Emma Cooke                                                                                     about 150 words

erc8@geneseo.edu

INTD 105-19 Science Writing

The Trouble With Wilderness

William Cronon’s “The Trouble with Wilderness” is his response to the idea that “wilderness is the preservation of the world”. Cronon argues that the wilderness is actual a human creation, that the very idea of the wilderness is a product of our culture and interference. He gives examples of the many ways in which humans have interfered in the wilderness including our emphasis on the sublime and the frontier- preserving that experience. He states that “if we allow ourselves to believe that nature, to be true, must also be wild, then out very presence in nature represents its fall” (Cronon 97).

This concept can be connected back to the ivy growing up Sturges Hall. The growth of the ivy is managed, humans chose not to allow the ivy to grow over windows, how high it grows and often only allow it to grow because it is aesthetically pleasing. William Cronon emphasizes that there is not a true border between the human and natural worlds because humans have interfered in what was once the natural world.