Hisatake Kato

Department of Ethics, Kyoto University
(Yoshida-honmachi, Sakyo-ku Kyoto 606-01 Japan)

Abstract

The environment and disaster prevention for cities were topics discussed here from the viewpoint of environmental ethics. It is expected that the following three points of view for the wastes should be taken into consideration: the limitation of natural resources, protection of ecological systems (including protection of creatures other than humans simply because of intrinsic value), and responsibility to the next generation to assure that human life will continue on the earth in the future. Humans, energy, information and products have collected in big cities so far from the point of efficiency. Efficiency and safety are not generally supposed to be consistent. However, if we can use computer networks and various trading systems, and the system of co-generation for energy, it is not necessary to keep making cities larger in the future. Rather it is desirable to better consider the construction of cities which have eternal artistic value when the cities themselves are to eventually become waste.

Key words: cities, disaster prevention, wastes, environmental ethics