Snow Travelers

Gordon Orains states that, “Throughout human history, people have pondered their relationship to the living and nonliving components of the environments in which they have lived” (2). Both Henry Thoreau and Chris McCandless, took a deep dive into the way they both prosper throughout the nature they choose to live in. Disconnecting from the modern world and reuniting

Coming from an uncultivated society, such as the one that brought farming and ranching to the settlement of North America, humans have retained some sensitivity to environmental issues as they derived their livelihood directly from the land. But with the advance to an urban or metropolitan society, there has been a major disconnect between humanity and nature. Today’s urban society is provided with mowed parks, paved playgrounds, plush automobiles to move the public around on asphalt roads, housing with automatically regulated heat and cooling, and supermarkets with shopping carts and baskets, in which people can gather their food supplies from orderly shelves and freezers. Aldo Leopold’s “land ethic” term suggests that humans stop treating the land as a mere object or a resource, like how the world does today. For Leopold, land is not merely soil, like the public would think of today; land is a fountain of energy, flowing through a circuit of soils, plants, and animals.

I confess, I all too well know that living in the digital age, I have hindered my opportunities to immerse myself in nature like Henry David Thoreau. There is rarely a day that passes by that I do not use my cell phone or computer. Too often I forget that the outside world is more enigmatic and dynamic than anything that can be found on the computer or in the concrete jungle I enter when I go back home. I crave the mesmerizing and reflective space that nature has always provided since the dawn of time. Nature allows me to feel alone, but also become a part of something at the very same time. Thoreau beautifully claims, “We need the tonic of wildness...At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all

This country cannot work without mutual understanding and respect between the american people and the government. Listening to various ideals is part of the communication process and those who don’t support the protection of wilderness are choosing to stick with not supporting any bills that deal with the protection of the land. In the essay “Finding Common Ground on Protecting Montana Wilderness,” Rick Bass, an experienced author, advocate and resident of the Yaak Valley, states his views on the matter of protecting the wild lands from the timber industry and other members of the opposition while at the same time respecting their views.

Activism is people who are trying to help the community and get their message across. Activism helps the community because they wanna make the world a better place and try to stop something that is bad for the community. There are over 1,000 activists all over the world.

While the exploration or exploitation—take your pick—of the American west was just beginning to flourish, two more of our Past Environmental Heroes—Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau—were sitting, thinking, and writing in the newly-formed Commonwealth of Massachusetts. As the original transcendentalists, Emerson and Thoreau believed that there was much more to life than working feverishly and accruing wealth. Their thoughts and words were the first "cries in the wilderness" about living simply and compatibly with the natural world and their words are still inspiring millions of people around the planet who want to make peace

The short story, “The Wild Parks and Forest Reservations of the West,” by John Muir paints a picture of the necessity of human interaction with the wilderness. In his story Muir pleads with his audience to gain more appreciation of nature and to understand their impact on it by using religion, pathos, and imagery.

I read a few of the essays published by Aldo Leopold from 1998 to 2001 in a book of collective essays called For the Health of the Land. The collection is a plea from Leopold for the development of land ethic. He believes that humans have the responsibility to interact with the land in ways that promote its good being. Even though the essays were published over 50 years ago, progress in Leopold’s concept of land health has just begun.

Caught between obsession for spiritual transcendence with nature and encouragement for the leisurely enjoyment of nature, many questioned if the development of land and preservation could co-exist. On one side, those that encouraged recreation in the great outdoors, others however, advocated preservation of natural wonders. For example, even though Yosemite is a national park, however many were concerned for Yosemite’s commercial exploitation as a tourist destination. Adams, Gleason, Brower, and members of the Sierra Club joined efforts with Howard Zahniser, director of the Wilderness Society to lobby government for preservation of the parks and wilderness. Zahnsier even spoke at the U.S. Senate’s Subcommittee on Public Roads regarding building an interstate highway system and impacts to natural areas. Tensions continued to mount between those that believed in harnessing the land for industry and a source for raw materials with those that viewed the land as nature’s garden. I will return to this

Thoreau makes use of the land and nature around him at Walden Pond. He plants two and a half acres of beans that he farms. This shows that Thoreau is adaptive and learns to work with nature. The rain that comes and goes helps his crops grow. Thoreau relies on the place he lives to sustain himself. He trades his beans with others for food, and makes a profit off of the land on which he lives. The place that he inhabits becomes his main concern and priority. This helps readers to understand why the place one lives and treats as one’s home has such an effect on one’s way of

Similarly, those affiliated with groups like Mountain Justice (Transforming Places, Chapter 15) intentionally and visibly trespass on private property of coal companies disrupting mining operations and refusing to leave, by partaking in this behavior they question with their very bodies the right of corporations to destroy the potentially public space of mountains, watersheds, and wildlife. Place-based organizing works within the politically potent reality that place is collectively shared but it is not necessarily identified in the same manner by all. This disjunction is formed by the lack of accessibility and economic resource gap between

The Malheur Occupation, and the subsequent reasons behind it, have brought to the public the ethical debate of who owns the land, and to whom does the government owe an ethical debt. Does the government owe and ethical debt to the ranchers and their community and lifestyle, conforming to Pinchot’s conservationist points of view? Or does the government owe an ethical debt to the environment and environmental research going on within the confines of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, following Muir’s preservationist points of view? This ethical debate revolves around the Production of Nature: the theory that nature and the environment, if it was ever to be truly separated from the populace, is now a product of human industry and

During his time, Aldo Leopold was a conservationist who believed in the longevity of the land and that we should protect it, even if we must protect the land from ourselves. While this was an unpopular opinion, realizing that the land and animals naturally work together in a symbiotic relationship to protect one another was very apparent to Leopold. He believed that humans should be doing our best to lessen our impact on the environment. Time has caught up with Leopold’s ideologies and it is time that our efforts and contributions to the earth did too.

According to Dictionary.reference.com, activism is the policy or action of using campaigning to bring about political or social change. A huge campaign that is well known across the world, the Civil Rights Movement, was brought about by Martin Luther King, Jr. King risked his life everyday to ensure justice and equality for the African American race. “Small Change” by Malcolm Gladwell gives insight on how activism is more effective than social media, especially from one scenario at the Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. Gladwell points out his strong belief of what activism can do for a society rather

Activist - a person who campaigns to bring about political or social change. But what characteristics do activists have, and who are they? Harriet Tubman was an African American/slave rights activist. Nelson Mandela was also an African American right activist, but also fought for governmental rights. Liu Xiaobo was a political right activist, and a human rights activist. Even though Liu Xiaobo, Harriet Tubman, and Nelson Mandela, lived in distinct time periods and areas, and fought for different issues using contrasting ways of fighting for their issues. For one thing though, they wanted everyone to be equal and to have equal rights.