Matt Ackroyd

Final Paper

ENG308J

Environment Ethics: A Personal Review

Environmental ethics is something that I describe as a person’s views on what is important in all aspects of the environment. These include, but aren’t limited to, the relationship between humans and Earth’s non-human world, development of a personal view and understanding of nature, and what is to be done to help the environment or if anything has to be done at all. In my 22 years of living, I am still in the process of perfecting my personal ethics on the environment. I have a lot of strong views and a lot of views that are quite new, and I am trying to expand them to something that makes more sense and can be practiced in the real world. This class, as well as other experiences, which mainly occurred in the past couple years, has helped me develop these ethics and is contributing to my personal growth. The environment is probably the most important thing in this world, so it is very important to have some standing on it.

My environmental ethic today is quite complicated. This is because I don’t know exactly where I stand as a whole when it comes to the subject. In the past, mostly before I entered college, I really hadn’t thought about it. I remember doing a little research on global warming in high school, but didn’t go very deeply into it and it didn’t impact me as some environmental issues do now. My basic views now are to try and do anything possible to not have an effect, or leave a footprint, on the environment. I was never really taught to have environmental ethics from the start. The basics that we instilled in me when I was young that have to do with doing your part in helping the environment were not to litter and to recycle. Those are big ways to help the environment, but are nothing compared to what needs to be done now by our generation to save this planet. Then as I grew older, I learned more and picked up on a few things that are environmentally friendly that I try to do in my everyday life. These are mostly little things like using less electricity by turning off lights, keeping the heat low during cold months, unplugging chargers, walking or riding a bike instead of driving everywhere, not using water bottles to create less waste, recycling anything possible, and thinking about what I eat and where it comes from. My views on things like nature and wildness, sustainability, and environmental protection continue to grow stronger as I’m still learning.

I’ve always had a great appreciation for nature and wildlife. I believe everything has a purpose. When I say everything I mean EVERYTHING, from trees to bugs to animals. They all must be respected and considered something of worth. Their purpose to be on this planet is not only to simply supply our human needs, but to have their own needs and instincts to go about their own lives, and to supply the needs of other beings. We are all interdependent of each other. And by ‘we’ I mean every living thing on this planet. Trees, for example, provide our most basic need-oxygen. They also provide homes and shelter for a lot of other species, provide strength in soils, ultimately making it better and more fertile, as well as providing other useful things for humans like shade. However, humans are increasingly cutting down forests for needs like wood for timber and paper. One could argue that this is one of the main reasons for trees, to supply our needs but I disagree. From what I know about ancient Native American views on nature, I think my views follow in a shadow of that. We should only take from the Earth what we really need and should return what we take as much as possible.

The film A Forest Returns, identifies this problem of deforestation in the Southeastern Ohio area just a few decades ago. According to the film, the land in this area was almost completely barren and had extreme problems of erosion due to the lack of vegetation. So the national government implemented a plan to “reforest” the area by buying massive acreage from farmers to just simply plant trees. The farmers and previous land owners were told to leave the land as it is and let it be. The project also helped the local economy by providing jobs for young people. The area is now well populated with plants and trees and Ohio has its only National Forest, The Wayne National Forest. I very much like this idea of reforestation and I think it’s necessary, especially in South America where deforestation is occurring the most rapidly. It’s estimated that by 2100, the rainforests will be completely gone (Mitchell). In response to that, there are many reforestation projects that are mostly ran by volunteers. But in my opinion, that is not enough. Re-planting trees isn’t the only way to stop them from disappearing. Something must be done about them being cut down by the acre. This would require a major change in the logging industry around the world, which sounds impossible, but I think can be done with much effort and time from people that care. So this means that this group of caring people must grow in order to have an influence on these huge companies.

Example of deforestation of a rainforest

The other film that we watched in class is Food, Inc., which undoubtedly had a huge impact on me. It doesn’t seem like our eating habits have anything to do with the environment but it does. It affects the land and animals that we use to produce our food, and it also affects our general health as humans. I had never really thought about how we got our food, and honestly didn’t see it as being run by huge multi-million dollar companies that are mass producing meat and vegetables in unnatural ways. I was baffled by the fact that one burger can have a thousand different cows in it (Food, Inc.). I knew about the huge cattle farms or CAFOs, but wasn’t aware of the details. These CAFOs are disgusting. There are millions of cows standing in their own feces and being fed food, mainly corn, in which they are not genetically made to eat. There is no grass, so all the dry dust and feces is blowing around everywhere, getting in their eyes and food. The manure is caked on their hides and eventually could end up in the meat. Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, discusses some of the practices in these CAFOs. He explains how this corn-fed beef is not as healthy for us as grain beef would be and how there are studies that suggest that it has some influence in causing heart disease. But the corn is cheap and causes the cows to get fatter quicker, so why not use it? This is the attitudes of these companies. They will find ways to make the cows become accustomed to corn. Since the corn is not really good for the cows and can actually cause them to get sick and die, they feed them massive amounts of antibiotics. But like any living thing, bacteria can evolve and overcome these medicines, which can lead to more evolution of E. coli (Pollan). Food, Inc. gave me the impression that these huge companies just don’t care, as long as they are making money, which is completely unethical in my opinion, and something needs to be done.

After seeing Food, Inc. and realizing that our food is being produced seemingly without any concern of the health and well-being of the people that eat it, I’ve decided to change my eating habits. Since the fast food industry is the number one consumer of beef in the world, I’m not going to eat at the places anymore. I used to eat fast food all the time, so that shows what kind of an impact the film had on me. I also now see the importance in eating and buying locally grown food. This helps the environment in a few ways. Since it is coming from the local area, less shipping is required, resulting in less fuel emissions. Also, chances are that this food is organically grown, which means that the growers are not using the practices that the big corporations use, like using growth hormones or feeding cattle or chickens food that isn’t good for them. Organically grown food is healthier because it doesn’t contain all the chemicals that are in other food to keep them preserved or make them taste a certain way. So I think if people could see the importance of organically grown food and the health benefits from it, then we could change the way the large companies are producing a majority of our food.

Another issue that is extremely important to the environment is how we get our sources of energy. As far as extracting oil is concerned, we definitely need to find alternative ways to get our fuel. Self-sustaining automobiles have come a long way in using energy that is created from braking to power the cars instead of using fuel. I see a bright future for this sort of power production. There is a commercial on TV for Honda that talks about the idea of using that same energy production to make self-sustaining amusement parks. This could be an incredible breakthrough because it combines sustainability with the human desire for leisure activities and entertainment. And if this source of power is used in theme parks, imagine what else it can be used for. One of my professors, Dr. Tiao Chang, told our class that there is energy in our knees that is produced by walking and exercising, and can be harnessed to power small things like an iPod. Can you imagine producing electricity from your own body?

Hydropower is another alternative energy source that could be used more in the future if we find sustainable ways of capturing that sort of energy instead of building more dams. It is a clean energy source and does not harm the environment or require any other natural resource to create it. The only problem with it is finding good, environmentally friendly way to harness that energy. As of right now the only way to is build a dam or some sort of physical barrier to hold the water back and “catch” it as it falls, which is then converted to electricity. There are, however, hydro plants located at natural waterfalls, like at the famous Niagara Falls, but do require big structures on the river to produce and store the energy. These are just a couple of the many other examples of possible solutions to the energy problem that I think need to be expanded upon. There is energy everywhere out there; we just need to find ways of harnessing it in sustainable ways.

This paper only discusses the most important aspects of my personal environmental ethic. As mentioned before, my ethic is somewhat incomplete and has much room for expansion. Learning about environmental issues is just the first step. And I think that is what I am mostly doing now. So my next goal is to find ways of acting on my views. Action is what will make change, and I think a lot of change is needed to live a sustainable life on this planet. If we keep living our lives like we have done in the past and are doing now, then the planet, will, in my opinion, perish.

Works Cited

A Forest Returns. Dir. Jean Andrews. Perf. Ora Anderson. Documentary. 2005.

Food, Inc. Dir. Robert Kenner. Documentary. 2008.

Pollan, Michael. An Omnivore’s Dilemma. Text. 2006.

Mitchell, Deborah. Turn Deforestation into Reforestation. Volunteer Guide. Web.