Ethics and the Genetic Engineering of Food Animals

Biotechnology applied to traditional foodanimals raises ethical issues in three distinctcategories. First are a series of issues that arise inthe transformation of pigs, sheep, cattle and otherdomesticated farm animals for purposes that deviatesubstantially from food production, including forxenotransplantation or production of pharmaceuticals.Ethical analysis of these issues must draw upon theresources of medical ethics; categorizing them asagricultural biotechnologies is misleading. The secondseries of issues relate to animal welfare. Althoughone can stipulate a number of different philosophicalfoundations for the ethical assessment of welfare,most either converge on Bernard Rollins principle ofwelfare conservation (Rollin, 1995), or devolve intodebates over the ethical significance of animaltelos or species integrity. The principle of welfareconservation prohibits disfunctional geneticengineering of food animals, but would permit alteringanimals biological functions, especially when (as inmaking animals less susceptable to pain or suffering)do so improves an individual animals well being.Objections to precisely this last form of geneticengineering stress telos or species integrity asconstraints on modification of animals, and thisrepresents the third class of ethical issues. Most whohave formulated such arguments have failed to developcoherent positions, but the notion of species being,derived from the 19th century German tradition,presents a promising way to analyze the basis forresisting the transformation of animal natures.     

Risk-taking and environmental perception

This paper investigates the relationship between pupils' environmental perception (in terms of preservation and utilisation of nature) and personality (in terms of risk-taking). 713 secondary school pupils in Switzerland were investigated. Environmental perception was assessed via three factors: Preservation, Utilisation of Nature and Consideration for Conservation. Risk-taking was evaluated via six factors: Positive Risking, Ambivalence, Thrill in Gambling, Ineffective Control, Effective Control, and Anger Reaction. Analysis of the correlation matrix between Risk-taking and Environmental perception revealed three profiles (types): the high scorer on Preservation is the controlled and cautious gambler. The Utiliser (anthropocentric) profile is essentially a mirror image of the first: the Utiliser does not enjoy unpredictable risks, reacts with anger when risks fail and has little control over his/her own risk-taking behaviour. The Consideration for Conservation (ecocentric) profile assumes a position between these two profiles.     

The limits of technological optimism

Summary Technological optimism is the doctrine that a growing number of technological improvements in such areas as food production, environmental quality and energy will sustain life as human population soars. It evolved as a response to the Malthusian study The Limits to Growth (The Club of Rome, 1972). Like population biologist Paul Ehrlich, Professor James Krier of the University of Michigan Law School believes that the technological optimists may be wrong. Krier describes how the marginal costs of pollution control increasingly rise. He faults biologist Barry Commoner for neglecting population growth as the cause of pollution and positing the postwar technological transition as its cause. He argues that population growth forced this transition as science searched for substitutes for dwindling resources. Krier criticises as an article of faith the technological optimists' belief that S-curve patterns of technological advance will always arrive in response to the J-curve of exponential population growth. He thinks that the technological optimists may be deluding humanity by predicting the continual emergence of technological breakthroughs at ever-increasing rates. He favours growth policies that would allow humanity to ease into a steady state of resource use and minimise the maximum cost, which would be a global crash after technological innovation fails. Krier laments that modern technolgy can worsen pollution and invites problems of latency, irreversibility, zero-infinity risk and remoteness. He thinks that approapriate technologies which have failed economically may fail politically because the political process has been captured by opposing interests. Krier urges that the population crisis should be adressed insteadAndrew D. Basiago is a graduate of UCLA and Northwestern School of Law's environmental law programme. As writer, lawyer and environmental planner he has written articles about ecology for the Cousteau Society and interviewed such luminaries as R. Buckminster Fuller, Amory B. Lovins and     

The search for the sustainable city in 20th century urban planning

Summary A new city has emerged in the 1990s, designed to achieve urban sustainability. The notion of sustainable urban form has its roots in the Garden City movement at the turn of the century. The garden cities of the 1900s and the ecological cities of the 1970s were proposed as alternatives to the pathology of modern urban form. Just as cities provide a place for humans to live, so they destroy ecosystems and become unfit habitats for the human spirit. The city must be made more vital, humane, efficient, beautiful, self-sufficient, and natural through a return to a more compact form, its impact on the environment must be decreased. These themes have re-emerged in the sustainable cities of the 1990s, advanced on behalf of future generations and planetary ecology. The sustainable city is a compact city. Calthorpe's Transit-Oriented Developments (1989) are hailed as sustainable because their walkable streets free residents from reliance on automobiles and their high density preserves surrounding wildlife habitat. The European Commission (EC) rests a sustainable future for Europe (1990) on the twin pillars of urban compactness and urban regeneration. Nash (1991) believes that sustainable global urbanization would consist of 1.5 billion humans living in 500 compact cities. He calls his vision Island Civilisation. The sustainable city is also a city of regenerative processes. Girardet (1990; 1992) thinks it has a circular metabolism, as distinguished from the linear metabolism of contemporary cities. McDonough (adviser to President Clinton on sustainable development) theorizes inThe Hannover Principles (1992) that in order to make civilization sustainable, urban form will have to be based on the principles of nature, which makes no waste, maximizes biodiversity and is sustained by the sun. The urban form designed by McDonald (1993), conceptualized with ideas from chaos theory, contemplates a sustainable city within a sustainable watershed and a form holistic, diverse, fractal and evolutionary. Lyle (1994) believes that the sustainable cities of the next century will be based on the green infrastructure of regenerative systems. The commonality linking these landmarks of sustainable urbanization is the ideal of bringing the city into a vital symbiosis with nature. The sustainable city is a green or living city. The search for the sustainable city in the 20th century has not been Utopian buttopian, a quest to create a form of city suited to optimal development of the Earth island.Andrew D. Basiago, an American lawyer and city planner, was a scholar in land economy at Cambridge. He is currently writing a book on solar cities.     

Arsenic levels in the marine ecosystem off the Kuwait coast, Arabian Gulf

Arsenic levels in seawater, microplankton (diatoms and dinoflagellates), shrimp (Penaeus semisulcatus), mollusc (Cerithium scabridum) and five types of fish (Maid, Nakroor, Nuwaiby, Suboor and Sheim) in five sampling stations (I–V) off the Kuwait coast were determined during the years 1995 to 1999. The maximum mean concentration of arsenic was observed in the order; the five fish (0.50–0.78 g g^–1)> mollusc (0.26 g g^–1)> shrimp (0.23 g g^–1)> particulate matter (0.03 g g^–1)> water and phytoplankton (0.02 g g^–1) from all the sites of the Kuwait coast. Station II possessed the maximum arsenic levels. In comparison with the arsenic levels in other parts of the globe, low arsenic levels were observed in most of the marine organisms off the Kuwait Coast. However, an increasing trend in arsenic concentrations was anticipated due to rapid local industrialization and on account of recent spills of arsenic compounds.     

Desertification Control and Management of Land Degradation in the Thar Desert of India

India has 2.34 million km² of hot desert called Thar located in the north-western part of Rajasthan between latitudes 23°3 and 30°12 North and longitudes 63°30 and 70°18 East. The Indian desert is spreading annually over 12000 ha of productive land degrading it and slowly advancing towards the national capital New Delhi at the rate of 0.5 km per year. The Indian desert is characterised by huge shifting sand dunes; high wind speed; scarce rainfall; and intense solar radiation. Tremendous efforts have been made since the 1960s to arrest desertification and for ecological restoration of the Thar desert. An Ambitious afforestation programme including stabilisation of shifting sand dunes and creation of micro-climates through tree-screens and shelter-belt plantation was launched by the forest department of Rajasthan. A huge canal, 649 km long was also introduced to the Thar desert for ecological restoration.     

Sewage as a resource: a case study of afforestation using sewage irrigation in Jaipur,Rajasthan, India

Summary Human beings use huge quantities of water every day for drinking, cleaning and various cultural functions and dispose of it as wastewater within sewage. With increase in population, the magnitude of this waste is multiplying enormously and beyond the recycling capacity of local ecosystems to become a major health and environmental hazard. Re-use of wastewater for afforestation purposes in the form of sewage silviculture combines the dual benefit of water conservation with environmental sanitation. Such experiments are being carried out at the World Forest Arboretum in Jaipur, Rajasthan, India. Biological treatment of the sewage before application, to improve its irrigational quality, to remove harmful chemicals and to prevent the risk of these passing into the human food chain is being undertaken. The aquatic weeds Lemna and Eichhornia are being used to purify the wastewater. The technique is both economically viable and ecologically sustainable.Dr Rajiv K. Sinha is assistant professor in Human Ecology at the University of Rajasthan.     

Some pitfalls of ‘manstream’ environmental theory and practice

Summary Radical environmentalists consider the environmental crisis to be ultimately one of culture and character. However, in analyses and strategies for social transformation, non-feminist greens have generally accepted the Patriarchal conception of human motivation, which is based on a rational, impersonal (read Masculine) model of Man. Thus, it is implicitly assumed that the motivations underlying the environmental crisis are greed or self-interest (deemed rational motives in Western Patriarchal culture). Owing to this male-centred perspective on human nature, green strategies have ultimately relied on an appeal to reason. This, at least, has failed relative to the accelerating pace of environmental destruction.It is argued that a focus on the abuse of power leads to a more useful analysis of the causes of human oppression and environmental exploitation. The abuse of power can be understood as an attempt to overcompensate for unmet emotional needs (e. f. for love, recognition, and a sense of belonging) through an excessive drive for gratification in other dimensions of life. In Patriarchal thought, emotional needs are largely denied, being non-rational and non-masculine, and hence have also been largely ignored in social policy. This realisation suggests new strategies.Dr Janis Birkeland was an attorney, architect and planner San Francisco, USA, and now teaches at the Department of Architecture, University of Tasmania. A more extensive discussion of these points can be found in Birkeland (1993a).     

Investment in human capital in Africa

Summary The author analyses the problems currently faced by the African continent, recognises six factors which he believes are important in influencing the analysis, and argues that the only secure, renewable asset any country or continent has, is its people. He maintains that people development, rather than the classical economic forms of encouraging development, offers Africa a viable way forward. He then identifies a number of specific issues within such a strategy of investment in human capital.Brian Walker is the President of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), and this address was given at the inaugural meeting of the International Year of Shelter for the Homeless, in London, on 18th April, 1985. A second, earlier, associated address was published inThe Environmentalist 5(3) 167–170.     

Forest and Farmland Conservation Effects of Oregon’s (USA) Land-Use Planning Program

Oregons land-use planning program is often cited as an exemplary approach to forest and farmland conservation, but analyses of its effectiveness are limited. This article examines Oregons land-use planning program using detailed spatial data describing building densities in western Oregon. An empirical model describes changes in building densities on forest and agricultural lands from 1974 to 1994, as a function of a gravity index of lands commuting distance to cities of various sizes, topographic characteristics, and zoning adopted under Oregons land-use planning program. The effectiveness of Oregons land-use planning program is evaluated based on the statistical significance of zoning variables and by computing estimated areas of forest and agricultural lands falling into undeveloped, low-density developed, and developed building density categories, with and without land-use zoning in effect. Results suggest that Oregons land-use planning program has provided a measurable degree of protection to forest and agricultural lands since its implementation.     

Crisis,argument, and agriculture

Scholarly critics such as Wendell Berry, as well as the popular media, frequently refer to problems associated with agriculture as the agricultural crisis or the farm crisis. Despite the identification of a problem or problems as symptomatic of this crisis, scant attention is paid to why the situation is a social crisis as opposed to a problem, tragedy, trend, or simple change in the structure of agriculture. This paper analyzes the use of social crisis as applied to the state of modern agriculture and, by extension, other crises such as those in legitimation and morality. It concludes that, although important social values associated with farming as a way of life may be in danger of being lost, the crisis we may be facing with respect to agriculture is more properly understood as a sociopolitical crisis that has broader implications than simply the loss of farms or traditional farming values. Indeed, what is in danger of being lost is our ability to affect a secure and sustainable political-economic system.     

Uncertainties associated with the assessment of vegetation

The Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) attempts to portray the current character of a given ecosystem. This provides a Baseline against which future possible changes can be assessed. Ecosystems, however, are dynamic and in a constant state of change. Consequently, data representing a single year reflect conditions only for that year and can be misleading if compared against any other year. In addition to this temporal variation, considerable spacial variation exists in species composition and cover. Ample sampling is required to compensate for this heterogeneity. Variation, or background noise, can be minimized by the use of similarity indexes and sampling over a period of at least two years.     

Vegetarianism,morality, and science revisited

Professor Kathryn George's Use and Abuse Revisited does not contain an accurate assessment of my On Vegetarianism, Morality, and Science: A Counter Reply. I show that she has misrepresented my moral and empirical argumentation.     

Automobile pollution in India and its human impact

Summary Automobiles are a necessary evil, while they have made living easy and convenient, they have also made human life more complicated and vulnerable to both toxic emissions and an increased risk of accidents. Urban people are most affected and amongst the worst sufferers are traffic policemen who are particularly close to the fumes of automobile exhaust. Studies made in Jaipur, India, indicate that there is high rate of occurrence of respiratory, digestive, ocular and skin problems amongst the traffic policemen and a significant number of them become victims of lung disorders in the very first few months of their posting to a traffic department. Traffic policement everywhere should wear pollution masks for their own safety and to arouse public awareness of the risk of automobile pollution.Dr Rajiv K. Sinha is Assistant Professor in Human Ecology at the Indira Gandhi Centre of Human Ecology, Environmental and Population Studies at the University of Rajasthan. He was formerly a teaching assistant at University of Windsor,     

Wastewater reuse in Muslim countries: An Islamic perspective

Recycling wastewater seems to have become a highly useful technique for meeting the shortage of fresh water in all parts of the world. It seems all the more important for Muslim countries because a large number of these countries face acute fresh water shortage. This paper views the problem from an Islamic viewpoint, that is, in the light of the Qur'n, theSunnah, andFiqh works.In Islamic law, water is classified into three categories oftahr,thir, andmutanajjis. The last two categories can be transmuted intotahr water and thus may be used for all mundane as well as religious purposes if they are assimilated into the overall supply oftahr water. This would be lawful from the Islamic viewpoint even without treating the water. To make use of modern technology in order to recycle wastewater effluents after treatment seems quite in keeping with the spirit and letter of the Islamic teachings.     

Interpreting countryside recreation: The urban - rural dichotomy

Summary Noting a paucity of sociological research investigating countryside recreation from an experiential perspective, this paper reports on a study aimed at exploring the meaning of such terms as the countryside, rural and natural as they are understood by the person-in-the-street. A typification of countryside recreation is constructed which suggests that individuals have an essentially simple understanding of the environment in this context which centres upon an urban-rural dichotomy. The urban setting is generally associated with negative experiences while the rural setting is regarded more positively. These attitudes suggest that the countryside represents a form of refuge from many stresses commonly associated with modern, urban lifestyles. An implication of this conclusion is that attempts to educate people into recognizing the links between their everyday behaviour and the degradation of the countryside will be met with considerable resistance since this would entail them in reconstruing their relationship with the environment.     

Environmental perceptions of Irish and Bavarian pupils: an empirical study

The present study deals with the evaluation of environmental/ecological perceptions of secondary school pupils. It has two major objectives. Firstly, to administer a measurement instrument to explore ecological/environmental perceptions for a sample of approximately 900 Irish secondary school pupils aged between 12 and 16 years. The operation and use of three subscales, environmental behaviour, utilization of nature and consideration for conservation, was based on a previous study undertaken in Bavaria, but its structure, dimensionality and reliability was further assessed using psychometric procedures. Secondly, the study monitored the differences in these dimensions between Irish and Bavarian pupils. Common items within the subscale structure were selected from both samples to form a truncated item selection and to function subsequently as the basis for the final factor analysis applied to the combined Irish–Bavarian sample. Comparisons on this basis indicated substantial differences in attitudes and environmental behaviour between pupils from both regions: the Irish sample favoured less conservational values, but more patronage for the utilization of nature and it revealed less willingness to take and plan action in individual environmental behaviour. In addition, the Irish sample disclosed a significantly greater gender difference in the two subscales.     

Nature as an arena for the quality of life: psycho-spiritual values—the next main focus in nature conservation?

The purpose of this article is to discuss the concept of the psycho-spiritual values of nature, to call for increased research and concern, and to address these values as important among the third generation of environmental problems. The loss of biodiversity and the quality of nature harms the basic psychological interests of man: nature contains beauty and wonders, offers a variety of experiences and challenges, acts as a mental anchor, generates insight and wisdom, and represents a part of the identity of every country. To preserve the quality of nature for the benefit of the human mind and spirit, challenges psychologists, biologists, land-use planners and politicians. Nature as an arena for the quality of life is a topic of utmost concern, for it will impact on future generations.     

The challenge of sustainable tourism

The paradigm of sustainable tourism is discussed in terms of analysing what it actually means. Certain questions are raised and these include the means of its measurement, the question of intergenerational impacts and how these may be assessed, the determination of what exactly is meant by environment, the aspect of tourism as an industry and, with specific reference to tourism in the developing world, the potential for neocolonialism. It is argued that, although sustainable tourism may be a worthwhile goal, inherent problems in the definition and measurement of its success make it an elusive if not academic target. The challenge of sustainable tourism is to see it in a broader context as but one tool of development and to ensure that it is examined in the context of the local community as well as a global perspective.     

A course in Environmental Planning and Management

Summary This paper describes a 13-weeks, third-year course in Environmental Planning and Management developed and taught by the authors. Initiated in 1969, the course consists of a mix of lectures, seminars, workshop/laboratory sessions and field-based projects. The objectives of the course are for students: to become aware of the need for, and the complexities of, environmental management; to be able to criticise constructively work done by environmental agencies and consultants, managers and decision makers; and to learn and apply some of the methods and techniques used in environmental management.Topics covered by the current syllabus are: concepts of resource and environment; constitutional aspects; international law and the environment; Australian and Canadian environmental legislation and agencies; human manipulation of ecosystems; energy subsidies; modification of biogeochemical cycles; population dynamics and cropping; fisheries; national parks and reserves—policies in different countries; international heritage areas; environmental assessment (including impact assessment, land evaluation, land capability and land suitability assessment); and regional, integrated land-use and environmental planning and management. Techniques taught include: field surveys and interviewing; laboratory analysis of selected water quality, sediment and soil parameters including nutrient concentrations, heavy metal and pesticide residues; and for some students, applications of geographic information systems (GIS) technology following preceding GIS courses.A major problem is selecting the most appropriate mix between the social and natural sciences—appropriate, first in terms of students' heterogeneous skills and backgrounds, and second, in terms of understanding the causes of environmental problems and issues, and devising practicable solutions.