The Wizard and the Prophet

In my Intro to Environmental Studies class, we read a portion of The Wizard and the Prophet, which talked about two different views on humanity's future. One, the Wizard, believes that human ingenuity will be able to solve any and all problems humans create. The other, the Prophet, believes that if people do not cut back immediately and severely, we will, or already have, irreparibly damage the planet, eventually destroying it entirely. This was related to the concepts of Cornucopianism and Malthusianism in class, but it also relates to the planet managers and planet fetishizers we talked about in class. Both the Wizard and the Managers believe in hands-on policies when it comes to environmental control, while the Prophet and the Fetishizers both believe that nature is better off without humanity at all, and would rather wilderness and civilization be completely separate.

As with many things, I find myself in the middle of the ideals of the Wizard and the Prophet. While human invention has done much for humanity itself, it seems self centered for humans to take the role of god and believe that they can fix any problem with more technology. There is a point where human inventions and technological advancement does more harm than good for the environment, but that point is not completely separating ourselves, and thinking that would help the environment is equally self-centered thinking.

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