Ethics plays a primary role in environmental management and, therefore, must be a fundamental pillar in any environmental education process. Influencing the sensitization and awareness of the groups so that their behavior generates new ways of relating to their particular and global environment is one of the most important purposes of environmental education.
The alternative solutions to the various environmental problems must be the product of the responsible decisions of individuals, communities and ultimately of society, taking into account the criteria for evaluating their environment, closely related to the sense of belonging and, for Hence, with the criteria of identity.
Promoting an environmental ethic and developing the axiological aspect (set of values) are some of the objectives of environmental education. In the field of ethics, there is a distinction between social and antisocial behavior.
Ethical education for the environment must contribute to the formation of individuals and societies in attitudes and values for the proper management of the environment, through a structure that obeys a critical and structured reflection that makes it possible to understand why these values to assume as their own and act accordingly.
All these perspectives must make possible a real critical work that reorients the scientific culture to put it at the service of human beings, so that in its reflection on the meaning of life and on its social responsibility they include the use of science and technology. adequately to the needs of autonomous social development, as well as common and traditional knowledge.
Most of today's world's environmental problems are essentially man-made. The role of man is, therefore, crucial, since it is his attitude towards the human and natural environment that has shaped today's environment. Obviously, the change in man's attitude and behavior is directly related to the value system of contemporary society. Historically, individual and social values have not always been in the best interests of preserving a quality environment.
The current environmental crisis forces man to reexamine his values and alter them when necessary in order to ensure human survival. A system of ecological priority values must be formulated for them to become global laws.
It must be thought that every human being has the right to live and satisfy his basic needs. If man could live in harmony with nature and act as a responsible "caretaker" or "guardian" of the environment, it would be possible to achieve an ecologically healthy future for future generations. Man with his unique technological power has a profound effect on his environment. So to some extent, you can control your own destiny.
In order to live in harmony, man must develop a balanced way of thinking, feeling and acting towards the environment.
An environmental ethic is basically an ethic based on social justice for all without discrimination of caste, race, sex, religion, ideology, region or nation. (UNESCO, 1990, 51). It is also a relevant factor of any economic, political and social system since in it there is an implicit vision of man, of his being, his attributes, his origin and his destiny.
Each economic, political and social system generates a vision of man that supports it. This explains the need to start not only from new socio-economic structures but also from new values; These depend largely on the type of education in force, which in turn is conditioned by the socio - economic structure of the country.
The integral vision of man must be in accordance with the educational transformation, which seeks to consolidate new paths, create attitudes and norms of behavior towards others and towards nature, that makes possible the realization of every man in society and contributes significantly to the formulation of reasonable environmental decision-making, since this involves careful analysis of ecological, economic, social and technical aspects; in addition, various policy alternatives, actions and practices should be examined before making a decision.
Decisions affecting the environment can be made by an individual, a family, a society, consumers, industries, and the government.
Such environmental decisions can be made based on the prevailing hierarchy of values without any ecological consideration. For example, in the present century, technologically advanced societies have considered a standard of living, of industrial development as their Principal collective value.
Ecological considerations have been given a low priority, because societies did not calculate the long-term consequences imposed by their hierarchy of values, as a consequence the quality of man's environment has degenerated.
Education, like ethics, is conceived as a permanent process of a social and personal nature through which the need to reconstruct human-nature-society relations is recognized; This results in the improvement and conservation of the natural, socio - cultural, interpersonal and created environment, therefore it strengthens the possibilities and allows us to clearly see the responsibility that the human being has towards his environment and the interpretive capacity in front of him.
Just by taking values into account in the educational process in an explicit and systematic way, it is necessary to generate important changes in the environment; the mere fact of recognizing the communities' rights and that they recognize their duties allows breaking a silence and preparing the ground for profound transformations in the same man, in his relationship with others and with his environment. An education centered on values is an education centered on man, because man is, by his very being, called to fulfillment in values.
Ethics and education for the environment oriented towards the formation of citizens for a truly human society must be aware of the means that they will use to engage the majority, so that the best can emerge, as agents of politics, and everyone can have participatory attitudes and criteria to judge power.
The criteria for exercising power with justice or for judging power with certain values, such as freedom, participation, peace, harmony, solidarity and others commonly accepted. But the application of ethics and education for change does not only require the formation of certain values related to politics. It is necessary to think of values of the person and of the community that attend to the aspects of development of the human species in its present and future generation while conserving its environment.
An education in values, is an education for change, must have as its first objective the overcoming of the limits and conditions imposed by culture. Therefore, man must be able to decipher the past and create the future, getting used to alternative thinking. This is not easy, since the discernment of values is an individual process, and only when the person experiences a value does it really exist for him.
Personal evaluation is not possible without a conscience of free and committed choice, therefore, it is basic and priority to favor the dynamisms of the personality that lead to autonomy, to the experience of being a person.
Each human group has a scale of values that can come from very diverse sources: personal interests, imposed collective values, for example: norms, behavior guidelines, fashion, prestige…. In an education with a scale of values for change, there would have to be a gradual break to be replaced by others that are reflexively accepted. These changes, in order to be sustained, have to be community-based.
Man as a being in a permanent process of integral formation, each of its dimensions must be transformed through educational processes that are consistent and harmonious with the environment; from this point of view, ethics becomes a transversal axis in the socio-humanistic development of man, therefore, the promotion of an environmental ethic and the development of the axiological, set of values, are a requirement in the world current that defines the social and environmental behavior of the human species.
In man it is important to differentiate what are the desires from what we call aspirations. The first come from his physiology, they are instinctual impulses that must be controlled. Aspirations reflect their attempts to be better, to transcend the imperfections of human nature, to establish what does not yet exist in the world that one would like to introduce into it, are what drive creation. Morality is precisely the control that society imposes on the creative capacity, in order to protect the common good. Aspirations originate from the depths of the spirit, linking man to the evolutionary plan, in search of the holy, wisdom and creativity.
In the process of humanization, man acquires his fullness that allows him to project himself to the world, endowed with sensitivity by which he will receive the messages that external reality delivers to him, and those that come from within him, such as the aspirations that are born in the unconscious.; intelligence that makes it possible to be aware of the messages received, by translating them into clear and intelligible ideas, logically organized; and the will that is the faculty that allows him to freely choose between desires and aspirations. The combination of these three forces confer on man the mastery of his faculties and therefore of his freedom, patrimony of human consciousness on which man's future depends.
