Future Wild: Ecology, Sustainability, and Science Fiction

Abstract

It will be difficult to imagine a sustainable earth in the long-term future without realizing that we will have to increasingly interfere with natural earth systems in order to maintain ourselves and those things and creatures we value. Will we be able to speak of anything wild or even natural on such a managed planet? I argue in the affirmative, drawing on some concepts of nature of both the ancient Greeks and the Chinese. The essentialist concept of nature that depends on the absolute distinction between humans and nature is criticized, and a process view is suggested which sees nature as more than a collection of objects untouched by humans.