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The End of Nature
~ Back to the Millennium Reading and Discussion Program Page~ |
Main Menu The Foundation • Grants • Resources • Special Projects • News & Events Introduction • Annual Symposium • Clemente Course |
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The End of Nature
~ Back to the Millennium Reading and Discussion Program Page~ |
Main Menu The Foundation • Grants • Resources • Special Projects • News & Events Introduction • Annual Symposium • Clemente Course |
In the tradition of Silent Spring and The Fate of the Earth, The End of Nature shakes our deepest perceptions of the world around us. McKibben marshals the latest scientific evidence about the greenhouse effect, the depletion of the ozone layer and a harrowing array of other ecological ills, and clearly explains the frightening implications of the destruction man has wrought on our planet. Ecological hysteria or reasonable scientific forecast? Either way, The End of Nature has a deeper, philosophical point to make. McKibben writes eloquently of the meaning of these changes — about the sadness of a world where there is no escaping man. Although for centuries civilization has pillaged and polluted the earth, in the past those attacks were relatively localized; now, with the global changes caused by greenhouse gases and ozone depletion, man has altered the most elemental processes of life everywhere, and the outdoors, Nature itself, has been turned into the equivalent of an enormous heated room. By turning Nature into “an artifact” or by-product of economic development, we have lost something of profound importance — Nature as a quasi-religious source of ultimate meaning and value. It is this loss that McKibben refers to in his title: the end of Nature as something independent of, larger than, and uncontrolled by man.