Launch Post One: What is nature?

In her TedTalk Emma Marris debates the definition of nature and what qualifies as nature. In the beginning she mentions how our future children will essentially have no nature when they are adults. To find the solution to this she poses the question, what counts as nature? Bill Mckibben has said, "Because nature was a thing apart from man and because climate change meant that the Earth was altered by man and nature is over." Marris does agree that man has altered the world by recognizing that man has changed the chemistry of the air to obtain 42% more carbon dioxide than if you lived in 1750. However, she disagrees with his definition of nature. "I disagree with his definition of nature because fundamentally we are all animals. We evolved on this planet with all of the other plants and living organisms. So, I think that nature does not have to be untouched by man or woman. I believe nature is anywhere where life thrives, anywhere with multiple species living together, anywhere where it's green/blue filled with life and growing." She does make sure to acknowledge that certain parts of nature speak louder than others. She uses examples such as The Great Barrier Reef, National Parks, and other nature preserved places. Marris then digs deeper and explains how even those places have been impacted by humans. Marris references the example of extinction of ice age mammals because of human interaction. This interaction did not only extinct those animals, but it created a ripple effect that changed the composition of the land. "So, essentially in these Edens’ we are looking at a humanized landscape." 

The idea of nature looks very different with Marris's definition versus Mckibben's definition. This made me begin to question what nature truly is, or if it's completely gone and we've just been tricking ourselves into thinking parts of our world are nature to feed our own satisfaction. It also made me question what could be observed in a nature journal, according to Marris's definition of nature. After thinking about these contradicting ideas for a couple hours, I came to the conclusion that I personally agree with Marris's definition of nature. I agree with her because I feel that Bill Mckibben's definition of nature is outdated in our ever-changing natural world. Maybe it's just the part of me that doesn't want to believe that all nature is actually dead, but I do think that nature include humanity. This led me to wonder what it would be like to write a nature journal on observing humans interactions in the natural world. Sitting in the same place everyday at the same time and just silently observing all of the interactions you see. I am curious what all of you think about these contradicting definitions. So, the questions I pose to you are:

1. Do you agree with Marris or Mckibben on the definition of nature? Why?

2. Based on which definition of nature you agree with, how does that influence the naturalist idea of keeping a nature journal?