Well, good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. want to talk with you this about the concept of the environment. , that doesn't sound very exciting at go. But environment is an abstract , isn't it? It's an abstract concept it's very much in use in politics and public policy. So it's a good idea sometimes, perhaps, just stand back and ask, well, what a word like this mean? Does mean anything at all? Does it one correct meaning? Does it have range of meanings, a range of ? And how is it being used, how is it being abused? To a critical approach to the very of a particular word in present . So that's what it's about and 'll try and tie it down with few examples as we go. OK.

what do we do with word in trying to explain it? common move is to define it. definitions have advantages, don't they? If define something, as in mathematics, we what we're talking about. And some you are engineers. You know this well. You don't want a number, an algorithm, than can mean anything anybody, you need to know whether bridge will stand up under so tons weight and so on. But words, it's a bit different. Because don't have exact uses, but there's a habit of trying to define and this is what I'm on now. Well, how can they be ? One way would be to go a dictionary definition. That again has advantages. Because we feel that we what we are talking about if have a dictionary definition. The disadvantage course is that the definition may too restrictive, it may not do to the broad range of the of a term. Another, I mean could even go and look up dictionary definition of environment. It's going have to be rather clever and a lot of meanings because the environment in itself is so vague the sense that it has so uses, so many contexts. Another way be to look at the etymology, word history of a word and , not only can you sound rather about it - you can say, well, there's a French environnement which surroundings and so on so environment surroundings, that's all we need to about it. But of course etymology only a partial guide; words, as know, change their use over time. so etymology is often a false to the current use of the . Take a word like "gay" for , which has changed in its use in our lifetime. And of course changes are much slower. Though, in , the French, in this case the environnement, the surroundings, as a sort root of environment is a reasonably guide as it happens.

Now, want to mention here another approach, than trying to define the word go to its etymology. And that to ask for its characteristic uses any particular time in any particular by any particular people. So, there a bit of a track record this approach in philosophy. In fact was the philosopher Wittgenstein who said a famous slogan or bit of : Don't ask for the meaning, don't for the meaning of a word, difficult, a conceptually difficult word. Don't for the meaning, he said, ask the use. Now that sets you on a completely different track. You're simply trying to puzzle it out your own head, you're going about, it were, and hearing how the is used.

So that brings on to the structure of this , really. What I want to do just indicate, in the case of word environment, what a very great bewildering range of uses the term . And so it would be a bit of mental hygiene, if we're about this seriously, if we hear word environment, ask, well, how is word being used by this particular or writer? And if we can that question, then we may get understanding.

So, what I'll do take a number of what I'm here dimensions of the term the "". I put it in environmental commas, I put it between inverted commas, 'm trying to say, the term environment, it is used in so many ways and often in rhetorical ways, very loaded ways.

So the dimension, as I'm calling it, is . Now by this I simply mean of fact. Though in fact, there's bit of overlap between this category, , and some of the other dimensions not to worry. These early points obviously empirical in the sense that 're descriptions of ways in which the is in fact used, in certain contexts. So let's start with the or biological setting of the use the word environment. Well, here then have a particular empirical context. Empirical, I should emphasise, means from observation, experience. OK? And the ecological or observations of course give a particular to the use of the term . So we have a biological model for the time being. Species, including beings can be seen as biological and of course they can be as parts of an ecosystem. That parts of a biological system of things dependent on one another and their habitat. Well, let's have a at, just to remind you, of damaged by human beings. We read much about this sort of thing serious newspapers, for example, theses days, the terms are quite familiar. But me just remind you. The Brazilian rain forest, for instance, is under . It's being cleared for grazing by cattle, for gold mining, for roads of course for subsistence farming. So are many different pressures on the ecosystem of, ecosystems of the Brazilian forest.

Well, that sort of we are familiar with. But there's really a very different use of term environment. Again, lots of empirical here, points to do with observation, . What about the social, the economic, and cultural settings? Well, in terms individual human development, for example, in psychological and social senses, one may oneself considering concepts like hereditary, heredity environment. Now here heredity is a concept, isn't it, a genetic inheritance, natural makeup of ourselves as human . On the other hand the environment this sense, in the psychological and sense, is concerned with things like 's upbringing, one's training, one's emotional environment, 's social milieu, one's social setting, and perhaps certain physical conditions, for example, and the rest of it. Or about economic environment? Well, it makes sense, in the financial pages of to read about the environment, so speak, of particular investment decisions. The here would be a matter of, , are interest rates rising or falling? about the environment, in this sense, , the financial environment, of a rise house prices in London as interest drop in 1999? There are connections the two and the broader business interest rates, it seems to be factor in the specific response of prices.

What about planning in sense of the planning of buildings roads and this sort of thing planning authorities. Well, we can talk of a planning environment. For example might be a free market environment which developers can do what they within the framework of supply and , and profit and loss and so . Or it may be a strictly environment. Now an example of the of the first type of environment, free market environment, would be all the so-called ribbon development. You know and shops and so on along main road, which was characteristic of old A roads as they were in Britain in the 1930s. Each between, it might be between Birmingham Coventry for example, attracted a certain of ribbon development. There are very examples of this to the west London, the Great West Road for . An example of the effect of strict planning environment, where everything has be subject to planning permission, on other hand would be the, well large scale example would be the towns which were themselves planned, the towns around London which were planned the second world war, from 1945 . Everything there was planned from beginning end, the whole towns in some , if they were really new towns than expanded towns. The whole towns first found on the drawing board secondly they developed very quickly on ground. So that would be a controlled planning environment.

Or we talk about a cultural environment, cultural . For example, there's surely a very difference between the American style modernising worldwide, which is individualistic, acquisitive, western, , so you might say, these words, of them are rather heavily laden, the one hand. And on the hand, something like a traditional Buddhist to life, which is reflective, and, regard to the natural world, conservationist so on. There's a very big clash between those two approaches to . Still on the empirical dimension, as 've called it, we might be thinking inanimate nature now. By inanimate I not living. Animate things are living . The inanimate world is the world rocks, for example, of oceans, in case without their living things of , ocean floors, seas, lakes, rivers, valleys, , mountains, the very landforms of the floors and the earth.

And of course there may be human with inanimate nature, quite a lot it very controversial. For example there a recent proposal to quarry part the island of Harris in the in Scotland, to quarry it so the rock could go directly into in good deep water and be as road metal, as they say, material, throughout the UK. A large-scale source of road metal. But then local people objected and indeed at public inquiry, a North American Indian flown in at the expense of objectors to instruct the planning inquiry North American Indian traditional attitudes to the even the inanimate environment. I 't know yet what the outcome of planning inquiry is.

Then we have, let's call it, the inanimate, 't say it, the inanimate, the inanimate built environment. By this of course mean buildings, roads, this sort of . Now this is a phrase used architects, the built environment. In fact the old Polytechnic of Central London, the University of Westminster, there is was a Faculty of the Built . What it means of course is place to train architects and so . So the people who use this, context for this use of the environment, the built environment, is architects, , academics and their managers, to signify those buildings and their control.

, let's come now to a second of the term environment, a second of set of uses of it it were. I'm referring to the , the scope of the term in of time. Now obviously, we might talking about the environment at present. 's the most obvious case. But one be talking about the environment in years time, or in a hundred time, or in a million years . And why not in perpetuity? The trendy word "sustainable" we hear more more. But of course the logical of sustainable is that it can, it is, can last for ever, perpetuity. So the timescale is very .

Let's just look at one two examples of where the timescale be rather important. As to the , we might be looking at a day problem and thinking of an at immediate solutions to it. For the problem of traffic in London's , it might be, and some attempted to it by pedestrianised certain heavily streets, and keep out cars. Fifty time, rather longer time dimension. Well, about radioactivity, following a particular leakage. might last, perhaps if there's a leakage, only for about fifty years. hundred years time and so on so on. We don't need to it out. But let's just notice if we come to perpetuity, then 're talking about a steady state type timescale with regard to some aspect the environment or other.

Another of the scope of the term spatial, what we might call geographical spatial. Obviously, an environment can be, environment can be local. Right here, 's a bit of a conflict between interests of the users of the , M1, road, for example, through Hatfield, the one hand, and the interests the people who study and shop work in a place like this. clearly we might be thinking of problems or of whole earth problems, as global warming and so on. regional problem would be deforestation, perhaps, Nepal. A whole earth problem, the sea level, the damage to the layer, and we might even have cosmological problem, going beyond the earth, as, you know, waste from satellites so on and so on.

aspect of the scope of the is which entities of the environment we talking about? If the environment a surrounding, it is the surrounding something or somebody. So which sort entities are we talking about? Well, often we are talking about human and assuming that they are the relevant beings, if we talk about environment. But, even here we can : are we talking about all human or some human beings? Are we about present human beings or future as well? Very often environmental management seen as referring only to the of human beings, and perhaps in fairly short term.

Well, example of a success of environmental from a human point of view be the reclamation of the Dutch lands, lands below sea level, in in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries since. An example of a failure environmental management from a human point view might be the recent floods the Rhine valley for example, a or two ago. And repeatedly in as the rivers flood. Owing to number of things, in the case the Rhine, the building in the plain itself, which limits the escape for water as it drains off floods. In the case of Bangladesh course, the deforestation upstream is responsible repeated floods.

But human are not the only ones involved what about animals environments including birds so on and so on? Well, living things other than human beings environments which are at risk. For dolphins are caught in tuna fishing in large numbers, for example, off . There are chemicals in seawater which, , are a threat to such creatures. are still hunted in some countries. example, in Norway, it is still and controversial. Tigers are in danger extinction in India as a result deforestation, for example.

Again, what plants? Well, many species of plants under threat in the rain forest , for example, including some very useful to man, which is a, to beings, which is another point of , coming back to the human centred . For example, in the Cameroon, in Africa, in one of the remaining of good rain forest, there's a known as the AIDS vine, that's sort of nickname, the AIDS vine, has some curative properties, so it claimed, with, for HIV and AIDS. , these things are just being discovered a lot of the plants are , are being, extinguished as it were, , perhaps, is a pity.

So, , plants and other living things. Where we draw the line? Do we a serious interest in the welfare viruses? What about the common cold ? What about smallpox, which I think virus form, isn't it? Virus caused? 's a debate at the moment as whether to destroy the last artificially samples of smallpox, the smallpox virus. we extinguish any living thing? Of , the danger is that if we it, it might one day get again, and human beings would have resistance any more to the smallpox .

And finally we've got the entities, rocks and all the rest it. Should we really be concerned their environment and in what sense?

, a fifth dimension of the environment, I suggest, which governs its is the evaluative dimension. I called set of considerations empirical at the and spent a lot of time that, but of course, there is, some extent, a distinction to be between the empirical and the evaluative. evaluative, I mean, putting a value something, good, bad or whatever. So terms of the environment, what about prudential values? Now, by prudential, I suitable as a means to an . Now, we often use the environment one sense or another, as a to our own ends and the can be valued in that way. example fishermen value waters full of . They always have done. That's what 're in business for. So they would a prudential value on a fish sea or lake. But there are sorts of value, of course. Another be moral. Now, there is a of academic sub-discipline called environmental ethics, it or not. Now ethics is with the moral. Well, where do considerations come in here? Let's just one example. As it happens, in history of road building, new fast building in the cities, over the forty years or so, very often, always of course, but very often, route chosen is one which has through working class districts of housing, than though expensive middle class districts housing. Well, we don't need to very clever to see why that . It's a matter of cost but 's also a matter of the fact the greatest protests come from the middle classes, perhaps. Where their own are at risk from a new , then they become very vocal. Well, might ask, from a moral point view, is it right that the people, so to speak, weakest in of political organisation and so on, suffer the greater difficulty here? That be simply one example of an issue, a moral issue, in environmental .

Again of course, a third of evaluation, or the third example, be the aesthetic distinction between what beautiful and what is not. Now, is interesting, we haven't time to very interested in it right here, let's just put a marker here. 's interesting how tastes can change and changed in what is a beautiful ugly environment in one sense rather, 's take landscape, and inhabited or uninhabited . Wordsworth and the other romantics in early nineteenth century in this country, example, began to write poetry, and followed suit, began to write poetry the beauty of wild desolate landscapes as the hills of the Lake , in the north west of England. , more classically minded writers had thought the mountains were simply awful, ugly, , and simply discounted them. So tastes changed there very much. There's now sort of aesthetic appreciation of desolate , which was lacking in the eighteenth .

Now three more dimensions briefly, we finish. This horrid long word is used in this context by . It means, of course, centred on beings, centred on man. And non-anthropocentric the opposite. Well, we can always , if we're talking about the environment, we talking simply from the point view of human interests or are talking from the imagined point of , as it were, of the whole the living system of earth, or systems of earth? Or indeed beyond to include the inanimate? Now there a debate going on among the as to whether we should be , which is a main traditional attitude, whether we should regard ourselves somehow part of and co-operators with nature the case of the natural environment.

again, these rather ugly terms : holistic versus individualistic. If one's holistic, thinks of whole systems, of living , for example, or whole communities of . If one's individualistic, one thinks of entities and individual human beings. And have to ask, if we're talking the environment, well, are we talking my particular environment, or are we about the human environment in general, a given area or in the as a whole and so on?

final dimension, we've had enough , I think, pretty well, but this an interesting one. With regard to environment in several senses, we might , in a particular context, is the or speaker thinking in a purely way, as we have been doing far this afternoon, that is in non-religious way? Thinking of making money selling timber for example. Or is writer or speaker thinking of, well in much more traditional quasi-religious terms investing environment with a sort of force? This is certainly what the American indigenous peoples - used to called red Indians - did and . It's regarded as sacrilege to plough ground, for example. "Tearing one's mother's " is a phrase I remember from, 's much quoted in some of the writings. This is an indigenous North talking about ploughing up the grassland. 's regarded as profane. And, there are our own broad culture still remnants, think, of the scared attitude to environment. Think of the setting of graveyards, for example. It's not just . There are serious considerations there with land and relationship between the land the people who have lived and on it.

OK. Enough of . Let me just say what I've to do now by way of . The topic had been very abstract. I should apologise for that. Perhaps . But I think it has some , how one approaches an abstract concept. I've been trying to do is explain, or rather to explain the types of explanation of, an abstract like the environment. We've seen that cannot attempt to define it out hand. One can go back to word history. But more instructive, I is, following Wittgenstein, to ask for characteristic uses of the term and of course in a particular context, you hear, for example, a large polluting, some are, industrial farm, claiming be environmentally virtuous, you can ask, , in what sense is the term being used here?

Anway, thank for your attention. Do you have questions or comments?