Nature And Nature In Aldo Leopold's Thinking Like A Mountain

791 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Human impacts on the ecosystem

Humanity has inhabited the Earth for millions of years, while millions of years may seem like a long time, it does not compare to the billions of years that the Earth has existed. If the history of the Earth were compressed into the span of a year, humans would only be alive for the last hour of the year, and in that small amount of time humans have managed to destroy over a million species of animal and start to deteriorate the atmosphere (Earth’s History Compressed into A Year). The Earth is a vast planet that has many resources, but humans are destroying the very place they exist, humanity is killing the atmosphere, the wildlife, and the food supply. We as a species over use what is provided to us and create more problems for the only livable …show more content…

The hunters in this story did not set out to hurt the ecosystem, and I believe a similar situation is happening in today’s society. People do not set out to do harm but do so through trying to make advancements for society. We have moved away from seeing the land and nature around us as something to treasure, protect, and preserve, instead seeing it as more space to build. The idea shift towards thinking of land as an object to possess instead of something to live with was the beginning of humanity’s involvement in nature that is destroying the …show more content…

The first step in moving toward recovery is for society as a whole to acknowledge the problem at hand, if humans cannot see the problem there is no way to fix it. Leopold explained how his thinking was shifted after seeing the wolf die right in front of him, all of humanity needs to find this shift in thinking and use it to propel the movement that should happen to help save the planet (Thinking Like A Mountain). The short-term solution would be to become more conscientious of the products used, chemicals put in the air and water, protective over wildlife and plant life, and to stop deforestation. Temporary solutions may help in the short run and will help move toward the end goal, but more effort will have to be made to create the planet that our children deserve to inherit from us. The final step is to allow room and time for nature to rejuvenate and replenish. Similar to the How Wolves Change Rivers video, nature will start to balance itself out, when an area is abandoned wildlife takes over, vegetation grows, animals create a home and an ecosystem is formed. On a larger scale this process would take lifetimes to carry out, which is a worthwhile wait for a chance at keeping our planet healthy, and inhabitable for our future

Show More
Related

  • Arguments Against Sport Hunting

    243 Words  | 1 Pages

    Hunting for sport is legal, and should remain that way. Many arguments against hunting for sport claim it is a “violent form of recreation” and “we have no right to take an animals life” for example, an opposing viewpoints article “Sport Hunting is an Unnecessary Form of Cruelty to Animals” says just that. HoweverI argue that we are part of this planet, as well as it’s ecosystem. We are (in ways) predators. An article on sport hunting, “Hunting for Sport” compares “hunters and the hunted” to a mountain lion and a deer. Is the lion at fault for hunting the deer? No. The mountain lion’s duty is to play the role as predator as well as keeping it’s prey’s population away from its ecosystems capacity. The ecosystem can no longer always support and control all animals populations.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Garret Hardin's Tragedy Of The Commons

    811 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Animal Testing and Hunting: Stopping the Slaughter

    754 Words  | 2 Pages

    We, as humans, mistreat the animal population. On a smaller scale, the human population wastes domestic and wild, animals for medical testing, for their fur, and for entertainment such as dog fighting. These things may not seem to be globally threatening, yet the constant waste of certain species of animals and the destruction of an animal's natural habitat will lead to the endangerment and eventually the extinction of the species. Furthermore, many people are unaware that the world is currently in the midst of the largest mass extinction in history.

    Read More

  • Argument Against Trophy Hunting

    629 Words  | 2 Pages

    Hunting centuries ago was a cruel way of survival for humans but now it's no more than a violent form of recreation. Hunters should only hunt if they need it for sustenance which most

    Read More

  • Not For Humans Only By Peter Singer Summary

    1111 Words  | 3 Pages

    People today use hunting as a sport. Of course, not everyone agrees with hunting, but those who like to hunt justify their actions by saying that they are helping with the overpopulation of animals, like deer. The truth is that we are affecting the population of animals. Animal overpopulation can be due to the loss of an animal’s natural predator. Predators are extremely important in an ecosystem, and they are nature’s way of controlling the animal population. In William Stolzenburg’s book, Where the Wild Things Were: Life, Death, and Ecological Wreckage in a Land of Vanishing Predators, he addresses the importance of predators in an ecosystem. He discusses an experiment done by a zoologist named Robert T. Paine. Paine decided to do an experiment to see what happens when one disrupts an ecosystem. He conducted his experiment on rocks along the shore in which a species of starfish was the top predator. Paine’s experiment consisted of grabbing the starfish off the rocks and throwing them into the ocean. His results showed that one single species has a tremendous effect on its ecosystem. After getting rid of the top predator, about half of the species that

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast John Muir's Relationship With Nature

    659 Words  | 2 Pages

    When thinking about nature, Hans Christian Andersen wrote, “Just living is not enough... one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.” John Muir and William Wordsworth both expressed through their writings that nature brought them great joy and satisfaction, as it did Andersen. Each author’s text conveyed very similar messages and represented similar experiences but, the writing style and wording used were significantly different. Wordsworth and Muir express their positive and emotional relationships with nature using diction and imagery.

    Read More

  • Anthropocene Essay

    684 Words  | 2 Pages

    The title “Anthropocene” is officially a theoretical one as scientists are still debating upon its legitimacy. The earth has entered a new geological epoch dominated by humanity. This epoch has been coined the Anthropocene. The term is relatively new in the scope of things as it was suggested by Dutch chemist Paul Crutzen in 2002 that we had left the time period previously we thought to be in ,the Holocene, and had entered the now thought to be current time period, The Anthropocene (Zalasiewicz). The reason for this change in epoch is the ever increasing effect of mankind upon our environment and the seemingly impossibility to find something unobstructed by mankind’s extensive reach. The skeptical attitude toward the Anthropocene is due in part to the Earths vast size; consequently, it is difficult for changes that humans have made to be permanent(Brown). While permanent topographic changes are unlikely, due to unpredictable natural occurrences in addition to weathering and erosion, some changes have a much more prolonged existence such as radioactive matter. An occurrence of this would be uranium-238 which contains a half life of 4.47 billion years.(Brown) The explanation behind humans unparalleled effect on the earth is the exponential increase in population in recent history, the population has increased from under 1 billion in the early nineteenth century to over 6 billion (Zalasiewicz) .This...

    Read More

  • Persuasive Essay On Invasive Species

    922 Words  | 2 Pages

    Humans are the cause of environmental damaging things like acid rain and global warming. People also damage other species by killing them till extinction or causing things like oil spills that cause them to die. Why destroy the only place the human species lives on, instead people can spend their time restoring the planet and making it better, they can learn to coexist with other species instead of learning how to be the dominant and overpowering species.

    Read More

  • Aldo Leopold on The Ecological Conscience

    349 Words  | 1 Pages

    Leopold defends his position the advent of a new ethical development, one that deals with humans’ relations to the land and its necessity. This relationship is defined as the land ethic, this concept holds to a central component referred to as the ecological consciousness. The ecological consciousness is not a vague ideal, but one that is not recognized in modern society. It reflects a certainty of individual responsibility for the health and preservation of the land upon which we live, and all of its components. If the health of the land is upheld, its capacity of self-renewal and regeneration is maintained as well. To date, conservation has been our sole effort to understand and preserve this capacity. Leopold holds that if the mainstream embraces his ideals of a land ethic and an ecological consciousness, the beauty, stability and integrity of our world will be preserved.

    Read More

  • Does Hunting Help or Hurt the Environment

    1401 Words  | 3 Pages

    Humans have been hunting practically since the beginning of time. Take a moment to look back at our country’s founding fathers and Native Americans. People in that era hunted as a means of survival. We all possess the skills of stalking prey. It’s in our blood. Hunting is automatically instilled in us being at the top of the food chain. Although looking back into history, one can also find that some hunting has diminished animal populations practically to the verge of extinction. However these facts have not gone unnoticed. If hunting is well regulated, whether it be for sport or recreational involvement, and there are no major affects to the species, if anything it may help bring back species from the edge of extinction. “Several wildlife managers view recreational hunting as the principal basis for protection of wildlife.”(Lebel)

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Thinking Like A Mountain By Aldo Leopold

    1234 Words  | 3 Pages

    While reading “Thinking like a Mountain” by Aldo Leopold, published in 1986, and “Landscape Use and Movements of Wolves in Relation To Livestock in a Wildland-Agriculture Matrix” by Chavez and Gese which was a piece from The Journal of Wildlife Management, published in 2006, I have become interested in investigating the question of how wolves interact with livestock. In Leopold’s article he explains how humans are taking away the role of wolves. He explains how when humans hunt animals, they are taking away the wolves role within the environment. His whole article is a personification because he gives the mountain feelings, which we know they do not have feelings. Leopold wants the audience to think and feel how the environment does. In his article he also explains how the wolves interact with the cattle. I am researching how wolves affect the livestock on farms. My second article, by Chavez and Gese, is about expanding the wolf range in Minnesota. Chavez and Gese’s

    Read More

  • Robert Frost Writes About Nature

    1450 Words  | 3 Pages

    When talking about poetry, most people have herd, or been familiar with the name Robert Frost. Even I, who haven 't studied much poetry until now have herd of his name. Robert Frost and his poems had caught my attention when researching poets. Reading his poems automatically made me think of him as a natural poet, because most of them had so much nature involved in them. When reading these poems, I found that most of them have some sort of nature in the writing. I have realized that Frost is not a nature poet as much as I once thought he was after watching "Voices and Vision Spotlight" and hearing Frost 's opinion on being a nature poet. Robert Frost does not consider himself a nature poet and we can see this through some of his poems, “Mowing,” “After Apple Picking,” and “The Road Not Taken.”

    Read More

  • Progress and the Total Destruction of the Earth

    984 Words  | 2 Pages

    Progress and the Total Destruction of the Earth Throughout all of history, humans have evolved not only genetically, but also culturally. Of the two evolutionary processes, cultural evolution happens more quickly, and has had a more noticeable effect on the environment compared to genetic evolution. Early hunter/gatherer societies evolved to agrarian society, which then had technological changes that affected the culture of the society. Unfortunately, while humans have been culturally evolving towards what is perceived to be progress, the environment has been compromised, marginalized, and degraded as it is continually exploited for human benefit and consumption. The culture of hunter/gatherer society was the least damaging to the environment in the long term before humans developed agriculture.

    Read More

  • The Biogen Cycle: The Nitrogen Cycle And The Cycle Of Life

    1574 Words  | 4 Pages

    From the beginning of time, the earth has provided its inhabitants with everything needed to sustain life at its most basic level. For instance, the ratio of land to fresh water as well as Earth’s natural cycles provided enough resources for animals to survive. Unfortunately, as the human population grew, the previously abundant natural resources started to become limited. In fact, engineers have recently been tasked with discovering new methods of harnessing energy, harvesting food, and collecting fresh water because the population is quickly depleting traditional techniques. Not only is the sheer number of people on Earth using up all of its natural resources, but humans’ modern desires are furthering the destruction of Earth. In developed

    Read More

  • Human Impact on the Survival of Wildlife

    1417 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...at we need. Clean up the rivers and streams, lakes and oceans. Reduce the use of chemicals and pesticides. But society must do something, even if only donating money to an organization who does. Just do something to help, before even more animals disappear, before all the fish and forests are gone, before the earth has so little diversity that only humans remain.

    Read More

More about Nature And Nature In Aldo Leopold's Thinking Like A Mountain

Open Document