Island Civilization

Response to “Island Civilization”

            In “Island Civilization,” Nash highlights the environmental issues of Earth and how humans are basically taking over the entire planet, not leaving much room for any other life form. He proposes that we look further into our futures, not just fifty years from now, but also hundreds and even thousands for a plan to preserve our planet. Nash’s main concern is the destruction and civilizing of the “wild.” He introduces the reader to a plan that most people would never even think of and some may even be afraid to pursue.

As humans, we saw the need to digress away from the ways of hunting and gathering and to have pastures, farms and tamed animals. The progress that we as humans were making was helping us, but harming the planet and nature. Nash completely disagrees with the way humans have progressed. He wants to see a society where we travel back to the ways of finding our own food and letting nature happen on its own. In his article, Nash suggests the idea of “island civilization.” By this he means small confined places where humans live with boundaries instead of the wilderness living with boundaries. Furthermore, Nash wants the human population to be reduced so the focus can be put back on other life forms. He even believes that technology can become so advanced that humans will be able to build cities underwater and in the sky, out of the way of everyone else. With this advanced technology, Nash also believes humans will not even have a need for transportation such as cars anymore, because we will have teleportation. Nash’s reasoning behind his ideas is that we need to put Earth before people if we want to save our planet from becoming a wasteland.

As I was reading this article, it was easy for me to understand where Nash is coming from. We are slowly destructing our planet day by day and our progress does have a negative effect on many different factors, but I believe Nash’s way of solving this problem is much too extreme. When trying to resolve issues, the best way to go about it is to take baby steps; giant leaps are most of the time unrealistic. I agree that we need to make changes to the way humans live to save Earth, the environment and the wild, but Nash’s way seems too harsh.

To me it seems strange to confine ourselves to bounded parts of the Earth. We as humans and every other form of life should have the freedom to roam and live where we choose. As of now every life form can go wherever they want. Organizations such as national parks and reservations are even there to protect parts of the wild and keep them separated from the harmful ways of humans. The idea of an “island civilization” seems too much like a dictatorship or communist government. A second problem I see with Nash’s idea is how unrealistic his plans are. I am not saying people should not dream big, but why plan things that would never be possible in a lifetime? We should be focusing on the present and how the present will impact the future. I always find that taking baby steps gets you much farther than taking on more than you can handle.