What is our personal responsibility toward the natural world, toward what we term our natural resources? What power do we have to influence events? Resources implies something to be used, yet how far do we go? Read about the conflicts between jobs and the environment that have been prominent in this country. Does the need to preserve age-old redwood forest outweigh logger's needs for paychecks in California? Are fish in the golf of Mexico more important than the jobs for the commercial fishermen living along that coast? Are offshore and deepwater drilling for oil more important than either the commercial fisheries industry or coastal tourism? Conflicts such as these are often settled in the courts. Read about one of these or a similar conflict, and, as you read, create a list of emotional charged diction use by both sides (Literature suggestions: Abbey's "Eco Defense," Dillard's "The Present," Huxley's "Time and the Machine").