Aldo Leopold's Land Ethic

The Earth’s environment is a incredibly complex and interconnected system. A system which, due to the demands of modern human civilization, is teetering on the edge. We have altered our environment both positively and negatively (but mostly negative) due to our need for resources and our modern lifestyle. Our carbon in the atmosphere is adding to the greenhouse effect, and the expansion of our towns and cities is fragmenting the systems around them. If no action is taken the world will be irreparably damaged. Some believe this to not be an issue, but the fact of the matter is we are changing the world for the worse, and sooner than later we will experience the negative repercussions of our carelessness. Changes in lifestyles must be made,

Changes however must be made, but they must be made at the ground level, meaning that people need to understand the stress we are putting on the Earth. From this understanding people, or at least should, make changes that help the Earth. We can look to Aldo Leopold’s land ethic, which some deem “Eco-fascism” but this is not the case. Leopold meant his land ethic, which describes how we need to preserve the beauty and integrity of nature, to be an addition to more human based ethics. This means that we must take the environment or land into account when making decisions, it does not prevent the use and cultivation of land. If this style of thinking was more well known to people, and there were not such high tensions around this subject, we could easily start to solve our environmental issues. Once this, or a similar ethical system was added to our preexisting ethics, than people will start to change their lifestyles in large ways. Small changes will add up to lasting

Geo-engineering is the when humans change or effect the ecosystems of Earth through technology and science. This could help us, but it comes with many limitations. The main issue with wide spread geo-engineering is that we are still not sure of the full ramifications that it would cause to not only the ecosystem that is changed, but to others that it is connected to. This is mostly an issue when we try to change things at the global level, what should be happening is the focused repair of smaller systems. A positive example of unexpected consequences of geo-engineering is the reintroduction of wolves into Yellow Stone. When the wolves returned it not only balanced the food chain but it also changed everything from the plants to the river banks. Yellow Stone was returned to its former stability, but this could have easily turned out badly. Small geo-engineering and animal reintroduction could help the Earth in ways future prevention can not, but since the technology is so new it comes with many draw