308
who focus on changing people’s conservation behaviour. Thus, providing support
for this second vision seems a useful place to conclude. It turns out that the second
vision, like behavioural entrepreneurship, is neither a radical nor an unfamiliar
approach to environmental stewardship.
13.6.1 Conservation Aesthetic
Aldo Leopold (1933) is remembered for his promotion of a conservation and land
ethic. However, near the end of his book, A Sand County Almanac (1949), he introduced the idea that the planet also could be restored using a conservation aesthetic.
The distinction between these approaches to behaviour change is dramatic. A land
ethic, whether voluntary or mandatory, involves “a limitation on freedom of action
in the struggle for existence” (Leopold 1949: 202), an obligation to exercise
restraint. In contrast, a conservation aesthetic would have us seek interactions with
nature because we derive satisfaction from them. A conservation aesthetic is revitalising, unleashing pleasures derived from the hidden riches of interacting directly
with the biodiversity of nature.
13.6.2 Behavioural Aesthetic
Modern industrial society rejoices in its many technical efficiencies and innovations. However, these accomplishments are challenged by new data (Bonaiuti 2017).
What seems efficient from one perspective is brittle from another. Material production and consumption on a global scale turns out to require complex systems and
demand massive energy inputs. This leads to increasing economic and social system
vulnerabilities as the complexity reaches diminishing marginal returns (Tainter
1988) and as the production of natural resources both becomes less predictable and
suffers from declining energy surpluses. Furthermore, focusing on the output from
this vulnerable complex system reveals that consumer consumption, the end goal of
the entire enterprise, is an astonishingly inefficient means of providing for social
and spiritual well-being (De Young and Princen 2012; Kasser 2009; Kjell 2011;
O’Brien 2008).
Critiques of modernity are not new. Nevertheless, there is a new claim that industrialisation destroys the aesthetic quality of everyday life. Berry (1987: 165–166)
has made this observation about what one gains from daily work in non-industrial
enterprises. He cites the work of Gill (1983: 65) on the higher calling that working
manually fulfills, “…every [one] is called to give love to the work of [their] hands.
Every [one] is called to be an artist”. Berry makes this same claim throughout his
poetry, fiction and non-fiction writing, frequently offering up small-scale agriculture as an instance of an artistic enterprise involving multiple and overlapping daily
decisions centered on the concepts of beauty, resourcefulness and feeding of spiritual
R. De Young
who focus on changing people’s conservation behaviour. Thus, providing support
for this second vision seems a useful place to conclude. It turns out that the second
vision, like behavioural entrepreneurship, is neither a radical nor an unfamiliar
approach to environmental stewardship.
13.6.1 Conservation Aesthetic
Aldo Leopold (1933) is remembered for his promotion of a conservation and land
ethic. However, near the end of his book, A Sand County Almanac (1949), he introduced the idea that the planet also could be restored using a conservation aesthetic.
The distinction between these approaches to behaviour change is dramatic. A land
ethic, whether voluntary or mandatory, involves “a limitation on freedom of action
in the struggle for existence” (Leopold 1949: 202), an obligation to exercise
restraint. In contrast, a conservation aesthetic would have us seek interactions with
nature because we derive satisfaction from them. A conservation aesthetic is revitalising, unleashing pleasures derived from the hidden riches of interacting directly
with the biodiversity of nature.
13.6.2 Behavioural Aesthetic
Modern industrial society rejoices in its many technical efficiencies and innovations. However, these accomplishments are challenged by new data (Bonaiuti 2017).
What seems efficient from one perspective is brittle from another. Material production and consumption on a global scale turns out to require complex systems and
demand massive energy inputs. This leads to increasing economic and social system
vulnerabilities as the complexity reaches diminishing marginal returns (Tainter
1988) and as the production of natural resources both becomes less predictable and
suffers from declining energy surpluses. Furthermore, focusing on the output from
this vulnerable complex system reveals that consumer consumption, the end goal of
the entire enterprise, is an astonishingly inefficient means of providing for social
and spiritual well-being (De Young and Princen 2012; Kasser 2009; Kjell 2011;
O’Brien 2008).
Critiques of modernity are not new. Nevertheless, there is a new claim that industrialisation destroys the aesthetic quality of everyday life. Berry (1987: 165–166)
has made this observation about what one gains from daily work in non-industrial
enterprises. He cites the work of Gill (1983: 65) on the higher calling that working
manually fulfills, “…every [one] is called to give love to the work of [their] hands.
Every [one] is called to be an artist”. Berry makes this same claim throughout his
poetry, fiction and non-fiction writing, frequently offering up small-scale agriculture as an instance of an artistic enterprise involving multiple and overlapping daily
decisions centered on the concepts of beauty, resourcefulness and feeding of spiritual
R. De Young