Argument Essay: The Gilded Age

Argument Essay: Gilded Age
AP Humanities
Keelie O 'Brien
1/10/15

Conservationist John Muir once said, "The world, we are told, was made especially for man ­ a presumption not supported by all the facts.” The Gilded Age was a period of great progress for industrial and economical growth in American history. Many from the time period, as well as the present, viewed this progress as positive. In reality, the innovations of the era have become our downfall. To better our civilization, we eradicated species like the wolf, passenger pigeon, and the great herds of bison that once roamed the prairie. The land was raped and pillaged of natural resources, and industry polluted the skies, rivers and lakes.
Some, like John Muir, saw these effects and fought to protect the yet untouched wilderness,
This "progress" cut its way through the continent and left its scars, and in many ways continues still today.
The Gilded Age was a time of movement. As settlers moved west, and the population in the east grew, Americans began shaping the environment to fit their needs. In the North, passenger pigeons were a common sight. The population was so immense that flocks would darken the skies for hours at a time. When settlers came to Michigan, common sport became shooting the dense flocks out of the sky. By the 1870 's, 250,000 pigeons a year were shot for sport (Ponting). Once the expanding railroad linked the North with the East, states such as
Michigan began supplying the booming cities with resources in great demand. One of which was cheap meat to feed the growing population. Large scale commercial hunting of the

pigeon began, and by 1869, 7,500,000 birds were shipped from Van Buren County, Michigan
(Ponting). This unsustainable slaughter continued; the shipment count steadily dropping each year until 1914 when the last passenger pigeon died in captivity (Ponting). The Gilded Age not only saw the last of the passenger pigeon, but was also the era of the slaughter of the
But in the modern age, we face issues much like those of the 19th century. The
Keystone Pipeline could be the most heated topic of this decade in American politics. The proposed pipeline would ship fossil fuel from the oil­rich tar sands of Alberta, Canada, to the heart of Texas, bringing many jobs to an America with an unemployment rate in need of much help. But after the initial 2­year construction of the Pipeline, there is only a need of 50 permanent job holdings. As the theme follows, blind progress leads to an downward spiral.
Extracting the crude oil from the tar sands requires strip­mining forests, burning large amounts of fossil fuel, creating holding ponds for the toxic waste product, and to produce 1 barrel of crude oil, 4 barrels of water must contaminated (Brecher). The extraction and refining

processes would release an incredible amount of carbon dioxide; about 200 parts per million.
Scientists calculate that the safe level for CO2 in the atmosphere is 350 ppm, and already we have well exceeded that level. The new year of 2015 brought in the measurement of 400 ppm, hitting a new milestone. The release of CO2 from the tar sands would raise the