Suppose we agree that, even without a definition, and even without tidy margins, we have a reasonably secure grasp of what many environmental problems are like. Some of these problems are technical: we agree on the solution needed but so far lack the means for its implementation. Others involve disagreement either as to whether a problem exists or, if it does, the shape of its best solution. My focus is on problems of the latter kind, in which there is disagreement as to values. How are such problems to be solved? There have been a number of suggestions. I will consider two in some detail, but need first to mention two more, which can be soon dismissed.

Poor solutions

They can be dismissed because, at least as they stand, they fairly clearly offer no satisfactory response to our problems with the environment. There are, though, components within these familiar if inadequate responses that will surface again in later discussions.

There is no answer, so nothing should be done

Some people believe that although scientific questions have answers, moral questions do not. And so the kinds of environmental problems that we are interested in here, questions of what we ought to do, how we should think about some alleged calamity, whether we're obliged to resist or welcome a pattern of change, similarly have no answers. Different people have different opinions, but neither side is right and neither side wrong.