The notion that humans and nature are mutually exclusive is central to the arguments of American environmentalists. As environmental historian William Cronon noted, “The place where we are is the place where nature is not.” Seemingly, humans are a plague, trampling nature wherever we turn.
Ironically, though, environmentalists do the most harm to “nature.” Owing to modern man’s destructiveness, they say nature has become a place to visit, but never to remain. This pernicious conception is turning the “wilderness experience” into another product of the artificial, “urban-industrial” type that environmentalists have strived to prevent wilderness from becoming.
The wilderness experience has been made accessible only to the relatively few who have the means to “leave it all behind” and venture hundreds of miles for a weekend in the “wild.” No longer a foreboding, alien place, nature is now a travel destination that instrumentally serves to “recharge the batteries.” In other words, nature is now largely a commodity, merely another place to recreate.
This trend is a product of the American environmental movement and only furthers the consumerism hastening and driving environmental degradation.
Furthermore, with nature revered so intensely, cities and human environments become arbitrary and confining by comparison. This is the misguided conception that makes it permissible to neglect the environmental consequences of our actions within manmade environments.
“For most Americans,” Indian historian Ramachandra Guha said, “it is perfectly consistent to drive a thousand miles to spend a holiday in a national park.” Indeed, many of us are more likely to purchase bottled water in a city than in a national park, litter on a field beside a freeway than on an Everglades marsh or take time to smell the wildflowers in Yellowstone than in a city park.
If nature is taken to solely mean “nonhuman,” then what options are left to us in deciding how we ought to act toward nature and what our place in it is? By definition, our only option is to remove ourselves from the picture entirely. This “solution,” though, is both unsatisfying and impossible. Instead, we should reconsider how we view nature and, more importantly, ourselves. Our new formulation can be both more rational and more effective than the ill-conceived and uncritically adopted human-nature dichotomy.
What’s more awe-inspiring about a grove of pine trees in Yosemite than a grove of pines down the street? Why is a babbling brook in the Adirondacks more likely to inspire poetry than one within a city park? Inherently, these things are the same — the difference lies within us.
A slight change of perspective can enable us to see and appreciate the nature all around us. Although cities and the parks within them are manmade, it’s important to realize that “wilderness areas” are manmade as well. Humans have purposefully created them not only by acting to prevent their “development” but also often by taking intrusive steps like invasive species removal, fire debris removal, plant and animal population control and even the forced relocation of “native” peoples.
As journalist Michael Pollan has proposed, we should consider ourselves not as intruders, but rather as gardeners. To live, we must interact with nature and, inevitably, take from her. However, we must do so not with guilt, but with reverence and appreciation. Like the gardener and his garden, we must live symbiotically with nature — taking some but leaving enough for renewal. This new outlook is more effective, practical, rational and, indeed, beautiful. It requires us to see ourselves as a part of nature, no more or less valuable than any other part. More importantly, we see our well-being as intimately intertwined with that of the environment.
Erik Johnson is a Weinberg junior. He can be reached at [email protected]. If you would like to respond publicly to this column, send a Letter to the Editor to [email protected].
