The Psychology Behind Our Environment

" The degree to which we are all involved in the control of the earth's life is just beginning to dawn on most of us...meaning another revolution for human thought" (Thomas 195). This quote was taken from Lewis Thomas's essay Natural Man in which he discusses the way in which humans unknowingly have got themselves involved in the happenings of the environment. I found this quote to be particularly interesting as it sets up a strong claim that would later be dissected throughout the essay. Which are humans constantly are debating about the hazardous conditions they live in and that our environment is in danger due to pesticides, pollution, extinct species, etc. But they do not realize that these very same issues are caused only by humans and that they are also involved in the reasons of destruction in the environment. Thomas proceeds to elaborate his argument off this ‘claim’ that I used as my quote. His prose is agreeable to only a certain extent. Where most of his argument focuses on blaming humans and how they “sit around and worry about best to preserve the environment” and that they continue to bring damage to the very same environment. But blaming someone is not going to get our environment fixed. It is true, humans are part of the problem but sometimes, mother nature turns upon her own creations and has her way with things. Such as terrible natural disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, you name it. To fix these “environmental issues” humans were the only hope to get everything back to something that was close to normal. Take Japan’s 2011 tsunami/earthquake incident that crushed the Japanese economy for example. They lost up to 120,000 buildings and around $199 billion dollars (about 16.9 trillion yen); according to the Japanese government. And they are still recovering from minor damage today. Thus, if humans didn’t do anything, then the environment would have collapsed back in 2011 for Japan. To conclude, Thomas’s argument is valid but sometimes could be manipulated to suit each scenario; and the quote does an excellent job summing that up.