MAN V/S

ENVIRONMENT
 MAN V/S
ENVIRONMENT
The environment can be something as vast as global weather
patterns or as simple as the desert regions. With the advent of many
technologies, the delicate balance of the environment has been
upset (Elliot, 1961, p. 392). Strip mining, slash and burn farming,
damming of rivers, and the extinction of many species of plants and
animals have all lead to the permanent changing of the environment.
Some say the change is for good, and others say for the change is
for worse, but what is good about the ozone hole, rising global
temperatures, and over irrigation causing the spread of arid
conditions in once fertile locations (Eitzen, 2000, p. 79).
Is this interference the fault of the capitalist sys-tem or just the mortal
man? In my opinion it is the fault of the man for having, the attitude of
use what we need and do not worry about the concencuios. Man
started the raping of earth back when the first colonist made the long
voyage across the Atlantic to start their new life in America.
Uncontrolled burning of the forest was done to make way for the
intruders’ villages, towns, and cities. Once estab-lished the
settlers needed more room for farms and bigger cities so again they
pushed into the forest causing the Na-tive Americans and the wildlife
to withdraw further into interior of the continent.
Let us move forward a hundred or so years in history the settling of
the American Great Plains. One of the big-gest violations of the
environment was taking place, the buffalo hunters, and the
extermination of the Native Ameri-cans and their culture. The Great
Plains, before the arri-val of the buffalo hunter must have been a
remarkable sight. The countryside must have looked like it was a
mov-ing carpet of bison. With over 60 million buffalo roaming the
plains (Pendley, 1995,p. 124) at one time man saw this as a threat to
its complete control of the continent, so he sent out his fingers of
death, the buffalo hunter. It was these “fingers'; that slain
approximately 60 million of these ingenious creatures (Pendley,
1995, p. 125). The re-ward for this was given directly to the man in
the form of money, moreover; these men volunteered to shoot these
help-less animals.