Abstract
In the current conditions of environmental degradation, the most crucial question is to know how this deterioration affects our health. There is no doubt that environmental pollution is a serious threat to our health. But can the environment be safe in itself? And what can a safe environment tell us about our health? How can the loss of contact with our natural environment affect our health? These are the kinds of questions that Aldo Leopold had in mind, when, in his preface to his most famous book A Sand County Almanac (1949), he wrote: “Our bigger-and-better society is now like a hypochondriac, so obsessed with its own economic health as to have lost the capacity to remain healthy.” How can one be healthy in a healthy environment? To what extent can we speak of healthy environments? The answer to these questions does not only require scientific, objective, and quantified analyses. Above all, it needs an examination of first-person ecology – the study of the subject in his/her environment. It is from this perspective that we propose to study Aldo Leopold’s texts on the health of the environment.
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Notes
- 1.
https://health.gov/environment/DefinitionsofEnvHealth/ehdef2.htm. Last access 11/01/2018.
- 2.
Callicott 1999, p. 339.
- 3.
Michel Bitbol organized a study day on this subject on 6 April 2010 at the Institute of Complexity Science. See Michel Bitbol 2014, Chapter 5, for a general view of the problem.
- 4.
- 5.
On this tradition, see ecocriticism studies, and in particular Lawrence Buelle 1996.
- 6.
Leopold 1970, p. 262.
- 7.
Callicott 2013, p. 30.
- 8.
Leopold 1970, p. 138.
- 9.
Leopold 1970, p. 139.
- 10.
In 1933 Aldo Leopold was recruited as Professor of Game Management within the College of Agriculture’s Department of Agriculture Economics, at Madison, The University of Wisconsin, where he was head of the Department of Wildlife Management.
- 11.
- 12.
Callicott 2013, p. 32.
- 13.
Leopold, 1947 version of the foreword to the Sand County Almanac, in Callicott 1987, p. 284.
- 14.
Leopold 1991, p 340.
- 15.
Leopold 1970, p. 243.
- 16.
Leopold 1970, p. 258.
- 17.
Leopold 1970, p. 73.
- 18.
Larrère 2013, p. 21.
- 19.
Leopold, we saw this with the story of the wolf, hunt, which may shock the ecological conscience of today. For Leopold, hunting was not a useful activity; it was a sport, that is to say, a vestige of a way of life that had disappeared, which made it possible to retain its merits, provided that it was practiced with respect for the biotic community . The beauty of the movements is also a consequence of the difficulty, which is the case for shooting birds on the wing.
- 20.
Leopold 1970, p. 129
- 21.
- 22.
Leopold 1970, pp. 179–180.
- 23.
Callicott 1987, p. 162.
- 24.
Leopold 1970, p. 179–180.
- 25.
Leopold 1970, p. 295.
- 26.
Leopold 1970, p. 291.
- 27.
Larrère 2013, p. 20.
- 28.
Callicott 1987, p. 163.
- 29.
Afeissa in Barbanti and Verner 2016, pp. 205–224.
- 30.
Leopold 1970, pp. 47–53.
- 31.
Leopold 1970, pp. 102–103
- 32.
Leopold 1970, p. 262
- 33.
The question of “normal ” when we speak of “health” will not surprise the reader.
- 34.
Callicott 2013, p. 96.
- 35.
Leopold 1999, p. 91.
- 36.
Leopold 1991, p. 257.
- 37.
Leopold 1991, p. 287.
- 38.
Leopold 1970, pp. 101–108.
- 39.
Leopold 1970, p. 243.
- 40.
Callicott 1987, p. 162.
- 41.
Callicott 1999, p. 224.
- 42.
Leopold 1991: 255.
- 43.
Leopold 1999, pp. 84–160.
- 44.
Leopold 1999, p. 78.
- 45.
Leopold 1970, p. 203.
- 46.
Leopold 1970, p. 261.
- 47.
Leopold 1970, p. 261.
- 48.
See, in particular, Theodore Roszac 2001 [1992].
- 49.
Rousseau 1761, 1964, pp. 471–488.
- 50.
Rousseau 1761, 1964, p. 487, transl 1810, p. 303.
- 51.
Rousseau 1761, 1964, p. 487.
- 52.
He makes reference to it several times in Les Confessions (Rousseau 1959, pp. 409, 516, 608).
- 53.
Rousseau 1966, p. 530.
- 54.
Leopold [1934] quoted by Callicott 2013, p. 41
- 55.
Rousseau 1959, p. 1074
- 56.
Rousseau 1964, p. 487.
- 57.
Larrère 2013, p. 25.
- 58.
Following the term introduced by Pierre Schoentjes 2015.
- 59.
Leopold 1970, p. XIX.
- 60.
Leopold 1999, p. 224.
- 61.
Leopold 1991, p. 344.
- 62.
Leopold 1991, p. 344.
- 63.
Leopold 1991, p. 344.
- 64.
Leopold 1999, p. 225.
- 65.
Leopold 1999, p. 225.
- 66.
Leopold 1970, p. 261.
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Larrère, C. (2019). Health and the Environment: Aldo Leopold, Land Health, and the First-Person Ecology Approach. In: Bretelle-Establet, F., Gaille, M., Katouzian-Safadi, M. (eds) Making Sense of Health, Disease, and the Environment in Cross-Cultural History: The Arabic-Islamic World, China, Europe, and North America. Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, vol 333. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19082-8_10
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