machines that cut and strip large trees in a few minutes. An entire forest can be turned into lumber in a short time. Industrialization has reached every corner of the globe; modern machinery has the capacity to bring about massive environmental changes and literally move mountains. Industrial pollution on a huge scale harms human beings and the natural world everywhere, even thousands of miles from the source. Not only are human beings and cultivated areas endangered, but the natural world is also threatened.
Third, the population explosion that involves most parts of the world has brought enormous environmental pressures. Hungry people need to cultivate every available piece of land and fish the oceans until species are extinct. Water, once considered an abundant resource, has become scarce. Many resources are now known to be finite, while others may disappear before they have been investigated.
Fourth, and by far the most significant, from Darwin to the latest genetic studies, we have been provided with a new understanding of the interrelationship between human beings and the rest of the natural world. The biological studies of the nineteenth century showed us a different relationship with the animal world. The controversies aroused, indicated that the transition to this new worldview would not be easy. Human beings felt as threatened by this change as they had by the earlier Copernican revolution. The latest genetic studies bring the relationships with the natural world into even closer focus. If genes can be implanted and traded among all living creatures, then the lines that differentiate the forms of life become very blurred. The natural world once considered hostile has now, on the one hand, become endangered and, on the other hand, is seen as closely akin to our human lives.
Contemporary Concerns
As we have noted earlier, the contemporary concerns for the environment have taken several forms, beginning with human welfare and economic good. For example, as pollution harms human life and is expensive in economic terms, we seek to guard ourselves against it, though these competing forces remain in constant combat(see Rachel Mikva and Philip Bentley's essays).