The Trouble With Wilderness Analysis

The podcast OffShore describes the discourse surrounding surrounding the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope on a dormant volcano in Hawaii named Mauna Kea. Cronon’s “The Trouble with Wilderness” describes the environmental implications of what constitutes as the wild. The speakers present in Offshore language when describing nature as interpersonal while the Romantic Writers Cronon cites describe nature as inhuman and divine. The speakers interviewed in OffShore explain the kinship felt by indigenous Hawaiian’s towards Mauna Kea. One speaker and activist, Rutha Lua mentions Mauna Kea as a grandparent, “who can a”be kind of standoffish” but prayers can lift her clouds. Loa providing Mauna Kea with pronouns humanizes the volcano and shows a distinct connection between that suggests an intimate relationship between this piece of nature and humans. Similarly, Hawaiian Indigenous leader Pua Case also described Mauna Kea as a grandparent. Notably she provides an anecdote in which one must earn respect from Mauna Kea and expressing reasons for visiting such as singing to the mountain or praying. Pua Cae’s examples for visiting the mountain describe not only an intimate relationship but also a selfless one which strays away from the recreational uses associated with nature. The
Cronon mentions John Muir who captures the “romantic sense of domesticates sublime” who says the Sierra Nevada mountains “Are compactly filled with God’s beauty, no petty personal or experience has room to be (Cronon, 6). Muir’s description of nature supports detaching oneself from the wilderness and purposefully avoiding an intimate connection by describing the Sierra Nevada as divine, as opposed to an extended family member like Mauna Kea activists do. Muir’s language support marveling the aesthetically pleasing aspects of nature