Muir’s essay “The American Forests” provides us insight on the essentials that nature has to offer in America. In his essay he describes the diversity forests as “ These forests were composed of about five hundred species of trees, all of them in someway useful to man…”(muir 38). Current day we only have about seven percent of the original forests left from the time before the settlements of the Europeans. (Ran) Furthermore, Chief Seattle discusses the need to preserve our nature because it provides us with necessities to survive on a daily bases. He attempts to persuade the “white folk” to embrace the environment and respect it along with preserving it. In his speech from 1855 he tells us about how dependent we are on nature “The rivers are our brothers that quench our thirst. The rivers carry our canoes and feed our children.” (chief, 694). Yet still we continuously debilitate our environment through acts of deforestation and chemical pollution. John Muir and Chief Seattle were both prominent activists who agreed on preserving and respecting earth. However, we did not follow their teachings and ignorantly inflicted damages causing us to face the …show more content…
However, we do not feel the need to preserve this necessary component of life due to the fact that we take it for granted. John Muir expresses his opinion about this extensive issue and provides his foresight “…soon the country would be so bald that every man would have to grow whiskers to hide its nakedness, but he thanked god that at least the sky was safe.” (Muir, 43) This foresight provides a valuable lesson and reasoning for sustainability for the people who lack the interest and guidance. However, Chief Seattle has a separate view from John Muir, he analyzes this world as the property of everyone rather than a group of people as he states in the beginning of his speech “How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us.” (chief seattle, 693). The consequences of mistreating our nature has led to major problem such as ozone depletion and climate change just to name a few. Moreover, Chief Seattle also describes the nature of man and predicts our action in a statement “He treats his mother, the earth, and his brother, the sky, as things to be bought, plundered, sold like sheep or bright beads. His appetite will devour the earthand leave behind only the desert.” (Chief, 694) The environment we live in is key to our survival and needs to be respected and protected by us and by the future