We as human beings are very fortunate to be living on this planet that we call Earth. We toil over the land, and in return we receive provisions off of which we live. Even though we get all that we need from this bountiful land, we still for some reason feel like we need to alter it. In doing so we also end up ruining the land that we thrive on. We reshape the world to fit our individual needs, and the earth just doesn't work that way. Everything on this planet has a purpose, from the largest animal to the microscopic bacteria, and without it, it is impossible to live in harmony. In "Arizona and New Mexico", a text written by Aldo Leopold, he talks about how man has developed the untouched land in the White Mountains of Arizona and killed animals in New Mexico, and now the lands are trodden on and it is not at all the way it used to be. In "A Very Warm Mountain", a text written by Ursula K. Le Guin, she writes about how the earth is destroying itself because of what the human
             s have already done to the land, by the eruption of Mt. Saint Helens and there is nothing that we as humans can do about it. The Earth is being destroyed everyday whether it is by humans or the earth itself. There are both devastating and dramatic affects that come about when the Earth is changed in such a tremendous way.
             I believe that the common element in Le Guin and Leopold's text would be the theme of the destruction of Earth. The destruction Le Guin wrote about came about naturally because it was the eruption of Mt. Saint Helens. Although the eruption was a natural event, Le Guin blamed it on the fact that the mountain was angry because we abused the land with our human hands. The farmers took it especially hard, with six inches of ash falling on their crops during this natural disaster. "Everybody takes it personally. Some get mad. Damn stupid mountain went and dumped all that dirty gritty glassy gray
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