Nathan Bell is a doctoral student at the University of North Texas philosophy department with a concentration on environmental ethics and philosophy. He has presented at various conferences including the International Association for Environmental Philosophy, the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment, and the Association for Environmental Studies and Sciences.
 

W: What is the real reasoning behind going green?  I'm trying but I can't articulate the reasons I do it, I just think its the right thing to do. Why do you think it is important to go green, or do you think it is important to go green?

 

Bell: Well you could think of it as an ethical issue. When you think about things like resource use, there's only a certain amount of those resources. The average lifestyle of industrialized countries use a lot of resources. If you want to think of it in those terms its unfair almost to the point of being unethical if certain people are using all of the resources. On the one hand just ethical towards our fellow humans to not use too much of the resources and to not degrade the planet.One of the actual definitions of the word sustainability is being able to meet our current needs without compromising future generations abilities to meet their own needs. But what that really means is that not so much their ability but the capacity of the planet to provide the resources that the future generations will need.

 

W: Sustainability is what I am trying to get to but there are so many lines. You can go deep down the rabbit hole if you want to. What kind of things do you need to think about while a person is deciding where their line is?

 

Bell: There are a lot of things to think about. What you're saying is right that if a person wants to be as environmental as possible they kind of just run off into the woods and try to live off the land. But people should not give up their whole lives.

 

W: Is it a matter of priorities more or less, what you don't want to give up and what you can give up?

 

Bell: You balance stuff. In Texas for example its really hard to be comfortable without running A/C. By contrast people who live in the northern part of the United States, for them the winter is very uncomfortable without burning gas for heating their homes. You don't want to give up all of your comforts, the basic way of modern life that we have.

 

W: What do you think about the question of whether we should be a society based on our self-interest as individuals and as a human race or do we include the entire planet in that self-interest?

 

Bell: You see different views on this. People involved with animal rights, PETA being the most obvious example, those kinds of groups tend to think that the moral community is humans and animals. Meanwhile other people, the general term environmental philosophers use for this is biocentrism, where people feel that all living things as individuals deserve moral consideration. And what your kind of referencing is the idea that the over-all ecosystem deserves moral consideration. Although it's not necessarily a consideration of each individual thing on a one-on-one basis. I think the best view to take is maybe a kind of balance of human's interest and the ecosystem's interest. We don't want to give up on humanity. Give up on the kind of dreams and the way of life that we have as humans, all of our ideals, our goals all of our achievements.If you're just considering human interest you could work out scientifically and mathematically your optimal pollution point and kind of run at that level. If you're considering the ecosystem as having moral value you can't really optimize pollution in that way. You'd have to try and keep it as low as possible.

 

W: I think its a matter of figuring out what the self-interest is on both sides. It's like in politics you have to figure out what do they need, what do you need, how do you both achieve what you need? What are the kind of things that a person can do that would be in their self-interest and also in the self-interest of their local ecosystem, if not the general global ecosystem?

 

Bell: Some people treat environmentalism as this sort of battle like it has to be so difficult but it really doesn't. They are kind of coming back with the 'buy american' product push. When you buy products in America you have less shipping, less overseas transports of goods which of coarse cuts down on the over all carbon footprint. Something like that people see it as their patriotic duty. But in a way that's environmental, too. The meat industry has a large carbon footprint. Not just carbon though, energy use, water use, land use. Getting that quarter-pound of meat for a hamburger is rather resource intensive. We tend to have a lot of heart disease and poor health in this country because we eat too much red meat. Anything like using compact florescent bulbs, just taking the time to conserve water, conserve electricity. That helps the planet. But at the same time we pay for water, we pay for electricity. So a lot of these little things that you can do to be more environmentally friendly are also just going to save you money.  A lot of things that you can do to be more environmental are good for your health. Walk more instead of driving, or ride a bike. Things that you can do to be more environmentally friends kinda just have side benefits.

 

Photo credit to the Town of East Gwillimbury.