Natural Resources Law and Policy

That's one of my classes this semester. And I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, I think the way we treat the non-human parts of our world is important, for a couple of reasons. Oh, incidentally, for those of you who may have thought about this a lot more than I have, I'd like to point out that I know that everything I'm about to write over-simplifies the issues, but you have to start somewhere.

First, how I treat the environment affects other people. After all, what I pour into the river upstream is what you're drinking downstream. So, in some ways, how I treat the environment is part of how I treat other people. There's also the bit about preserving the environment for future generations.

Second, how I treat the environment is important in itself. I draw this from Genesis 1:28, among other scriptures. That's the one about multiplying and replenishing the earth, subduing it and having dominion over it, etc. I read this to mean "stewardship."

So those are the reasons that I think it's important to think about and try to preserve/improve/whatever the non-human parts of the world (it's been pointed out to me that "nature" is kind of a hard term to pin down).

On the other hand, to study Natural Resources Law and Policy at Harvard Law School, you have to deal with a lot of ideologies that I find kind of strange. For instance, some people believe in "deep ecology," which has among its tenets that "all organisms and entities in the ecosphere, as parts of the interrelated whole, are equal in intrinsic worth" and that "the flourishing of human life and cultures is compatible with a substantial decrease of the human population. The flourishing of nonhuman life requires such a decrease."

These other ideologies are, of course, very popular in Cambridge, MA. Indeed, for many of the modern residents here, environmentalism is religion. That can make it difficult for someone like me, who cares about the environment in a more utilitarian fashion.

So how can you study and care about the environment today without going to extremes? I'm open for suggestions.

P.S.- My wife thinks it's really funny when I'm frustrated. Yesterday we were driving to the nearest Sears Auto Center to get new tires--a good 25 minutes, if you know where you're going. That last bit was important: if you know where you're going. My lovely wife often knows generally where she's going, but not exactly where she's going. So on occasions like yesterday, when I forgot to ask whether she knew exactly where she was going, we sometimes get to the general area and then have to drive around kind of hoping we happen upon the right street. We did, eventually, but while we were just kind of driving around, my frustration started to build a little bit, and my wife thought it was hilarious.

Now that the moment has passed, I can look back and laugh, too. But does anyone else's wife have trouble taking him seriously when he's frustrated? Is this normal? Should I just get used to it? There may not be easy answers to these questions.