Traditionally, Western views of environment ethics has been unclear and for the most part unnecessary. We used earths resources without thinking about consequence. This nonchalant use aided in the Wests ability to influence the world through technological advances. In the past, limited travel and slow communication systems had limited our view to a local one. If pollution or to much urbanization occurred the solution was to move.Industrialization has changed things. With science advancing so quickly, the population exploding, and our environment actually being truly affected on a global scale. Within our lifetime, we can see changes in the environment. No longer do we have wild frontiers, an abundance of land for anyones taking. We can see our resources do have limits for example we can deplete our fossil fuels.We need to formulate a comprehensible environmental ethic in desperation. The morality of preserving nature comes more out of a practical need than from a purely philosophical reason. We have come to time when destruction we can inflict is harsher and faster than the earth can recover. Although it should fit in seamlessly with all of our moral views, the environment is rather new territory and may be set aside form the rest. In making a code, we need to define environment, establish a basis of what we value as intrinsically good and bad, choose a principles of obligation and distribution, and see if it can be applied to real world situations.Definition of environmentWhen using such a broad term as environmental ethics, it is necessary define what that entails. Environment, in this paper, deals strictly with natural habitats and ecosystems. We will not make a distinction between animals, plants, and rocks, but instead group all of them together. This notion is not at all an original one, and is called a Land Ethic by Aldo Leopold. Everything in nature lives in a symbiosis so complicated that we cannot disassocia...
