With our environment deteriorating, more and more people have come to realize that immediate measures should be taken to protect our environment from getting worse. However, in the article Saving Nature, But Only for Man by Charles Krauthammer, he proposes a so-called sane and humanistic environmentalism and maintains the following three ideas.
First, people should only combat ecological changes that directly threaten the health. Second, in sake of people’s own interest, people can choose not to sacrifice for other creatures. Third, man is the measure of all things and nature is only man’s ward.
It’s kind for the author to realize that he should do something to protect the environment, but treating the nature in such a utilitarian way is improper and wrong.
In the article, the author states that disasters just happen to occur in the environment and the reason why we should protect the earth is that those problems are getting more and more urgent now. I’m afraid that he has inverted the cause and effect. I want to point out that it is mainly due to our human’s activities that the environment is getting worse off. We are the main causes while pollutions are the effects. We shouldn't let the environment to deteriorate under the pretext that the problems are not urgent. Generally speaking, it’s much easier to stop polluting than dealing with pollutants. So a much cheaper way is to take action at the very beginning rather than tackling the problem until it arises.
The author also harbor a bizarre opinion that people can choose not to sacrifice for other creatures when their own interest is hampered. He will choose people killed in wars for caribous and logging families for spotted owls. But this is a false choice itself. Saving caribous doesn't necessarily means wars will be triggered by this and people will be killed then. By the same logic, saving spotted owls doesn't necessarily contribute to logging workers’ failure to make a living. When our interest is clashed with other creatures’ interest, we shouldn't always take our interest into account. After all, what we lose is just some money, while what other animals lose are their invaluable lives.
We can easily sniff out the author’s arrogance tone between the lines, especially when he says man is the measure of all things and nature is only man’s ward. I must say it’s a false analogy. If nature is man’s ward, how can the natural disasters killed so many people, it’s guardians? When compared with the entire nature, we humans are just a drop in the sea. The strength of human is so insignificant in the face of the nature’s magnificent power. We must revere the nature, our master who provide a small corner of the earth for us to live in, let alone saving the nature.
So this so-called sane and humanistic environmentalism isn’t sane at all. The only thing I figure out from this article is a horrible indifferent attitude to wink at the distinction of other animals only because of a handful of interest. By comparison, the sentimental environmentalism is much sensible. We should tackle the problems head off at the very beginning instead of waiting them to become a real urgent problem.
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