nature and the environment

Nature, in my opinion, is composed of all naturally occurring living and non-living factors that we see around us. The environment, on the other hand, is in most cases our man-made surroundings such as our homes and schools. While the natural world can be our environment, in most human cases it’s not. We have created these “unnatural” places to shelter us from nature or the naturally occurring environment that surrounds us. Since the time of the first humans, we have been constantly attempting to control nature and create an environment that keeps us separate and in our mind safe from it. Despite our attempts to separate ourselves from the natural world, our well being and our environments depend greatly on it. Living in New Orleans, a city that exists only through the control of the Mississippi River, I am constantly reminded of how intertwined my man-made and personal environment is with the natural world, despite attempts to ignore or overcome it.