Paul Wapner The Changing Nature Of Nature

Rachel Carson’s Man and the Stream of time possesses enlightening perspectives of nature that have been marinating in her mind for ten years. Her writing reflects upon the effects that man has on nature and the role he plays in the ever changing environment. Her sole observation is that it is man’s nature to want to conquer the world, but nature is not one to be conquered. The writer affirms that nature is an entity that must be dignified, Like English poet Francis Thompson said, “Thou canst not stir a flower without troubling of a star.” Most environmentalist would agree that nature is not stationary, we cut the trees now today, its not just the trees that disappear ten years from now. As humanity advances, we create a multitude of

“The End of Nature,” by Bill McKibben is a startling book of non-fiction depicting the future in store for the environment and humans. His somber yet hopeful approach allows readers to sense the real intensity of this situation of mass environmental changes whilst remaining expectant of the advancements in the

Anthropocene is a term used to describe earth’s history including when humans dominated a majority of natural processes globally. Anthropocence was a term used throughout the article to discuss the impact humankind had on the environment that caused many changes that had a negative impact over many years. Another term used was anthrones, the human footprint, which describes how much human kind has made lasting impassions on the earth. These terms have made me come to the realization anthropology operates at the crossroads of social and physical sciences, along with humanities to examine the diversity of humankind across many cultures and time.

The audience of this book is presumed to be the general person who is not fully intact with the ideas that he or she is disrupting the ecosystem and is not aware of the effects they are doing as a whole. The book argues that no ecosystem is completely inert as things such as climate changes or drought can also affect the enviorment. Without human interaction an environment can still have issues, but the introduction of human life and economy does take a grave toll on the climate. These are irreversible effects that mankind are doing to the ecosystem. The English

The Western world is the dominant society with specific parameters for modernity, which understands nature-people relationships from a perspective that is grounded on human domination over the environment. Nature is regarded as a provider of resources (e.g. oil, timber, cupper, rubber, etc.) for the profit and greed of a market-based economy that seeks infinite development. Consequently, the human-nature relationships are subject-object, implying

Contemporary scientist Edward O. Wilson captures the opposing viewpoints of environmentalism based discourses through satirical language. In Wilson’s literary work The Future of Life, the author, by use of candid tone, frequent hyperbole and an appeal to pathos, is able to satirize the unproductiveness of such discussions.

Though, stratigraphic conventions presently place the modern world in the Holocene epoch, it is unlikely this classification persists for much longer. As human environmental impacts continue to grow exponentially, it has become increasingly obvious that mankind is no longer a captive participant in the global ecosystem. Instead, throwing off the shackles of environmental determinism, humans have fundamentally altered their relationship with nature, becoming agents of environmental change unlike any the world has witnessed before. This new era, defined by our environmental actions, christened the “Anthropocene,” has become progressively more popular since its inception in the late 1800s. Yet, despite its pervasiveness in today’s scientific literature,

Since 1975, society has pushed for greater protection and conservation of depleted areas to reduce the anthropocentric impact on ecology. The need to protect areas from globalisation and “human violence” (Cronon 1995, p.19) is due to the over extraction of natural materials. The overuse of materials from the natural realm has devastating effects on the biodiversity of the land due to the lack of replenishment once resources have been extracted. Berkes (2004) presents this notion of community-based conservation, referring to conservation and development being simultaneously achieved. In theory, this allows the interest of both the natural and human world to be fulfilled although in reality there would be large displacements between the needs of conservation and development (Berkes 2004). The worlds movement into the anthropocene era creates strife between the protection of the environment in contrast to the capitalist influence of development. Paige et al. (2006) conceptualises nature and culture dichotomy disempowering each other as an ultimatum is presented referring to excluding the anthropocene from the land or placing unrealistic standards in which one must achieve. It is believed that the simultaneous development of the world and protection of nature is achievable although many critics, such as Paige, demonstrate another truth, being the natural world and the anthropocene cannot co-exist. Sarkar (1999) discusses overconsumption of the wilderness and

The connection between humans and nature is very weak. Due to future advancement we are basically losing our grip on reality, which brings up the point of destruction to nature that we are not aware of. At one point in time nature was the most beautiful thing you could ever witness. Now people exploit it for money. They are selling land, resources, even water for a profit. They don’t think twice or blink an eye at the damage they cause. The disconnect is so huge the debate of protecting the earth is treated as a forbidden topic. “Second, environmental injustices critics challenge the mainstream environmental idea of what environmental problems are in the first place. They say its focused on the beautiful outdoors, it has anti-urban bias, it isn’t engaged enough with artificial human environments like neighborhoods and workplaces” (Purdy 4) That just baffles me how you can turn the place we call home and the wellness of it to a political debate when all we should want to do is preserve it.

Some humans spend their time obsessing over super-heroes while others are obsessing over saving the planet but is there a possible super- power capable of doing so? As emphasized in “Man and Nature” written in 2002 by George Perkins Marsh, a key figure to the commencement of environmentalism (“George Perkins Marsh”, 2015), mankind has done its fair share of destroying nature’s functionality with expectations of a futile environment in return. Although there are constant changes occurring to the environment and the policies having to do with the environment, this article addresses issues that have continued to depress throughout the years. Some of the main aspects and issues addressed in Marsh’s article include the comparison of human vs. animal impact on the environment, changes that have begun to take place although they need a further power to fully improve, protection that needs to be put into place on pastures and land that have yet to be used, the search of a solution to balance the rainfall in each different kind of climate and biome and the need to be able to differentiate changes occurring because of human actions or because of geological actions.

Dinosaurs were once the earth’s kings and megalodons the sea’s rulers, yet both of these seemingly unstoppable species fell to an even greater power: extinction. Now humans reside at the top, but as another extinction threatens earth’s ecosystem, humans and billions of other plants and animals may perish similarly to the many species before them. Alexander Pyron explores the degree to which humans should preserve biodiversity and endangered species in his article “We don’t need to save endangered species. Extinction is part of evolution.” Pyron writes to convince conservationists that their fear of a mass extinction of biodiversity is unwarranted. Through stipulating key definitions, example-based evidence, and an appeal to the value of biodiversity, Alexander Pyron persuades his audience that humans should have a greater emphasis on saving themselves rather than endangered species.

Over the course of history, many scientist experts have raised the fright and panic about population numbers that only increase every year. According to the Living Planet Report, “the Living Planet Index (LPI), which measures more than 10,000 representative populations of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish, has declined by 52 per cent since 1970.” Population sizes of different species in the world has dropped by at least half. Some of these species are the living things that establishes the fabric of the ecosystems which sustain life on Earth. “In the following two centuries, the population increased at an annual growth rate of 6 per 1,000, reaching 2.5 billion by 1950. In the following five decades, it has more than doubled, at a growth rate of 18 per 1,000 to reach more than 6 billion in 2000. The world population will reach 8 billion to 10 billion by the year 2030” (Robbins, 130). Today, we are using and taking so much from our ecosystems and natural processes, we are actually exposing and exploiting our own very existence on Earth. Nature preservation and sustainable ecological development complement each other. They are just as much about protecting the future of humanity – our well-being, economy, food security, and social stability.

Environmentalism is not a new concept. It is a social movement or philosophy that aims to protect and improve the health of the environment. While humans have accepted this view of environmentalism for living in the Holocene epoch, political environmentalist Paul Wapner proposes a renewed definition of environmentalism that has emerged in the Anthropocene epoch. Wapner sees the Anthropocene as an epoch of human geological influence, where humans have inflicted a signature on the earth leaving it “independent of human experience” (2). That is to say, humans have embedded themselves into the earth systems, resulting in a new form of nature that is not autonomous, but rather defined by a hybrid human-nature relationship. This concept of a human-nature hybridity is the foundation for Wapner’s argument of an environmentalism that embraces the post-nature age and calls for a “more sustainable, just and ecologically healthy” (15) future.

The term “Anthropocene” became environmental jargon when Nobel laureate and chemist, Paul Crutzen, made the term prominent in the early 2000s. He debates that the matter of “mankind’s growing influence on the planet” means that scientists and engineers face a “daunting task” of “guiding society” (Crutzen 2002). It 's possible to set the starting point of the Anthropocene during the current Holocene epoch. The concept is based off on the agricultural revolution. The use of agriculture as a means of attaining food for the first civilized societies initiated a constant rise in carbon dioxide that has since then changed Earth’s natural climatic cycles. This potential base is controversial, though. The spread of agriculture varied across locations and occurred at different times and an interval of time should be recognizable on a global scale.

The discipline of Environmental History is found within various books, and many times these books do not use this history as their only starting point. By combining a multitude of studies and methodologies, authors explore the aspects of the environment and nature along with human interaction to understand how they commingle, affecting one another. In the following four books, scholars from varying backgrounds approach environmental history in a variety of ways in order to prove their thesis. Their methodologies form their thought process and lead to the structure of these books. By digging deeper into this process, revealing their intentions, enabling readers to understand how methodology fuels the writing process, creating an argument, and producing valuable work.