My Land Ethic

For my ethics essay I am going to cover how my idea of how the land should be treated has evolved over the years. I started off by describing why it is that I feel the environment should be protected. For me, this comes from my service in the military. I was driven to enlist by a desire to protect people. So when I encounter the fact that everyone’s life is at risk due to our negligence to protect our environment, I am admittedly upset. My basic conception of a land ethic is to treat it as the reason for your existence and your purpose is its protection from harm. If you fail to do so, then you endanger the lives of not just everyone now, but also those who have yet to have been born. The result would be a tyranny of a selfish and destructive will, against our own sons and daughters. To me this is a deplorable act and violates their basic human dignity. So, my land ethic is simply one of care and protection. 

Ohio University's Sustainability

           My research paper focused on Athens and more particularly Ohio University. I investigated Ohio University’s future goals of growth, development and sustainability. I chose to couple a critique of the economic system with my analysis of Ohio University plans. In my research I found Ohio University functioned much like any other business. Their main concern in their clause on sustainability, the section involving people, was their investors. I was disturbed by this because a key component in sustainability is social wellbeing. Instead of protecting faculty, students or the surrounding community Ohio University’s concern was for far away, invisible investors. Another component to Ohio University’s sustainability clause was that all decisions in development had to be economically profitable.

            Our economic system is deeply focused on profit and growth. I think this is the greatest factor that leads to an increase in environmental damage. I would move for controlling growth because it would be very difficult to altogether cease growth. My greatest problem is that Ohio University’s growth is non-sustainable in many aspects even though they express a movement towards sustainability. 

The world according to cushman

In her piece about Chuck Cushman, Margaret Knox describes the talented public speaker and advocate of private land ownership. Her aim in writing this piece was to explain why Cushman is so good at what he does. She explains that he came from humble beginnings in Los Angeles and was incensed when the government tried to tell him what to do with the land he owned in Yosemite National Park.

I agree with Knox in that people are willing to listen to others that they believe share a common context with them. Other land owners that believe the government should have no effect on them would be likely to follow Cushman. However, I don't believe that all of the people that love their land would agree with his broad statements about all land owners. For example, over-logging and over-hunting are harmful to the environment regardless of how you frame it. I was also a little skeptical of his insinuation that every person that own land intends to preserve it in some fashion without government interference-- I was horrified when Knox stated that he is actively against wetlands conservation because I come from that terrain and I've seen how people abuse it. I did, however, like his statement that there is a difference between a conservationist and an environmentalist.

"A Woman's Land"

In Sallie Bingham’s essay,  A Woman’s Land. Her argument is based upon feminist ideals, in which she determines that if women were to be in control of property then we would not see the degradation of the environment or the destruction of species. She contends that men are to blame for these things and that an advent of eco-feminism is needed for change.
After reading this I found myself in a difficult situation, this is because I agree with her on many things but I disagree with her solution. I can understand her point that men do behave in competitive, and by that extent, destructive ways. I have experienced encountering this tendency to want to “making something out of”, in many other men. I believe it is borne out of the collective mythology we call culture, this idea that our gods tell men, and them alone, that it is their destiny to make something out of this world. One needs only to look at the many differing religions across the world and then their effect they've had on contemporary forms of male dominance produced by those cultures to confirm this belief. In my opinion this idea of patriarchy is as archaic as its political equivalent of monarchy, and just as equally ineffective in dealing with the modern world. The problem is that we have removed the political arm of this ideal from most governments around the world, but have kept the cultural element in place and thus we limit a natural progression as a species by incorporating this vestigial form of power placement. So, I do agree with her that there is something that is fundamentally wrong with the current method of stratification, but I disagree that the solution lies in replacing power from one gender to the other. Rather I believe that we must collectively readdress our conceptions of gender and change them to be less limiting, less destructive as we will remove the misplaced mythological influences, and more equivocal as we instill the best qualities of all sexes into everyone. Perhaps what we need then is not eco-feminism, but eco-genders. Because to rely on only one gender to prevent the impending environmental catastrophe would be asking quite lot from any side, being that our culture has restricted everyone before they even start.    

The Land Ethic

Aldo Leopold’s The Land Ethic attempts to establish an ethic for humanity’s relationship with the land; something he believes does not currently exist. Leopold makes the case that the land is seen as only an economic factor. Swamps are drained, soil is exhausted and eroded, and biotic diversity is ignored for the select few economically valuable plants, animals, and ecosystems. He questions why this destruction is socially acceptable, but also how the conservation movement has made so little progress against it. He defines an ecological ethic as “a limitation on freedom of action in the struggle for existence” and relates this to a philosophical ethic of  “a differentiation of social and anti-social conduct.” This relation is key to his argument when he posits his land ethic, “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.” For his land ethic to work requires a change in attitude from land as economic resource alone, to something inherently valuable. Then approving or disapproving social reactions must follow actions that impact the environment.

I found his argument extremely effective in content and organization. He defined what an ethic is, demonstrated the lack of a land-ethic and the damage done, and then presented a simple foundation. Furthermore he conceded the failures of conservationists at making significant steps beyond economics, and advancing “good intentions...devoid of critical understanding either of the land, or of economic land-use.”

What is striking about this essay to me it how forward looking it is. Presented in 1933, I am unsure how far ahead of his times he was, but it is surprising, and saddening, how relevant an essay from 70 years ago is today. Two quotes that resonated with me: First, “The land-relation is still strictly economic, entailing privileges but not obligations.” Second, “A land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it.” It is disturbing to me how true both of these statements are today and how little attitudes have changed. The essay made me question myself when Leopold asserted “In out attempt to make conservation easy, we have made it trivial.” Is this not also the same today as in 1933? Human’s environmental impacts have drastically increased, with population, since 1933 and yet we still think replacing light bulbs and recycling are sufficient changes.

A Woman's Land

Sallie Bingham is an old time feminist. This is evident when reading her essay A Woman’s Land. She applies inherent traits to each gender in her writings, saying men are incapable of letting land lie fallow while women find this task easy. Although, I can see where she’s coming from I would say these traits are not biological but rather societal. Proving self-worth is a large part of masculinity. Sometimes this manifests in economic success’s like turning an unprofitable piece of land into a farm or other profitable function. There is the stereotype of a men being providers. It is quite possible that a woman could destroy Bingham’s plot for economic gains, too.

Feminism has changed greatly in the past ten years. I do not think this is a good representation of eco-feminism because it is rooted in the similar thinking to that of gender roles. Gender is a spectrum and I think men and women are equally capable of learning Bingham’s views towards her land. She could have tried to instill the importance of said land to her sons. There is a great spectrum of beliefs in feminism, as in every movement, but I think Bingham’s articulated point in this essay is more harmful than proactive. Already there is the misconception that feminism is only for women when in reality feminism is the collective movement of both genders and everything between.    

Dispatch from Toxic Town

In this reading, Tara Hulen writes about the small town of Anniston. Anniston was dubbed the “Model City” because of all the little things about it that made it seem like such a wonderful place to live after it was founded. All was well in Anniston until the day a fisherman caught a deformed fish. This was the discovery that would change the so-called “Model City” to the “Toxic Town.” 

The main villain of sorts in this reading is Monsanto. Monsanto had been dumping, PCBs, which were chemicals that they were fully suspected were dangerous to people and also knew they were toxic to animals as far back as the late 1930’s. This is something I found deeply disturbing when while reading this essay. I look at this company, a company that knew what they were doing was dangerous, and I must wonder if practices like that are still continuing to happen to this very day. I would have to lean more towards the idea that actions like this are still being taken. 

The real sad part about this entire essay is the repercussion that the individuals still living in Anniston have to deal with. People like the lady named in the article who thinks her lupus was caused by the harmful chemicals or the children who cannot even go outside to play for fear they will be harmed. Solutia, the company currently located in Anniston, has tried to make up for the past by building harms on new dirt and also paying through lawsuits. I think this is a slap in the face to all the people who have died that probably died directly Monsanto “dumping” on them. They cannot make up for what they have done.