In class yesterday, we talked a lot about what defines 'natural' and 'unnatural' things, and how those definitions might fit into the various cycles that make up the world. A majority of the class seemed to agree with me that everything, even man made objects, is 'natural', although there were a few good points raised for the other side as well. However, after I left class, I could not help but think that this debate over how we define nature is an underlying cause of the current environmental 'crisis'. 'Unnatural' things are, in my view, purley a human construct. By making a distinction between natural and unnatural, we are trying to separate ourselves from the natural, and therefore nature itself. Since we all live on the same planet, what we do affects nature as a whole, and since unnatural things affect nature just as much as natural things do, they ought to be considered natural, and I don't see a need for a distinction. I think this is what pollan is trying to get at at the end of his chapter on the apple. Instead of being appoloian and trying to draw clear separations between things, we need to recognize that nature is itself one gigantic cycle that we are a part of. Once we recognize this, we can start to figure out how to work with the cycle, instead of working against it, and acheive some sort of sustainable equalibrium.
M. Knight Shamalan's most recent movie, "The Happening", is based on this concept. In the movie, trees start emitting a chemical into the air that rewires humans nuerons and makes people who come near trees and plants kill themselves as a way of reducing the human population and therefore the excess carbon that they are putting into the air. It was an awful movie, plot wise and acting wise, but this concept is a dramatic illustration of what could happen if we don't chose to recognize that we are very much a part of nature.