Response #2

Lauren Korany

The people who influence us on what is important in nature are the one’s who are willing to change it. A prime example is the course ADPIII. This class pushes it’s artistic attending to make progress in bettering the natural world. If it weren’t for avid activists, documentaries, and broadcasted concerns, people in our society today would tend to ignore what harm they are doing to the environment.

Different cultures become adapted to living with “wild things” and without. Industrialized developed areas become dependent on “needs” that other cultures would consider a luxury. Toilets, running water, and adequate shelter are some “needs” that many people in our developed society have never lived without. Yet, many societies have never had these benefits. I am accustomed to having these “needs” and I must confess that I would be taken aback to live without them. However, I would adapt and so I do not consider modern luxuries as “needs” but more as a comfort that we have the privilege of having on a daily basis.

Public outhouse in Ephesus.

Response #2
Kristen Zelenka

I love nature and being outside, however I do not know so much about it and I could not survive without the modern conveniences of technology. The only nature I have ever come into contact with is fake nature; nature that has been constructed around where I live. My only real connection to nature is through photography, snapshots of how I perceive the environment but that pales in comparison to individuals who live and work in the natural world. The picture to the right is one of my photos that I took last year. It shows nature being smothered by technology.

I cannot identify many different types of plants nor have I sat outside for hours watching animal behavior. However, I need this presence of nature in my life otherwise the world would be too geometric and harsh. I would not want to live in a gray, bleak concrete setting. I do like being outside and enjoying the fresh air and sunshine. I also love hearing the rolling thunder of storms or sitting in the shade under an old tree reading a book. I need these natural influences in order to be happy. Conserving nature is important and I fully understand that technology should be kept in check and not overrun what nature we have left. My small contribution to help conserve the environment and animals is to eat vegetarian.

Despite these basic adorations of nature, there is no way I would be able to function without technology. I would not have been able to survive a few centuries ago, without the advancement of medicine, because everyday I have to take medicine because I am allergic to trees and if I don’t I get very sick. Also, the first time that I saw the leaves on trees when I was five because that was when I got my first pair of glasses and I am very near sighted. Beyond this, technology has shaped my daily lifestyle. I am hardwired to my laptop and cell phone. Each day I use them to complete most of my daily activities, talking to friends, as a source of entertainment, and even to read the news instead of a newspaper. All of my communication needs can be done on these two devices. There are aspects of nature that I love, but I would not be able to continue my current lifestyle without technology.

I believe that we are slowly losing our connection to the natural world. Technology encourages us to stay indoors, requiring nothing more than for us to be comfortable and happy. Because of the lack of visible necessity to maintain a connection to nature, it is very easy to disregard any importance at all. However, it is very important that we stay close with nature. Plants produce the oxygen that we breathe and without our assistance in keeping plants alive and thriving, the amount of oxygen produced would dwindle. As Professor Trumpey mentioned in lecture on Monday, the food chain shows how plants also produce the necessary nutrition for primary consumers, which are then food for the secondary consumers, etc. As omnivores, we require both plants and animals (who, by the food chain, require plants for survival). The natural world is necessary for our survival. Technology is always helpful, but we must not ignore nature for it. In fact, technology can help us maintain the connection to the natural world by helping us do research, continue to learn more, etc.

Response #2: Nature

Our involvement with nature is something that I think is greatly important to our developement as whole people. I owe this view in part to the fact that I have lived in what can be called two different world's. As a child in Zimbabwe and whenever I go back, nature is something that we exist as a part of. There is a cycle to life and we are as responsible for the ecosystems well being as the ants are. At least in the rural areas of Zimbabwe this is true. Much of our existence is owed to nature, my grandmother who still lives in a mud hut, has never had to rely on outside sources for her food and water. She has always raised her own crops, retrieved water from the river and made clothes from sheeps wool or goat skins. The danger of technology is that it inspires self-idolization, we become very much amazed by what we have created and forget for the most part that our ability to do so comes from things already existing within nature.

     There are forces outside us that are much more powerful, and amazing. If we are to ever gain some understand of the brilliant design that is nature we must spend time in nature. People learned to domesticate animals, by watching them, and what they respond to and in someways befriending.  We must be aware that we are a part of nature and that we are no more or less important in, forgive the cliché, circle of life. Spiritually speaking it humbles people and tames the sort of greed that seems to be growing ever larger in our generation. If we focus more on what we do have, then we can be somewhat happy with not having very much.

Nature as a Novelty

Daryl Alexsy

It is possible to live without direct interaction with nature. Aldo Leopold stresses the “spiritual dangers” in having dependence on other sources for heat and food, but for other people it would be more detrimental to have to supply both themselves. He describes the laborious task of starting his furnace in the February chapter, and such effort is unnecessary in our typical modern day society. Choosing to start a fire or growing food seems like a novelty and an inconvenience to me.

Nature has transformed in a way to something to provide amusement as opposed to something necessary to existence because technology has made living so far removed from the basics of nature. Rarely does one see where the food is coming from or where the heat is generated, so little thought is provided towards what nature had to do with it. Just like being able to identify plants in our local ecosystem, knowing such things are not actually essential to our existence.

Perhaps it is the guilt generated from having an ignorance for nature that has spurred the current trends in “going green”, because in most ways this is the only manner that people have to at some level interact with and be able to even in a small way do something for their environment. Despite the guilt, it is still possible to live without any real interaction with nature.

Meghan Schwend

Who Says Nature’s Important?

Meghan Schwend

Every time I turn on the TV, advertisements of “green” products bombard me. At lecture, Joe Trumpey scares and shocks us each lecture with visions of over-population, deforestation, polluted water, and global warming. These environmental concerns are all issues we need to address. I understand the importance of conserving energy, using less, wasting less, and eating local produce, ect. These “green” techniques let us help nature, without physically interacting with it.

Last week, I sat by the pond on North Campus and stared at a creeping thistle weed for an hour. I sat in the grass, surrounded by bees and horseflies and stared at that plant. In this hour, I saw five deer, seven squirrels, and two ducks. At that moment, I realize how little I really interact with nature on a daily basis. I had to actually make time to sit in the shade and study that plant. I would have never seen so many animals in that hour if I spent it in a building or in a car.

The feeling I got from being so close to nature, actually part of the ecosystem, reminded me of how much I need nature. Yes, several outside sources are putting pressure on us to conserve and go green, but the most effective source was that one hour of watching my surroundings without interruption.

Response #1: Hope

Derek Jensen holds an interesting opinion that hope is a deterrent of action. Though there is some truth in the sentiment it is still just an opinion. He maintains that hope is an excuse for laziness and inaction. It causes people to leave things to chance or to 'God'. However there is another side to hope (the more common side in my opinion) that he has ignored. Hope is for many people a driving force that enables them to perform great deeds. Without hope most people would give up without a fight. They would reserve themselves to the phrase Jensen used: 'We're fucked'. That is a phrased used by someone who has lost all hope and has given up.
   It is pessimism and guilt masquerading as hope that Jensen sees. This is when people who believe the challenge is too great sit back, and 'hope' that by some stroke of luck we will survive. These people have been misled, they believe there is nothing we can do. They need inspiration, with inspiration often comes hope and the confidence that a difference can be made. President Obama's election campaign ran on the same principle words 'Hope' and 'Change' holding the belief that the two go hand in hand. In his victory speech he said this concerning hope and change.

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."

While this at first looks like what Jensen is saying, Obama further says.

"Hope is what led a band of colonists to rise up against an empire; what led the greatest of generations to free a continent and heal a nation; what led young women and young men to sit at lunch counters and brave fire hoses and march through Selma and Montgomery for freedom’s cause. Hope is what led me here today–with a father from Kenya, a mother from Kansas; and a story that could only happen in the United States of America. Hope is the bedrock of this nation; the belief that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us; by all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is; who have courage to remake the world as it should be."

   If we are to do anything about changing the world, Hope is one of our greatest weapons.