THE SIGNIFICANCE OFAESTHETIC EDUCATION ON ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Environmental degradation is considered by many to be one of the major challenges facing humanity in modern times. The environment is being severely and seriously undermined by human activities. Industrialization and its products irretrievably affect the land surface, the seas, and the atmosphere of our planetary environment. These undesirable effects on the environment imprint ugliness on the world and limit people's opportunities for pleasurable environmental aesthetic experiences. As one of the branches of aesthetics, environmental aesthetics determines the factors that shape our understanding and the creation of the natural and built environment. It examines among other things appreciation of nature as a powerful foundation for positive and affirmative action on environmental issues. Through the framework of the cognitive account of the aesthetic appreciation of nature in contemporary environmental aesthetics which maintains that aesthetic education concerning nature should incorporate the contributions made by scientists and naturalists so that our attitude towards nature will develop with ecological sensitivity. This is predicated on the ceteris paribus condition that a good aesthetic education and right aesthetic attitude is instrumental in the preservation and protection of our natural and human-made environments in Nigeria. It bemoans the negative consequences and effects of environmental degradation and discusses the positive effects that might follow from taking natural beauty seriously.