From Beginning to End

I would like to go back to the first day of class when we talked about our current “environmental crisis”. Throughout the course we have narrowed down the meaning of this phrase into deciding what it pertains to, what human’s role is, what motivates humans to be involved, and why we should take action. I must say that most compelling evidence for me as to why we should act has been our discussions on nature, the botany of desire, and environmental ethics. We first discussed what nature is and I found to believe that humans are part of nature. Then, through the botany of desire, we learned that nature often evolves to human likes so that their species may grow and in environmental ethics we discussed how humans are the only species with ethics so it is our moral responsibility to protect it. But all of these points work together. Since humans can be considered part of nature, isn’t it common sense that we should help ourselves? Since nature can evolve to human preferences to preserve their species, shouldn’t we applaud those species by helping them flourish? And lastly, since we are the only species with ethics, regardless of why we want to help nature, shouldn’t we help to fulfill one of our basic obligations on this planet? I think the answer to all these questions are yes.
But now, we are discussing this concept of Deep Ecology and the fight against human’s natural tendency of an anthropocentric environmentalism. All species have a selfish demeanor – even humans. We are not above the rest of nature in that sense. We put ourselves before all others, even our own species. My favorite example of this is when you are on an airplane and the flight attendant describes the safety precausions. When they get to talking about the oxygen masks, you should always put one on yourself before you put one on the child next to you. Would it not make sense for the continuance of human species, to put it on the younger child first to save their life over an older person’s life? I disagree with this part of deep ecology because I do not think that motivations are the root cause for the environmental crisis. We need to help nature with the understanding that it is our moral responsibility as humans but also understanding that humans are part of nature, and helping nature will help us also.
In another sense, I think this is probably the only part of Deep Ecology I disagree with. The rest, including most of the principles probably should be publicized more because I think most other people, or environmentalists would agree with them on the whole and begin to put some of them in their daily lives.
I guess my questions are do you agree with me on my point about Deep Ecology? Is there any part of the class as a whole which particularly heightened your opinions on your personal environmental ethics?