Origins of Environmentalism

Rachel Carson's claim "for time is the essential ingredient; but in the modern world there is no time" (Carson 6) is meant to emphasize the fact that humanity has the tendency to ignore factors like the future and their general well-being. People in the contemporary society are obsessed with progress and some are willing to do everything in their power in order to make things happen faster. As a consequence, these individuals express little to no interest in the effects that their actions have on the natural world. Carson most probably wanted her readers to understand that it would be difficult and almost impossible for certain people to turn their attention away from progress as a result of acknowledging that their actions are going to have a negative impact on the environment.

While time is one of the most important concepts today, people constantly feel that they have very little time. Most are obsessed with organizing their time in order to be able to do a series of things they are concerned about and still fail to do most of them. This shows that time has come to affect people negatively and they are nonetheless unhesitant about obsessing about it. Carson wanted to raise public awareness concerning how human activities destroy the natural world. From her perspective, the environment is going to be completely devastated as long as people continue to focus on their personal interests rather than to express concern about the world as a whole.

Nature is rapidly depleting its resources and more and more ecosystems are destroyed as long as no one intervenes. The world has very little time to do something about this and in spite of this most people continue to act as if everything is perfectly normal and as if it is up to others to care for the environment. Society has practically reached a stage where people are too busy to care about the world.

Carson's 'other fork in the road' is meant to represent the path humanity can take on in order to recover from the critical situation it is in. Even with the fact that people's addiction to power and profits makes it difficult for many to want to take on this path, it is actually possible for the world to embark on a journey of recovery. Moreover, Carson wants people to understand that they have no option other than to experience a reawakening process that can enable them to see the bigger picture.

As long as people continue to recklessly exploit the natural world without caring about the effects of their actions things are going to stay the same and the 'other fork in the road' will not even be considered as an option. It is thus particularly important for the general public to acknowledge that every person needs to play an active role in society in order for the environment to be saved. People basically have to choose between increasing their profits and having a future and the fact that many individuals live for the moment is surely disturbing.

The Tragedy of Commons implies that many resources are shared by the general population and that this makes it likely for people to get actively involved in depleting these respective resources. The theory supports the belief that people are typically inclined to act on account of rationality rather than on account of ethics. Even with the fact that society prefers to believe it has reached a point where people are civilized and are thus interested in the greater good, the reality is that there will always be individuals who will be more concerned in their personal well-being than in the well-being of the world as a whole.

Garret Hardin employs a rational point-of-view in discussing the Tragedy of Commons and he emphasizes that laws in the contemporary society are mainly responsible for leading to the destruction of the world's resources. The fact that people support behaviors that obviously deplete essential resources is disturbing and Hardin wants the masses to understand that now is not a time for morality. He lobbies with regard to how while the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a praise-worthy document, it is nonetheless one of the principal reasons why humanity is likely to go through great hardship in the near future.