Island Civilization Summary

Sydney Wilkinson

Island Civilization Summary

 English 101

            In this piece “Island Civilization: A Vision for Human Occupancy of Earth,” Roderick Frazier Nash discusses his proposal of what the human race should do in order to best preserve the earth and ensure its long life.  He challenges humans to look beyond a few years and consider the state of our earth now, and the future of our earth in the fourth millennium if our lifestyles do not change.

            Nash first goes back into history to discuss how views on the wilderness have changed over time.  The destruction of wilderness didn’t begin until humans made a distinct mental division of “civilization” and “wilderness.”  Even as far back as biblical times, the wilderness has possessed a negative reputation, for even God spoke badly about the wilderness.  This lead to one of the first views humans had on nature, which was to destruct and “tame” it.  The European colonists found success in conquering the land and looked down upon the Native Americans who had established an equalitarian relationship with the wilderness.  A shift in mindsets on nature occurred towards the end of the second millennium when Henry David Thoreau and George Perkins Marsh proposed widely publicized ideas about preserving the wilderness.  It suddenly became evident to the human race that their civilization of nature could in fact end up being destructive toward themselves. 

            Due to these authors and a United States Census that claimed there was no longer a frontier, a movement favoring wilderness began.  The motive behind the movement was purely to benefit the human race.  Towards the very end of the second millennium, the movement favoring wilderness continued but the motives changed.  Humans began to see that wilderness had an irreplaceable value and it should be preserved simply because of that.  For once everything was not centered on mankind, preserving nature became a movement solely centered around nature itself.  And as mankind continued to see the importance in nature, the issue of preservation versus civilization eventually became a more, religious, and ecological issue.  Liberty Hyde Bailey, a botanist, published a book claiming that God created nature as an equal to humans, so rather than controlling nature, humans should respect and reside among it.  But eventually this preservation mindset got pushed aside as the population grew rapidly, and humans began conquering more and more land for habitation.  Because of the carelessness and size of the population, issues such as global warming, water, soil and food problems are becoming a reality.

            Looking into the fourth millennium, Nash predicts four possibilities for our planet.  The first he tags “ Wasteland Scenario,” where the earth is wasting beneath our waste and trash, simply rotting from poison and neglect.  The second scenario is “Garden Scenario” where mankind has occupied every square inch of nature and molded it to benefit them.  “Future primitive” is the third scenario where humans revert back to the hunting and gathering way of life.  And lastly he proposes his idea known as “Island Civilization.”  In this scenario, civilization and nature are no longer separate spheres but civilization adapts to become one with nature.  For this to occur, our world’s population would have to be at a maximum of 1.5 billion.  Humans would then have to learn to live in smaller community spaces, rather than over occupying the land as they’re used to.  There would be 100-mile closed-circle units each housing 3 million humans.  Each unit is capable of supporting itself for food, energy, and waste resources.  On these units, nature will be impacted, but everywhere outside these units will be left unchanged.  Ideally, Nash’s idea of civilization depends on teleportation because there will be no routes of travel such as roads that alter the wilderness.  Although many humans would be against the idea, the harsh reality is that mankind holds the key to the survival of the Earth, and the current civilization of the world is slowly killing the Earth.  But there is always a possibility for change, leaving a possibility for hope.