Hi Everyone!
I've had a series of loosely connected thoughts gathering in my head since we met on Thursday, so I thought I'd take a minute to explore those connections while sharing them with you all. Not long after our brunch, I stumbled across a link to this NPR blog piece which speaks to some of the issues of biodiversity we touched on as we were talking about the respective merits of government funding for field crop production and conservation programs: Cornstalks Everywhere But Nothing Else, Not Even A Bee.
Author Robert Krulwich is clearly disturbed by the relative lack of biodiversity in the examined cornfield as opposed to the Cape Town park or the upper reaches of the Costa Rican forest. "There's something strange about a farm that intentionally creates a biological desert to feed one species: us," he writes. But couldn't a case be made that since the energy in the cornfield is going primarily toward producing food and other products for humans, the limited diversity in this ecosystem is more valuable to us than the "excess" of biodiversity in the park and forest, which doesn't appear to benefit us directly or economically? Krulwich himself admits that the cornfield is "efficient." What good is all that diversity if we can't eat it, wear it, drive it, or sell it?
I want to respond to this question (a valid one!) with some excerpts from Aldo Leopold's "The Land Ethic," which can be found in A Sand Country Almanac (or if you're interested you can also read it online here: http://home.btconnect.com/tipiglen/landethic.html):
“All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts. His instincts prompt him to compete for his place in that community, but his ethics prompt him also to co-operate (perhaps in order that there may be a place to compete for).
The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land.
This sounds simple: do we not already sing our love for and obligation to the land of the free and the home of the brave? Yes, but just what and whom do we love? Certainly not the soil, which we are sending helter-skelter downriver. Certainly not the waters, which we assume have no function except to turn turbines, float barges, and carry off sewage. Certainly not the plants, of which we exterminate whole communities without batting an eye. Certainly not the animals, of which we have already extirpated many of the largest and most beautiful species . . .
One basic weakness in a conservation system based wholly on economic motives is that most members of the land community have no economic value. Wildflowers and songbirds are examples. Of the 22,000 higher plants and animals native to Wisconsin, it is doubtful whether more than 5 per cent can be sold, fed, eaten, or otherwise put to economic use Yet these creatures are members of the biotic community, and if (as I believe) its stability depends on its integrity they are entitled to continuance . . .
To sum up: a system of conservation based solely on economic self-interest is hopelessly lopsided. It tends to ignore, and thus eventually to eliminate, many elements in the land community that lack commercial value, but that are (as far as we know) essential to its healthy functioning. It assumes, falsely, I think, that the economic parts of the biotic clock will function without the uneconomic parts. It tends to relegate to government many functions eventually too large, too complex, or too widely dispersed to be performed by government . . .
It is inconceivable to me that an ethical relation to land can exist without love, respect, and admiration for land and a high regard for its value. By value, I of course mean something far broader than mere economic value; I mean value in the philosophical sense.
Perhaps the most serious obstacle impeding the evolution of a land ethic is the fact that our educational and economic system is headed away from, rather than toward, an intense consciousness of land. Your true modern is separate from the land by many middlemen, and by innumerable physical gadgets. He has no vital relation to it; to him it is the space between cities on which crops grow. Turn him loose for a day on the land, and if the spot does not happen to be a golf links or a 'scenic' area, he is bored stiff. If crops could be raised by hydroponics instead of farming, it would suit him very well. Synthetic substitutes for wood, leather, wool, and other natural land products suit him better than the originals. In short, land is something he has 'outgrown.'
Almost equally serious as an obstacle to a land ethic is the attitude of the farmer for whom the land is still an adversary or a taskmaster that keeps him in slavery. . .”
As I tucked the redworms from the vermicompost pile we sorted last week back inside their bin and into the fresh bedding you made for them, I thought about a particular piece of advice I'd given you about vermicomposting--how to watch the worms to see which foods were their favorites and which they didn't like so much. It occurred to me that as much as I value the big pile of rich compost they've produced for me, my primary concern is that the worms themselves are happy and healthy. Is it odd to say that I'm fond of my worms? I'm fond of them. The compost is a by-product of our relationship and as long as that relationship is in good standing, I'm bound to get a good harvest of compost. But I don't go out of my way to feed them their favorite foods every now and then because I want compost. I do it because I like them. They have inherent value for me as organisms with whom I share my life.
It's the same with the plants, really. Of course I hope that in a few years we'll have this business built up to a point where it's bringing in an income for Diane, John, and myself. But uppermost in my mind is the health of the plants, the soil, the surrounding ecosystem. If I'm not familiar with and in good relationship to the bio-diverse organisms with whom I share this piece of earth, then this whole organic farming project falls apart. And though many aspects of this planet we inhabit are still mysterious to us, I think we know enough now to say with some scientific confidence what many so-called "primitive" peoples might have told us centuries ago: if we as a species insist on acting primarily out of short-term individual self-interest rather than in the best interests of the "community of interdependent parts" (Leopold's words) of which we are members, then we knock apart the biotic web that sustains and enriches our lives.
Unfortunately, we've become so disengaged from the natural world that we don't even recognize loss of biodiversity and degradation of ecosystems as factors in many of the problems we're grappling with in this "technological age." This estrangement allows us to call thousands of acres of cornfields "efficient," a declaration only possible if we look solely at the sheer tonnage of grain coming off those fields and ignore the economic and ecological costs of producing that grain, including the costs to our own health.
Robert Krulwich's piece looks intensely at the effects of agricultural practices on one very small land area. Jonathan Foley's TED talk, Jonathan Foley: The other inconvenient truth, is a rather distressing look at the global effects of agriculture. Among his statistics: 40% of the earth's land has been cleared for agriculture; agricultural irrigation is the biggest use of water on the planet, drying up many lakes and rivers while fertilizer run-off pollutes many more; and agriculture is the single biggest contributor to climate change, generating 30% of our greenhouse gas emissions. It seems like any way you look at it, farming is bad for our planet.
I'm convinced it doesn't have to be. We created this destructive system and we can change it. But in order to change it, we are going to have to change ourselves. Joel Salatin recently published a piece in Wanderlust Journal entitled "What You Can Do" in which he suggests that we re-consider what we truly value. He asks us to envision a world where eating a locally-sourced, home-cooked meal is more important to the majority of parents than having their kids in a soccer league, where families stay home to can tomatoes rather than take vacations to Disneyland. Can you imagine it? I can't, not unless our ethics fundamentally change and evolve to include the land and the non-human beings with whom we share it, unless we come to see ourselves as Leopold saw us, as "plain member[s] and citizen[s]" of a diverse biotic community, rather than "conqueror[s]" of it.
-Amy
Author Robert Krulwich is clearly disturbed by the relative lack of biodiversity in the examined cornfield as opposed to the Cape Town park or the upper reaches of the Costa Rican forest. "There's something strange about a farm that intentionally creates a biological desert to feed one species: us," he writes. But couldn't a case be made that since the energy in the cornfield is going primarily toward producing food and other products for humans, the limited diversity in this ecosystem is more valuable to us than the "excess" of biodiversity in the park and forest, which doesn't appear to benefit us directly or economically? Krulwich himself admits that the cornfield is "efficient." What good is all that diversity if we can't eat it, wear it, drive it, or sell it?
I want to respond to this question (a valid one!) with some excerpts from Aldo Leopold's "The Land Ethic," which can be found in A Sand Country Almanac (or if you're interested you can also read it online here: http://home.btconnect.com/tipiglen/landethic.html):
“All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts. His instincts prompt him to compete for his place in that community, but his ethics prompt him also to co-operate (perhaps in order that there may be a place to compete for).
The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land.
This sounds simple: do we not already sing our love for and obligation to the land of the free and the home of the brave? Yes, but just what and whom do we love? Certainly not the soil, which we are sending helter-skelter downriver. Certainly not the waters, which we assume have no function except to turn turbines, float barges, and carry off sewage. Certainly not the plants, of which we exterminate whole communities without batting an eye. Certainly not the animals, of which we have already extirpated many of the largest and most beautiful species . . .
One basic weakness in a conservation system based wholly on economic motives is that most members of the land community have no economic value. Wildflowers and songbirds are examples. Of the 22,000 higher plants and animals native to Wisconsin, it is doubtful whether more than 5 per cent can be sold, fed, eaten, or otherwise put to economic use Yet these creatures are members of the biotic community, and if (as I believe) its stability depends on its integrity they are entitled to continuance . . .
To sum up: a system of conservation based solely on economic self-interest is hopelessly lopsided. It tends to ignore, and thus eventually to eliminate, many elements in the land community that lack commercial value, but that are (as far as we know) essential to its healthy functioning. It assumes, falsely, I think, that the economic parts of the biotic clock will function without the uneconomic parts. It tends to relegate to government many functions eventually too large, too complex, or too widely dispersed to be performed by government . . .
It is inconceivable to me that an ethical relation to land can exist without love, respect, and admiration for land and a high regard for its value. By value, I of course mean something far broader than mere economic value; I mean value in the philosophical sense.
Perhaps the most serious obstacle impeding the evolution of a land ethic is the fact that our educational and economic system is headed away from, rather than toward, an intense consciousness of land. Your true modern is separate from the land by many middlemen, and by innumerable physical gadgets. He has no vital relation to it; to him it is the space between cities on which crops grow. Turn him loose for a day on the land, and if the spot does not happen to be a golf links or a 'scenic' area, he is bored stiff. If crops could be raised by hydroponics instead of farming, it would suit him very well. Synthetic substitutes for wood, leather, wool, and other natural land products suit him better than the originals. In short, land is something he has 'outgrown.'
Almost equally serious as an obstacle to a land ethic is the attitude of the farmer for whom the land is still an adversary or a taskmaster that keeps him in slavery. . .”
As I tucked the redworms from the vermicompost pile we sorted last week back inside their bin and into the fresh bedding you made for them, I thought about a particular piece of advice I'd given you about vermicomposting--how to watch the worms to see which foods were their favorites and which they didn't like so much. It occurred to me that as much as I value the big pile of rich compost they've produced for me, my primary concern is that the worms themselves are happy and healthy. Is it odd to say that I'm fond of my worms? I'm fond of them. The compost is a by-product of our relationship and as long as that relationship is in good standing, I'm bound to get a good harvest of compost. But I don't go out of my way to feed them their favorite foods every now and then because I want compost. I do it because I like them. They have inherent value for me as organisms with whom I share my life.
It's the same with the plants, really. Of course I hope that in a few years we'll have this business built up to a point where it's bringing in an income for Diane, John, and myself. But uppermost in my mind is the health of the plants, the soil, the surrounding ecosystem. If I'm not familiar with and in good relationship to the bio-diverse organisms with whom I share this piece of earth, then this whole organic farming project falls apart. And though many aspects of this planet we inhabit are still mysterious to us, I think we know enough now to say with some scientific confidence what many so-called "primitive" peoples might have told us centuries ago: if we as a species insist on acting primarily out of short-term individual self-interest rather than in the best interests of the "community of interdependent parts" (Leopold's words) of which we are members, then we knock apart the biotic web that sustains and enriches our lives.
Unfortunately, we've become so disengaged from the natural world that we don't even recognize loss of biodiversity and degradation of ecosystems as factors in many of the problems we're grappling with in this "technological age." This estrangement allows us to call thousands of acres of cornfields "efficient," a declaration only possible if we look solely at the sheer tonnage of grain coming off those fields and ignore the economic and ecological costs of producing that grain, including the costs to our own health.
Robert Krulwich's piece looks intensely at the effects of agricultural practices on one very small land area. Jonathan Foley's TED talk, Jonathan Foley: The other inconvenient truth, is a rather distressing look at the global effects of agriculture. Among his statistics: 40% of the earth's land has been cleared for agriculture; agricultural irrigation is the biggest use of water on the planet, drying up many lakes and rivers while fertilizer run-off pollutes many more; and agriculture is the single biggest contributor to climate change, generating 30% of our greenhouse gas emissions. It seems like any way you look at it, farming is bad for our planet.
I'm convinced it doesn't have to be. We created this destructive system and we can change it. But in order to change it, we are going to have to change ourselves. Joel Salatin recently published a piece in Wanderlust Journal entitled "What You Can Do" in which he suggests that we re-consider what we truly value. He asks us to envision a world where eating a locally-sourced, home-cooked meal is more important to the majority of parents than having their kids in a soccer league, where families stay home to can tomatoes rather than take vacations to Disneyland. Can you imagine it? I can't, not unless our ethics fundamentally change and evolve to include the land and the non-human beings with whom we share it, unless we come to see ourselves as Leopold saw us, as "plain member[s] and citizen[s]" of a diverse biotic community, rather than "conqueror[s]" of it.
-Amy
