M. Coeckelbergh, Environmental skill

Jochem Zwier

Andrea R. Gammon

pp. 439-444

in: Human Studies 38 (3), 2015.

Abstract

In Environmental Skill: Motivation, Knowledge, and the Possibility of a Non-Romantic Environmental Ethics, Mark Coeckelbergh addresses what he takes to be “the main problem of environmental ethics” (p. 1): the problem that even though we know what we should do for the environment, a gap persists between our knowledge and our action. Though we know, for instance, that we should eat less meat, bike to work, and generally consume less, compared to what we know we ought to do, the changes we make in our lives are likely “disappointingly small” (p. xiii). Coeckelbergh traces this problem to the context of environmental thinking and environmental ethics that are both thoroughly steeped in romanticism and enlightenment reason. He argues that these modern ways in which we know and relate to our environment only serve to alienate us from it: they condition us either to yearn for authentic nature and wilderness or to strive to control it through study, efficient management, and manipulation....