Alienation and Nature in Environmental Philosophy

About the Contributors

BIOPROCESSING.- Synthesis of Poly(L(+) Lactic Acid) by Polycondensation Method in Solution.- The Feasibility of Using Cattails from Constructed Wetlands to Produce Bioethanol.- Significance of Bile Salt Tolerant Lactobacillus reuteri.- The Effect of Insulin from Jerusalem Artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus) Extract on Growth and Viability of Lactobacillus salivarius in Fermented Milk.- Lactic Acid Production from Apple Skin Waste by Immobilized Cells of Lactobacillus reuteri.- BIOREMEDIATION.- Cu and Zn Uptake Inhibition by PAHs as Primary Toxicity in Plants.- Metagenomic Environmental Assessment of Aquatic Ecosystems.- ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE AND ETHICS.- Water Quality in an Environmental Justice Community in Durham, NC.- The Impact of Social Capital on Environmental Risk Reduction in Moncure.- Air Quality Issues for an Aging Population.- Environmental Pollution, Race and Place: Research and Policy Implications.- Financial Reporting of Environmental Risks and Liabilities.- Oak Biodiesel: State Building and Fire Codes Affecting Biodiesel Manufacturing.- The Ecological Effects of Salt Water Intrusion on the Agriculture Industry After Hurricane Katrina.- Municipal Wastewater Concentrations of Pharmaceutical and Xeno-Estrogens: Wildlife and Human Health Implications.- Challenges in the Devolution of Environmental Health Service Delivery in South Africa.- A Review of Health and Hygiene Promotion as Part of Sanitation Delivery Programmes to Informal Settlements in the City of Cape Town (South Africa).- Pollution, Environmental Justice, and the North Carolina Pork Industry.- Reducing Community Exposure to Toxics: A Critical Component in Building Healthy and Sustainable Communities.- Environmental Ethics of Health Mission To Enugu Nigeria.- FATE AND TRANSPORT OF CONTAMINANTS.- Use of Kalman Filter and Particle Filter in a One Dimensional Leachate Transport Model.- Organic Pollutant Transport in Groundwater Using Particle Filter.- Modeling the Sorption Behavior of Aromatic Amine Onto Sediment Under Acidic Conditions.- Radioactive Contaminanant Transport in Subsurface Porous Environment.- Transport and Degradation of a Trichloroethylene Plume Within a Stream Hyporheic Zone.- GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE.- Using a Spoken Diary and Heart Rate Monitor in Modeling Human Exposure to Airborne Pollutants for EPA'S Consolidated Human Activity Database.- Proposal for Focus Shift in Addressing Climate Change and Environmental Assesment.- Sensor Webs in Digital Earth: Monitoring Climate Change Impacts.- Thermal Characterization of Biodegradable Poly (Lactic Acid)/Clay Nanocomposites.- Tools for Carbon Management: Potential Carbon Footprint Reduction Through Fuel Switching.- Coral Disease and Global Climate Change.- Climate Change, Drought, and Wetland Vegetation.- Dynamics of Soil Organic Nitrogen and its Functions in Soil Carbon Stabilization Processes.- Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Potential of Corn Ethanol: Accounting for Corn Acreage Expansion.- Comparative Effects of Sea Level Rise Versus Hurricane Event on Coastal Erosion.- Global Warming in Asheville, North Carolina.- INNOVATIVE ENVIRONMENTAL TECHNOLOGY AND SENSORS.- Tuckaseegee Watershed Observatory: A Collaborative Environmental Research Tool.- Encapsulation of Potassium Permanganate Oxidant in Polymers.- C. Elegans Chemotaxis and Reproduction Following Environmental Exposure.- Storing Weather Data and Dissemination Via the Web.- Rapid and Simple Method for the Encapsulation of Lactobacillus reuteri in the Production of Lactic Acid.- POLLUTION PREVENTION/SOLVENTS AND PROCESSES.- Analysis of Partition Coefficients and Ternary Liquid-Liquid Equilibrium Data for Highly Non-Ideal Systems.- Application of Chitosan in Remediation of Dyes.- An Apparatus for Density and VLE Measurements for Gas-Liquid Systems.- MSE Walls in Solid Waste Applications.- Study of the Molecular Weight Dependence of Glass Transition Temperature for Amorphous Poly(L-Lactide) by Molecular Dynamics Simulation.- Channel Catfish Estrogenicity and Sewer Overflows Implications for Xenoestrogen Exposure.- Sorption and Desorption of Nitrogen and Phosphorus by Zeolite and Shale.

It is now commonly understood that much of the worldwide burden of environmental ill health falls disproportionately on poorer peoples [1,2]. There is also substantial evidence that much environmental damage internationally is the result of the actions of richer nations or richer groups within nations—with impacts on poorer nations and poorer groups within nations [1,3,4]. It is becoming clear also that poorer peoples internationally experience multiple environmental harms, and that these may have a cumulative effect. The world is becoming more urbanized, and cities are becoming the locus for many of the local issues of environmental damage and environmental harm [4,5]. But cities are also responsible for substantial international environmental damage: for example, it is increasingly evident that cities are one of the main generators of climate change, and that the actions of people in cities in the rich world are deeply linked to the well-being of the overall ecosystem and of people worldwide. Environmental justice is a concept that links the environmental health science documenting these harms, to debates around rights, justice and equity. It fundamentally deals with the distribution of environmental goods and harms—and looks at who bears those harms and who is responsible for creating those harms, in both a practical sense but also in terms of policy decisions. It is a radical environmental health movement that has evolved from civil society groups, angered at what they perceive as the `unjust' distribution of environmental resources for health and, conversely the `unjust' distribution of environmental harms. The movement now includes a collaboration of non-governmental organizations with environmental scientists, public health professionals, and lawyers, all working on the issue of the distributions of environmental harms and the rights of everyone to a healthy environment.This special issue is both timely and important. Environmental justice is moving conceptually and empirically. It started in the US as a movement of local civil society groups against local environmental injustice and distribution of environmental harms [6]. It is becoming a movement that encompasses international environmental injustices and issues of access to environmental goods—and it discusses environmental justice issues both across countries and also across generations. One such definition was pulled together by academics and NGOs in the UK in 2001:‘that everyone should have the right and be able to live in a healthy environment, with access to enough environmental resources for a healthy life’‘that responsibilities are on this current generation to ensure a healthy environment exists for future generations, and on countries, organisations and individuals in this generation to ensure that development does not create environmental problems or distribute environmental resources in ways which damage other peoples health’ [7].This kind of broad definition of environmental justice has been gaining currency internationally, and language around justice is moving into many topic areas of environmental science—shifting discourse on ‘climate change’ to ‘climate justice’, ‘water pollution’ to ‘rights to clean water’, ‘air pollution’ to ‘rights to healthy air’.Policy is changing too. In Europe the public is gaining more access to information on environmental harms through policy mechanisms such as the Aarhus Convention [8,9] and internationally, civil society groups are becoming aware that there are mechanisms to support them if they challenge environmental pollution. As the public becomes more aware of the issues of environmental justice, and as policy shifts in this direction, environmental scientists have a challenge. We have some of the methodology necessary to measure the distribution of environmental harms and environmental responsibilities. But we also need to develop new methods to deal with the new challenges: for example, how do we measure when an issue of water contamination becomes an issue of environmental injustice? How do we measure the impacts of environmental harm today on future generations? How do we measure the distribution of multiple or cumulative impacts on poorer groups? How do we quantify the responsibility of richer citizens in the world for the environmental harms distributed unequally to the poorer citizens?The papers in this focus issue do not answer all these questions, but we hope that this theme will recur in Environmental Research Letters and that more environmental scientists will begin to frame their analyses around the critical issues of distributions of environmental harms and benefits.

As the climate crisis accelerates and disproportionately affects marginalised communities and countries in the global South, the need for power and social justice approaches is particularly important. Community psychology, with a long interest in the impacts of power discrepancies on the well-being of groups and communities, can offer theoretical and practical tools for addressing climate change and environmental problems without reproducing or intensifying existing inequalities and injustices. This special issue looks at communities' struggles for climate and environmental justice by focusing on how they resist, contest and overcome power inequalities. The issue consists of one perspective and six empirical articles. Most contributions come from high climate vulnerable countries and regions in the global South. Authors address current and relevant environmental and climate change issues such as renewable energy and natural resource extraction, social transformations and extreme weather events, the links between poverty, rurality and climate change, youth empowerment, and racism in climate activism. Inspired by their contributions, community psychology approaches and interdisciplinary research on environmental and climate justice, we discuss a research and intervention agenda for a community psychology of climate change.

Teaching & Learning Guide for: The Aesthetics of Nature

This study explores the perspectives of environmental activists on the disproportionate impacts of environmental crises on vulnerable populations, focusing on issues such as pollution, occupational hazards, and natural disasters. Using critical theory as a framework, the research highlights the intersection of environmental justice and structural inequalities, emphasizing the role of social service providers in addressing these challenges. Through qualitative interviews with 25 environmental activists, the study identifies key themes: the environmental issues affecting vulnerable communities, their health and socioeconomic impacts, and recommendations for social service interventions. Findings underscore the need for social workers to engage in community-based advocacy, education, and policy reform to mitigate environmental injustices. The study calls for a shift towards eco-centric practices within social work, emphasizing the importance of addressing both environmental and social justice issues to build resilient and equitable communities.

I argue that from its beginning environmental philosophy has held two contrasting views of Eastern thought and of Indian philosophical and religious ideas in particular. Utilising the insights of Edward Said and others I find that these contrasting images are reflective of a duality according to which India has been constituted in Western discourse. I argue that these Western images of India remain a significant feature of writing concerning environmental ethics to the present time. As it appears in some recent scholarship in environmental ethics, this discourse remains an obstacle to an informed appreciation of the significance of Indian thought and of Asian thought more generally for environmental philosophy.

This book focuses on environmental justice in African philosophy, highlighting important new perspectives which will be of significance to researchers with an interest in environmental ethics both within Africa and beyond. Drawing on African social and ethical conceptions of existence, the book makes suggestions for how to derive environmental justice from African philosophies such as communitarian ethics, relational ethics, unhu/ubuntu ethics, ecofeminist ethics and intergenerational ethics. Specifically, the book emphasises the ways in which African philosophies of existence seek to involve everyone in environmental policy and planning and to equitably distribute both environmental benefits (such as natural resources) and environmental burdens (such as pollution and the location of mining, industrial or dumping sites). This extends to fair distribution between global South and global North, rich and poor, urban and rural populations, men and women and adults and children. These principles of humaneness, relationships, equality, interconnectedness and teleologically oriented existence among all beings are important not only to African environmental justice but also to the environmental justice movement globally. The book will interest researchers and students working in the fields of environmental ethics, African philosophy and political philosophy in general.

This book addresses the relevance of the state of exception for the analysis of law; whilst reflecting on the deeper symbolic and jurisprudential significance of the coalescence between law and force. The concept of the state of exception has become a central topos in political and legal philosophy as well as in critical theory. The theoretical apparatus of the state of exception sharply captures the uneasy relationship between law, life and politics in the contemporary global setting, while also challenging the comforting narratives that uncritically connect democracy with the tradition of the rule of law. Drawing on critical legal theory, continental jurisprudence, political philosophy and history, this book explores the genealogy of the concept of the state of exception and reflects on its legal embodiment in past and present contexts – including Weimar and Nazi Germany, contemporary Europe and Turkey. In doing so, it explores the disruptive force of the exception for legal and political thought, as it recuperates its contemporary critical potential. The book will be of interest to students and scholars in the field of jurisprudence, philosophy and critical legal theory.

Critical media theory can be traced back to the development of critical theory by thinkers associated with the so-called Frankfurt School in the 1920s and 1930s. The critical theory of the Frankfurt School was generally neo-Marxist and Hegelian, and established powerful critiques of positivist, mainstream forms of social science and philosophy. The Frankfurt School’s approach to theorizing the emergent 20th century “mass media” therefore founded a powerful critique of mainstream, positivist, “administrative” mass communication research that became dominant in the early decades of the discipline. Arguably the most direct theoretical descendants of Frankfurt School critical theory (via the latter’s critique of industrialized culture) are the forms of political economy of the media that emerged in their wake. By the 1960s and 1970s, however, competing Marxist analyses began to challenge what they took to be the economism, reductionism, and determinism of Frankfurt School and political economy approaches. The most important movement in these respects came out of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom. The so-called Birmingham School developed forms of structural and cultural Marxism that drew heavily on the work of Althusser and Gramsci in particular. Additionally, the CCCS developed semiotic and ethnographic approaches to critical media studies that drew upon thinkers such as Barthes and Geertz, and thus gave rise to theories of media audiences that differed sharply from those of the Frankfurt School and political economists. During the late-1970s and throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the critical media theory of the Birmingham School engaged closely with feminist theory and politics, and with critical race theory; it also engaged in dialogues and debates with poststructuralism, postmodernism, post-Marxism and postcolonialism, and spread internationally under the stripped-down heading of “Cultural Studies.” Though not unrelated, critical media theory can be differentiated from film theory: many film theorists reject the characterization of cinema as a “communication medium,” and equally rejected (for many years, at least) the engagement with television that spurred the development of a great deal of critical media theory and that helped give rise to the field of television studies in the 1970s and 1980s. Critical media theory in general, and television studies in particular, have incorporated some forms of psychoanalysis to one degree or another, but neither has been anywhere near as absorbed by psychoanalytic approaches as film theory was for many years (arguably as primarily a consequence of the specificity of the cinematic apparatus). In more recent years, new media theory in particular has been central to the continuing development and concerns of critical media theory more generally.

Moving from awareness to action on preventing patient exposure to toxic environmental chemicals

This essay begins at the intersection of two controversies that are of considerable importance to contemporary discussions about the relationship between our species and the restofnature. One concerns the question of whether a compelling case can be made for vegetarianism on moral grounds. The other has to do with the debate between proponents ofanimal rights and ethical holists over which kind of theory provides a more adequate foundation for a new environmental ethic. My remarks have their origin in some personal observations as well. Over the past decade and a half I have been a participant in numerous conferences, seminars and workshops on themes having to do with animal rights or animal liberation; I have also been involved in many centering on problems in environ­ mental ethics. These have all been positive experiences for me in one way or another, and have, I believe, expanded the horizons ofeveryone present. Yet I could not avoid noticing that when I am at an animal rights or animal liberation conference it is a foregone conclusion, an essential premise, that all food presented to delegates shall be vegetarian, even vegan. In contraSt, conferences occupied with topics in environmental ethics conunonly display no such commitment; and as a matter of fact, I fmd myself at these gatherings surrounded by persons discoursing earnestly on the subtleties of biocentrism, the land ethic, value· theory, deep ecology, Gaianism, and so forth who are simultaneously tucking lustily into steaks, chops, bacon, and even veal with no apparent qualms. At one recent conference on environmental ethics and sustainable development, of some fifty participants. only two others besides myself had requested vegetarian meals. At another, a workshop on environmental ethics and higher education, I was the only one of thirty participants not eating meat. In case it may be thought that too much weight is being placed here on one source of evidence, it should also be noted that of seventeen general anthologies of contemporary work in environmental ethics or environmental philosophy that have appeared since 1974, only one contains an essay specifically devoted to agricultural issues.1None contains an essay that treats the topic of meat as an environmental problem. The same omission is found in monographs in these fields. (Ecofeminists, however, do engage this issue2 and appear to be the only group of theorists for whom it is anything like a central concern. What this entails will be considered briefly in section 5.) What does it all mean? Before I attempt an answer let me say that I fmd

Intrinsic and Instrumental Value

This paper addresses two issues: the controversy over pragmatism in environmental philosophy, and the habitual exclusion of William James's work from serious examination. Addressing critiques of pragmatic naturalism from Max Horkheimer, Eugene Hargrove and Holmes Rolston, I argue that their criticisms misfire, primarily due to skewed perception derived from mis-interpretative projections of views to which pragmatism is not committed. I conclude that the critics' major concerns are largely groundless, but that greater emphasis on pragmatism's experiential aspect would clarify this.1. IntroductionThe possibility that pragmatism might offer a new, better direction for environmental ethics was first raised by Anthony Weston in a path-breaking paper in 1985,1 since which time a significant debate between pragmatists and anti-pragmatists has affected the whole field. Arguments on the pragmatist side have tended to criticize the high level of abstraction found within environmental ethics, often arguing against the practical helpfulness of the habitual stress on theoretical axiology, especially intrinsic value theory.In place of these axiological emphases, pragmatists have urged a greater and more pluralist attendance to specifics of particular environmental problems, and aimed at a greater emphasis on practical policy convergence in political terms. Thus Weston urges a pragmatic multicentrism and a plurality of revisioning options for our everyday relationships to the natural world; Andrew Light has suggested a metaphilosophical pragmatism that may help separate wheat from chaff in otherwise interminable theoretical debates, and Bryan Norton has advocated a convergence hypothesis on policy that tries to defuse the tensions between anthropocentric and nonanthropocentric varieties of environmental concern as well as attempting to justify strong conceptions of sustainability in broadly pragmatic terms. On the anti-pragmatist side, J. Baird Callicott has stoutly defended the emphasis on axiology and intrinsic value theory for its radical potential, repudiating pragmatic pluralism in the process, whilst figures such as Eric Katz, Holmes Rolston and Eugene Hargrove have criticized what they perceive as excessive anthropocentrism, subjectivism and instrumentalism within pragmatism. The pragmatist perspective has also attracted hostility outside North America, with similar but more overtly political suspicions of American pragmatism to those of Callicott, Rolston and Hargrove coming from the European left, where the pragmatic connection of truth with success and utility has drawn fire.Accordingly, a range of anti-pragmatist critics exist, and part of what is striking about their criticisms from a pragmatist perspective is the extent to which the complaints have continuously repeated the same broad themes in response to answers. Thus it remains common for critics to assume a radical incompatibility between pragmatism and intrinsic value theory, despite Hugh McDonald's demonstration that Deweyan ethics actually includes intrinsic value concepts.4 Similarly, the view of pragmatism as subjectivist and thus antinaturalistic is frequently taken for granted, as is the claim that pragmatism is anti-theoretical. This last view, which (as we shall see) is in fact a reheating of quite an old charge, has been maintained by Callicott in his attacks on pragmatism,5 and in fairness, it must be conceded that many environmental pragmatists' fixation on policy and management may have contributed to the view that pragmatism offers little room for intellectual novelty or theory. A similar case obtains, as we shall see, in relation to the lack of attention to the Jamesian tradition,6 where pragmatists themselves may have internalized the view of William James as an anti-naturalistic subjectivist. Thus, even Paul Thompson and Thomas Hilde' s compilation of essays on American pragmatism and the agrarian tradition, which finds room for such figures as Benjamin Franklin and John Steinbeck as well as the more familiar names of Jefferson, Emerson, Thoreau, Royce, Peirce and Dewey, gives only passing mention to James. …

Beautiful, persecuted, fragile, resilient: how flying foxes help us confront every big question facing life on earth today ‘I was called to flying-foxes. My research questions led me into multispecies ethnographic work involving wildlife carers and academically trained scientists in eastern Australia. The people I met were at the front line in the work of holding flying-foxes back from the edge of extinction. I continued to visit the north, and I revisited my notebooks from several decades of research with Aboriginal people. The research was exhilarating, and then again at times deeply disheartening. I was to encounter more passion, intimacy, cruelty, horror, complexity, generosity and wild beauty than I could ever have imagined. Living with flying-foxes, I came to understand, takes us straight to the heart of every big question facing Earth life in the 21st century.’ Draws on etho-ethnographic fieldwork with flying fox scientists, conservationists and rehabilitation carers, as well as with Australian Aboriginal communities – a leading example of interdisciplinary, multispecies scholarship Paints a vivid portrayal of the art of multispecies care amidst ongoing peril Eloquently reflects on death and persecution in a time of extinctions Elaborates Aboriginal philosophies of ancestral power, brought into contact with other philosophical and scientific traditions Engages with decolonial ecological ethics and contributes to environmental philosophy The highly anticipated final book by the leading anthropologist and environmental humanities scholar Deborah Bird Rose (1946–2018) Deborah Bird Rose explores the shimmer of life – the iridescent pulse of beauty and power, the processes of transition and transformation – that flows across and between generations. Grounded within this insight, she develops and advocates for an ethics of attention, that is in the world within everyday practices, and in this case for and with flying foxes and their worlds. A deeply personal book, her struggle with cancer is gently woven into the account she offers of flying fox life and death. Combining her research expertise in a number of fields – multispecies studies, extinction studies, anthropology and environmental philosophy – Rose paints a vivid portrait of flying fox life and death in the Anthropocene that has important wider lessons for ecological and decolonial ontologies and ethics. Building from sources such as Hoffmeyer’s biosemiotics, Lévy-Bruhl’s philosophical anthropology, Levinas’ post-Holocaust ethics, Shestov’s existentialism, Stengers’ cosmopolitics and the many insights of her Indigenous Australian friends and teachers, she articulates her own uniquely situated testament to the intergenerational gifts of ancestral power, ever more threatened, yet preciously shared and affirmed.