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Civilize the Wilderness
Wilderness, why civilize it? This is an interesting question, and one that is hard to answer. Why not just leave the wilderness alone, and let it grow and decide it's own beginnings and ends? Does civilizing the wilderness make it better or worse? In what ways is it better or worse if we leave it alone or it we civilize it? These are all excellent questions and are all worthwhile to think about.
Western culture has tried to civilize the wilderness for quite sometime now, but is it really something we should be doing? In the point of view of many, the wilderness should be civilized to accommodate for the increasing number of people in the world. We should also civilize it because we need the extra room and because we cannot live in uncivilized areas of the wilderness, at least not with all of the comforts of home. What effects will civilizing the wilderness now have in the future? Many questions can arise when contemplating civilizing the wilderness.
The wilderness is being civilized for one main reason. That reason is technology. Technology plays an important role in everyone's lives today.
Without it, we would not have computers, fax machines, cellular phones, and all of the modern conveniences that we have today. The fact is, that many people believe that the wilderness is like an unborn country. A country that has nothing and is striving to become more advanced. We see this as an opportunity to better it and make it seem like we are actually helping. But, are we really helping? In my opinion, no. I feel that we are destroying something natural and something of beauty.
In many ways we are making the wilderness worse by civilizing it. We put unnatural objects into the wilderness, and it destroys the wilderness' natural beauty. Thoreau's ideal is to pretty much leave the wilderness as it is.
If you need to inhabit it, don't use anything that does not come from within it.
For example, Thoreau built his cabin from the trees that were in the wilderness that surrounded it. In this way, civilizing the wilderness is okay. The way we are civilizing it, is not okay. Too just clear-cut an entire forest, then build a house, an in ground swimming pool, and put up a satellite dish, is not exactly ideal to keeping the wilderness natural.
To destroy the beauty of the wilderness by civilizing it in the way that
From the prologue through chapter one in “Wilderness and the American Mind”, the author emphasizes the affect wilderness had on the Europeans during the colonization of America. In today’s society, we are familiar with the concept of wilderness but few of us have experienced the feeling of being encapsulated in the unfamiliar territory. Today we long for wilderness, crave it even. We use it as an outlet to escape the pace of life. However, we have a sense of safety that the Europeans did not. We are not isolated in the unfamiliar, help is usually a phone call away. Though we now view the wilderness as an oasis because we enter at our own terms, in the early colonial and national periods, the wilderness was an unknown environment that was viewed as evil and dangerous.
Cronon, William “The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature” ed., Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1995, 69-90
According to Black Elk, his people should follow the "good red road". In his vision, he could see a beautiful land where many, many people were camping in a great circle. They were happy and had plenty. Their drying racks were full of meat and the air was clean and beautiful with a living light everywhere. Around the circle were fat and happy horses. Animals of all kinds were scattered over the hills and hunters were returning with their meat. The flowering tree was in the center of the circle, all green and full of flowers (pg. 186).
In Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer explores the human fascination with the purpose of life and nature. Krakauer documents the life and death of Chris McCandless, a young man that embarked on an Odyssey in the Alaskan wilderness. Like many people, McCandless believed that he could give his life meaning by pursuing a relationship with nature. He also believed that rejecting human relationships, abandoning his materialistic ways, and purchasing a book about wildlife would strengthen his relationship with nature. However, after spending several months enduring the extreme conditions of the Alaskan wilderness, McCandless’ beliefs begin to work against him. He then accepts that he needs humans, cannot escape materialism, and can never fully understand how nature functions. Most importantly, he realizes that human relationships are more valuable than infinite solitude. McCandless’ gradual change of heart demonstrates that exploring the wilderness is a transformative experience. Krakauer uses the life and death of Chris McCandless to convey that humans need to explore nature in order to discover the meaning of life.
The Scientific Revolution took place in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. It was not a "revolution" in the classic sense as it did not involve rapid political changes nor large numbers of people, but it was revolutionary in the sense that it completely changed people's way of thinking and their outlook on the world we live in. It was definitely one of the most important events in history as it marked the birth of modern science. With the Scientific Revolution, man became more curious about nature. He wanted to learn more about natural phenomena and the mechanisms of nature, and he also adopted a new method for the study of nature.
and doing it in a quarter where it is least justifiable? Are we or are we not
Important aspects of naturalism are the ideas that people are essentially animals responding to their basic urges without rational thought, and the insignificance of man to others and nature. In The Jungle, Sinclair portrays Jurgis as a man slowly changing into animal as well as a man whose actions are irrelevant to the rest of the corrupt capitalist world of Chicago in order to show the reader the naturalist ideas of the struggles between man and society.
In Robert Frost's "The Need of Being Versed in Country Things," the speaker provides the readers with a juxtaposition between humans and nature. In the poem, a farmhouse was burned down, yet the reactions of humans and of nature to this tragedy are completely opposite. Frost, an avid advocate of nature over society, attempts to show his readers how nature essentially triumphs over mankind through its strength, resiliency to tragedies, and resourcefulness of what seems to be broken down and beyond help. Frost uses personification, anthropomorphizing, and the idea of cycles along with the contrasting responses of nature and man to their disruption to fully convey to the readers nature's dominance over humans.
The human intelligence. The definition of intelligence is the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills. Every human in the world has intelligences, however with different developed level. Intelligence is important because it play a role as the human basis of survival. If there is no intelligence, all the money, communication and technology in the world won’t help, it will be like a dead world. If we human live in this world without
not sure most people are aware of this. It is supposedly our main concern to
society. As Mr. Mahatma Gandhi states “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not
Before we start I think it is important that I clarify what we mean by
One of the problems facing our world is population. It began about ten thousand years ago when the humans settled and began farming. The farming provides more food for the people thus making the population grow. Now we are about 6 billion in population and in a few years we will be around 10 to 11 billion. Therefore, our population will almost double in size. This means that we will need more food to support us. A study in 1986 by Peter Vitonesk, a Stanford biologist, showed that the humans are already consuming about 38.8 of what is possible for us to eat. Thus, if the population keeps increasing, the percentage will increase also, making us closer and closer to the biophysical limits. By studying the earth's capacity, Dr. Cornell, another biologist, believes that we are already crowded for this would. He believes that our world can only support two million people. Not only this, but population can cause complicated problems to the countries with very high population. These countries will need more schools to educate its people, they will need more hospitals and public health to take care of their people, and they will need more water and more soil for farming to feed all the people. In order to solve the population growth problem, the people should be educated. Once the people are educated they will be aware of the problems they ca...
Throughout history, many individuals wish to discover and explain the relationship between nature and society, however, there are many complexities relating to this relationship. The struggle to understand how nature and society are viewed and connected derives from the idea that there are many definitions of what nature is. The Oxford dictionary of Human Geography (2003), explains how nature is difficult to define because it can be used in various contexts as well as throughout different time and spaces. As a result of this, the different understandings of what nature is contributes to how the nature society relationship is shaped by different processes. In order to better understand this relation there are many theorists and philosophers
The reduction of the Earth's resources has been closely linked to the rise in human population. For many thousands of years people lived in relative harmony with their surroundings. Population sizes were small, and life-supporting tools were simple. Most of the energy needed for work was provided by the worker and animals. Since about 1650, however, the human population has increased dramatically. The problems of overcrowding multiply as an ever-increasing number of people are added to the world's population each year.