Podcast Interview of Bill McKibben

In the podcast by Scientific American, the interview a man by the name of Bill McKibben. McKibben authored a book titled Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet.  Earths is spelled with two 'a' s to emphasize that Earth is no longer what it once was.  McKibben says that if we want to sustain life on this earth, some changes need to be made to our lifestyles as humans. In his book, McKibben elaborates on the differences between industrial and localized farming, and further details why people need to shift to more localized farming if the Earth is to survive. He says that if society as a whole wants to do without fossil fuels, or at least reduce dependency on such fuels, then we need to get more people involved in local farming. 

Enviornmental Issue - Air Pollution

                In our world today, there is a number of environmental issues that need to be addressed. One of these issues is air pollution. Air pollution is caused by a number of things, but one of the major causes can be traced to the byproduct of combustion engines. The byproduct that is emitted is carbon monoxide. This deadly gas is accumulating more and more in our environment and needs to be contained in some way. One of the places that are affected in a very apparent way is Hong Kong. The population of Hong Kong is very dense, which in turn causes the need for cars and buses to rise. But because of all this gas being put into the air, the sky is literally a hazy grey color all of the time.  Now, not every place is just like Hong Kong in terms of population. But in time, if we do not attempt to control our emissions, the skies all over the globe will be that very same grey color, if not worse.  Island civilization can help control this in that if we limit the space we use, the less need we will have to use mechanical transportation. If your job office was within the island boundaries, you may not have to drive there every morning; instead you could take the electric train, or walk even.

http://www.epa.gov/air/urbanair/

Island Civilization

            In Roderick Nash’s essay on society and its effect on our world, he begins by outlining his purpose in this writing. He states that he wishes to review the human-nature relationship in the past, how we treat the relationship now, and how we should treat it in the future. He feels that what we are doing now is not necessarily the best course of action if we want to sustain life and make any progress in society, but he proposes his own unique solution that will promote success for future generations of our planet.

            He starts his argument by reviewing what the word, “wilderness,” actually means. In old English, he informs the reader that for something to be wild was to mean that is was self-willed. The, “- ness,” portion of the word indicates a place, so in conclusion the whole word comes to mean “self-willed land.” In the past we treated this type of land as an obstacle. We tried to conquer it and make it our own, instead of trying to be one with the land. The wilderness was the home to predators and the unknown, which ultimately scared us as a community.

            Now that we are beginning to progress as a society and have made significant advancements that make clearing out the wilderness feasible, we realize that we are destroying one of our own precious resources as well as the homes of fellow species. The examples that are used to illustrate this point are various pieces of legislature such as, “The Endangered Species Act.” This is just one of the examples but what it allows is for other residents of our world to be entitled to their own variation of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.

            After the reader realizes how our lives as humans have impacted the world in the past, he covers a few possible outcomes theorized by various individuals. These theories range from views of totally trashed and poisoned world to those where we have overtaken the entire world and nature and wilderness no longer even exists. But Nash proposes his own solution known as, “Island Civilization.” This theory states that we need to limit the amount of births in the world while also setting boundaries on our individual societies. We would have to contain our population to these boundaries, but if we do so then we will be able to successfully preserve what’s left of nature and hold on to it for all of time.

            My response to this is made up of rather mixed feelings. First I will cover his theory on the birth control issue. I see this as a totally reasonably wish for our world, but it causes a few moral dilemmas. One of those problems being how do we choose who to limit and who not to?  Do we select the pairs of people who are allowed to breed based on intelligence, race, or some other defining factor? Will we have to meet certain diversity quotas by allowing X amount of African-Americans to breed, X amount of Caucasians, and so on? This limit causes all sorts or issues that I honestly would not be entirely sure how to deal with.

            As for Nash’s idea on boundaries for our societies, I am more agreeable. This thought on constraining the boundaries of a city to a defined “island,” as he called it, seems pretty straight-forward. Nash even said that we would always be allowed outside into the wild but we would have to live as one with nature if we wished to do so. Again, this seems fairly just. But I still have my problems with this idea. People are not always law-abiding, model people that we would wish for sometimes. That being said, I still see people going out and running amok in the wild, just as some do now. We would still need some sort of moderating force such as police in the wild. But if they are to moderate, they will need an advantage over perpetrators, and without technology it will be a lot harder to do that.

            In conclusion however, I seem to mostly agree with Nash’s idea for a better future, provided that my questions are appropriately answered. How they will be answered though will more than likely be a long and arduous process. But there is an obvious and necessary need for some sort of population control, and Nash’s is as good as any.