It is becoming dangerously clear that the destruction and consumption of much of the earth is contributing at least in part to global instability. Finite resources and lackluster harvests have causes totalitarian governments to crack down on passionate and justified protests across the world. The geopolitical ramifications of climate change and decreasing resources are immense and wide ranging. Cravings for natural resources have multiplied tension in political hotspots. In “The Land Ethic”, Aldo Leopold speaks about the settlement in the Mississippi Valley, its importance and how it was contested by the “…native Indian, the French and English traders, and American settlers. (Leopold 750) When one examines the current instability in Syria, a lack of available resources contributed to the initial catalyst of protests against the Assad regime. Leopold is right. We …show more content…
It could serve both the people and the environment better if solutions were enacted at a more intimate level, from state and local institutions. Many states rely very heavily on the agricultural industries and would not sign on to legislation that would eliminate economic progress. Jobs and subsequently votes—one being considerably more important to legislators—would be irrecoverable. This makes it nearly impossible to pass meaningful legislation even with this clear threat. Take the fishing industry for example. As vast as the oceans are, they are no match for a booming asian population. Overfishing is threatening the stability of ecosystems and can have wide reaching implications for certain societies going forward if this source of food were to disappear. Leopold emphasizes this by saying “Land, then, is not merely soil it is a fountain of energy flowing through a circuit of soils, plants and animals.” (Leopold
Although Leopold’s love of great expanses of wilderness is readily apparent, his book does not cry out in defense of particular tracts of land about to go under the axe or plow, but rather deals with the minutiae, the details, of often unnoticed plants and animals, all the little things that, in our ignorance, we have left out of our managed acreages but which must be present to add up to balanced ecosystems and a sense of quality and wholeness in the landscape.
Kristof, Nicholas D. “For Environmental Balance, Pick up a Rifle”. New York Times. Rpt. in Current Issues and Enduring Questions. Barnet, Sylvia and Hugo Bedau. Boston. Bedford/St.Martins. 2011. Print. 183-185.
“There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot.” This essay is about one who cannot. Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold exposes a profound and fundamental detachment between contemporary people and the land. This detachment based on mechanization, individualization, consumerism, materialism, and capitalism is leading mankind down an un-returnable path that seeks to destroy the land that we love. Nevertheless, Aldo Leopold writes about the delicate intricacies that intertwine to form an infinite system linked together by relationships that still escape understanding.
I think that he is trying to say that wilderness is something to be cherished and loved, because it gives definition and meaning to his life. His whole life was spent looking after and trying to preserve the wilderness. This is a plea for the preservation. I think that Leopold believes one day a lot of what we have today and he want it to be preserved so that in the future people have the chance to see there cultural inheritance like our ancestors let us see by preserving things.
As time passes, our population continues to increase and multiply; yet, on the other hand, our planet’s resources continue to decrease and deplete. As our population flourishes, human beings also increase their demands and clamor for the Earth’s natural products, yet are unable to sacrifice their surplus of the said resources. Garret Hardin’s work highlighted the reality that humans fail to remember that the Earth is finite and its resources are limited. Hardin’s article revealed that people are unable to fathom that we indeed have a moral obligation to our community and our natural habitat — that we are not our planet’s conquerors but its protectors. We fail to acknowledge and accept that we only have one Earth and that we must protect and treasure it at all costs. Despite all our attempts at annihilating the planet, the Earth will still be unrelenting — it will still continue to be present and powerful. Human beings must recognize that we need this planet more than it needs us and if we persist on being egocentric and covetous, in the end it is us who will
Fewer people are becoming increasingly 'successful' and wealthy while a disproportionately larger population are also becoming even poorer. The developed nations, by systematic spoliation of the non-renewable resources of the world, are also destroying the ecosystem. Around the world, inequality is increasing, while the rest of the world is further globalising. In many cases, political interests have led to a diversion of available resources from domestic needs to western markets. Historically, politics and power play by the elite leaders and rulers has meant that people and their land can be controlled, which has further increased poverty and dependency.
A land has many aspects to it, it’s made up of seasons: winter, spring, summer, and fall. There are trees, waving grasses, rolling hills, parched deserts, lush forests and more. The land is moody, inconsistent, and prone to fits of temperament and few characters aside from Alexandra seem to understand the meaning and beauty of such an inhospitable display of behavior. The land can affect the way we feel and act. While reading Willa Cather 's, “O Pioneers” the story introduces a family of Swedish immigrants farming in Nebraska. The Bergson 's family faces the same difficult struggles as other homesteaders, but Alexandra Bergson is determined as ever to see what the land has to offer. After her father dies, she takes up the challenge of making the farm a viable enterprise while other immigrant families are leaving their land
Leopold defends his position the advent of a new ethical development, one that deals with humans’ relations to the land and its necessity. This relationship is defined as the land ethic, this concept holds to a central component referred to as the ecological consciousness. The ecological consciousness is not a vague ideal, but one that is not recognized in modern society. It reflects a certainty of individual responsibility for the health and preservation of the land upon which we live, and all of its components. If the health of the land is upheld, its capacity of self-renewal and regeneration is maintained as well. To date, conservation has been our sole effort to understand and preserve this capacity. Leopold holds that if the mainstream embraces his ideals of a land ethic and an ecological consciousness, the beauty, stability and integrity of our world will be preserved.
Traditional agriculture requires massive forest and grassland removal to obtain land necessary to farm on. Deforestation and overgrazing has caused erosion flooding, and enabled the expansion of deserts. But with drainage systems, leveling, and irrigation provided by the Green Rev, all this terra deforming will unlikely happen again. We can retain clean air and lessen the global warming effect caused by deforestation.Many people argue that a revamp in agriculture will be way too expensive and unrealistic especially for those poor farmers in third world countries. However many times, they exaggerate the price.
Ross, M. L. (1999). The Species of the World. The Political Economy of the Resource Curse. World Politics, 51 (2), pp. 113-117.
“We are consuming the Earth’s natural resources beyond its sustainable capacity of renewal” said by Herman Daly, Beyond Growth, Boston 1996, 61[1] .
...lations diminished production, those without the basic human needs of food, shelter, and clothing will be forced into still greater poverty. So the very debate about whether to curb production to save the environment is also a question of whose livelihoods we value more: present day poor or future populations.
In “Feeding people versus Saving Nature” Rolston asserts his belief that in some cases the issues of feeding people and saving nature are in direct conflict with each other, and a win-win outcome may not be possible. In these cases we must decide whether we ought to feed people by using the land and natural resources, or instead opt to save nature, allowing the poor to suffer. This argument is often framed in a manner such as “You wouldn’t let the Ethiopians starve to save some butterfly, would you?” (Pg. 504), Rolston criticizes this for being too simple of an analogy that does not fairly represent his argument. He emphasizes societies reliance on a healthy environment as it is essential to agriculture, and that the availability of clean water is essential, and tries to justify when and why the interests of nature should be paramount to those of feeding people, when a win-win outcome is not possible.
There are those that believe our planet has reached its maximum capacity to sustain humanity and we need to reduce our population to rectify it. It is also said that our planet is well capable of providing both the nutrition and caloric needs for humanity, both now and into the future as well. Regardless of where one’s opinion of the facts fall between these two arguments, global food security is not where it should be. Uneven development could be argued to be a cause of this. But it is not the only issue affecting the planet.
These differing emphases naturally point to fundamentally different solutions: slow population growth in less-developed nations or change destructive consumption and production patterns in the more-developed nations. This debate, however, assumes a one-step answer to the complex problems created by population pressures on the environment. Both population size and consumption influence environmental change and are among the many factors that need to be combined into credible policy debates.... ... middle of paper ... ...