I am very indecisive when picking sides, so I think that the colonists were innocently destructing the salt marshes and the land in general, but I think that as time progressed, and as scientific knowledge of consequences of altering the land and air composition through unnatural means augmented, people and corporations were unconcerned about the short and long-term impact even with their head knowledge. I wonder how our world in America would differ if the majority of Native Americans still had continued to have respect for nature. The colonists didn’t have the scientific technology and knowledge to know that what they were doing was wrong because they were used to building dikes and altering nature in Europe. They put their lives as the first priority, and put nature in an inferior level.

The Scientific American considered the salt marshes more evil than good because they only associated them with mosquitos and insects, even though they did try to find some good in salt marshes,  For example, corporations know that deforestation is wrong, but they still cut trees in Brazil, destroying the Amazon rainforest, which is a biologically productive natural resource, and the homes of many plant and animal species. Instead of using/altering the natural resources  for survival like the colonists did, the corporations are exploiting nature with full knowledge of the biological consequences because by the late 1900s, especially by the time the environmental movement was in full force in the 1960s, science has caught up with technology. For example, JFK airport was constructed by draining salt marshes in the 1940s without knowledge of the future impact, but people realized the consequences many years later with gains in scientific knowledge.

Also, I think that the world is obsessed with the idea of convenience, even at the expense of natural resources. Because we take things for granted and have the “I need it now” syndrome , the public usually ignores where consumer products come from.  In addition, because the world is in the process of becoming completely industrialized and globalized, many corporations have decided to get the most profit with the least effort, which usually meant using corrupt, unethical ways; many have tried to get in between the laws. Most of the human population, especially in urban environments, still have the perception that they are masters over nature that has come from the early colonists of the United States.