Suggestions for Writing

The Environment

Now that you have examined a number of readings and other texts focusing on nature, explore one dimension of this topic by synthesizing your own ideas and the selections. You might want to do more research or use readings from other classes as you prepare for the following projects.

  1. Take a walk in a favorite natural place close to where you live—in the woods, or out on the prairie, or along the beach, or in the desert. Then write to one of the authors in this chapter, comparing your impressions of nature with those he or she presents.

    Question

    uZxg83qH9uNZ3NUqyV8wT7hdxc9/5MQeJeZaOsQNhvI0w6Xk3EOeDQ1B873FE1s7
    Chapter 12 - Suggestions for Writing: Take a walk in a favorite natural place close to where you live—in the woods, or out on the prairie, or along the beach, or in the desert. Then write to one of the authors in this chapter, comparing your impressions of nature with those he or she presents.
  2. Research a local environmental issue—the development of open land, hunting or fishing regulations, wildlife protection, auto emissions, or another important concern. Then write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper in which you take a position on the issue. Refer to at least three sources from the chapter to support your position.

    Question

    uZxg83qH9uNZ3NUqyV8wT7hdxc9/5MQeJeZaOsQNhvI0w6Xk3EOeDQ1B873FE1s7
    Chapter 12 - Suggestions for Writing: Research a local environmental issue—the development of open land, hunting or fishing regulations, wildlife protection, auto emissions, or another important concern. Then write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper in which you take a position on the issue. Refer to at least three sources from the chapter to support your position.
  3. Write an essay in which you compare the ways in which two authors in this chapter use research to support their arguments.

    Question

    uZxg83qH9uNZ3NUqyV8wT7hdxc9/5MQeJeZaOsQNhvI0w6Xk3EOeDQ1B873FE1s7
    Chapter 12 - Suggestions for Writing: Write an essay in which you compare the ways in which two authors in this chapter use research to support their arguments.
  4. Write a personal essay that answers this chapter’s essential question: What is our responsibility to the natural environment? Refer in your essay to at least three sources from the chapter for support.

    Question

    uZxg83qH9uNZ3NUqyV8wT7hdxc9/5MQeJeZaOsQNhvI0w6Xk3EOeDQ1B873FE1s7
    Chapter 12 - Suggestions for Writing: Write a personal essay that answers this chapter’s essential question: What is our responsibility to the natural environment? Refer in your essay to at least three sources from the chapter for support.
  5. Write an essay evaluating and comparing the classic appeals to ethos, pathos, and logos used by two or more of the authors in this chapter.

    Question

    uZxg83qH9uNZ3NUqyV8wT7hdxc9/5MQeJeZaOsQNhvI0w6Xk3EOeDQ1B873FE1s7
    Chapter 12 - Suggestions for Writing: Write an essay evaluating and comparing the classic appeals to ethos, pathos, and logos used by two or more of the authors in this chapter.
  6. Write an essay explaining how one of the visual texts illustrates a major idea espoused by one of the authors in the chapter.

    Question

    uZxg83qH9uNZ3NUqyV8wT7hdxc9/5MQeJeZaOsQNhvI0w6Xk3EOeDQ1B873FE1s7
    Chapter 12 - Suggestions for Writing: Write an essay explaining how one of the visual texts illustrates a major idea espoused by one of the authors in the chapter.
  7. Imagine what a person living fifty years in the future might say to us now about the effect we have had on the environment. Employing both exposition and argument, write a “report from the future” warning our society about the consequences of our treatment of the natural world.

    Question

    uZxg83qH9uNZ3NUqyV8wT7hdxc9/5MQeJeZaOsQNhvI0w6Xk3EOeDQ1B873FE1s7
    Chapter 12 - Suggestions for Writing: Imagine what a person living fifty years in the future might say to us now about the effect we have had on the environment. Employing both exposition and argument, write a “report from the future” warning our society about the consequences of our treatment of the natural world.
  8. Select one of the following statements about nature and the environment, and write an essay that explores its validity. To support your essay, refer to your personal experience and to the selections in this chapter.

    The West of which I speak is but another name for the Wild; and what I have been preparing to say is, that in Wildness is the preservation of the World.

    —Henry David Thoreau

    Sometimes we forget that nature also means us. Termites build mounds; we build cities. All of our being—juices, flesh and spirit—is nature.

    —Diane Ackerman

    A true conservationist is a man who knows that the world is not given by his fathers but borrowed from his children.

    —John James Audubon

    To waste, to destroy our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed.

    —Theodore Roosevelt

    We seem to be in a period in which the conservation of anything is disparaged—the conservation of books, the conservation of ideas, the conservation of time, the conservation of darkness, the conservation of love, the conservation of intelligence—it all gets very short shrift in contemporary society. And I think that in the environmental movement, in the curious way in which it overlaps the women’s movement and other social movements of the late twentieth century, what we are really seeing is an insistence on the moral dimension of life. When I say the moral dimension, I mean issues of integrity and dignity and responsibility.

    —Barry Lopez

    Question

    uZxg83qH9uNZ3NUqyV8wT7hdxc9/5MQeJeZaOsQNhvI0w6Xk3EOeDQ1B873FE1s7
    Chapter 12 - Suggestions for Writing: Select one of the following statements about nature and the environment, and write an essay that explores its validity. To support your essay, refer to your personal experience and to the selections in this chapter. The West of which I speak is but another name for the Wild; and what I have been preparing to say is, that in Wildness is the preservation of the World. —Henry David Thoreau Sometimes we forget that nature also means us. Termites build mounds; we build cities. All of our being—juices, flesh and spirit—is nature. —Diane Ackerman A true conservationist is a man who knows that the world is not given by his fathers but borrowed from his children. —John James Audubon To waste, to destroy our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed. —Theodore Roosevelt We seem to be in a period in which the conservation of anything is disparaged—the conservation of books, the conservation of ideas, the conservation of time, the conservation of darkness, the conservation of love, the conservation of intelligence—it all gets very short shrift in contemporary society. And I think that in the environmental movement, in the curious way in which it overlaps the women’s movement and other social movements of the late twentieth century, what we are really seeing is an insistence on the moral dimension of life. When I say the moral dimension, I mean issues of integrity and dignity and responsibility. —Barry Lopez
  9. View former vice president Al Gore’s documentary film An Inconvenient Truth. Write a review of the film in the voice of one of the writers you’ve read in this chapter.

    Question

    uZxg83qH9uNZ3NUqyV8wT7hdxc9/5MQeJeZaOsQNhvI0w6Xk3EOeDQ1B873FE1s7
    Chapter 12 - Suggestions for Writing: View former vice president Al Gore’s documentary film An Inconvenient Truth. Write a review of the film in the voice of one of the writers you’ve read in this chapter.
  10. View one of the following three films—Fast Food Nation; Supersize Me; or Food, Inc.—and compare it with the voices you have read in the Conversation on Sustainable Eating.

    Question

    uZxg83qH9uNZ3NUqyV8wT7hdxc9/5MQeJeZaOsQNhvI0w6Xk3EOeDQ1B873FE1s7
    Chapter 12 - Suggestions for Writing: View one of the following three films—Fast Food Nation; Supersize Me; or Food, Inc.—and compare it with the voices you have read in the Conversation on Sustainable Eating.
  11. View the documentary film No Impact Man. Do you find its argument persuasive? How does it address this chapter’s essential question?

    Question

    uZxg83qH9uNZ3NUqyV8wT7hdxc9/5MQeJeZaOsQNhvI0w6Xk3EOeDQ1B873FE1s7
    Chapter 12 - Suggestions for Writing: View the documentary film No Impact Man. Do you find its argument persuasive? How does it address this chapter’s essential question?
  12. In 1977, artist Andy Warhol said, “I’m a city boy. In the big cities, they’ve set it up so you can go to a park and be in a miniature countryside; but in the countryside they don’t have any patches of big city, so I get very homesick.” Write an essay on “the end of nature” in which you consider Warhol’s perspective in relation to those of Bill McKibben, Aldo Leopold, and others included in this chapter.

    Question

    uZxg83qH9uNZ3NUqyV8wT7hdxc9/5MQeJeZaOsQNhvI0w6Xk3EOeDQ1B873FE1s7
    Chapter 12 - Suggestions for Writing: In 1977, artist Andy Warhol said, “I’m a city boy. In the big cities, they’ve set it up so you can go to a park and be in a miniature countryside; but in the countryside they don’t have any patches of big city, so I get very homesick.” Write an essay on “the end of nature” in which you consider Warhol’s perspective in relation to those of Bill McKibben, Aldo Leopold, and others included in this chapter.
  13. Writers Aldo Leopold, Lewis Thomas, Bill McKibben, and E. O. Wilson all discuss a “choice” that confronts humanity regarding the environment. Indicate each of the choices they discuss, and evaluate which one makes the most sense and offers the best solution.

    Question

    uZxg83qH9uNZ3NUqyV8wT7hdxc9/5MQeJeZaOsQNhvI0w6Xk3EOeDQ1B873FE1s7
    Chapter 12 - Suggestions for Writing: Writers Aldo Leopold, Lewis Thomas, Bill McKibben, and E. O. Wilson all discuss a “choice” that confronts humanity regarding the environment. Indicate each of the choices they discuss, and evaluate which one makes the most sense and offers the best solution.
  14. “The ethical solution is to diagnose and disconnect extraneous political ideology, then shed it in order to move toward the common ground where economic progress and conservation are treated as one and the same goal,” writes E. O. Wilson in The Future of Life (para. 12). Having read the selections included in this chapter, how likely do you think it is that we will achieve the ethical solution that Wilson suggests? Refer specifically to at least three of the texts to support your answer.

    Question

    uZxg83qH9uNZ3NUqyV8wT7hdxc9/5MQeJeZaOsQNhvI0w6Xk3EOeDQ1B873FE1s7
    Chapter 12 - Suggestions for Writing: “The ethical solution is to diagnose and disconnect extraneous political ideology, then shed it in order to move toward the common ground where economic progress and conservation are treated as one and the same goal,” writes E. O. Wilson in The Future of Life (para. 12). Having read the selections included in this chapter, how likely do you think it is that we will achieve the ethical solution that Wilson suggests? Refer specifically to at least three of the texts to support your answer.
  15. ExxonMobil, self-described as “the world’s largest publicly traded international oil and gas company, providing energy that helps underpin growing economies and improve living standards around the world,” makes the following statements on its Web site:

    Managing long-term climate risks

    Rising greenhouse-gas emissions pose significant risks to society and ecosystems. Since most of these emissions are energy-related, any integrated approach to meeting the world’s growing energy needs over the coming decades must incorporate strategies to address the risk of climate change.

    Managing climate change risks

    Our strategy to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions is focused on increasing energy efficiency in the short term, implementing proven emission-reducing technologies in the near and medium term, and developing breakthrough, game-changing technologies for the long term. Technological innovation will play a central role in our ability to increase supply, improve efficiency, and reduce emissions. Approximately 90 percent of the greenhouse-gas emissions generated by petroleum products are released when customers use our products, and the remaining 10 percent are generated by industry operations. Therefore, technology is also needed to reduce energy-related emissions by end users.

    In a time when we still hear many people—even some public officials—questioning the reality of climate change and global warming, it might seem surprising to discover the perspective above coming from a large energy company. What do these statements suggest about climate change? About global warming? About the relationship between economic concerns and environmental protection? Finally, what do they suggest about the essential question posed at the beginning of this chapter: What is our responsibility to the natural environment? Refer to several texts from this chapter as you answer these questions.

    Question

    uZxg83qH9uNZ3NUqyV8wT7hdxc9/5MQeJeZaOsQNhvI0w6Xk3EOeDQ1B873FE1s7
    Chapter 12 - Suggestions for Writing: ExxonMobil, self-described as “the world’s largest publicly traded international oil and gas company, providing energy that helps underpin growing economies and improve living standards around the world,” makes the following statements on its Web site: Managing long-term climate risks Rising greenhouse-gas emissions pose significant risks to society and ecosystems. Since most of these emissions are energy-related, any integrated approach to meeting the world’s growing energy needs over the coming decades must incorporate strategies to address the risk of climate change. Managing climate change risks Our strategy to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions is focused on increasing energy efficiency in the short term, implementing proven emission-reducing technologies in the near and medium term, and developing breakthrough, game-changing technologies for the long term. Technological innovation will play a central role in our ability to increase supply, improve efficiency, and reduce emissions. Approximately 90 percent of the greenhouse-gas emissions generated by petroleum products are released when customers use our products, and the remaining 10 percent are generated by industry operations. Therefore, technology is also needed to reduce energy-related emissions by end users. In a time when we still hear many people—even some public officials—questioning the reality of climate change and global warming, it might seem surprising to discover the perspective above coming from a large energy company. What do these statements suggest about climate change? About global warming? About the relationship between economic concerns and environmental protection? Finally, what do they suggest about the essential question posed at the beginning of this chapter: What is our responsibility to the natural environment? Refer to several texts from this chapter as you answer these questions.