the Ethics of Global Environment

This fully updated and expanded textbook looks at issues including climate change, sustainable development and biodiversity preservation, and sensitively addresses global developments such as the Summits at Durban on climate and at Nagoya on biodiversity. This fully updated and expanded textbook gives you new reflections on global environmental issues. It looks at issues including climate change, sustainable development and biodiversity preservation, and sensitively addresses global developments such as the Summits at Durban on climate and at Nagoya on biodiversity. Robin Attfield gives an ethical critique of current international environmental problems and negotiations, and explains how international regimes will need to change to be able to cope with global environmental problems.

This volume concerns itself with the ethical principles and concepts relating to the environment: nature, resources and the planet. This is placed in the context of ethical theory, and consideration is given to the way these values have transformed received ethical traditions. Issues include the intrinsic value of nonhuman species, obligations to future generations, and the aesthetic needs of humanity. Both the universal responsibilities and their application are investigated. The international responsibilities to the planet are seen in the context of some of the most alarming future scenarios: limited access to water, the changing global climate, population explosion, the destruction of ecosystems, and even the extinction of humanity.