Environmental Ethics and Film

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by Pat Brereton

Type

Studies

Subject

Sociology

Keywords

ecology

Publishing date

2026 (April 21, 2026)

Publisher

Routledge

Collection

Routledge Studies in Environmental Communication and Media
2nd edition

1st publishing

2015

Language

English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Paperback • 200 pages
6 x 9 ¼ inches (15.5 x 23.5 cm)

ISBN

978-1-032-95894-1

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Book Presentation:
Environmental Ethics and Film presents and defends a systematic and comprehensive account of the moral relation between human beings and their natural environment and assumes that human behaviour toward the natural world can and is governed by moral norms.

In contemporary society, film has provided a powerful instrument for the moulding of such ethical attitudes. Through a close examination of the medium, Environmental Ethics and Film explores how historical ethical values can be re-imagined and re-constituted for more contemporary audiences. Building on an extensive back-catalogue of eco-film analysis, the author focuses on a diverse selection of contemporary films which target audiences’ ethical sensibilities in very different ways. Each chapter focuses on at least three close readings of films and documentaries, examining a wide range of environmental issues as they are illustrated across contemporary Hollywood films. In this thoroughly revised new edition, the author updates each chapter with the latest developments in various core concepts and principles, including the Tragedy of the Commons, Lifeboat Ethics, Indigenous Otherness, Deep Ecology and Intergenerational Justice.

The coverage in this edition has been expanded to include tensions over anthropocentricism and ethics with more contemporary examples. This book is an invaluable resource for students and scholars of environmental communication, film studies, media and cultural studies, environmental philosophy and ethics.

About the Author:
Pat Brereton is emeritus professor of Communications at Dublin City University, Ireland.

Press Reviews:
"In our increasingly image-based age of communication, politics and culture, the role of film in interpreting and reimaging, challenging and reinforcing, ‘commonsense’ views of human-nature relations is much more than a study of entertainment and distraction. This new edition of Environmental Ethics and Film is an informed and authoritative guide to how and in what ways film can comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. And such intellectual and emotional disturbance is needed, as the book eloquently points out, if we are to respond with ‘radical hope’ to living on our increasingly destabilised planet".

- John Barry, Ollscoil na Banríona, Béal Feirste/Queen's University Belfast

"Professor Brereton clearly shows film’s contribution to environmental ethics. As someone trained in ethics, not filmography, his first edition helped me incorporate film into ethics teaching and scholarship. This second edition analyses many newer films and remains balanced. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in environmental ethics, which should include all of us."

-Dónal O'Mathúna, Professor, College of Nursing and Associate Director of Research, Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities at The Ohio State University

See the publisher website: Routledge