Add Environmental Ethics To Required College Courses

To graduate from college, students must complete certain general education courses in addition to core and elective courses in their majors

. Included in this gamut would be such things as lower and upper division writing, a natural science, U.S. history, philosophy, and sometimes even a "speech" course. Most colleges, though, do not require students to pass a course on the natural environment and human activity. College graduates need to know who was president during the Civil War, but can get by without knowing how the polar bear is impacted by CO2 emissions.

Creating environmental awareness does not have to mean forgoing the structure of higher education. You would be hard-pressed to find an intellectual who denounces reading Shakespeare in "English 101," no matter how dated his language gets. In our digital era, we can easily find value in observing solar flares in "Astronomy," because we have progressed as a society through the byways of science. Yet understanding the environment to be one holistic system should take precedence; scientists say this knowledge is an absolute necessity for our survival.

As ecologist Garrett Hardin recognizes in his article, The Tragedy of the Commons, "Education can counteract the natural tendency to do the wrong thing (1968, 29). If we are serious about sustainability, curbing global warming, offsetting mass extinction, then we should expect our entry-level working class to be knowledgeable about the environment. This is not to say we should jump up the ladder to one extreme and cut those subjects some feel are "useless," such as the arts (drama, music, art), even if they may be a little less practical than computer science these days. It is imperative we attune college requirements to current and future environmental problems.

Here is something to think about: high school and university students are not required to take an environmental ethics course, and yet we are smothered in countless environmentally focused TV shows and movies (e.g. Whale Wars, Battleground Earth, The 11th Hour, An Inconvenient Truth, Who Killed the Electric Car?). We are a nation that strongly values education. Although controversial, this is evident in our use of IQ tests as a tool of assessment in various settings. The argument remains, however, if we prize academic excellence (particularly the sciences) because it represents progress, then we should do the same for the study of environmental degradation caused by human behavior. Concerns for our wildlife, increasing water demands, and air-quality are clearly growing. Given the nearly unanimous agreement among publishing scientists, it can be certain that our ecosystems are hotly demanding that we teach current and future generations the fragility of the planet. In his book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded, Thomas L. Friedman warns that our country's future depends on alternative energy "innovations" in "physics, chemistry, thermodynamics, nanotechnology, and biology" (2008, 243).

The people who we hope will solve some of the environmental problems that we face will need to be educated on those issues. Shouldn't our higher education system address our most fundamental problems? Environmental degradation is threatening our way of life, but we can expect a "greener" future through the introduction of an environmental ethics requirement in our colleges.

by: Hannah Valez

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