Edward Abby

Modern, industrialized society’s technological advancements and emphasis on material possessions, consumerism, and monetary success combine to disconnect people from their natural surroundings which encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally including the interaction of all living species, climate, weather, and natural resources that affect human survival and economic activity. Since the beginning of human (homo- sapiens) existence going back to the Pleistocene Epoch in the Cenozoic Era, humans have been consistently creating, developing, and evolving their means of technology and standard of living throughout time until now. Unfortunately, by doing so humans are furthering themselves form nature, but as Edward Abby, an
Dating back to the Stone Age which consist of the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic age, occurring in 9,600 BCE, it is evident that nature or “agriculture brought major changes in the way human society is organized and how it uses the earth, including forest clearance, root crops, and cereal cultivation that can be stored for long periods of time.” (Violatti). Due to technology being much undeveloped in that age, the average individual at that time would either have been a hunter or a gather whom are nomadic people who live chiefly by hunting, fishing, harvesting wild food, and solely relying on the land for their everyday means of survival. Many of the hunters would spend weeks following herds of livestock to hunt and bring back to the tribe while gatherers would pick wild berries, fruits, and vegetables to eat while they waited for the hunters or didn’t have any meat to eat. Unfortunately, even though the hunters and gatherers were merely trying to survive, many archaeologists and paleontologists argue that there are large areas where “fauna were butchered” from existence, and that “there are plenty of kill sites to suggest that ancient humans were hunting large mammals in significant numbers” (Pappas). For example, based off the scholarly study in the journal Quaternary International which was published in 2008,
Even though there has been innumerable technological advancements since the Cenozoic Era, humans still depend on nature to fulfill their degree of wealth and material comfort. For example, various items we use on a daily basis originate from nature in some way such as the following: flooring, walls, roofs, tables, chairs, running water, envelops, utensils, toiletries, cotton bed spreads, sheets, clothing items, and more. Moreover, individuals are constantly taking from nature for many different reasons but we are never giving anything in return. Due to technology being extremely common in the daily life of an individual in the 20th century, rapidly developing along with the constant desire for things to be completed at a quicker and more efficient pace, it is incontestable that technology is diminishing our relationship with nature because instead of going outside and witnessing the miracles of nature, individuals “increasingly see nature as teenagers see war in computer games, from above, with the omniscient viewpoint of a satellite” (Smith). Despite the fact that majority of a person’s commodities proceed from nature, citizens in this technologically advanced day and age are spoiled by the simplicity of merely pressing a bottom to receive their desires, wants, and needs. Nevertheless, what would