How does Lopez relate his attitude to our natural land today? In Barry Lopez’s article, he stated that land usage began from the very beginnings of European interaction in the Americas when Columbus and other explorers and conquistadors came and imposed their views on the people and the land rather than proposing their ways. They wanted communication with American and conquered everything they wanted on those land. The consequence is to lose a vast amount of knowledge about the land and the people who lived there and the wisdom they had acquired. Like some old techs, people have no idea today how ancients had achieved them. And the way Spanish has done in the past, just like what human are doing to our natural land today. People take resources from the natural land and damage it without concerns and with the imposition of will. He suggests people should take the land as a companion but not a processor. I agree with his opinion and it is a good way for sustainable development for the natural environment. In the old period, human has never concerned about taking natural resources because of the small amount of population and unadvanced tech of taking and using natural resources. However, with the industrial period came, the rapidly grew population and high tech taking and using a huge amount of natural resources with the passion of having a better living condition. Based on the studies and researches, people began to realize the resources are limited and the usage of land resources should be in a sustainable way. I think if a human is not taking and using land resources with concern, it is because they got the concept that unmanaged usage is not the best way to gain the most benefit in a long period. It is not like people will take the land as their companion because it is not alive, and it can’t have emotionally communication with human beings. The human can take animals as companions but not the land. Like we said plant and even grass also have lived but we still take them as nothing because they are too whispered and too small to be valued. And the land is like a public property except for our tiny place for living. Therefore, I agree with the opinion but I don’t believe people can really have that concept when they using the land because the reason we think this problem is based on the group is not living in the property and the unlimited usage may cause future generation to have a bad living situation. Imaging the people living in staving in Africa or some small countries have barren lands which can’t support most of the citizens have a nice place to live and having appropriate foods. They would try to take anything they can from their land to feed their personal need instead of thinking about taking the land as a companion. I believe the conquer of the land is not just because of greed but also the normal needs because people haven’t reached the standard of their personal needs. That’s why we need the United Nations, a stage that developed countries can help undeveloped or developing countries growing faster with high tech and advanced concepts they already have to make global land using sustainably.
What two things does Williams say we need save wilderness in the days ahead? Williams think we need both intellectual humility and political courage. We need intellectual humility because we may not know enough to make the best development on using wilderness to fit our desire by using a huge amount of land resources like timber and houses. For political courage, we need to honor and protect all the wilderness we have left on the land to balance all the wilderness we have destroyed. And we need the land to keep our species living in a better environment. We have made some mistakes that we destroyed wilderness without enough considerable thoughts, but we understood the problem and will make a better method on rational utilization on wilderness. And we will gain wisdom from those mistakes we have made and building a better living condition for future generation.
How does Turner’s essay makes me feel? After read Turner’s essay, I recollect the memories and feelings I had in my childhood when I was still a boy caring about the lives of small insects; animals; and plants. Like the age I still had feelings with my toys and belongings accompanied with me. There was no way I could always have someone staying with me when I was a little boy so the toys I payed might be the thing I filled most emotion in it. I didn’t have cellphone or too much electronic games to play at that time, so I spent most of my free time played outdoors in nature and stayed at home played my toys. The reason I bring it out is feeling and empathy people had when they were goys and girls make them care about small things and they really feel bad and sad when they are damaged or broken. I still remember I read an article about a little girl asked her father to drive slow on the highway in case to kill the insects coming to their window. I would like to say that is the empathy of caring about the wilderness. It is the purest and most kind heart that children have but might gone when they are grown up because of the society and life. I understand it is not all children have that empathy, some of them might damaging and destroying things for fun. And this is the thing I want to talk about Turner’s set out about his essay. If someone didn’t have empathy for wilderness when they were kids, without experiences and sufferings, we can’t expect them have it when they are adults. I think the willing for change the wilderness and make it better have two kinds: one is to make it better emotionally because some people feel the pain of nature sympathetically; another is to make it better because it is a rational option and people can get the most benefit from it. Therefore, I think Tuner has accomplished his set out in writing this essay because it reinforces and remains the people who had empathy and giving concepts and making people thinking about the wilderness crisis who haven’t thought about it yet. And I think Turner’s perspective and orientation is productive to the contemporary conservation movement. It is like once people notice the existence of the problem; they can’t ignore it anymore. People do live in a bad environment with pollutions, social issues and oppression with numbness, but they are the consequences of the development of the society. If the whole human species still live in the property without advanced technologies, we might not have time to consider the wilderness issue because we are struggling on improving the living conditions. Today people are busy to working on their own stuff and deal with the online exploded information, there are so many things to deal with. People need to get their school jobs done, then working on their career, and their family. How many people really want to make some changes when they are bringing their kids to the zoo and really have empathy to the animals which is a part of wilderness. The people don’t have enough financial condition can’t make huge change most of the time, and people have sufficient financial condition don’t want to get involved in this kind of problems most of the time. Like factories cause some serious damage to wilderness for making more profits, the owners might be someone should fix the damaged wilderness. Like it says: with great power comes great responsibility. Turner has said there is no longer the wilderness, I agree with it and I would like to say since human species have evolved advanced intelligence can exploit and use nature resources, there is no longer wilderness because unpredictable human behaviors totally changed the original ecosystem on earth. I believe if we want to avoid father damage to wilderness and our own living habitat, we need to change the attitude and concepts about modern society, lifestyles, and the way we treat wilderness inconsiderately.
My personal reflection in this week is about it is kind of impossible to make people really caring about wilderness. I mean people are living on wilderness and survive by robbing the natural resources. It is just like we feed pigs for eating their meat, we make wilderness sustainable developed because we want to use more resources of it although we have destroyed a lot. People doing good things for wilderness is based on satisfying their own desire, like their empathy on caring the natural environment or wild animals or wanting better living condition for the current or future generation. Once we are taking advantage of it, we can’t say we are really caring about it. People are using the wilderness and earth. Like people feeding our dogs and taking them as friends sometimes, but we are hard to treat them as a real person. We barely can love someone else as much as we love ourselves. Most people won’t sacrifice themselves to achieve someone else life or success unless they can’ t find their purpose in life. However, the existence of human can build better earth after they have enough advanced technologies and appropriate ways to foster better wilderness. Imagining if human exists when dinosaur still alive and human have enough tech to against meteorolite, so now we can have another huge and smart species with us and making this planet more full of vigor. Today human has ruined enough natural environment to make this planet being exhausted, but think about the future. When we have studied the best way to make a natural environment and this planet growing better, the earth can reach to the condition she has never had. I believe the human can fix it and make it better off, just like a recombined relationship between people are tighter than it has been broken before.
Here is a link with a article related to the sustainability in wilderness. https://www.environmentalscience.org/sustainability
Xiubin's Nature blog 