The Challenge of Developing a Meaningful Environmental Ethic

By Ryan Willis

I've read the mission statements of the Feather River Land Trust, a Plumas County environmental
organization. They are largely focused on preserving habitat, but also promise to respect the local
traditions of land use, which happen to include some practices that don't quite match up with their
promise of sustainability, such as the large-scale raising of beef. On the other hand, possibly the
operations with which FRLT cooperates may not be large-scale. Who determines what scale is
harmful? Some would argue that ANY raising of beef is inappropriate today due to water issues, health
issues, and global overpopulation. I trust FRLT to be a highly ethical organization and sensitive to
local traditions and economic issues as well as environmental issues. Not an easy quandary to resolve.
Another example is the mission statement of FRC's own agriculture department, which claims to put
sustainable practices as one of their top priorities, yet the program is virtually centered around
livestock, both cattle and horses. I am not confident that that department will try to shift its focus from
livestock to organic production of vegetables.
Then I looked into another environmental organization, the Sierra Institute, headquartered in
Taylorsville. They sponsor lots of tours of local environments, some of which showcase traditional
native American practices. Like the land trust, their outreach seems to be mostly toward the well-to-do.
The people in agriculture and timber that might still have some interest in traditions that are potentially
harmful to the environment are probably not influenced by these organizations.
Two national organizations with local chapters, the Audubon Society and the Sierra Club, also have
nice-sounding mission statements that relate to preserving habitat and a focus toward sustainability.
Critics of these organizations often point to the fairly well-to-do clientele that drive gas-guzzling SUVs
all over creation to enjoy nature hikes. I wonder if any members of the above mentioned four
organizations have family incomes below the federal poverty line. I do not have statistics with which to
support or refute these critics. I am simply aware that such discussions go on. Perhaps these criticisms
are simply anti-environmentalist comments and could be based partly on jealousy.

My family, on the other hand, despite my father's part-time job at the College, does have an income
below the line. That fact has a great effect on my personal focus on alternative energy technologies,
transportation issues and the reuse and recycling of all sorts of materials that usually get sent to
landfills, or to overseas recycling centers of dubious integrity.
It seems to me that most contemporary mission statements that I've come across, including that of this
very college, are full of nice-sounding platitudes that are not lived up to in practice once you get past
the outer candy coating of the organization. The fact is, the world is way overpopulated and the richest
nations, of which we are the prime example, have an outrageous per-capita consumption rate of all
resources, which, if practiced by all 8 billion of us, would assuredly doom human civilization on this
planet before I reach my eighth decade. The only way the current arrangement can work is if a tiny
percentage of rich persons keep the rest of the world poor. With that in mind, I fall back on
environmental ethics statements that are far older, and were written by people that were trying to warn
us against the situation in which we are currently embedded.
A classic example can be found in the writings of Aldo Leopold, in a chapter of his classic A Sand
County Almanac titled The Land Ethic, He said,
Examine each question in terms of what is ethically and aesthetically 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. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.
Another, written by Wallace Stegner in 1969, popularly known as The Wilderness Letter, states,
What I want to speak for is not so much the wilderness uses, valuable as those are, but the
wilderness idea, which is a resource in itself. Being an intangible and spiritual resource, it will
seem mystical to the practical-minded but then anything that cannot be moved by a bulldozer
is likely to seem mystical to them. I want to speak for the wilderness idea as something that has
helped form our character and has certainly shaped our history as a people.
This echoes a most famous statement made over a hundred years prior by Henry Thoreau,
In wildness is the preservation of the world.
A last example that's a little closer to home is from the writings of the late Judi Bari in her booklet titled
Revolutionary Ecology,
Starting from the very reasonable but unfortunately revolutionary concept that social practices

which threaten the continuation of life on Earth must be changed, we need a theory of
evolutionary ecology that will encompass social and biological issues, class struggle, and a
recognition of the role of global corporate capitalism in the oppression of peoples and the
destruction of nature.
I think I might have absorbed some of Judi's outlook by osmosis, because I met her when I was just a
toddler. I attended a few Earth First! meetings at which she presided, and she was a frequent visitor to
my father's high school government class. She was someone who walked the walk and talked the talk.
She risked her life, and possibly gave her life, in her pursuit of the ideals of deep ecology.

As you can see, I've acknowledged that our global population is in a fix. I feel that, while I'm inspired
by the four quotes above, I recognize that implementing those ideals will be very difficult because
everyone around me, and maybe even myself, are in various stages of denial. The list of habits I try to
practice at home and in my community with regard to material concerns you called shallow, yet I feel
that conscientiously salvaging and reusing otherwise hazardous, once-through materials, are a
significant contribution to sustainability, as are my food choices, avoidance of waste, and creative ways
of saving and producing energy. I have shared a lot of my creations and practices with my peers, in fact
I had a month-long display of my creations from salvaged materials on display at the Plumas County
Museum a couple years ago.
Ryan There is much good thinking youve done here. Youve taken it from the list you brought in
yesterday to a much more meaningful statement. I would like to read your thoughts on how Leopold,
Stegner, Thoreau, and Bari affect your professional and environmental ethics more specifically. The
first three, especially, are wildland / biology / ecology focused, yet I dont see that explicitly addressed
in your writing. Keep massaging thisit is something that will surely evolve throughout your life.
Score: 45 / 50