Preview

Summary Of Richard Manning The Oil We Eat

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
485 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Summary Of Richard Manning The Oil We Eat
How often do you think about what goes on in your environment? How your food gets on your plate, how your phone is made or even what happens to all your garbage. Well recently I have been asking myself these questions. Throughout this essay I will be introducing five informative excerpts of authors who have been researching human ecologies and have been the reason for all my questions.

Richard Manning is an environmental author and journalist, who is interest in the history and future of the American prairie, agriculture and poverty. In Manning’s, “The Oil We Eat”, he examines the agriculture aspects of human civilization, “more than two thirds of humanity’s cut of primary productivity results from agriculture”. (Manning 186) He also
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    Deep Economy Bill Mckibben Summary
    • 3032 Words
    • 13 Pages

    Deep Economy Bill Mckibben Summary

    Not only this, but “the farmers profit margin dropped from 35% in the 1950 's to about 9% today.” (Mckibben, 54) This means that “to generate the same income as it did in 1950, a farm today would need to be roughly four times as large.” (Mckibben, 55) As a result of this perpetual growth and centralization, problems like “huge sewage lagoons, miserable animals, vulnerability to sabotage and food-born illness”(mckibben, 61) have become commonplace. Not only this, but “we are running out of the two basic ingredients we need to grow food on an industrial scale: oil and water.” (Mckibben, 62) The situation has become so dire that “we are now facing a near simultaneous depletion of the underground aquifers which have been responsible for the unsustainable, artificial inflation of food production.” At this point of realization, Mckibben begins indulging the reader in a large number of facts that promote a more localized form of farming as the solution to a seemingly endless number of issues. Initially the point is raised that “sustainable agriculture leads to a 93% increase in per-hectare food production.” (Mckibben, 68) The next idea raised is that, “since World War 1, it has been cheaper to use…

    • 3032 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Summary Of Braiding Sweetgrass
    • 1049 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Summary Of Braiding Sweetgrass

    In Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book Braiding Sweetgrass, she makes a compelling argument for the planet’s sustainability. Through several chapters, she illustrates how, despite how the Earth provides for all of our needs, we do not repay the favour and instead destroy the life it has left. We are not realizing the value of preserving the environment; instead, we are adapting to the thought that the extended use of fossil fuels is typical, climate change is irreversible, environmental pollution is an unfixable problem, endangered species are beyond salvation, and society has become increasingly disconnected to the planet as it once was. Kimmerer articulates this throughout multiple chapters.…

    • 1049 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Sandra Steingraber Des Despair Not Summary
    • 1271 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Sandra Steingraber Des Despair Not Summary

    There are so many bad things in this world and the environment is one of them bad things. Our environment will never just go away but it’s definitely needs to change. It’s causing damage to our friends and family, it’s taking away all of our animals, and it’s hurting the world we know around us. If we don’t do something about it, will the world’s population go down because of a great amount of people dying? Will the animals become extinct and no one ever talk about them again? Will the oceans be able to hold their ground and keep producing the oxygen it’s giving us? Throughout this essay, Sandra Steingraber does a great job using ethos, pathos, and logos while talking about the environment and the issues it is causing to the people and the…

    • 1271 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Gore vs. Suzuki
    • 926 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Gore vs. Suzuki

    David Suzuki’s A Sacred Balance and Al Gore’s A Climate Emergency both outline the detrimental ways in which technology, population growth, and our way of living have begun to and will continue to destroy our diverse ecosystem. However, the outlooks that these two environmental giants have on man’s role in the world are perfectly opposite. “There is no environment ‘out there,’” urges Suzuki, “we are born of the earth and constructed from the four sacred elements of earth, air, fire, and water” (432). Gore, contrastingly, doesn’t look at humans as part of the interconnected “web,” but as rather just “[having an] impact on [the earth]” (456).…

    • 926 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    geog257
    • 1973 Words
    • 8 Pages

    geog257

    Quite often, environmental issues are discussed in terms of economic, political and/or social implications. Ethical issues, fundamental to the topic, are usually ignored. Failure to consider these issues is often understandable when the nature of pragmatic politics and economics is understood. Ethical positions are most often phrased as questions asking how we, as humans, relate to other humans individually, to other humans as groups, to other humans still to be born, to other forms of life and/or to entire sets ranging from ecosystems to the entire planet. Questions as to humans’ relations with nature are often raised as well as the relationship between technology and progress – for example, are gains from technological innovations mainly accrued by the wealthy and often at the expense of poor or dispossessed peoples? To what extent do technological innovations generate serious social and ecological problems? Is progress in meeting human needs always at the expense of nature? Is the biotechnology revolution in agriculture in the best interest of both humanity and nature? Questions such as these will be dealt with as our course proceeds during the semester.…

    • 1973 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Week 1
    • 569 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Week 1

    |Environmental science |An interdisciplinary study of human relationship with other organisms and the earth |…

    • 569 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Oil We Eat By Richard Manning
    • 430 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The Oil We Eat By Richard Manning

    Manning does not only focus on energy in terms of animals and plants but also the fossil fuels like oil that are used in the machines that are involved in the food industry or that energy in soil is used in fatty foods. Manning’s ultimate solution to the problem of wasting food is by getting food that is not processed or local foods because it requires less energy to be used. At the beginning, Richard Manning’s use of statistics like, “Both conclude that we humans, a single species among millions, consume about 40 percent of Earth's primary productivity, 40 percent of all there is”(Manning 264), is intriguing because that means that people use almost half of a plant’s energy. His use of comparing past human beings way of life and modern human beings way of life, “Agriculture is a recent human experiment. For most of human history, we lived by gathering or killing a broad variety of nature's offerings”(Manning 265), is important because it shows a time before the modern food industry.…

    • 430 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    William Cronon The Trouble With Wilderness Summary
    • 594 Words
    • 3 Pages

    William Cronon The Trouble With Wilderness Summary

    In his critique, “The Trouble with Wilderness or Getting Back to the Wrong Nature,” William Cronon argues against the romantic conceptualization of nature that a great portion of the environmentalist movement has embraced. Subsequently, Cronon revokes the Romantic and even quasi-religious notion that wilderness spaces are separate from those inhabited by man. He argues that by eliminating the divide in perception between the human constructs of the natural world and the civilized world, man will be encouraged to take more responsibility for his actions that negatively impact the environment. In prefacing his conclusion, he writes, “Home, after all, is the place where finally we make our living. It is the place for which we take responsibility,…

    • 594 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Transcendentalist Implements In The Modern World
    • 942 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Transcendentalist Implements In The Modern World

    Over the years, the planet’s luscious greenery, vast bodies of ocean, and clear blue skies have declined at a steady rate with the overtake of industrial buildings and pollution from technology . For the explorers and hard-core transcendentalists who devote themselves to living on the healthy and undeveloped parts of the world, nature and “the life and simple beauty of it is too good to pass up.” (McCandless 12/7/16) If technological advancements continue to occupy most of Earth, this appreciative view of the planet will no longer be attractive to those whose lives depend and thrive upon its bare soil. To some Transcendentalist preachers, like Henry David Thoreau, nature is also perceived as “daily to be shown matter to come in contact with,” giving people a chance to ask “Who are we?…

    • 942 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Best Essays

    Music Education
    • 3700 Words
    • 15 Pages

    Music Education

    Board of Studies, NSW (2006). Human Society & Its Environment K-6 Syllabus. Sydney, Australia: Board of Studies…

    • 3700 Words
    • 15 Pages
    Best Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Living Like Weasels Analysis
    • 892 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Living Like Weasels Analysis

    In humans recent history there has been an increased noticeable mistreatment of the world around them. Humans need to know we are not the only ones living there, there are plants and animals and future offspring for all. Not only does the earth need to be treated well for them but it also needs to be treated well for us, because we rely on them for a healthy life. Many people may say that there is a connection between nature and humans theses thoughts are expressed in Annie Dillard's short story, “Living Like Weasels”. Both authors have their point of view on topics but both agree that human behavior needs to improve for a bigger better future.…

    • 892 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    A Review Of Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac
    • 506 Words
    • 3 Pages

    A Review Of Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac

    Aldo Leopold, in his essay collection A Sand County Almanac explores the natural world, and the symbiotic relationship that’s shared between plant and animal, while also insinuating how humans live in opposition to that fragile synchrony, for we live to reshape our environment for contemporary gains. Leopold is able to write the essay as an ecological historian, who’s knowledge comes from the topography of the Wisconsin landscape, the rings of an Oak tree, or a single atom entombed in a limestone ledge. The first two sections of the book gravitate around two opposing forces conservation and modern progress (scientific advancement, economical growth.…

    • 506 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Ecological Literacy David Orr Summary
    • 1257 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Ecological Literacy David Orr Summary

    He claims that modern attitudes, by their very nature, work against the concept of ecological literacy. Children are taught through television “that the earth is theirs for the taking” (Orr, 1992, p. 300). I agree with Orr (1992) in that modern faith in technology has reached the point where people believe that scientists will devise some plan to stop global warming and create new wells of energy to fuel their lives, before the earth becomes a toxic hell. Orr’s (1992) claim that these types of attitudes do indeed work against ecological literacy is sustained by my own experience. I grew up thinking it would not matter what kind of food I ate or how I exercised, because I thought science would create a cheap, painless way to lose weight by the time I would have to worry about it. But now, I can see the effects of my slowing metabolism and I know that healthy eating habits and proper maintenance of my body are the best way to move into the future, just as taking preventive measures to keep the earth healthy, is clearly a better choice than waiting for a perfect solution to arise. Many people share my postmodern mindset and view the environment in a similar way to how I used to view my health. “[Ecology’s] goal is not just comprehension of work the world works, but, in the light of that knowledge, a life lived accordingly” (Orr, 1992, p.…

    • 1257 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Business Research
    • 3093 Words
    • 13 Pages

    Business Research

    References: 3. Bell M. 2009 An Invitation to Environmental Sociology (Pine Forage Press, Thousand Oaks, CA, USA).…

    • 3093 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Best Essays

    Urban Agriculture - Learning Through Competition
    • 3662 Words
    • 15 Pages

    Urban Agriculture - Learning Through Competition

    Agriculture has had a close relationship with urban society for millennia. About 10,000 years ago in an area in the Near East known as the Fertile Crescent, two very important inventions were made: urbanism and agriculture (Smith 1995). The fact that both urbanization and agriculture developed around the same time period was no coincidence. Prior to the settling of the Fertile Crescent most tribes were nomadic and they relied on whatever food they could obtain easily wherever they went. Because a major settlement needed a steady supply of food, agriculture not only became a way of life but a necessity. This symbiotic relationship between agriculture and urban society has however seen a deep separation in the last two centuries. This major decline can be attributed to many factors such as the population shift from rural to urban areas, the need for valuable space in cities, technological advances in transportation, and most importantly, globalization. Globalization is the unification of the world 's economic order through the dissolving of such barriers to international reliance and trade. Because of globalization, more and more countries and cities have been relying on outside sources for their supply of food. Once transportation was revolutionized in the 1800s, more and more cities had…

    • 3662 Words
    • 15 Pages
    Best Essays
    Read More

Related Topics