Finding a Balance Between Nature and Man
"There is no match for the beauty found within America!" I thought with excitement when I first laid my eyes upon our American landscape. The fascinating forests and wondrous lakes have outdone the stories I heard while growing up. However, it puzzles me when I see sights that hamper my sense of admiration. Though there are forests that are untouched, "No Littering" signs seemed to be everywhere. One could be easily puzzled as to why so much effort was put into preserving a land already pristine. Some only know of the awesomeness American landscape offers and feel that it is only natural for people to preserve it.
Over time, I learned the ongoing struggle to preserve the environment. On one side, concerned people strive for environmental rules on industries to produce a cleaner environment their kids can enjoy. Their foes, on the other hand, the economists, argue that these rules limit the nation's productivity, thus halting the general prosperity. Seeing the effects of overpopulation and pollution in China, I agree with the need to protect the environment. Yet these rules protect our landscape is flawed. Though many people push for rules on industries while they do not truly understand what they protect. It seems that many people today misunderstand nature for a pure, untainted ground that we has not corrupted. What’s worse is people go through incredible lengths to intervene and bring it back to life when they lack an deeper understanding of nature.
Though nature is not the pure and concentrated essence that many believe, it is beyond any doubt valuable to humans. Two concepts we use referring to nature frequently arise. The "refined" view from the well-to-do city dwellers pictures natu...
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... technology, nature provides crucial assets we cannot synthesize. Nature is still a mystery that continues to surprise us with wild and brilliant combinations of things, and we, as humans, have only recently come to appreciate some of its creations. The mystery and beauty of nature lies in its unpredictability.
Nature holds many lessons for us to learn from, and it is crucial that we preserve it. Therefore, we need to find a balance between the nature's preservation and human expansion. We should only intervene with nature a little for we don’t fully understand or know everything, but we should also not hesitate to act when it would benefit our prosperity. Today, with the advancement in technology, people are ignorant of what will and will not ruin the environment. It is important to increase the public awareness of facts so a delicate balance can be established.
From the lone hiker on the Appalachian Trail to the environmental lobby groups in Washington D.C., nature evokes strong feelings in each and every one of us. We often struggle with and are ultimately shaped by our relationship with nature. The relationship we forge with nature reflects our fundamental beliefs about ourselves and the world around us. The works of timeless authors, including Henry David Thoreau and Annie Dillard, are centered around their relationship to nature.
Louv starts with an example of just how far technology has advanced today by opening this passage with news of an experiment at the State University of New York where “Researchers...are experimenting with a genetic technology through which they can choose the colors that appear on butterfly wings.” He does this to introduce the idea that maybe technology is going too far for its own good into nature. From there Louv begins into the subject of how humans alter nature for advertisement, claiming that this creation of “synthetic nature is the irrelevance of true nature -- the certainty that it’s not even worth looking at.” By juxtaposing the terms ‘synthetic nature’ and ‘’true’’ nature, Louv’s wording evokes a sense of fakeness and oddity in the reader, even guilt regarding
It is difficult for humans to give up profits and sacrifice themselves to guard nature world. Although the world notice that using excessive resources the earth provide can lead to devastating result. Concerning the progress of urbanization and industrialization, China does not have too much policy to protecting the nature because it is trade off between economic and environment. The Chinese government chooses to grow China’s economic in order to decrease poverty regardless the population they would create. People’s unlimited want disrupt people put full effort in protecting the nature world. Because of human’s unlimited wants, humans take more and more from the environment in order to improve living standards. Nonetheless, the sacred resources that provided by earth are not enough for people.
In Jurassic Park, nature appears beautiful and controllable when it is viewed from afar. The arrogant and naïve creators of Jurassic Park believe that they can regulate nature when, how, and where they please. Throughout the movie, this illusion gets broken time and time again. In actuality, nature is chaotic, uncontrollable, and dangerous. These aspects are taken for granted by the scientists of Jurassic Park and sometimes today in society. "They got so caught up in whether they could they didn't stop to think whether or not they should."
he concept of nature is elusive, and humans have never had a positive and unified way to name and interact with it. Since the colonizing of America, many leaders have had different definitions of nature, and have held different views on humans’ relationship with nature. These views have often led to destruction masked as “progress” (Marx 14). But not all definitions of nature are so destructive. Ursula Goodenough, a biology professor at Washington University in St. Louis, wrote The Sacred Depths of Nature to create a new religion based in the physical, chemical, and biological laws that govern the universe (Department of Biology). Goodenough’s treatment of “nature” illustrates her unique interpretation of the word. Goodenough understands the word nature to mean life, and life means biology. She uses this definition to inspire humans to care for the world we live in. And while she recognizes that humans can be separate, she also shows how much a part of nature we truly are. Recently, a proposition has been made to define First Nature as biophysical and Second Nature as the artificial (Marx 20).
The environment in America today is far from Eden, but there is a valiant battle being fought by many to return the earth to a more "natural" state. Green and clean is the preferred vision of the future1. This trend towards environmental awareness, or environmentalism, is a prominent theme in today’s American society. Politics, industry, marketing, and media all use the environment as a means to sell themselves. With such a high profile, it seems almost unbelievable that there was a time when the word environment was little known or not used. However, the period was not so long ago. Even before World War II nature was referred to as wilderness and wilderness existed to serve humans2. The shift from nature existing to serve humans to humans protecting the environment was not a very complex project, but rather one of many small influences and their resulting effects. Hence, the rise of environmentalism in American society is the result of gradual social changes, which created a shift in social values.
Look at the civilized, beautiful capital cities in every developed country all around the world which is the central of high fashioned and convenience facility. To live in the city, it seems like the nature surrounding is not important to us anymore. In “The Sacred Balance: Rediscovering Our Place in Nature” David Suzuki presents the connection between human and the nature and how we depend on the surrounding environment. However, within the past century, most of our modern technologies have been developed in order to provide people needs of goods and products (63). Many of the products we made are causing much more harm to the environment than the value that products provide. Technological development has damaged our environment to the point
The United States’ origin of environmentalism can be found in nineteenth century literature. The preservation era began with the newfound appreciation of nature that derived from transcendentalism. Ralph Waldo Emerson, author of the 1836 essay “Nature,” mentored and greatly influenced Henry David Thoreau, who went on to publish Walden in 1854 (“Ralph Waldo Emerson”). Thoreau’s studies of nature demonstrated the necessity of preserving the wild habitat, claiming “We need the tonic of wilderness…At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable…We can never have enough of nature” (Thoreau 187). Although Thoreau regarded nature in a manner of spiritual development, countless environmentalists and naturalists were inspired by his revelations; one of which, was John Muir. Through his various travels and occupations throug...
In Does a Place Still Have Value When It’s Not Use to People the author Jason Mark, writes about how nature is taken over by man. Beginning his article, he talks about how the peaceful noises that make nature peaceful are overpowered by mans machines. These being background to his journey to find a place untouched by the noises and destruction of man, article talks about how in order to find a place untouched by man one must go to great lengths to find it, as is his journey. Once it has been found there are many parts of nature that go unnoticed that will continue to be but just because they are unnoticed does not lessen their value to nature or make them any less beautiful. Mark ends his article by talking about how man is ending multiple species on earth and how his peaceful oasis will no longer be full of the natural beauty that it once held. Mark overall discussing how there is natural beauty that will go unnoticed yet that doesn’t take away from the beauty of it.
Through his naturalist essays, Lopez restrains that immediate urge we have to pet the horsey, take a Polaroid, and move on. He persuades us to appreciate the urge. He strives to teach us about the inherently liberating spirit of nature, about how in just experiencing one moment with nature "ever...
...when was the last movie released that portrayed humans treating Mother Nature with compassion and love, rather than as an object? From this, it can be determined that popular culture definitely reflects the human perspective of nature, especially in relation to how it is treated. One may argue that popular culture shapes our view of nature, due to the fact that media released to the public shows humans destroying nature. If seen in a movie, one is more likely to “do it”. This statement can be negated due to the fact that we as humans are performing the destruction of nature, and are exposing it to societies around the world, in an effort to stop it in the future. Humankind is only a small portion of nature, but we are causing it most time. Hence, reflecting the destruction of nature by humans in popular culture, making an effort to end it in years to come.
Wilderness is a highly idealized concept in today’s society – we simply put it on a pedestal and choose to admire it as we see fit. Nature and wilderness are considered distant and remote concepts, separate from our everyday, civilized lives. By approaching the natural realm in this sense, we simply detach ourselves from our origin, which leaves us to fantasize about the great outdoors as an escape from the artificial creations of our everyday life. This desire to escape our artificial lives has lead to the construction of locations such as national parks, which merely appear to be the natural world, yet in reality they are simply just facets of the modernized world we have created.
According to author Annie Dillard, throughout Teaching a Stone to Talk, nature isn’t only aesthetically-pleasing, but serves a greater purpose. The elements of nature do strike her, often, with beauty, but to her and for her, nature isn’t just something that ‘we’ must rely on for beauty, but is something where we can find answers to our most complex debacles, ones that we -- as a society and as individuals -- often struggle with. It’s evident that nature is of great, paramount importance to her, and isn’t something she just sees physical beauty in, but is something she finds answers and clarity in, and believes that ‘we’ can find that in nature, as well. We can understand life, through nature.
Such ploys seek to undermine any legitimate eco-consciousness in the audience, replacing it with rhetoric that is ultimately ambivalent toward the health of ecosystems, but definitively pro-business. These tactics assume a rigidly anthropocentric point of view, shutting out any consideration for the well-being of non-human existence; they seem to suggest that nature lies subordinate to our base desires. In addition to upholding the subordination of nature to business and leisure activities, this view establishes nature as something privately owned and partitioned (243), rather than something intrinsic to the world. Our relationship with nature becomes one of narcissism.
To understand the nature-society relationship means that humans must also understand the benefits as well as problems that arise within the formation of this relationship. Nature as an essence and natural limits are just two of the ways in which this relationship can be broken down in order to further get an understanding of the ways nature and society both shape one another. These concepts provide useful approaches in defining what nature is and how individuals perceive and treat