Chapter 2 Primary Themes

1. Land Ethics & Worldviews2. USA’s environmental history3. Laws & acts governing our actions4. Economics of Pollution

Environmental Laws,

Economics, and Ethics

Chapter 2

Land Ethic

What is a land ethic?

Aldo Leopold 1887-1948

The Shack - In 1935, he and his family initiated their own ecological restoration experiment on a worn-out farm along the Wisconsin River outside of Baraboo, Wisconsin.

Land Ethic

“When the private landowner is asked to perform some unprofitable act for the good of the community, he today assents only with outstretched palm. If the act costs him cash this is fair and proper, but when it costs only forethought, open-mindedness, or time, the issue is at least debatable.”

Aldo Leopold Continued

Land Ethic Continued

“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.”

Aldo Leopold ContinuedLand Ethic Continued

Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac

The land Ethic

The land-relation is still strictly economic, entailing privileges but not obligations.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 the community, but his ethics prompt him also to co-operate. The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land.We can be ethical only in relation to something we can see, feel, understand, love, or otherwise have faith in. The case for a land ethic would appear hopeless but for the minority which is in obvious revolt against these “modern” trends. Examine each question in terms of what is ethically and esthetically right, as well as what is economically expedient. A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community.

Environmental Laws

Why do we have environmental laws or laws period?

Environmental History of U.S.

Columbia

Painted By John Gast - 1872

Legends of the Frontier

Tycoons - Robber Barons - Captains of Industry

Jay Gould (1836–1892) - Railroads & SpeculationCornelius Vanderbilt 1794-1877 - shipping & RailroadsJ.P. Morgan - BankerAndrew Carnegie - SteelJohn D. Rockefeller - OilCattleTimber

Expand national frontiers Ushered in market controls that limit the creation of trusts and monopolies

Manifest Destiny

1600 1700 1800 1900

Dominated by the frontier attitudeWhat is a frontier

attitude?

What is manifest destiny?

General Revisions Act

The General Revision Act of 1891 authorizes the President, under the Forest Reserve Act, to create forest preserves "wholly or in part covered with timber or undergrowth, whether of commercial value or not....”

and prevent them from being acquired through the various public land laws.

Environmental History of U.S.

1850 1900 1950

Several presidents, particularly Theodore Roosevelt, used this Act to establish 43 million acres of forest reserves. Republican

General Revision Act

1st National Park: Yellowstone (Est.1872)

Yosemite and Sequoia National

Parks

Antiquities Act 1906The Antiquities Act of 1906 resulted from concerns about protecting mostly prehistoric Indian ruins and artifacts-collectively termed "antiquities ” Authorized presidents to proclaim historic landmarks as national monuments

Teddy - Devils Tower & Grand Canyon

Wyoming – Grand Tetons & Jackson HoleAlaska – anything greater than 5,000acres

http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/hisnps/npshistory/monuments.htm

Use of the Antiquities Act

Gifford Pinchot

•Appointed by Theodore Roosevelt•1st Chief of the Forest Service, 1905-1910• Forest service motto "greatest good for the greatest number.” •Department of the Interior to the Department of Agriculture.

Gifford Pinchot

Environmental History of U.S.

1900 1950 2000

Rachel Carson published Silent SpringPublished 1962 it made people aware of chemicalinteractions in theenvironment.

Should we spray DDT?

Wilderness

Wilderness by Lawhttp://www.wilderness.net/index.cfm?fuse=NWPS&sec=legisact

Cohutta Wilderness

Wilderness Act 1964The Wilderness Act describes a wilderness as - "an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.”

Requires act of congress

List of wilderness Areas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._Wilderness_Areas#Georgia