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Summary Of Save The Whales Screw The Shrimp

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In the essay, “Save the Whales, Screw the Shrimp”, Joy Williams argues that people have reduced the valuable experiences provided by nature through simplification and domestication. Williams writes, “The tiny masters are willing to arrange Nature for you. They will compose it into a picture that you can look at at your leisure...Nature becomes scenery, a prop.” William’s claim that human intervention minimizes nature to a superficial background is inaccurate because intervention allows increased utilization, involvement, and accessibility. The utilization of nature has increased due to human amendments of trails and parks. Mackinac Island, a charming tourist island in Michigan, boasts a system of trails and amenities that have attracted many people to get out in nature. Visitors enjoy the beauty of the area, bicycling alongside the shore, hiking around historic sites, and riding horses through the woods. Because …show more content…

Henry David Thoreau, a nineteenth century naturalist, wrote about his two-year experience of living a separate, simplified life in a small cabin in Concord, Massachusetts. Although Thoreau is seen as a man who would not interfere with nature, he developed his home in the woods. Building his cabin, cultivating a garden, and fishing in Walden Pond, Thoreau took advantage of his natural surroundings. Thoreau also had a great passion for books and described reading as a “noble exercise”. In his essay, Walden, he wrote, “My residence was more favorable, not only to thought, but to serious reading, than a university...I kept Homer’s Iliad on my table through the summer”. Thoreau enjoyed nature more fully when it was combined with some human interventions: a small cabin, a fishing pole, some books, and so forth. While some human interventions facilitate consistent, lasting involvement, others create the capability for unique, ephemeral experiences with

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