A Short History Of Progress Summary

Chelsea Vowel's book "The Myth of Progress" (2016), explains that Canada has a long way to go to overcome the harmful and prevalent stereotypes about Indigenous people. The author supports this argument by discussing how the portrayal of Indigenous peoples in Canadian media has hardly changed over the last 200 years. Based on the language and subject matter, it's clear that the intended audience of this piece is Canadians both Indigenous and non-Indigenous.

Since the dawn of mankind, clusters of innovations throughout history have allowed for societal progression at an explosive rate. While primarily fostering a centrifugal system of advancements; humans’ interests in expansion is spiraling out of control. Throughout history elements of collapse can be traced through civilizations and natural resources. Wright’s argument posits humans have hyperextended their utilization of resources at a rate that cannot be replenished, therein by setting up the world for the largest ecological collapse in history (Wright, 2004, pg. 130-131). Due to the cyclical process of past collapse and reformation humans have an advantage to rectify our current consumption rates ultimately avoiding a fate similar to past societies (Wright, 2004, pg. 131). As such Wright’s argument should frame larger discussions of responsible citizenship.

As Wright grew up and became a young adult, his thoughts and ideas continued to develop. He began to realize that a young man like him had so much potential in the world. When he began to read H.L Mencken’s literature, he started to realize the potential and opportunities he had, but he also became conscious of the people and things around him (Mahony). At this point, he comes to the

I believe it is a combination of a decreasing amount of resources and an increasing population that will impact future human societies. As the population increases, it is necessary to increase the amount of food to feed them and structures to house them. This increase adds to the amount of resources that are consumed. Some countries have a decreasing population while other countries are doubling their population. Mainly it is the poorer countries that have the higher population rates. However, the amount of resources consumed by the countries is different. The wealthier countries consume more resources than poorer

Theodore Roosevelt mentions how in the early ages how the rise of savage civilization. He mention how even in the BCE and in the AD they still had some occasional set-backs . He says how we are having high demands on resources to build. The price of the resources have gone up because people keep using the wood and iron to build . He mentions how we should not use as much of the resources

Environmental history explores a variety of topics in order to connect nature to humans. In doing so, a new history emerges. As this history unveils itself, it becomes evident that throughout time, humans have taken it upon themselves to improve the nonhuman world for their own gains. Numerous scholars have contemplated this idea, and while they do not all agree on the meaning or the means of improvement upon the land, it remains a constant theme. By exploring the theme of improvement to land, a clear path forms. The idea of improvement in environmental history creates artificial agency for humans, as well as revealing that improvement cannot happen without having an adverse effect on humans.

Environmental impacts have been humanity 's constant for over trillions of decades.That is how we stay alive and alert.We are constantly innovating and adjusting to our surroundings.Even during the late centuries early civilizations have been adapting to their beautiful and majestic lives. For a prime example, the ancient mounds of the Cahokia clan and the largest earthworks in the Western.In the Mississippi River floodplain, where the water table was always high and where the could thrive,the Mississippi valley had been the first and only one to be so carefully engineered. Over the next century or two the Cahokia clan made the bedside of the Mississippi more than a pile of dirt, the city surrounding it was more than an agglomeration of

Several times in the first chapter, Wright refers to progress with words such as “devil” (7, 8) and “sin” (25). He refers to the “. . . blaze of consumption. . .” (7) while discussing the effect of human waste on our planet. Used in conjunction with progress, such words do not create a positive image in the minds of the readers. If anything, such words, subtle as they may be, promote an agenda. The use of such negative words tell me that Wright is not going to discuss the positive changes that have been made through progress. Rather, I know that Wright is going to discuss what I call the negative consequences of progress. This, despite, the progress that has no doubt made the authors life easier and more pleasant. This book is not drawn on a cave wall available only to his clan, but most likely, written on a computer and printed for the masses. For his audience, this seem like another attempt to create fear and distrust in the idea of

In this Unit of World Geography, I learned about the Polynesians and how they were able to sail without tools, culture, and environment. When most people think of the environment, they think of saving animals, resources, and keeping things alive. While they are busy trying to keep those things protected, they never think about the amount of people living in our world. The truth is, the more that the population grows, the more resources, food, and shelter we need to help keep us alive. So no matter what we are trying to do to save the Earth, things will continue getting destroyed as long as the population keeps growing.

If we choose to keep cutting down trees and consuming natural resources then they won’t be able to replenish fast enough and there will be none left, posing many problems like having fresh water available to drink, wood to build products, and land to farm on. Obviously not many people are properly educated on environmental issues and how they make them worse but if we as a society choose not to educate those who aren’t then they will continue to use too many resources and not think about how their lifestyle is hurting our environment, which will make environmental problems even worse than they are today. Now as humans we’ve always wanted to get bigger and better, but if we keep expanding and building as much as we are then there won’t be as many resources available because we’ll have taken over spaces and land that was needed for those natural environments to live. Although this seems like a drastic point and something that we can’t really stop, if we always think that we need to keep building, someday we just won’t have any land to do it and also at the same time realize that we don’t have resources

R. Crumb is showing America in its infancy to its rapid decay all in the name of what we call progress. From wide open land with thriving wild life (birds) and rich forestation to a crowded polluted concrete jungles that we call cities. Furthermore, R. Crumb’s depiction shows that we forgot about the environment on our road to riches. From the railroad polluting clean air with its coal burning engines to big oil companies drilling beneath earth’s surface for fossil fuel (oil) destroying the land and the sea to fuel our modern day forms of transportation (planes, trains and automobiles).

The world is being sickened by the needs of man in today's society. People, love to live in luxury without knowing the consequences of their actions. This is because man lives at a pace set by himself, and not one that is naturally set by nature. This is shown excellently in a quote inside of the novel Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. The Quote states, “the rapidity of change and the speed with which new situations are created follow the impetuous and heedless pace of man rather than the deliberate pace of nature.” The Earth is experiencing such rapid and disastrous change due to the wants of man. Man demands too much from the earth and not only is this changing the Earth, but it is also depleting many non renewable resources

The humans living in that period were unable to supplement their previous diet, which was rich in protein, and their culture was devastated as a result; this then, is an example of progress (better hunting methods) that led to the failure of an entire culture as its problems were left unsolved. In his third chapter, Wright examines two particular civilizations that thrived but eventually declined due to resource depletion. What is interesting is the similarities that can be drawn from the examples of Easter Island and Sumer, like the widespread ignorance of the masses to actively prevent the abrasion of their land, the perpetual idleness of people to not do anything even when there was enough time to stop the tragic collapse, to current-day situations of people who even flat-out deny climate change and claim it to be part of the left-wing agenda. On Easter Island, it was over-logging that led to their collapse, since as their ecosystem withered away, logging became scarce, and wars broke out for those sparse resources. In Sumer similar environmental destruction occurred (i.e. overgrazing, land clearing), which should alarm the world population of today of what may become of the high levels

White’s thesis in The Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis states that in order to confront the expanding environmental crises, humans must begin to analyze and alter their treatment and attitudes towards nature. The slow destruction of the environment derives from the Western scientific and technological advancements made since the Medieval time period. “What people do about their ecology depends on what they think about themselves in relation to things around them” (RON p.7). Technology and science alone will not be able to save humans until we adjust the way of thinking and suppress the old ideas of humans power above nature. Instead, we need to learn how to think of ourselves as being

The decline of the environment due to natural and human exertion is known as the degradation of the environment. The natural weather occurrences such as heavy rain, flooding, storms, earthquakes, volcanoes etc. are not administered under human control. These meteorological phenomenon’s wreak devastation on the environment from time to time causing the land to become unsuitable to cultivate. On this subject matter, the human population does not contain the power to stop the wrath of Mother Nature. Rather, we are forced to sit back and watch. Nevertheless, humans engage in a crucial role towards the degradation of the environment in which we live in. Unavoidably, the degradation of the environment is a rising and utmost worldwide subject. I accept that the root cause to environmental degradation is the excessive use of resources on our land utilized by the processes under capitalism. As Jensen wrote in Endgame, “The global industrial economy is the engine for massive environmental degradation and massive human and (nonhuman) impoverishment.