After reading Aldo Leopold my biggest take away from his passage was his idea known as "land ethic", which is articulated and described through literary and scientific ideas. This idea known as land ethics upholds the right of the soils, waters, plants, and animals to a life in their natural state. He exclaims the necessity of this because he asserts that ecosystems only work when all components are working as a whole, and that every factor, whether it be abiotic or biotic, are equally important. Leopold's use of imagery and illustrative descriptions of nature and the interactions within it, as well as anecdotal references to his own life argue towards conservation and social consciousness towards the natural world. He uses this technique of writing in order to reach the average citizen as he believes that only mass collective awareness can cause successful change. He goes on to related that the consequences of non-conservation will cause self-destruction to the human race and ultimately the planet with us.
After reading this passage and comparing Leopold to Thoreau, I've come to the conclusion that Leopold understood more of the science within nature and ecosytems whereas Thoreau was more of a mere bystander or observer. Leopold talks about symbiosis and chains that must occur within nature that keeps the wheel spinning, where I feel like Thoreau would overlook a lot of factors or compenents that Leopold describes as a necessity to the way of life as we know it. Although they contrast in aspects illustrated above I feel like they do connect in some ways. When they both draw humans to scale whether it be in Thoreau's case expanding large to planetary and galaxy scale or in Leoplods looking at microscopic organisms both conservationalists come to the conclusion that in a sense humans are not relevant or obselete within the grand scheme of things.
When comparing Leopold to Emerson they both write very coherently through the use of imagery and illustrative words and sentences. Compared to Thoreau when I had to reread sentences multiple times a page, I find myslef gliding through sentences with ease written by Emerson and Leopold. "We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes… I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters' paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view”(Leopold 138).
When Leopold illustrates shooting an old wold as a young man and watching the green fire die out in the wolves eye it relates me to the type of word selection and imagery used by Emerson, "I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God." These two quotes from each of their passages relate heavily as they both come to a sort of realization or frameshift from an old perspective to a new conservationist, more spiritually awakened perspective at looking towards the natural world.
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