Man and Nature: From Creation to Climate Change

The relationship between humans and nature has been complex and evolving throughout history. From ancient creation stories depicting the origins of man and nature, to the impacts of the Industrial Revolution, to the current climate crisis, humans have both shaped and been shaped by the natural world. This article will provide an overview of the major developments in the man-nature relationship from theological, philosophical, scientific, and environmental perspectives. Key topics covered include:

• Creation stories and early human-nature concepts in religion/mythology
• Philosophical views on man’s place in nature from ancient to modern times
• The influence of science and technology on reshaping human relationships with nature
• The Industrial Revolution and the emergence of environmental problems
• Conservation and preservation movements in the 19th-20th centuries
• The ecological awakening of the 1960s-70s and the growth of environmentalism
• Climate change science, politics, and activism in the late 20th-21st centuries
• Current debates and dilemmas in finding a sustainable balance between human civilization and the natural world

By exploring these narratives, we can gain a deeper understanding of how humans have made sense of their place within nature, their evolving relationship with the environment, and the responsibilities and challenges that come with being both a part of nature and its most powerful shaping force.

Early Views of Man and Nature in Myth and Religion

Human cultures have long tried to make sense of the natural world and their relationship to it through origin stories, mythologies, and religious narratives. These served as humanity’s early frameworks for explaining the cosmos and situating humans within the larger fabric of creation.

In many early belief systems, nature was imbued with divine qualities. Animism attributed souls or spirits to aspects of the natural world like animals, plants, rivers, mountains and the sky. Polytheistic faiths like those of ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome had gods that personified natural forces and domains like the sea, the sun, agriculture and the underworld. Nature and its elements were powerful entities to appease, cooperate with or learn from (1).

Monotheistic faiths originating in the Middle East like Judaism, Christianity and Islam envisioned a single all-powerful god as creator of the universe. As the creator, this god was positioned above nature and humanity given dominion over the earth (2). The Book of Genesis told the Judeo-Christian story of God creating the heavens, earth, all living creatures and finally fashioning man in his image. Man named the creatures and cultivated the earthly garden, but lost his idyllic relationship with nature through original sin, necessitating man’s quest for salvation (3).

In these narratives, nature’s meaning was derived in relation to the human drama of fall and redemption. While nature may have been created good, it became fallen. Wilderness and beasts signified the tempting but dangerous domain outside the order of civilization and Christian morality. The goal was for man to transcend nature in pursuit of the divinely spiritual (4).

Evolution of Philosophical Perspectives

Western philosophy charted evolving views on how man should relate to nature, informed by religion, science, ethics and attitudes of human mastery.

Ancient Greek philosophers articulated some of the earliest Western conceptions of man and nature. Plato envisioned an ideal realm of eternal forms distinct from the imperfect physical world of matter and nature. Aristotle saw mankind situated between the beasts and the divine, with a capacity for reason that enabled dominion over nature (5).

The Judeo-Christian perspective was carried forward by philosophers like St. Augustine who saw an ontological divide between humanity and nature. Humanity’s divine soul and ability to reason meant transcending worldly nature in pursuit of heavenly truths (6).

In the 17th-18th century Enlightenment period, Francis Bacon promoted man’s mastery over nature through empirical science and technology. Rene Descartes envisioned man as thinkers capable of rational mastery over an mechanistic natural world of lifeless matter. Their perspectives helped shape modernity’s attitude of man versus nature (7).

Romantic era philosophers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau offered a counter-perspective. They envisioned nature as essentially good and humanity as plagued by greed, vanity and vice. Man should seek wisdom and virtue by living in tune with benign natural impulses. Natural landscapes inspired aesthetic and spiritual appreciation rather than control (8).

As environmental awareness grew in the 20th century, philosophers like John Muir, Aldo Leopold and Arne Naess articulated ethical perspectives on humanity’s relationship with nature. Muir championed wilderness preservation, while Leopold articulated a land ethic for living sustainably within ecological communities (9). Deep ecologists like Naess critiqued anthropocentrism and called for a more biocentric worldview of self-realization within nature (10).

So philosophy underwent a shift from seeing man atop nature to situating humanity within an interdependent natural order, with accompanying ethical responsibilities. But putting such perspectives into practice on societal scales has proven an ongoing challenge.

The Influence of Science and Technology

The maturation of modern science brought revolutionary advances in understanding the natural world, enabling prediction, control and manipulation of nature on unprecedented scales.

In the 16th-17th centuries, Copernicus displaced the Earth from the center of the universe, while Galileo’s observations confirmed a heliocentric solar system. These revelations decentralized humanity’s cosmic significance. Newton later conceived laws of motion and gravity that made nature seem a great mechanical clockwork operating independently of divine will (11).

Baconian empiricism advanced the systematic observation, study and organized knowledge of nature that power the Scientific Revolution. Taxonomies classified organisms while anatomical studies revealed the structures underlying life. Field studies created comprehensive accounts of ecosystems like plants, animals and geologic features (12).

Powerful instruments like the microscope and telescope expanded sensory perceptions of the microworld and celestial spheres. Fossil evidence filled out the prehistoric ages of plant and animal species. Awareness grew of humanity itself evolving within the great web of life. The world could be rationally understood, rather than mythologized (13).

In the 19th century, Darwin pioneered evolutionary theory, elaborating nature’s dynamic processes of descent with modification driven by natural selection’s adaptation of organisms to environments. Marx dialectically situated humanity within nature, shaping and being shaped by the material conditions of existence (14).

Technology enabled the forces of science to reshape nature on industrial scales as natural resources for material production and consumption. Railroads, mining, mechanized agriculture, fossil fuels, chemicals and electricity powered economic booms but also degradation like deforestation and pollution (15).

Wilderness was cleared for human habitation and cultivation. Ecosystems were manipulated to enhance productivity and yields. Selection bred specialized livestock and crops optimized for human utility (16). In ways both awe-inspiring and alarming, science and technology revealed that humanity could transform nature while also uncovering our embeddedness within nature’s global webs.

The Industrial Revolution and Environmental Impacts

The Industrial Revolution marked a watershed period when technological advances and fossil fuel usage allowed extensive industrialization, urbanization, social changes and rampant environmental impacts.

The steam engine enabled new forms of transportation like railroads along with mechanized mining, forestry and agriculture. Factories with machine tools mass produced commodities previously made by hand, outcompeting small craftspeople (17). Acidic soot from coal burning defaced cities and countryside alike.

Expanding iron and steel production spurred demand for coal and other mined resources. Toxic chemicals synthesized products like dyes, explosives and fertilizers but also contaminated waterways. Prodigious waste piled up in neighborhoods lacking sanitation systems (18).

Railroads and steamships enabled ever-expanding circuits of industrial production and trade. Forests were denuded, grasslands overgrazed. Growing urban populations depended on rural breadbaskets to convert more land to farmed monocultures (19).

Goods that were once luxuries became cheap, disposable products of mass consumption. Newly affluent urban classes curated materialist lifestyles further divorcing them from nature (20). The inexorable pace of industrial technology seemed to reinforce man’s mythic conquest over natural limits, promising liberation through mechanization and material abundance.

But resulting environmental degradation also bred disillusionment. Writers like Charles Dickens, Victor Hugo, Emily Bronte and Henry David Thoreau critiqued the human and ecological tolls of reckless industrial development (21). Industries resisted regulations limiting their smoke, waste and water usage. Still, movements grew to address public health crises from pollution, occupational hazards in factories, contaminated food and unsafe drinking water (22).

The Industrial Revolution unleashed technological powers to transform nature that brought both prosperity and peril. The desire to conserve nature gathered momentum as well.

Conservation Movements

Appreciation of wilderness and alarm over humanity’s impacts stirred 19th-20th century conservation advocacy to protect threatened natural landscapes and species.

In the American West, early conservation proponents like John Muir, Gifford Pinchot and Theodore Roosevelt made the case for preserving scenic public lands from extractive commercial interests. The national park system was established with early designations like Yosemite and Yellowstone preserving spectacular natural areas for recreation and posterity (23).

Leading wildlife conservationists like Aldo Leopold and Ding Darling lobbied for protective measures as many game and bird populations were decimated by market hunting and demand for feathers. Protection policies included hunting regulations, licenses and quotas along with wildlife refuges for vulnerable species (24).

In the early 20th century, ecological perspectives gained ground documenting the vital interdependencies within biotic communities. Preserving isolated fragments was inadequate. Interconnected ecosystems needed protection to maintain vital diversity and resilience. This scientific foundation helped conservation efforts scale up (25).

Global organizations like the IUCN advanced habitat preservation and species protections across continents. Expanding wildlife filmmaking through figures like Jacques Cousteau fostered wider public affinity for nature. A movement to preserve biodiversity took form as extinctions accelerated, expressed in accords like the Convention on Biological Diversity (26).

Yet conservation has also faced critiques—that it was elitist, aesthetic, focused on charismatic megafauna and driven by colonial mentalities. But evolving perspectives still offer hope for more diverse, democratic and scientifically-grounded conservation (27). Ongoing advocacy, education, funding, policy reforms, indigenous partnerships and habitat protections remain essential to stemming biodiversity losses.

The Ecological Awakening

Worsening pollution issues in the post-war era along with photographs of Earth from space catalyzed a broader ecological awakening around environmentalism.

After World War II, intensifying petrochemical farming boosted crop yields but at the cost of habitat loss, biodiversity decline and pesticide impacts on birds and pollinators. Air and water pollution sickened communities while powering economic growth (28). Disasters like the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill demonstrated fossil fuel industries’ harmful footprint.

Seminal books educated the public like Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring on pesticides devastating birdlife and Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac calling for an ethical land ethic (29). Ecological principles highlighting interdependence and systems thinking offered new models for human societies as embedded parts of nature’s web (30).

Vivid photos of Earth from the Apollo missions captured planet Earth’s uniqueness and fragility. Along with images of burning rivers, toxic waste and smog, this visual evidence aroused public concern over environmental deterioration (31). Grassroots activism surged calling for pollution regulation, nuclear disarmament and curbing overconsumption.

Legislative victories of the early environmental movement established new agencies and bedrock laws like the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act and Environmental Protection Agency. The first Earth Day in 1970 channeled growing energy around environmentalism (32). Nature was no longer an inexhaustible resource, but a threatened living system requiring stewardship.

Climate Change Science and Global Warming

Scientific warnings about the greenhouse effect and climate change gathered urgency, met by denialist opposition and insufficient action as impacts accelerate.

In the 19th century, scientists like John Tyndall discovered how CO2 and methane naturally trap heat in the atmosphere like a greenhouse. Later work by Guy Stewart Callendar proposed increased CO2 from industrialization may be enhancing Earth’s natural greenhouse effect (33).

Pioneering climate models in the 1970s warned that unprecedented growth in fossil fuel emissions could substantially warm the entire planet. Ice core data confirmed past correlations between CO2 and temperatures (34). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) formed to synthesize mounting climate science.

Despite scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming, politically-motivated denialism funded by fossil fuel interests deceived the public on climate risks. Major droughts, storms and heat waves illustrated growing climate instability (35). Deadly heat waves, floods, wildfires, storms and droughts all increased in frequency and severity (36).

Melting glaciers and ice sheets, rising seas, ocean warming and acidification pointed to the profound changes underway in the Anthropocene era of significant human impact on the planet (37). Feedback effects like thawing permafrost threatening even more CO2 and methane release evidenced climate tipping points approaching.

Global climate agreements like the Kyoto Protocol, Paris Agreement and yearly COP meetings have failed to spur adequate emissions reductions. Nationalistic politics stall urgent cooperative action required to transition quickly from a fossil fuel based economy despite available clean energy technologies (38). Climate change exceeds ecological crisis to threaten the collapse of human civilization itself. Visionary transformations embracing sustainability and resilience are needed to restore balance.

Environmental Justice and Climate Activism

Networks organize to address environmental injustices while climate activism pressures leaders toward sustainability transformations.

Low income communities and communities of color bear disproportionate burdens from pollution, industrial hazards, resource extraction, land degradation and climate impacts. Environmental justice movements have organized against these inequities since the 1980s using litigation, legislation, activism and community-led sustainability initiatives (39).

Climate change exacerbates global inequalities through heat, drought, storms, flooding, sea level rise, disease, displacement and conflict. Frontline communities globally advocate for climate justice and liability for high-polluting industries (40). Youth activists rally demands for intergenerational justice and swift climate action to protect their right to a viable future.

Indigenous groups offer traditional ecological teachings on living reciprocally with nature. They defend sovereign lands from exploitation and greenwash extractivism, practicing sustainability grounded in ancestral wisdom and treaty rights (41). Climate direct action groups like Extinction Rebellion push disruptive civil disobedience targeting state and corporate inaction.

Multi-level collaboration between governments, corporations, communities, colleges, churches and individuals catalyzes transition movements toward decarbonization, renewable energy, regenerative agriculture, ecosystem restoration, circular economics and sustainable infrastructure in cites and regions around the world (42). Environmental and climate justice movements pressure leaders to enact sweeping Green New Deal transformations before climate tipping points trigger collapse.

Finding Balance in the Anthropocene

With humanity become a prime driver of planetary change, new perspectives and ethics are needed to achieve a sustainable balance between human civilization and the natural systems on which all life depends.

Developments like the agricultural and industrial revolution enabled population, consumption, and quality of life advances but also disrupted nature’s balance. Science revealed how deeply embedded humans are within the web of life. But applying technology without wisdom caused unintended ripple effects degrading ecosystems (43).

Exploitive attitudes viewing nature as a storehouse of resources to extract for short term profits have proven unsustainable. Humanity cannot endlessly expand on a finite planet. Equilibrium must be found or civilization faces collapse from depleted resources and ecological instability (44).

Environmental philosophies can align humanity’s sense of purpose and progress toward beneficial coexistence within Earth’s biotic community. This ethics of sustainability guides technology to restore ecosystems, conserve biodiversity, eliminate waste, and satisfy human needs through green energy and ecological design (45).

Living equitably within ecological limits requires fundamentally reassessing notions of the good life, transitioning economic systems away from gross domestic product and limitless consumption toward wellbeing indicators and sustainable steady-state systems. It means transcending divisive thinking trapped in man vs nature binaries (46).

Diverse holistic perspectives from science, ethics, spirituality and indigenous wisdom can help foster reconnection and reciprocity between humanity and nature. With compassion, courage and creativity, humans can write a new story of cooperation within the community of life so as to pass on a thriving, beautiful world to future generations. But action is urgently needed to avoid climate tipping points and irreversible biodiversity loss. The quest for balance continues.

Conclusion

The complex relationship between humanity and nature has profoundly shaped the trajectory of human civilization and the planetary ecosystems on which all life depends. Finding sustainable balance presents society with an existential challenge and moral obligation. But the future remains undetermined. With moral courage and imaginative spirit, humanity can come together to forge wise, regenerative pathways where human ingenuity harmonizes with ecological limits and the circles of sustainability and justice encompass the whole community of life. Our shared future on this fragile Earth depends on restoring humanity’s balance within nature.

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