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"Read it, please. Straight through to the end. Whatever else you were planning to do next, nothing could be more important." Barbara Kingsolver"
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Twenty years ago, with THE END OF NATURE, Bill McKibben offered one of the earliest warnings about global warming. Those warnings went mostly unheeded; now, he insists, we need to acknowledge that we ve waited too long, and that massive change is not only unavoidable but already under way. 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 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 economics that can hunker down, concentrate on essentials, and create the type of community (in the neighbourhood, 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.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is an outstanding book because it is so up-to-date, both with climate science and through telling personal observations of how our environment and the natural world are changing. The author doesnt flinch from teling it like it is, yet the writing is fast-paced, hip and good-humored. I read the first half of the book in almost one sitting, because it was "un-put-downable". The second half of the book adresses localizing solutions - this is more limited (specifically to the New England area of America, by way of example) and not quite as exciting as the global tour through EAARTH. Well worth purchasing.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
89 reviews
250 of 266 people found the following review helpful
Earth-shattering, Eaarth creation
25 Feb 2010
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
The front cover of Bill McKibbean's "Eaarth" contains a quote by Barbara Kingsolver urging the reader to drop everything and read the book straight through. What Kingsolver doesn't mention is that once you begin reading the book it'll be impossible to stop.
McKibben describes a place so strikingly different from the planet Earth we have always known, that it has to be renamed to "Eaarth." McKibben's writing is easy to read and his ideas are clear, but his thesis is overwhelming to any reader: "The earth that we knew--the only earth that we ever knew--is gone." (pg 25) At times, reading the book is similar to the experience of watching a carwreck - it's heart-wrenching but you can't force yourself to look away.
A lot of readers will probably dismiss Eaarth based on its "environmentalist agenda" - they'll say that McKibben is simply another tree-hugger attempting to instill fear about the world of the future, or to borrow McKiben's explanation as to why we haven't stopped climate change thus far - "the world of our grandchildren." But if this is true, then we definitely need more people like the author of Earth, as it doesn't seem that anyone is listening - currently, "44 percent Americans believe that global warming comes from 'long-term planetary trends' and not the pumps at the Exxon station." (pg 54)
McKibben is probably one of the very few to steer us into the the direction of thinking that we can't restore the old Planet Earth. Thinking that driving hybrid cars and taking shorter showers will restore the ice caps in the Arctic is unrealistic. We need a major overhaul of our infrastructure and our logic to even adapt on this New Earth we created. It's no longer enough to admit that global warming is real and to want to adjust a few things in our daily lives - we must realize that our daily lives are gone in the way we've known them.
The author's suggestions of how to adapt to living on this new and changed Earth are hopeful and rely on getting rid of industries, on going back to a more simplistic lifestyle of individual farming, moving the entire infrastructure closer to home, and observing as much conservation as possible.
"Eaarth" is a book that should serve as a wake up call, but not in the same way that Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" (book and/or movie) did. By being more Earth-shattering (pun intended), McKibben's book is also more realistic and contains more statistics and McKibben quotes more articles to back up his thesis. However, the book's revolutionary words might also be alienating and can be viewed as a source of despair. In his introduction, McKibben cautions us against this being the case by saying that "[m]aturity is not the opposite of hope; it's what makes hope possible." (pg xiv)
It is this reviewer's sincere hope that McKibben's book is taken seriously and interpreted as a call to action rather than as a description of challenging events that can no longer be stopped or altered.
McKibben describes a place so strikingly different from the planet Earth we have always known, that it has to be renamed to "Eaarth." McKibben's writing is easy to read and his ideas are clear, but his thesis is overwhelming to any reader: "The earth that we knew--the only earth that we ever knew--is gone." (pg 25) At times, reading the book is similar to the experience of watching a carwreck - it's heart-wrenching but you can't force yourself to look away.
A lot of readers will probably dismiss Eaarth based on its "environmentalist agenda" - they'll say that McKibben is simply another tree-hugger attempting to instill fear about the world of the future, or to borrow McKiben's explanation as to why we haven't stopped climate change thus far - "the world of our grandchildren." But if this is true, then we definitely need more people like the author of Earth, as it doesn't seem that anyone is listening - currently, "44 percent Americans believe that global warming comes from 'long-term planetary trends' and not the pumps at the Exxon station." (pg 54)
McKibben is probably one of the very few to steer us into the the direction of thinking that we can't restore the old Planet Earth. Thinking that driving hybrid cars and taking shorter showers will restore the ice caps in the Arctic is unrealistic. We need a major overhaul of our infrastructure and our logic to even adapt on this New Earth we created. It's no longer enough to admit that global warming is real and to want to adjust a few things in our daily lives - we must realize that our daily lives are gone in the way we've known them.
The author's suggestions of how to adapt to living on this new and changed Earth are hopeful and rely on getting rid of industries, on going back to a more simplistic lifestyle of individual farming, moving the entire infrastructure closer to home, and observing as much conservation as possible.
"Eaarth" is a book that should serve as a wake up call, but not in the same way that Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" (book and/or movie) did. By being more Earth-shattering (pun intended), McKibben's book is also more realistic and contains more statistics and McKibben quotes more articles to back up his thesis. However, the book's revolutionary words might also be alienating and can be viewed as a source of despair. In his introduction, McKibben cautions us against this being the case by saying that "[m]aturity is not the opposite of hope; it's what makes hope possible." (pg xiv)
It is this reviewer's sincere hope that McKibben's book is taken seriously and interpreted as a call to action rather than as a description of challenging events that can no longer be stopped or altered.
74 of 76 people found the following review helpful
"Science fiction" is rapidly becoming true
24 Mar 2010
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
What would it be like to live on another planet? Like the proverbial frogs sitting in a pot of water slowly coming to a boil, we'll all eventually find out whether we want to or not.
Bill McKibben maintains that we NOW live on a very different planet, a planet that's rapidly becoming less and less like the one humans have inhabited for many thousands of years. And it's too late to turn our space ship around and go back "home." No, we have to wake up and start learning how to live on the planet as it is--not the one we still would like to imagine that we live on.
The first part of this book is bleak, and it needs to be. Too many of us are in complete denial about the condition of our planet and the mass extinctions now in process. So, who cares about how many species are going extinct? Anyone who understands that no man is an island. And that cold/wet weather we've had in 2010 that proves "there is no such thing as global warming"? That weather will only get more unpredictable and violent as time goes by--and, yes, it's due to global warming.
James Hanson and so many other scientists were right, except for the fact that they underestimated how quickly climate change would occur. It's not a matter of what you believe: Nobody is going to be able to sleep through the earth changes--and isolationism, a cache of arms, and a lot of hateful rhetoric is not going to feed anyone's family or keep them secure.
Skills are the new gold, and we need to return to the days when neighbors helped neighbors. We need to press our technologies into service to help us survive, but we also need to return to a Depression-era sense of frugality and saving for rainy days. There will likely be many more "rainy days" in the future than there were in the past. In the last half of the book, McKibben presents some projects that are already underway to help us and our progeny survive on this strange new world that he renames "Eaarth" because our old Earth is already dead. Each and every one of us needs to be thinking about how we can ameliorate harsher conditions, and we need to pick the brains of the old folks before they are gone so we don't have to completely reinvent a bunch of new wheels.
Me, I will be running mycelium, making biochar, permaculturing, keeping chickens, and growing/preserving a lot of our own food. I will be a denizen of the instructables web site and the dumpsters, and I will figure out as many ways as I can to work with Nature and not against her. I will try to help those who are near me who are suffering, and I will cultivate friends who are willing to help others as well. What will you do? A good start would be to read this book, especially if you think climate change is a hoax intended to deny you of your freedoms. I hope all who are blind will begin to see. Life is going to be hard enough with our eyes wide open.
Bill McKibben maintains that we NOW live on a very different planet, a planet that's rapidly becoming less and less like the one humans have inhabited for many thousands of years. And it's too late to turn our space ship around and go back "home." No, we have to wake up and start learning how to live on the planet as it is--not the one we still would like to imagine that we live on.
The first part of this book is bleak, and it needs to be. Too many of us are in complete denial about the condition of our planet and the mass extinctions now in process. So, who cares about how many species are going extinct? Anyone who understands that no man is an island. And that cold/wet weather we've had in 2010 that proves "there is no such thing as global warming"? That weather will only get more unpredictable and violent as time goes by--and, yes, it's due to global warming.
James Hanson and so many other scientists were right, except for the fact that they underestimated how quickly climate change would occur. It's not a matter of what you believe: Nobody is going to be able to sleep through the earth changes--and isolationism, a cache of arms, and a lot of hateful rhetoric is not going to feed anyone's family or keep them secure.
Skills are the new gold, and we need to return to the days when neighbors helped neighbors. We need to press our technologies into service to help us survive, but we also need to return to a Depression-era sense of frugality and saving for rainy days. There will likely be many more "rainy days" in the future than there were in the past. In the last half of the book, McKibben presents some projects that are already underway to help us and our progeny survive on this strange new world that he renames "Eaarth" because our old Earth is already dead. Each and every one of us needs to be thinking about how we can ameliorate harsher conditions, and we need to pick the brains of the old folks before they are gone so we don't have to completely reinvent a bunch of new wheels.
Me, I will be running mycelium, making biochar, permaculturing, keeping chickens, and growing/preserving a lot of our own food. I will be a denizen of the instructables web site and the dumpsters, and I will figure out as many ways as I can to work with Nature and not against her. I will try to help those who are near me who are suffering, and I will cultivate friends who are willing to help others as well. What will you do? A good start would be to read this book, especially if you think climate change is a hoax intended to deny you of your freedoms. I hope all who are blind will begin to see. Life is going to be hard enough with our eyes wide open.
247 of 292 people found the following review helpful
If reality is too threatening, just put on a happy face
18 Mar 2010
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
Although I'm in complete agreement with Bill McKibben that we are at the end of our old way of life, and find the future he imagines appealing, I believe that future is a fairy tale and that this book is of little value.
The first half of the book amounts to this percent, that fraction, some year, some place, another measurement of volume, height, area, money, population. Meant to incite to action, I found it tedious but then, I've never been interested in this kind of homocentric environmentalism. The self-centered world view it demonstrates is the exact cause of the problems it worries about. What interested me in this part of the book were the brief mentions of ecological changes occurring---trees dying because of insects surviving warmer winters, mosquitoes spreading dengue fever farther and more rapidly, etc.
McKibben's analysis of the Carter--Reagan election and its effects is good but although he writes of Reagan's optimism as being the problem, he commits the same error in this book. He writes off those predicting collapse, not because he thinks collapse is impossible (in fact he provides several reasons that it's likely), but because he sees them as being unwilling to accept other possibilities. To me, the problem is just the opposite---folks like McKibben aren't willing to face the facts.
He prefers to imagine that we will voluntarily choose to make a gradual change to a different way of life. Not to say that some of us aren't already living a very different way of life or that the examples he gives aren't admirable, but to imagine that U.S. society as a whole is going to turn smoothly and peacefully away from consumerism and economic growth and urban life is simply ludicrous. Perhaps he's spent so much time with people who share his concerns, he's forgotten the half of the country who don't even believe in climate change, much less are willing to change their lives to limit it.
In a Gallup poll this month, 50% believe that global warming is occurring and is due to human activity but 48% think its seriousness is exaggerated and 67% don't think it will cause a serious threat to them or their way of life. All percentages are trending away from a concern with the issue. Denial is much easier than change, or maybe they know something Nobel winner Steven Chu didn't know when he suggested last year that the end of the Sierra snowpack could mean the end not only of California agriculture but of cities as well.
McKibben uses, as he has before, part of a frightening old quote from Obama's chief economic adviser Larry Summers: "The idea that we should put limits on growth because of some natural limit is a profound error, and one that, were it ever to prove influential, would have staggering social costs." It seems to me there have been some staggering social costs to not recognizing limits, but I don't think Summers needs to worry that those in power will ever advocate limiting "growth". They will instead try (and in fact already are trying) to cling as long as possible to attempts to revive the old way of life, ignoring the social, financial, and ecological costs of their desperate attempts. None of them, nor most of the country's population, is interested in the "graceful" change McKibben advocates. I do sincerely wish the graceful the best of luck in the midst of the chaos which is coming.
The first half of the book amounts to this percent, that fraction, some year, some place, another measurement of volume, height, area, money, population. Meant to incite to action, I found it tedious but then, I've never been interested in this kind of homocentric environmentalism. The self-centered world view it demonstrates is the exact cause of the problems it worries about. What interested me in this part of the book were the brief mentions of ecological changes occurring---trees dying because of insects surviving warmer winters, mosquitoes spreading dengue fever farther and more rapidly, etc.
McKibben's analysis of the Carter--Reagan election and its effects is good but although he writes of Reagan's optimism as being the problem, he commits the same error in this book. He writes off those predicting collapse, not because he thinks collapse is impossible (in fact he provides several reasons that it's likely), but because he sees them as being unwilling to accept other possibilities. To me, the problem is just the opposite---folks like McKibben aren't willing to face the facts.
He prefers to imagine that we will voluntarily choose to make a gradual change to a different way of life. Not to say that some of us aren't already living a very different way of life or that the examples he gives aren't admirable, but to imagine that U.S. society as a whole is going to turn smoothly and peacefully away from consumerism and economic growth and urban life is simply ludicrous. Perhaps he's spent so much time with people who share his concerns, he's forgotten the half of the country who don't even believe in climate change, much less are willing to change their lives to limit it.
In a Gallup poll this month, 50% believe that global warming is occurring and is due to human activity but 48% think its seriousness is exaggerated and 67% don't think it will cause a serious threat to them or their way of life. All percentages are trending away from a concern with the issue. Denial is much easier than change, or maybe they know something Nobel winner Steven Chu didn't know when he suggested last year that the end of the Sierra snowpack could mean the end not only of California agriculture but of cities as well.
McKibben uses, as he has before, part of a frightening old quote from Obama's chief economic adviser Larry Summers: "The idea that we should put limits on growth because of some natural limit is a profound error, and one that, were it ever to prove influential, would have staggering social costs." It seems to me there have been some staggering social costs to not recognizing limits, but I don't think Summers needs to worry that those in power will ever advocate limiting "growth". They will instead try (and in fact already are trying) to cling as long as possible to attempts to revive the old way of life, ignoring the social, financial, and ecological costs of their desperate attempts. None of them, nor most of the country's population, is interested in the "graceful" change McKibben advocates. I do sincerely wish the graceful the best of luck in the midst of the chaos which is coming.
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