Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Journal Entry #17


I have never read an article in any of these books that defined my relationship with nature. Although my relationship is not as extreme as Woody Allen’s; my life is most definitely consumed with shopping malls, freeways and dense suburban areas. I grew up in the technological century where checking your Facebook has become more thrilling then taking a mile kayaking trip. My best friend would put me under the category of being biophobic, but not to such an extreme as the book puts it.

 

Owen Barfield’s work proposed that “people once felt “integrated or mortised into” the world..”(Orr, 2011 pg. 188) Biophilia has become more of a choice rather than a decision. This is becoming truer due to children growing up in cities where there are no parks or outside recreation for them to play. Biophobia is not a silly “disease” that naturalists have come up with to scare being into caring about the environment, it is proven that it shrinks experiences and joys and creates an inability to achieve a close and loving relationship with the environment. Also the urge to control nature, has lead to a greater increase in biophobic people. All we want to do is control the situations around us, for example the weather, but in a world like today with so much increased CO₂ emissions, this is not possible.



I enjoyed reading the section about self-interest and how biophobia is not OK because it “violates an ancient charge to replenish the earth.” (Orr, 2011 pg. 192) Earth is given to us humans as a trust for our proper use. Unfortunately we have not lived up to that trust with our destroying of the Earth’s ozone, depletion of oil in reserves, and increased CO₂ emissions. Improper use comes from ingratitude which will proceed to greed, violence and abuse.

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