Saturday, June 5, 2010

Land Ethics

After reading Aldo Leopold’s Land Ethics, I realized that he made a lot of good points about the narrow mindedness of humans. Perhaps people just choose to be oblivious rather than proactive, but essentially, he pointed out that in order for humans to not destroy the environment, mankind needs a good enough reason. In his article, he exemplifies this idea through a factual scenario, “At the beginning of the century songbirds were supposed to be disappearing. Ornithologists jumped to the rescue with some distinctly shaky evidence to the effect that insects would eat us up if birds failed to control them. The evidence has to be economic in order to be valid.“ As unsettling as this statement is, I realize that it is very true. It is difficult to think about the scope of damage humans are continuing to have on this Earth. It is a selfish manner, but humans will always prioritize themselves before nature.