Island Civilization

Roderick Frazier Nash’s Island Civilization: A Vision for Human Occupancy of Earth in the Fourth Millennium highlights several key events during the first three millenniums and how the fourth could turn out.  Humans developed their dominance over the years and continue to assert it.  Overtime they separated themselves from nature and the wilderness.  During the second millennium several laws were passed that forced humans to reassess their dominant role in nature.  They were forced to look at other life forms as important.  Today, we have progressed into viewing the world as a something that needs to be taken care of.

After evaluating the first three millenniums Nash continues to discuss the options for the fourth millennium.  Nash does not want the world to turn into a ‘wasteland’ where everything is trashed.  However, “humans have proved to be terrible neighbors,” who tend to destroy all the resources around them.  Only “pathetic remnants” would be able to live in a world as corrupt and polluted as the wasteland scenario suggests.  The world could also progress into a ‘garden scenario’ where humans control all of nature and society become anthropocentric.  Humans technological advances seem to become more controlling as they progress.  People say the power and control humans currently have over nature is dangerous.  The third scenario is the “future primitive” where humans would once again become “hunters and gatherers.”  Technology would not become nonexistent but humans would have to learn how to use it in a more responsible way according to Henry David Thoreau.  In Nash’s “dream world” an Island Civilization will occur in which humans will live on islands separate from the environment.  For this scenario to occur the population will have to be eliminated down to 1.5 billion people, which is about a quarter of the current population.

Reading Nash’s Island Civilization opened my eyes to the world’s potential.  The world could develop in so many different ways by the fourth millennium and it is up to us today to help it evolve.  I do not see Nash’s Island Civilization as a practical outcome but I do think humans are trying to become more conservative.  Therefore, the world shouldn’t develop into a complete wasteland.  Furthermore, I do not seeing humans as opting for isolation on these islands he is proposing.  Technology is ever evolving which is why humans will not stop improvements in technology so they can use it more wisely.  Therefore, the most logical scenario seems to be the garden scenario.  The garden scenario will let the humans have complete control and biodiversity will become extinct.

One part of the Island Civilization scenario that would be most beneficial to the evolving planet would be to cut our population.  More than one billion people are added to the earth every fifteen years.  If we continue at this drastic rate there will be no hope to conserve any parts of the Earth’s natural resources.  Furthermore, I agree that we should learn to use technology more wisely.  We continue to advance but we never assess the detrimental effects we could be causing to the environment.