The document discusses several topics related to environmental issues: 1) Animal ethics examines how humans should treat animals. It includes debates around animal rights, welfare, and testing. Theories of ethics like utilitarianism, deontology, and virtue ethics are applied. 2) Biocentrism holds that all living things have equal intrinsic value. It challenges human exceptionalism and views humans as interdependent with nature. The theory of biocentrism proposes that life created the universe. 3) Ecocentrism sees the biosphere as the source of all life and values ecosystems over human needs. It believes ecosystems have intrinsic worth regardless of human use. 4) Poverty and environmental problems are

1. ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES AND AWARENESS
UNIT-4
TOPICS –
ANIMAL ETHICS
BIOCENTRISM
ECOCENTRISM
ENVIRONMENT AND POVERTY

2. Animal Ethics
Animal ethics is a branch of ethics which
examines human-animal relationships, the
moral consideration of animals and how
nonhuman animals ought to be treated.
The subject matter includes animal
rights, animal welfare, animal
law, speciesism, animal cognition, wildlife
conservation, wild animal suffering,[1] the moral
status of nonhuman animals, the concept of
nonhuman personhood, human
exceptionalism, the history of animal use, and
theories of justice.
Ethics is about a moral contract about
right and wrong. It maintains an order
of the way humans relate to their
surrounding environment, including
nonhuman animals.

3. ANIMAL RIGHTS:
•Animal rights means that animals
deserve certain kinds of
consideration, which is in their best
interests, regardless of whether they
are useful to humans or an
endangered species and regardless
of whether any human cares about
them at all.
•In 1635, Ireland was the first country
to pass animal protection legislation.
•Animal rights teach us that there are
some things that it is morally wrong to
do to animals
•Accepting the doctrine of animal rights means:
No experiments on animals,
No breeding and killing animals for food or clothes or
medicine,
No use of animals for hard labour,
No selective breeding for any reason other than the
benefit of the animal,
No hunting,
No zoos or use of animals in entertainment.

4. ANIMAL TESTING :
Animal testing for biomedical research
dates to the writings of the ancient
Greeks and since has evolved
considerably. In 1938, the Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) of US
established the Federal Food, Drug
and Cosmetic Act to ensure the
testing of drugs on animals before
marketing of the product, to confirm
that it would have no harmful
implications on humans.

5. In 1959, a book called “The Principles of Humane
Experimental technique” proposed 3 Rs –
Replacement, Reduction, and Refinement which
should act as guiding principles for the ethical
treatment of animals used for testing and
experimentation.
Replacement: Avoiding using an animal for testing by
switching out the animal for something non-living, such
as a computer model.
Reduction: Devising a plan to use the fewest animals
possible; a combination of using fewer animals to gain
sufficient data.
Refinement: A decrease in any unnecessary pain
inflicted on the animal and adapting experimental
procedures to minimise suffering.
The Three Rs principles are now widely accepted by
many countries and are used in any practises that
involve the experimentation of animals.

6. Theoretical understanding of animal
ethics:
There is a wide range of ethical assessments regarding animals used in research. There are
general opinions that animals do have a moral status and how they are treated should be
subjected to ethical consideration. Some of the positions include:
•Animals have intrinsic values that must be respected.
•Animals can feel pain and their interests must be taken into consideration.
•Our treatment of all animals/lab animals reflects on our attitudes and influences us on our
moral beings.
•The ethical theories which deal with them include:
Consequentialism:
Deontology:
Virtue ethics:

7. Consequentialism:
•It is a collection of ethical theories which judge the rightness or wrongness of an
action on its consequences; if the actions brings more benefit than harm, it is
good, if it brings more harm than benefit, it is bad.
•The most well-known type of consequentialism theory is utilitarianism which is a
highly regarded foundation for animal research.
•It states that “an action is right if and only if it produces a better balance of benefits
and harms than available alternative actions”.
•But the limitations of applying utilitarianism to animal research is that one cannot
measure the pain and benefit of the tests and compare them accurately.
•Therefore, it is estimated that they are being compared when deducing whether a
test is morally right or wrong

8. Deontology:
•It is a theory that evaluates moral actions based only on doing one’s duty, not
on the consequences of the actions.
•This means that if it is your duty to carry out a task, it is morally right regardless of
the consequences, and if you fail to do your duty, you are morally wrong.
•According to the deontological theory one proposed by Immanuel Kant, a
researcher may think it is their duty to make an animal suffer to find a cure for a
disease that is affecting millions of humans, which is morally correct.
•On the other hand, an animal activist might think that saving these animals being
tested on is their duty, creating a contradiction in this idea.
•This theory opposes utilitarianism in the sense that instead of concerning itself with
the consequence, it focuses on the duty.

9. Virtue ethics:
•It does not pinpoint on either the consequences or duty of the action,
but from the act of behaving like a virtuous person.
•If the action would stem from someone virtuous, it is said that it is
morally right, and if from a vicious person, immoral behaviour.
•A virtuous person is said to hold qualities such as respect, tolerance,
justice and equality.
One advantage that this theory has over the others, is that it takes
into account human emotions, affecting the moral decision,
which was absent in the previous two. However, a flaw is that
people’s opinions of a virtuous person are very subjective, and thus,
can drastically affect the person’s moral compass.

10. BIOCENTRISM
Biocentrism: it is the principle that ensures the proper balance of ecology on the planet.
Biocentrism (from Greek words bios, "life" and kentron, "center"), in
a political and ecological sense, as well as literally, is an ethical point of view that
extends inherent value to all living things.
In other words, it argues that all living things have an equal moral standing and deserve
equal moral consideration.
Biocentrism, by definition, requires people to rethink the relationship between humans and nature, suggesting
humans and nature, suggesting that humans are not superior to other living things and nature does not exist to
things and nature does not exist to be consumed by humans.
Instead, it proposes the notion that humans are nothing more than one species among many that are
among many that are interdependent, relying on one another for their survival and growth.

11. THEORY OF BIOCENTRISM
The theory of biocentrism or a biocentric universe was
proposed by Robert Lanza. The theory establishes around
the concepts of life and biology. The fact which is
emphasized in the theory is that life has created the
universe and not the other way around.
The biocentrism explains that the universe only exists because of an
individual's consciousness of it – essentially life and biology are
central to reality, which has created the universe; the universe itself
has not created life. Biocentrism is based upon the ideas of quantum
physics.

12. Robert Lanza and astrologist Bob Berman came up with the theory
of Biocentrism in 2007. The theory of Biocentrism is discussed
below:
Only on the basis of the physical rules the creation and operation of the universe
cannot be explained. The theory of biocentrism states that the world exists
because of life. The development and creation of life is the origin of the world.
- Although, all these are the senses of human consciousness, the supporters of
Biocentrism claim that every event of nature seemed to have occurred in human
interest.
- If we take the example of the meteor that fell on the earth millions of years ago
to wipe out dinosaurs. This paved way for rapid evolution of mammals fell in the
interest of mankind.
- The explanation and development of Darwin on the basis of fortuitous incidences
is fine at the children’s level, but is not that easy. Biological evolution cannot be
properly explained without a self-sustained plan.
- The physical theories alternatively believe that life evolved in consonance with
the laws of physics and chemistry. The creation of life was because of various
physical and chemical changes instead of the other way round as in biocentrism.

13. Ecocentrism
Ecocentrism sees the ecosphere – comprising all Earth's
ecosystems, atmosphere, water and land – as the matrix
which birthed all life and as life's sole source of sustenance.
It is a worldview that recognizes intrinsic value in
ecosystems and the biological and physical elements that
they comprise, as well as in the ecological processes that
spatially and temporally connect them.
So when human wants clash with the health of the Earth as
a whole or any of its ecosystems, the former should,
practically and ethically speaking, give way to the latter:
human needs, like the needs of other species, are
secondary to those of the Earth as the sum of its
ecosystems

14. Ecocentrism= Ecology at the center
a philosophy or perspective that places intrinsic value on all living organisms
and their natural environment, regardless of their perceived usefulness or
importance to human beings.

15. ENVIRONMENT AND POVERTY
Poverty and environment are closely interrelated.
Poverty among people puts stress on the environment whereas
environmental problems cause severe suffering to the poor.
People, whether they be rich or poor, consume water, food, and
natural resources in order to remain alive.
All economic activities are directly, indirectly or remotely based
on natural resources and any pressure on natural resources can
cause environmental stress.
 Environmental damage can prevent people, especially the poor,
from having good and hygienic living standards.
As poor people rely more directly on the environment than the
rich for their survival, they are mostly on the receiving end of
environmental problems.

16. Poverty often causes people to put relatively more pressure on the
environment which results in larger families (due to high death rates and
insecurity), improper human waste disposal leading to unhealthy living
conditions, more pressure on fragile land to meet their needs,
overexploitation of natural resources and more deforestation.
Insufficient knowledge about agricultural practices can also lead to a decline
in crop yield and productivity etc.
On the other hand environmental problems add more to the miseries of poor
people.
Environmental problems cause more suffering among them as
environmental damage increases the impact of floods and other
environmental catastrophes.
Soil erosion, land degradation and deforestation lead to a decline in food
production along with a shortage of wood for fuel contribute to inflation.
In short, the worst consequences of environmental deterioration, whether
they be economical, social, or related to mental or physical wellbeing, are
experienced by poor people.

17. More rigorous efforts should be undertaken by the governments of all countries to eradicate
poverty and in turn, to save deprived people from the dreadful implications of environmental
damage.
There should be more collaborative partnerships among all sections of the society so that
even the people living in poverty are linked to the world through their participation in social,
political, and economical spheres along with their active participation in environmental
regeneration.
there cannot be any environmental solution without alleviating poverty from the world