Environmental justice and biospheric egalitarianism: reflecting on a normative-philosophical view of human-nature relationship

Helen Kopnina

doi:10.1186/2194-6434-1-8

Abstract

The recent shift towards the interdisciplinary study of the human-environment relationship is largely driven by environmental justice debates. This article will distinguish four types of environmental justice and link them to questions of neoliberalism and altruism. First, environmental justice seeks to redress inequitable distribution of environmental burdens to vulnerable groups and economically disadvantaged populations. Second, environmental justice highlights the developed and developing countries’ unequal exposure to environmental risks and benefits. Third, temporal environmental justice refers to the issues associated with intergenerational justice or concern for future generations of humans. In all three cases, environmental justice entails equitable distribution of burdens and benefits to different nations or social groups. By contrast, ecological justice involves biospheric egalitarianism or justice between species. This article will focus on ecological justice since the rights of non-human species lags behind social justice debates and discuss the implications of including biospheric egalitarianism in environmental justice debates.

Highlights

The recent shift towards the interdisciplinary study of the human-environment relationship is largely driven by environmental justice debates
Environmental justice (EJ) becomes salient considering the scarcity of natural resources, or when group identities are linked to environmental burdens or benefits, or when there is an increased awareness of the dangers that human activities pose to natural environment (Clayton 2000:460)
The following sections will address the types of EJ and link them to questions of neoliberalism and altruism

Summary

Introduction

The recent shift towards the interdisciplinary study of the human-environment relationship is largely driven by environmental justice debates. This article will focus on ecological justice since the rights of non-human species lags behind social justice debates and discuss the implications of including biospheric egalitarianism in environmental justice debates. The first conception refers to inequitable distribution of environmental burdens such as hazardous and polluting industries to vulnerable groups such as ethnic minorities or the economically disadvantaged populations (e.g. Carter 2007). The second conception refers to the developed and developing countries’ unequal exposure to environmental risks and benefits, such as the consequences of climate change This is due in large part to the fact that the poorest people tend to live in the most polluted environments since in the rural areas of the developing world, they have been forced onto marginal areas by the process of enclosure, leading to deforestation, soil erosion, and agricultural failure (Singer and Evans 2013). Environmental racism includes any policy or practice that negatively affects the living environment of low-income or ethnically marginalized communities at a higher rate than affluent communities (Holifield 2001)

Objectives

Conclusion