who is henry david thoreau? how did he change the way people think of the enviroment?
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David Henry Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts, to John and Cynthia Thoreau. He was named after a recently deceased paternal Uncle, David Thoreau. He didn't change his name to "Henry David" until he had graduated from Harvard, although he never petitioned the government to do so officially. He had two older siblings, Helen and John Jr., and a younger sister, Sophia. [1]\n\nBronson Alcott notes in his journal that Thoreau pronounced his family name THOR-eau, stress on the first syllable, not the last, a common error today. A Concord variant is THUR-eau, like the English word "thorough." In appearance he was homely, with a nose that he called "my most prominent feature".[Cape Cod] Of his face, Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote: "[Thoreau] is as ugly as sin, long-nosed, queer-mouthed, and with uncouth and rustic, though courteous manners, corresponding very well with such an exterior. But his ugliness is of an honest and agreeable fashion, and becomes him much better than beauty." [2]\n\nThoreau studied at Harvard between 1833 and 1837, majoring in English. Today, an equivalent degree would be in comparative literature. Legends state that Thoreau refused to pay a five-dollar fee for a Harvard diploma. In fact, the Masters' degree he declined to purchase had no academic merit: Harvard College offered it to graduates "who proved their physical worth by being alive three years after graduating, and their saving, earning, or inheriting quality or condition by having Five Dollars to give the college." (Thoreau's Diploma) His comment was Let every sheep keep its own skin.\n\nUpon graduation, he returned home, where he became a companion of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson took a strong paternal, and sometimes patronizing liking to Thoreau, and delighted advising the young man and introducing him into his social circle, which consisted of some of the most important American writers and thinkers of the period including Ellery Channing, Margaret Fuller, Bronson Alcott, and Nathaniel Hawthorne and his son Julian (at that time only a boy). Of the many esteemed authors who made their home at Concord, he was the only town native. Emerson referred to him as THE man of Concord.\n\nEmerson constantly pushed Thoreau to contribute essays and poems to the transcendentalist magazine, The Dial, but editor Margaret Fuller consented to publish Thoreau's work only after pressure from Emerson. His first work to garner any praise was Natural History of Massachusetts half book review, half natural history essay published in The Dial in 1842. Like most of his works, the essay was mostly made up of observations Thoreau had made in his journal. Thoreau had begun keeping a journal in 1837 at Emerson's suggestion. His first entry on October 22, 1837 reads, "'What are you doing now?' he [Emerson] asked. 'Do you keep a journal?' So I make my first entry today."\n\nThoreau was a philosopher of nature and its relation to the human condition. In his early years, he accepted the ideas of Transcendentalism, an eclectic idealist philosophy advocated by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, and Bronson Alcott. Transcendentalism was naturalistic and mystical, rejecting deterministic Calvinism. It was inspired by Swedenborg, Kant, Buddhism, Hinduism, and other non-Christian sources. It was not atheistic, but Unitarian and thus did not see Jesus as divine.\n\nThoreau worked in his father's pencil workshop in 1837-1838. He and his brother John, opened a Grammar School in Concord in 1838, teaching there until John became fatally ill in 1841.[3] In 1841 he was invited to live in the Emerson household, where he lived sporadically until 1843 working as an all-around handyman, gardener, and assistant to Emerson. He spent a few months of 1843 in New York, serving as a tutor to William Emerson's sons, and attempting to break into the New York publishing industry.[4]
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As a neighbor he might not be a bad guy, I could see drinking a beer and watching a baseball game with him. However as a world leader he leaves quite a bit to be desired...the environmental problems have been mounting for years so the blame can't solely be his, my main beef with his 'regime' has been the fact that he condemns religious fanatasism (sp?) abroad and embraces it at home...
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Yea. Read 'Ishmael' from Daniel Quinn and study/do a project on population. You'll know what I mean if/when you read this defining book. :)
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what you just described is what is reeferred to in political science as state of nature.human beings have grown beyond that today the general agreement is that we need each other.that is why marshal mcluhan's global village concept is such a success
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Read on George Mueller.\nhttp://www.wholesomewords.org/biography/biorpmueller.html
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I am sure the term "environmentalism" does not go back that far.  As to people who were concerned about their environment, I expect most farmers were, and certainly people who were responsible for forests.  It did not become an academic discipline to be taken seriously until the time of Rachael Carson.  "Conservation" was a term used earlier, and the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, among others, took that seriously.
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I don't think I can give an unbiased view. This admin seems to favor big business over all else, and because of this one of the biggest losers is the environment. It's a case in study of the old "Tragedy of the Commons." Of course, it's not just this administration, and a lot of the cause can just be blamed on our culture as a whole. We have a low population density compared to other environmentally similar locations in the world, so we've come to over-exploit many resources with the belief that we'll find something else to replace them when they're gone and that we can just dilute pollutants to an acceptable level. Intelligent design? That wouldn't be my conclusion. Ignorant bliss seems closer.
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Actually, his message was more similar to Karl Marx's (no heaven, no possessions)... That's no bad thing, of course. Mind you, I didn't see him giving away too many of his possessions during his life.\n\nBut you're right. The world would be better if people actually listened to the song instead of just waving lighters and pretending as if they understood it.\n\nPeace.\n\n(edit: Mainworry, for God's sake what is 'closed minded' about this question? It's 'not worthy of an answer' but tou'll supply one anyway in order to get 2 points.)
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Nope....look at the pollution in the world....the decay of moral values....I'm trying to sound negative....but...with the crazy weather....depleting natural food resources....human greed...\n\nHow can this world be a better place for the next generation...unless...all humans "WAKE UP THEIR IDEAS!!!!"\n\nCheers.....
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john locke thpught that man was bassically good and had only to be left alone and his goodness would come out. he thought that every mans "self" ( including his) was of God and perfect and woule eventually result in a good world. He did not think it was necessary to force man to be good with rules and punishments and so forth. his basisc nature was to be kind and love and share and help. \nHe was one of the first people to express what is now called a liberal philosophy, in western philosophy of the more modern era. Of course these ideas were not new but at the time were radical as his nemesis, A guy named HObbes, had written an important political book expressing just the ooposite, that man was eveil and had to be controlled to prevent him from anarchy and chos and sin. Both were wrong as men are all things and each is unique.
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41st United States Secretary of State\n\nIn the 1920s, he was a strong supporter of Prohibition, but is probably best known today for his crusade against Darwinism, which culminated in the Scopes Trial in 1925.\n\nBryan was one of the most energetic campaigners in American history, inventing the national stumping tour for presidential candidates.\n\nHe was called "The Great Commoner" because of his total faith in the goodness and rightness of the common people.\n\nhttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/d5/William_Jennings_Bryan.JPG/200px-William_Jennings_Bryan.JPG\n\n\nIf you saw the movie "Inherit the Wind" you would probably have a somewhat negative impression of him.\nHe lost that trial, because he was somewhat narrow minded, and the other attorney presented a very good case for believing in evolution and creation BOTH.\n\nHe was a great statesman who stood up for what he believed.\n\n\nI♥♫→mia☼☺†
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Environmentalism as it is known today is a relatively new phemonenon. It didn't really begin until the 1960s.\nHowever, there were precursors to that movement such as John Muir and Aldo Leopold.\nhttp://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/sontag/muir.htm\n\nThe Secretary of the Interior during most of Wilson's administration was Franklin Lane. Here is a very brief bio;\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_K._Lane\n\nBetter bio at NPS:\nhttp://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/sontag/lane.htm\n\nThe most significant achievement of Lane's administration at Interior was the creation of the National Parks Service.\n\nThough his "utilitarian" philosophy regarding natural resources (especially water storage and use) was at times fanatical, his ultimate intentions were never malicious. In Park Service lore, he will be remembered chiefly for three things: being a primary advocate for Yosemite's Hetch Hetchy Dam: coaxing Stephen T. Mather to come to Washington to organize and run what would become the NPS; and being the secretary of the interior under whose administration the National Park Service was penned into existence.\n\nAs secretary of the interior, Lane visited many park areas between 1914 and 1918. He toured pre-national park Acadia (Sieur de Monts National Monument) with its "foundling father" George B. Dorr and struck up an immediate friendship with him. His fondness for Dorr and his excitement over the park clinched the area's national park designation. Though Mather and Albright sharply protested some of Lane's resource management ideas, the secretary nearly always stood behind his chiefs, giving strength to a far-flung, under staffed, infant agency operating on an inadequate budget.\n\nI would see if there are books about Lane.
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Ignorance. People fear what they don't know. From what's making that noise under the bed to the guy at the next table that looks and speaks differently than them. \nOne Planet = One People
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The Bird Man of Alcatraz ... I have no idea why that just came into my head ... no idea at all!! (I don't believe I have read the book, either, though I know something about him.)\n\nI would talk to him about his life and how he came to be where he was. I would ask how he came to care for the birds and whether and how that changed his perception of life. I think understanding how things have changed other people's lives inevitably changes ours for the better.
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I like this one!! I read Orwell's epic a long time ago,as time went on I couldn't see it.Now as a man of 58 years, my feelings have changed.I consider myself of above average intelligence,I've lived a pretty good life,I've particapated in two wars,been around the world twice.My views of George's work has also changed.The man had a sight akin to Nostradamas,some of the things he wrote of are showing signs of coming to fruition,these are just my views of course,but as time goes on the things he penned can linked to the way our future is progressing.Just a thought.
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Everyone is smarter & dumber than someone else.  What else is new? \n\n"Even he, to whom most things that most people would think were pretty smart were pretty dumb, thought it was pretty smart". \nDouglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt, p. 205\nEnglish humorist & science fiction novelist (1952 - 2001)
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"We don't need to worry about protecting the environment, because Jesus is coming soon." \n- US secretary of the interior (ie. the _environment_) James Watt, 1981\n\nReligion isn't the solution to environmental problems; religion is the problem.  Cults tell people to overpopulate the Earth, use up all natural resources and not to worry about the effects.  Eliminating religion by educating people would do more good.\n\nAs the saying goes, you can't eat dollar bills.  Isn't funny how the religious rail against "worshipping mammon" when money is the only thing that will be left after using up everything?\n\nBut if you actually *do* give a hoot about the environment and want a religious-based slogan, here's one:\n\n"The Earth isn't yours, you're just borrowing it from 'god'.  What condition are you going to return it to him?"\n\n\nAdditional:\n\nHere's another one, although you're probably in school and not an adult, so it's not much use:\n\n"Say no to sex before AND after marriage.  Reduce the population."\n\n\n.