Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet

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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

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 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. 

Bill McKibben is the author of The End of Nature, Deep Economy, 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. He is a scholar in residence at Middlebury College and lives in Vermont with his wife, the writer Sue Halpern, and their daughter.

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 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 of dollars 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. 

“Bill McKibben may be the world's best green journalist . . .  What really sets Eaarth apart from other green books is McKibben’s prescription for survival. This won't be just a matter of replacing a few lightbulbs; McKibben is calling for a more local existence lived ‘lightly, carefully, gently.’ It’s a future unimaginable to most of us—but it may be the only way to survive.”—Time

"Eaarth is the name McKibben has decided to assign both to his new book and to the planet formerly known as Earth. His point is a fresh one that brings the reader uncomfortably close to climate change . . . Unlike many writers on environmental cataclysm, McKibben is actually a writer, and a very good one at that. He is smart enough to know that the reader needs a dark chuckle of a bone thrown at him now and then to keep plowing through the bad news."—Paul Greenberg, The New York Times Book Review

 

“Bill McKibben may be the world's best green journalist . . .  What really sets Eaarth apart from other green books is McKibben’s prescription for survival. This won't be just a matter of replacing a few lightbulbs; McKibben is calling for a more local existence lived ‘lightly, carefully, gently.’ It’s a future unimaginable to most of us—but it may be the only way to survive.”—Time

 

“Superbly written . . . McKibben is at his best when offering an elegant tour of what is already going wrong and likely to get even worse. . . . Eaarth is a manifesto for radical measures.”—The National Interest

 

“A valuable slice of acid-tongued reality.”—San Francisco Chronicle

 

“This book must be read and his message must be understood clearly in Congress and in the streets. Indeed, throughout the world.”—The Capitol Times (Madison, Wis.)

 

“Sounds a clarion at a time when the findings of climate scientists have been all but drowned out by skeptics and right-wing bombast. McKibben, however, does not doubt that facts will trump ideology. . . . McKibben is an eloquent advocate.”—The Oregonian (Portland)

"With clarity, eloquence, deep knowledge, and even deeper compassion for both planet and people, Bill McKibben guides us to the brink of a new, uncharted era. This monumental book, probably his greatest, may restore your faith in the future, with us in it."—Alan Weisman, author of The World Without Us

 

"The terrifying premise with which this book begins is that we have, as in the old science fiction films and tales of half a century ago, landed on a harsh and unpredictable planet, all six billion of us. Climate change is already here, but Bill McKibben doesn’t stop with the bad news. He tours the best responses that are also already here, and these visions of a practical scientific solution are also sketches of a better, richer, more democratic civil society and everyday life. Eaarth is an astonishingly important book that will knock you down and pick you up."—Rebecca Solnit, author of A Paradise Built in Hell and Hope in the Dark

 

"Bill McKibben foresaw 'the end of nature' very early on, and in this new book he blazes a path to help preserve nature's greatest treasures."—James E. Hansen, Director of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies

 

"Bill McKibben is the most effective environmental activist of our age. Anyone interested in making a difference to our world can learn from him."—Time Flannery, author of The Weather Makers and The Eternal Frontier

 

"For 20 years McKibben has been writing with clarity and zeal about global warming, initially in the hope of staving it off and now in an effort to lessen its dire impact. With climate change under way, we now live on a far less hospitable planet than the one on which our civilizations coalesced for 10,000 years amidst resplendent biological diversity. McKibben postulates that because today’s planet is so much hotter, stormier, and more chaotic with droughts, vanishing ice, dying forests, encroaching deserts, acid oceans, increased wildfires, and diminishing food crops, it merits a new name: 'Eaarth.' Although his meticulous chronicling of the current “cascading effects” of climate change is truly alarming, it isn’t utterly devastating. That’s because McKibben, reasonable and compassionate, reports with equal thoroughness on the innovations of proactive individuals and groups and explicates the benefits of ending our dependence on fossil fuels, industrial agriculture, and the unbalanced, unjust global economy. What distinguishes McKibben as an environmental writer beyond his literary finesse and firm grasp of the complexities of science and society is his generous pragmatism, informed vision of small-scale solutions to our food and energy needs, and belief that Eaarth will remain a nurturing planet if we face facts, jettison destructive habits, and pursue new ways of living with creativity and conscience."—Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred review)

"The world as we know it has ended forever: that's the melancholy message of this nonetheless cautiously optimistic assessment of the planet's future by McKibben, whose The End of Nature first warned of global warming's inevitable impact 20 years ago. Twelve books later, the committed environmentalist concedes that the earth has lost the climatic stability that marked all of human civilization. His litany of damage done by a carbon-fueled world economy is by now familiar: in some places rainfall is dramatically heavier, while Australia and the American Southwest face a permanent drought; polar ice is vanishing, glaciers everywhere are melting, typhoons and hurricanes are fiercer, and the oceans are more acidic; food yields are dropping as temperatures rise and mosquitoes in expanding tropical zones are delivering deadly disease to millions. McKibben's prescription for coping on our new earth is to adopt maintenance as our mantra, to think locally not globally, and to learn to live lightly, carefully, gracefully—a glass-half-full attitude that might strike some as Pollyannaish or merely insufficient. But for others McKibben's re...

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±1±: Best Buy EDIT of 2 August 2010: However great the mind or the man, we all make mistakes. Paul Hawkins made his with Monsanto, I've made mine. ClimateGate established with clarity the fraud associated with both the fabricated science and the intended "sub-prime mortgaging" of the Earth's atmosphere. Maurice Strong and Al Gore are pushing fraud, not fixing. Mercury and sulfer and methane are bigger problems than carbon, and global warming is a small element--not even close to being the main event--within Environmental Degradation, threat #3 after poverty and infectious disease. It troubles me when people vote against the messenger--McKibben is a great man--he's also made a mistake. Get over it and do more reading, integrate more, and it will all come out fine.

I was so annoyed with the narrow first third that glorifies the likes of Al Gore, Thomas Friedman, and Larry "women can't think like scientists" Summers that I was actually contemplating three stars. This is a weakly researched book that buys into the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Maurice Strong carbon fraud, while ignoring the vastly more intelligent findings of the High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility--Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, in which Environmental Degradation is #3 and more broadly defined.

Any book that quotes the discredited James Hansen of NASA and that builds a case around Op-Eds and undocumented assertions is a stain upon scholarship, and the first third of this book falls into that sinkhole. Despite many references to the Copenhagen summit, there is not a word in this book about ClimateGate (see the Rolling Update at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog) and therefore I find this author guilty of active misrepresentation in this specific instance. The author is spending too much time with newspapers and not enough time with books representing the distilled reflections of others.

Having said that, and deducted one star for the lapse, I find the balance of the book absorbing, fascinating, and rich in gems of insight and fact. It should be read in conjunction with:

Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update
Human Scale
High Noon 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them
The Future of Life
Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Natural Disaster in America
The Next Catastrophe: Reducing Our Vulnerabilities to Natural, Industrial, and Terrorist Disasters
The Real Global Warming Disaster: Is the Obsession with "Climate Change" Turning Out to Be the Most Costly Scientific Blunder in History?
Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, Revised and Updated 5th Anniversary Edition: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits

My criticism and praise of this important work are based on the above and the other 1,600 non-fiction reviews I have posted to Amazon, all more easily accessible in 98 reading categories at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Network.

Early points that got my attention:

+ Altered planet (elsewhere I have read that changes to the Earth that once took 10,000 years now take three years

+ Need to scale back, strive to restore 58-60 degree Fahrenheit global average

+ Every additional degree in Celsius brings with it roughly 6% more lightning that starts forest fires and tundra fires

+ The number of abandoned boats on the shores once populated by fisherman is beyond alarming

+ Excellent analogies by the author of what is needed (mindful that we have blown trillion we did not have on the Iraq-Afghanistan misadventures and the bailing out of criminally-unethical Wall Street speculators)

- Green Manhattan Project
- Ecological New Deal
- Clean-tech Apollo mission

Biomimicry, Ecological Economics (Herman Daly), True Cost, Cradle to Cradle, and Sustainable Design are not in this book. This is an Op-Ed survey that is also very weak on history (Civil War to 9/11) hence the book is unbalanced. It is so busy sounding the carbon fraud alarm it ignores mercury and sulfur while also ignoring all the other terrible things we do to wheat and corn and other crops through pesticides, genetics, political mis-direction, and active fraud.

There is also nothing in this book about the human brain, moving into the sea, or the forthcoming disclosure of extraterrestrial technologies and cultures that are beginning to sweep through governments (see the free online DVD "The Day Before Disclosure," summarized and linked with many books at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog.

Other details that impress:

+ Impact of global warming on mosquitoes spreading disease among humans, and beetles spreading disease among trees.

+ Impact of floods in Bangladesh and other previously war-torn countries in surfacing and relocating land-mines that took years to mark and isolate.

+ Generic discussion of how shortages of land and water lead to war.

The second half of the book is easily five-star stuff, focusing on the management of a graceful decline. The author is, however, oblivious to crime and corruption and the many reasons why a power shift is going to be needed that elevates the five billion poor while isolating the damage that the Rothchilds and their banks can do.

He prescribes:

01 Mature
02 Stop doing many things--move to Slow Food, Slow City, Slow Money
03 Decentralize and scale back
04 Local first, local currencies, keep money local
05 Change concept of national security from global to local
06 Recognize the cost of global war at the local level to local taxpayers
07 Achieve food security across America (where I might add, poverty is doubling)
08 Restore small family farms as "just right" mix of scale and product cost to consumer
09 Stop pesticides so fish can be part of water-flooded crops--elsewhere I have read that the only two sustainable forms of agriculture today are those of the Amish and the Cubans
10 Change world diet (Frances Lappe Moore addresses this in Diet for a Small Planet)
11 Reverse the use of oil as a substitute for human muscle, revert to people-intensive processes

+ I learn that a gallon of diesel can move a ton 59 miles by truck, 514 miles by barge

+ The author touches on the hidden wealth of communities and relationships, this is an emerging field of literature, see the brilliant book, Hidden Wealth of Nations

+ Livestock (and I would add pets) are 50% of the global warming problem (to which I would add also the feces in ground water and then vegetables problem)

+ Conservation means no less than a 20% cut in present uses of fossil fuels

+ Author cites Anthony Lovins with respect to being able to cut oil use by 50% and electricity by 75% with proper conservation processes.

+ LOCAL wind turbines and solar are stressed, instead of the mega farms that have been proposed

+ Author believes that fossil fuel consumption must be cut by a factor of 20

+ The Internet, rather than driving places, will be the novelty machine that also creates social capital via electronic mail and forums--I am impressed by how local forums create local community in what were once "bedroom" sprawl areas.

The concluding insight is alone worth the price of the book: eliminate middlemen and intermediaries everywhere, this will cut prices in half while also conserving fuel and other costs associated with layers of control and price increases that are simply not necessary.

Citing Phillip Longman and T. A. Frank on page 106, he speaks of "informational capital" and the manner in which centralization and the disconnect between those granting loans and those servicing them helped fuel the sub-prime mortgage crisis--this is of course after Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX) and the other 99 unethical Senators passed the deregulation bill written by lobbyists, without reading it.
on Sale!

• The End of Nature
• Down to the Wire: Confronting Climate Collapse
• Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity
• Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future
• State of the World 2010: Transforming Cultures: From Consumerism to Sustainability (State of the World)

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