Anne Steed

Dr. Taylor

English 101

12 January 2012

            In “Island Civilization: A Vision for Human Occupancy of Earth in the Fourth Millennium" by Rodrick Frazier Nash, Nash talks about how humans are destroying nature. He believes that humans have developed too far into nature and are no longer taking care of the earth. In the beginning of time, God made the earth and the nature was a big part of the earth. It was beautiful and untouched, until Adam and Eve ate the apple, and from here, the world started changing their idea of integrating with nature. As time as progressed, we have torn down trees and come into nature, in order to build houses, pave streets, polluted the air, etc. Nash says that we did this because we are more concerned about ourselves than we are about nature and the wilderness. He believes that our changing of the earth to suit our wants and needs is hurting the natural wilderness and what was there from the beginning. Slowly, nature is disappearing and if we keep doing what we are doing now, it will eventually completely disappear. Nash presents four ideas of how we can start changing the way we live to help gain back the wilderness and nature. He believes that nature should have its own rights, just like we have our own.

 His last proposal is called “Island Civilization” where humans are all over the earth, but they live in groups of people that are in 100-mile circles. The spaces between these 100-mile circles are to be left to wilderness, where it can be natural and unharmed. People are allowed to go into these areas of nature, but they have to live like the wilderness. He calls this plan “the dream” because he really feels like this would return nature to how it used to be. He thinks that everyone would be happy with this because everyone and everything would be given liberty.

            I think Nash presents a good argument. I think that nature is disappearing and people are going over certain boundaries that are hurting nature. I have seen pictures of my parents’ houses when they were little, and it is amazing how much things have changed over a small period of time. Overtime, I have slowly watched the wilderness disappear in my hometown. I remember when there were forests that covered most of the land near my house, and now, it is about the opposite. I think it is sad seeing nature disappear because of buildings, streets, or homes taking their places. I think the wilderness and nature are important because it is what God created and it is home to many species. Although I think Nash presents a lot of good ideas, I do not think they are realistic. I think Nash knows that his ideas are not the easiest to achieve because the world is so big and not many people would ever commit to one of his ideas. As the world is getting bigger and the amount of people is getting larger, nature is going to keep being destroyed and disappearing. I wish that Nash’s plan to preserve and to help nature would work, but I believe that the world is going to continue getting worse. It would be extremely hard to ask such a large task to all the people in the world. There are people today that are trying to save the environment by asking people to do small and easy tasks. I think asking people to do simpler and easier things to help nature are more realistic and maybe overtime, people will be more willing to do larger tasks.