On Environment

This semester has really made me put environment into perspective partially because the professor made it fun with his jokes and analogies , and partially because of the numerous sources we looked at as a class. One that stuck most was "Words of Chief of Seattle";the speech of the Native American leader of the Skokomish Indians who responded to the governments attempt at buying more of their land and putting the native people on reservations. Throughout history, there has always been the picture of injustice of taking Native American land from the American point of view. However, the Chief's words help to portray the other side of the story. He argues that you cannot "buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land"(98), and it does seems a strange thing because we don't own it. We abuse the trees by cutting them in excess, and never replant or restore them. We hunt the animals for sport and not need. We dump our waste and debris in the ocean, not realizing the danger it causes for the animals that inhabit it. Yet we have this mentality that the earth is ours to dominate and rule.

Chief Seattle counters that.The earth is sacred to his people , because as he says, "We are part of the earth and it is a part of us...So, when the Great Chief of Washington sends word that he wished to buy our land, he asks much of us"(98). If you look at it from his perspective, it is true that giving up one's home for the sake of greed just doesn't seem right. Those who take over will not appreciate it in the same way because their ways are different.

He also makes a valid point, though I don't necessarily agree with it:

"There is no quiet place in the white man's citites. No place to hear the unfurling of leaves in spring...what is there to life if a man cannot hear the lonely cry of the whippoorwill or arguments of the frogs around the pound at night?"(99). You can argue that you can hear the birds song in the early morning and the crickets symphony at night, but somehow, it isn't the same. That's why it is so important that we respect and connect with nature. It's important that we protect the environment because in the Chief's words "Contaminate your bed, and you will one night suffocate in your own waste" (99). If you look at the earth as it is, we are in danger of being suffocated. The air is being polluted, the glaciers melting, animals losing their homes. All of it effects because we are connected. The man hunts the beast, the man eats the beast, the man dies and becomes part of the earth, the beast eats of the earth. So why not treat the earth as it should be, as our mother, as our home, as a part of ourselves.