Environmental Issues In 'New World New Mind'

As humans we are only on this planet a short period of time. Everyone always jokes and says that no one will make it out alive. Humans are also single handedly ruining not only the oasis we inhabit but each other and our chances of survival. The most important thing in the news is if Kylie Jenner got a new piercing. The biggest change in humans happened after World War II. Now, when the world needs it the most, humans have seemed to of lost the capability to look past what is right in front of them. There is a new modern era that needs to be adapted to and it is just not happening. The environmental issues are getting worse but humans act like no matter how bad it gets, it’ll be okay. The book, New World New Mind, goes in depth with the idea …show more content…
Upon being in this class I’ve read more and learned more about the environment than I ever have. In the first three chapters of New World New Mind, he went in depth of the problems that we currently face as the world. I liked how he gave the readers all the bad stuff and then told us how we can fix it. A lot of the readings that I’ve come across always tell the people what the problems are but never really try to tell us why we are in this position and what we can do from here. Reading these chapters on our ancestors and the reasons why we respond like we do was probably the most interesting to me. All other species took forever to evolve and are still evolving but we did almost all of our evolving almost immediately. From the reading I really want to say that humans really started to change after we learned to farm. When humans just went in large groups and killed animals as they needed they would constantly be on the move, just like other animals. At this point they wouldn’t stay in one place and ruin the soil and cut down the trees. Basically, humans didn’t stay in one spot long enough to cause any long term damage. Farming really changed how human’s lived and how the earth was impacted. As the authors said, “People now construct their own environments; concrete and steel supersede, dirt and trees. Heat exchange devises warm where it is cold and cool where it is hot. We can make water flow in deserts and create breathable atmospheres in the vacuum of space” (Ornstein and Ehrlich 44). The authors were right when they said that humans need to be proud of what they’ve accomplished but there’s a lot of work to be done to keep on accomplishing things. I’m a pessimist for sure when it comes to this subject. I see no hope for humanity because I know we will not change our