CHAPTER 3
On Moral Failures in Dealing with
Environmental Issues: The Europipe Experience
B.W. Flemming
3.1
Introduction
Environmental ethics may be defined as that part of philosophy that deals with the
rights or wrongs (the good or evil) of human interactions with the natural environment. To quote the philosopher Stephen E. Toulmin (1960): "Ethics is everybody's concern". In analogy to this statement it could indeed be claimed that environmental ethics is everybody's concern. It should therefore be viewed as representing a special case
of ethics, one that concerns itself with principles of moral behaviour in human attitudes and dealings with nature (cf. Attfield 1983).
In the past, when human pressures on the environment were low, the need to define
and implement moral standards in dealing with nature was seldom a conscious issue
because human activities rarely resulted in lasting environmental damage. This began
to change with the advent of urbanization and political empire building of early civilizations (e.g. severe land degradation associated with the construction and expansion
of ancient cities, or widespread deforestation in Roman times). It rapidly expanded
with the technological advances made during the late Middle Ages, and took on new
dimensions in the wake of the industrial revolution and the associated population explosions in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A further escalation took place
after World War II as a consequence of mass production and economic globalization.
In spite of this long history of systematic environmental destruction, public awareness
of and reaction to this sad state of affairs is a surprisingly recent development.
The memorable book The Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (1962) was one of the earliest and most impressive public indictments against uncontrolled exploitation of natural
resources and the associated destruction of the environment by the indiscriminent use
of pesticides, heralding the forthcoming change in attitude towards nature. From the
start, public industrial and governmental reactions were anything but rational. Today
we stand in the midst of this (still painful) process which all too often manifests itself
in violent confrontation between radical environmental pressure groups on one side
and the political and industrial establishment on the other. As a consequence, and contrary to the ideals of nature conservation and environmental ethics, compromises emanating from such confrontations are often counterproductive, both ethics and the environment being the ultimate losers.
In this context the Europipe project is a case in point. In the face of an evidently
better alternative (Fig. 3.1), it is today clear that the chosen route through the Wadden
Sea and some of the constructional methods applied must in many respects be regarded as an inferior solution from an environmental point of view. Experts generally
agree that the most sensible routing of the landfall would have been on the island of
On Moral Failures in Dealing with
Environmental Issues: The Europipe Experience
B.W. Flemming
3.1
Introduction
Environmental ethics may be defined as that part of philosophy that deals with the
rights or wrongs (the good or evil) of human interactions with the natural environment. To quote the philosopher Stephen E. Toulmin (1960): "Ethics is everybody's concern". In analogy to this statement it could indeed be claimed that environmental ethics is everybody's concern. It should therefore be viewed as representing a special case
of ethics, one that concerns itself with principles of moral behaviour in human attitudes and dealings with nature (cf. Attfield 1983).
In the past, when human pressures on the environment were low, the need to define
and implement moral standards in dealing with nature was seldom a conscious issue
because human activities rarely resulted in lasting environmental damage. This began
to change with the advent of urbanization and political empire building of early civilizations (e.g. severe land degradation associated with the construction and expansion
of ancient cities, or widespread deforestation in Roman times). It rapidly expanded
with the technological advances made during the late Middle Ages, and took on new
dimensions in the wake of the industrial revolution and the associated population explosions in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A further escalation took place
after World War II as a consequence of mass production and economic globalization.
In spite of this long history of systematic environmental destruction, public awareness
of and reaction to this sad state of affairs is a surprisingly recent development.
The memorable book The Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (1962) was one of the earliest and most impressive public indictments against uncontrolled exploitation of natural
resources and the associated destruction of the environment by the indiscriminent use
of pesticides, heralding the forthcoming change in attitude towards nature. From the
start, public industrial and governmental reactions were anything but rational. Today
we stand in the midst of this (still painful) process which all too often manifests itself
in violent confrontation between radical environmental pressure groups on one side
and the political and industrial establishment on the other. As a consequence, and contrary to the ideals of nature conservation and environmental ethics, compromises emanating from such confrontations are often counterproductive, both ethics and the environment being the ultimate losers.
In this context the Europipe project is a case in point. In the face of an evidently
better alternative (Fig. 3.1), it is today clear that the chosen route through the Wadden
Sea and some of the constructional methods applied must in many respects be regarded as an inferior solution from an environmental point of view. Experts generally
agree that the most sensible routing of the landfall would have been on the island of