how has henry david thoreau changed the way people think of the enviroment?
463893
Short answer: He made people have an appreciation for nature\n\nThe Importance of Self-Reliance\nFour years before Thoreau embarked on his Walden project, his great teacher and role model Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote an enormously influential essay entitled “Self-Reliance.” It can be seen as a statement of the philosophical ideals that Thoreau’s experiment is meant to put into practice. Certainly self-reliance is economic and social in Walden Pond: it is the principle that in matters of financial and interpersonal relations, independence is more valuable than neediness. Thus Thoreau dwells on the contentment of his solitude, on his finding entertainment in the laugh of the loon and the march of the ants rather than in balls, marketplaces, or salons. He does not disdain human companionship; in fact he values it highly when it comes on his own terms, as when his philosopher or poet friends come to call. He simply refuses to need human society. Similarly, in economic affairs he is almost obsessed with the idea that he can support himself through his own labor, producing more than he consumes, and working to produce a profit. Thoreau does not simply report on the results of his accounting, but gives us a detailed list of expenditures and income. How much money he spent on salt from 1845 to 1847 may seem trivial, but for him it is not. Rather it is proof that, when everything is added up, he is a giver rather than a taker in the economic game of life. \nhttp://www.sparknotes.com/lit/walden/themes.html\n\nOther sites:\nhttp://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/barrons/walden.asp\nhttp://www.bookrags.com/notes/wal/
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I have heard it as "for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction" As for people and environment.  Someone cuts down a forest- what happens? Soil biodiversity changes, animal species in that area change, CO2 consumption in that area decreases.\n   People put more black top up- absorbs and reflects heat warming the earth's surface more. There are a ton of examples, I am not sure what you are looking for specifically.
708809
Over 200 years ago, the Scottish historian Alexander Tyler stated that democracies exist only until people realize that by capturing government they can enrich themselves. After that, though the form of democracy may endure, the substance will be lost.\n\nThoreau was an idealist, and like all others of his ilk, he failed to regard the negative consequences of his own propositions. How does the thought strike you that there is no contradiction between the all powerful, all controlling state, and what Thoreau says?\n\nHow does the proposition strike you that what people want (as expressed by the democratic process) is greater security from want, and greater fulfillment of desire? The growth of government power isn't some back-room conspiracy of a few power hungry maniacs -- it's the direct result of politicians giving the people what they're crying out for -- MORE!!!!\n\n[EDITORIAL NOTE: If this concept doesn't quite make sense; please refer to Dostoevsky. His section from "The Brothers Karamatzov," entitled, "The Parable of the Grand Inquisitor" deftly lays out the chilling argument that people want to get rid of the burden of freedom as quickly as they can].\n \n\nIt is simply the nature of power that any government big enough to give you what you want, of necessity, must also be a government big enough to take from you everything that you have.\n\nIf you really want "limited government" you can have it. But you can only have it if you are prepared to accept total responsibility for every outcome in your life, and not ask for government assistance when things go wrong. And the incontrovertable fact is, the people have rejected this notion. The "power and authority of the individuals" as expressed at the ballot-box has spoken over the decades, and the politicians have simply listened, and given the people what they want.\n\nWhat Thoreau is naively assuming is that people actually want government off of their backs, and are willing to assume the full burdens of their existences. He's wrong. People want the freedom to do as they please; but when things go badly, they want (and indeed, expect) the government to step in to make things right. This duality of desires inevitably leads to decadence and a diminution of the human spirit. This is EXACTLY what the great prophet, Aldous Huxley tried to warn us about in his masterpiece, "Brave New World;" and people still don't get the message. "The People" want to be taken care of; and out of respect for the "Will of the People," the government is increasingly giving the people what they want. But what the people want is ultimately destructive of the very spirit of freedom the people claim they wish to protect. \n\nThe journalist H. L. Mencken once said that Democracy is the theory that "The common man knows what he wants, and deserves to get it -- good and hard." He's right.
780708
Change your mind complitly
819337
Yes, I can truly say that technology made us (at least the majority of us) live better, cleaner and in improving conditions of life, greater lifespan and have a better entertaining time.  \nNevertheless  the technology was always put in front of every thing stepping on what Nature gave us and stepped even on the Nature itself. Only when was absolutely obvious that the destruction of the environment is endangering the very essence of our lives, life that technology tries to improve entering in this way into a paradox. \nIn essence technology actually helps even to remedy the mistakes made in the past with  the same technology that made the destruction of the Nature, and....so on. \n\nIs a continuous loop I believe which should never stop, because if the progress stops, the problems remained unsolved, will increase, and if the destruction will continue...will not be for a long time, and even the human kind will perish, under the phrase "Technology makes your every day life better".\n\nAnd that's not all I have to say\nDfriend:)
646935
Nature has always been erratic. What has changed is our awareness of events farther and farther away from us. The news media always finds that people are more interested in tragedy than peace and quiet. Tragic events from more and more places get reported to us. It just seems like more bad things are happening.
245098
The reversal could happen with our generation.  It is seeing and understanding the threat to our environment that will eventually spur people to change their ways.
634990
it seems to me that people who live in more populated areas interact with more people and hear and discuss more different ideas than people who live in less crowded areas.  I think seeing that there are people in other religions and from other cultures AND that they are good people leads one to be more open-minded and tolerant --- and less convinced that there is only one right way to believe.
1181892
Keenly aware of the changes sweeping over America during his lifetime, Henry Ford took on the most ambitious project of its kind in history - the formation of a museum and outdoor village. In 1912, Henry Ford began collecting examples of agricultural equipment, power machinery and the precursor to his Model T - wagons and "horseless carriages." Ford quickly acquired a large collection of these artifacts from America's past. The industrial giant approached this project the same way he developed his company.\n\nFord’s vision was to preserve and protect images of America's past through two separate facilities - a museum to tell the tale of America's technological and cultural advances through displays of inventions and artifacts and a village accurately depicting life as it was lived in America's past. He hoped to foster a growing understanding of how and why America developed, and how this development still affects us today.\n\nIn 1922, Ford walked into his Dearborn, Mich., drafting office and asked for a man capable of handling a job "a little out of the ordinary." The supervisor singled out a former artist and glass cutter, Edward J. Cutler, who soon found himself working on a variety of things - including repairing threshing machines, restoring historic buildings and even drawing up plans for a "historic village."\n\nFor more than two decades Ford and Cutler worked to realize this "antique village." In the village's early years, Cutler traveled to many historic buildings around the country. Some buildings, like Eagle Tavern, Cutler commented were ". . . just a pile of junk when we got there." Often, as in the case of the Logan County Courthouse, Cutler had only a few weeks to disassemble a building, ship it to Dearborn, rebuild and restore it.\n\nFord cared little for history as it appeared in textbooks. His goal was to teach the history of the common man while preserving a way of life he himself was helping to change.\n\nThomas Edison, a long-time friend, represented a spirit of American greatness to Ford that he felt children could learn from. October 21, 1929, with President Herbert Hoover and an assembly of the greatest scientists, industrialists and celebrities of the day on hand, Henry Ford dedicated the Edison Institute Museum & Greenfield Village to Thomas Edison for his achievements and contributions to mankind. The Edison Institute Museum was renamed Henry Ford Museum in 1953 after Ford's death.\n\nWith his great wealth, Ford could have collected anything - including great works of art. He chose instead to collect commonplace items - toasters, farm machinery, kerosene lamps, steam engines and some historic buildings to document America's path of ingenuity, resourcefulness and innovation.
901945
OMG there is intelligent life!!!!!\n\nI live in NC on the coast and have basically rebelled against 'normal' society by leaving an engineering degree at age 39 to live a free and careless life. \n\nWhen I talk to ppl about this around here, I sometimes say, "I am living Thoreau's Civil Disobedience." And mind you, I have said this to successful ppl... ie, just two days ago I said this to a new neighbor.\n\nI have yet to find a single person that has any clue what I am talking about... they have no clue what Thoreau's Civil Disobedience is.\n\nThanks for such a wonderful question.\n\nBtw, my thoughts on it should be self-defined. I'm as extreme as he was on Walden's pond. I've asked questions about why do we have to wear seat belts, have license checks,etc...\n\nI recently went ballistic concerning the new Mass. law requiring all residents of that state to acquire health insurance in order to be a valid resident.\n\nIf a US citizen so chooses, he or she should be able to have NO allegiance whatsoever. Based on the freedom of passage concept of our forefathers, if we so choose, we should be able to live off our land freely without prejudice or penalty.\n\nOnce again, wonderful question.
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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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I guess I'm one of those people who notices changes in my own state - winters are NOT the same - but I am aware that our planet has undergone changes in the past. Are humans having an effect? I'm sure of it. But how much? And how much of the changes we're seeing are completely natural in the grand scheme of things? I'm not prepared to answer.
687692
As said earlier - HUMANS\n\nas we consume resources and increase population without any control limits. \nand modern humans seem to have lost any self-preservation instinct that might leave a viable eco-system for their off-spring
230552
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.
306087
if history is right there was one land, until the flood, the tower to heaven....the world gets smaller everyday and people go from place to place at will, (prosperity) People are changing states, countries, and the world fast becoming one in all places and stations. People are tired of the chosen few..they have lost respect for their is not respect..its who has the most artillelry...and the poor dont care about this either..it how can i survive wherever that is...
696749
A, yes you can change your environment to be more suitable to your needs. Does the person who answered before me think that all the cities of the world where there prior to man???
421839
Man is absolutely a part of nature, however it is the development of man that raises questions like these.  It is hard to answer why man is the way he is - I won't bring up the controversial subjects of Creation vs. evolution.  I'm not preaching here, yet as man progresses and his need for resources grows, the line become fuzzy.  It is hard to see the resemblances between man and nature at times, largely because of our seeming victory over most of what nature throws at us, yet we are much like our animal counterparts.  We like, all of life, need food first and foremost.  It is the complex nature of man, once this appetite has been filled, to move on to more satisfying things.  Take reality shows such as Survivor, and you will see just how primitive things get.  Man has become the decider, no question, over much of nature's more important environmental decisions.  It is now more apparent than ever, that bad choices in the past, due to economics, are plaguing the only planet that we can call home right now.  Therefore, we must reassert that we are not only a part of a nature but realize the power that we have and work towards the world of tomorrow.  Minute changes can make all the difference and it is because we are a part of nature that we should all care so much.