A Land Ethic

By: Jordan Shelswell

Where to Begin?

The focus of most environmental blogs even those adjacent to the top blogs are focused at least as far as I can see on the trend of “Green Lifestyles” and how you can make small choices everyday to help protect the environment. These articles are just generally lacking in considerations pertaining to institutions and society as a whole. While I was looking at these articles I could not help but think that:

A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise. -Aldo Leapold

Leopold’s words have stuck around with me for a while and I think they can be useful in starting a conversation beyond what one can do when trying to combat environmental issues, into a consideration of societal values and where their focus is executed. Aldo’s words are a part of his concept of a Land Ethic and the moral considerations that stem from it.

It can be interpreted as a statement that life is something we do not completely understand. It is integral to the limits of our comprehension and as such has intrinsic value, artistic, beautiful if you would. If that is so as it is in any society that holds murder, the forced termination of life, as a crime and the more lives involved the worse the crime, then any activity that can conceivably be linked to degrading the conditions that life as we know it needs to exist it is immoral.

Why then as a society do we only hold individuals account for this damage? Did you as a soap buy make the soap that is causing nitrates to enter the waters, causing algae blooms, killing fish and tainting out drinking water? No you certainly bought it but where is the corporate responsibility?

It is tied up in fiscal and imaginary economic concerns. We have placed companies in situations where they are only deemed successful if they produce ever climbing profit margins and returns to their investors. In order to fully address these issues we need to concern ourselves with institutional motivations and hold our institutions to the same standards we hold ourselves.

This and subjects like it will be explored here. So if you are interested I would like to invite you to come back maybe even bookmark or link to this site. If my schedule untangles itself soon, there hopefully will be new content when you drift back this way.