NATURE THEME IN LITERATURE

 NATURE THEME IN LITERATURE

            Natural environment has been a very critical subject for most poets and prose writers. Nature obliges as much more than simply a passive setting against which the compelling actions unfold. Rather, nature in most of those works is truthfully a living character through which the real human identity is raised either through the characters’ alignment with the natural environment or their struggle against it. Writers have many similarities based on their description and how they depict nature in general. However, there are also differences depending on the writers’ standpoint when addressing mutual relationship between nature and mankind.

Taking scrutiny in three of nature writers of the history, Eli Kintisch, Alan Weisman and James Lovelock we have several insights towards nature. We find many similarities as compared to the existing differences in their literature point of view towards this subject.

For instance, James Lovelock in his book The Revenge of Gaia points out at the worst case scenarios that could happen in future as a result of people neglecting the health and safety of their planet. Basically Lovelock is mainly concerned with the climate issues which are likely to befall the planet if people are not careful with their harmful activities towards the environment. Some of the harmful activities he tackles in this book are; pollution, deforestation and land disturbance. He goes ahead to predict the effects of these activities, loss of biodiversity, human health problems and economic down surge. He therefore encourages people to uphold practices which encourages healthy and safety of the natural world (Soltau and Friedrich).

Similar idea can also be perceived in Eli Kintisch’s, Hack the planet. According to Eli, hacking the planet simply means finding viable solutions to keeping the climate as stable, health and safe as possible. This is an outstanding support to Lovelock’s idea of taking necessary measures not to neglect the health and safety of our planet. Eli’s proposed solutions towards keeping nature healthy and safe are more of solution to Lovelock’s perceived activities causing nature harm. Eli proposes tree planting and reduced emissions to the environment as the critical solutions to ensure healthy and safe nature. It’s very clear that both Eli and Lovelock have a common argument, nature safety (Kintisch and Eli).

In The World without Us, Alan Weisman offers an utterly original approach to questions of humanity’s impact on the planet: he asks us to envision our Earth, without us. In this far-reaching narrative, Weisman explains how our massive infrastructure would collapse and finally vanish without human presence; which everyday items may become immortalized as fossils; how copper pipes and wiring would be crushed into mere seams of reddish rock; why some of our earliest buildings might be the last architecture left; and how plastic, bronze sculpture, radio waves, and some man-made molecules may be our most lasting gifts to the universe. This supports both the ideas of Eli and Lovelock on how human activities have adverse impacts on the nature. Weisman’s narrative ultimately drives toward a radical but persuasive solution that needn’t depend on our demise (Weisman and Alan).

Despite of these outstanding similarities depicted in the three writers, there is also an evident difference in how they approach the idea of nature conservation. James Lovelock for instance addresses the idea of health nature and safety in a reverse direction. He majors on the worse impacts foreseeable if people neglect the health and safety of nature so that out of these impacts, people can derive the essence of upholding safety measures on nature. This is not the case with how Eli Kintisch approach the idea, in his case, Eli is direct to the point of finding the solution to keeping the climate as stable, healthy and safe as possible.

Alan Weisman on the other hand argues on the basic idea that the solution to already affected nature can be found while we still exist. Weisman’s narrative ultimately drives toward a radical but persuasive solution that needn’t depend on our demise. Out of this argument, we derive the importance of finding the solution to a healthy and safety nature.

Work cited

Kintisch and Eli. Hack the planet: Science’s best hope-or worst nightmare-for averting climate catastrophe. Wiley, 2014.

Soltau and Friedrich. “The Revenge of Gaia-By James Lovelock”. Natural Resources Forum. Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2013.

Weisman and Alan. The world without us. Macmillan, 2012.