Prophetic Environmentalism: Bill McKibben

759 Words2 Pages

Prophetic Environmentalism: Bill McKibben A graduate of Harvard and the former editor of the Harvard Crimson, Bill McKibben joined the New Yorker in 1982 as a staff writer right out of college. His parents had been writers, and he always thought he would follow in his father’s footsteps as a “newspaper” man. Oblivious as any to environmental predicaments, the course of his career—and life really—changed after writing an extensive piece where he literally tracked down where everything was made in his apartment. Travelling around for this piece introduced him to the “real world,” and in 1987 he left the New Yorker to live in the Adirondack Mountains with his fiancé (“McKibben, Bill”). This is where he wrote his first book, The End of Nature; a book that pushed him into the environmental limelight and provided a basis for all his other works. McKibben was only 27 when he finished The End of Nature, and thought that by calling attention to global warming and what human interference has done to the meaning of nature, people would read the book and policies would change. He had no idea what he was getting into necessarily. He never considered himself an activist, he was just reporting (Greenfeld). He provided no solutions in the book, but he did use a lot of scientific evidence warning of the possible impending destruction of nature (if it isn’t already destroyed) interwoven into anecdotes of his own experiences in nature (White 110). The End of Nature is as important as a keystone in McKibben’s career as it is a prophetic message of the effects global warming and the end of human’s idea of nature that has been proved right time and time again through the years. The main arguments in The End of Nature is that as a result of human cons... ... middle of paper ... ...l McKibben Books on Global Warming, Local Economies, Nature, Poplulation Control, Sustainability, and More. Henry Holt and Company, 2013. Web. 25 Apr. 2014. Finch, Robert, and John Elder. "Bill McKibben: From the End of Nature." The Norton Book of Nature Writing. New York: W.W. Norton, 1990. 1120-130. Print. Greenfeld, Karl Taro. "The battle hymn of Bill McKibben." Bloomberg Businessweek 2013: 54. Academic OneFile. Web. 28 Apr. 2014. "Mckibben, Bill." Current Biography Electronic (Bio Ref Bank) (1997): Biography Reference Bank (H.W. Wilson). Web. 26 Apr. 2014. Odenbaugh, Jay. "Bill McKibben on the End of Nature." Green Thoughts. Blogspot.com, 28 Sept. 2006. Web. 25 Apr. 2014. "What We Do." 350.org. 350.org Nonprofit, 2008. Web. 25 Apr. 2014. White, Richard. "Bill McKibben's Emersonian Vision." Raritan 31.2 (2011): 110-125. Academic Search Premier. Web. 26 Apr. 2014.

Open Document