The End of Nature - Bill McKibben

ucla | Environ M30 | 2023-04-05T20:51

Table of Contents

Definitions

Big Ideas

Notes

  • It’s difficult to see nature so alone as before, “man is always nearby”
  • The effect of man on nature is clear and the results are shown in our climate and ecosystems

But why do people not accept that man has changed nature… or is it that we don’t want to?

  • Initially, humanity failed to see how it could’ve made aa dent in nature (believed it was too vast to damage), but the effects are characterized in the ecological phenomenon we now experience

a negligent/”unbelieving” past impacted an observant present

  • Identifies that its too late to altogether prevent the catastrophe due to malpractice and a misguided notion of a world “too vast” to damage
  • People now are forced to think of their impact on nature instead of having the absolute freedom of experiencing (”feeling”) it around them
  • the negotiations of humanity and nature have been long and endured in balance: people fish, swim, hike, and try to farm and nature accepts, but when nature doesn’t “accept” it will win in the argument e.g. the mine that was destroyed by a fire, then avalanche

implies nature has a mind of its own or a utility function by which it bides to and allows other negotiations (agreements) to happen to an extent, e.g. fishing, housing, limited agriculture

  • Although seemingly unchanged, nature has been so heavily impacted by humanity that natural phenomena like rain now seem man-made due to chemical cid rain, smog, noise pollution, etc. → we lose the sense of nature, its anonymity and exceptionality, its just us, humanity, out there
  • Everything is manmade, sunlight reminds us of depleted ozone, fresh air reminds of greenhouse gasses (in itself a manmade greenhouse), → even if we go to the mall instead of nature, it seems we can never escape humanity
  • McKibben is unwilling to abandon the pleasures in life although he notices the ever nearing end of nature, but leaves it to the next few generations to accommodate a life where nature can go back to being “nature”

this seems like a terrible decision to stand by. it is contradictory to the statements about the negotiations of nature and man McKibben spoke of earlier and suggests making an eternal, meaningful world but fails to define what that means in terms of the coexistence of humanity with nature: genocide? abuse? a fabricated technological nature? isolation like a zoo?

  • McKibben’s biggest claim is to come to the decision of RESTRAINT through reason (the defining difference that makes humanity special) to behave as God’s creatures instead of gods ourselves → suggests a reason for the end of nature may be that God is dead or possibly something else

seems to oppose the continuation of technological advancement considering that nature is where most discoveries are made and result in technological revolutions - ideas, resources, land, etc.

  • Suggests nature and man are separate and should remain separate for things to return to the “beautiful” state they were in before as God intended - completely disregards the notion of humans as God’s creatures and integral to nature itself as McKibben even pointed out but never considered

Lecture

  • argues that man is nature as well and so anything we do is a part of nature and thus nature cannot end → this is a paradoxical and infinite arguments so you can’t “feel it” when it does end

Resources

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