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Brittney Herron
Molly Fenn
English ¾ 
October 17, 2015

Nature is Withering Away
    Emerson was a transcendentalist that adored nature. Emerson uses persuasive language to make the reader understand that nature is breathtaking and shouldn’t be taking for granted. As transcendentalism transformed the world in the mid 1800s, Transcendentalist came up  a lot of ideas that impacted the world today, they went in depth with life, society, individualism, and the relationship with man and nature. Transcendentalist talked about nature like it was a human. Transcendentalist thought of nature as being just like you and me. In  Emerson poem Nature he quotes “Nature never wears a mean appearance. Neither does the wisest man extort her secret, and lose his curiosity by finding out all her perfection. Nature never became a toy to a wise spirit” Emerson understood nature more than any other being did, he praised nature as if nature was a God.    The human race doesn’t understand that we are destroying earth with a big iron fist! 
Back in Emerson era people didn’t fall about on nature as much as we do today. We use a lot  that come from nature, mostly everything in your house has been made with something from the outdoors, for example paper is made from trees and the trees are cut down to make paper. The average student in the USA uses over 1,000 pieces of paper a year. This means that millions of trees are being cut down per year. Before you know it trees will become endangered and then will have a really big problem. Some of the reason nature is being affected so much by humans is because of the population growth, factories, and etc.

    Humans as a whole have become selfish and narrow minded when it comes to nature's resources, it’s like humanity doesn’t even care what’s going to happen the nature if we don’t slow it down on using it so much and always relying on it. Childe Harold's Pilgrimage By Lord Byron who was one of the leading figures of the Romantic Movement in early 19th century England slanders man for taking advantage for nature. Lord Byron quotes “I love not man the less, but Nature more” Lord Byron loves man but he loves nature more than he does man. Then Lord Byron says “ Man marks the earth with ruin”  what he is trying to say that man isn’t having a positive impact on nature at all, the only thing  man is doing is destroying it piece by piece. Transdentlist named Henry David Thoreau would 100 percent understand what fire in and Emerson are talking about because Thoreau went to live in the woods for over 2 years and throat a book about his experience and overall you loved experience in the woods and he worship nature and he did not understand why society did not want to be in the outdoors. Thoreau says  “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms”.  Threaou is trying to get people to understand that we have to be in nature to  experience nature instead a using nature and abusing nature, humans should worship nature, and appreciate the nature. Nature is like a beautiful lake that goes with the flow and always is calm, but man dumps trash in it and over populates it, it will become a lifeless lake. 
Mankind needs to realize that if we keep using earth's resources and always relying on nature for everything that we have, we won't have nature, we won't have wildlife, we won't have anything we need to find a way to have a peaceful relationship between humans and nature or we won’t have nature.. For example Lake Karachay is the most condemned lake on the face of the earth. The lake is radioactive and standing next to it for an hour has enough in it to kill you. It was used as a dumping site and the 1950s for radioactive waste, A journalist named Andrew Handley says “the shores of Lake Karachay emit 600 Röntgens per hour, and that’s about as much radiation as it takes to guarantee a slow death. But that’s not all you have to be worried about: The entire area is so unstable that if a single dam breaks, the Techa River and all its radiation could pour through the Asanov swamp, into the Ob’ River, and out into the Arctic Sea, where currents would carry 120 million Curies of radioactivity into the Atlantic.” This lake been polluted for 65 years and it’s horrible that mankind did this to this once beautiful lake. This is not the only lake that is polluted, and if mankind as whole keeps making unwise decisions ever last one of mankind's water sources will be like Lake Karachay.   
Even though the signs may be hidden that nature is slowly withering away, but all the signs are there  man just has a sheet of wool over its eyes. For example man is cutting down all the trees, polluting the ocean, polluting the air with cars, California is in a drought, sea levels rising, China has pollution so bad you can't even see through it some days, and so much more.Robert Ferris a journalist from CNBC news explains that “Air pollution in China kills about 4,000 people every day, about 17 percent of all deaths in China”. China is suffering because they don’t have air laws, China just does whatever and their people are suffering, and it can only get worse if mankind just sits back and watches. Dave Foreman an American environmentalist quotes “Our environmental problems originate in the hubris of imagining ourselves as the central nervous system or the brain of nature. We're not the brain, we are a cancer on nature”. If mankind doesn't do something now it will be too late to do something about that situation, Gray skies, lots of factories, no trees, no wildlife, and the pollution will be extreme. 
The Lorax by Dr. Seuss he talks about how mankind is killing off the the earth, and this book paints a disturbing future for mankind. Dr Seuss quotes “I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues” some needs to speak for the trees, and man can be that voice for nature. If mankind can’t stand up for nature who will…?
I agree with Emerson that mankind as a whole need to appreciate nature, and not always rely on it. If mankind wants to still have beautiful lakes, mountains, and more mankind should start now, begin small and then go bigger and bigger. If mankind waits too long the U.S could have bad air pollution like China, sea levels would rise and New York goes under water, and animals and plants will slowly disappear off the face of the earth. Mankind doesn’t see that our future is in danger, and if mankind doesn’t act now mankind and nature as a whole will wither away together.