The Global Integrity Project and the Ethics of Integrity

Despite the bad press that generally followed the most recent occurrence of E1 Niño, on Nov. 1st, 1997 the Italian News Channel (RAI), and the U.S. Sunday Report, on Nov.2, showed a marvel engendered by El Niño: the flowering of the Chilean desert. It is important to note this example because it shows clearly why the insistence on largely unmanipulated (if not “intact”, “pristine”, or “virgin”) systems is so vital to the understanding of integrity and to life on Earth. A seemingly barren desert area in Chile, without a discernible complement of species in recent times, changed dramatically after El Niño. Because the latent biological processes specific to deserts were present there, the unusual rains brought in by El Niño, produced a wonderland of flowers and grasses, with all the accompanying complementary species of insects, such as bees, ants and butterflies, and an abundance of other species.