Using web based research, find an environmental-based ethical dilemma from the past five years online - Essay Example

Running Head: ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICAL DILEMMA The Severn Barrage: An Environmental Ethical Dilemma The Severn Barrage: An Environmental Ethical DilemmaThe electric power generation sector is the second biggest contributor to the release of greenhouse gases in the environment contributing to a large part of the world’s total emission of Carbon dioxide and methane.In the UK, most of the electricity generated is through oil or coal burning power stations. The UK government has been looking actively for low greenhouse gas emission project to generate electricity, in order to replace earlier fossil fuel burning plants.

One proposed low emission solution is the construction of the Severn Barrage; damming the Severn tidal estuary between the English and the Welsh coast. At the Severn tidal estuary, sea water rises up the river during high tide. The proposed barrage would allow the high tide to flow in through the sluice gates of the barrage, when the tide is at its highest, gates would be closed, when the tide starts to fall the water would be released driving two hundred and fourteen 40 MW turbines. The project could generate as much as 17 billion kilowatt hours of electricity per year.

This project could generate up to 5% of the UK’s energy needs (Black & Veatch, 2007).A large part of the Severn estuary has been marked as a protected wetland. The estuary is the habitat of tens of thousands of birds and other aquatic wildlife. If the proposed barrage is built, 35,000 hectares of protected wetland would be inundated by water potentially endangering the wildlife that depends on it for survival (Turnpenny, 2001).Great numbers of migratory fish including critically threatened or declining species such as Atlantic salmon, sea trout, shads and eels also pass through the Severn estuary.

Fish passing through the hydroelectric turbines are likely to suffer injury or death (Turnpenny, 2001).According to Kant’s categorical imperative, the ends do not justify the means, a person’s acts are morally correct if and only if it were correct for every other person to act in the same way, for the same reasons. Another aspect of the categorical imperative involves the treatment of human beings. Kantian morality is concerned mostly with the rights of humans, Kant considered non-human creatures to be mere ‘things’ which could be used and disposed of by humans at their will.

Kant advocated kindness to animals, but only because he believed that those who are cruel to animals inevitably become cruel in their dealings with other humans as well (Gruen, 2010).According to Kant, humans are intrinsically valuable and they must not be used as a merely a means to an end but there is nothing wrong with using animals in this manner. In the light of Kantian ethics, environmental pollution and the climate change caused by it constitute a violation of people’s rights of person and property, therefore it would be moral to undertake a project that would reduce environmental pollution and the threat of climate change despite the damage it may cause to wildlife (Gruen, 2010).

Utilitarianism is a philosophy a good action in any circumstance is one in which the total benefit is magnified and the total harm is reduced. There exist many versions of utilitarianism; some versions only consider the benefit or harm accruing to humans while others consider harms accruing to other species as well. According to John N. Martin, utilitarianism can be used to justify conservation of threatened and endangered species. According to Martin, each of the species of life is an irreplaceable resource.

Martin argues that if one of the species of animals does not seem to bring benefit to humans at present, it is conceivable that some way will be discovered to benefit from it in the future, therefore all species of animals should be preserved (Martin, 1979).In the light of Martin’s conception of utilitarianism, it is unjustifiable to build the Severn barrage because, while the endangered and threatened species of fish and birds are irreplaceable, British greenhouse gas reduction targets may be met without building the Severn barrage, through the use of other sources of renewable energy such as wind farms.

I prefer the Kantian approach to solving the problem mainly because climate change represents an existential threat to all life on Earth and I believe that putting an end to climate change is the most important challenge that humanity needs to face up to. I think we ought to tolerate the extinction of a few endangered species as long as it ensures a future for Humans and the great majority of other species on Earth.ReferencesBlack & Veatch. (2007). Tidal Power in the UK - Research Report 3 - Severn barrage proposals.

London, UK: Sustainable Development Commision.Gruen, L. (2010, September 13). The Moral Status of Animals. Retrieved September 25, 2010, from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-animal/Martin, J. N. (1979). The concept of the irreplaceable. Environmental Ethics , 31-48.Turnpenny, A. (2001). Memorandum submitted by Dr Andrew Turnpenny, Fawley Aquatic Research Laboratories. London, UK: Parliament.uk.