The Pale Blue Dot

He compares and contrast on how environmentalists have mislead society into thinking that we as a race are doomed. He states that environmentalists argue that Earth is currently facing lot of environmental concerns and that our raw materials are becoming more and more scarce. Environmental problems like global warming, animal extinction, air and water pollution, waste buildup, and many more affect mankind. And also the degrading of our planet has increased at an alarming rate over a small time span. As a result, our actions have not been in favor of protecting the planet, so natural disasters are hitting us on a bigger than before.

In a chilling recollection of mankind’s current misdeeds towards the environment in “The End of Nature,” McKibben’s call for action is one paramount to the survival of the human race. In essence, McKibben argues that the futures of both nature and ourselves are delicately yet undeniably interconnected. Furthermore, he urges that “we” (ALL humans) are the deciding chip in said bond. By doing so, McKibben implies that action must be situated if we are to expect any change in such bleak a situation. This argument can clearly be found when McKibben speaks out on a myriad of environmental issues in the past, present, and future. McKibben begins to accustom readers to a pattern in which human ignorance juts out from past environmental experiences.

In this article, Pollan explains how poor the environment has become and knows that climate change will take more than one person to resolve this problem. He says that humans are the

Neil Degrasse Tyson points out in his article “Cosmic Perspective”, first published in the Natural Magazine in 2007, that if every human were to truly comprehend how stupendous and interraled the universe is to us, our perspective on humanity would shift from a focus on our distinctions to our connections. Tyson explores through many examples of the “cosmic perspective” to prove just how closely associated we are with the universe.

The most surprising aspect of this article was that humans today are said to be the cause of the sixth extinction. This was surprising to me because I did not know our planet has been impacted so much by our existence. Also, it surprised me because I have recently heard about how we were trying to fix our planet. The sixth extinction is horrible. Also, because we do not yet know the full extinct of our actions, the ramifications of our actions have yet to harm humankind. If we keep going we may not exist in 1,000

Mckibben inaugurates his third paragraph suggesting that we make the environmental issues, “"the great moral crisis of our time, and the equivalent of the civil rights movement of the 1960s."(747). He uses this analogy to explain that in his opinion, we are strip-mining the present and destroying all of whom come after it. Thus, leading him to discuss exactly how humans’ materialistic ways have impacted the earth. From Bangladesh living three months in thigh high-deep water, to polar bears becoming “20% scrawnier than they were a decade ago” (748). The environmentalist writer goes on to discuss how to deal with global warming since it is indeed creeping up on us.

We aren’t ready for the catastrophe we have caused. We, as a society, don’t know how to solve the issues. We keep applying more tape to matters that need new infrastructure. Our world is falling apart, but Mother Nature always knows how to fix it with a vengeance. Even though we won’t be around to see it, we are getting closer and closer to the next ice age to combat the global warming.

Michael Pollan has recognized that there is an issue in today’s society, and that issue is climate change. Within the article of,” Why Bother”, by Michael Pollan, he talks about an effect that society itself may have inflicted upon themselves. But looking at the actual reasoning behind why the climate is changing is baffling. In the text of “Why Bother”, Michal Pollen talks about climate change is on us, yet before reading the text, I assumed that maybe climate change was just destiny, and continues to happen because it’s due. Yet now I believe that we as a people, have actually caused climate change to progress quicker than as planned. Pollan explains that we as a people have to be active in the change we want to see. I can say I concur and

The face of Climate Change is humanity, its self, and this is a fact that has become less easy to refute, you can’t separate humans from the equation. My grandmother the head of Bitterroot Valley recycling has been saying this for years and maybe it’s because of people like my grandmother, that I’ve become interested in the Paris Summit and in particular Pope Francis’s word on how Ecology is Human. Yes, everyone who believes in climate change knows that we humans are part of the problem, but it wasn’t until the July 2015 Paris summit on climate change has anyone ever said that climate change issues were more than just deforestation or polar caps melting. Pope Francis has taken a stand and claims that humans are ecology and therefore the real

Coexisting with each of its counterparts, Mother Earth and the system in which we live in effortlessly orchestrates the fundamental basis of not only human existence but nevertheless all of the life in which it contains. The climate of our Earth however, has been continuously changing since the beginning of its formation about 4.5 billion years ago although; it wasn’t until around the early 18th century that a widespread concern occurred in American minds regarding the treatment of our environment. This altered perspective made way for understanding that humans have made the biggest impact to our planet, biosphere, and atmosphere etc. drastically more so than any other organism. It is commonly argued in Jared Diamond’s The Worst Mistake in

In “The Dark Mountain Manifesto,” authors Paul Kingsnorth and Dougald Hine are reaching out to the environmental activists who see the value in facing the reality of the “myth of progress” in society today (4). To further explain, civilization today consists of a strong feeling of success in what we are doing as a society, and that everything we are working towards cannot stop getting better and better. Kingsnorth and Hine remind society in their writing that we are just “highly evolved apes with an array of talents and abilities which we are unleashing without sufficient thought, control, compassion, or intelligence” (9). In other words, Kingsworth and Hine believe that humans are egotistical in a way that makes us believe that we surpass

First of all, the introduction to the documentary is very brutal and horrifying because of all the destruction that is taking place. I think it is interesting that the one scientist, later identified as Thom Hartmann, uses an analogy at the beginning of the movie to compare Earth and its environmental problems to an organism infected with a disease. What also interests me is that many of the people interviewed mention that we think of ourselves as superior to all other species even though we are still just a part of nature. I never knew to what extent global warming could go, but Stephen Hawking stated, “the worse case scenario is that Earth would become like its sister planet, Venus, with a temperature of 250 centigrade and raining sulfuric

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

Despite what mankind would like to believe, humans are animals. As multi-celled organisms, we consume other organic matter, change the land for own uses as a beaver would build a dam, and as other mammals, we are all fed breast milk from our mothers when we were young. Yet there is this disconnection and alienation of the human race towards other species. Moreover, through fear of taking action, the convenience provided to us if we simply choose to ignore the environment, and the alienation of other species that are endangered by our actions, the hostile and uncaring attitude of humans towards nature is the core reason for many of the problems in our environment today.

When we think that our world is a place full of imperfection we start to lose our sense to strive for perfection. I understand that humans are not perfect and may never be, but it almost seems like we are okay with the fact that our world is heading towards chaos and disaster. In this day and age, we have cared more for the human race than any other species on the planet, and are willing to destroy the planet in order to accomplish our goals and satisfy our needs. Everywhere we look we see conflict between world leaders, countries, and even the ideologies of other people. Humans have the power to create change in our world, and if we are able to change ourselves than maybe we can change the world around us. It’s a very discouraging idea that in the myths about our creation, we also have the idea that the creation didn’t matter and we are heading towards disaster. Obviously, the human race has shown some sense of trying to save ourselves and our planet by cutting down pollution from certain countries, and also finding new ways to satisfy our needs as a species, but we need more change sooner than