Mckibben's Podcast

Bill Mckibben's podcast discussed his new book Eaarth. Eaarth is a book discussing the main differences between the Earth then and the Eaarth now. Which is why Earth is spelled Eaarth. Some of the issues discussed include the fact that nobody wants to take on climate change. All the politicians in office are more focused on economic issues rather than environmental issues. What many politicians fail to realize, is the environmental issue cannot be solved without the economic issues being handled and vice versa. Another large issue is the lack of cohesiveness. The Earth is less of a community than it once was. People no longer have to rely on one another for food or basic human needs (for the most part). People can live their lives perfectly fine without having to rely on anyone else. As well as not having to depend on each other, many people feel they do not need to depend on the Earth either. Although the Earth is necessary to survive, many people do not know anything about the bioregion they live in. In order to be able to use the Earth at all, one must understand how it works and the regions in which a person lives in.

Over Using Food Resources

There are tons of reasons why we would need a drastic idea like Roderick Nash’s “Island Civilization” to change our planet. I feel the most important one is the over use of our food resources. We are depleting the nutrients in the soil for crops and overfishing at alarming rates. John Locke wrote in the Tragedy of the Commons about this issue. He believed we should divide the land to provide enough for everyone to live sustainably. In other words if you only need one cow to survive, don’t over take the common space by having three cows. I completely agree with this notion. This whole problem could be solved if people just lived off of what they needed and not what they wanted. This notion of living sustainably also ties nicely into Nash’s ideas of decreasing population and taking what is needed.

            To me the biggest concern is overfishing. The ocean is a very fragile place, but a very important place as well. Overfishing is causing a large unbalance in the marine ecosystems. The decline in bait fish has caused the apex predators of the food chain to starve. Slowly these important ecosystems are disappearing causing the ocean to become a very tumultuous environment. In order to restore this place, everyone has to be willing to sacrifice their steak and lobster dinners. Like both Nash and Locke stated in their papers, we must all give up our wants for the common good. In order to change anything we have to be reduced to just our needs.

Island Civilization

            Island Civilization starts out as an idea to better the world for future generations. In order to explain this idea, Roderick Nash first explains the history of how things came to be. He defines wilderness and its importance to man through the centuries. Wilderness has always been viewed as bad or harmful to human progress and growth. Nash however suggests that the wilderness is exactly what we need for progress and growth. Rather than destroying it and making room for cities and technology, we have to conserve it. Once the frontier had been nearly destroyed, people began to realize that wilderness and the environment were important. However, Nash makes sure we understand that people found the environment important to them, not just important. Preservation began to set up parks and recreational sites for people. Within the last 50 years people have begun to understand the significance of the wilderness and that it is not about us at all. The essay then begins to talk about many famous environmental writers such as John Muir, John Locke, and Henry David Thoreau. Their writings began to tell people ways to conserve and create a better future. Many new phrases popped up in popular culture as well such as pollution, environmentalism, and deep ecology. These words brought a better understanding of the real situation going on environmentally to the world. New Acts put in place by the government gave species other than humans the right to life. These acts did not pertain to only animals that humans found useful, but to animals whose very existence was important. Although many good changes have begun, many bad changes are still occurring. Nash continues to point out that our population is surging, we are somewhat responsible for global warming, and fresh water/soil problems are occurring daily. Nash then suggests we can do something to fix this by using technology. Rather than creating technology to harm the environment, let’s use technology to improve how we do things. He suggests we give up the lavish life style that many of us lead and live more aware of our environment.

            I personally really enjoyed this essay. I’ve always been very interested in helping the environment and conservation issues. One quote that I found particularly important was, “When does success in too great a dose produce failure? (pg 373)” This quote really makes you question if you’re trying so hard to produce success, how do you know you aren’t creating failure in other ways? Humans have tried so hard to make the land “civilized” and prosperous so that things are easier for us. However, I believe we’ve made things much harder. We’ve created a sea of problems that we really don’t have the answer for. Therefore, I believe Nash’s point of utilizing technology to improve this situation was a good point. We have so many resources and new things are being invented everyday, if we could use these inventions and technologies to improve the environment, our problems would not be nearly as bad. Although I agreed with many points Nash made in his essay, I felt the whole clustering concept is too advanced. For our population today I think it’s too visionary and people would never agree to it. I agree humans have taken up way to much of the planet, but not many people would be willing to sacrifice the space they have created for themselves. There just isn’t the motivation needed behind this idea to really make it work and flourish. Perhaps in a couple hundred years people will begin to understand that we have to do something to change the way we are living. But as of right now, I don’t believe we have enough support and understanding to really put this plan into action.