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Today a lack of environmental knowledge has led to many travesties around the world such as global warming, raised CO2 levels, and a polluted Manhattan. In Lewis Thomas’ essay “Ponds,” Thomas discusses nature in New York. He elaborates that humans view themselves as separate from nature. He directly relates to Leopold’s “Land Ethic” and Leopold’s community concept. Thomas, in his essay “Ponds” effectively displays humanity’s need for a more knowledgeable and expansive understanding of community and duty towards nature. First, he displays the lack of respect and served duty there is towards nature and humans’ natural surroundings. Secondly, he displays that humans, from this lack of respect, destroy and pollute the land. Finally, he exemplifies that the destruction, ignorance, and lack of respect are self-destructing.
Thomas, throughout his essay “Ponds” shows that there is a lack of respect for nature. In his essay he begins by describing the city of New York. His description, though, is not of New York itself, but what could naturally occur there if the city was not overrun with construction and buildings. This lack of respect stems from a lack of observation. He shows ignorance through this description by implying that the reader is missing out on the beauty of nature. The citizens of Manhattan are focused on expanding infrastructure rather than ‘green’ and sustainable exploits such as green houses and electric energy. “It was there for two years, named Lake Bellevue, while the disconsolate Budget Bureau and went looking for cash to build the next stage” (Thomas 108). Similarly, Leopold discusses the lack of respect in his community concept. He supports Thomas by discussing the lack of respect to the natural community which is...

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...vely or negatively depending on the opinion based on the parallelism. This is supportive of Thomas because it is directly relatable to the ending of his essay where the humans finally are affected by their poor choices even though they are the last to be affected.
In conclusion, Thomas, in his essay “Ponds” displays humanity’s need for a more knowledgeable and expansive understanding of community and duty towards nature, while Leopold in his “Land Ethic” supports Thomas’ position. Thomas displays this need through his portrayal of lack of respect, destruction, and self-destruction of the people and environment in Manhattan. These aspects of humanity’s need build on each other and have an exponential effect. Leopold agrees with his community concept. He displays and elaborates in the parallelism of actions which is supportive of Thomas’ opinion in the essay “Ponds.”