Short History Of Progress

Fishing communities are commonly found along the coast of Maine. One of these is the island community of North Haven that has a year-round population of approximately 360 people. This small town revolves around the fishing season, whether it is selling their lobster catches to summer visitors, or catching shrimp throughout the winter. In recent years the water temperatures have increased due to global warming causing lobsters and other fish to migrate away from the Gulf of Maine. Ronald Wright in his book, A Short History of Progress, discusses how through growth and technological developments, humans are ruining the lives that they have created for themselves. Through technological advances used by fishermen for their work, they are doing
On top of pickup trucks used to carry lobster traps and equipment, that emit an extensive amount of gases into the atmosphere, boats are another one of the culprits of global warming. Since this is the case, every day when the fishermen go and do their work, they are letting off more gases which in the long run ruin their industry. This is very similar to what Wright spoke about in his book with the perfected tools. The boat in this situation is the perfected tool, but it is ruining what their community relies
This makes it extremely unwelcome for newcomers to the industry. Also if the lobsters are to migrate to colder waters, many of the lobsters will more than likely move into different lobstering zones. Zones give a community a designated area in which they are allowed to fish. For example, the island of North Haven fits into Zone C, but if the lobsters migrate to another section of the ocean, they could migrate out of reach for this small community. If the lobsters move north of the Maine coast, as they have done to many areas of southern New England, such as Massachusetts and New Hampshire, the remaining lobsters could become over fished and eventually be gone for good, much like what has happened in recent years to the Maine shrimp and scalloping