Free Essay with the Summary of Terry Tempest Williams - Refuge

The text based on Williams's text Refuge constantly argues for an understanding of the world that has been significantly harmed by the environmental wounds which humans have inflicted upon it. It shows how human beings are often careless in their use of nature. It also underlines the role of nature as a healing power when man learns how to use it. It explains how Williams has consistently shown people how environmental concerns are social issues that ultimately become matters of justice.

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It narrates how Williams endeavours continually to express the importance of appreciating the natural world and experiencing its spiritual effect on human beings. They both offer descriptions of the non-human world: birds, pools, and animals to show how nature is a source of pleasure and peace. It describes Refuge as a social critique of modern Western Civilization that is concerned with materialistic and political attitudes without comprehending that community and society are responsible for the protection of the natural world.

The writer has entwined the story of the increasing of the Great Salt Lake into the story of her mother's death from cancer in 1987. The title of this work implies the writer's need to find refuge in a place where she can find peace with vegetation and wildlife and a place where she can reflect on the destruction of her family and the natural surroundings. The writer shows how many of natural areas have disappeared under the pressure of development and the government's policies to conduct nuclear tests. The writer explains how atomic testing given priority and public interests neglected or ignored.

Williams respect for non-human creatures defines her willpower to reject dealing with them as objects rather than as subjects and to treat them as she treats her fellow human beings. Williams reveals that in the American West, the numbers of some birds has declined. In recent years, the long-billed curlew, the most significant North American shorebird, has been dropping in the Great Basin, as it loses much of its breeding habitation to cultivation and other land development. In the Midwest, it has been extirpated as a breeding species altogether. Williams pictures man's interference with natural life on many occasions throughout the text. She condemns the channelling of three mountain streams which ultimately pour to Great Salt Lake via River Jordan. This result in rising level of the lake which she argues that birds' life will be severely affected because the population of colony-nesting birds on the islands fluctuates with the lake level and human disruption. She clarifies that there will be no nesting space due to rising waters, increased human visitation to the islands, and most important, lack of food due to the sunken marshes.

The climax of the narration reached when Williams is found to discuss of the effects of nuclear tests bitterly considering, the rising cases of cancer and a government that does not care about its citizen's health conditions. Cancer described as being synonymous with death. She condemns the United States government as being responsible for many deaths to its citizens including soldiers and its failure to compensate. Sovereign immunity has been used to shield the U.S Government from having to pay compensation to survivors of cancer caused by nuclear weapons testing in Nevada. Southern Nevada and the Southwest, in general, have seen an increase in cancer, radiation illness, congenital disabilities and strange physical anomalies causing death in enormous proportions. Living in Utah is considered hazardous as a result (Shapiro & Charles, 133).

The author strongly supports Williams's argument for an understanding of the world that has been significantly hurt by the environmental damages which humans have caused upon it. It shows how human beings are often thoughtless in their use of nature. It also emphasizes the role of the environment as a therapeutic power when man learns how to use it. It explains how Williams has consistently shown people how environmental issues are social issues that ultimately become things of justice.

Works cited

Williams, Terry T. Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place. New York: Vintage Books, 2001. Internet resource.

Exposure of the American People to Iodine-131 from Nevada Nuclear-Bomb Tests: Review of the National Cancer Institute Report and Public Health Implications. Washington, D.C: National Academy Press, 1999. Internet resource.

Shapiro, Charles S. Atmospheric Nuclear Tests: Environmental and Human Consequences. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1998. Internet resource.