The writings of Bill McKibben have had a particularly profound effect on me. I hesitate to label his impact on me as either positive or negative due to how I agree and am moved by his sentiments, but at the same time, some of his writings have complicated my thoughts. In some cases, reading him has completely changed the way I think about the nature of us and nature for the worse.
I have read and encountered McKibben in three classes so far here at Wooster. In my FYS, Human Impact on the Environment/Facing the Anthropocene, I was first introduced to his concepts and beliefs. His website and push for staying below 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and discussion on the Paris Agreement’s target of 2 degrees celsius have both motivated to look into Environmental Studies and possibly looking into Environmental Politics as a career path.
In this class, while reading The End of Nature, my philosophy the nature of humans interacting with all of nature was significantly impacted. I did not realize the significance of the title of this book until I read this passage, “Now that we have changed the most basic forces around us, the noise of that chain saw will always be in the woods”(40). Here McKibben is referring to the faint noise of a chainsaw he can hear while walking in the woods behind his house. In providing this image, he states that “The sound of the chain saw doesn’t blot out all the noises of the forest or drive the animals away, but it does drive away the feeling that you are in another, separate, timeless, wild sphere” (40). This is troubling for me because I consider the area that I live in to be fairly natural. My house is engulfed in a canopy of deciduous and coniferous trees, a small stream cuts a ravine through my front yard, most Sunday mornings I awaken to the sound of birds rather than any alarm. But while I sit on a couch on my front porch and read, or I step outside to take my dog for a walk, there is always some industrial hum of a lawnmower off in the distance, or there is that chain saw that McKibben described. After reading The End of Nature, I tune in to this unlike I did before. Perhaps I would have recognized there is a sound of something coming from somewhere. But more likely, that lawnmower was just a filler, some sort of unrecognized white noise. Now when I hear those sounds, I am reminded that, “The world outdoors will mean much the same as the world indoors, the hill the same thing as the house” (40).
I like how you make a personal connection with McKibben, you have a great little description of your backyard. You could have used the quote in the end about how the world inside is the same as outside earlier in the paragraph. Or you could have explained that part better. You then could tie it in with the other two quotes that you used.
Also it is interesting that you have encountered McKibben more than once in Wooster. It would have been great if you explained how you look at McKibben has changed from the first time you read The End of Nature.