Since the beginning of mankind, there have been many examples of humans developing both positive and negative relationships with the environment. From early Native Americans preciously cultivating and restoring their natural surroundings, to large manufacturing conglomerates of the modern age polluting air and water without regard, the interaction between humans and their environment has been both productive and destructive in various ways. By evaluating that it is much more important for a developing civilization/nation to conserve and protect its resources rather than fully develop them, we can completely understand the unique impacts that the human race has had on the environment, and how significant the negative gaffes and consequently, …show more content…
This is the reason why many environmental activists attempt to promote healthy living, the awareness of conservation, and the importance of refurbishing our surroundings to an improved state. Many people throughout history have recognized this, but this idea has not become mainstream until the early 21st century. Going as far back as the 5th century, you can find individuals such as Tao Te Ching of the Lao Tzu dynasty, who wrote about subjects such as Mother Nature's unpredictability and how it cannot be controlled by the hand of any human. By stating this, he is proving many a point, declaring that we should be grateful for the opportunities that we have to colonize on this Earth(Document 1). As you move up through history a few centuries, you can additionally find people such as Aldo Leopold, who was an important American conservationist who became founder of the WWF, (World Wildlife Fund). He preached on the critical idea of conservation, and how vital it is that the human race doesn’t degrade the plants, animals, and all other portions …show more content…
The 5th century seen the beginning of these various points of views sprout, often within the religion of Buddhism. An individual following this religion during the aforementioned time period, whose name was Sutta Nipata, began to write about the countless species of animals present on Earth. By comparing them with one another, he claimed that all of them were sacred, and blessed by the hand of Buddha. Even earlier than Nipata's writings was the creation of the Roman Catholic Bible, whose first chapter and verses, under the name of Genesis, includes the supposed creation of the Earth, man, and all the animals created by the God of the Catholic faith. This piece is important because many individuals who devoutly follow this religion are taught to respect God's creation, a rule which is included within the Ten Commandments. Chief Seattle of the Northwestern Indian tribe also composed information about the environment when replying to the United States government in 1852. He wrote that no man should own the Earth, for it is sacred and hollowed to his people. By trading land like a man might trade meat in a market, we are gravitating away from the Earth's immense beauty. By associating religion within nature, the human race has created an element of respect and sanctity to our ecosystems
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 December of 1777, American General George Washington and his men took shelter at Valley Forge for the winter. It was 18 miles northwest of the British camp in Philadelphia, and Washington thought it was a perfect spot. But that was not the case for the soldiers. The soldiers had it rough, and many did not want to enlist for the army after. Today, many people wonder if they would stay with George Washington, or not enlist and go home back to their families.
The Struggles in Harsh Environments Hook. After just two months after the Narvaez expedition, the treasurer of the Narvaez expedition, Cabeza de Vaca, landed on Galveston Island along with 250 other castaways. Their dreams of colonization and riches had morphed into a quest for survival. However, the real question is: How did Cabeza de Vaca survive? Cabeza de Vaca survived because of his wilderness skills, his success as a healer and his respect for the Native Americans.
The british were a force to reckon with, they were the top of the food chain, raining for one-hundred years, destroying powerful nations. A group of farmers, a brewer, and some people who wanted change didn’t seem like they would be any match to the British. A group of people fighting for a cause they believe in is stronger than people fighting for a king. The British brought their own demise by putting tighter and tighter control that led to a revolution in colonial America.
Tom Watson was a statesmen from Georgia who became a leading racist, anti Catholic,and anti Semite. He used his journalism to express his radical views, which sometimes led to violence. He also had a weekly paper, that was circulated repetitively. He was part of the US senate from 1920 until he died in 1922. Although, he changed his support of blacks to support white supremacy, he was always an isolationist.
In times of fear and hysteria in the U.S. it is mass chaos and it only gets worse and worse. During the time of both the witch-hunt eras, whether for communist or actual witches, they prove to have many similarities between them. Both of these times were full of confusion and lying which lead to the temporary downfall of the authority at that time. Joseph McCarthy proved to be a factor in this time and add on to the chaos that was America. Arthur Miller wrote about these times in a book called The Crucible, based on the witch trial era.
The loss of jobs arising from automation, urban disinvestment, capital flight, and changing population patterns was especially devastating for black workers—and the speakers at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom emphasized the point. For example, Randolph denounced “profits geared to automation” that “destroy the jobs of millions of workers,” and called for measures to address unemployment, raise the minimum wage, and increase federal aid to education. People didn’t have enough money to eat food and afford family before the march. After the march, "The Civil Rights Act of 1964 promised to lower discriminatory barriers to employment, but it did not address one of the major demands of the March on Washington: job creation.
He urges people to live simply and warns against the difference between “essentials” and just extra “stuff.” As he says, “Our life is frittered away by detail. ” We focus so much on the future and all the silly distractions going on around us, that we lose sight of what is really important. He believed we don’t need as much technology, for example. Also, we could live off of one meal a day instead of three or four.
Corporate greedy and corrupt politicians were specific problems and injustices that were present in American life during the late 1800s and early 1900s however these were addressed during the progressive era with laws and regulations. Throughout the gilded era corrupt politicians and corporate greedy allowed the upper class and businessmen to take advantage of the working class. This means that a majority of the population were hurt during the gilded age whereas a small percentage benefitted. As seen in document 1, living conditions were crowded, dirty, and unsafe.
Nature has the ability to lead one to an improved comprehension of life. That is the point that Ralph Waldo Emerson, famous American essayist, wanted to convey to his readers in his long essay, Nature. In the essay, Emerson is saying that each and every person needs to broaden their own unique grasping of the universe that surrounds them. He is expressing this because he believes that people take nature for granted and do not really understand its purpose and impact. The author is stating all of this with a persuasive tone.
Our environment had been endangered of becoming unsafe, threatening, and even deadly. “The water we drink, the food we eat, the very air that we breathe, are threatened with pollution. Our parks are overcrowded, our seashores overburdened. Green fields and dense forests are disappearing.” Johnson stresses that the health of people and environment is at risk because Americans have allowed for the destruction of nature to get out of hand, and causing both the Earth and human health at risk of becoming an ugly America, due to –as Johnson references- the “Ugly American” (“Great Society”).
Jane Goodall, a primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist, explains that the greatest risk to our future is lacking enthusiasm and concern about its outcome. Considering Goodall is extremely environmentally keen, it is more than likely she is emphasizing this towards the future of the entire ecosystem, including plants and animals, rather than only the future of the human race. She explains that if the human race falls to a deficiency of caring about our environment, it can and will lead to a vast threat to the future of the world’s ecosystem. Often humans forget about the importance of the ecosystem and instead we become caught up in ourselves and our own individual needs. Goodall is stressing that if these egotistical human acts continue to occur, the future of our ecosystem is in jeopardy.
President Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States, was known for his love of nature. This was conveyed most strongly in his speeches, such as “Conservation as a National Duty”, in which he advocated for the preservation of natural resources in the interests of the nation and its people. In this speech as well as others he gave during his term as President, he stressed that conservation did not just pertain to preserving natural resources or deferring their exhaustion; rather, it was closely intertwined with the patriotic duty of ensuring that the nation would be able to provide for future generations, and was second only to the “great fundamental questions of morality”. One such example of how Roosevelt connected conservation with morality is found in his “The New Nationalism” speech, given in Osawatomie, Kansas in 1910. Here, he compares the way he believes the nation must behave in terms of conservation to the manner in which a farmer acts in reference to his children and the land that provides for them.
However there are dangerous things about nature even if humans need nature. The inclusion of nature in the good mind’s creation suggests that humans want a simplistic life in unity with nature, but without the chaos of nature in its purest
We have grown to see our parents have children, build houses, buy cars cultivate farmlands, explore timber and many other aspects. I think that this is the time to ask ourselves the question how good or bad are our actions to the environment? We should not inherit the habits of our forefathers because we are now responsible for the consequences of our action base on consequential ethics which states that it is common for us to determine our moral responsibility by weighing the consequences of our actions. According to consequentialism, correct moral conduct is determined solely by a cost-benefit analysis of an action's consequences. And in this case, if we apply sustainable development and consequential ethics, I am sure that we will protect our environment looking at it as a social