Government vs the Environment

By Luke Schmitz

I feel that when most people hear the words “nature” and “environment,” they associate those terms with purity, beauty and health.  Especially for people who have never spent any time in nature, it is considered vast, wild and filled with life.  People associate nature with different animals, lakes, and lush green trees.  Although these things still exist, we are heading down a path that will change “nature” and the “environment” as we know it today.  Luckily, certain groups of people have started movements against changing the environment years ago, and continue to do so today.  Once enough people are willing to make a change, we might be able to avoid predicted disasters for many years to come. 

One of the most famous and influential environmental writers was Wendell Berry.  Wendell was incredibly sustainable and self-sufficient.  He lived on a farm in Kentucky, where he planted an orchard and a garden.  He also turned his garage into a henhouse, planted berry bushes and had a cow.  He had eggs, meat, milk, butter, vegetables and fruits, which essentially meant he never had to go buy food at the store.  He also refrained from using any chemical fertilizing.  I think Wendell describes his farm best in his work, “The Making of a Marginal Farm.”  He writes, “And so we began to attempt a life that, in addition to whatever else it was, would be responsibly agricultural.” I thoroughly enjoy how he became so self-sufficient because it really shows exactly how reliant humans are to the environment for survival. It also shows that is is possible for people to live off the land and not create so much pollution.  Our food comes directly from Mother Nature, and without her, we will die.  His writing is a good depiction of showing our reliance on nature because he goes into a great deal of imagery to show how he was so reliant on nature.  While reading his work, you imagine his productive and thriving farm.   

We rely on the environment for recreation, nourishment but also spiritual cleansing.  Henry David Thoreau, an American author lived and died in Concord Massachusetts.  He built a small cabin in the wilderness and spent over 2 years there, trying to simplify his life.  In Henry’s book, “Walden”, he states, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I come to die, discover that I had not lived.”  I thought this quote was incredibly powerful because it is showing how Henry is relying on nature to teach him about life.  Nature is life bearing, so where would be a better place to learn about the meaning/value of life? I can attest to nature being a great place to cleanse your mind and soul.  I spent a summer in Alaska, a time when I hiked some of the most remote locations on the planet.  When you are in such vast wilderness, it truly is purifying and helps to become one with yourself like nothing else.  Thoreau uses personification in this writing to convey his messages.  He often gives the animals and trees human characteristics, which makes the reader really feel for nature and have sympathy for its destruction. I think that Wendell Berry and Henry David Thoreau have a similar view of mother nature because they both realize the importance that nature has on their lives both physically and spiritually.

In Chapter 3 of Communicating Nature, Julia B. Corbett discusses environmentalism and begins to discuss environmental campaigns.  It wasn’t until 1960 when people gained awareness about environmental issues.  She explains that many environmental campaigns have difficulty with raising awareness or familiarity with certain subject issues.  Only 2% of Americans are environmentally literate, according to Roper Polling.  Most people who I talk to either don’t care about the environment or simply don’t realize how much of a problem environmental degradation is.  I think that most people feel powerless and assume that if they are in real danger, the government will take action to prevent that danger from happening.  Just remember, the government is not superman and they might not come to the rescue so long as the money they are making blinds them. 

Luckily, many groups have been established to help raise awareness and start fighting against environmental degradation.  The documentary, A Fierce Green Fire shows the establishment of many early environmental campaigns.  David Powell created the first international environmental organization called “Friends of the Earth.”  They work on many different campaigns from climate change, environmental justice, food and much more.  This is great to see that the organization is still going strong and trying to make a difference on the planet. 

Senator Gaylord Nelson was the founder of Earth Day, and on the first Earth Day, there were approximately 20 million people who showed up, which is the biggest earth day to date.  I found this to be reassuring that a senator was the creator of such a large environmental movement.  While most politicians are solely concerned with money and power, this showed that Gaylord’s primary concern was clearly the environment and raising awareness for treating our planet with care.  This shows that there might be a few people in the government who are actually looking out for our environment, however small that number may be.  

The documentary also speaks about an incident in history that I found to be very perturbing.  Love Canal was a toxic waste site located in Niagara Falls.  Studies showed that there was an increase in disease and sickness in the community and 56% of children in the community were born with birth defects.  It took incredible amounts of protests led by Lois Gibbs who was a resident of Love Canal to finally evacuate the area.  The government didn’t believe these studies and refused to believe that the large number of illnesses was due to the waste site.  This documentary accurately portrays how the government will hide disasters and that they care more about money then the health of fellow humans.  The film uses real events in history as a tool to prove how degrading our pollution can be to public health.  Instead of warning us about potential future disasters, this film shows how disaster has already struck, and is continuing to this day.   

An article in the New York Times called, “Environment is Grabbing Big Role in Ads for Campaigns”, explains how many politicians are using the environment as a part of their campaigns.  It states that in the general election, the third-most mentioned issue in political advertisement is the environment and energy.  The article also begins to say how this could suggest that the environment could be a prominent role of the election in 2016.  I believe that although the environment might be a large topic of the election, is that simply to gain public support or will actions be taken to reduce environmental degradation?  I am skeptical that the next president will actually place a high value on the environment because there is so much money in major corporations that will still bribe politicians with money.  

Many people still enjoy nature and the environment, and want to do so for many years to come.  We are helping climate change and we need to stop doing so much damage to our environment.  In “From the End of Nature” by Bill Mckibben, he writes, “We have produced the carbon dioxide-we are ending nature.”  I truly hope that he is wrong and that we don’t end nature.  People need to start living like Henry David Thoreau and Wendell Berry.  Aside from the good it will do to the environment, it may have equally good effects on their souls.