September 4th – Marris chapt. 1 & 2

Firstly, I have to say that I think the reason that Emma Marris wrote the book Rambunctious Garden: Saving nature in a post-wild world is to explain whether wilderness is pristine or not. Throughout the first chapter she saying that there is a problem with calling nature pristine, she goes so far as to say that, “This dream of pristine wilderness haunts us.” She says this because there is no place in nature that has does not have an effect on mankind. She even provides a date and says that specifically since 2011 there has been no pristine nature on planet Earth. She goes on to say, similar to our readings from last week that conservationism is the wrong way to deal with nature. Instead humans should try and work with nature instead of trying to seclude it. The way Marris describes it is probably the best way to say it, she says, “We are already running the whole Earth, whether we admit it or not. To run it consciously and effectively, we must admit our role and even embrace it.” In other words Marris is basically saying we basically control the Earth, we have been altering the environment around us for as long as we have been around. Now Marris is simply saying that we should take some responsibility to help Mother Nature out and embrace our roles as leaders of the Earth since we affect it the most. One example she gave was how because of humans the amount of Carbon Dioxide molecules in the air is thirty six percent more than it was in the seventeen hundreds. One point that Marris made which I thought was very interesting was the whole idea of baselines, meaning if we were going to try and revert nature back to how it used to be (as in a truly pristine environment) how would we go about doing that? What would be the “baseline”? Would it be from when before humans came to the environment or an earlier time because even without humans present the environment was still changing? I have to say when it comes down to it I thought she explained her points very well, in my opinion she was trying to explain what nature is and why it can not be considered pristine. She clearly explained what pristine means regarding nature and that it can no longer be found because human effects are everywhere in the environment. Truthfully one thing I have to say about the first two chapters is that I appreciated how she brought so much evidence to support her claim and even though at times it became a bit strenuous to read for this particular reason. I have to say that I think the fact that she put so many examples helped me understand the chapters better because if one of her examples did not cut it for me the rest would help me get a good idea of what it is she was trying to say.