Ethic Of Care:Geography 12

Key Question: What would an ethic of care towards the environment look like?

How do you personally define an ethic of care?

In my opinion, I believe that an ethic of care is a relationship where you have a responsibility. It is about being attentive, responsible and responsive towards someone who cannot take care of themselves. An example of this would be picking up litter and paying attention to the environment even if no one else is helping out. 

What would be needed to create an ethic of care?

I think that everyone would need to have the motivation and willingness to want to create a better place for everyone. This could be a nicer environment, planet, or even just a nicer neighbourhood. People would have to be willing to have nicer interactions with eachother and the environment. If humans showed a little more kindness to each other and greeted each other on the streets or held the door open for each other, this would be a good start.

What would we have to believe about the environment to care for it? How should we see it?

We would have to believe that the environment is not meant to be shaped around our actions. We have to believe about the environment that we have to preserve it for the future generations, and that is part of our responsibility as humans. We may not be able to repair what damage we’ve done to the environment, but we can try and slow down and decrease the amount of materials we harvest from it, and find other ways of finding fossil fuels, cutting down trees, and polluting the air. We should see it as finding possibilities or alternatives to damaging our environment and finding more renewable resources with less harsh ways of collecting them. 

How would we act if we cared about the environment? Give examples.

If we really truly cared about the environment, we would find meaningful ways to help preserve it’s beauty and nature. Plastic bags fill up our oceans, and a way to help solve this would be to purchase an easily accessible cloth or linen grocery bag and use that instead of plastic. If we can find a way to limit our 1 time use materials, this will help the environment. If we really did care we would be conscious about our decisions in our daily lives, and find ways to be less selfish towards nature. We would also stop using fossil fuels and find less detrimental resources. 

What would be different about the world if everyone adopted this ethic of care towards the environment. What would be the benefits and drawbacks? 

If everyone adopted this ethic of care, the world would be litter free, fossil fuel free, and we would be mindful of our environmental footprint. The benefits are that the world would be a clean, safe and beautiful place to live in. However, those who have jobs in say the mining (coal/iron) industries would find themselves jobless due to not needing fossil fuels anymore, and this would disrupt the economy. Companies that ran on coal would have to find more expensive ways of recreating the power source, and would possibly charge more for the products they produce as a result. 

Should we adopt an ethic of care towards the environment?

Personally, I believe that we should adapt an ethic of care towards the environment because it would help safeguard our planet and keep it clean and beautiful for the next generations to come. I believe the process of establishing this ethic could potentially be very expensive for the government and planet as a whole to complete, but it will be in humanity’s benefit in the future. The Canadian government has already taken steps to start this process, and news articles say that single-use plastics will be banned from Canada as early 2021. In order for these steps to be final, we should establish these as parts of laws and be stricter on those who litter.