Island Civilization Response

Alexandre Penegre

Hill Taylor

English 101 Section 68

Island Civilization Response

            There is no doubt that humans have greatly impacted Earth’s environment, however, the current ecofriendly movement developed only recently and because of the exponential increase in technology, human pollution will gradually decrease. Of course the question is if it is too late.

            In the past, humans did not understand science or size of the earth. “For thousands of years the success of civilization seemed to mandate the destruction of wild places, wild animals, and wild peoples.” Blame cannot be put on them. It became the fault of humans after the Industrial Revolution when many science topics were understood, such as pollution, yet was ignored. The people who turned a blind eye to something they knew was wrong, are the people to blame. How can humans in the distant past know the extent of the damage done by clearing out forests for their cities?

            The exponential increase in technology can have a negative and positive effect. As technology increase more products are going to be made which require materials from the Earth which usually causes pollution to extract. Not only that, but when it becomes outdated it will probably end up in a landfill to slowly disintegrate after a few centuries. With every yin there is a yang. Technology can and is producing products that help save the planet. Solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal power are all thanks to technology. They are currently expensive and not as effective as they can be but because of the rapid increase in technology is should be affordable and more effective in about ten years, and probably become as common as gasoline in twenty years.

            Island Civilization is a far-fetched dream that has an almost zero percent chance of occurring to the point it shouldn’t even be considered.  Population growth is inevitable as better healthcare and medicine emerge. Even though some countries such as France and Japan have experienced a small decrease in population, third world countries such as ones located in South America and Africa are getting their hands on technological innovations which will increase their life expectancy and have safer deliveries.  Once it becomes widespread in those countries, the population will probably reach eight billion and not “…turn it back to a total of about

1.5 billion…” The only way humans can avoid overpopulating Earth to a point of instability is by colonizing other planets such as Mars. Of course this will probably not take place for another fifty years to a century, but the estimated population cap of Earth is approximately elven to twelve billion which will hopefully not be reached by that time.

            None of the other three scenarios seem probable because they are too extreme. The only reason the wasteland scenario has somewhat chance of happening is due to the nuclear buildup of both weapons and energy. The future primitive scenario has no chance of happening, and as for the garden scenario, it is way too extreme and environmental and animal rights activists will definitely not let that happen. Although they are few people will listen to them.

            If humans don’t focus on the environment, global warming will probably cause a mass extinction or the oil reserves will be emptied and forcibly change how things are done. The Island Civilization idea would be a good theory a century or two ago, however now, it is out of the question and should be simply forgotten.