Foundations of Environmental Thought

While reading the excerpt from Foundations of Environmental Thought, the ideas of John Stuart Mill peaked my interest. His Utopian way of thinking is quite clear. In summary, he believed that it is the selfishness of human kind that is destroying the environment. He thought that man needed to get back to a more simple way of life, and stop trying to be better and get more than their neighbor. While these ideals do make some sense, it is not quite practical. The whole idea of a Utopian society can never be. We are, after all, only human. Man will always be wanting more no matter how much one may have. The problem is that we have unlimited wants with limited resources. This is where we find ourselves in trouble with the environment. Rather than man being content with what he currently has, whether it be land, wealth, or food, he is never satisfied. Even though he may have more than he needs to sustain life, he still will trample and destroy anything in his path to get more of what he wants. It is true that there is plenty of resources on this earth to obliterate all world hunger, however, the selfishness of man kind will always prevent this from happening. Anther theory of Mill's was that human population can only reach a certain number before we start to out use our natural resources. It is very easy to see and understand how this is true. The environment can only preserve and sustain its' natural resources at a certain rate. The greater the human population, the more resources will be in demand. This also cuts down on the time that the environment is able to regrow more resources. Unfortunately, there is just no practical way to control human population without getting into the obvious ethical issues.