Losing Kiribati

Yesterday, I tried to suggest that it might not be easy to replace what we've taken out of the environment by referring to the efforts of Pacific islanders being inundated by rising ocean levels. At the time, I could not recall the name of the island, Kiribati, so I've included a link to the full story for those who might be interested.

In the context of Leopold's essay, "The Land Ethic," the point is that the biotic communities forming the land pyramid are not easily replaceable like links in a chain, bricks in a wall or even atoms in a molecule. When one biotic community breaks down, shifts or is destroyed the entire pyramid changes and we, as part of that pyramid, are forced to adapt. Furthermore, it's because adaptation is an ongoing process in an evolutionary structure such as the land pyramid or within a system of ethical norms that straightforward rules of behavior are so dangerous in this case. The task is to figure out modes of behavior that make adaptation manageable rather than to either attempt to halt adaptation or give up the hope of modifying adaptation altogether. As we discussed in class, this requires ethical sense rather than relying upon strict rules of behavior or simply renouncing the possibility of ethics as anthropo- or ethnocentric.

Leopold seems to believe that wilderness, whose meaning is difference in common rather than a community without difference, might be a source of ethical sense. How might we explain that belief in the face of current environmental challenges which seem to require quick action rather than abstract reflection?