25. Roderick Nash on Wilderness, Old Age, and the Next Thousand Years

Historian Roderick Nash — author of the landmark Wilderness and the American Mind — joins us for a wide-ranging conversation on the roots of America's wilderness idea and where it should go next. We trace his early awe in places like the Grand Canyon, why Thoreau and Muir were received so differently, and how his scholarship pulled him into advocacy. Nash argues the case for wilderness must shift from human benefit to the intrinsic rights of other species, and unpacks his 'Island Civilization' vision — a future in which humans live concentrated in a few dense enclaves so most of the planet can return to wild nature. Along the way: where the ethical line falls on hunting and technology in a rewilded world, whether meaningful change requires catastrophe or can come gradually, and what a life of ambition, rivers, and writing has taught him — in his 80s — about attention, time, and what he'll leave behind.