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In A Conservationist Manifesto, Scott Russell Sanders discusses his beliefs on how one can live a more satisfying and enjoyable life. More specifically, Sanders explains how this lifestyle is a more beneficial way of living by improving America’s problems of consuming, building a sense of community, helping the environment and appreciating nature. He argues that settling roots in a community and becoming involved are essential to living a pleasurable life. The best way to live out your days in Sander’s view is to absorb the natural spaces by using them as a way to relax rather than replacing the area with concrete buildings. His intentions are to persuade the reader and hopefully change their way of living to resemble a more humble existence like himself. Sanders has ambitious goals and provides favorable cases …show more content…
In the chapter of “Hometown,” he fails to factor in how our current society functions, see the changes from his generation to today’s, and present the opposing side many of the times. Also he does not present how settling in a community and making personal connections to the people around you is not as realistic as it may seem.
The idea of the American Way of exploring and expanding (Shames, “The More Factor”) may be a reason to uproot but it is not the only reason people would move. This belief of the American Way is falsely connected to why Sander’s parents and that generation would move. Sanders, as a child, viewed settling down is for someone who lacked drive and vision, because of books, movies, and other influences that supported this belief of the American Way (Sanders 113). The stories he read made the people who settle as boring like Sinclair Lewis, but the people who kept moving are the pathfinders and adventurers (Sanders 110). His parents also would constantly move after every few years for different job opportunities. Their sole reason for moving around several
The rise of conservation was first populated by Theodore Roosevelt in the late 19th century. And the issues surrounding conservation had risen in the US around that time. The new understanding affects the country and its policies. Conservation is a careful preservation and protection of something; especially: planned management of a natural resource to prevent exploitation, destruction, or neglect.(Merriam-Webster) The causes of rising conservation include overhunting, recognizing its importance. These newfound awarenesses resulted in new policies that preserve for everyone equally.
All the drastic changes that the world has been through, and Carr and Kefalas show that in their writing. These changes at some time made the current town, were they live, a thriving and prosperous place. People would move from their towns to these prospering communities to seek out the benefits that were offered. Many of those small towns are slowly fading into the background because of the modern world changes that big and upcoming cities that offering. These changes are creating new jobs and environments for the youth that are looking for change in the small towns that once were big and thriving, are now filled with the older generation that don’t want to make the change. They are looking to keep things consistent with the life they have been living; some changes in their eyes are not good, they are just creating problems. In Carr and Kefalas’s article they write about living in a small town called Ellis in Iowa. Carr and Kefalas talked to an employee working at a new factory in Ellis, “A machine operator living in Ellis complains about the strugglers facing old-fashion workers who find themselves trapped in a newfangled economy” (33). People living in small towns are unlikely to adapt to new changes, but are having to because of companies starting new factories in their community. This new technology is bound to change the life of older generation parents, whether they choose to stay in their small town lifestyle or move to
The wild is a place to push yourself to the limit and take a look at who you truly are inside. “Wilderness areas have value as symbols of unselfishness” (Nash). Roderick Nash’s philosophy states that the wilderness gives people an opportunity to learn humility but they fight this because they do not have a true desire to be humble. Human-kind wants to give out the illusion that they are nature lovers when in reality, they are far from it. “When we go to designated wilderness we are, as the 1964 act says, "visitors" in someone else's home” (Nash). People do not like what they cannot control and nature is uncontrollable. Ecocentrism, the belief that nature is the most important element of life, is not widely accepted. The novel Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer depicts a young boy who goes on an exploration to teach himself the true concept of humility. Chris McCandless, the protagonist, does not place confidence in the universal ideology that human beings are the most significant species on the planet, anthropocentrism.
"How important is a constant intercourse with nature and the contemplation of natural phenomenon to the preservation of moral & intellectual health. The discipline of the schools or of business—can never impart such serenity to the mind. " ~ Henry David Thoreau, May, 1851
John Muir helped the development of the American conservation movement during the late nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. The creation of the National Park Service, the creation of several major national parks, including Yosemite National Park and the creation of the Sierra Club were all because of John Muir. In the late nineteenth century America was in a stage of expansion and economic development that used as well as threatened much of the natural world. Much of the economic development was in the form of industrialization that took its toll of the environment with both its consumption of natural resources as well pollution. This expansion and economic development had adverse consequences on the environment of the United States. During this time of development many became aware of the damage being done to the natural world and attempted to prevent or limit this damage being done. It is during this time of both industrialization and spiritual awakening that the conservation movement arose with one of its most famous activists, John Muir.
The narrator continues with describing his resentment towards his home life, 'Coming home was not easy anymore. It was never a cinch, but it had become a torture (2).'; This excerpt provides the reader with an understanding of the sorrow that the protagonist feels at the beginning of the novel and throughout the first half. Further narration includes the protagonists feelings of distance from the land and blame that he places upon himself, 'But the distance I felt came not from country or people; it came from within me (2).'; Thus, as the reader, we understand that the narrator has removed himself from the land and his culture.
In Thinking Like a Mountain, the author, Aldo Leopold, writes of the importance of wildlife preservation through examples of the symbiotic relationship of animals and plant-life with a mountain. He asks the reader to perceive the processes of a mountainous environment in an unusual way. Aldo Leopold wants the reader to "think" like a mountain instead of thinking of only the immediate, or as the hunter did. Taking away one feature of an ecosystem may eventually destroy everything else that that environment is composed of. Nature and wildness is essential for the well being of life on this earth.
He states, “In a village of a few hundred inhabitants all are known each to each. There are no strangers.” Since a village is small, every person goes to the same church and schools, so the villagers are able to becoming a bigger part of each other’s lives. He is proving to the reader that the village acts sort of like an enormous family. He states, “The village church, the Sabbath-school, and the district-school have been channels of intercommunication; so that one is acquainted not only with the persons, but, too often, with the affairs—domestic, social, and secular—of every dweller in the town.” The church and schools provide a place in which the people are able to learn new things about each other that they didn’t know before. The people are able to find out what is happening in a person’s life, and their
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “Nature.” The American Experience. Ed. Kate Kinsella. Boston, Massachusetts: Pearson Education, Inc., 2005. 388-390. Print.
Since the rise of the American environmental romanticism the idea of preservation and conservation have been seen as competing ideologies. Literary scholars such as Thoreau and Muir have all spoke to the defense of our natural lands in a pristine, untouched form. These pro-preservation thinkers believed in the protecting of American lands to not only ensure that future generations will get to experiences these lands, but to protect the heavily rooted early American nationalism in our natural expanses. Muir was one of the most outspoken supports of the preservation ideology, yet his stylistic writing style and rhetoric resulted in conservation being an adopted practice in the early 20th century
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.
This book is a collection of reports (and entries taken from his personal diary) sent to Times-Post by William Weston. Ernest Callenbach used Weston’s observations to tell us about an extraordinarily progressive nation that respected nature and environment. What Weston found in Ecotopia was a progressive society completely connected and in harmony with nature. According to Callenbach, in that nation, people were “literally sick of bad air, chemicalized food, and lunatic advertising”. (Callenbach, pg.47) The novel gives us a vision of how a modern society can be restructured according to environmental principles. This book has succeeded in inspiring environmentalists and students of environmental history who are all looking forward to a society that is ecologically stable and sustainable.
Since the beginning of civilization humanity has adopted a subjugating stance toward nature. Ecological exploitation has become the de facto standard, contributing to the illusion of self-subsistence provided by modern society. This mindset is untenable given humanities reliance on the natural world, as best demonstrated by the critical importance of various parts of the environment to humanities continued existence. This includes the importance of biodiversity to medicinal advancement and climate adaptation, the role of insects in the renewal of the biosphere, and the importance of the environment for humanities psychological health.
.6 Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 :- A. Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 Legislation and scope:- In the year 1991, Parliament extended the Act to the whole of India except the state of Jammu and Kashmir, which has its own Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 similar to the national law. The Act lists not only endangered flora and fauna but also vermin. Prohibition on hunting:- section 9 of the Act provide that no person shall hunt any wild animal specified in Schedules I,II,III and IV except as provided under section 11 and 12. Strategies for wildlife conservation 2002:- The wild life conservation aims at:- better wildlife conservation through prioritising wildlife and forests at the national level; the allocation of funds; better management
I will return to that idea of a “building like a tree”. By now, you might be protesting to the invisible author – me – that you do connect yourself to nature, that you visit national parks, enjoy camping and hiking, perhaps even teach Environmental Science classes. McDonough and his chemist cohort, Michael Braungart, wonder if “it is all too easy to leave our reverance in the parking lots.”[iv] Being designers, they take a look at less abstract demonstrations of the estranged worldview than does Starhawk (a Wiccan spiritual and ethical author), and they find it in the famed “view” that every middle management type is looking to have from his corner office after the promotion.