Protection of the environment and future generations: bioethical developments and reflections

Abstract

The dichotomy between the promise that technological development represents the solution to human problems and the growing certainty about the finiteness of natural resources creates a range of uncertainties about future expectations, especially given the increasing environmental problems that have arisen. The work aims to enter into the principle of protection, evaluating how it can interact with the precautionary principle, contributing to the understanding of the complexity of the environmental theme and the need for changes in human behavior in relation to the planetary future. The study uses as a method a bibliographical review of authors that currently deal with the subject, involving the constant transformations of the world, climatic changes and the necessity of a sustainable development, interconnected problems and of a global nature. From the normative bioethics, articles 16 and 17 of the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights will be exposed, discussing and interweaving the concepts of protection and precaution. It is proposed to reflect about how to understand the world's changes, based on a bioethics committed to human awareness, that it is necessary to adopt joint actions, aiming at the preservation of the planet, in order to safeguard the right of existence of future generations.