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Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet
Our old familiar globe is suddenly melting, drying, acidifying, flooding, and burning in ways that no human has ever seen. We've created, in very short order, a new planet, still recognizable but fundamentally different. We may as well call it Eaarth.
That new planet is filled with new binds and traps. A changing world costs large sums to defend--think of the money that went to repair New Orleans, or the trillions it will take to transform our energy systems--but the endless economic growth that could underwrite such largesse depends on the stable planet we've managed to damage and degrade. We can't rely on old habits any longer.
Our hope depends, McKibben argues, on scaling back—on building the kind of societies and economies that can hunker down, concentrate on essentials, and create the type of community (in the neighborhood but also on the internet) that will allow us to weather trouble on an unprecedented scale. Change—fundamental change—is our best hope on a planet suddenly and violently out of balance.
That new planet is filled with new binds and traps. A changing world costs large sums to defend--think of the money that went to repair New Orleans, or the trillions it will take to transform our energy systems--but the endless economic growth that could underwrite such largesse depends on the stable planet we've managed to damage and degrade. We can't rely on old habits any longer.
Our hope depends, McKibben argues, on scaling back—on building the kind of societies and economies that can hunker down, concentrate on essentials, and create the type of community (in the neighborhood but also on the internet) that will allow us to weather trouble on an unprecedented scale. Change—fundamental change—is our best hope on a planet suddenly and violently out of balance.
253 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2010
About the author
Bill McKibben
197books757followersBill McKibben is the author ofEaarth,The End of Nature,Deep Economy,Enough,Fight Global Warming Now,The Bill McKibben Reader,and numerous other books. He is the founder of the environmental organizations Step It Up and 350.org, and was among the first to warn of the dangers of global warming. In 2010The Boston Globecalled him "probably the nation's leading environmentalist," andTimemagazine has called him "the world's best green journalist." He studied at Harvard, and started his writing career as a staff writer atThe New Yorker.The End of Nature,his first book, was published in 1989 and was regarded as the first book on climate change for a general audience. He is a frequent contributor to magazines and newspapers includingThe New York Times,The Atlantic Monthly,Harper's,Orion Magazine,Mother Jones,The New York Review of Books,Granta,Rolling Stone,andOutside.He has been awarded Guggenheim Fellowship and won the Lannan Prize for nonfiction writing in 2000. He is a scholar in residence at Middlebury College and lives in Vermont with his wife, the writer Sue Halpern, and their daughter.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/billmc...
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April 2, 2024
So, you probably think you don't want to read this book or this review, because it is about bad news you maybe think you already know, and will include not enough good--or really new--news about imminent solutions. But I'll tell you: It's well written and important, from the world's premier climate change writer.
I recently reread Bill McKibben’s 1986 The End of Nature, the first book about global warming for a general audience, in preparation to read this more recent book, Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough Planet (2010), though I had read excerpts of this book along the way. I follow this guy in periodicals and on Twitter. But I read this because I wanted to get a sort of sense of the trajectory, given recent and continuing and almost exclusively bad environmental news, which I maybe don’t have to recite about cataclysmic global warming at levels both unprecedented and worse than predicted. Arctic ice melt releasing methane gas to further heat the planet, massive species die-off, ocean warming and acidifying, increasing world hunger, limited access to water...
And you can add to the list, not the least of which is the West’s refusal to take any of this very seriously. And in the US 2016 Presidential race? Almost completely ignored. No one wants to talk about this (dying) elephant in the room. Big biz owns the media, owns congress, here in the US, at least, and we have as possible President Trump who insists climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. So as usual, insanity prevails. Today (literally today) the Paris Accord signed by the EU is a tiny step forward as we also see Haiti again thrashed by another 145 mph hurricane.
So is the Paris Accord too little, too late? If we stopped completely burning coal now, if we stopped carbon emissions altogether, we would still not be able to refreeze the arctic or reverse the ocean’s dismal course. But you know all this, that McKibben lays out in excruciating detail in the first half of the book where he establishes the fact that Earth already no longer exists. We now have what he calls Eaarth, a new and leaner and hotter planet, one we have to learn to live on. And together or not at all.
In the second half McKibben gives examples of what remains to be done to survive, since thriving in any sense we might have imagined it in watching the Jetsons is already gone. Regardless of billionaire rocket races! But I promised I would not do this review if I couldn’t say at least a few positive things worth saying, though I admit they seem possibly naïve, at this late date:
*Think small, slow, local. Eat and farm this way. Let us all stop watering lawns and grow veggies. Work with your neighbors, in your town, to live more simply.
*The U.S. needs to take leadership, in a way it never has. Maybe a few small moves by Obama in the end of his administration, thanks in part to his Alaska trip, maybe, where he could see the huge changes there. The Big World Project now has to be not Building a Better Toaster or Getting to Mars or Putting Profits in Fast Track Overdrive to Get Us Out of This Recession but changing the focus to Saving the Planet (even if you as a pessimist see it as merely Managing the Decline), and for real this time, we (environmentalists) mean it.
*Work toward a more communal, democratic, decentralized approach to social and economic relations. In some places this is taking place. Vermont is one state McKibben uses as an example (In 2023 this looks increasingly grim, but some good things are happening during this administration; too little too late?).
*Don’t elect Trump, a climate change denier that vows to reverse all moves Obama has made and resurrect Big Coal. That would be bad news for the planet. Trump just made a joke of himself trashing the Paris Accord as Bad for Business, of course. Trump, who with Rush and Fox News are hung on to as the anti-scientific hope of the day for the Right. Clean energy we now know is good for business. Big Oil has been lying to us for decades. The Emperor has no clothes.
*Read Rebecca Solnit on various ways people respond in crisis; yes, there is always great greed and selfishness, but there is also charity, creativity, resourcefulness. Savage Dreams: A Journey into the Hidden Wars of the American West, and Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities, which I am going to read soon, because it is about hope.
*Read Wendell Berry's What are People For? or The Gift of Good Land. Berry gets the last word, below.
*Read Rachel Carson's Silent Spring
*Read Edward Abbey's The Monkey Wrench Gang
*Read McKibben and do something. Vote environment at the very least? That has to be your guide to saving any future, period.
Does all of this sound tired and naïve? Yeah? Heard it all before? Yes, I have, too, and for decades of reading and activism. But it's all we have, I think. Do I think Big Biz or Government will change in any fundamental way? No. So we must act locally. Or what’s your alternative? Maybe reading Solnit will help. {update; I see some small signs about ending deforestation many countries seem to be signing on to in Glasgow. And making some small moves to reduce carbon emissions. But to sign a piece of paper and actually do something are two different things. Talk is cheap. Politicians's talk is cheaper.]
Any good news?
*The resurgence of farmer’s markets, organic food, eating locally. The stand against FrankenFood.
*The speed of social media sharing information and knowledge and strategies. This will continue to be useful. {or could be, 2023]
*The tendency to invent as needed in humans, the best of the communal human spirit. The demand for the better, simpler life among many on the planet. That we still have these good tendencies is many is hopeful.
Let mad farmer Wendell Berry have the last word:
MANIFESTO: THE MAD FARMER LIBERATION FRONT by Wendell Berry
Love the quick profit, the annual raise, vacation with pay.
Want more of everything ready-made.
Be afraid to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery any more.
Your mind will be punched in a card and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something they will call you.
When they want you to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something that won't compute.
Love the Lord. Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace the flag.
Hope to live in that free republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot understand.
Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium.
Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus that will build under the trees every thousand years.
Listen to carrion--put your ear close,
and hear the faint chattering of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world.
Laugh. Laughter is immeasurable.
Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head in her lap.
Swear allegiance to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos can predict the motions of your mind, lose it.
Leave it as a sign to mark a false trail, the way you didn't go.
Be like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.
I recently reread Bill McKibben’s 1986 The End of Nature, the first book about global warming for a general audience, in preparation to read this more recent book, Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough Planet (2010), though I had read excerpts of this book along the way. I follow this guy in periodicals and on Twitter. But I read this because I wanted to get a sort of sense of the trajectory, given recent and continuing and almost exclusively bad environmental news, which I maybe don’t have to recite about cataclysmic global warming at levels both unprecedented and worse than predicted. Arctic ice melt releasing methane gas to further heat the planet, massive species die-off, ocean warming and acidifying, increasing world hunger, limited access to water...
And you can add to the list, not the least of which is the West’s refusal to take any of this very seriously. And in the US 2016 Presidential race? Almost completely ignored. No one wants to talk about this (dying) elephant in the room. Big biz owns the media, owns congress, here in the US, at least, and we have as possible President Trump who insists climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. So as usual, insanity prevails. Today (literally today) the Paris Accord signed by the EU is a tiny step forward as we also see Haiti again thrashed by another 145 mph hurricane.
So is the Paris Accord too little, too late? If we stopped completely burning coal now, if we stopped carbon emissions altogether, we would still not be able to refreeze the arctic or reverse the ocean’s dismal course. But you know all this, that McKibben lays out in excruciating detail in the first half of the book where he establishes the fact that Earth already no longer exists. We now have what he calls Eaarth, a new and leaner and hotter planet, one we have to learn to live on. And together or not at all.
In the second half McKibben gives examples of what remains to be done to survive, since thriving in any sense we might have imagined it in watching the Jetsons is already gone. Regardless of billionaire rocket races! But I promised I would not do this review if I couldn’t say at least a few positive things worth saying, though I admit they seem possibly naïve, at this late date:
*Think small, slow, local. Eat and farm this way. Let us all stop watering lawns and grow veggies. Work with your neighbors, in your town, to live more simply.
*The U.S. needs to take leadership, in a way it never has. Maybe a few small moves by Obama in the end of his administration, thanks in part to his Alaska trip, maybe, where he could see the huge changes there. The Big World Project now has to be not Building a Better Toaster or Getting to Mars or Putting Profits in Fast Track Overdrive to Get Us Out of This Recession but changing the focus to Saving the Planet (even if you as a pessimist see it as merely Managing the Decline), and for real this time, we (environmentalists) mean it.
*Work toward a more communal, democratic, decentralized approach to social and economic relations. In some places this is taking place. Vermont is one state McKibben uses as an example (In 2023 this looks increasingly grim, but some good things are happening during this administration; too little too late?).
*Don’t elect Trump, a climate change denier that vows to reverse all moves Obama has made and resurrect Big Coal. That would be bad news for the planet. Trump just made a joke of himself trashing the Paris Accord as Bad for Business, of course. Trump, who with Rush and Fox News are hung on to as the anti-scientific hope of the day for the Right. Clean energy we now know is good for business. Big Oil has been lying to us for decades. The Emperor has no clothes.
*Read Rebecca Solnit on various ways people respond in crisis; yes, there is always great greed and selfishness, but there is also charity, creativity, resourcefulness. Savage Dreams: A Journey into the Hidden Wars of the American West, and Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities, which I am going to read soon, because it is about hope.
*Read Wendell Berry's What are People For? or The Gift of Good Land. Berry gets the last word, below.
*Read Rachel Carson's Silent Spring
*Read Edward Abbey's The Monkey Wrench Gang
*Read McKibben and do something. Vote environment at the very least? That has to be your guide to saving any future, period.
Does all of this sound tired and naïve? Yeah? Heard it all before? Yes, I have, too, and for decades of reading and activism. But it's all we have, I think. Do I think Big Biz or Government will change in any fundamental way? No. So we must act locally. Or what’s your alternative? Maybe reading Solnit will help. {update; I see some small signs about ending deforestation many countries seem to be signing on to in Glasgow. And making some small moves to reduce carbon emissions. But to sign a piece of paper and actually do something are two different things. Talk is cheap. Politicians's talk is cheaper.]
Any good news?
*The resurgence of farmer’s markets, organic food, eating locally. The stand against FrankenFood.
*The speed of social media sharing information and knowledge and strategies. This will continue to be useful. {or could be, 2023]
*The tendency to invent as needed in humans, the best of the communal human spirit. The demand for the better, simpler life among many on the planet. That we still have these good tendencies is many is hopeful.
Let mad farmer Wendell Berry have the last word:
MANIFESTO: THE MAD FARMER LIBERATION FRONT by Wendell Berry
Love the quick profit, the annual raise, vacation with pay.
Want more of everything ready-made.
Be afraid to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery any more.
Your mind will be punched in a card and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something they will call you.
When they want you to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something that won't compute.
Love the Lord. Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace the flag.
Hope to live in that free republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot understand.
Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium.
Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus that will build under the trees every thousand years.
Listen to carrion--put your ear close,
and hear the faint chattering of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world.
Laugh. Laughter is immeasurable.
Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head in her lap.
Swear allegiance to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos can predict the motions of your mind, lose it.
Leave it as a sign to mark a false trail, the way you didn't go.
Be like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.
February 16, 2012
I cannot remember exactly when I heard about global warming for the first time. I’m sure it was not in school since I was already a college graduate at that time. I was not a voracious reader then and all I was dreaming about was how to land a good job and convince my father to let me get married as I could already support my own family.
That was approximately in the mid-eighties. Few years after the AIDS spread around the world. It was also the time when my handsome brother was egging us, his 3 siblings, to pray the Holy Rosary every day. Now and even then, he has a strong influence on me, so I got into the habit. Then the 7.9 Cabanatuan earthquake hit the Philippines in 1990. The year after Mt. Pinatubo erupted spewing ash in almost half of the globe. Then just after few months, the deadliest typhoon, Uring hit the country killing 8,000 Filipinos. Somewhere along the way, I stopped praying, I thought it was not working.
Global warming. The first time I heard it, I said: so, are we going to be fried in heat because of the thinning ozone layer? That one, the hole in the sky, I’ve been hearing since I was a kid. The spread of cancer because of the sun’s radiation so better protect yourself by wearing sun block solution. But that is expensive. Better stay indoors. But how come the vacation Americans on the beach stay there doing nothing but just lying the whole day almost without clothes? Oh, they love the sun! And maybe they have put on the sun block since they have money to buy them. Okay, better not to go out at noontime then.
Then there was this other conflicting thought. As a result of the global warming, the temperature will become cooler because of the cooling effect of the moisture in the atmosphere. Wow. Squared. So, the heat in the tropics will go away? Will we have snow? That’s cool!
When the documentary movie of Vice President Al Gore’sAn Inconvenient Truthcame out in 2006, I watched it in full attention. That answered almost all of the questions I had in mind regarding global warming. However, the image of Al Gore losing the presidential election to President George W. Bush in 2000 was still fresh in my mind and I could not comprehend how the guy whose face was shown over CNN almost every hour due to the recount was suddenly talking to me about our doomed planet. I had a hard time dissociating the environmentalist Gore with the politician Gore. Mind you, I was in Tokyo during the whole stretch of the recount and the hotel TV had no English Channel except CNN.
The first time I heard about global warning, it was just a threat. “The Threat of Global Warming” said in the cover of Time Magazine. Gore and this book:Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planetare both saying that it is no longer a threat.
McKibben says that in every 1 degree Celcius increase in temperature, the following happens:
1.Increase in thunderstorms over the ocean by 45%.This is true. The Philippines are hit by fewer typhoons these past few years but they are bigger and stronger than before. How do you reconcile about hotter temperature and more rains? It’s because the warmer atmosphere evaporates moisture from and areas more rapidly, but also holds more moisture causing more intense downpours when it does rain.
2.The tropical areas are expandingThis is true. El Nino seems to be occurring year after year reducing the production of the coconut in the Pacific island where I grew up. My classmates in high school were complaining that the income from coconut production is no longer sufficient to meet their daily needs.
3.More frequent, piercer lightnings.This is true. My mother who lives in San Diego says that the California fires are becoming more frequent and the last time I was there, she said that she almost thought that her placed would be burned as the fire was almost few blocks away already. Also, in my home island, a father and his son who were in their briefs as they just finished taking a bath were both combing their hair when the lightning stroke and they were burned alive. Their underwear had to be pulled from their skin as everything were turned into ash.
4.Water is now more acidic.Oh yes, the red tide. We eat less and less of seashells because in some parts of the sea, the molluscs are poisonous. My wife now always asks the market vendor where the shells came from before buying them.
5.The spread of dengue fever.My former housemaid almost died of this. One weekend, she went to visit her boyfriend and after few days, she was sick that we thought she would die. She was trembling, she couldn’t eat, she felt she would like to vomit non-stop. She had dengue and she had to go to the nearby community clinic to have her platelet examined. During that year, a 16-y/o classmate of my daughter died of this too and that was my first time to see my daughter crying because of a death of somebody not related to her in blood.
There is no denying now: Global Warming is now happening. This planet we are living in is no longer the same planet our grandparents or even parents lived in. This explains the extra "a" in the title. It is up to our generation to make sure that we will not be handing this over to our children in worst state. We must act now.
McKibben’s solution: fundamental shift in attitude. Small communities should organize themselves to help the environment.
Take heed to this plea from Barbara Kingsolver: "Read it, please. Straight through to the end. Whatever else you were planning to do next, nothing could be more important."
She made me buy and read this book.
That was approximately in the mid-eighties. Few years after the AIDS spread around the world. It was also the time when my handsome brother was egging us, his 3 siblings, to pray the Holy Rosary every day. Now and even then, he has a strong influence on me, so I got into the habit. Then the 7.9 Cabanatuan earthquake hit the Philippines in 1990. The year after Mt. Pinatubo erupted spewing ash in almost half of the globe. Then just after few months, the deadliest typhoon, Uring hit the country killing 8,000 Filipinos. Somewhere along the way, I stopped praying, I thought it was not working.
Global warming. The first time I heard it, I said: so, are we going to be fried in heat because of the thinning ozone layer? That one, the hole in the sky, I’ve been hearing since I was a kid. The spread of cancer because of the sun’s radiation so better protect yourself by wearing sun block solution. But that is expensive. Better stay indoors. But how come the vacation Americans on the beach stay there doing nothing but just lying the whole day almost without clothes? Oh, they love the sun! And maybe they have put on the sun block since they have money to buy them. Okay, better not to go out at noontime then.
Then there was this other conflicting thought. As a result of the global warming, the temperature will become cooler because of the cooling effect of the moisture in the atmosphere. Wow. Squared. So, the heat in the tropics will go away? Will we have snow? That’s cool!
When the documentary movie of Vice President Al Gore’sAn Inconvenient Truthcame out in 2006, I watched it in full attention. That answered almost all of the questions I had in mind regarding global warming. However, the image of Al Gore losing the presidential election to President George W. Bush in 2000 was still fresh in my mind and I could not comprehend how the guy whose face was shown over CNN almost every hour due to the recount was suddenly talking to me about our doomed planet. I had a hard time dissociating the environmentalist Gore with the politician Gore. Mind you, I was in Tokyo during the whole stretch of the recount and the hotel TV had no English Channel except CNN.
The first time I heard about global warning, it was just a threat. “The Threat of Global Warming” said in the cover of Time Magazine. Gore and this book:Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planetare both saying that it is no longer a threat.
Global warning is now upon us. It is here. It is happening. We are now experiencing it.You may not know it because you are reading one book after the other and you don’t have the time to watch CNN or read Time or Newsweek or the papers. But hey, yohoo, yes you there, global warming is here.
McKibben says that in every 1 degree Celcius increase in temperature, the following happens:
1.Increase in thunderstorms over the ocean by 45%.This is true. The Philippines are hit by fewer typhoons these past few years but they are bigger and stronger than before. How do you reconcile about hotter temperature and more rains? It’s because the warmer atmosphere evaporates moisture from and areas more rapidly, but also holds more moisture causing more intense downpours when it does rain.
2.The tropical areas are expandingThis is true. El Nino seems to be occurring year after year reducing the production of the coconut in the Pacific island where I grew up. My classmates in high school were complaining that the income from coconut production is no longer sufficient to meet their daily needs.
3.More frequent, piercer lightnings.This is true. My mother who lives in San Diego says that the California fires are becoming more frequent and the last time I was there, she said that she almost thought that her placed would be burned as the fire was almost few blocks away already. Also, in my home island, a father and his son who were in their briefs as they just finished taking a bath were both combing their hair when the lightning stroke and they were burned alive. Their underwear had to be pulled from their skin as everything were turned into ash.
4.Water is now more acidic.Oh yes, the red tide. We eat less and less of seashells because in some parts of the sea, the molluscs are poisonous. My wife now always asks the market vendor where the shells came from before buying them.
5.The spread of dengue fever.My former housemaid almost died of this. One weekend, she went to visit her boyfriend and after few days, she was sick that we thought she would die. She was trembling, she couldn’t eat, she felt she would like to vomit non-stop. She had dengue and she had to go to the nearby community clinic to have her platelet examined. During that year, a 16-y/o classmate of my daughter died of this too and that was my first time to see my daughter crying because of a death of somebody not related to her in blood.
There is no denying now: Global Warming is now happening. This planet we are living in is no longer the same planet our grandparents or even parents lived in. This explains the extra "a" in the title. It is up to our generation to make sure that we will not be handing this over to our children in worst state. We must act now.
McKibben’s solution: fundamental shift in attitude. Small communities should organize themselves to help the environment.
Take heed to this plea from Barbara Kingsolver: "Read it, please. Straight through to the end. Whatever else you were planning to do next, nothing could be more important."
She made me buy and read this book.
July 6, 2010
It was tough to rate this as two stars. I have deep admiration and respect for Bill McKibben's environmental work. I also appreciate that this book says point-blank what I think a lot of environmentalists are afraid to say: that we have passed the tipping point, widespread damage is inevitable, and now we should focus on controlling the damage.
However, McKibben then falls into the trap that I've seen spread across the environmental movement since An Inconvenient Truth. I've often wondered if top environmentalists got together and decided not to bum their audience out too much. After laying plain the chilling facts about climate change, he gives the reader a virtual hug and hot chocolate for the last third of the book. My opinion is that this extreme situation warrants an extreme response, and I wish McKibben's advice had been along the lines of "Outlaw private vehicles. Stop eating meat. Have one child, or none." Instead, he goes on about organic locavore Vermont diners, neighborhood listservs, and backyard gardening. Bill, please stop hanging out with Michael Pollan.
However, McKibben then falls into the trap that I've seen spread across the environmental movement since An Inconvenient Truth. I've often wondered if top environmentalists got together and decided not to bum their audience out too much. After laying plain the chilling facts about climate change, he gives the reader a virtual hug and hot chocolate for the last third of the book. My opinion is that this extreme situation warrants an extreme response, and I wish McKibben's advice had been along the lines of "Outlaw private vehicles. Stop eating meat. Have one child, or none." Instead, he goes on about organic locavore Vermont diners, neighborhood listservs, and backyard gardening. Bill, please stop hanging out with Michael Pollan.
January 8, 2013
McKibben argues that the place we now live has been changed by humans sufficiently (in totally bad ways) so that we no longer live on the same planet on which human society has developed over the last several thousand years. (Hence we no longer live on Earth, but "Eaarth".) I think he is probably right, and this is a profoundly disturbing fact to contemplate. He has pretty much given up attempting to “solve” the problem of global warming (we can’t any more) though of course he is still devoting much of his time advocating (through 350.org and other actions) for policies that could mitigate the future damage. (Google "Do the Math" )
In the book, he argues that attempting to deal with the problem by significant government action at a national level looks like a losing proposition, and he now believes that local action on a much more limited stage is what will most likely have the most benefit going forward. Thus, he is now a major advocate for what I and others refer to as "The Future is Local” movement.
In the book, he argues that attempting to deal with the problem by significant government action at a national level looks like a losing proposition, and he now believes that local action on a much more limited stage is what will most likely have the most benefit going forward. Thus, he is now a major advocate for what I and others refer to as "The Future is Local” movement.
May 11, 2013
Last week the Senate showed its lack of backbone by refusing to take up climate legislation. The proposed bill was extremely modest, but it apparently involved too much political risk for Democrats facing re-election, and of course the Party of No held to its predictable position. One does have to wonder why it's so easy for our "leaders" to turn their backs on finding ways to mitigate a likely global catastrophe. I think the answer is that, although there are a few visible signs of a coming climate meltdown, much of the evidence is out of sight. And out of sight seems to mean out of mind. Rising global temperatures cause disappearing glaciers, acidification of the ocean, melting permafrost, droughts, and increasingly violent weather conditions. But we we don't encounter much of this on a daily basis, and we seem wired to respond primarily to what is in our immediate environment.
Bill McKibben's latest book attempts to put some of the facts back in the forefront of our consciousness. He emphasizes the number 350 -- that number indicates how many parts per million of carbon dioxide can presumably exist in the atmosphere without imperiling the stability of planet Earth. But, according to McKibben, we're already at 390 and climbing. We no longer live on Earth; we live on a new planet, which he calls "Eaarth".
The first half ofEaarthdetails the hard truths and looming consequences. But McKibben sees himself as offering solutions, not just prophesying doom. The difficulty is that the "solutions" he offers don't remotely scale up to the problem that he identifies. He argues that we need to rediscover "community", disavow the mantra of endless "growth", and move toward local production of food and energy; and he sees the Internet as a valuable tool in promoting those endeavors. McKibben describes some noteworthy success stories along these lines, but some of his recommendations (per the book's subtitle) are aimed more at coping with the consequences of global warming rather than reversing it. And while those recommendations that might help reduce harmful emissions are salutary, McKibben doesn't provide any evidence that they will get us anywhere close back to the magic number 350.
In the end, I suppose, each of us as individuals must do what we can, and "thinking local" is probably the right place to begin. However, given the magnitude of the problem, solving it -- if it's not already too late to do so -- seems to me to require significant government leadership and intervention, a new Manhattan Project with strong support from governments around the world. It's not clear that McKibben would disagree with this point, but he doesn't actively promote it either. Unfortunately, as long as lobbyists for fossil fuels wield their extensive and expensive power, and politicians care more about their next few years in office than they do about the future of the planet, it won't be just Rome that is burning. No problem, though; we can always adjust our air conditioners while we tune up our fiddles.
Update (May 11, 2013 -- original review written on July 26, 2010):Today'sNew York Timesreports that the atmosphere's carbon dioxide level has now hit 400 parts per million -- a concentration that hadn't occurred during the last 3 million years. But, hey, it's currently only 46 degrees outside, so why should I worry? Out of sight, out of mind. And those who refuse to recognize or address the problem today won't be around tomorrow when the consequences of their disastrous ignorance and inanition become evident. Perhaps their progeny will hold them accountable, but what difference will that make?
Bill McKibben's latest book attempts to put some of the facts back in the forefront of our consciousness. He emphasizes the number 350 -- that number indicates how many parts per million of carbon dioxide can presumably exist in the atmosphere without imperiling the stability of planet Earth. But, according to McKibben, we're already at 390 and climbing. We no longer live on Earth; we live on a new planet, which he calls "Eaarth".
The first half ofEaarthdetails the hard truths and looming consequences. But McKibben sees himself as offering solutions, not just prophesying doom. The difficulty is that the "solutions" he offers don't remotely scale up to the problem that he identifies. He argues that we need to rediscover "community", disavow the mantra of endless "growth", and move toward local production of food and energy; and he sees the Internet as a valuable tool in promoting those endeavors. McKibben describes some noteworthy success stories along these lines, but some of his recommendations (per the book's subtitle) are aimed more at coping with the consequences of global warming rather than reversing it. And while those recommendations that might help reduce harmful emissions are salutary, McKibben doesn't provide any evidence that they will get us anywhere close back to the magic number 350.
In the end, I suppose, each of us as individuals must do what we can, and "thinking local" is probably the right place to begin. However, given the magnitude of the problem, solving it -- if it's not already too late to do so -- seems to me to require significant government leadership and intervention, a new Manhattan Project with strong support from governments around the world. It's not clear that McKibben would disagree with this point, but he doesn't actively promote it either. Unfortunately, as long as lobbyists for fossil fuels wield their extensive and expensive power, and politicians care more about their next few years in office than they do about the future of the planet, it won't be just Rome that is burning. No problem, though; we can always adjust our air conditioners while we tune up our fiddles.
Update (May 11, 2013 -- original review written on July 26, 2010):Today'sNew York Timesreports that the atmosphere's carbon dioxide level has now hit 400 parts per million -- a concentration that hadn't occurred during the last 3 million years. But, hey, it's currently only 46 degrees outside, so why should I worry? Out of sight, out of mind. And those who refuse to recognize or address the problem today won't be around tomorrow when the consequences of their disastrous ignorance and inanition become evident. Perhaps their progeny will hold them accountable, but what difference will that make?
March 12, 2018
Update: this book only offers part of the first step (urgency of the issue), but it does not clearly diagnose the issue. To paraphrase Vijay Prashad, the issue is not "climate change", as if the climate decided to change; the issue is Capitalist climate destruction, the system that puts profit over people and environment.
This was the book that put Climate Change on a critical status for me. In the First World, we have a sense of mass procrastination; even reasonable people just shrug and offer vague condolences to future grandchildren. Our faith in the restoration powers of Mother Nature seems delusional; Mother Nature is a rock in space. This rock's ability to sustain Life requires a complex arrangement of coincidences. To sustain human life requires an even more remarkable set of balances.
The highlight of this book is the description of various positive feedback loops, colossal changes that trigger other changes, wrecking havoc on the balances needed for human life.
To put this poetically, we are playing with fire, wind, and water, but we are not the master; this rock in space will continue to be a rock in space with or without us.
A collective change in energy use faces the hegemony of individualist monopolies hellbent on preserving current methods of profit. Capitalism is impressive in its failure to deal with the ultimate "externality", the environment. (Well, the other major externality is poor people, but Capitalist myths can distract sheeple with some human nature/ahistorical garble, and oh look, the new iPhone!). One solution is surprisingly obvious...
Humans are adaptive creatures, on the one hand rising up to face challenges, and on the other hand conforming to oppression. In the context of Climate Change, the latter option may be terminal.
This was the book that put Climate Change on a critical status for me. In the First World, we have a sense of mass procrastination; even reasonable people just shrug and offer vague condolences to future grandchildren. Our faith in the restoration powers of Mother Nature seems delusional; Mother Nature is a rock in space. This rock's ability to sustain Life requires a complex arrangement of coincidences. To sustain human life requires an even more remarkable set of balances.
The highlight of this book is the description of various positive feedback loops, colossal changes that trigger other changes, wrecking havoc on the balances needed for human life.
To put this poetically, we are playing with fire, wind, and water, but we are not the master; this rock in space will continue to be a rock in space with or without us.
A collective change in energy use faces the hegemony of individualist monopolies hellbent on preserving current methods of profit. Capitalism is impressive in its failure to deal with the ultimate "externality", the environment. (Well, the other major externality is poor people, but Capitalist myths can distract sheeple with some human nature/ahistorical garble, and oh look, the new iPhone!). One solution is surprisingly obvious...
Humans are adaptive creatures, on the one hand rising up to face challenges, and on the other hand conforming to oppression. In the context of Climate Change, the latter option may be terminal.
August 26, 2021
Firstly, I did enjoy reading this book...however, it sadly was written by a bright-eyed liberal who's naivety shines spectacularly through in his hopes that "if we just do this one thing everyone will suddenly get it and change the world." Of course, he wrote this right at the beginning of the Obama Presidency, and you can really see how hard he clings to his blinders. He continually reminds us that $4 a gallon gasoline truly shocked the world and everyone will suddenly change. Well, ten years later, we've got a Trump Presidency under our belt, no movement at all in actually trying to fix anything...in fact, we did an abrupt 180 and retreated from any kind of change...and gas is over $4 a gallon and no one's changing anything about how they drive, what they drive, or where they drive. $4 a gallon gas has just been accepted as the new normal.
If you really want to depress the hell out of yourself, read this book.:) Truly though, I do love and agree with most of his ideas...mostly. I'm an anarcho-communist, so anything involving local power generation, local food production, local manufacturing, is exactly right and what we should be doing. But, his belief that we need to reach out and be friends with all of our neighbors again...I mean, maybe that is normal for most people...but I hate people. I don't want to know my neighbors. I don't want to small talk and chit chat with those people. I don't want to find out that my neighbor is an ardent Trump supporter or a wife beater or owns 18 cats or has a collection of dead bodies in the cellar or eats mayonnaise on his French fries or murdered his ex-wife or believes in God or thinks the Sun revolves around the Earth. Good fences make good neighbors and the less I have to interact with them the better. Also, turning communities insular is just going to make everyone more conservative again. The sense of community felt by marginalized communities is going to evaporate overnight. He states that the internet is a panacea for all of that - and in some ways it is - but again, his liberal naivety shines through like a supernova in that he thinks people will just become all happy and lovey and accepting because they saw a YouTube video on how trans women are women...not the truth which is that Granny saw a YouTube video about how gay frogs are proof that the pharmaceutical industry is funding the Democratic party to kidnap children and sell them to sex traffickers in the basement of a Pizza Hut...or that any day now, the military is going to launch a coup to overthrow Biden and put Trump back in power - a nation-wide power outage will be the sign that it's happening (which is something my extended family believes - and why they are buying generators, silver, gold, guns, and water).
True change needs to be systemic from the top-down..and needs to be driven by societal and economic changes. Power companies aren't going to write off decades of debt and investment because you think they should. Agri-business won't change their practices because you wrote an online post about how small-scale, backyard farming is healthier and more productive. They don't care. I honestly am shocked by the amount of people who truly believe businesses care about anything other than the next 6 months worth of profits.
And remember...climate change isn't our grandchildren's problem. It was our parents problem, and they done fucked it up. The world will change. What we knew will die and be gone forever. Hope is nice, but it's not going to do anything. Now is the time for vengeance.
If you really want to depress the hell out of yourself, read this book.:) Truly though, I do love and agree with most of his ideas...mostly. I'm an anarcho-communist, so anything involving local power generation, local food production, local manufacturing, is exactly right and what we should be doing. But, his belief that we need to reach out and be friends with all of our neighbors again...I mean, maybe that is normal for most people...but I hate people. I don't want to know my neighbors. I don't want to small talk and chit chat with those people. I don't want to find out that my neighbor is an ardent Trump supporter or a wife beater or owns 18 cats or has a collection of dead bodies in the cellar or eats mayonnaise on his French fries or murdered his ex-wife or believes in God or thinks the Sun revolves around the Earth. Good fences make good neighbors and the less I have to interact with them the better. Also, turning communities insular is just going to make everyone more conservative again. The sense of community felt by marginalized communities is going to evaporate overnight. He states that the internet is a panacea for all of that - and in some ways it is - but again, his liberal naivety shines through like a supernova in that he thinks people will just become all happy and lovey and accepting because they saw a YouTube video on how trans women are women...not the truth which is that Granny saw a YouTube video about how gay frogs are proof that the pharmaceutical industry is funding the Democratic party to kidnap children and sell them to sex traffickers in the basement of a Pizza Hut...or that any day now, the military is going to launch a coup to overthrow Biden and put Trump back in power - a nation-wide power outage will be the sign that it's happening (which is something my extended family believes - and why they are buying generators, silver, gold, guns, and water).
True change needs to be systemic from the top-down..and needs to be driven by societal and economic changes. Power companies aren't going to write off decades of debt and investment because you think they should. Agri-business won't change their practices because you wrote an online post about how small-scale, backyard farming is healthier and more productive. They don't care. I honestly am shocked by the amount of people who truly believe businesses care about anything other than the next 6 months worth of profits.
And remember...climate change isn't our grandchildren's problem. It was our parents problem, and they done fucked it up. The world will change. What we knew will die and be gone forever. Hope is nice, but it's not going to do anything. Now is the time for vengeance.
April 11, 2010
I’ve read in the past one or two of Bill McKibben’s articles in maybe Mother Jones, but this is the first of his books I’ve read. I think it’s also the first book I‘ve read about environmental issues. Eaarth is indeed a great introduction about what we have done to the planet, particularly here in U.S. If we listen to loud mouths like Sarah “drill baby drill” Palin, Glenn Beck, and other non-scientific minded and intellectually deprived individuals, we’re not going to understand the full scope what is taking place on this planet right now.
McKibben explains well how the earth we once knew is no longer. It is now eaarth, and we better learn how to deal with the new reality. He opens with the “New World” chapter: “Imagine we live on a planet. Not our cozy, taken-for-granted earth, but a planet, a real one, with dark poles and belching volcanoes and a heaving, corrosive sea, raked by winds, strafed by storms, scorched by heat. An inhospitable place. A different place. A different planet. It needs a new name: eaarth.”
This is the vain of the entire essay of a book. At first it’s a bit frightening to read. Just what he describes in words without pictures makes you really start thinking about what has been and is being done (by powerful corporations!) in the name of progress. He doesn’t use a lot of jargon or scientific terminology. He simply explains how the choices we have made in producing things have led to forms ecological destruction.
Most of what he says shouldn’t be new to us by now, but I think in his book he frames the issues in a political and economic context to understand them from global and local perspectives. Thus we need the people we elect to political offices to be crystal clear and take a stand about saving the planet—not just for future generations, but for right now.
He also calls for localism, where we do indeed produce and consume locally. And surprisingly he also has some very useful ideas and examples of how the Internet can be useful for the type of changes we need to make.
I think for many of us, the poor economic conditions we’re facing are causing us to rethink our priorities. I personally don’t just hop in my car anymore and go driving around town. And I‘m always on my family about conserving energy around the house. But that’s just me. There’s so much more that needs to be done and is being done, especially around the world.
McKibben doesn’t give a doomsday message, but his reportage and analysis is not without warnings. It’s probably too bad that it is going to take more Katrinas, heat waves, terrible storms, etc, before we really understand what ecologists like McKibben are talking about. And even then, people won’t listen because they think they have too much to lose by admitting that the earth is being wrecked by our over consumption (80% of it by us in the U.S.) and production of goods. He points out that there are many things we can do, but what we can’t do is “refreeze the arctic or regrow the rain forest.” (!)
The book is a very engaging read, though the four chapters are much too long. He should have broken them up more. Nevertheless, he’s certainly educated me, and I‘ll be reading much more about these issues.
McKibben explains well how the earth we once knew is no longer. It is now eaarth, and we better learn how to deal with the new reality. He opens with the “New World” chapter: “Imagine we live on a planet. Not our cozy, taken-for-granted earth, but a planet, a real one, with dark poles and belching volcanoes and a heaving, corrosive sea, raked by winds, strafed by storms, scorched by heat. An inhospitable place. A different place. A different planet. It needs a new name: eaarth.”
This is the vain of the entire essay of a book. At first it’s a bit frightening to read. Just what he describes in words without pictures makes you really start thinking about what has been and is being done (by powerful corporations!) in the name of progress. He doesn’t use a lot of jargon or scientific terminology. He simply explains how the choices we have made in producing things have led to forms ecological destruction.
Most of what he says shouldn’t be new to us by now, but I think in his book he frames the issues in a political and economic context to understand them from global and local perspectives. Thus we need the people we elect to political offices to be crystal clear and take a stand about saving the planet—not just for future generations, but for right now.
He also calls for localism, where we do indeed produce and consume locally. And surprisingly he also has some very useful ideas and examples of how the Internet can be useful for the type of changes we need to make.
I think for many of us, the poor economic conditions we’re facing are causing us to rethink our priorities. I personally don’t just hop in my car anymore and go driving around town. And I‘m always on my family about conserving energy around the house. But that’s just me. There’s so much more that needs to be done and is being done, especially around the world.
McKibben doesn’t give a doomsday message, but his reportage and analysis is not without warnings. It’s probably too bad that it is going to take more Katrinas, heat waves, terrible storms, etc, before we really understand what ecologists like McKibben are talking about. And even then, people won’t listen because they think they have too much to lose by admitting that the earth is being wrecked by our over consumption (80% of it by us in the U.S.) and production of goods. He points out that there are many things we can do, but what we can’t do is “refreeze the arctic or regrow the rain forest.” (!)
The book is a very engaging read, though the four chapters are much too long. He should have broken them up more. Nevertheless, he’s certainly educated me, and I‘ll be reading much more about these issues.
May 6, 2012
I read "The End of Nature" for a college class 14 years ago, so it's a little fuzzy in my mind. From what I remember, it was pretty unsettling. It introduced me to a new way of thinking about the natural world, to the concept that humans have, indeed, touched or altered every square inch of the planet's surface.
Eaarth, rather than being merely unsettling, is straight-upfrightening.The compelling premise is that we have pumped too much carbon into the atmosphere at this point to halt climate change. Even if we stop burning fossil fuels tomorrow, the climate has already changed. The changing of the climate is global, so we've refurbished the entire planet. And not in a good way.
The first half of Eaarth is pretty withering as McKibben lays the smackdown with statistical body blows, interpersed with frequent anecdotal uppercuts. I really did feel like I had been beaten up after the first half of this book.
The 2nd half was where McKibben tries to explain how we're going to deal with this hotter, nastier planet, and unfortunately, he doesn't quite pull it off. I was actually gratified to see how similar his vision of the future is to mine: distributed, local, renewable power grid. Distributed, local, sustainable food system. More people on the land. Fewer (if any) in offices. Significantly less power and influence from a central government. And the Internet will tie it all together and keep people in touch. McKibben provides a great example of how an e-mail list brought a whole town of Vermonters together.
The problem is, it just doesn't seem like enough. The first half of the book is so persuasive, the little groups of Vermont hippies described in the 2nd half don't sound as though they stand a chance. The new human societies of Eaarth that McKibben describes may indeed be born, but the transition will be nowhere near as smooth as the one he posits.
Eaarth, rather than being merely unsettling, is straight-upfrightening.The compelling premise is that we have pumped too much carbon into the atmosphere at this point to halt climate change. Even if we stop burning fossil fuels tomorrow, the climate has already changed. The changing of the climate is global, so we've refurbished the entire planet. And not in a good way.
The first half of Eaarth is pretty withering as McKibben lays the smackdown with statistical body blows, interpersed with frequent anecdotal uppercuts. I really did feel like I had been beaten up after the first half of this book.
The 2nd half was where McKibben tries to explain how we're going to deal with this hotter, nastier planet, and unfortunately, he doesn't quite pull it off. I was actually gratified to see how similar his vision of the future is to mine: distributed, local, renewable power grid. Distributed, local, sustainable food system. More people on the land. Fewer (if any) in offices. Significantly less power and influence from a central government. And the Internet will tie it all together and keep people in touch. McKibben provides a great example of how an e-mail list brought a whole town of Vermonters together.
The problem is, it just doesn't seem like enough. The first half of the book is so persuasive, the little groups of Vermont hippies described in the 2nd half don't sound as though they stand a chance. The new human societies of Eaarth that McKibben describes may indeed be born, but the transition will be nowhere near as smooth as the one he posits.
July 6, 2010
Bill McKibben really gets it. He gets so much of it, that part of me just wants to pass over the parts that he doesn't get. But he seems to consistently come up short on details, just as he did with "Deep Economy," which also had so much right but bungled the ending; so this is a well-written, important, but flawed book.
The really important thing, and what McKibben gets right, is that the basic problem that we have is with economic growth. Dealing with climate change, not to mention peak oil, soil erosion, deforestation, and the "environment" generally, means an end to economic growth. Because virtually every political leader (at least in public) does NOT get this fundamental point, this book is important.
Living on Eaarth means living without economic growth, and this means that the huge amount of debt that we have (not primarily government debt, by the way) just isn't going to be repaid, and our economy is going to come crashing to a halt. It means a completely different economic system and a completely different way of life.
But McKibben does not show, while he tries, how we can feed ourselves and stay warm in the winter. There is actually some significant debate over whether organic agriculture can feed the world. This is not just a "culture war" -- even people who understand the importance of organics aren't sure.
And what about soil erosion? To me this is a critical issue for the long term. He quotes Jules Pretty as saying that farmers can create a meter of soil in ten years. I'm sorry, I can't take this seriously without more evidence. That would be a rate perhaps 1000 times greater than the normal geological rate of soil formation! If it's too good to be true, it probably is.
More to the point would be the insight that we have to drastically change our diet to a largely or entirely vegan diet. He does acknowledge eating less meat, but misses the point that vegetarianism / veganism has to be the starting point of a new food policy, not a throwaway line in to keep the vegans happy. Anyone who thinks we are going to keep up anything faintly resembling the current American diet on "Eaarth" is fooling themselves, and this should be the starting point, not a casual aside.
Moreover, so far as staying warm in the winter goes, he advocates using wood. He acknowledges not everyone can "do" wood, but he misses the essential point: biofuels, including wood, can't begin to meet current energy needs. The vast preponderance of the needed approach lies elsewhere: like, using less energy.
The one important point in the second half that I agree with is his comments about the internet. Of all the toys of industrial civilization, this is the one we will probably keep, although it's quite energy intensive and takes a lot of obscure metals. So we may be vegans employed on the organic farm living in our communal super-insulated housing and playing music for each other in the evening, but we'll still have computers and the internet.
In short, I can confidently recommend the first half of the book for which I would give five stars, but when he starts getting into specifics, he starts to stumble.
The really important thing, and what McKibben gets right, is that the basic problem that we have is with economic growth. Dealing with climate change, not to mention peak oil, soil erosion, deforestation, and the "environment" generally, means an end to economic growth. Because virtually every political leader (at least in public) does NOT get this fundamental point, this book is important.
Living on Eaarth means living without economic growth, and this means that the huge amount of debt that we have (not primarily government debt, by the way) just isn't going to be repaid, and our economy is going to come crashing to a halt. It means a completely different economic system and a completely different way of life.
But McKibben does not show, while he tries, how we can feed ourselves and stay warm in the winter. There is actually some significant debate over whether organic agriculture can feed the world. This is not just a "culture war" -- even people who understand the importance of organics aren't sure.
And what about soil erosion? To me this is a critical issue for the long term. He quotes Jules Pretty as saying that farmers can create a meter of soil in ten years. I'm sorry, I can't take this seriously without more evidence. That would be a rate perhaps 1000 times greater than the normal geological rate of soil formation! If it's too good to be true, it probably is.
More to the point would be the insight that we have to drastically change our diet to a largely or entirely vegan diet. He does acknowledge eating less meat, but misses the point that vegetarianism / veganism has to be the starting point of a new food policy, not a throwaway line in to keep the vegans happy. Anyone who thinks we are going to keep up anything faintly resembling the current American diet on "Eaarth" is fooling themselves, and this should be the starting point, not a casual aside.
Moreover, so far as staying warm in the winter goes, he advocates using wood. He acknowledges not everyone can "do" wood, but he misses the essential point: biofuels, including wood, can't begin to meet current energy needs. The vast preponderance of the needed approach lies elsewhere: like, using less energy.
The one important point in the second half that I agree with is his comments about the internet. Of all the toys of industrial civilization, this is the one we will probably keep, although it's quite energy intensive and takes a lot of obscure metals. So we may be vegans employed on the organic farm living in our communal super-insulated housing and playing music for each other in the evening, but we'll still have computers and the internet.
In short, I can confidently recommend the first half of the book for which I would give five stars, but when he starts getting into specifics, he starts to stumble.
November 30, 2016
About midway through reading this book, I had this weird feeling that I was reading a science fiction/ horror book. It reminded me of post-apocalyptic fiction in which an old text from right before the apocalypse is found and read by those living in the future. In the old text, the author is discussing a monster looming on the horizon which is almost completely ignored by everyone until the monster is upon them. That pretty much sums up what's happening to our planet now and only a few of us are paying attention. And it's not science fiction.
I was lucky to have an opportunity to read science texts about the emerging problem of global warming/climate change back in the mid-80s. Even back then I began changing the way I live to respond to this emerging problem. Despite increasingly dire warnings from scientists in the intervening years, virtually nothing was done by our political leaders to address the problem. In fact, we have a very vocal minority who has maliciously created a a disinformation campaign so as to maintain their oil-based wealth. And we still have those misguided folks who think it's all a hoax and that God wouldn't do this to us.
McKibben makes it quite clear that the climate-change process is well underway. I was distressed to learn just how far things have gone. The collapse of global agriculture is the most ominous possibility. His argument is that we now have to learn how to adapt. I'm working on that now.
I was lucky to have an opportunity to read science texts about the emerging problem of global warming/climate change back in the mid-80s. Even back then I began changing the way I live to respond to this emerging problem. Despite increasingly dire warnings from scientists in the intervening years, virtually nothing was done by our political leaders to address the problem. In fact, we have a very vocal minority who has maliciously created a a disinformation campaign so as to maintain their oil-based wealth. And we still have those misguided folks who think it's all a hoax and that God wouldn't do this to us.
McKibben makes it quite clear that the climate-change process is well underway. I was distressed to learn just how far things have gone. The collapse of global agriculture is the most ominous possibility. His argument is that we now have to learn how to adapt. I'm working on that now.
December 29, 2015
350ppm is the level of carbón dioxide that most of the climatologist think is the tipping point to save the planet of a catastrophe and also is the name of the organization founded by Bill Mckibben;but this point is already surpassed and now we are arround 400ppm and the earth thoug we dont emit a more gram of carbón dioxide would be yet storing heat and warming because the sistem is yet out of equilibrium by the enormous heat capacity by the oceans,when the eqilibrium be reached the planet posibly would be 2 more Celsius degree hot totalling 3 degrees,at this point would desapear the summer artic ice changing the north pole reflectivity,the global oceanic currents,eliminating the north hemisfere refrigerator and promoting positive feedbacks as the methane emisión by the siberian permafrost and by the oceans,will continue the oceans acidification interrumping the formation of carbonate shells of many livig species all with unknown climate consecuences by cause of our planetary experiment;but tis situation will worsenes because the stimations if we continue this way will reach 1000ppm by the end of the century with possibly 7 or 8 more degrees because more hot seas have minor capacity of carbón dioxide and oxigen storage,the oceans could be death,many species extinct,an great zones of earth inhabitable for humans,remenber the unbeliablely prophetic movie Soylent Green of 1972 by Richard Fleischer based on a tale by Harlan Ellison titled Make Room,we will be back to the Eocene 55 million years ago when a similar event happens but along 20000 years not 100 years,all this is said by Peter Ward in his book Under a Green Sky.But the damage to the planet is done,this new very different planet is named Eaarth by Mckibben and he proposses cut in a 80 percent the emissions changing to renovable energies as solar panels,wind mills,biogás plants, helping to developping countries as China and India to make the same,this is more cheap that pay the reconstrucion of damage made by climate events,descentralizing the distribution of energy living in small comunities,promoting small farms,optimizing the world means of transport and changing our ever growing economic and cosumist mentality in a finite resources earth.This is a problem that Bill says all of us must take consciousnes and act,being internet a good intrument.
June 11, 2011
I hated this book. Scary shit is going down on this planet that we call Earth (which Bill McKibben insists is a new planet- eaarth - so altered is she). That is Bills's purpose, I think. To scare the crap out of you so that you start DOING something - not to save her since she's already gone, but to learn how to salvage what we do have. Much like the chronic smoker trying to save their dying, cancer-ridden body.
Being scared is not an effective emotion for me and much of what this book did was paralyze me. Made me question why I do ANYTHING environmental if the earth as we know it is dying anyway. Guilt rather than gratefulness began to reside in me.
Only gained hope when discussing this book in a group of my closest friends and family members - only came to see that every step we take is a step in the right direction when my friends supported me in my fears and talked about the positive steps they themselves are taking.
I will say this: This book changed my life. I really didn't want it to because I LOVE my life. I wish I had gone into reading it with true excitement for what he would have to say. Because change IS EXCITING! Positivity is what works for me - loving life and sharing the good and seeing the beauty on this old planet. I can't save her, but I CAN find the peace and enjoyment in striking a new path. McKibben did NOT motivate me. But he DID open my eyes. His approach is exactly the opposite of what motivates me, and in reflecting on that, I realized that I needed to "BE the change you wish to see". This book is the reason I began a blog about all the things we're doing and intend to do to direct our life toward the future - to "go green", to alter the path that we WERE taking and strike a new, more eaarth-conscious course.http://www.goinggreenlovinglife.blogs...
So thanks, Bill. I hated your book, but it changed my life.
Being scared is not an effective emotion for me and much of what this book did was paralyze me. Made me question why I do ANYTHING environmental if the earth as we know it is dying anyway. Guilt rather than gratefulness began to reside in me.
Only gained hope when discussing this book in a group of my closest friends and family members - only came to see that every step we take is a step in the right direction when my friends supported me in my fears and talked about the positive steps they themselves are taking.
I will say this: This book changed my life. I really didn't want it to because I LOVE my life. I wish I had gone into reading it with true excitement for what he would have to say. Because change IS EXCITING! Positivity is what works for me - loving life and sharing the good and seeing the beauty on this old planet. I can't save her, but I CAN find the peace and enjoyment in striking a new path. McKibben did NOT motivate me. But he DID open my eyes. His approach is exactly the opposite of what motivates me, and in reflecting on that, I realized that I needed to "BE the change you wish to see". This book is the reason I began a blog about all the things we're doing and intend to do to direct our life toward the future - to "go green", to alter the path that we WERE taking and strike a new, more eaarth-conscious course.http://www.goinggreenlovinglife.blogs...
So thanks, Bill. I hated your book, but it changed my life.
December 2, 2012
Bill McKibben is a world-famous environmentalist. He is the founder of 350.org, a very big organization whose purpose is to solve the climate crisis. Without a doubt, he has written a very scary book. Well worth reading, to help put climate change into context.
The main point of this excellent book, is that our planet is not the same as it used to be; hence, the titleEaarth.Climate change is happening rightnow.Sea level is rising faster than expected. Dry areas are becoming drier, while wet regions are becoming wetter. Oceans are becoming more acidic. Glaciers are disappearing, so that dependable sources of water are shrinking, too. Big changes are happening now, not in some time in the indefinite future.
The steps that people are taking are good--but they are really just a drop in the bucket. Wholesale attitude changes are required--merely to survive, let alone slow down--the rapid shifts in climate. Humans must think "local" in terms of their food, energy supplies, and transportation needs.
The main point of this excellent book, is that our planet is not the same as it used to be; hence, the titleEaarth.Climate change is happening rightnow.Sea level is rising faster than expected. Dry areas are becoming drier, while wet regions are becoming wetter. Oceans are becoming more acidic. Glaciers are disappearing, so that dependable sources of water are shrinking, too. Big changes are happening now, not in some time in the indefinite future.
The steps that people are taking are good--but they are really just a drop in the bucket. Wholesale attitude changes are required--merely to survive, let alone slow down--the rapid shifts in climate. Humans must think "local" in terms of their food, energy supplies, and transportation needs.
June 19, 2010
The first part of this book will scare the daylights out of anyone who isn't blinded by oil company hype or willful ignorance. It even scared me, and I already had some pretty dark ideas about the future. Global warming is here, it's irreversible, and it's going to get a lot worse very quickly. Deniers like to point out that science isn't always right, and in this case they're correct; the scale and progression of the changes we have made to our planet have been seriously UNDERESTIMATED.
The second part deals with what we can do to cope on what is effectively a new planet, and perhaps mitigate the worst of the possible (foreseeable) outcomes. It turns out to be what we should have been doing for at least the past 20 years: decentralizing how we get what we need to survive such as energy and food without further damaging the planet - and each other. We're hindered to a large extent by the fact that the fossil fuels that provide so much of what we use is becoming harder to get, and more environmentally costly, so we have to use the knowledge we bought with it to find alternatives that will last over the long term. These alternatives are not so much new technologies, but better ways to integrate our lives with natural systems. In short, it's the same prescription for sustainable living that's been emerging since the 1970s. The main difference is its urgency.
This book is really more of a primer than a tome, and dovetails nicely with another book I just finished reading, Jeremy Rifkin's "The Empathic Civilization," which is significantly more optimistic.
The second part deals with what we can do to cope on what is effectively a new planet, and perhaps mitigate the worst of the possible (foreseeable) outcomes. It turns out to be what we should have been doing for at least the past 20 years: decentralizing how we get what we need to survive such as energy and food without further damaging the planet - and each other. We're hindered to a large extent by the fact that the fossil fuels that provide so much of what we use is becoming harder to get, and more environmentally costly, so we have to use the knowledge we bought with it to find alternatives that will last over the long term. These alternatives are not so much new technologies, but better ways to integrate our lives with natural systems. In short, it's the same prescription for sustainable living that's been emerging since the 1970s. The main difference is its urgency.
This book is really more of a primer than a tome, and dovetails nicely with another book I just finished reading, Jeremy Rifkin's "The Empathic Civilization," which is significantly more optimistic.
May 9, 2010
Even though Bill is one of the first authors on climate change, I had never heard of him until Long Distance - his book about endurance and skiing and losing his father. I loved that book, and when Bill came to Colorado to promote Eaarth, I decided to go. I was only finished with part I of the book when I saw him, and I liked the way he avoided relying on data that came out of discredited climate models and institutes. His book is based on observable phenomena that have HAPPENED - disappearing glaciers, disappearing antarctic ice, measurable effects of disappearing rain forest, and of course the effects of long years of factory farming. I really like that he pays attention to what is happening, rather than wasting time on arguing whether or not it means anything. And I love that the "byproducts" of what he urges us to do in the book are more community, more local, organic food, less reliance on long distance shipping, more attention, more awareness... it's an inspiring and motivating book from an intelligent human who has been thinking about and struggling with these issues for a very long time.
July 20, 2010
Here's a book to keep you up at night; it did me. Yes, for much of it McKibben explains what he means by "Eaarth:" we have used up the old one, good old "Earth." We killed it. The author of the first general book on global warming (1989's THE END OF NATURE), McKibben pretty much knows what he's talking about.
Ecological disasters are happening with more and more frequency. They are not random events happening more often, either; they are systematic responses to a planet under duress. The polar caps, the rainforest, the ozone layer, the Gulf region: are all connected geologically, and so are the extreme weather events we are seeing.
Furthermore, our collective responses to this are predictably failing. Governments have ignored or underestimated the problems, and solutions (reduce carbon levels to 550 parts per million) are incorrect by almost half (they need to be 350… and we are already at 360). So slowing growth is not an option: we need to _reverse_ growth. What is the likelihood of that?
Pretty grim stuff. McKibben's quixotic solutions--more community gardens, more composting, more organizing via the internet--seem weak, but that's actually the revolutionary idea here: instituting, more than anything, the thought that we can do less.
"We've got a lot of work to do if we're going to survive on this Eaarth, but most of it needs to be done close to home. Small, not big; dispersed, not centralized."
And how is that going to happen? We can't waste time worrying about collapse, says McKibben. "Now we must try to figure out how to survive what's coming at us. And that survival begins with words... We lack the vocabulary and the metaphors we need for life on a different scale... So here are my candidates for words that may help us think usefully about the future. Durable. Sturdy. Stable. Hardy. Robust."
The book flags towards the end, as like David against Goliath, or some Cool Hand Luke, McKibben shows his hand… there ain't a lot there, just a few beans and a sling. Some words, and a few examples of a few people casting their voices into the maelstrom. McKibben has laid out a global agenda, and his examples, even the impressive 350.org efforts, are necessarily local. Is it enough to get everyone moving in the same direction, however slowly?
We will find out.
*
WHY I READ THIS BOOK: I read a good review of it in the paper, and then somewhere else, and then a friend mentioned it. I had liked McKibben's introduction to Thoreau's WALDEN, and by the third time someone mentioned it, I was moved to track it down.
Ecological disasters are happening with more and more frequency. They are not random events happening more often, either; they are systematic responses to a planet under duress. The polar caps, the rainforest, the ozone layer, the Gulf region: are all connected geologically, and so are the extreme weather events we are seeing.
Furthermore, our collective responses to this are predictably failing. Governments have ignored or underestimated the problems, and solutions (reduce carbon levels to 550 parts per million) are incorrect by almost half (they need to be 350… and we are already at 360). So slowing growth is not an option: we need to _reverse_ growth. What is the likelihood of that?
Pretty grim stuff. McKibben's quixotic solutions--more community gardens, more composting, more organizing via the internet--seem weak, but that's actually the revolutionary idea here: instituting, more than anything, the thought that we can do less.
"We've got a lot of work to do if we're going to survive on this Eaarth, but most of it needs to be done close to home. Small, not big; dispersed, not centralized."
And how is that going to happen? We can't waste time worrying about collapse, says McKibben. "Now we must try to figure out how to survive what's coming at us. And that survival begins with words... We lack the vocabulary and the metaphors we need for life on a different scale... So here are my candidates for words that may help us think usefully about the future. Durable. Sturdy. Stable. Hardy. Robust."
The book flags towards the end, as like David against Goliath, or some Cool Hand Luke, McKibben shows his hand… there ain't a lot there, just a few beans and a sling. Some words, and a few examples of a few people casting their voices into the maelstrom. McKibben has laid out a global agenda, and his examples, even the impressive 350.org efforts, are necessarily local. Is it enough to get everyone moving in the same direction, however slowly?
We will find out.
*
WHY I READ THIS BOOK: I read a good review of it in the paper, and then somewhere else, and then a friend mentioned it. I had liked McKibben's introduction to Thoreau's WALDEN, and by the third time someone mentioned it, I was moved to track it down.
April 25, 2010
Well, I had some problems with McKibben (if you're curious, find the history of the ecofeminist movement, a response in part to the DeepEcology movement he spearheaded in the late eighties/nineties) and I feel like maybe, yes, this book has responded to these issues. He spends half the book convincing the reader that this earth we have grown used to living on and with is a thing of the past (hence the title). This new eaarth is more hostile in many ways, irreversibly different... but maybe not worse necessarily. The second half is a partial call to arms, to living in small local communities etc etc- all the good commonsense rhetoric we've been hearing in the past couple years.
interspersed is some looking back at how we came to be the US we are today, a rundown of agrobusiness and the Federalist papers, some personal essays about vermont, the occasional jab at companies which started green and sold out to unilever (we're looking at you, ben&jerrys...); but, the book is short enough that it doesn't entirely lose focus.
In the last couple pages, McKibben defends the need to keep the internet online, his answer to the traditionalism and inequality that small communities often revert to when seperated from modernity. He directly mentions women's roles and the steps we have taken culturally to equalise the genders- I appreciated this, a direct response to his critics and a gentle altering of his worldview to include global communication.
scary. nothing entirely new here, but framed in a novel way. the sheer amount of statistics are overwhelming, and he was academic about his sources, which is more than i can say for many people writing for the "folks".
interspersed is some looking back at how we came to be the US we are today, a rundown of agrobusiness and the Federalist papers, some personal essays about vermont, the occasional jab at companies which started green and sold out to unilever (we're looking at you, ben&jerrys...); but, the book is short enough that it doesn't entirely lose focus.
In the last couple pages, McKibben defends the need to keep the internet online, his answer to the traditionalism and inequality that small communities often revert to when seperated from modernity. He directly mentions women's roles and the steps we have taken culturally to equalise the genders- I appreciated this, a direct response to his critics and a gentle altering of his worldview to include global communication.
scary. nothing entirely new here, but framed in a novel way. the sheer amount of statistics are overwhelming, and he was academic about his sources, which is more than i can say for many people writing for the "folks".
June 14, 2010
The incredibly depressing first part of this book is redeemed by the hopeful ending. A lot of the hope boils down to "know your neighbors, band together, make a micro-community" and a lot of the doom and gloom boils down to "we've really, really screwed up the world". I don't think I learned a whole lot of brand new stuff here, but I've been specializing in this sort of book for the last several months. McKibben is a good writer and an engaging teller of tales. I did learn that Wal*Mart is the largest owner of vacant properties in the US. That was interesting.
It's a book well worth reading, especially if you haven't read a million other similar books. It's more pop sci than, say,What We Leave BehindorThe End of the Wildand as such might be a better book to give to your Aunt Sadie or your mom.
It's a book well worth reading, especially if you haven't read a million other similar books. It's more pop sci than, say,What We Leave BehindorThe End of the Wildand as such might be a better book to give to your Aunt Sadie or your mom.
October 28, 2011
this is depressing stuff, people.
especially the first (and most convincing) chapter, in which mckibben adds an extra "A" to the planet we inhabit. "eaarth" is not the world we've been trying to pin solar panels to for the well-being of our "grandchildren" since the 70's; it's the planet that's already begun changing irrevocably for the worse. in the first portion ofeaarth,mckibben calls for a transformation in our approach to environmental action in the wake of the dire circumstances of the 21st century. which is to say that this is the james hansen model of environmental action (apocalyptic, worth getting arrested for), not the globe-trotting thomas freidmann kind (whoo hoo free market to the rescue).
i admire mckibben immensely as an activist. as a writer, he's clear and direct, and follows a tradition of mainstream argumentation made popular by people like michael pollan. as much as i share his urgency and support his ideals, i'm afraid i don't find his approach 100% convincing.
the least persuasive part of the book involves a long digression into american history. to persuade us that a smaller, more humble economy (and social structure) is achievable, he makes an attempt to align it with the ideals of jeffersonain democracy. mckibben has little faith or patience in the role of "big government" to address the ecological crisis (and in the wake of copenhagen, who can blame him?) so he turns to a peculiarly patriotic call for "state's rights" as an alternative. some of the bullet points of this approach are pretty persuasive - especially toward the end of the book, when he discusses local energy solutions - but there's an anti-establishment streak to it that i found rather disappointing.
for one thing, "state's rights" is one of the most diabolical code-words for our racist, confederate past. obviously, mckibben isn't trying to invoke this, but he doesn't address it either, which i found pretty irksome. at the state level, his hope seems to rely on the small-scale and the local. in our era of tea party activism and ron paul fanboys, mckibben has to be pretty careful to distinguish himself from free market libertarians, and a political culture obsessed with a government that's purportedly on its back. and he does avoid the worst of this, for the most part. instead of an unregulated frontier of altruistic individuals, mckibben envisions grassroots collective action and community-oriented governmental solutions. mckibben doesn't want to limit the powers of government so much as have them disperse in a more manageable, human-scale direction.
he lists several admirable examples of these strategies in action, and makes a few brief but persuasive arguments against "green tech" solutions to climate change. still, i couldn't help feeling that he should have made a place for broad, federal-level regulations in his assessments as well. as excited as i am about local energy production, food co-ops and urban agriculture, i can't help but think that a robust carbon-taxing system and a strengthened EPA might play a larger role in the big picture. or, more specifically, that a synthesis of macro and micro is probably the wisest way to move forward. i'm fairly certain that mckibben is in favor of this synthesis as well, but he rarely stresses large-scale solutions and puts a bit too much faith in the example of his own community in vermont. as a result, the book seems to align itself with a breed of individualistic patriotism that i find counter-productive. i'm sure he's simply trying to broaden the eco-tent beyond the usual tree-huggin' liberal crowd, but i'm not 100% convinced this is the tone to do it with.
i think i need to readdeep economynext.
especially the first (and most convincing) chapter, in which mckibben adds an extra "A" to the planet we inhabit. "eaarth" is not the world we've been trying to pin solar panels to for the well-being of our "grandchildren" since the 70's; it's the planet that's already begun changing irrevocably for the worse. in the first portion ofeaarth,mckibben calls for a transformation in our approach to environmental action in the wake of the dire circumstances of the 21st century. which is to say that this is the james hansen model of environmental action (apocalyptic, worth getting arrested for), not the globe-trotting thomas freidmann kind (whoo hoo free market to the rescue).
i admire mckibben immensely as an activist. as a writer, he's clear and direct, and follows a tradition of mainstream argumentation made popular by people like michael pollan. as much as i share his urgency and support his ideals, i'm afraid i don't find his approach 100% convincing.
the least persuasive part of the book involves a long digression into american history. to persuade us that a smaller, more humble economy (and social structure) is achievable, he makes an attempt to align it with the ideals of jeffersonain democracy. mckibben has little faith or patience in the role of "big government" to address the ecological crisis (and in the wake of copenhagen, who can blame him?) so he turns to a peculiarly patriotic call for "state's rights" as an alternative. some of the bullet points of this approach are pretty persuasive - especially toward the end of the book, when he discusses local energy solutions - but there's an anti-establishment streak to it that i found rather disappointing.
for one thing, "state's rights" is one of the most diabolical code-words for our racist, confederate past. obviously, mckibben isn't trying to invoke this, but he doesn't address it either, which i found pretty irksome. at the state level, his hope seems to rely on the small-scale and the local. in our era of tea party activism and ron paul fanboys, mckibben has to be pretty careful to distinguish himself from free market libertarians, and a political culture obsessed with a government that's purportedly on its back. and he does avoid the worst of this, for the most part. instead of an unregulated frontier of altruistic individuals, mckibben envisions grassroots collective action and community-oriented governmental solutions. mckibben doesn't want to limit the powers of government so much as have them disperse in a more manageable, human-scale direction.
he lists several admirable examples of these strategies in action, and makes a few brief but persuasive arguments against "green tech" solutions to climate change. still, i couldn't help feeling that he should have made a place for broad, federal-level regulations in his assessments as well. as excited as i am about local energy production, food co-ops and urban agriculture, i can't help but think that a robust carbon-taxing system and a strengthened EPA might play a larger role in the big picture. or, more specifically, that a synthesis of macro and micro is probably the wisest way to move forward. i'm fairly certain that mckibben is in favor of this synthesis as well, but he rarely stresses large-scale solutions and puts a bit too much faith in the example of his own community in vermont. as a result, the book seems to align itself with a breed of individualistic patriotism that i find counter-productive. i'm sure he's simply trying to broaden the eco-tent beyond the usual tree-huggin' liberal crowd, but i'm not 100% convinced this is the tone to do it with.
i think i need to readdeep economynext.
June 4, 2011
"Eaarth" is founded on the premise that the world we live in is already so significantly altered by climate change that it deserves a slightly different name. The first module of the book proves this point. The oceans have acidified, glaciers and ice caps are melting, animals are shrinking; droughts, floods, storms, crop failures, massive tree die-offs (due to environmental change and pests that need warmer weather to survive), etc, have gone from exceptional to expected. The next chapter illustrates the crippling kinds of effects and feedbacks that will plague our efforts to respond to climate change. Just as we need to mobilize massive resources to change our civilization in dramatic ways, we are being hit with the very expensive, demoralizing consequences of the existing climate change. While he is much less in-your-face extremist about it thanDerrick Jensen,McKibben acknowledges that there is no way out for civilization at this point - the best case scenario is a "controlled descent." The rest of the book looks at how that might happen - what future society would need to look like in order to survive, and what precursors we have to that society today.
Insofar as it emphasizes the already-occurring damages of climate change and looks at ways we need to act in the future to deal with its effects, Eaarth is very similar to James Lovelock'sThe Revenge of Gaia: Earth's Climate Crisis and the Fate of Humanity.While McKibben lacks the peculiar charm of a cantankerous old British scientist, he makes up for it in far superior research, superior prose, and much, much deeper and more realistic thinking.
While Lovelock supports solutions by huge institutions, McKibben acknowledges many times that the gigantic, top-heavy, "too big to fail" systems we have today are both responsible for the crisis and incapable of coping with it. Having all our eggs in a few "too big to fail" baskets means that we're screwed when somebody makes a few mistakes, or when climate change throws a curve ball too damaging for one part of the system to handle. In McKibben's new world, systems will be local, small and manifold, rather than huge, bulky, and risky. The diversity of small systems will be robust, locally appropriate, and adaptable. Unlike Lovelock, McKibben realizes that nuclear power is simply too expensive to invest in as a source of fossil-fuel-free power - there isn't enough time or money, especially in a climate-changed economy. McKibben is also simply a superbly readable prose writer - in the best possible use of that term. He makes his points in such an elegant, subtle way that you almost don't realize he's making an argument at all. It's compelling and a very quick read.
McKibben sees a least-worst path through the nightmare of climate change. If we take it, we can survive the worst of climate change, prevent it from getting even worse, and even pick up a few extra quality of life points along the way - local food is more nutritious and tastier, smaller, more self-reliant communities make happier people, and small, local systems for anything promote equality and allow regional culture to flourish.
Insofar as it emphasizes the already-occurring damages of climate change and looks at ways we need to act in the future to deal with its effects, Eaarth is very similar to James Lovelock'sThe Revenge of Gaia: Earth's Climate Crisis and the Fate of Humanity.While McKibben lacks the peculiar charm of a cantankerous old British scientist, he makes up for it in far superior research, superior prose, and much, much deeper and more realistic thinking.
While Lovelock supports solutions by huge institutions, McKibben acknowledges many times that the gigantic, top-heavy, "too big to fail" systems we have today are both responsible for the crisis and incapable of coping with it. Having all our eggs in a few "too big to fail" baskets means that we're screwed when somebody makes a few mistakes, or when climate change throws a curve ball too damaging for one part of the system to handle. In McKibben's new world, systems will be local, small and manifold, rather than huge, bulky, and risky. The diversity of small systems will be robust, locally appropriate, and adaptable. Unlike Lovelock, McKibben realizes that nuclear power is simply too expensive to invest in as a source of fossil-fuel-free power - there isn't enough time or money, especially in a climate-changed economy. McKibben is also simply a superbly readable prose writer - in the best possible use of that term. He makes his points in such an elegant, subtle way that you almost don't realize he's making an argument at all. It's compelling and a very quick read.
McKibben sees a least-worst path through the nightmare of climate change. If we take it, we can survive the worst of climate change, prevent it from getting even worse, and even pick up a few extra quality of life points along the way - local food is more nutritious and tastier, smaller, more self-reliant communities make happier people, and small, local systems for anything promote equality and allow regional culture to flourish.
February 9, 2017
"Americans eat 200 pounds of grain directly, and 1,800 pounds that’s been run through an animal first. By contrast, the average Chinese eats 850 pounds of grain with his chopsticks, and only 154 pounds indirectly, via cow or pig. It takes eleven times as much fossil fuel to raise a pound of animal protein as a pound of plant protein” (177).
If you want in and you're looking for a good place to start, how about eating lower on the food chain? Meatless Mondays didn't work for me, but eating one meal a day without meat (breakfast) quickly turned into two (breakfast and lunch).
A couple more.
Travel less, especially by air.
Turn down the heat to 16 degrees at night and again during the day when going to work.
A fan uses way less energy than an air conditioner.
A space heater uses way more juice than most other ways of heating your home.
David Pogue recommends turning your water heater way down. When showering you'll crank the knob to 11, but the water will be warm.
Most clothes can be laundered in cold water and dried on a line.
Try gardening. One of the most interesting parts ofEaarthexplains how Brits produced food by turning a lot of urban areas into little gardens.
Actually, these little hacks are probably not enough. McKibben points out that this "maintain a healthy planet" or "return to our healthy planet" for our "grandchildren" is baloney. The changes are happening now. And even if we reduce our production of green house gases, they're now being released from melting ice caps -- the loss of which also means that a surface that reflected heat will now absorb it.
The opening chapters are not fun.
McKibben advocates for major changes, and many of them are about local communities, local networks for producing food and energy, and maintaining the benefits of cosmopolitan pluralism through the Internet rather than travel.
If you want in and you're looking for a good place to start, how about eating lower on the food chain? Meatless Mondays didn't work for me, but eating one meal a day without meat (breakfast) quickly turned into two (breakfast and lunch).
A couple more.
Travel less, especially by air.
Turn down the heat to 16 degrees at night and again during the day when going to work.
A fan uses way less energy than an air conditioner.
A space heater uses way more juice than most other ways of heating your home.
David Pogue recommends turning your water heater way down. When showering you'll crank the knob to 11, but the water will be warm.
Most clothes can be laundered in cold water and dried on a line.
Try gardening. One of the most interesting parts ofEaarthexplains how Brits produced food by turning a lot of urban areas into little gardens.
Actually, these little hacks are probably not enough. McKibben points out that this "maintain a healthy planet" or "return to our healthy planet" for our "grandchildren" is baloney. The changes are happening now. And even if we reduce our production of green house gases, they're now being released from melting ice caps -- the loss of which also means that a surface that reflected heat will now absorb it.
The opening chapters are not fun.
McKibben advocates for major changes, and many of them are about local communities, local networks for producing food and energy, and maintaining the benefits of cosmopolitan pluralism through the Internet rather than travel.
May 1, 2019
good facts and statistics, unfocused design and ideology. eschewing ANY class analysis or even reference caters to McKibben's audience (and, in his defense, convincing his audience may be more important than convincing say, me), but weakens the recommendation section basically to "plant a garden and shop at farmers markets". not super helpful if you rent an apartment in an urban food desert vs. own a house in a verdant New England forest.
the first section about the severity of the problem is great. the later sections on organico-optimism are not. Bill almost reaches an actual economic critique when he questions the future of "growth" (which is, of course, uncritically defined as increases in GDP), then sullies it with some weird austerity fetishism. I suppose it's better than techno-boosterism, at least.
recommended to regular readers of the New Yorker who want to feel good for buying cucumbers at Westchester farmstands sometimes.
the first section about the severity of the problem is great. the later sections on organico-optimism are not. Bill almost reaches an actual economic critique when he questions the future of "growth" (which is, of course, uncritically defined as increases in GDP), then sullies it with some weird austerity fetishism. I suppose it's better than techno-boosterism, at least.
recommended to regular readers of the New Yorker who want to feel good for buying cucumbers at Westchester farmstands sometimes.
April 22, 2019
Stunning! Eye-opening! Filled with extraordinary information and staggering predictions, made so very much more momentous by the fact that it was written ten(!) years ago. I knew the world was in terrible trouble but I didn't know how severe and almost totally irreparable the problems were. Most unfortunately, over the past two years situations have changed such that the United States is now going downhill even faster than before. It's difficult to be optimistic, but we must try. Else we (human beings) surely are doomed. Earth will go on, but as Eaarth, a new, utterly changed planet on which life as we know it cannot exist. Barbara Sher said in 1999, "It's only too late if you don't start now." If she was right, and we do start now (or at least in 2020), there may be some small measure of hope.
August 3, 2013
McKibben is very honest about the disaster we're already in (and this was written several years ago before our carbon levels hit 400).
April 26, 2020
I have never read something that has made me this upset with the world we live in. Our planet is dying and we are killing it! Please give it a read politics aside!
January 30, 2019
This is an odd book. The first section is a really upsetting read, and is unfortunately the most convincing part of the book. This part of the book is best summed up as saying that we have already lost the battle and had better deal with it. Here McKibben describes all the reasons that reversing or even stopping climate change is impossible to do now, and posits that we now live on a new Earth, which he calls Eaarth, and that we have no way to know what challenges it will have except that they will be constant. This is disturbing and convincing, and the strongest part of the work.
Then he decides to explain what he thinks we should do and the book suddenly goes in some unexpected directions. First he gives a brief history lesson of the United States, and explains how it started as an attack on big government and that the South losing the civil war was the South losing that battle. This choice of an example, as well as Feudalism, as what he thinks we needs seems like a really odd choice. There must be a better way to argue in favour of small local communities then to invoke the Confederates and Feudalism. He does briefly mention that feudal lords and slave owners are bad, and I'm accusing him of racism or anything. It's just odd. Then he describes his local diner for a long time.
I'm being a bit unfair. The argument from both these things is clear, even if it is badly paced and put together. McKibben thinks our only hope is to form small localized communities that grow their own food and make their own power. What he describes is the power version of a farmer's market. It's not a bad idea, and the bits about electricity are pretty convincing as a solution. It also has the added appeal of being the first solution I've read where I thought traditional Christians would like this. At one point I thought, "G.K. Chesterton would probably like this idea."
This part of the book suffers for a few reason. McKibben's distrust of the government and reasons why we need small communities mostly makes sense, but occasionally feels like a principle disguised as a practicality. He also feels way too focused on a middle class America; He never really talks about other countries at this part, even though he mentioned that they will be hurt first and hardest. He also doesn't really ever discuss indigenous or African American which seems like a problem considering the eras he's idealizing, nor did he talk about any kind of diversity (such as disability which is going to be relevant if we're all expected to do manual labour) except to briefly say that it would be a shame if we lost the strides we made for equality. I'm not trying to accuse McKibben of anything, I just think the vision of this book is surprisingly narrow.
The real problem though is that I didn't feel like he really covered how this plan would deal with the possible nightmare world that he talks about in the first part; a world that he earlier describes as a literal Hell. He talks about how we'll deal with crop failure and power needs but not with any of the other factors he mentioned. Maybe I expect too much here. I want to be fair to McKibben, and I should probably read more of his works, but overall I was disappointed because I found the positive parts pretty unconvincing and I want to be convinced. I think that I wasn't entirely convinced that he was convinced.
Then he decides to explain what he thinks we should do and the book suddenly goes in some unexpected directions. First he gives a brief history lesson of the United States, and explains how it started as an attack on big government and that the South losing the civil war was the South losing that battle. This choice of an example, as well as Feudalism, as what he thinks we needs seems like a really odd choice. There must be a better way to argue in favour of small local communities then to invoke the Confederates and Feudalism. He does briefly mention that feudal lords and slave owners are bad, and I'm accusing him of racism or anything. It's just odd. Then he describes his local diner for a long time.
I'm being a bit unfair. The argument from both these things is clear, even if it is badly paced and put together. McKibben thinks our only hope is to form small localized communities that grow their own food and make their own power. What he describes is the power version of a farmer's market. It's not a bad idea, and the bits about electricity are pretty convincing as a solution. It also has the added appeal of being the first solution I've read where I thought traditional Christians would like this. At one point I thought, "G.K. Chesterton would probably like this idea."
This part of the book suffers for a few reason. McKibben's distrust of the government and reasons why we need small communities mostly makes sense, but occasionally feels like a principle disguised as a practicality. He also feels way too focused on a middle class America; He never really talks about other countries at this part, even though he mentioned that they will be hurt first and hardest. He also doesn't really ever discuss indigenous or African American which seems like a problem considering the eras he's idealizing, nor did he talk about any kind of diversity (such as disability which is going to be relevant if we're all expected to do manual labour) except to briefly say that it would be a shame if we lost the strides we made for equality. I'm not trying to accuse McKibben of anything, I just think the vision of this book is surprisingly narrow.
The real problem though is that I didn't feel like he really covered how this plan would deal with the possible nightmare world that he talks about in the first part; a world that he earlier describes as a literal Hell. He talks about how we'll deal with crop failure and power needs but not with any of the other factors he mentioned. Maybe I expect too much here. I want to be fair to McKibben, and I should probably read more of his works, but overall I was disappointed because I found the positive parts pretty unconvincing and I want to be convinced. I think that I wasn't entirely convinced that he was convinced.
March 26, 2017
McKibben doesn't pull any punches in the first two-thirds of this book. He argues that global warming isn't something that just our grandchildren will have to worry about, which is so often what is touted by politicians and people in general. Nope, he argues that the stuff that will happen in the hazy future is already beginning to happen TODAY. He fills the pages with of facts, observations, and hypotheses he draws from those facts, painting a bleak picture of humankind's future. We're pretty much doomed - we're doing virtually nothing to curb our consumption of fossil fuels and our carbon emissions, we're already past the point of no return when it comes to ppm in the air of CO2 and it's only going to get worse, and we're basically sliding head-first into a disaster that no one can avert unless we do something drastic fast - and then it might be too late anyway.
And then he backs off and tones it down dramatically.
After saying that we, as a species, are pretty much doomed no matter what - that our ways of generating energy, producing food, etc are horribly and irreparably damaging our planet - he pulls up short. He doesn't encourage people to go vegan, or at least vegetarian (beef production makes a HUGE impact on global warming). He doesn't tell people to stop owning cars and to instead use public transport (which isn't feasible where I live, at least currently, since there IS no public transport). Instead, he just talks about how growing locally and having neighborhood internet message boards or emails will help. This after he just went on and on about how we're not going to be able to grow as much and pests are going to become almost uncontrollable. It's as if he doesn't want people to become offended, so he waters down his suggestions until they're palatable. Disappointing.
And then he backs off and tones it down dramatically.
After saying that we, as a species, are pretty much doomed no matter what - that our ways of generating energy, producing food, etc are horribly and irreparably damaging our planet - he pulls up short. He doesn't encourage people to go vegan, or at least vegetarian (beef production makes a HUGE impact on global warming). He doesn't tell people to stop owning cars and to instead use public transport (which isn't feasible where I live, at least currently, since there IS no public transport). Instead, he just talks about how growing locally and having neighborhood internet message boards or emails will help. This after he just went on and on about how we're not going to be able to grow as much and pests are going to become almost uncontrollable. It's as if he doesn't want people to become offended, so he waters down his suggestions until they're palatable. Disappointing.
June 22, 2019
Ten years, it's been, since this book was published. It's an alarm bell of a book, one that I'd read in excerpt but never in its entirety. I did the full read through as research for a manuscript I'm working on, and Jeez, it's a hard read.
Not because there's a thing wrong with McKibben's writing. But because reading it, you can feel the urgency, an urgency reinforced with a relentless pyroclastic flow of data about our warming world.
Did we listen? Well, some of us did. But most of humanity continues to trundle on towards the harsher world we're making for ourselves.
One of the oddest things about the book: McKibben seemed to anticipate my critiques, pretty much every time. I'd be reading and thinking, well, you know, fine, but what about this? And the next chapter would deal with precisely my concern. When a book does that once, it's cool. When it does it three times, it's a little eerie.
A vital read for anyone who cares whether our planet is habitable or not.
Not because there's a thing wrong with McKibben's writing. But because reading it, you can feel the urgency, an urgency reinforced with a relentless pyroclastic flow of data about our warming world.
Did we listen? Well, some of us did. But most of humanity continues to trundle on towards the harsher world we're making for ourselves.
One of the oddest things about the book: McKibben seemed to anticipate my critiques, pretty much every time. I'd be reading and thinking, well, you know, fine, but what about this? And the next chapter would deal with precisely my concern. When a book does that once, it's cool. When it does it three times, it's a little eerie.
A vital read for anyone who cares whether our planet is habitable or not.
November 11, 2020
Probably given the fact that it was written in 2010, it felt outdated and naive (solutions centering around eating locally, using the Internet to leverage community), although the part about decentralized power and food systems was super interesting! Definitely thought provoking/painful to read the first half where he outlines the extent to which humanity has (and continues to) destroy the planet (and how poor people/countries are the least responsible but the most destroyed and impacted by climate change...ugh.) But I resonated with his analysis of it all coming down to economic growth and corporate greed. Ends on a hopeful view and call to action!
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