Welcome to our class!

We are an environmental science course at St. Benedict's Prep in Newark, NJ, taught by Mrs. T. We'll be blogging about environmental issues all term, so please stay tuned!

Friday, January 29, 2016

The Meaning and Purpose of Nature

We, as a class, probably have a lot of different views about what the natural world is meant to do for us and what it is meant to be for our planet.  For instance, some people feel that everything in nature is at humans' disposal and we should take whatever we want, however we want.  Others feel that nature is to be cherished and protected, as it contains many life forms.  There are so many points of view.

What is yours?  You may find that your point of view is influenced by political, religious, or cultural beliefs and practices, and that is fine.  Your comment should clearly communicate your beliefs and why you believe them.  Always proofread, spellcheck, and read over your post aloud with a friend to make sure it makes sense.  

22 comments:

  1. In my opinion I believe that nature is to be preserved and cared for. Nature is to be cherished and protected, it is not just our home but it is also the home to many species. Everyday humanity seems to destroy the environment by littering, polluting, cutting down plants and trees, etc. The same way we are destroying the environment, we are to protect it, cherish it, clean it, and restore what we have destroyed. The environment, nature itself is our home. In my opinion its not religion, cultural beliefs and practices, but it is the way I am. The way we destroy nature, we have to rebuild it because if we don't care for it, nature is just going to be full of trash looking disgusting.

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  2. In the moment, we don't seem to care much about nature. People see the future as a distant aspect of their lives when it happens to not be that far away. However, I believe that now is the time to take early action before it is too late. I believe we will start to worry when it harms the lifestyle of our kids and grandchildren in the future. Action must be taken now for our kids to enjoy it as we do today. When outside, on a trail for example, people throw their garbage on the ground instead of placing it inside a proper garbage bag. Think of the small action of placing your garbage where it belongs and how it can save us later.

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  3. My personal belief is that we as humans should take care of nature. We tend to be selfish because we only care about us. There is different types of life in nature, and we should take care of them. We only have one Planet Earth and we should take care of it before it is too late. People have to realize that they are not the only ones that live in this earth, so we have to share it with other living things. I don't think that we should take everything that we want from nature, I think that there should be a limit or balance. Humans are not realizing that we are harming nature, and it would be too late when we do.

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  4. There are many worlds out there. There is the microscopic world, the Ocean World, the Human World, and then there is the Wild, also known as Natures world. Despite being completely different, all of the worlds share the same sky. That being said the worlds should respect each other, and they do for the most part, but mankind always gotta come and ruin the balance. Nature don´t do a thing to us. They mind there own business and we should mind ours. Instead though Mankind gotta have that world too. And they gotta have the ocean, and the plants, and everything else out there as well. We have to erase this mentally. Destroying forest and polluting ecosystem´s is a huge crime in my book. Humans don´t belong in nature. We were in there and we quit. We said ¨uh huh, yup, that´s enough. Time to Evolve baby!¨ And now we wanna mess it up, and ruin the balance of things. People wander why such and such got eaten by a shark out in the middle of the ocean. It is because some dumb person was trespassing in another world. God did not make that world for us. We got our own, and we should not mess with the others. Respect Nature, for without it, we could not live the way we do. Thank you.

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  5. Although I do not care about the earth as much as I ought too I do believe that nature should be preserved to an extent to suit other forms of life. We are animals and even though we have abilities unlike any other animal we must ensure that the world is also sustainable for other forms of life. A question that should be asked more frequently is how much farther can humans go without further damaging other forms of life or even ourselves and the enviorment ? This question is important because our footprint is tremendously huge compared to any other animal. We as humans have an obligation to maintain the earth. The earth is our home along with many other animals and although we have the power to do pretty much whatever we want we should recognize this fact. If we do not decide to make a change for the better than our home will become a desolate wasteland where nothing can live anymore.

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  6. I feel that nature is a very important aspect to our life. It has become and unimportant and unnecessary part of today's society. In today's technological boom, which is not stopping anytime soon, the natural world only seems important if it's shown through the camera lens. I personally enjoy nature in its natural, pure form. I enjoy the outdoors; the wind that blows through the trees, the light pitter-patter of the rain on the woodland floor, the radiant sun that shines ever so bright. For me it's a calming relief from the hardships I experience on a weekly basis. If we as a community and as mankind do not take care of the nature left we will only be hurting ourselves and those that come after.

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  7. My personal opinion about this, is that it's really important to take good care and cherish the moment we have each and every day in this very beautiful environment we're surrounded by. I say this because nowadays people are just littering everywhere and makes the environment look disgusting. Although it's also it's a form of respect and as well as a responsibility to take good care of this nature to keep the environment clean and safe.

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  8. In my opinion, I believe that nature should be cherished and in good care. I believe this because in nature, there are many different types of species that live their lives just like we do. If nature were to be mistreated these species would be affected and they would eventually die. Today, I believe that humans mistreat nature by polluting through many different things such as cars, factories, and smoking. Therefore, I believe that nature should be well preserved for the sake of all the species who want to live their lives.

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  9. From my point of view I think we are "eating away at our own life support systems." We have to change the way we live. I believe it must be a radical change, something of substance and value. If we do not care about our environment and realize that it is the only one we have, it will be too late. Not only for our sake but for the sake of the other life that dwell in the nature ecosystems as well. I bet we wouldn't appreciate someone coming into our homes and throwing trash on the floor.

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  10. I care very much for our earth, environmental awareness has always been something that I have valued a lot, it is something that has been instilled with me since I was a young child. My parents have really drilled the whole concept of being good to the earth in my head, that is why I am so earth friendly and do the best to my ability to encourage others to as well be earth friendly. However, I do not only have this whole concept of being good to the earth simply from my parents, I do it because I truly do care for the earth in which we live in. I always think about how good the earth is to us, the beauty it provides, the vastness, and I see it as a duty to do the best I can to help the earth out. I also find it pretty foolish and frustrating when I see people littering, I feel like almost yelling at them but I manage to restrain myself from doing so. I certainly believe it is of the uttermost importance that we try and preserve our earth, and do our best to encourage others to do so as well.

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  11. In my point of view, the earth is an incredible gift. It's nature is very unique and indeed it should be cherished and well taken care of by us humans. We all take for granted what we have around is. But we don't take care of it. By small things such as picking up little from the streets can make a huge difference. As we can observe, nature is very unique and if we don't preserve what we are given, we won't be left with anything. So I believe it's our duty to be attentive on how we treat our Mother Earth(nature).

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  12. I believe that nature is not at our disposal. In fact, we should care for nature since we live in it. I believe nature is another sign of God's magnificence. Destroying and exploiting nature destroys ecosystems and habitats which create a nuisance for animals, different creatures and even ourselves. Nature is not our own. God established it and has put us in stewardship of it. We should take care of it so that we can continue to live in favorable conditions. Also, we should take care of nature for other animals and creatures. The Earth is an incredible gift from God so we should not squander it with our selfish ambition.

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  13. When I was little I had always recognized nature as something that belonged to humans and that will be there forever. Then again, my naive self thought that humans lived forever. So I knew there was something I didn't know. As I grew older I learned about organisms and what lived within nature. I feel that humans are taking over and not caring at all. They do not take into consideration the organisms they are killing and there homes. what also struck when writing this was, limited amount of resource. What happens when all of nature is gone? We are going to regret some of the decisions we make when it comes to taking over nature, rather than cherishing it and respecting it.

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  14. In my opinion, I believe that nature is our bare earth and that we must cherish and take care of it. As humans we see nature as it is here for only us, but it isn't. We share nature with animals, oceans etc. All species takes nature and sees it as its disposal because that's just how we're programmed to be. We feel as if everything is here for us, so we all take whatever we can and want from it. The funniest thing about it, is that humans take and want the most from nature, but destroy it the most.

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  15. My point of view on this topic is that we has humans need to take care of our environment. We often see everything as our workplace and tend to cut down whatever we feel is necessary for our workplace to be running. It becomes very complicated when we don't take into consideration about the other life forms that roam this earth just as we do. If we continue to take advantage and mistreat this earth, it be hard for us to even continue life here.

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  16. We should preserve nature as if it was our own home. Also, we should be considerate of what resources we take from nature and try our best not to disturb other species. Due to our previous actions, we have forced animals to become extinct or endangered. Our actions impact our lives as well as flora and fauna.

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  17. In my opinion I belive that nature should be protected and preserved. I dont think everything is here for our disposal, and I believe that it's a bit reckless to think so. We're just another part of nature. We are animals just given the gift of intellegnce just as other animals have been given other gifts like flight for birds or the strength of hippos. If you think about it we'd be in big trouble if we were placed on an even playing feild with many animals. I think its humbling to understand that we arent the baddest and the biggest on this earth, individually speaking and its crucial we understand that we share this earth with many other species.

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  18. I feel that nature is something to be preserved not only because other organisms are involved but because the destruction of nature will harm humans also. Some people tend to think of themselves as outside of nature because they have cars and buildings but ultimately we need depend on the presence of other organisms just like any other organism. For example, we can cut down all the trees we want to build as many condos as we want but that will not change how much we need trees.

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  19. To me i feel as though we as animals should only take what we need. We are apart of nature and nature is apart of us. As such we should only give and take what we need and not be greedy and take extra. By doing so we are making a unbalance in the world. Which to me is unacceptable.

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  20. I believe that because we as humans are animals ourselves, we should share the Earth we have equally among other species in our environment. I believe that God intended for all species on the Earth to have an equal share of the planet, and just because we are more advanced than other species, that does not mean we should take advantage of them and simply use them to our disposal. Instead, we should give these other species a chance to live in this world with us and not fight for the land that we already share.

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  21. I believe that the world is here for us and is given to us but we do not cherish it. Instead of us using what is there and at the same time helping the earth maintaining it healthy we don't. We us the things that are here and don't pay back to the earth in the wrong way harming it. I feel if we continuing doing the things that were doing one day we won't have the things we do because everything will be gone. But there's people that are seeing all of this differently and taking care of the mess that we've caused in the best and creating a better place for us in the future.

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  22. I believe that nature should not be abused by our wants. As humans, we should only take what is necessary for survival. In our day and age, we tend to use more of nature's resources than we actually need because of economic opportunities such as deforestation for the building of businesses. I believe that we should preserve nature to our best ability because the earth can only take so much. Like people always say, you only realize what you had when it's gone. We should cherish the beauty that the earth has before it's too late.

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