LAst Child
I read through Richard Louv’s Last Child in the Woods off-campus and off-trail, slouched on a rotting log inbetween two massive ferns. I felt this would be the best area for onbtaining the true value of our environment and to harmonize with what Louv writes. I am a child who has grown up in the past two decades however I don’t think that I am victim of what Louv calls Nature-Deficit Disorder. As a kid I spent most of my days catching things at the pond and sitting by the creek, or bathing in it. And by having these experiences and being reminded of them throughout the book I can completely acknowledge the value of a good relationship that every young person should have with nature. In Last Child Louv reaches out to the parents to influence their childrens’ involvement in nature whether it be an inter-city family or a farm-raised family. But he also pounds on technology for being a main reason for NDD. I know that i’ve been occupied by watching movies and playing videogames online not stopping to take in some fresh air at one point or another. So obviously this makes sense to me. On page 59 he writes, “Of course, some of us (I include myself here) love gizmology. But quality of life isn’t measured only by what we gain, but also by what we trade for it.” In this quote one could consider “what we trade” as land and natural resources to “what we gain” as technology. It is true that much is lost with technological expansion however with some exceptions. Maybe one exception would be the new approach to creating bio-diesel fuels. Louv presses the issue of technology taking away from a child’s sensory development. He stresses that kids won’t learn the scent or feel of an object of nature by looking it up online. I think this is also a very true statement and an issue that almost parellel’s the program Visualizing Ecology. For me, as a student making visual interpretations is something most effectively done through my senses. Also I worry that in Louv’s idealistic world, the absense of technology could possibly extinguish artistic expansion. There are only so many sounds that can be obtained through hollowing out a tree. Throughout the book Louv is giving interesting sensicle twists to many common realities in our society. I think a very important topic that he emphasizes on is the ability to help cure many common disorders through the presence of nature. This is something that I believe in along with the overall idea that Louv points out in the intro that people are being taught to avoid direct experiences in nature and that with death of natural history, we are incouraging genetic engineering.
