Reflection: The End of Nature by Bill McKibben [The Fragile Earth: Writing from The New Yorker on Climate Change]

A. About the Author 

          Bill McKibben is an American journalist that writes and reports extensively about climate crisis and the impact of global warming. He is a co-founder of a climate campaign 350.org and several other campaigns. One of many McKibben's challengers, Alex Epstein who graduate with a Computer Science degree along with Philosophy degree, said "You're not a Scientist" to McKibben in one of the debates they have. Epstein thinks that McKibben is misrepresenting science and oversimplifying the fact to his readers and audiences because McKibben is no scientist. McKibben until now keeps promoting his stance on the climate crisis and its impact through his writings. He also contributes to change the face of politics inside the US and outside by giving an insight into the urgency of the crisis.

B. Personal Takeaway of The Essay: The End of Nature by Bill McKibben

    This essay of him called The End of Nature is released in the New Yorker on September 11th 1989. 

    I won’t necessarily call this essay just an essay because, for me, the things that he covered and addressed is somehow covering facts㇐and as any article do mentioning the source and quotation of data that he use, making this essay seems like a report. He does making his point by pointing out an example that if he has one tree outside his house in New York, eventually it would be on the Canadian border by 2020 based on the fact that the forest has a mechanism to move naturally, a half-mile along with the growth of new trees in its edges. It sure is simplifying the science and technology behind that theory but we must look at when this essay is being written and published. 

    The key to understanding climate change or nowadays can be addressed as climate crisis is to acknowledge the issue as both an intergenerational and class issue. The impact can be seen across generations that live in that one particular time when the crisis becomes a catastrophe. The damage it causes is the same across the socio-economical background and class. But the problem appears when the people that categorized in the lower socio-economic class are facing much more at stake. To quote his essay, “An overheated, ozone-depleted world would probably be crueller to the poor than to the rich,”

    The real-fact and phenomenon can logically support the mentioned statement in the essay, for example, the catastrophe that happens annually in Jakarta and probably many other coastal cities is the flood that strikes those cities. Sure, we can argue what causes the flood itself not only because of the melting of ice in the Arctics that contribute to the increasing sea level but there are also other factors such as the infrastructure and the policy implemented by the government to solve the problem, etc. And to solve that problem, one of the solutions is to involve every element of society to contribute to reducing the amount of greenhouse gases contributing to the rising issue including the citizens, but not every citizen from a variety of background and class can do that. To look into the spectacle of class issue of the climate crisis, there is need to be a common ground that established an understanding of privilege.

    Then, towards almost the end of the essay, I found it that he emphasises a lot of points that conclude us to the extreme measures, and I'd like to quote a sentence from this essay that "environmentally sound is not the same as natural." That exact statement is creating a dilemma which is we can create a solution that is kind of we humans have to compromise OR we have to go with extreme measure of solution. I think that McKibben wants to say is, we can try a solution that both human and nature can co-exist but ideology and modern civilization always in the way. Such ideas as we can make a world that relies on renewable energy other than heavily rely on oil&gas will always be fought with a contra argument that renewable energy will cost us more, and will need more management to be established; the popular and sophisticated idea of us solving cancer and UV-related disease on organisms with genetic engineering; and last but not least building infrastructure to accommodate all the solutions are being challenged by the cement and building material needed will do the planet more harm than the other result we wanted - will bring us to square one which is we humans cannot just coexist and again quoting his essay that nature has lost its special power because it lost its separateness from us, humans. Nature has already bear the stamp of mankind.

But, I think I have to agree with him that for some of us that could, we all should limit ourselves and alter the way we look at ourselves. Since the Enlightenment, and then the Industrial Revolution, we used to look at ourselves as God but we also see nature as a power beyond what we humans can comprehend. But being said that, we don't look at ourselves and the nature humbly. Instead, we are creating a utopia world that can accommodate our number and our habits and ambitions. We are drowning in an idea that optimistic said 'conservation can go hand-in-hand with profit' but our ambitions blind us with that thinking and we wreak havoc instead.

Last, I'd like to quote a sentence that just sums the solution of the urging problem,

                                "The choice of doing nothing is not a choice."

And as Bill McKibben stated, "we live in the shadow of a number, and that makes it hard to see the future." We also have a hard time seeing that small amount of action, and a small portion of radical idealism of tackling climate change could actually lead us to bigger result. So, here's what I proposed. Start small. Start with you. And, let's see how it goes.