Introduction
In a 1962 speech at Scripps College, Rachel Carson helped kickstart mainstream environmental and conservationist movements. She focuses on how humanity has interacted with nature in historical and modern times. Carson uses her understanding of the man-nature relationship to establish the concept of the former against the latter. Carson gives special attention to the notion man has that nature can only be conquered or serve a particular purpose.
Man’s Desire to Conquer Nature
In “Of Man and The Stream of Time,” Rachel Carson possesses nature’s enlightening standpoints, which have been immersed in her mind for a decade. Through her writing, Carson reflects on man’s impact on nature by considering his role in changing the environment. From what she observes, Carson argues that through man’s desire to conquer nature, man has ended up forgetting that man cannot dominate nature. In her opinion, Carson upholds that instead of fighting to conquer nature, man should strive to dignify the environment where he lives (Carson 422). To make the reader comprehend her perspective, Carson bridges the poetic perception to scientific validity in the words used. In so doing, she quotes Francis Thompson, “Thou canst not stir a flower Without troubling a star,” to show that despite being in existence for almost a century, little about Thompson’s insight is known (Carson 424). In other words, Carson argues that with man’s destructive nature, nothing done against it is stationary. The impact of tree cutting not only resonates with plants but with it comes the loss of animal lives.
Impact of Man’s Action
Advancements in humanity bring with them a multitude of restlessness. The restlessness develops into a stream, and in time, people are no longer upset about their destructive nature to the environment. Instead, they constantly develop things and place them in positions not created by men, which upsets nature’s balance (Carson 425). Environmental changes are rapid, with a man at the center of the destruction. For example, Carson argues the reckless state of how people use water has turned it from the most precious natural resource into an assortment of wastes (Carson 424). She shows that what was once a beneficent rain has become an instrument for bringing down nuclear explosion products (Carson 424). Due to the environmental changes, limited or no time is left for the living protoplasm to recover. With this, not only has the planet become a rapidly thirsty world, but man is pushing all other species toward extinction with his actions. After hitting her audience with a thick pact sense full of Armageddon, Carson leaves the reader with something to contemplate.
Man’s Action Against the Environment
Based on her notion of how people interact with nature, Carson shows that humanity is characteristically distinguished by what it can do. People have become obsessed with what they can achieve, never minding the consequences of their actions. By factoring in every action against the environment, Carson argues that a time for reflection should come when humanity starts to realize the reality of his actions toward the environment. Man must start to understand that his actions have been responsible for creating and wearing down mountains. Further, he should comprehend that only through his interaction with nature have the seas been brought out of their basins and retreated; there have been floods and severe droughts.
Conclusion
Carson argues that humanity should start looking at nature from a different perspective. Nature cannot be conquered or should not exist only to serve a specific function that benefits man. When people contemplate the consequences of their actions towards nature, it becomes a wake-up call to what they can do to stop or change how they interact with the environment. That becomes the starting point of how people will not burden future generations with the mistakes of their past generations.
Work Cited
Carson, Rachel. Of Man and the Stream of Time. Scripps College, 1962.