the use of safety equipment, and experienced less social conflict as a result of better land-use mapping. The study’s findings seem to demonstrate that forests are more likely to be protected and well-managed when communities have a stake in the process and have alternatives to clearing land for cattle grazing, farming, and other less sustainable activities.” Haider Rizvi, “Local Control Saves Forests—Report,” OneWorld.net (Mar. 27, 2008), online at http://us.oneworld.net/article/view/159182/1.

45.  Ibid.

46.  George C. Brenkert, “Marketing, the Ethics of Consumption, and Less-Developed Countries,” in Laura Westra and Patricia H. Werhane, eds., The Business of Consumption, 92.

47.  Ian Fisher and Larry Rohter, “The Pope Denounces Capitalism and Marxism,” The New York Times (May 13, 2007), online at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/14/world/americas/14pope.html. The Pope also argues that capitalism has failed to overcome the “distance between rich and poor” and is causing “a worrying degradation of personal dignity through drugs, alcohol and deceptive illusions of happiness.”

48.  Herman E. Daly and Joshua Farley, Ecological Economics, 413.

49.  Italics added. Ibid.

50.  James Gustave Speth, Red Sky at Morning, 127.

51.  George C. Brenkert, “Marketing, the Ethics of Consumption, and Less-Developed Countries,” in Laura Westra and Patricia H. Werhane, eds., The Business of Consumption, 100. We may be encouraged to learn “They have met resistance in this.”

52.  A. Fuat Firat, Erodogan Kumcu, and Mehmet Karafakiolglu, “The Interface between Marketing and Development: Problems and Prospects,” in Erodogan Kumcu and A. Fuat Firat, eds., Marketing and Development: Toward Broader Dimensions (Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1988), in Laura Westra and Patricia H. Werhane, eds., The Business of Consumption, 105.

53.  George C. Brenkert, “Marketing, the Ethics of Consumption, and Less-Developed Countries,” in Laura Westra and Patricia H. Werhane, eds., The Business of Consumption, 107.

54.  R. Goodland, “Environmental Sustainability,” in Laura Westra and Patricia H. Werhane, eds., The Business of Consumption, 204.

55.  Mark Bittman, “Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler,” The New York Times (Jan 27, 2008), online at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/weekinreview/27bittman.html.

56.  Anup Shah, “Beef,” Behind Consumption and Consumerism (Nov. 26, 2003), online at http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Consumption/Beef.asp.

57.  “Like oil, meat is subsidized by the federal government. Like oil, meat is subject to accelerating demand as nations become wealthier, and this, in turn, sends prices higher. Finally—like oil—meat is something people are encouraged to consume less of, as the toll exacted by industrial production increases, and becomes increasingly visible.” Mark Bittman, “Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler,” The New York Times (Jan 27, 2008), online at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/ weekinreview/27bittman.html.

58.  Ibid., 213. For a personal reaction to industrial cattle raising, see Howard F. Lyman with Glen Marzer, Mad Cowboy: The Cattle Rancher Who Won’t Eat Meat (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998).

59.  Simone Spearman, “Eating More Veggies Can Help Save Energy,” The San Francisco Chronicle (Jun. 29, 2001), online at http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0629–06.htm.

60.  Robert Goodland, Catherine Watson, and George Ledec, Environmental Management in Tropical Agriculture (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1984), 237, in R. Goodland, “Environmental Sustainability,” in Laura Westra and Patricia H. Werhane, eds., The Business of Consumption, 214.

61.  Mary Midgley, Animals and Why They Matter, 27. To cut waste we not only need to change our eating habits, but also our industrial food system. “Inefficient harvesting, transportation, storage, and packaging ruin 50 percent of the food” that is produced. Ben Block, “Conserve Water Through Food Efficiency, Report Says,” Worldwatch Institute (May 23, 2008), online at http:// www.worldwatch.org/node/5751.

62.  “The current food crisis causing hunger and starvation for millions of people across the world is not going to end as long as those who dominate the international grain markets remain unwilling to change their behavior, according to experts specializing in international trade and environmental economics.” On the demand side, “the trends include the addition of 70 million people every year, while some 4 billion people are already struggling to move up the food chain and consume more grain-intensive livestock products. At the same time, the amount of grain used for car fuels is also rising immensely.” See Haider Rizvi, “Food Crisis Set to Get Worse,” OneWorld.net (Apr. 19, 2008), online at http://us.oneworld.net/article/view/159936/1.

63.  As we consider economic problems, we should remember that there is no “invisible hand” to ensure that markets promote the common good. Only democratic decision-making and laws that check the power of economic interests will make justice and equity possible in the global economy.

Chapter 9, Doing Environmental Ethics (2009).