David’s Weekly reading 8/30

By reading the two articles I felt like they were taking different perspectives on how humans affect the Earth. Regarding the Vitousek article I have to say that I admire how they started off saying this, “This article provides an overview of human effects on Earth’s ecosystems. It is not intended as a litany of environmental disasters, though some disastrous situations are described; nor is it intended either to down- play or to celebrate environmental successes, of which there have been many. Rather, we explore how large humanity looms as a presence on the globe.” This is basically saying that the purpose of the article is not to bash humans or say they destroyed nature, rather the point of the article is to say that this is what we have discovered through our research, whether you think humans are ruining nature or not is your decision to make. Furthermore this article brought a good point near the end regarding extinctions and invasions. The article said that even without human involvement on Earth animals would still go extinct but at a much slower pace. The same could be said about invasions, these would also happen without human intrusion, however humans make the process a lot faster. As for the Kareiva article I liked the fact that the visage of nature being weak was broken. I mean when you think about it if mankind does in fact alter the earth so much, to the extent where humans can no longer live on Earth. We would really just be hurting ourselves, because if humans become extinct nature will remain and will adapt. Another reason I enjoyed the Kareiva article is because of the way that it described the problem with modern conservation. I personally think that it is a good idea to have set aside land for wildlife to have. I mean after all humans have to share the world with animals so why not give them their own little area where they can live without us bothering them. However, the article showed me that this thought process has flaws and instead of living in such a manner where we are separate with nature we should live in accordance with nature. So to finally answer the question as to whether or not the Earth is in a new era, I think the Kareiva article says it best, “The wilderness ideal presupposes that there are parts of the world untouched by human kind, but today it is impossible to find a place on Earth that is unmarked by human activity. The truth is humans have been impacting their natural environment for centuries. The wilderness so beloved by conservationists — places ‘untrammeled by man’ – never existed, at lest not in the last thousand years, and arguably even longer.” In other words the scientists were right when they claimed that we are entering a new world era, the age of humans, and as both articles clearly state humans do have a great influence on the world.