Where does environmental morality come from?
The idea that there is an attitude of correctness toward the natural environment with all of its systems and variables (ourselves included) underlies the motivation for sustainability through environmental design. The two most commonly referred to wellsprings of environmental morality, that I've come across, are biophilia, the innate affinity for life and all things living, and an inherent drive for self/species-preservation. Given the state of our environment, both built and natural, it seems these presumed innate predispositions for environmental morality have given way to convenience. Yet, there is a certain irony in convenience as it seems the more choice we have in the realm of fine-grained materiality, the more impoverishment of choice we have concerning the larger systems that sustain convenience and the interactions these systems have with the natural systems that sustain our health and even our spirituality.
Environmental Morality vs the Established Methodology of Survival
So it seems our supposed predisposition for environmental morality is not enough. Some might blame ignorance of the impacts of our consumer choices and actions, but can education on these issues create an emotional attachment of sufficient strength to generate a renewed sense of responsibility toward the environment? Do the aesthetics of the environments we occupy impact our predisposition for or lack of environmental morality?Or has society become so hooked on convenience that the only way forward is through further convenience? Make environmental morality convenient to act upon....but then it cycles back to education and emotional attachment, there must be an awareness and a passion to generate a demand, and there must be a demand to generate services. This is why it is necessary to understand where environmental morality comes from, to generate greater demand for services that facilitate and perpetuate in increasing sense of responsibility for the impact of our actions on the greater systems that sustain us and enrich our existence.
