Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T06:42:10.921Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Does Mankind Really Bear a Responsibility to the Environment?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

John L. Cloudsley-Thompson
John L. Cloudsley-Thompson
Affiliation:
Professor and Head, Department of Zoology, Birkbeck College(University of London), Malet Street, London WC1E 7HX, England, UK.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Economic considerations cannot be invoked to justify long-term protection of the environment. The appeal to posterity, as Goethe pointed out, springs from ‘the pure, strong feeling of the existence of something imperishable; something that will, in the end, be gratified by finding the minority turn into a majority’. There is nothing new in the paradox expounded in the opening paragraphs of this account: Goethe also wrote that there is nothing worth thinking but it has been thought before; we must only try to think it again. In answer to the question, ‘What is your duty?’ he replied, ‘the claims of the day’.

We should not expect to find a logical reason in the future for doing what seems right now. We should do what appears to be our duty in relation to the environment, as in all else, just because it seems right to do so, and in deference to future generations. We may not be justified in believing that there can be objective vindication of our subjective feelings; but this should never allow us to close our ears to the whispering of our inner conscience. There is much that is true which cannot be assessed, yet it is on the strength of truths such as these that actions have sometimes to be based: to ignore the future would make nonsense of the present.

Type
Main Papers
Information
Environmental Conservation , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1985 , pp. 255 - 258
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation for Environmental Conservation 1985

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Cloudsley-Thompson, J.L. (1984). Open letter: the footprint in the sand. Environmental Conservation, 11(2), pp. 95–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ehrlich, P.R. [and 19 others] (1983). Long-term biological consequences of nuclear war. Science, 222, pp. 1293–1300.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Holt, S. [J.] (1984). Opinion: whalemate. BBC Wildlife, 2(7), pp. 348–9.Google Scholar
Myers, N. (1983 a). A priority-ranking strategy for threatened species? The Environmentalist, 3(2), pp. 97–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Myers, N. (1983 b). If they press the button: The global consequences of nuclear war. Technology (Ireland), 12, pp. 19–22.Google Scholar
Tolba, M.K., Westing, A.H. & Polunin, N. (1983). The environmental imperative of nuclear disarmament. Environmental Conservation, 10(2), pp. 91–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Webb, R.H. (1982). Off-road motorcycle effects on a desert soil. Environmental Conservation, 9(3), pp. 197–208, 7 figs.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Webb, R.H. & Wilshire, H.G. (Eds) (1983). Environmental Effects of Off-road Vehicles: Impacts and Management in Arid Regions. Springer-Verlag, New York, NY, USA: xxi + 534 pp., illustr.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Westing, A.H. (1982). Guest editorial: Environmental consequences of nuclear warfare. Environmental Conservation, 9(4), pp. 269–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar