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My view of environmentalism
My view of environmentalism
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Derrick Jensen, born in 1960 is a writer and environmental activist who was against capitalism and western civilization. In the article “ Forget Shorter Showers” Jensen is talking about Environmentalism. He specifically states that individuals will not change the environment very much if that individual wants to get something done they should work with a group of other individuals with the same views. Jensen talks about three different subjects water, energy and waste. Which are three main parts of the environment. Having the background of being an environmental activist helped prepare Jensen to write about the environmental issues in the world. In the article “forget the showers” the author makes his writing very clear and straight to the
Efficiency is not always the answer, according to David Owen, in his novel The Conundrum, explains that society is headed in the wrong direction, believing that to be greener we need to make our everyday lives more efficient when in reality we need to change our behavior. As consumers, people want to be sustainable and preserve the Earth while greedily expanding our collection of trinkets. Efficiency can be beneficial, but to make the world a greener one, it is essential for people to change their behavior, not efficiency of the products.
Jared Diamond is born in Boston on 1937. He is a physiologist, ecologist, and a prolific writer. Diamond has published hundreds of articles that is about science. Not only that Diamond is a writer, but he also received his Bachelor’s Degree at Harvard University in 1958 and PHD at Cambridge University in 1961. Diamond is currently working at UCLA as a professor of geography and physiology. He has done many research about ecology and the evolutionary of biology in New Guinea and many other southwest Pacific islands. Diamond has done many projects in his career. He is also a field researcher and director of the World Wildlife Fund. No only he published hundreds of articles, but he also wrote many essay in his life. One of his essay that he shared to the public is called, “The Last Americans: Environmental Collapse and the End of Civilization.” Diamond wrote this essay on June 2003. The essay that Diamond wrote is about the environment and how it is failing miserably.
“The modern form of the word environment comes from an older word that we hardly use anymore: environ, to surround, to form a ring around, to encircle” (Stoll 3). The meaning of the word environment did not become a major factor in the lives of humanity until 1945. The tragic events that led to the end of World War II sparked a chief movement in history: American Environmentalism. Global decision-making changed as well as human unity due to the mere purpose that fate of all people and the environment became intertwined (Stoll 1). I will further discuss the dramatic attempts made by some Americans to bring the importance of preserving our environment to the surface to show if and how we have evolved.
In Michael Pollan’s “Why Bother?” Pollan argues that each person can contribute to helping to the environment by erasing their carbon footprints. In my everyday life I experience the choice of driving my car to work or riding my bike. More often than not I choose to drive my car because it is the easier option. I, along with many other people, believe that my individual impact will not cause a larger impact on the global scale. In Pollan’s essay, he makes each person think about the effect they are leaving on the environment and how each person, as an individual, can change his ways before it is too late. Wendell Berry, a naturalist and well-respected and influential writer, was a key factor in recognition of the environmental crisis and how to solve the problem.
He delves into the history of the word “environmental” as well as the history of environmental activism. He pinpoints the beginning of the movement to Rachel Carson. According to Quammen, she began the revolution by publishing her book Silent Spring. He says the negative connotations of the word began with her book, pairing “environment” and “the survival of humankind” as if they go hand in hand. This played a major role in the distortion of the word and the intentions of environmentalists.
The modern lifestyle, full of one time use items and pollution generating machines, is harming our environment, and, without a plan, the death of our planet is certain. Environmentalist and author, Derrick Jensen uses a comparison of possible outcomes to persuade his readers to take action that would help stop climate change; political resistance is his preferred and recommended course of action for his audience. Throughout his essay, “Forget Shorter Showers”, Jensen makes clear his desire to reduce or even reverse the effects industrialization (476-478). He advocates an approach where society makes changes to industry and to government over the current methods of voluntary
A graduate of Harvard and the former editor of the Harvard Crimson, Bill McKibben joined the New Yorker in 1982 as a staff writer right out of college. His parents had been writers, and he always thought he would follow in his father’s footsteps as a “newspaper” man. Oblivious as any to environmental predicaments, the course of his career—and life really—changed after writing an extensive piece where he literally tracked down where everything was made in his apartment. Travelling around for this piece introduced him to the “real world,” and in 1987 he left the New Yorker to live in the Adirondack Mountains with his fiancé (“McKibben, Bill”). This is where he wrote his first book, The End of Nature; a book that pushed him into the environmental limelight and provided a basis for all his other works.
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
Nordhaus, Ted, and Michael Shellenberger. Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2007. Print.
As cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead once said “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; Indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.” In an excerpt from an essay published in the New York Times Magazine, American public intellectual Michael Pollan reveals his goal to convince the ordinary of citizens America that they are capable of saving the world from climate change and to answer the unappeasable question of “Why bother?”. This inquiry stems from the belief that one person is not capable of making a difference in relation to the larger spectrum of Americans who continue to emit a large amount of C02, increasing the effects of climate change, and destroying the environment. Through the exploration of behavior change, and other personal alternatives aimed to reduce America 's carbon footprint, Pollan aspires to have
The author shares a personal observation in the beginning of her article, that has to do with
In “A Rainy Morning” by Ted Kooser, we get a lot of imagery, as well as figures of speech, specifically metaphors. This poem through the use of an extended metaphor helps us to see life and our everyday actions into a new perspective. Here we will examine the poem’s language and imagery to help understand what the theme of “A Rainy Morning” is.
The sentence structure and diction used in the author’s work provides the reader with the overall sense of an
The protection of the environment however has just recently become the major issue that it is in today’s society. People worldwide have slowly begun to realize and become aware of the blatant destruction and deterioration of the environment and ozone. As well as the consequences and side affects, that we, as a society have created. The majority of people are just becoming aware of the frightening reality of the situation. As society becomes more informed on the issue of the environment, they too become more impatient, and feel that in the snap of fingers, the damage can be reversed and future damage can be stopped instantaneously.
Many people assume that the environment is not in danger. They believe that as technology advances, we do not need to worry about renewing natural resources, recycling, and finding new ways to produce energy. They state that one person in the world does not make a large difference. In reality, each individual's contribution greatly affects our environment. Our natural resources are slowly disappearing, and we must work together to save them and the Earth from ruin.