enviromental ethics
Aldo Leopold's book, A Sand County Almanac offers insight to an issue that will forever be debated. In the book, he guides the reader through the year at his farm in Wisconsin. The beautiful descriptions of nature at his farm lead up to the land ethic that Leopold proposes. He explains his ideas and views on the various issues of environmental ethics. He takes up every side of the story. He includes his explanation for why we should respect the land, the land's economic and ecological value, and the ethical reasons for respecting the land. Leopold explains his opinion wonderfully with much conviction. However, there are always two sides to the story. Several authors in chapter eleven of the textbook, Applying Ethics have different opinions and have just as much conviction about their own ideas. Environmental ethics is an issue that is very important to some people, but means nothing to others. All of the points represented in these two texts give great supporting evidence, facts, and opinions to support any one of the ideas. Leopold's land ethic combines the earth's soils, waters, plants, and animals collectively into one community-the land. He explains that humans are not the master
He speaks of the conservation education in our society. He explains that our education just may lack the correct content to help us see how to se and respect the land. Basically, we will do only what helps us to reap our best benefits, while having no regard for how it affects the land. We just happen to be conserving the land while farming our land wisely or cutting down the least possible amount of trees when building. Leopold speaks of the "economic value" of our land. He used the example of marshes that were done away with after they were assumed to have a lack of profit. It was later discovered that this was incorrect information. However, the damage was already done because they had no economic value. Leopold is trying to help us realize that parts of the land may have no real profit potential, however, it does have an ecological value. Our society is often too quick to judge the value of something, especially in nature. I feel that I could apply land ethic to my life in some situations. I liked the way that Leopold described land in his book, not merely soil, but a "fountain of energy flowing through a circuit of soils, plants, and animals." This is a wonderful example to show how the land is not just land, but something that is vital to our world. I agree with Leopold, just not as adamantly. His has very good ideas. Today, our society abuses our habitat. I feel that we should stop abusing it and taking it for granted. We need to realize that it may not always be there. Leopold has good ideas, but some of them are a little farfetched. It is good to respect our land, but I do not feel that it is necessary to treat it as one of our equals. There is a difference in respecting your land and feeling that it is a human. I am not necessarily worried about environmental ethics, but I feel that it concerns everyone to some extent. I actually can see where I could apply land ethic to the treatment of other people. This reading has enlightened me to realize that if we should treat our land like this, we should treat other people with a lot more respect than is being shown today. I thoroughly enjoyed Leopold's book. It really opened my eyes to some of
Some common words found in the essay are:
Applying Ethics, Leopold Taylor, County Almanac, Respect Nature, land ethic, respect land, William Baxter, Ed Swann, evolutionary changes, biotic community, Aldo Leopold's, economic value, chapter eleven, environmental ethics, Paul Taylor's, apply land ethic, conserve protect, oil spill, spotted owl, land biotic community,
Approximate Word count = 1475
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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