Definitions

President Theodore Roosevelt (Mitchell 9)

The place where we live, this planet earth, is being destroyed by the pollutants we create to make our lives "easier." This is not news, nor is it undebated: in Congress and the United Nations representatives fight over what is - and is not - an acceptable compromise between progress and preservation. The terms they use are scientific and economic. They miss the point. As the environment deteriorates there will most certainly be economic repercussions. Science speculates on the long-term physical ravages the world would suffer. Neither take into account the most elemental human-earth connection, one that is being severed by pollution destroying our environment: this environment is our home, our place in the universe. It is an emotional bond that, if broken, will leave us crippled in ways deep and irreparable.

"Home is where the heart is." This is not the most profound statement in the world. It is, in fact, a cliche. Like all cliches, however, it is based upon a certain element of truth. One's emotions, one's heart, is where one's home is. It is where one's place in the world is. Home and heart are always a part of the environment within which one lives. To mutilate and damage that environment is to threaten and destroy the personality of one's home, heart - and life.

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). The next two hundred fifty years of westward expansion was marked not so much by "progress" as by a repetition of that polluting scenario. The nadir of such achievement was reached in the 1860s, when the buffalo were virtually wiped out in a decade, destroying the entire food base of the Plains Indians (Hodgson 70). And their religious foundation. We usually think of Western civilization in terms of a Greco-Roman-originated, Judeo-Christian set of traditions. Try to imagine the entire mythology of European human existence being suddenly erased: the foundations of law, society and Adam Smith's vaunted theories of Capitalism would be debased. Our place in the world is defined by those myths and traditions. This is what happened to the Plains Indians: their way of life centered upon the buffalo - that element removed, the other justifications had no foundation (Hodgson 67). This is, of course, a simplistic description of a complex process, but the essentials are exactly as described. Our civilization is defined by our definition of place; as the environment is destroyed, so, too, is our sense of ourselves. One need only ask the first pioneers in the Midwest who displaced the Plains Indians: less than half of those
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Native American, Plains Indians, United Nations, Native Americans, Science Newton's, Third World, Rube Goldberg, Mother Nature, American United, Greco-Roman-originated Judeo-Christian, native american, plains indians, native americans, mother nature, home heart, basic structures universe, one's home, unspeakable loneliness, one's world, 1994 november, americans victims, native americans victims, national geographic 1994,
Approximate Word count = 1682
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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