The seemingly superior position that humans think they hold over natural environments may have its origin from the historic turning point of human civilizations i.e. the Industrial Revolution. Since then, natural constraints on human growth have been rendered almost ineffective because of many scientific and technological innovations. Humans continue to flourish the population is growing in almost every part of the world. The more advanced a society is, the more it seems to detach itself from nature. Detachment and superiority have shaped a modern society that is by large irresponsible or ignorant to the impacts it has on the natural environment. This results in global environmental degradation that can be attributed to the single most advanced yet invasive species, human. As awareness of environmental degradation has started to rise in recent decades, nature restorations and preservations have become more and more important in the development agenda of many nations. Restoration is aimed to reinstate the ecological …show more content…
Humans interfere whenever their action degrade or destroy an ecosystem. Because of these actions, an ecosystem is altered in some way. The ecosystem develops itself into a direction in which it would otherwise not have been gone. So we can say that a human action interferes with an ecosystem when it brings about some effect or result other than the one that would have ensued in its absence.
People seem to be divided into two positions about human interference with nature. The first position is anthropocentric. This position justifies management of nature when such management benefits human beings. The other one is ecocentric. This position never justifies management of ecosystems because the purpose of this interference is mostly benefitting humans at the cost of ecosystems that will be harmed (Michael, 2002).
So the question is, does nature need maintenance at
It is necessary return the gift to nature by protecting the environment, and avoiding over consumption of the nature resources. According to Kimmerer “For the gifts to continue to flow, we must give back in equal measure for what we take” (01). Kimmerer is insisting that as we taking more and
Ignorant Individuals Impact Earth Why is it that people don’t care about nature anymore? Nowadays, people are so interested and caught up in their daily lives that they don’t notice the basic beauty of nature around them. Because of this, people now think that little events don’t mean big changes are occurring. Even though Bradbury’s dystopian novel warns readers about a society that doesn’t notice the basic elements of nature around them, our current culture has failed to pay attention, and his prediction has come to fruition, resulting in the thought that little things don’t relate to a bigger picture, such as global warming.
“Wilderness” in part four of A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold discusses the evolution of nature at the hands of humans. I choose to write about this essay because of the connection humans have with the wilderness. I have always believed that nature and people have to work together to live harmoniously on this earth. The human race has used nature to survive for as long as they have existed. In today’s world people are using less and less of nature and more technology to industrialize the planet.
This will not be a quick or easy process, but it is doable. Carson reflects, “It took hundreds of millions of years to produce the life that now inhabits the earth … life reached a state of adjustment and balance with its surrounding” (890). Just because this process of protecting and eventually rebuilding our ecosystem may not ever be complete, does not mean that we can give up. We must be willing to take the first step and allow eminent domain to continue. As Fredrick Douglas once said, “If there is no struggle, there is no
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.
This paper has great ethos, it gives an example of what is to come if we do not care for our environment and people. The paper states, “Once the battle is lost...man can not wonder at nature; his spirit will wither and his sustenance be wasted” (Lyndon B. Johnson).
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.
According to Nebel and Wright, “four basic principles are essential for achieving a sustainable ecosystem, the goal of the environmental movement. They are: (1) recycling elements in order to dispose of wastes and replenish nutrients; (2) using solar energy; (3) maintaining the size of consumer populations to prevent overgrazing; and (4) maintaining biodiversity.” An ecological emergency can happen when any of these domains are settled with compromise. While people are destroying the tropical rainforests, they don’t realize that they are destroying 40% of the world’s supply of oxygen. 40 million acres of tropical rainforest are being lost annually to deforestation and humans destroying the Earth.
Leopold is known as the father of ecology, studying the relationship between organisms and their respective environments. Leopold explains his convictions in A Sand County Almanac and Stretches Here and There; moreover, his essay,“Land Ethic,” illustrates the communal life of people; furthermore, this community-based atmosphere stimulates ethical behavior and persuades the members to treat each other with respect and to work together as a team for the mutual benefit of all. However, Leopold divulges that the majority of humans does not view the natural world as part of his community. Leopold elaborates, “The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of a community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land” (Leopold 204). Therefore, an intertwined relationship, mutual respect, and consideration between social, economic, and environmental components of society must be achieved.
Environmental ethics refers to the relationship that humans share with the natural world (Buzzle, 2011), it involves people extending ethics to the natural environment through the exercise of self-discipline (Nash, 1989). Herein the essay will give examples of anthropocentrism and non-anthropocentrism as forms of environmental ethics, criticizing anthropocentrism in contrast with a defence of non- anthropocentrism precedents. Anthropocentrism also referred to as human-centeredness, is an individualistic approach, a concept stating that humans are more valuable, and the environment is only useful for sustaining the lives of human beings (MacKinnon, 2007). The practise of human-centeredness is associated with egocentrism (Goodpaster, 1979), by contrast non-anthropocentrism is a holistic approach
Deforestation results in the loss of biodiversity Deforestation is having its most devastating effect on biodiversity in tropical rainforests. The destruction of millions of hectares of forests by human activities means: • The removal of the bases of numerous food webs • The loss of habitats for many species of flora and
Imagine you live in a world where there are no plants, forest, animals, or oceans all there is in where these things us to be is concrete, landfills of garbage, and buildings. This is what will transpire if we do not protect or wildlife, wildlife conservation is a very important situation as it helps keeps plants and animals off the endangered list. According to the World Wild Life organization there are twenty-six endangered animals and twenty-one critically endangered animals this is very overwhelming as animals are an important part of our environment and ecosystem. With human population increasing at an alarming rate, with the growing rate of humans there is going to be less land for animals and plants, more man-made pollution and plastic debris will go into the oceans, lakes, and streams.
Therefore, we need to think about tomorrow with respect to every action that we take in the environment and in this case we can say that sustainable development requires slower population growth. With this in mind, we need to be educated through our cultures about the impact we caused to the environment as we continue to reproduce. The challenge of environmental ethics has led to the attempt to apply traditional ethical theories, including consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics, to support contemporary environmental concerns; the preservation of biodiversity as an ethical goal; the broader concerns of some thinkers with wilderness, the built environment and the politics of poverty; the ethics of sustainability and climate change, and some directions for possible future developments of the discipline [ CITATION And15 \l 1033 ]. With this multi-dimensional approach one can see that it is more of a cultural issue to think of it from its origin.
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.