[Kareem Eid]

Bill McKibben views his mission and that of environmentalists alike as much less of a stance associated with liberals but as he puts it: the preservation of earth in its traditional form as it was intended, with “ice at the top and ice at the bottom” is a fundamentally conservative view. McKibben appropriately quotes Thoreau’s essay Walking: “Wildness is preservation of the world”.

Thoreau realized his breakdown of the intricacies of life on Walden were not only a product of but also confined by “the narrowness of [his] experience”. Thoreau expects his “readers [to] accept such portions as apply to them…for it may do good service to him whom it fits” (Walden, 6-7). McKibben’s mission of ‘waking up’ his neighbors to the rising levels of atmospheric carbon is not far from Thoreau’s almost spiritual and certainly inspirational fascinations.

The pertinence of the Annual Harding Lecture this year was made clear as McKibben spoke of 3.5 million of our fellow Americans facing out-of-this-world disaster scenarios as an immediate impact of the recent hurricanes. Orange groves in Florida have been absolutely destroyed by floods, with estimates of losses at about 70%, having the potential to raise the prices of a gallon of OJ to over 8 dollars for Americans (Tuttle). Thoreau sees that a husbandman’s harvest cannot fail, that even with woodchucks or weeds there is a plan, an end-all (Thoreau, 124).

Thoreau’s most ideal dream comes from the mere possibility of “anticipat[ing], not the sunrise and the dawn merely, but, if possible, Nature herself!” (Thoreau, 16). With calamities such as these there is never anyone who truly wants to believe in the possibility and anticipate such things. Just like Puerto Ricans, Thoreau, McKibben, You, or I we cannot “assist the sun materially in his rising…[yet] it [is] of the last importance [for all of us] only to be present at it” (Thoreau, 16). The Puerto Ricans, Floridians, Texans are ones in need of material assistance. McKibben speaks to the reality of what we are collectively facing and its solutions saying “the visions from the sweat lodge are the same as the visions from the super computer”. If the winds of change do not come soon, as Thoreau says, there is and will be nothing we can do to help the sun rise, nothing to bring back that crisp morning air.

Works Cited
Thoreau, Henry David. Thoreau A Week, Walden, The Maine Woods, Cape Cod. Ed. Robert F. Sayre. N.p.: Library of America, 1985. Eldritch Press. Web.
Tuttle, Brad. “Your Orange Juice Could Cost $8 Because of Hurricane Irma.” Time. Time, 26 Sept. 2017. Web.

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