Global environmental ethics: a valuable Earth

Abstract

Environmental ethics in the next century will increasingly have to ask what kind of balance ought to be reached between nature and culture. Earth is now in a post-evolutionary phase. Perhaps the principal novelty of the new millennium is that Earth will be a managed planet. Today there are problems of overpopulation, overconsumption, and the underdistribution of resources. Humans must remake Earth for the supporting of agriculture, industry, and culture. After that, perhaps, on the larger planetary scales, it is better to build our cultures in intelligent harmony with the way the world is already built, rather than take control and rebuild the planet by ourselves and for ourselves.