Island Civilizations

            As a race of people, we have severely messed up our world. The remarkable thing is that even though we have made so many mistakes, we have the ability to fix them and restore the world to its former glory. There have been many proposed solutions thrown about by people and while some are entirely crazy, other have a possibility of working. One of the possibilities that I am fond of is the one proposed by Roderick Frazier Nash in “Island Civilization: A Vision for Human Occupancy in the Fourth Millennium”. In the article, Nash describes how the earth got to its present state and he even estimates what will happen if we don’t make a change.

            It all started with ancient man when he was living a simple and sustainable life as a hunter-gatherer. In this time, man the optimum relationship with the environment because he would take what he needed from the earth and leave the rest of the wilderness for animals. This nomadic lifestyle soon came to an end when people started to settle down in permanent locations. This began an entirely new relationship with the wilderness. People would start only taking from nature and keeping everything for themselves while never giving back. Because people were in one location, this also started a battle with the climate and elements for people. For the time being, nature could survive with a few farmers only taking and never giving back, but this mindset would only get stronger as people grew and developed.

            As people developed as farmers, they had the ability to take care of more people at one time; this led to the creation of permanent villages of people and the growth of civilizations. These civilizations constantly grew in populations and because of this, they needed to expand and use more resources. This would lead to the growth of the human population in Eurasia as civilizations. These people would grow to take over the world and all of the space available. Expanding to North America, people were still hungry for land and the frontier and eventually took over all of it. The industrial revolution would also take its toll on the environment.

            With people needing more resources to supply factories and an ever growing population, they started to destroy the world even more. Rain forests were cut down for wood and the oceans polluted. For the human population to survive another thousand years, a change needs to be made. Nash’s proposal of 100 acre islands in many locations throughout the world is a fascinating one. The islands would be scattered about the land, sea, and sky and house over three million people while being entirely self sustaining. This is, however, only a proposal that has no scientific bearing in mind of how to accomplish the feat. So one could poke holes in the pan because the human population would have to be cut down seventy-five percent and kept at the same level or the bubbles of people would easily become overcrowded. One of my favorite ideas for a sustainable future is also an island that floats in the sea collecting garbage and reusing is for fuel.

The Lady Landfill Skyscraper

            The Lady Landfill Skyscraper is an idea for a floating garbage collector that can also house a number of people. It is built like and upside-down Eiffel Tower and it collects the garbage that is floating in the oceans of the world. It then uses these to create fuel for itself making it a self sustaining structure. This reading got me looking into more ideas that people have presented over the years about a sustainable life at sea. Many of the ideas look promising, but that is only if they can be adopted by big budget companies that can afford to build them. This means that all of these ideas have the ability to take an unfortunate turn if big companies take over the crusade for new alternatives to living environments for humans.

            While all of the ideas proposed by people are creative in their own respects and have the ability to save nature and the environment, some are just ridiculous. The ones that do have the possibility to succeed need major funding. So until we can get the world on board with creating amazing structures to help take care of the world, individuals are going to have to do their small parts in making the world a more Eco-friendly place.