ABSTRACT
The physical environment can be molded and shaped as men and women wish, and the nonrenewable natural resources can all be used up to support affluent lifestyles. While humans clearly have the capacity to alter the physical landscape, environmental forces occasionally erupt to remind us of our limitations. The traumatic experiences of environmental disruption reflect damage to the texture of community and subsequently become embedded in the social heritage of any given group of people. Natural environments change in fundamental ways as people develop new images and give new definitions of them. Environmental perceptions are ways of giving human meaning to the physical world. Mountain top removal is the result of increased technological efficiency in the coal mining industry and the increased demand for energy. A great deal of the hostility toward environmentalists concerned with global warming stems from policies originating in the corporate offices of oil companies, utilities, the steel companies, and automobile manufacturers.
