John Mcneil's Something New Under The Sun

I have been learning about the effects that humans have on the environment since elementary school. We were taught "reduce, reuse, recycle", and to turn off the sink while brushing our teeth. It has never occurred to me until reading these past week 's readings that humans were having such an effect on the earth that it warranted a whole new era: the Anthropocene.
John McNeil was an author in both of this week 's readings, and I felt his style to be an practical one when communicating with his audiences. In his book, Something New Under the Sun, I felt I was better able to connect with what he was saying because of his use of "personal examples" from the various countries. I feel that both of these readings are a sort of "call-to-arms" for people to start doing more to end the atrocities that are …show more content…
When toxic waste was becoming a public issue for developed nations; they had to ship the problem elsewhere. The United States tried dumping their toxic waste locally, but finding that resulted in birth defects and cancers (which companies could not make disappear), had to began sending the waste somewhere else. "By the late 1980 's the international trade in toxic waste involved millions of tons annually." (McNeil, 2000, p.29) Through McNeil we learned of the greed of the French government taking advantage of the developing nation of New Caledonia- costing many their homes and livelihoods over Nickel mining that did very little for New Caledonia.(McNeil, 2000, p.34) Honestly I believe this kind of corporate and governmental greed is still occurring today, and until the environment becomes a true top priority; most people will continue to turn their heads away from it. The only emissions coming from developing countries are from building the products for consumption from the "developed world". (Cruzan, Grinevald, McNeil, and Steffan, 2001,