Human capacity, self-interest and moral restraint: attempting to understand the ecological crisis

Some scientists claim we live today in the "Anthropocene era" - the latest period in the history of the earth, marked by the fact that the impact of human activity is such that it is "reshaping the planet on a geological scale - but at a far- faster-than-geological speed (Economist, 2011: 17)." Modern awareness of the problem has its origins in the 19th century, in North America through the writings of George Perkins Marsh and observation of impacts such as the extinction of the passenger pigeon and near-extinction of the buffalo. During the past forty odd years, all academic disciplines have turned their attention to aspects of the human-nonhuman relationship relevant to their area of study (environmental chemistry, environmental politics, nature in English literature, etc). At the same time, an interdisciplinary body of knowledge termed environmental studies or environmental sciences has emerged, which attempts to grapple with the whole of those interconnected aspects. Off the campus, all organizations, from governments, to firms, to churches and beyond have begun to take steps to reduce their environmental impacts. In both thought and action, the environmental problem now ranks with other dominant concerns such as military security, state of the economy, human rights and social welfare. Thought and action are linked, in that research, thinking and writing about environment, both in academe and professional circles, is done primarily in order to contribute to actions which can be taken to reduce the human impact. In these linked areas of thought and practice, two questions are central: 1) what are the causes of the ecological crisis; and, 2) what are the solutions? The questions themselves are connected, since the framing of a problem determines the range of options considered viable for its resolution. The purpose of this paper is to provide tentative, interconnected answers to both questions. I do not suggest the argument made here is superior to the many others which exist or the only correct basis for action; I merely hope it is another useful way to view the environmental problem and its solution. The subject matter is the global human impact upon environment, and efforts to address that problem, since emergence of the species homo sapiens some two hundred thousand years ago through to the rapid escalation of both global human population and the scale of impacts which has been seen in the past five hundred years. The paper begins with a short statement of the argument, immediately below. The remainder of the paper then unpacks that argument, by first providing a brief summary of current thinking on causes of the environmental problem, followed by my own argument, which does not deny the importance of any of the causes currently recognized but instead attempts to fit them together into one basic cause. The remainder of the paper examines the implications of that view of one basic cause for possible solutions, based in human self-interest, moral restraint or a combination of the two