8 ENVIRONMENTAL ENGJNEERING
for an environmental ethic raises the question of the origin of our attitude toward the
environment.
It is worth noting that the practice of settled agriculture has changed the face of the
earth more than any other human activity; yet the Phaestos Disk-the earliest Minoan
use of pictographs-elevates to heroism the adventurer who tries to turn North Africans
from hunting and gathering to settled agriculture. The tradition of private ownership
of land and resources, which developed hand-in-hand with settled agriculture, and the
more recent tradition of the planned economies that land and resources are primarily
instruments of national policy have both encouraged the exploitation of these resources.
Early European settlers arriving in the New World from countries where all land was
owned by royalty or wealthy aristocrats considered it their right to own and exploit
land! An analogous situation occurred with the Soviet development of Siberia and
the eastern lands of the former Soviet Union (now the Russian Federation): land once
under private ownership now belonged to the state. Indeed, in both America and Russia,
natural resources appeared to be so plentiful that a “myth of superabundance” grew
in which the likelihood of running out of any natural resource, including oil, was
considered remote (Udal1 1968). These traditions are contrary to the view that land
and natural resources are public trusts for which people serve the role of stewards.
Nomadic people and hunter-gatherers practiced no greater stewardship than the
cultures based on settled agriculture. In the post-industrial revolution world, the less
industrialized nations did less environmental damage than industrialized nations only
because they could not extract resources as quickly or efficiently. The Navajo sheep-
herders of the American southwest allowed overgrazing and consequent erosion and
soil loss to the same extent as the Basque sheepherders of southern Europe. Communal
ownership of land did not guarantee ecological preservation.
Both animistic religion and early improvements in agricultural practices (e.g.,
terracing, allowing fallow land) acted to preserve resources, particularly agricultural
resources. Arguments for public trust and stewardship were raised during the nine-
teenth century, in the midst of the ongoing environmental devastation that followed
the industrial revolution. Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and later
John Muir, Gifford Pinchot, and President Theodore Roosevelt all contributed to the
growth of environmental awareness and concern. One of the first explicit statements of
the need for an environmental ethic was penned by Aldo Leopold (1949). Since then,
many have contributed thoughtful and well-reasoned arguments toward the develop-
ment of a comprehensive and useful ethic for judging questions of conscience and
environmental value.
Since the first Earth Day in 1970 environmental and ecological awareness has
been incorporated into public attitudes and is now an integral part of engineering
4An exception is found in states within the boundaries of the Northwest Purchase, notably Wisconsin.
Included in the Purchase agreement between France and America is the condition that state constitutions
must ensure that the water and air must be held in trust by the state for the people for “as long as the wind
blows and the water flows.” Wisconsin provides a virtually incalculable number of public accesses to lakes
and rivers.