A Destructive Civilization : Elizabeth Clark

The post-apocalyptic subject in the film industry is an area that often thrives at the box office. People thoroughly enjoy watching movies that exhibit Earth’s tarnished environment and humans’ last means of survival. At one point of time or another, the scenes in these once fictional movies may come true with the way humans are abusing the planet. Elizabeth Kolbert’s novel, The Sixth Extinction, discusses the five major causes of mass extinction. She alludes human existence as the cause of the next mass extinction. The author cites established chemist, Paul Crutzen, claiming “we are no longer in the Holocene; we are in the Anthropocene” (Kolbert 108). The Anthropocene is human dominated epoch that is disrupting other species’ existence. Of

Chapter one in the book, Human Geography, gives a timeline of the changes that have occurred since the creation of planet Earth. The author, John Rennie Short, explained how truly powerful the earth itself is. It has the ability to wipe out humanity. We often blame nature when natural disasters happen, but perhaps the human race may have something to do with the cause of environmental hazards like volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, and earthquakes.

Abstract. Like all animals, humans have instincts, genetically hard-wired behaviors that enhance our ability to cope with vital environmental contingencies. Our innate fear of snakes is an example. Other instincts, including denial, revenge, tribal loyalty, greed and our urge to procreate, now threaten our very existence. Any attempt to control human behavior is bound to meet with resistance and disapproval. Unless we can change our behavior, humans are facing the end of civilization. Our problem has several elements. (1) We have invented economic and social systems that encourage greedy behavior, and we have actually institutionalized runaway greed. (2) We are in a state of complete denial about the growth of human populations. (3) Earth's

The human race, being as greedy as it is, has greatly reduced this planet's lifespan by wasting resources, like water, on livestock, like cattle, that instead of helping this planet, are damaging it more by increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere worsening the effect of global warming, also causing major droughts like that in California and the drying out of water reserves. Our wastefulness causing the extinction of hundreds of species each day and gradually killing the planet itself. Man is unreasonable and we are the only organisms that hold grudges and feel the need for revenge because of our sense of consciousness. Twain explains this when he says “cats are loose in their morals, but not consciously so. Man in his descent from the cat, has brought the cats looseness with him but has left the unconsciousness behind. The cat is innocent Man is not.” We have a tendency to make decisions we know are not right only to try and make excuses for why we chose the way we did. Humans are natural born con-artist, some more than others, and if we get caught in the wrong we try to prove ourselves innocent all the while knowing you were

In Civilization and Its Discontents, Sigmund Freud composes essentially to look at the relationship between the individual and society. Through Freud's examination of the relationship, a more profound comprehension of the intricacy of mental life is figured it out. Freud starts to add to the relationship ahead of schedule in the work by portraying the most primitive acknowledge of self and the most primitive acknowledge of the outside world. He further adds to this relationship through the pondering of sexual yearning and its associations with adoration, which he claims, lead to the arrangement of families and after that later gatherings of humankind that came to include development all in all. Through inquiries raised concerning society, society, history and the self, Freud has the capacity portray a kind of guide of the brain. This guide Freud delineates further empowers him to build up a comprehension of the relationship in the middle of human advancement and the person.

There have been five major mass extinction on earth triggered by a distinguishable event, but in The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, Elizabeth Kolbert writes of the narrative of the sixth extinction caused directly by human impact. The book identifies the effects of human activity on how, over humans history on earth, the natural world has been affected. Every environmental impact stems into three basic groups of global problems to nature: Pollution, Habitat loss and Invasive Species. Kolbert explains that each impact can be traced back to one source, human industrial development. With each impact various types of life in the natural world are affected. Deforestation, urbanization, and sea level rise contribute to habitat loss worldwide. When humans began to travel they also brought invasive species and disease along with them; as boats only became bigger more and more invasive species travel. This reverse engineering of the planet species, brings new species that don’t have any natural predators, thus having an easier time driving native species out to endangerment or extinction. The different outcomes that come from human pollution is separated throughout the book, but the idea remains constant; with the development of human culture, pollution has drastically impacted a vast extent of species habitats and their environment.

Society as a whole generally neglects preserving nature and Ray Bradbury clearly implies that will be mankind’s biggest flaw. Nature will continue to grow after the human race is exterminated due to our own mistakes. It is common to destroy untouched land to create structures for the desire of business. The human race destroys the environment to better their own lives but fail to recall that nature is needed for our basic survival. Society fails to understand the importance of nature and how it can greatly affect us.

In the introduction, author Joseph T. Hallinan introduces the many ideas of mistakes that he fully covers throughout the book’s chapters. The author begins by describing mistakes and explains that much of the world construction is in such a way, that we expect to see things clearer and remember things better than we actually do. Furthermore, not seeing what is right in front of us is just one of a stunningly large array of shortcomings of the human brain that cause us to error. In Why We Make Mistakes, he provides the reader with an intriguing assortment of such failings. Hallinan explains human beings are partial, overoptimistic, hypercritical, downright irrational creatures of habit who are blissfully unaware of their limitations. All

Never in the history of the human species have we been in such a rapidly changing environment. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, we have been making social, economical, scientific, and environmental changes and advancements at an unprecedented rate. Societal advancements, while much appreciated by the average Joe, have been detrimental to our environment. Every days forests are cut, rivers polluted, and once ecologically important areas are cemented over to compensate for our rapidly growing population. As the status of our natural world becomes more critical by the year it is important that we look at the driving factors and reasons for this destruction of the natural world. While pollutants and globalization are the driving

This is the primary focus behind environmentalist movements of our time. Environmentalists try to take action in an effort to “save our planet.” But what if our planet doesn’t actually have to be saved? What if you were told that the Earth is actually going to flourish once we are gone? And all the efforts taken now to “preserve the Earth” were actually selfish deeds to ensure the survival of humans on this planet? Several post-apocalyptic works such as the novel The World Without Us by Alan Weisman and the CBS Television Series The 100 directed by Jason Rosenburg, describe the Earth as a beautiful prosperous sight after we are gone. In the book The World Without Us, Alan Weisman describes this flourishing natural world after the existence of human kind. He also describes the beautiful dominance that nature has always had on our world. The 100 provides amazing images of the planet 100 years after a nuclear disaster. With the acceptance of these thriving worlds described, our efforts should be focus on the survival of our own species so that we can continue to flourish. In order to ensure the continued survival of our species we must change our ways completely, preserve our resources and lessen the use of pollutants so that nature doesn’t prematurely over power our society.

Much of man's mistakes comes from his unwavering will to achieve what he believes to be beneficial, his ignorance stems from belief in simple absolutes- something more detrimental

It creates natural disasters that can devastate many, and it can bring simple joys such as food. The Earth is ever moving as "It leans and heartens after it, / And grows erect, as that comes home." (Donne l. 31-32). Despite all this movement of the Earth, humans have made a home of it. Yet it destroys us just as we have destroyed its land and seas. Time and time again, we find that the natural disasters come after us when things are calm. Mankind has done so much to her precious glades and wondrous seas. The death and destruction of man is the Earth's retribution; she creates our rising and returns us to our falling point. And just as the Earth is round, her "firmness makes my circle just, / And makes me end where I begun." (Donne l. 35-36). She returns us to dust when all is said and done. Humans have no room to argue for we have doomed a once stunning planet by all of our wars, greed, and pollutants. Many can argue that love is the most harming factor of life, but Earth is our reason for being and our cause for falling. No words can describe how deep our roots go with the Earth, and despite the Earth building humans together; we only tear each other

As Confucius, the famous Chinese philosopher and founder of Confucianism, once said, “The faults of a superior person are like the sun and moon. They have their faults, and everyone sees them; they change and everyone looks up to them.” The truth behind humanity is that it is inevitable to have faults and humanity’s faults is what gives them their diversity. In the literary works Animal Farm and Lord of the Flies, authors George Orwell and William Golding successfully use both animals and children to show the reader the true faults in humanity; whilst comparing the human race to a bunch of children and farm animals.

The Anthropocene, a new geological epoch sounds new for a lot of people. It is an era which indicates the extreme impact of humankind or human-dominated on the earth. This epoch described by scholars that “Geological Era in which human activity has affected the geological flows and forces to such a degree that one can’t remove humans out of the equation” (qtd Steinmann 7). Scholars suggest that the significant impact of humankind intervention in the environment that accelerate the Anthropocene epoch to the peak contributed through mismanagement of the plastic waste, industrial waste particles dispersed on the planet and the release of carbon monoxide gas from large or small scale industries. Those and other non describes human’s mismanaged human activity on the environment is a reason for the unpredictable climate change, high sea level and other natural disasters all over the earth. All signs of the Antropocene era show that humans are able to destruct the environment or can participate in the developments of the environment.

The first reason nature is ending drastically is because of carelessness. Humans started to become careless because they wanted land. They do not care about the beauty of nature and how it will affect us in the future. For example: “The earth is not his brother, but his enemy, and when he has conquered it, he moves on” (Chief Seattle). The more land the humans acquire, the more power they possess. Many people wanted land in order to obtain power, yet they took advantage of other people’s property and claimed it as their own; however, claiming a property that does not belong to a person cannot claim as his own. Another example of such aggression is on Chief Seattle’s essay, “Letter to President Pierce, 1855.” He mentions how a white man hated