Students and faculty members now have a comprehensive resource for understanding environmental ethics — the field of environmental philosophy that considers the ethical relationship between humans and the natural environment. 

J. Baird Callicott, right, chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion Studies, and Robert Frodeman, left, professor of philosophy and religion studies, have edited The Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy, a two-volume reference with 319 entries contributed by experts, including UNT faculty and graduate students.

Callicott says the work “is an accumulation of 35 years of building the field of environmental ethics.”  The encyclopedia is published by MacMillan Reference Books.

“We wanted to produce something that was easily accessible to many people — from professionals and specialists in the field to 11th-grade high school students writing term papers,” says Callicott, who was approached by a publisher to compile the encyclopedia after he co-edited Environmental Philosophy: Critical Concepts in the Environment, a five-volume set of classic and important papers.

Encyclopedia users can search the topics of government agencies, global warming, technology and its role in environmental ethics, historical figures in the field and radical environmental organizations, among others.

Frodeman says about 275 experts from around the world contributed entries. The encyclopedia “has articles on Africa written by academics from Africa, and articles on Asia written by academics from Asia.” He adds that one of the strongest essays, on Latin American environmental philosophy, was written by UNT's  Ricardo Rozzi, associate professor of philosophy and religion studies who is originally from Chile. Rozzi is a co-founder of Omora Ethnobotanical Park, a research, education and conservation center for the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve located in the Antarctic province of Chile.