Information Technology Meets Global Ecology V: Computers
and the “Land Ethic”
Maybe I’m a Pollyanna optimist, but I still think there are many of us
information technology (IT) professionals who have both a sensual connection
to the earth -- all the interesting people in my life have grown up playing in
rivers! -- and a knowledge of computers that will allow us to put them to use in
the service of sustainable values or, what Aldo Leopold called, the “Land
Ethic:” namely that
A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and
beauty of the biotic community, It is wrong when it tends otherwise.1
I believe that we can be committed to the ethical use of IT, but this is not
an idle activity. It requires vigilance, honesty about our motives, and the
ability to admit where we are wrong. I had never fully understood the effect
of computer manufacturing before researching this article series. Now I see
that we must demand the application of industrial ecological principles to
computer manufacturing because in its present form it is unsustainable; it
violates the land ethic.
Stay tuned next week for further exploration into IT/ECO issues: Can
Computers Save Resources?
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1 from A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold, (Oxford Press, 1949), pages
224-25.
