Short Story 'Eco Defense'
Scott Russell Sanders’ passage from ‘Staying Put: making home in a Restless World’ gives readers the idea that roaming foreign territory and enforcing your ways is worse than staying put and adapting to your surroundings. Sanders achieves this mood through the use of parallelism, juxtaposition, rhetorical questions, and other rhetorical devices. Within the first sentence of the passage, Sanders paints a picture that Americans think that they are inherently good people, always the alpha of the pack that is the world. He describes our selfishness and need for acquiring more land as a ‘seductive virtue’, which can be found in lines 1-2. Sanders again pokes fun at the ‘American Lifestyle’ in lines 20-25.
John Muir, a naturalist and preservation pioneer of nature took an ethical stand for land ethics when he shared his thoughts that all living things are equally important parts of the land, and animals and plants have as much right to live and survive as people do. In the 1600’s when Europeans began to settle in North America, there were 1037 million acres of forestland. Today, a little over 700 million acres in the United States is forestland—only thanks to preservation laws. In the 1800’s, that number of tress and forests decreased tremendously because expansion and progression recklessly exploited natural resources by clear-cutting forest to use wood for fuel and building supplies.
In the wake of the prevalence of industrialize among the United States, the former U.S president Jimmy Carter proposed that the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is not supposed to be developed for industry in his foreword to Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Seasons of Life and land, A photographic Journey by Subhankar Banerjee. Jimmy Carter effectively builds his argument by logically utilizing pathos, logos, and ethos to plead with the audiences to take his side. Jimmy Carter employs pathos to appeal to the audience’s emotion for supporting his argument. In paragraph seven, Jimmy Carter takes a stand on the position of American citizens to consider the issue of industry developing, and he suggests that “instead of tearing open the heart of our greatest refuge, we should use our resource more wisely.” To offer a proposal, Jimmy Carter as a citizen
In his passage from “Last Child in the Woods,” Richard Louv uses various rhetorical strategies in order to make his audience more supportive of his argument. The passage discusses the connection, or really the separation, between people and nature. On this subject, Louv argues the necessity for people to redevelop their connection with nature. His use of tone, anecdotes, rhetorical questions, and factual examples all help develop the pathos and logos of his piece.
I disagree with Cronon’s notion that people’s idea of wilderness was historically powerful. Undoubtedly, the wilderness notion played a role in forming American identity. Cronon states the consequences of this role when he writes “Thus in the myth of the vanishing frontier lay the seeds of wilderness preservation in the United States, for if wild land had been so crucial in the making of the nation”(Pg 76). But these consequences aren’t particularly profound. Even though the wilderness notion resulted in establishing national parks and preservations, it did not prevent the further development of industry, consumption of forests and mining of natural resources.
But, nature does not exclude humans, human excludes themselves from nature. Within the “mists of [the] chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand and one items to be allowed for”(277). He uses clouds and storms and quicksands to convey that civilized life includes the same negativity included in the connotation of those conditions, but nonetheless, those too are apart of nature. The purpose of utilizing imagery is so evoke images people already have to connect with them on that level to make them understand that they must find a harmony and balance in the world. So, in order to restore order within one’s individual life, one must defy the social norms that distance themselves from nature to find harmony with it.
This quote is a example of Man vs Nature, because it is showin that they are in lack of resources. Also another quote showing Man vs Nature is that “Of the 1,300 santes brought there in 1863, fewer than 1,000 survived their first winter. This shows how it is Man vs. Nature, because it explains how cold it was up in the Dakota Territory. The Sioux were hungry and forced to live on reservations
Additionally, from an environmentalist view, wilderness should not be seen as a separate entity but rather one with humanity. Consequently, where one does not just go to a nature preserve to feel reconnected momentarily,
This movement, known as “environmentalism”, has its early roots from organizations such as The Sierra Club, and the creation of an “Earth Day” in 1970. Environmentalist groups have gained recent prominence on the world stage, participating in organizations such as the United Nations. This article also outlines the perspectives of environment from earlier ages, such as the traditional imperialist view that nature should be controlled in order to avoid “natural exploitation”, and other long term damages. The article also discusses the Romantic and Utilitarian philosophies of nature; all sharing the perspective of the environment as the vivid source of life and happiness. This research could contribute to my topic, as it provides information of the philosophical views that humans have on the natural world -- serving to help define the relationship between mankind and the
In Bill McKibben’s novel, “The End of Nature”, the main argument that McKibben is making is everything that humans touch, they destroy. He explains how the pristine natural world was one untouched by humans, but now everything reflects humans. McKibben laments the loss of the idea of wilderness, or untouched nature. Increasingly, everything in the natural world is in some way altered by human use. Along with the loss of the last remnants of natural environment, McKibben suggests, we are losing our idea of nature, so that we can no longer appreciate the value of an unspoiled natural environment.
He argues that we should treat our land with care and respect as we now treat one another, for we will be ushering a new era of change the is all for the better. The second half of the essay begins with "The Ecological Conscience". Starting off by stating “Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land” and going on to describe how our fight for land is improving it is moving far too slow. This transforms into the
Given that Yosemite was the first instance of a national park, the settler colonial nature of preservation achieved through extermination and erasure of the Native people set an example for future parks, and the objectification of wilderness likely led to the 1964 Wilderness Act in which wilderness is seen as something necessary to be preserved. Ramachandra Guha brings the issue of national parks and wilderness into a global context. His critique is largely of deep ecology, but a central characteristic of deep ecology is “its focus on the preservation of unspoilt wilderness” (Guha 73). Because the Wilderness Act created the first legal definition of wilderness, “deep ecology is uniquely American” (Guha 72) an “the emphasis on wilderness is positively harmful when applied to the Third World” (Guha 75).
The harsh reality surrounds the fact that as time and technology advances, the separation between people and nature increases as well. Louv, in his rhetoric from Last Child in the Woods (2008), argues why the separation between society and nature is distressing.
We should value nature and its animals much more (Becker, 1971). In today’s world we have what Becker calls a “power-saw mentality” (Becker, 1971, p. 114). Instead we’re greedy with what nature has to offer us. “Man takes what nature offers us, but usually only what he needs” (Becker, 1971, p. 114). There is a psychological difference in today’s world of what we enjoy out of nature (Becker, 1971).
Introduction: Our earth is the most precious gift of the universe. It is the sustenance of ‘nature’ that is the key to the development of the future of mankind. It is the duty and responsibility of each one of us to protect nature. It is here that the understanding of the ‘environment’ comes into the picture. The degradation of our environment is linked with the development process and the ignorance of people about retaining the ecological balance.
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