Alex Ruth

1-10-12

Island Civilization Blog

            In Robert Nash’s essay-island civilization: a vision for human occupancy of Earth- he talks about how society tends to progress immaturely and does not seem to understand the world’s true value. Nash goes on talking about how society doesn’t respect wildlife and nature, and how society seems to put its needs in front of the environment. In this essay, Nash gives society a negative connotation that I believe it deserves. When I look at society it seems as though it doesn’t seem to care about the aftermath of its products as long as it gets the results it’s looking for. After all selfish is human nature so what are we to expect of ourselves? Can we change the animal that we are? With the American mind that society has today I’m not sure if we can.

As Human Beings, we hold the most power on Earth over any other species- we can build skyscrapers, fly to the moon, build nuclear bombs, and even create virtual universes. With this power I believe we owe a great deal of responsibility to our world and the ecosystems within it. As Humans, we often forget our power and lose the ability to control it, which is why we are beginning to face serious problems in our world today. In Robert Nash’s essay island civilization: a vision for human occupancy of Earth, Robert raises a great point about how we should really think about if we are progressing for the better or worse as a civilization. As I look at the world today and see all the environmental and ethical issues our society faces I believe that we are in trouble.

Factory farming, deforestation, pesticides, global warming, pollution, and overpopulation are just a few of the environmental issues that take place in our world. Everyday these issues continue but yet we decide to do nothing about them. As we live our lives these problems affect us every day whether we realize it or not. The foods we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe are all being contaminated because of the terrible decisions we choose to make. It’s sad but most of the general population is not even aware of the chemicals that are put in the common tap water. In tap water contaminants such as chlorine, mercury, fluoride, copper, and Barium are part of our everyday drinking water-if you don’t believe me you can go to water.epa.gov. All though these chemicals are found in trace amounts they are still not meant to be digested in any way.

 In today’s world it’s nearly impossible to come by anything we digest that doesn’t have any chemicals in it; for instance factory farming animals like chickens are given drugs to increase their growth rate so they can be killed quicker for us to eat but what happens though is that the drugs they eat go into our system causing us to become sick. The rate in which our population is growing is just terrifying. It is going to create even more problems for our world; such as food shortage, less jobs, higher poverty rate, higher taxes, and less land per person. In Nash’s essay he goes on to say similar issues that would occur with a high population growth rate, “Accelerated human-caused decline in biodiversity amounts in the opinion of many biologists to a Sixth Great Extinction. More humans than existed since the start of the species occupied the planet in 1950 and population surged upward at the rate of a billion every fifteen years. Sprawling into open space at the rate in the United States alone of six thousand acres each day…” Earth is only so big, as any other environment in our world it too has a carrying capacity.

Preservation and conservation are positive steps to action for fighting the issues concerning our wildlife. In Nash’s essay he mentions a few of the nation’s wildlife protection acts: The Marine Mammal Protection Act (1972) and The Endangered Species Act (1973). These acts are an important step to preserving our wildlife and wilderness; however we must do more. Deforestation is a dreadful topic of concern happening in our world. Without our forests our Carbon Dioxide levels stay high, due to a loss in plant cellular respiration. What’s so special about plants’ cellular respiration is that they take in Carbon Dioxide and excrete oxygen, and with less and less plants to do this our world becomes a world with higher Carbon Dioxide emissions, and a world with higher Carbon dioxide emissions means severe global warming.

Global warming is a severe epidemic that is destroying our world. It is causing our polar ice caps to deplete, our animals to become extinct or near extinction, and creating a world of unbearably hot temperatures. With the emissions we are giving off we are soon to turn our world into a toxic wasteland. The emissions factories give off are just outrageous! The chemicals today that factories emit cause many health issues, cancer being the predominate one.  This problem can be attacked with simple every day decisions; ride your bike instead of driving your car, buy energy efficient appliances, or limit the emissions your heating and cooling system gives off. We have control over our world and I believe it should be kept that way.

Towards the end of Robert Nash’s essay, he talks about his solution to our intrusive progression towards self-destruction, called island civilization. His idea basically states how there should be a border nature and civilization, which to me sounds absurd. I feel that this idea is absurd due to the fact we already do this. We already have national parks and wildlife sanctuaries, if you suggest that society should have more of these then I would agree, but I’m not sure I can agree that you came up with an idea that is already in existence. Nash feels that since we are so good with technology we can create a simulation of our world to get our needs, but I don’t believe this to be true. I feel like we have come a long ways since the creation of the wheel, but I feel as though we still have a long way to go. Civilization is at disasters footsteps in the years to come and I feel as though the idea of island civilization does not solve our problems.