In his novel Ishmael, Daniel Quinn discusses the destruction and salvation of the world. Through a newspaper ad, an anonymous narrator meets a telepathic gorilla, named Ishmael, who had posted the ad to find a student willing to save the world. Driven by his benefactor's obsession with Nazi Germany, Ishmael transmits to the narrator what he knows best: captivity (Quinn 24). Ishmael asserts that humans in what are considered civilized cultures are captive to a history that holds the world captive. This large group Ishmael calls the “Takers,” while everyone else – usually hunter-gatherers from “primitive” cultures – Ishmael calls the “Leavers” (Quinn 39). In order to save the world, Ishmael believes that the Takers must be freed from the story they are staging and return to a Leaver way of life. Although it may seem to romanticize hunter-gatherers and urge modern society to become gatherers, I think we can and are converting to a Leaver way of life without necessarily becoming hunter-gatherers. According to Ishmael, Takers are captive to a history that forces them to adopt (Quinn 37). The story begins with the premise that the world was created for humanity, an idea that humans did not realize until they abandoned the nomadic life of hunter-gatherers to settle down and become farmers (68). Because the world belonged to them, humanity's destiny then was to rule and bring order to the chaotic world, but since the world would not submit, they turned to conquering it (225). However, “…given a story to be set in which the world is an enemy to be conquered…one day, inevitably, their enemy will bleed to death at their feet…” (Quinn 84). The leavers also staged a story: the one who, according to Ishmael, gave birth to humanity... middle of paper ...... with regard to our carbon footprint (Why urban agriculture is- is it important?). In developed countries, where education and birth control are available to most of the population, birth rates are declining. Families may choose to have fewer children because they are not afraid that their children will not reach adulthood or that there will not be enough workers to feed the family. As a result, population growth could approach an inflection point, possibly shifting from exponential to logarithmic growth and slowing the rate of deforestation in the long term. This may not sound like a revolution, but I think it's progress. Additionally, Korgen and White note that a growing population of Americans is urging the government to become a model for other nations (91). Doesn't that sound like the Leavers' version of humanity's destiny, which is to teach others a lifestyle that wouldn't destroy the world? ??