Karl Jacoby Crimes Against Nature Chapter Summary

To understand where the motivation and passion to protect the environment was developed, one looks to the rapid deforestation of East Coast old-growth forests at the turn of the century. “As Gifford Pinchot expressed it, ‘The American Colossus was fiercely at work turning natural resources into money.’ ‘A

Stegner wants to conserve the untouched land because he fears a world with no silence. He argues for the preservation of Robbers’ Roost country, as an example, “It is a lovely and terrible wilderness, such as wilderness as Christ and the prophets went out into… Save a piece of country like that intact, and it does not matter in the slightest that only a few people every year will go into it. That is precisely its value (Stegner, Wilderness Letter).” Saving the untouched lands, he contends, is a reminder of how uncontrolled the Earth is and how timeless it remains. Others disagree with this viewpoint, one of those people being American forester, Gifford Pinchot. In his writing “The Fight for Conservation,” Pinchot argues that conservation

In “Ideals of Human Excellence and Preserving Natural Environments”, Thomas Hill explores the idea that those who would destroy natural environments may lack necessary human virtues. He lays out this idea through these claims:

“American seemed to think nothing of remarking nature for the sake of progress”, Alexis de Tocqueville, a French diplomat commented when he was visiting the United States in 1831. While the American people were overwhelmed by pride and pleasure from their achievement in making industrial and economic progress, the environment was harmed in an alarming speed. Landscape was transformed, and forests were destroyed due to industrialization. By 1990, only a fraction of the United States Virgin forests were still standing. Farmers cleared trees to plant crops, and loggers cut down large areas of woodland for business profits. More than that, the most horrific thing was the government was willing to encourage loggers to exploit the forests resources by selling them large plots of land in the North West. In other words, the government was inviting loggers to destroy the landscape. Besides the loss of forests, the increasing number of ranching boosted the erosion of landscape. Crops were

From the mightiest of Redwoods to the tiniest bacterium, nature encapsulates mankind. Nature surrounds humanity as a sovereign witness to man’s most astounding triumphs, and the disgusting atrocities perpetrated by man against his fellow man. Regardless of the circumstances, nature remains unbiased in the face of all conflicts and struggles. Nature cannot deceive or mislead like humanity can. It is for this reason why nature has an ideal perspective to view history. As shown through Mark Fiege’s book The Republic of Nature: an Environmental History of the United States, the lense of nature is extremely important to both readers and historians alike due to the fact that unlike almost all other sources, nature is unbiased and honest. This is exemplified through Fiege’s exploration of the history of the the construction of the Lincoln Memorial, the Salem witch trials, and natural law.

Additionally, Royal gives clarification for Native Americans’ positive stereotypes. He explains, “ But this is far from modern concepts of ecology. Native Americans in fact overhunted deer and beaver even before the arrival of the white man, and did not seriously try to preserve the resources in the vicinity of their villages. As a result, the typical woodland village, having exhausted local soil and game, had to move on average every eight to 10 years” (Royal 47). Although the Native Americans did not destroy the environment like Europeans on such a large scale, they are not trying to protect the environment either. This opposes the stereotypes that Native Americans are model ecologists. Royal also examines the inhumane sides of Native American tribes. Royal reveals, “The

One of America’s greatest conservation achievements is the Wilderness Act of 1964. Fifty-two years later, this act has a legacy to withhold. A legacy that meant something in 1964 and remains the same today: to protect unspoiled land. Even though, through this act millions of acres have been conserved, the key word is continue. That is why America should pass laws to preserve the wilderness before developers spoil them.

Aldo Leopold is on the forefather of modern environmentalism. His book, A Sand County Almanac, is based on the notion of viewing land as a community and as a commodity. In the chapter “The Land Ethic”, Leopold invokes a rethinking of our relationships to our world and is based on the principle that ethics are “a process in ecological evolution” (238). Leopold describes the stages of ethic evolving and explains that the rules for socializing were originally defined for human beings. These rules are expanded upon in the next stage of “Ethical Sequence” (237-238), describing how humans interact toward their community. The third stage is the ethics between humans and the land. Upon analyzing “The Land Ethic” I have come to the conclusion that in order to have respect and ethic for land, or anything, one must make a personal connection.

After receiving many calls from the Audubon society, the police sent a squad car to the local park. There stood 13-year-old Gary Parsons. With a BB gun in his arms and lifeless pigeons dangling from his belt loop, he was guilty. The police escorted him home and banned him from the park for shooting birds. The very next night he took revenge on the Audubon society, blowing their brand new birdhouse to pieces with a homemade cannon. No one expected Gary to become the devoted environmental activist that he grew up to be. Without Gary Parsons, the Choctawhatchee Bay watershed would not be what it is today. At 72, Gary dedicates his time and energy, striving to better the environment.

In 1949, Aldo Leopold published the book “A Sand County Almanac”, a book which written as a firsthand explanation of the natural resources and beauties that the Earth has to offer. This book dives into the issues surrounding the disregard for natural wildlife and the need for conservation in order for the natural world to progress and keep thriving. Leopold also talks about different seasons and the beauty of individual animals he comes across, and how their survival is a feat in itself. The importance of environmental conservation and the need to treat nature with care is a vibrant concept that will be explained throughout this paper, as well. This accounting of “A Sand County Almanac” will accurately describe

New England’s Indians moved to places where food was abundant, and agriculture supplemented their hunting and gathering activities. Indians cleared fields by burning and then used the same field for eight to ten years until the soil lost its fertility (48). Indian agriculture did exhaust the land, but the rotating nature of this agriculture and low population densities minimized the damage. Indian use of other resources also rotated on a seasonal basis so that no resource was overexploited. The Indians did not use the environment in the European way, and, from the colonists’ perspective, the Indians’ shifting land use did not entitle them to ownership of the land (56). The Indians’ concept of ownership revolved around use of the land and the things on it, rather than long-term possession of a particular plot (65). Property rights shifted with the current ecological use (63). The English conceived of the land as a “private commodity rather than public commons,” (74) and believed that ownership gave them the sole right to exploit it for personal gain. The commodification of land and other resources by the English challenged the resiliency of the local ecosystems.

Environmentalism has always been two sided. Nature versus urban. locals versus national. Frequently, large tracts of public and federal land are bought and developed by industry. Pristine wilderness turned to bustling epicenters of human activity, all in the name of progress and economic growth. This tale of preserving natural wilderness is one that begins with John Muir, an advocate against the taming of Yosemite national park and the Hetch-Hetchy reservoir, while the head of the US Forest Service, Gifford Pinchot, insisted on the reservoir to supply the city of San Francisco with water. This timeless epic of conservation or preservation brings us to the Jumbo Valley, a vast expanse of uninhabited, pristine wilderness home to diverse

On Wednesday, May 18th, I went with a group of people to see Tom Turner talk about his new book, David Brower: The Making of the Environmental Movement, at Patagonia in San Francisco. Turner talked about the time that he spent with Brower in the 1960s and 1970s while they worked together on the Sierra Club and other organizations that helped protect the environment. Brower was the first executive director of the Sierra Club and served on its board three times. Turner also briefly talked about Brower’s falling out with the Sierra Club, which he stated was a combination of multiple things. The two main problems were disagreements between Brower and the board of the Sierra Club about various problems in the environment and how to handle them,

In North America, the classic voice of the colonizing person’s connectedness to nature and a has been the romantic individualist writing of wilderness.

The plight of endangered species is a tragically important issue in the public eye, with both governmental agencies and prominent non-governmental organizations like the World Wildlife Fund aiming to preserve endangered species from extinction. In this essay, I analyze the moral significance of species conservation, focusing on the intrinsic value of the existence of endangered species as described by Holmes Rolston. I conclude that the existence of endangered species is not intrinsically important, though in some cases conservation may be instrumentally important to individual animals or humans. I will also discuss the positive and negative effects of species conservation on humans and individual animals.