David Hahn, Will Nature Ever Become Extinct?

5/1/08


From Wendell Berry’s A Continuous Harmony: Essays Cultural and Agricultural

“Our hatred of the world is most insidiously and dangerously present in the constantly widening discrepancy between our power and our needs, our means and our ends. In order to build a road we destroy several thousand acres of farmland forever, all in perfect optimism, without regret, believing that we have gained much and lost nothing. In order to build a dam, which like all human things will be temporary, we destroy a virgin steam forever, believing that we have conquered nature and added significantly to our stature. In order to burn cheap coal we destroy a mountain forever, believing, in the way of lovers of progress, that what is of immediate advantage to us must be a permanent benefit to the universe.”(Berry, 8)

Clearing out natures beauties happens on a regular basis to make room for all of our man made structures. But how many trees must be cut down, rivers ruined, mountains leveled until we stop constructing these structures? Do we just clear out everything until we’re left with no evidence of nature at all? Will we eventually have to “modernize” or ruin wilderness areas or national parks just to milk their last bit of resources from them? The line has to be drawn somewhere before nature becomes extinct and we’re just left with man made structures.