Blog#4:  What do you think of “green values?”  Which ones do you most believe in?  What surprised you the most about the readings?



It is hard to define green ethics and values because there are many branches and directions one could take. To understand what green values are, the relationship between humans and nature must be defined. Some views say that humans can use natures resources and exploit them. Whereas, other ethics says that we must protect nature and nonhuman goods. 

I would say that I agree with a good amount of the green values approaches and ideals. I think that focusing on the community, persons, and environment are all important aspects to good ethics. One area of green values that was new to me was to rid the hierarchy of our society and where everyone's respected equally. This is something that would be incredibly difficulty for most to comprehend. We live in a society that is so anthropocentric that even just putting humans and nature on the same level seems radical. 

Personally, I think that we should have similar levels of respect for nature that we do for individuals. Our natural environment around us has outlived any species and only provides us benefits. But humans think that we can go in and us all of the resources and destroy the land because it doesn't directly effect them. But what most do not consider is the impacts that they have on the environment and how small changes, good or bad, can have large impacts. With green values, this mind set is challenged and helps to open up a new way of thinking. But still many of these values are not going to adapted or accepted by the general public.