It's a rather obvious fact that humans are affected by the natural world. Changes with regards to the natural world, therefore, are of critical importance to people. These changes can range from earthquakes to new discoveries of fuels to the topic of tonight's post, climate change. All of these changes are met with varied reactions from people that reflect their view of humans' relationship with the natural world.
As I said before, tonight's post is about climate change. Over the past several decades, a considerable store of data has indicated that the Earth's climate is changing, with the trend indicating an increase in the average temperature of the Earth as well as significant increases in extreme weather patterns, including tropical storms/hurricanes and the recent polar vortex that the Chicago area went through earlier this year.
As with all the other topics we've examined this year, the climate change debate raises some interesting reactions. This is a situation in which something that affects everyone -- the Earth's climate -- is changing in many different ways, and humans have been given time to react to that change.
Some of those people have chosen to become environmentalists. These groups are the kinds that are, for example, opposing the Keystone XL Pipeline and advocating for lower carbon dioxide emissions so that the human impact on the climate is minimized, thereby protecting nature and the Earth. Not all of these people are very vocal, but there are vocal elements to this group, particularly in the form of organizations such as the Sierra Club, the National Resources Defense Council, and other environmental groups. These groups tend to be the public face of the environmentalists.
By contrast, there are others that argue that humans do not need to worry about climate change very much, with some going so far as to deny that climate change even exists. This group includes those who say that the human impact is not yet fully clear or those that say that the human impact is negligible. These people are often associated with being right-wing, and they oppose the environmental groups on many grounds. A major such ground is economic, saying that the economy would be adversely affected by some of the changes proposed by the environmentalists.
Though I have an opinion on this matter, the point of this post is not to explore that opinion. Rather, it is to examine a rather curious phenomenon: the views of humans' relation with nature results in certain views of climate change. Those who feel that the humans have an obligation and ability to change the way the Earth operates and have more faith in the ability of humans to affect nature argue for greater control, regulation, and environmentalism. On the other hand, those that say that the ability of humans to affect nature is very limited say that climate change is not a major human issue. This is a very interesting and timely example of a difference in ecocritical lenses resulting in different reactions to a change.
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