A divided movement

by Karol Crosbie

Environmental issues: Ethics or justice?
by Kalyn Kappelman, Gibsonia, Pa.

Advised by Elizabeth Schiltz, philosophy

The summer before her senior year, during an internship with American University in Washington,D.C., Kalyn Kappelman ran headlong into a new idea: The fact that environmental problems don’t affect all people equally has caused a huge divide in the movement and in the ability of people to agree on solutions.

“I had always assumed that there was only one, homogeneous environmental movement,” says Kappelman. “It never occurred to me that low-income families and minorities were not a large part of the environmental movement and that they had to fight their own fights when issues came up in their communities.”

Kappelman’s Independent Study investigates two very different ways of talking, thinking, and acting about environmental issues. The first, called the environmental ethics movement, focuses on human interaction with nature. The second, labeled the environmental justice movement, focuses on human interaction with other humans in the context of environmental decisions. “This movement works to expose systemic causes of injustice and promote a more holistic understanding that all injustices are related,” explains Kappelman.

The environmental justice movement is workable and ultimately sustainable, she says. The environmental ethics movement, which has left lower-income people disenfranchised, is not.

The roots of the environmental ethics movement were in conservation, Kappelman writes. “The central concern of environmental ethics has been the relationship between human beings and nature and deals with issues such as animal rights, biodiversity, conservation, and the intrinsic value of nature.”

On the other hand, the environmental justice movement, “concentrates on how we should act toward other humans in regards to the decisions we make about shared environmental issues,” writes Kappelman. “This movement is more concerned with negative health effects from pollution and people’s lack of political representation in their own communities.”

Kappelman says she hopes to work for an environmental nonprofit organization and later perhaps go to graduate school to study ethics and applied philosophy.