Virtue and Capitalism

This week we read about virtue in the context of ecology aka the Ecological Virtues and heard about capitalism and our specific economic system. According to Bouma-Prediger there is a specific system of virtues exclusive, or at least specific, to the ecological way of thinking. These virtues don't seem to differ much from what is the accepted in the mainstream today (remember this was written in 2001 when we were like six). When this was written these virtues probably weren't very accepted as many people did not exactly agree with environmentalism or the ecological movement (even though it had started in the 1960s it was just beginning to come into its own in the late 90s). Nowadays these virtues are much more accepted by most in the mainstream; companies are finding that becoming sustainable is the way of the future and people want to buy things that are, perceived as at the very least, made with "green tech". Hybrids are no longer made fun of but are rather the norm for many people and even trucks are getting in on the sustainability with mpg mattering more now than ever. For the most part people are on board with at least part of this ideal, you might have trouble getting people to go to the extreme that Berry and Bouma-Prediger would like them to but a moderate is better than an enemy right? The green tech industry has become incredibly large with 83 wind farms in Iowa alone as of March 31st 2010, http://www.iawind.org/news-events/iowa-wind-farms.pdf, many of which are built in the middle of prime farmland. Back in the 90s there would have been very few farmers who would have been willing to give up even a few acres of their farmland for any reason. But now that Berry and Bouma-Prediger are becoming more popular and more people are getting on board with BP's ecological virtues, knowingly or not, these things are becoming more commonplace. Industrial farms are now trying harder and harder to protect their land from erosion and to protect the quality of their land. However, many who support Berry and Bouma-Prediger may criticize these types of people for their motives behind these actions.

One year I asked one of my friends was planting before it was time to plant corn. They told me they were planting a cover crop of hay or alfalfa (it was 2013 I can't remember me. Sue me.). I asked them why and they told me it was to protect the field from erosion and to protect the soil quality so the corn yield would be better next year. I was told that almost every large farm did this because it was good farming practice to maximize profits.

I contend that this is exactly what Berry and BP would want, to give the field a rest with plants that require no fertilizer and very little care. However, when presented with this fact, some of the people I have discussed this with would get caught up over their motive. They would say that its not that good because these farmers planted these cover crops to increase profits and not because they cared about the land like small organic farmers do. So what? How much should motives affect how we view a positive change? Should it matter that most of those wind farms are built by electric companies who want to find a cheaper source of electricity and not save the world? No. We don't need to look for ways to make it sound like we are giving up so much to be sustainable. That's not going to attract a lot of people. Rather we need to say "hey look we believe in the same things you do we believe that protecting the environment is good but making a living is important too here's how". Completely changing how people live isn't going to attract the moderates (which make up the majority of people) to your cause. We need to present this lifestyle as an alternative that isn't really that different from they way people are already living. Millions of people making small changes is better than a couple hundred thousand living completely off the grid.