Summary/Response to Roderick Frazier Nash's "Island Civilization: A Vision for Human Occupancy of Earth in the Fourth Millennium"

           Roderick Frazier Nash writes of his vision for a perfect world, where humans may “fulfill their evolutionary potential without compromising or eliminating the opportunity of other species [to do] the same” (371).  Nash sells his prospect of benefiting infinitely without consequence, as outlined in his essay “Island Civilization: A Vision for Human Occupancy of Earth,” by blaming outdated thinking as the primary culprit, relating his vision to past human endeavors, and treating the human race as a misbehaving child.
        The very first argument that Nash makes is that against the concept of the “millennium” (371).  He refers to it not as a measurement of the passing of time, but rather a “synthetic” (371) idea, given undeserved significance, with origins tied to an ambiguous religious date.  This initial rant is not significant in and of itself, but Nash uses it as a segue to his principal argument of outdated human thinking.  Nash states his point clearly and firmly: “we don’t do history very well” (372), and then proceeds to label himself as a “historian” (372) just three sentences later, thereby gilding his stance with authority and apparent justification.  In teaching his views of history, Nash references the Bible as the source of anti-wilderness ideology stemming from the Garden of Eden and argues that “uncontrolled nature became the enemy” (372) of the stationary human settlements.  He discusses the coming about of new words, such as ‘environmentalism,’ ‘pollution,’ and ‘deep ecology,’ and legislature, such as the Wilderness Act of 1964, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and the Endangered Species Act, in addition to countless pieces of literature, all punctuating change in the human mentality toward nature, though Nash argues that the majority of these, and especially the legislative pieces, are oriented toward the human well-being and our “ten-thousand-year-old obsession with the control and modification of the planet” (374).  
Periodically, Nash appeals to his target audience and tries to make it as relatable to past events, more often than not ones viewed positively in the human eye, as possible.  I don’t blame him for doing so; in fact it is the first thing a good salesman considers, and Nash is, after all, attempting to sell his ideas to his readers.  However, his choice of metaphors and other comparisons reveals Nash’s overwhelming bias.  He directly ties “axes, rifles, and barbed wire,” commonly viewed as tools of destruction and oppression, with “railroads, dams, and freeways” (373), modern marvels that facilitate the lives of millions and make modern life possible.  Nash later tackles the latter of these by stating that as much of the land in the United States is wilderness as is paved (375-376).  Now, this is a valid argument, presumably with credible evidence behind it, but the way Nash lists “freeways” on the same level as “barbed wire” highlights his resentment toward the very veins of modern society.  Nash also alludes to the civil rights movement, referring to “nature” as an “oppressed minority” (375), effectively evoking deep emotions felt by most in the form of a common crusade for justice.  He also alludes to the Declaration of Independence by mentioning “[the endowed] rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” (375) for nonhuman species.
        “We are the most dangerous species of life on the planet, and every other species, even the earth itself, has cause to fear our power to exterminate” (371).  It is no mistake that this line by Wallace Stegner was placed before the outset of the essay, as its words reverberate strongly throughout Nash’s writing.  There are several points where it seems that Nash is playing the role of a kindergarten teacher scolding a misbehaving child.  At one point, he states that the objective is to “share the spaceship on which all life travels together” (374), and later lectures: “we did not share well” (376), and through our “ingratitude and irresponsibility, we have abandoned and discarded this planet” (376).  As punishment for not playing nicely with the Earth, Nash recommends that we be placed in contained settlements where we can do no further harm to nature; a timeout, if you will (377).
        Though the solution posed by Nash is perfect in theory, like communism, it possesses several crippling flaws, again, like communism.  Nash’s goal of a blind global following of an Orwellian “Earth First!” (377) program would difficult, if not impossible, to bring to fruition, as would be decreasing the human population, which would raise ethical concerns and would presumably involve sterilization and/or euthanasia in some form.  The Achilles heel of Nash’s plan, however, is not the broad spectrum of issues associated with a centrally-planned, tightly-controlled socialism in which humans are isolated from the outside world, but rather the sheer nonsensical perfection of it all.  Nash believes that a world in which all societies function as independent but united Greek city-states will bring about the end of all wars, but as history, which we humans “don’t do...very well” (372), and Nash, “as a historian” (372), fully understands, has shown us in an episode known as the Peloponnesian War, this idea of isolated city-states is by no means a viable end to war and is just another of Nash’s naive notions for a perfect world with all possible advantages and not a single disadvantage (377), which could only succeed if run by perfect humans.

Roderick Frazier Nash, “Island Civilization: A Vision for Human Occupancy of Earth in the Fourth Millennium,” Environmental History 15 (July 2010): 371–380.
doi:10.1093/envhis/emq051
Advance Access publication on July 13, 2010