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Ethical issue of environmental degradation
Pollution and environmental degradation
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People Affect the Future (Comparing my views and thoughts on the stories “Silent Springs” and “If I Forget Thee, Oh Earth…”) As a society, we focus some of our thoughts on how to preserve the Earth and different ways to recycle and keep it clean. Although we do have an effort into saving our home planet, we, as a whole race, don’t have our hearts in it. There are the people who are obsessive economists and worry about the world excessively and those who don’t care enough or at all. The two stories both present a possible outcome for our lack of effort in preserving the Earth in two different genres, fiction and nonfiction. Of the two stories “Silent Spring” and “If I Forget Thee, Oh Earth…”, the one i felt most affected by was Marvin in, “If …show more content…
The nonfiction story, “Silent Spring” expresses the idea of how we can change the future of the Earth by destroying it with pollution and not taking care and preserving it. “Everywhere was a shadow of death. The farmers spoke of much illness among their families. In the town the doctors had become more and more puzzled by new kinds of sickness appearing among their patients.” (Carson Page 168) Those few sentences catch attention of the readers and make them ponder what happened to the town and why it is the way it is. We all know from reading the whole story that this town is fictional, but the thought of it intrigued more people to have the desire to take care and clean up the Earth. If we were to all take part in the help to keep our Earth clean and waste as little as possible, it will be far off in the future before towns like this ever exist. That change is something we need to make, yet the majority has no motivation to take a step in doing so. The nonfiction atmosphere of this story makes the facts and predictions in the story more straight forward on why we need to change rather than the fiction since it isn’t true and is less believable. The fact that nonfiction is blunt in saying what needs to happen and why is the main reason it is more effective in expressing the
“How to poison the earth” by Linnea Saukko can be seen in two different aspects. The first one would be by looking at it in a literal way, in which it will make it a very harsh, inhumane and cold text. On the other hand, it could be seen as a satire, sarcastic and ironic text in which Saukko expects to catch the reader’s attention. Saukko exaggerates the sarcasm, and satire in her writing in order to make the readers realize and understand the main purpose of her essay, which is to warn readers about threats to the future of our planet.
We humans are selfish and only care about our needs. We have destroyed thousands of plants and animals with our impact. We have cut down many trees and used them as places for buildings. We have killed many animals for food for us to eat. As we keep on doing this we will be on the verge of a food and water disaster. This is bad for our earth, and we should start protecting it. In the book, Flush they show Dusty Muleman dumping lots of poop into the ocean, just to save money. Doing this will spread the disease to the people and destroy the ocean’s reefs. He wants us to know that the human impact on the environment is severe and he shows how we should stand up to protect it and it is our duty as
This quotation opens your eyes, I know of no one who wants to destroy the earth either. The majority of man kind doesn’t think too much about what is happening to the earth due to their actions. When most of us drive a car or spray deodorant we don’t think of the consequences. It is the responsibility of those who create problems to help fix them and prevent them from happening again. In society today it i...
The book is often cited as an environmental classic - of which there can be little doubt - but it is also said by some to have largely triggered the modern environmental movement. Its warning about the dangers of
It is generally agreed that modern environmentalism begins with ‘A Fable for Tomorrow’, the first chapter in Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962). The fairytale-like opening to the book begins with the words, ‘There was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings’, painting a classic pastoral picture where she describes civilization far from modern ills coexisting with nature yet away from the perceived danger of the wild. However pastoral peace swiftly gives way to destruction- 'Then a strange blight crept over the area and everything began to change. Some evil spell had settled on the community: mysterious maladies swept the flocks of chickens; the cattle and sheep
“Silent Spring” consists of research and experiments conducted to see why wildlife was decreasing in various chemically treated areas. Carson was also interested in discovering how these chemicals affect human health as well. Carson first starts our her novel describing a world of green grass and blue skies, complete with singing birds and active wildlife. A world she says, that is what our earth used to consist of before mankind. Carson states that her reasoning for writing this novel was out of curiosity as to why and how our earth became so corrupt. She narrows it down to one reason which is the main foundation for this novel, man-made chemicals are responsible for destroying the purity of nature. “The chemicals to which life is asked to make its adjustment are no longer merely the calcium and silica and copper and all the rest of the minerals...
In 1989, seventy five percent of Americans identified themselves as environmentalists, and the number has continued to grow since then (Walls 1). Environmentalism is now the most popular social movement in the United States, with over five million American families donating regularly to environmental organizations (Walls 1). Environmentalists today focus on what kind of world they hope to see in the future, and largely deal with limiting pollution and changing consumption rates (Kent 1 and 9). Modern environmentalists also have much different issues than those Carson’s America faced. With climate change becoming more threatening each year, protection of the natural world is needed more than ever. Pollution has caused the warmest decade in history, the deterioration of the ozone layer, and species extinction in extreme numbers (Hunter 2). It not only threatens nature, but also human populations, who already suffer from lack of clean water and poisoning from toxic chemicals (Hunter 16). Unlike environmental actions in the 1960’s, which were mostly focused on protection, a massive increase in pollution has caused efforts to be focused on environmental restoration (Hunter 16). Like in the time of Silent Spring, environmentalists are not only concerned with one country. Protecting the environment remains a global issue, and every nation is threatened by the
After the publishing of her book, there were four eras of environmentalism that would forever shape the movement. Each brought something new to the table, whether good or bad. However, as Sale described, the true environmental movement did not begin until there was substantial evidence of global warming. I think that we are in a new era this movement, but the implications of it for now are unknown. From a historical standpoint, we should not take Earth’s warnings for granted and instead should work together to find solutions to make a better Earth. Not only for ourselves, but for future generations to
Americans had knowledge of the events taking place during the war, but Carson shed a light on the ripple effects that the environment was experiencing. Silent Spring brings the focus to different threats that had arisen because of the war. In a way, Carson places the blame for the deterioration of the environment on mankind as a whole. In the past, wars had been fought without any use of nuclear weaponry. Carson’s writing really emphasizes the fault of mankind’s decision to hurt the environment. “Along with the possibility of extinction of mankind by nuclear war, the central problem of our age has therefore become the contamination of man’s total environment with such substances of incredible potential for harm – substances that accumulate in the tissues of plants and animals and even penetrate the germ cells to shatter or alter the very material of heredity upon which the shape of the future depends.” (Carson, 181). The writing technique Carson uses in Silent Spring has a way of making the reader feel guilty, especially considering that at the time of publication there was so much environmental destruction occurring. Carson’s writing helped to educate the American population of the harm to the environment caused by the Cold War. Because the war’s dangerous strategies provided such a strong backbone for Carson’s argument, the American public was very receptive of the content and themes presented in Silent
The world is categorized into many ecospheres, among all, water and land. Upon further analysis, it is evident that both nature and humanity are interdependent. However, our anthropocentric views on the world have led to a golden age of mass production, accelerating beyond natures ability to regenerate itself. In the late 1950s nature was not seen as an item of importance, during the time civilization was captured by the topic of civil rights for the human being, rather than the detrimental natural surroundings. Often times, society does not utilize all the resources provided by the environment and can fall into the mindset of hurting the environment without knowing the full consequences. In Silent Spring, Rachel Carson exposes the hidden
I always loved to go out into the forest and wander around hoping to find something magical hiding in its depths. I always saw nature as something to be respected and taken care of. However nowadays we live in a world where nobody cares about mother earth and nature, therefore causing global warming and greenhouse gases. Due to the ever increasing gas emissions in our atmosphere, it is causing many people across the globe to suffer. For example, when I went to Somalia in 2009, I had not experience any kind of rain for a year. It was one of the worst drought Somalia have ever seen, and unfortunately I was a victim of it. I would remember myself herding the goats for my grandmother, in search of grass so that the goats could eat and gain weight. However that was not possible due to the drought, and in the end my grandmother was left with no goats. People lack to understand that this world is ours, and if we don’t take care of it then our kids won’t have a world to live in. Most people are ungrateful and fail to recognize our duty as a human beings living on planet earth. There are high increases in tornado’s, and other natural disasters due to global warming. For example just last week a rare tornado hit Sydney, causing cricket ball-sized hail, and winds up to 200 km. It is reported that Australia is experiencing an El Nino weather pattern, therefore causing extreme droughts, storms, and floods. John Muir hinted
William Cronon tells the “story” of postmodern environmental history and postmodern historian's various methods of narrative discourse: “As often happens in history, they [conflicting accounts] make us wonder how two competent authors looking at identical materials drawn from the same past can reach such divergent conclusions” (2). What Cronon is saying is simple; history can be told from different viewpoints. Furthermore, in his example of the case of the history of the Dust Bowl, Cronin argues that the narrative form breathes life into otherwise seemingly meaningless accounts by pitting humanity against what we call “Mother Nature”. It seems to me that, without the human element of the story, we, as humans, are not all that interested in the natural elements. For example, storms like Hurricane Katrina and Sandy come and go. Yet, without people in the story, the stories hold no significance to humans. The thought a thousand lives lost resonates in the memory more than the loss of a thousand acres of uninhabited land. It is how the chr...
Our world is often referred to as our home. We need it to survive, and it provides us with the resources that we need to live our lives as comfortably as we do. Yet, we don’t often take the time to consider our impact on our environment. Let’s say our earth is “literally” a house, could you live in a home that has been routinely and permanently damaged, sprayed full of insecticides, and even torn apart for someone’s personal use? This Idea is represented in Rachel Carson’s book “Silent Spring”.
Rae’s poem “One world down the drain” and Margaret Atwood’s narrative “Chicken Little goes too far” address the issue of “the sky is falling” or “[the] world [going] down the drain”, metaphoric ways of referring to global warming. Both pieces of writing discuss the negligence of human beings in the battle against global warming and CO2 that has caused it. There are many similarities between the two pieces of writing as they both express concern and criticism toward people’ denial to environmental complication. However, there are also a lot of differences amongst them. ‘Chicken Little goes too far” is written in a slightly humorous way in order to mock businesses of ruining the earth in their race for profit. The story also criticises the “stuck-up”
In “The Day After Tomorrow” a climatologist’s warning of the possibility of massive cataclysmic climate changes caused by global warming go unheeded. His predictions of the consequences of such actions just so happen to occur sooner than anyone had ever expected. This movie served as the ultimate example what could happen if as a world community we do not clean up our acts. Continued consumption of nonrenewable resources, increased carbon dioxide emissions and further depletion of the Ozone layer could though most likely not on the scale illustrated occur in one form or another. The moral of this film is summed up by Dennis Quaid’s character in the last scene when he mutters his last few lines stating that hopefully humani...