"The Earth is going to expire by the year 2050," or "the world's a ticking time bomb" are just two of the many statements people hear everyday about the end of the world. Christians believe that only God knows the true date in which the world will cease and He will burn the world to ashes. On the other hand, another large group of people believe the world will soon end if humans do not change their way of life. A small percentage of those same people have faith in the fact that one day humans may change and the Earth will prosper. In his essay, "Is Humanity Suicidal?" Edward O. Wilson uses techniques to convince the human race that they must change their ways in order to save their own existence. His techniques include: a story as an attention grabber; his tone of voice; contrasting opinions; an explanation of environmentalist views; stating his position throughout; a description of how other groups have recognized that a problem subsists; and finally, solutions to the dilemma.
Starting with a story, Wilson captures the reader's attention by introducing the possibility of the world coming to an end. The story revolves around aliens who are watching the planet from satellites and are noticing the destruction humans are causing to the Earth. Some of the results human destruction has on the Earth include: "Atmospheric carbon dioxide rises to the highest level in 100,000 years. The ozone layer of the stratosphere thins, and holes open at the poles" (501). The aliens then patiently wait for the time when the Earth cannot handle the destruction from humans anymore and watch closely as fire engulfs the Earth. The story illustrates how human's interaction with the different aspects of the environment combines to destroy the...
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...ironmental deterioration put the very future of life at risk" (505). If scientists are stepping up and saying humans are doing wrong, then that should definitely be a sign to people that something needs to happen. Wilson uses these groups to demonstrate how people are trying to create solutions to the dilemma.
After reading the entire essay, one realizes the true destruction humans are causing to the Earth and that something must be done to help the environment. By using a variety of techniques throughout his essay, Wilson emphasizes his point that there is still hope for humanity if humans act now. Humans are the only ones who can save the Earth from extinction, but time is limited. If the majority of humans act like environmentalists then the phrases "the Earth is going to expire by the year 2050" or "the world's a ticking time bomb" will cease to exist.
In this book, Kolbert travels to many places to find out what is happening with global warming. Quite often she ran into the same fear at the places she went, the fear for loss before the next generation. When she went to Alaska, many people were fleeing from their homes because the sea ice surrounding them, creating a buffer zone for storms, was melting and that was causing houses to just be swept away.
A similar message that appears in his book that appeared in the aforementioned speech was the impact of the media speculation. The book addresses this in two examples. One was presented with the news of a lawsuit that an island called Vantu would file against the EPA; yet the lawsuit would never move forward due to it only serving a purpose to launder money and raise awareness to global warming that was never proven to affect the island. The other was shown to be environmental scientist who received their funding from environmental organizations, such as NERF in the book. These scientists would often have to go against their findings and report what the organizations wanted them to, or possibly lose their funding. Additionally, the book profoundly took opposition to the claim of global warming. This is presented in the form of the main character, Peter Evans, who has been manipulated into believing everything that the media has told him about global warming. It isn’t until John Kenner is introduced, that Peter begins got learn the truth about global warming. The author uses specific evidence to back his claims, specifically he uses a wide array of resources to verify his claim that Antarctica is not in fact melting, but getting colder and thickening. Furthermore, another essential concept that that book introduces is environmental extremists, or bioterrorism. These characters in the book would stop at nothing to make sure that everyone believed in global warming, and tried to destroy parts of the world to succeed in their mission. Bioterrorists are best represented as a warning of what could happen if people continue to buy into the media’s lies without having conclusive evidence to back up their
The global climate changes have brought devastating geographical changes over the last century. With unfunded solutions and internal political conflicts driven by pure ignorance, our species has begun digging its own grave. Roy Scranton, author of “Learning how to Die in the Anthropocene”, has already begun contemplating the inevitable. By incaptivating his readers with his detailed description of his military past; he draws a parallel to the future he describes as inescapable. Using descriptive logic and overwhelming emotion, Scranton successfully convinces that in order to live in the new age us humans have forged, we must learn how to die.
As a society, we focus some of our thoughts on how to preserve the Earth and different ways to recycle and keep it clean. Although we do have an effort into saving our home planet, we, as a whole race, don’t have our hearts in it. There are the people who are obsessive economists and worry about the world excessively and those who don’t care enough or at all. The two stories both present a possible outcome for our lack of effort in preserving the Earth in two different genres, fiction and nonfiction. Of the two stories “Silent Spring” and “If I Forget Thee, Oh Earth…”, the one i felt most affected by was Marvin in, “If
Will this century mark the decline of society? Is the future safe from the mistakes of mankind? In “Learning How to Die in the Anthropocene”, Roy Scranton suggests that the question we should be asking ourselves about global warming is not whether it exists or how it can be stopped, but rather how are we going to deal with it. The purpose of the article is to convince everyone that current life is unsustainable, and that nothing can be done to reverse the process; we must acknowledge that the future will be drastically different and plan in advance if civilization is to keep moving forward. Dr. Scranton develops a realistic tone that relies on logos, pathos, and ethos appeals to persuade readers of his claim. Scranton sufficiently backs up
This quotation opens your eyes, I know of no one who wants to destroy the earth either. The majority of man kind doesn’t think too much about what is happening to the earth due to their actions. When most of us drive a car or spray deodorant we don’t think of the consequences. It is the responsibility of those who create problems to help fix them and prevent them from happening again. In society today it i...
After reading both passages, the most prevalent taste left in the reader's mouth is one of "irony". The intention of Wilson's work is to show two views. One is of environmentalists who are upset with the critics because they are not conserving enough and are only inte...
As time passes, our population continues to increase and multiply; yet, on the other hand, our planet’s resources continue to decrease and deplete. As our population flourishes, human beings also increase their demands and clamor for the Earth’s natural products, yet are unable to sacrifice their surplus of the said resources. Garret Hardin’s work highlighted the reality that humans fail to remember that the Earth is finite and its resources are limited. Hardin’s article revealed that people are unable to fathom that we indeed have a moral obligation to our community and our natural habitat — that we are not our planet’s conquerors but its protectors. We fail to acknowledge and accept that we only have one Earth and that we must protect and treasure it at all costs. Despite all our attempts at annihilating the planet, the Earth will still be unrelenting — it will still continue to be present and powerful. Human beings must recognize that we need this planet more than it needs us and if we persist on being egocentric and covetous, in the end it is us who will
The human mind harbors a very rich imagination when it comes to the envisioning of our demise, demonstrating the individual’s appeal towards this notion, because we love to play with the idea of an impending apocalypse and what comes after it.
We hear about global warming and climate change all the time but often we ignore and go on with what we were doing. Simply because what we were doing at that moment seemed more important than what is coming. This can occur because human are confused by climate change. Confused if it is truly happening or what we should do about it. In The Lottery by Shirley Jackson we see a similar approach by humans when solving an issue in their society. The concept of their society included a person being stoned to death by jeopardizing their name in a lottery among the whole village. The tradition of the lottery was passed on from generations to generations and the reason for it is unknown but no one seemed to be insisting the concept until they are the victims. This is related to the concept of global warming since we as humans tend to step over this big problem since it is not effecting us immediately. Until we start approaching the problem together the issue of global warming will not be
Despite the increasing amount of scientific evidence that support global climate change, many countries still use fossil fuels. The U.S. in particular is considering the revitalization of the coal industry instead of focusing on the production of clean energy. This inability to change will eventually lead to our downfall and our world will become like that of Lauren’s. In order for our survival, we have to seek out other planets because we are not changing fast enough for the sake of our planet. As our world’s climate continues to change rapidly, our resources are running and we are starting to split the world’s population into two groups: the wealthy and the poor. This is a sign that our world might become like that of Lauren’s dystopia. We cannot continue to live in this world with the belief that there is a world after death, like Lauren says, “We'll adapt. We'll have to. God is Change” (Butler, 147). We, human race, have to adapt and change or else we will eventually disappear. There is no supernatural being that can save us from our own destruction because the human race refuses to change. Even if we manage to move another planet, we will eventually turn that planet into another hell. The problem is not with the world, it is with
After reading “The Mind of Those who Kill, and Kill Themselves” by Erica Good. It is descrived, how someone can good from a cherfull person to a violent one. By examining the viewpoints of psychiatrys and mass murderes we try to explain the bieviors and reasons for doing this.As it is many people have a violent way and deside to kill people, and kill themselves.
One of the major points that Kaplan makes and he focuses on heavily in the beginning of the article is how environmental scarcity plays an impact on people’s decisions. There is a finite amount of natural resources in the world for people to use, and we are fast approaching a point where the world can no longer support our growing population. All of this is spurred on by an increase in practices that cause deforestation, soil erosion, pollution and global warming. A great analogy within the article is that we are robbing from tomorrow’s future to support the present, which is shown in that “…man is challenging nature far beyond its limits, and nature is now beginning to take its revenge.” (Kaplan, 1994) The new major threat that every nation and person has to be aware of is how the immediate results of our mismanagement of the environment can have a tremendous backlash, not only within our lives but the lives of future generations. All of these environmental concerns are dots that connect with Kaplan’s other main arguments.
In “The Day After Tomorrow” a climatologist’s warning of the possibility of massive cataclysmic climate changes caused by global warming go unheeded. His predictions of the consequences of such actions just so happen to occur sooner than anyone had ever expected. This movie served as the ultimate example what could happen if as a world community we do not clean up our acts. Continued consumption of nonrenewable resources, increased carbon dioxide emissions and further depletion of the Ozone layer could though most likely not on the scale illustrated occur in one form or another. The moral of this film is summed up by Dennis Quaid’s character in the last scene when he mutters his last few lines stating that hopefully humani...
Many people assume that the environment is not in danger. They believe that as technology advances, we do not need to worry about renewing natural resources, recycling, and finding new ways to produce energy. They state that one person in the world does not make a large difference. In reality, each individual's contribution greatly affects our environment. Our natural resources are slowly disappearing, and we must work together to save them and the Earth from ruin.