What is nature? No one really knows anymore. Is it a park? Is it a marina? Or even a supermarket? In this modern, technological era America has proven to only care about the environment when it comes to parks. These recreational areas fenced off by walls are the epitome of nature for this nation, but that belief is completely wrong and has become apparent in politics. Despite enormous advances in the green movement, the American government has yet to make and follow significant changes to save our dying world. Although nature should be defined as wilderness untouched by humans, Americans have a perception that city parks are nature and this belief has affected the national and global perspectives.

Bill McKibben defines nature as an independent, overseeing force that exists everywhere. He believes that this nature is already dead because the entire world has been touched by man and has become dependent on our arrogant intelligence.  According to McKibben, nature is almost a synonym for wilderness – the 1964 Wilderness Act defined as “an area where Earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.” Today, however, urban society defines nature as anything that is not a building; we have become a society that regards nature as the place down the street – the plot of land confined by fences called a park.  A patch of grass on the sidewalk becomes “nature.” A small tree in your backyard is “nature.” Even the bug that flies past is considered “nature” in our modern, industrial world. But what should the real meaning of nature be? We preach about environmentalism and saving nature, when in reality, we are just walling off city property; property that still deteriorates because of the detriments of city pollution, smog, and global warming. Bill McKibben asserts that Nature is already gone, and while I agree that humans have disrupted every inch of nature, I disagree that Nature is dead.  Nature is only dying because we distortedly believe parks are enough to save it. Nature has been altered through anthropogenic climate change, which is global warming, a specific result of human influence. However, if nature is able to be preserved in its original state and left untouched, nature is not yet gone.

As a nation, Americans have a preconception that nature is a park in their cities. In reality, parks are landscaped and blueprinted by civil engineers – they are anything but natural. Parks today are the only places of nature urban areas can relate to; they are really just walled-off parts that still deteriorate under pollution. For example, Golden Gate Park is the predominant natural area in the urban setting of the Bay Area. While it seems to be a quiet, comfortable place, it is flooded on the weekends by barbeques, elderly Asian ladies practicing Tai Chi, and especially, garbage. Golden Gate Park is constantly drowned by sound pollution from traffic across the street. Even animals are affected in this supposed “nature.” Squirrels and birds walk amongst humans in comfort, overweight and begging for even more food; they act unnatural and tamed, nothing like the animals of the wild. Parks have become over run by businesses and pollution from the city, making it no different from a theme park or an entertainment center. What was originally land set aside to enjoy the beauty of nature is now a huge tourist attraction littered with trash and food from vendors that crowd the area. Nature can always be destroyed for the construction of a city, but a city can never be destroyed to revert back to nature.

Despite the natural experience Golden Gate Park stands for, it is not that different from the manmade landfill Berkeley Marina. Both the park and marina were designed and created with shipped materials. The purpose of parks is to preserve nature and our current idea of preservation is completely distorted. If even fake land can be called parks, then what is nature? McKibben would argue that these places are not nature because nature is an entity that is a force on its own; something not created by man or landscaped to be a replica. Nature is a greater place of originality where animals and plants live freely in a wild world. Nature is a part of the planet where people can experience the ecstasy of the sublime. Bill McKibben described the sublime as an experience that is only witnessed in total wilderness of nature. He asserts that the sublime is not easily achieved, if ever, in the bustling, mechanized nation of America. The sublime cannot be achieved in plastic parks.  Society’s industrialized, careless ideal that nature can be synthetic park areas leads to ignorance of larger-scale issues.

Even American politicians share the irresponsible outlook on nature. Laws and bills that have been accepted by Congress are rarely watched or ensured. What is the use of a green law if no one cares to enforce them? Recently, an environmental bill was approved by the House of Representatives. The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, also known as the Waxman-Markey Bill, was passed on June 26, 2009. This bill proposes a cap-and-trade system that caps the total greenhouse gas emissions of companies who can then trade for more allowances. The Waxman-Markey Bill won by a small margin of 219-212 and representatives made many amendments to the bill that lessened the strictness of the original proposal. Although this bill is a major step towards taking action as a nation against global warming, on a global scale this bill means nothing.

Many environmental groups, including the Green Party, advocate for action in legislation, but regulations are still too lenient and they have passed few bills to control waste and emissions. This has led to an issue in our nation’s priorities which affect the world’s alliance against global warming and pollution. The United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCC) adopted the Kyoto Protocol that pushed to stabilize greenhouse gases and reduce anthropogenic climate change in December of 1997. The entire world has taken initiative to combat global warming. Every nation agreed to commit to the reduction of greenhouse gases, every nation except one – the United States of America.  President George Bush rejected the protocol, claiming it was for the Americans’ best economical interest and pushed for the Exxon Mobil Petition that granted the oil monopoly freedom from carbon emission caps. This same President Bush was elected for a second term, which displays the true values and priorities of Americans as a whole. Though more than half of our current national leaders encourage green living and sustainability, no politician has committed to the worldwide effort of the Kyoto Protocol. Environmentalism has become a fad of politicians who advocate sustainable living, but rarely take action and it is because they too, think of saving nature as simply building more parks.

As citizens and even as a nation we have disregarded the true meaning of nature and the importance of protecting the sublime. Average people and politicians with power have both forgotten the true issues with the death of nature, and turn to parks and meaningless policies to save nature. One of the only places in the America to still be considered original, Point Reyes in Marin County is an area of land that has been left alone. Even then, an oyster farming company has taken over a corner of Point Reyes’ freshwater lakes. To truly preserve nature, national parks and wilderness places like Point Reyes should be kept pristine – without the cohabitation of businesses or humans. We have this blinded view that we can always restart, always build nature, and that nature will always be there – it will not.

Our world is dying by our hands. The methods we use to save it have been of little use. Though we promote policies, we never police the public to follow them. Politicians should propose funding for environmental projects and actually track the sustainable bills they have already passed. Our parks are fake replicas of natural lands that we choose to imitate instead of preserve. To save nature, we need more national parks and wilderness areas like Point Reyes, instead of city polluted Golden Gate Park. If we plan to simply suggest bills and build more parks to “protect” natural land, nature is already dead because McKibben and the 1964 Wilderness Act characterize nature as a separate entity – one that lives without walls. Walls were made to be broken.