In the month of February in A Sand County Almanac, Leopold said, “There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm,” (page 6). He then elaborated on how individuals can tend to forget that vegetables are not grown in a grocery store, and heat does not suddenly just warm a house. Owning a farm or garden teaches a person these factors, that it is important for one to treat the environment well. This is a part of his lesson that I think he brings about in the first section of the book. He is right though, it easy for individuals to forget that things are grown out of our Earth, and it is our job to take care of the Earth and in turn, it will give us bounty. One sentence I found very interesting in the Arizona and New Mexico chapter was, “Every …show more content…
I think in the end, this is the lesson that Leopold wants to get across. Leopold really yearns to have his readers understand that it is of utmost importance that we treat and respect everything in the land all the same. We cannot treat the cows any better than the grass because cows give us meat to eat and bring to our table. Grass is essential to cows, which then makes it essential to us. Even excluding that example, grass is important just for living organisms in general. It does not really matter if one is vegetarian or not, it is vital to treat all our earthly creatures correctly and ethically. This whole section really was important to urge his readers to understand the ethical lesson he was teaching. I also thought that when he talked about the three different groups that settled in the Mississippi Valley (pages 241-242) showed the various outcomes that could have happened if one or the other groups of people took over the land once and for all, like the Native Americans. This was effective in showing that maybe the land would be preserved better if someone else had the opportunity to rule over it and dictate the rules on how it is
Leopold would most likely approve of the work being done to preserve Gorongosa National Park and would agree with Wilson in that nature is our home and we should treat it as such, but Leopold, unlike Wilson, argues that it is our moral obligation, and not just our pleasure, to respect nature. Additionally, Wilson seems to focus specifically on the plants and animals that make up an ecosystem, but Leopold extends his focus to non-living components such as soil and water because they are instrumental in maintaining the integrity of land communities. Leopold might urge Wilson to make sure that he is not simply educating people at Gorongosa, but really help them genuinely understand land ethics. This way, humans can evolve a sense of praise and approval for preserving the integrity and beauty of the biotic community (262), and social disapproval for doing the exact
The author of this book Steven Bouma-Prediger main argument is Christians need to live more earth-careful lives and being called to be caretakers is not optional. The responsibility to care for the earth is a part of our faith. Early in the book the authors takes you back to your first encounter with nature he does to make his topic relevant and personal to the reader. He then opposes his first question, how much do we actually know about where we live? He states that this question shows us how little we know about our trees, plants, flowers, and the patterns of the moon. This is also his first argument in which he said if we do not know our earth we are destine to use and abuse it. Understanding and caring about nature is necessary to live properly on this earth. Chapter 1 (page 21) “we are for what we love, we love only what we know, we truly know only what we experience.
He is unable to understand why they can’t leave nature alone. His frustration stems from the fact that so much valuable land is being destroyed, to accommodate the ways of the lazy. It seems as though he believes that people who are unwilling to enjoy nature as is don’t deserve to experience it at all. He’s indirectly conveying the idea that humans who destroy nature are destroying themselves, as nature is only a mechanism that aids the society. In Desert Solitaire Abbey reminds the audience, of any age and year of the significance of the wild, enlightening and cautioning the human population into consciousness and liability through the use of isolation as material to ponder upon and presenting judgments to aid sheltering of the nature he
I think that in this chapter Leopold is showing the reader how the different people see the land and the things in and around that land. He also tells us that even the conservation commission feels impelled to kill animals and birds to help the production of a lesser species.
Wendell Berry's book, Another Turn of the Crank, takes us well beyond the sustainability of agriculture as such. This is a book about community and, necessarily then, it is a book about economics. John Dewey wrote, "Natural associations are the conditions for the existence of a community, but a community adds the function of communication in which emotions and ideas are shared as well as joint undertakings engaged in. Economic forces have immensely widened the scope of associational activities. But it has done so largely at the expense of the intimacy and directness of communal group interests and activities." (Freedom and Culture, pp. 159-160) The context of the present discussion is the disappearance of agrarian communities throughout America and, hence, the death of agrarian culture. Forest culture has been another victim. Part of this story is about access to fresh, healthy foods and good local timber. But most of the story is about much more.
...to understand that we are not the only species that affects the world; we aren’t the only ones that have an impact on what will happen. Plants need to be viewed as a helping species in our world. All of these plants looked at by Michael Pollan are crops; they help us just as much as we help them by industrializing them they continue to thrive while we are able to profit off peoples wants a desires for these plants. They are continuing to adapt to be used by us, to be transported around the world, to feed our families. Plants play a major role in our lives that some people don’t understand and the greatest threat facing all of these plants is the threat of falling out of fashion, once people lose interest the wonder of these plants are lost.
The way of living is what is most important, both Whitman and Thoreau seem heavily endeavored to workmen and farmers. If the wild is the most raw form of American masculinity than the farmers and land owners who work closest to the environment are seen as the epitome of American man. “I would that our farmers when they cut down a forest felt some of that awe which the old Romans… that is, would believe that it is sacred to some god.” (Thoreau 1111) Again nature has been tied to the religious and holy, Thoreau speaks highly of not just the wilds but the farmers who encroach upon gods work are as strong as soldiers. Whitman’s own description of farm life is filled with picturesque and idealized scenes: “The big doors of the country barn stand open and ready, The dried grass of the harvest-time loads the slow-drawn wagon, The clear light plays on the brown gray and green intertinged, The armfuls are pack'd to the sagging mow.” (Whitman 1335) A man’s work is had wholly to do with the environment
Garrett Hardin developed the concept of the Tragedy of the Commons. The basic concept is a giant pasture that is for everyone to have a piece of land and for the herdsman to have as many cattle a possible to sustain the land. This land should be able to maintain itself for quite a long time because of cattle dying as well as the population staying relatively stable. But at some point the population will begin growing and the herdsman will want to maximize their profits by having more cattle, which in return the land cannot sustain. The herdsman receives all the profit from adding one more animal to the pasture so the herdsman will eventually begin adding more cattle, but the overgrazing caused by that added animal will destroy the land making it uninhabitable for everyone. Thus you have the tragedy of the commons. For all the herdsman on the common, it is the only rational decision to make, adding another animal. This is the tragedy. Each man is compelled to add an infinite number of cattle to increase his profits, but in a world with limited resources it is impossible to continually grow. When resources are held "in common" with many people having access and ownership to it, then a rational person will increase their exploitation of it because the individual is receiving all the benefit, while everyone is sharing the costs.
As soon as the novel begins, we are introduced to the concept of saving the environment. The book begins with the narrator explaining his life-long dream of helping the world. He says that the cultural revolution of the 1960’s contributed to his ambition. However, as time went on he
He is not only a farmer, but also a writer. He writes about the differences between industrialism and agrarianism. He states these two types of societies are “two nearly opposite concepts of agriculture and land use, but also two nearly opposite ways of understanding ourselves, our fellow creatures, and our world.” He highlights that agrarianism is about the land, plants, and the rest of nature. Industrialism is about high technology machines and increasing profit. He compares industrialism to mining, saying that when used, it only abuses the land (Berry). For Berry, and other agrarianists, farming is so much more than planting and harvesting as quickly as possible. Old traditions are used, and the hard work that is put into the crop, is done so with love. Agrarian societies practice subsistence agriculture, meaning they grow just enough food to support their families. This culture’s practices are done with the goal of being completely
He stated that as the society’s technology improves their way of life we seem to forget the significance of the common knowledge about the land. Also he looks down of the competition within the culture that is competing with one another. He despises the fact that some small farmer cannot compete with the bigger farms because small farms lack money, resources and manpower to keep up. All of this replaces the distraction of the farming culture
1.) When Old Major, a wise boar from Animal Farm, is describing his perfect utopia, he said, “Why then do we continue in this miserable condition? Because nearly the whole of the produce of our labour is stolen from us by human beings. There, comrades, is the answer to all our problems. It is summed up in a single word--Man. Man is the only real enemy we have. Remove Man from the scene, and the root cause of hunger and overwork is abolished for ever” (Orwell, 5). In Old Major’s faultless utopia, he imagines a land completely rid of humans, solving their problems of hunger and being overworked . By making the animals realize man is the enemy, Old Major is uniting the animals. He is giving the animals a sense of unity by giving them a common enemy. Leaders throughout history have done the same thing with their people, helping start a rebellion. They tell the people why they should fight and how they can create a perfect utopia afterwards. People who have been mistreated will seek a reason to rebel against them for a better life and future.
One point Berry makes about people’s ignorance is that they do not recognize their connection to the agricultural cycle. He appeals to the reader’s sense of logic when he describes the process food goes through to reach the consumer, and how eating ends it (3). He uses their sense of reason to persuade them as he continues to point out how oblivious eaters are by saying that “food is pretty much an abstract idea” to them even though they should realize it does not magically appear in the local store (4). Berry mentions that not only do they ignore how it gets to the store, but also the location and type of farms their food comes from (4). He says ...
He believes that the wilderness has helped form us and that if we allow industrialization to push through the people of our nation will have lost part of themselves; they will have lost the part of themselves that was formed by the wilderness “idea.” Once the forests are destroyed they will have nothing to look back at or to remind them of where they came from or what was, and he argues everyone need to preserve all of what we have now.