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Human relationship with the environment
The negative influence of human beings on the environment
Human impact on the environment
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In the first chapter of The Great Work, Berry describes historical “great works” and describes how today’s generations faces the great work of repairing humanities relationship with the natural environment. He defines a great work as a moment when human endeavors align with the destiny of the universe itself. However, while previous great works, such as the Greeks understanding of the human mind or India’s combination of human thought and spiritual experience dealt with human affairs, today’s directly impacts the well being of the entire biosphere. Berry provides a short history of how we came to face this challenge. Humans increased their demands on the environment starting as far back as the agricultural revolution. The small number of humans and the general versatility of the environment, however, protected the earth from any major damage. By the end of the nineteenth century, there was some concern with the well being of the environment, causing several national parks to be opened and several nature societies to be formed. The full danger, however, did not become evident until the twentieth century. …show more content…
As the beginning of the twenty-first century neared, 95% of all earth’s forests no longer stood and most of the developed world had transitioned to living in cushioned suburbs, isolated from the natural world. Technological changes in agricultural and aquaculture were destroying 25 billion tons of topsoil annually and huge fishing nets were driving many species to commercial extinction. Human expansion drove many species to extinction and left rivers dammed and polluted and the atmosphere unclean. The impact of human action had become a larger deciding force on the natural world than natural selection, leading to what Berry terms the end of the Cenzoic
“The modern form of the word environment comes from an older word that we hardly use anymore: environ, to surround, to form a ring around, to encircle” (Stoll 3). The meaning of the word environment did not become a major factor in the lives of humanity until 1945. The tragic events that led to the end of World War II sparked a chief movement in history: American Environmentalism. Global decision-making changed as well as human unity due to the mere purpose that fate of all people and the environment became intertwined (Stoll 1). I will further discuss the dramatic attempts made by some Americans to bring the importance of preserving our environment to the surface to show if and how we have evolved.
In Thomas Palmer's essay, "The Case For Human Beings", Palmer explores the topics of human accomplishment, the diversity of humankind, and the havoc that said diversity has caused on the environment. Using irony and sarcasm, with the occasional clever analogy, he burdens the reader with his cynical outlook on humankind in regards to its brutish treatment of the earth's delicate ecosystem. In one paragraph, Palmer states, "The only way to...restore biodiversity to its greatest possible richness, would be to arrange for every human being on earth to drop dead tomorrow" (323-24). Palmer's combative literary form, however, is not entirely lacking its own beauty and grace. When he uses human acheivements such as a Bach chorale, man's first journey to the moon, and three-masted schooners, he is bringing glory back to humankind. Although he explains the splendor of the Bach chorale, he still states, "Human consciousness...cannot, in this view, contribute to biodiversity, except by staying as far out of the picture as possible, so as to avoid tainting still-intact landscapes with unnatural influences" (324). No Bach chorale, no three-masted schooner, no Apollo landing, Palmer reveals, contributes to the ecosystem.
Thesis statement: Nature is not only for the human race, but it provides habitat to millions of organisms and human race is just one of the organisms,
Society does not appear to be worried about how nature has vanished. Recently, most humans are only worried about the development in technology and how it benefits them. The world of the feed has become so consumed in their precious technology that oxygen factores need to produce artificial air. For example, when Violet was having a conversation with Titus father on how Jefferson Park was being destroyed to create oxygen factors, Titus father says, “it’s inefficient to have trees next to an air factory” (Anderson 125). Ironically, trees produce oxygen, yet humans are destroying trees to build oxygen factories. Trees clean the atmosphere by absorbing carbon dioxide and releasing the oxygen that living creatures breathe in. Ever since humans learned how to utilize an a hatchet, humans constantly cut down trees without seeing the impact it has on the earth and our society. Moreover, due to society’s overpopulation humans utilize the advancement of technology to replace forests with numerous factories and skyscrapers. As Titus father describes, the trees are “nice, and it’s too bad, but like...Do you know how much real estate costs?” (Anderson 125). The earth has slowly deteriorated due to mankind abusing natural resources and transforming them into our everyday
In the book “Collapse” written and theorized by Jared Diamond, historical societies known for their peril due to environmental and human catastrophes. Jared Diamond analyzes the root causes of failed societies and uses his knowledge to depict today’s warning signs. The main focus of this book is to present clear and undeniable evidence that human activities corrupted the environment. To prove this Diamon used past societies, modern societies, and social business societies as a foundation. The most specific and beneficial theories that Diamond analyzes would be the decline of biodiversity on Easter Island, the deforestation of the Greenland Norse, the mining mismanagements in Australia and big businesses.
The battle between humanity and nature began when the industrial civilization started threatening our environment and natural resources. Hunters, like Theodore Roosevelt and Aldo Leopold, were the first Americans to realize that nature is something that we need to preserve. Leopold’s awakening was seeing a fierce green fire in the eyes of a wolf he had shot. He was able to understand what it means to take away pieces of life and how it affected the important role of earth’s grand scheme of nature. People started to become environmentalists when they experienced the same realization as
Lopez invites us to partake in the spiritual connection we share with nature and history, which awards us both independence in our world and compelling attachment to it. He bids us to notice the "complexity of [nature's] beauty" (54), and-like the effect it continues to have on Barry Lopez time and time again-to let it render us speechless.
In this article, “The Shadow of the Past” Clive Ponting, proclaims the vital importance for our modern global civilization and offers a provocative and illuminating view of human history and its relationship to the environment. Ponting points out that as our species increased in population, it had a direct effect on our environment and our ecosystems could not support our increasing number. He argues that human beings have repeatedly built societies that have grown and prospered by exploiting the Earth’s resources, only to expand to the point where these resources can no longer sustain the society’s population and subsequently collapsed. Ponting is trying to get across a point by saying that if humans continue to markedly use resources or create unnatural resources, the natural ecosystem will not be able to follow these changes and it will soon be destroyed. Agriculture is what caused our population to grow which lead to a greater population. As our population grew, the more land we needed to cultivate on, the more ecosystems we destroyed. Since agriculture is our most important res...
Through millions of years of evolution, well-balanced habitats have co-evolved to provide for the wide variety of species and their needs. Trees have adapted to weeds, weeds have adapted to the predation from herbivores, and so on up the food chain. Similar scenarios are seen throughout the world. Through the process of natural selection, specific species or broad species families will go extinct. However, these occurrences have largely been due to the natural flow and evolution of time. It wasn’t until recently that dominant species, such as humans, have taken the course of nature into their own hands.
While Rachel Carson’s “The Obligation to Endure”, Christopher Kemp’s "Medieval Planet", and Jared Diamond’s “The Ends of the World as We Know Them” all cover subjects relating to environmental issues, each author goes about purveying his or her message in a different manner. Kemp’s New Scientist article explains humanity’s environmental effects by imagining a world in which we never existed and hypothesizing how it would look and function with our absence. Carson’s essay depicts a frightening reality about the current state of humanity and the environment. She warns readers about how we are the only species who possess the capability to disrupt and even destroy Earth’s natural patterns. Diamond articulates his work with an unusual spin, using examples of historical civilizations that have snuffed themselves out by their own progress or poor relationship with the environment. The main message conveyed in Diamond's essay is that we are just as capable of choking ourselves out by our own doing today as were the historical civilizations that suffered the same fate. Despite their differing focuses, each article agrees that humans are outgrowing the finite amount of resources that the Earth can provide. A delicate symbiotic relationship between life and the environment has been maintained throughout time. Life on Earth was shaped by the constantly changing climate and surroundings. However, humans have gained the capacity to transcend this relationship. Through our ingenuity and industrialism, we have separated ourselves from natural restrictions. Because of this progress, we have been destroying the natural cycles of Earth’s environment and continue to do so at an alarming rate. Humanity has become Earth’s infection, ravaging the worl...
The majority of this piece is dedicated to the author stating his opinion in regards to civilization expanding beyond its sustainable limits. The author makes it clear that he believes that humans have failed the natural environment and are in the process of eliminating all traces of wilderness from the planet. Nash points out facts that strengthen his argument, and quotes famous theologians on their similar views on environmental issues and policies. The combination of these facts and quotes validates the author’s opinion.
Lawrence Buell’s four criteria are easily embraced as they are highly applicable to what we consider nature writings. For instance, one of the criteria suggest it should provide evidence that the consequences of the environment affect the interests of other aspects of the world beyond just human interests. For example, in ...
John McNeill, in his informative book, Something New Under the Sun, he discusses how the twentieth century brought the world into a steady decline. Although the world has improved technology-wise, it has also had a decline that overshadows the improvement we have seen. McNeil goes on to prove that it is humans, with our new technology are the reason behind this fateful decline. The world’s population has positively and negatively affected the twentieth century world by bringing “ecological changes” that will forever change the world(4).
A human induced global ecological crisis is occurring, threatening the stability of this earth and its inhabitants. The best path to address environmental issues both effectively and morally is a dilemma that raises concerns over which political values are needed to stop the deterioration of the natural environment. Climate change; depletion of resources; overpopulation; rising sea levels; pollution; extinction of species is just to mention a few of the damages that are occurring. The variety of environmental issues and who and how they affect people and other species is varied, however the nature of environmental issues has the potential to cause great devastation. The ecological crisis we face has been caused through anthropocentric behavior that is advantageous to humans, but whether or not anthropocentric attitudes can solve environmental issues effectively is up for debate. Ecologism in theory claims that in order for the ecological crisis to be dealt with absolutely, value and equality has to be placed in the natural world as well as for humans. This is contrasting to many of the dominant principles people in the contemporary world hold, which are more suited to the standards of environmentalism and less radical approaches to conserving the earth. I will argue in this essay that whilst ecologism could most effectively tackle environmental problems, the moral code of ecologism has practical and ethical defects that threaten the values and progress of anthropocentricism and liberal democracy.
Environmental philosophy tries to make sense of the unexamined values, assumptions and ideologies behind humanities treatment of the environment and, in doing so, aims at helping to elicit an effective human response to related issues (Curry, 2011). Environmental philosophy, has gone beyond being merely an academic pursuit, now requiring the world’s population take moral responsibility for the damages caused by their industrial advances on natural systems.