STSO paper 1 PDF

Preview

Summary

paper 1 directions and example essay...

Description

Jade Mullen Intro to Environmental Studies Paper 1: Leopold vs self natural values September 14th, 2019

Compare your values with Leopold's: Is the ability to see geese more important to you than television? Are you one who can live without wild things or one who cannot? How do various groups in American society currently determine the value of wild things? How is this demonstrated? How do disagreements about values play out? For this first value I feel quiet split. While I could live without televisions, if you replace that with “internet” I might have to lean away from the geese, that is if I am somewhere where geese are abundant and seen often. If I was able to see something rarer or out of the ordinary, I would probably choose the animal, only if it were temporary. At the end of the day I can “live” without wild things as much as I can “survive” without them, so I see them as a luxury that I will use sparingly. When comparing whether I would like to live more on the “wild” side of things I say no, because the wild is much less convenient than the tame and ordinary, and therefore it is much more attractive as I, and many other people are attracted to the dangerous, rare, and unique. However, when something that once seemed rare is seen too often it loses its luster, and just becomes ordinary again, and then I find myself being able to live without it more and more. Many current government figures seem to only find the financial value in wilderness, although there are branches that exist to “protect” wildlife, at the end of the day all they want is to organize and profit. If you sum it up that’s what a government job is, to protect through organization in order to profit. If you think about it, that is kind of an oxymoron, you cannot 7

“organize” the wild, or you destroy everything at makes it unique and attractive. Think about the problem of invasive species. As a biology major, I am a strong believer in the natural order of nature, and all things have a timeline for existence. By trying to control and eradicate invasive species it destroys the opportunity for evolution, adaption, and a broader biodiversity eventually resulting in stagnation. This also makes the modern use of the word “nature” untasteful as it is a word that refers to the unnatural, and to an ecosystem that is not everchanging or world, as life should be, but people seem to think all natural was “balanced” long before the existence of humans, that nature encourages mutual dependence, when in fact, all the word “nature” is is an elaborate lie tricking us into thinking that people in these so called “conservation organizations” exist to help the environment, when all they are doing is preserving it, so that hundreds and maybe thousands of years from now people can look back and see the “nature of the 21st centry” preserved in a glass box in a giant museum. These museums not only containing our environment but all others in various states of decay. Back to the topic, Truly the debate over the meaning of what’s “natural” values gets displayed in the most unnatural way possible. Everything we do, all of these movements, acts, bills, regulations, they all play out the same way. All through peaceful protests and discussion rather than a more harsh, aggressive acts of power and passion. It is a bit ironic that we use the “natural” aggressive ways to deal with the most unnatural things like terrorism, corruptions, government disputes, and all other unnatural occurrences, yet we become much more passive when it comes to the threats of our “natural” world. Eveolution found the most fitted and strongest species by smashing them into one another, not by placing them in a room together and making them calmly talk it out. We have destroyed the very thing we have been pushing so hard to rebuild. We weren’t aggressive

7

enough, and because of that evolution, nature, and the natural world is slowly dying, and when it does that blood will be on our human hands.

Leopold talks about the need to "get the company back in step." Who is the company? What does Leopold suggest might be needed for the company to get back in step? Has the definition of conservation changed or stayed the same since Leopold's time? In the first paragraph, Leopold talks about company as the people who can live without the wild entirely, or at least believe they can. He also says that “we abuse the land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us.” When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect." This is what he says must happen for "land to survive the impact of mechanized man." Basically Leopold is saying in order to “get the company back in step” we need to take a step back and realize that we do not own nature, in fact nature owns us and we are just a small part of an unfathomably big community of trees, plants, animals, humans, and all other sorts of things. We need to treat the outside world with respect, along with respecting one another, or we will just fall back into a never-ending circle or destructive behavior that at some point will be too much to come back from. As far as the changing meaning of conservation I believe that the meaning has changed drastically throughout time. In Leopold’s time, conservation was the main focus on making sure the earth was healthy and forever flourishing, but today that has turned into a world meaning nothing more than “preservation”. Preservation is not conservation, when I think preservation, I think of shoving things into a glass box, or pumping them full of chemicals to freeze them in whatever state of decay they may be in. That’s not conservation, that’s an excuse to keep abusing the natural world 7

and using it for our own selfish purposes. Preserving “wilderness” isn’t the natural way, why shove something in glass when you could help it live on forever? The problem with simply “helping things live on forever” falls onto individuals rather than groups. Sure, there are activist groups whos purpose is to save the coral reefs, or the turtles, or animals in general, but those groups actually only make up a small part of our population. The ever-growing problems with carbon emissions, deforestation, and pollution can only be resolved fully if we all come to our senses and realize just how much damage we are doing, but that is not an easy thing for every person to grasp. As I mentioned in an earlier paragraph, What does Leopold refer to when he talks about “community” in the essay? Who is part of your community? Your family, friends, neighbors? Does it include the trees in your yard or the birds at your feeder? How about the soil in your garden? How have attitudes toward the natural world changed since Leopold’s time? Since the first settlers arrived in America? In all human history? When Leopold talks about “community” he talks about the groups we have connections with, the people and things that play an intimate part in our lives. Our family, friends, pets, neighbors, and all other people we feel connected to. But also, everything that is around us that connects us to one another, the animals, the plants, the trees. We would not be able to have these connections if we didn’t have an earth to have them on, and we would have the earth without all of these natural things around. My community consists of my friends, family, pets, and really anyone I have extended contact with. These people care about me and I care about them. I would not be able to have the life I have without them in it. Animals plan a significant role in my idea 7

of community as well. My pets and some of the animals in nature that I see serve as a stress reliver and they show me that the simplest things in life can mean the most. Animals are so important, because even if you feel like no one wants to listen to you or help you with your struggles, animals will comfort you without judgment, they love you simply because they do, they do not need any more reason than that. As far as soil goes, I can’t say I have ever had a conversation with the soil in my garden, or any soil for that matter. I have never spoken to it and it has never spoken to me. I may not be able to talk to the soil, but I know it is important to the in working of all communities as it is part of the earth that we form these connection on, but as far as it being an actual part of my community I tend to make connections with things and people I can talk to or feel connected with at some level. That’s not to say I do not “consider” things that I don’t talk to important to my communities, but a community is usually something that you make between members that share feelings, values, morals, and perspectives. We must all step back and think about what needs to exist outside of the human/animal connections in order for communities to function. First off, if there is no food or water things cannot exist and if nothing exists there cannot be any communities at all. Next, outside of my own community there are millions of other communities that make up the world ranging in size from herds of elephants to tiny colonies of worms deep underground, and all of these are connected to one another in one way or another. Sure, elephants and worms don’t talk to each other, but the worms are a main contributor to fertilization to fungi and other small plants, and the elephants eat the plants, so they are helping each other therefore I would consider them to be part of the same community. At the end of the day the idea of “community” is summed up according to your own perception, and whether you

7

consider trees and soil as part of your community is reliant on if you think about things in a smaller scale or just in the “things that I can talk to” scale like I do. Has the attitude towards the natural world changed since Leopold’s time? Yes, it has, and it has taken a change for the worse. Now I don’t believe there is such a thing as a “bad ideal” but there are certainly destructive ones. There seems to be a shockingly low number of ideals at all as of recent, and any that have been recently surfacing have been increasingly petty. I can say with hundred percent certainty that the lifestyle that Leopold has described is disappearing. Everyday more and more people are ignoring the things that are important in place of petty, selffocused things. Nature has been placed on the back burner and has been replaced by money, money, and more money. When looking at the settler times. This really depends on where you look. In America, there was a revolution. People with power were people with land, so land expansion and ownership were top priority. Land was seen as the ultimate status symbol, and if you owned it you were seen as a “higher power” of sorts. After this we can jump ahead to the industrial revolution, when technology was now the top priority and quickly replace the “natural”. I see it like this, you cannot have a nature appreciating society with capitalism as a default, and all alternatives have problems of their own. For instance, communism, where everyone is “equal” ... but some people are more equal than others. The bottom line is that when there are other things blocking your minds (money, power, greed, etc.) there is no way that we can see the true power of nature, and how we are slowly wildling away the only thing that stands between us and a barren, unlivable, post-apocalyptic wasteland.

7

Sources: “Conservation, Preservation and Environmental Activism: A Survey of the Historical Literature.” National Parks Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/hisnps/NPSThinking/nps-oah.htm. Leopold, Aldo, et al. A Sand County Almanac: and, Sketches Here and There. Land Ethic Press, 2007. Plumer, Brad. “Humans Are Speeding Extinction and Altering the Natural World at an 'Unprecedented' Pace.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 6 May 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/06/climate/biodiversity-extinction-united-nations.html.

7...