Many of the ideas that Leopold introduces and Calicott later elaborates on demonstrate the idea that a balanced earth and the one that exists today are two separate ideas. The two authors explain that an earth that is healthy and an earth that is dominated by human exploitation are two very different concepts. Current use by humans treats the land as purely instrumental to humans. There is no second thought to the idea that the authors elaborate on throughout their writing; that everything is connected in a biotic community. Leopold later shows that the Earth cannot continue to live and flourish with “the impact of mechanized man.” Calicott expands on this with the idea that if this is true, “man [cannot] survive his own impact on the land.”
If humans continue to think that they are the only important community on this planet, ecological progress will never be made. Currently, modernized countries have a purely economical view of the land. Leopold demonstrates that farmers are only willing to perform environmentally remedial acts if they receive adequate compensation for it. There is no sentiment of need for preservation among the common population. Those who are most capable of changing land-use property (those who own the most), are usually those who are only looking to profit from it. Leopold goes on to say that the restoration processes that are unwilling to be undergone by the individual land-owner are usually relegated to government, although government usually does not have the capacity to undergo such a process.
The bigger issue that this stems from is that people are unwilling to undergo anything that is a burden to them. People want to preserve the environment, but not if it affects their everyday lives. Any good consumed by the general population is deemed much to valuable to be sacrificed for the greater good of the human race. The consumer or industrialist is much too busy profiting from the world's resources to be concerned about how it affects others in the community. This extends to the idea that people will only realize that there is a problem when resources begin to diminish. Humans tend not to see the biota relationship or inherent value that Leopold describes; only the instrumental value that they have become accustomed to.
Calicott's solution to these quandaries results in a give and take relationship between humans and the earth. This can easily be compared to the way Native Americans acted when they were assimilating from individual tribes into bigger nations. Since population density and therefore exploitation increased, Native Americans gave back to the specific species that they were exploiting. Calicott discusses “offerings” given to the same population that they consumed. He goes on to elaborate on how Native Americans never failed to use as much of the collected resource as possible, eliminating waste and maximizing energy usage throughout the biota.
I agree with the proposal that Calicott concludes upon. This seems much more humans and less misanthropic than the idea proposed by Aiken; that a 90% reduction in human population is necessary to have a sustainable planet. Calicott tries to join the two usually opposing ideas of human and biotic moral obligations. I believe that although Calicott's solution is very difficult to engineer in a real-world situation, it is plausible. I think that the way this should be done is through the means I have commonly cited in my earlier posts, education of the general population. People need to be informed of what they are doing to the environment, and how their daily actions affect much more than they realize. The community needs to learn that there are many species out there, not all of which we can immediately reap benefits from, but which keep the earth's environment in constant balance.
I also feel like people are often unwilling to change and very reluctant to make small adjustments to their daily routine in order to help the environment, unless it directly impacts them. For instance, many people don't take the time to unplug things like the toaster or their phone charger, even when it's not in use. But they start to when they realize they can save some money on their energy bill by doing so. Or when people start walking to work instead of driving because they realize they've gained a few pounds and want to lose it.
ReplyDeleteYour example of consumers not caring about others in the community could definitely be extended further to consumers not caring about... well anyone at all. When we buy a new pair of shoes from Nike or a shirt from Abercrombie, are we really thinking about the factory workers (aka sweatshop workers) that are grossly underpaid under poor living and working conditions? Do we care about what the factories do to the air quality or water quality of their towns? Of course we don't. We're just happy we found the goods on sale.
I enjoyed Callicott's example of the Native Americans who significantly reduced their environmental wastes. It's almost ironic that we pushed these "primative" people onto reservations so the civilized people could take over and now we're ruining the land and unsure of what fate holds for us. It would be great of humans could take the time to be more resources and adhere to the values of land ethics, however, practically, I do not believe many would take the time to. It's just too much of an inconvenience to throw a bottle into the recycling instead of the trash, let alone try to save the earth.