To Take Wildness In Hand

Michelle Nijhuis' central claim in her article "To Take Wildness In Hand" is that climate change is greatly affecting plant and animal life, but there is much debate over how to combat the change. Specifically the article deals with Florida Torreya, an endangered plant. Some scientists think the best way to handle situations like this is to manually move the plants or animals in danger, but others think this oversteps our bounds in nature. Either way, you can't deny the danger of climate change on ecosystems. "Climate change is begining to make good on its threats, and news of its work is now hard to avoid. Escalating global temperatures? Check. Rising seas? Check."

Besides environmetal factors working against the plant, it faces an anatomical hurdle as well. The plant grows in male and female varieties, so in order to successfully reproduce a male and female must survive in close proximity to each other, no easy task when the species is rapidly dying already. Some say the plant isn't even native to its current Floridian home, and that it was left behind a glacier during an ice age. Reguardless of views on migrating the plants, it is clear they can not long survive their current habitat.

Nijhuis uses testimonies from various naturalists and conservationalists to convey her argument about the danger of climate change. She utilizes sources from both sides of the debate over manual migratoin of speces, while focussing in on the point that something must be done. She assumes the reader has some interest in conservation, and knowledge of global warming. She hopes to move the reader and promote more involvement in conservation.