The Cove

I've formed a habit of trying to understand issues in an environmental ethics way since I took this class. And I've gained a totally differently view of the world. Human beings are no longer the ruler of the universe, thus we shouldn't understand the world only from the interests of ourselves. To live in harmony with the whole nature world, the right of plants and animals should be respected as equally important as that of human beings. I got to know how cruel people treat animals for the first time was when I saw a disgusting website where some people uploaded videos and pictures of how they maltreating their pets, like dogs and cats, for fun. However, I didn't realize how common human beings treat animals unfairly until I watched the documentary The Cove.

The cove reveals the cruel treatment of dolphins in Taiji, Japan. Most part of the movie is with the voice of dolphins which deeply broke my heart. I cannot imagine how Japanese people treat the slaughter so indifferently. The local government even tried to conceal and connive at the on-going slaughter. The only reason is the huge business benefit. It's not even because of the interests of people, but the staggering profits of those manufacturers. It was proved that dolphin meat containing toxins which would do harm to people's health. With this awareness, those manufacturers and governors still tried to sell dolphin meat with the tag of whales. This behavior is not even ethical in the world of business, let alone from the environmental perspective.

The Cove also raises people's awareness of protecting dolphins by showing the communication between dolphins and human. In this case, dolphins are proved to have self-awareness, which can easily raise people's sympathy and take action. How about other species? Should we have beef? Should we have milk? Should we make use of plants, such as trees and herbals? Should we distort the growth of plants because of the so called "art"? These are all considerable questions. Furthermore, in what way should people protect animals? Is the existence of zoos necessary? The Cove brings about more questions worth discussion for us.

Land Ethic

As part of the worldview, people's land ethic has been formed throughout their life. Some people prefer to live in the suburbs, while others not.These all are influenced by people's experience.

I was brought up in an outer urban community, 30-minute away from downtown. I prefer to call it a little isolated paradise which used to be surrounded by acres and acres of fields where I always did kite flying with other kids. That picture occupies my mind every now and then. Besides, 30-minute way is not that far. People can have fun in downtown whenever they want. For me,land ethic is no more than a reasonably harmonious allocation between nature and human being world. It's worth noting that there doesn't exist a clear all-or-nothing dividing line with regard to the allocation.

Given the chance to live wherever I want, I would choose to live in Chinese traditional  courtyard dwelling houses in urban area. Usually, there lives four families together in one set of courtyard dwelling houses. Each of them occupies one side of the house with the courtyard at the center. This is a classic architecture typically in Beijing. I'm so into it, because it perfectly shows a harmonious relationship between human and nature as well as a friendly neighborhood relationship.In this way, people will learn to get along well with each other, also get close to nature in downtown. Personally speaking, a city doesn't necessarily have to be a land of skyscrapers. It's just a stereotype that city dwellers merely have little cubicles to live in.I wish I could live in a fancy courtyard dwelling house to enjoy a combination of city and nature.