Environment and Society ch 2-8

This book is hard to focus on, but it contains information that is highly interesting. As an Environmental Studies major, I find it important to focus not only on how the environment affects people, but also how people affect the environment. For example, the fact that a person in Phoenix uses more water than a person in a neighboring town is somewhat unusual. I know that Phoenix is located in a hot, dry region, but the natural heat should be the same there as in another town in the general area. But this doesn’t take into account the pollution from cars and factories. After all, carbon burned by one person does become everyone’s problem.

The chapter that I associate the most with, is Chapter 5. It talks about factory farms, which are basically assembly lines for getting more products from animals than we need. The example that they give shows a pig in a cage that can barely move, and her young get crushed to death despite the safety precautions put in place. This process reminds me of the bear bile farms in mainland China. The Chinese moon bear is a very rare species that is put through arduous conditions because its bile is used in Chinese medicine. The bear is placed in a tiny cage similar to the crates that the pigs are placed in, and the bile is harvested directly from it while it is still alive. This process, combined with the inhumane conditions the bears go through, means that many bears die in these miserable factories. I understand that these kind of factories help people to get the products they want faster and cheaper, but the question is; are these products really what people need? Is it worth the risk of an endangered species to benefit from cheap profit that can be illegal?

People seem to forget that “animals are not capital”. Just because many walk on four legs and just because they cannot speak human language doesn’t mean they are not significant. It would seem to me that humanity has forgotten its primate roots. We have endangered our brothers the gorilla and orangutan and make our cousins the chimpanzees do silly things. We are descended from the same animals that these primates came from. I know that in the bible it says that we are allowed to dominate over nature, but it also says to “replenish the Earth”. How can we do that if we have virtually destroyed it?

I found the battle between conservation and preservation very interesting. Many people think that these two phrases have the same meaning, but there are key differences. For example, while a conservationist might allow people to hunt animals in a wildlife reserve under strictly controlled conditions, a preservationist would ban hunting all together. Each has is ups and downs though. While conservation allows both humanity and nature to profit at the same time, changes will still be made that can damage the landscape. In the case of preservation, only nature profits, and this can lead to financial trouble.

No matter how we “frame” the environment, it is clear that it is not good. However, if we try to clean things, will we in fact be making more of a mess? It is questions like this that people who support the environment need to answer when they are planning to speak out against someone.