Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet

With all of the obvious and not so obvious rapid planetary and political changes that are presently occurring, Bill McKibbens offers valuable insights and practicums to survive and thrive communally.

I once attended a conference at which Bill McKibben was the keynote speaker. It was my first exposure to the hard science of global warming (I'm sick of the term "global climate change"...let's call it what it is...), and I was deeply impressed by McKibben's presentation. I bought every one of his books soon after the conference. Then I tried to read one of them and was unable to get all the way through it. To be fair, it was partly due to differences in style preferences. (For example, I'm always bugged when an author refers to an expert in some field or another as "The" Harvard analyst, "The" political writer, and so on. My problem, not the author's.) But part of it was also due to what I found to be somewhat incoherent writing. That being said, I recently decided to give McKibben another chance and purchased Eaarth. I was disappointed to have my earlier impressions of his writing confirmed by finding incredibly crucial information for society packed in sadly sloppy arguments. Here are a few examples:1. McKibben states that it used to be the case that if a farmer planted corn where an ancestor farmer had planted, he or she could count on getting the same crop yield as could the ancestor. That is not true at all from an agronomic standpoint. One need only look as far as any of many prior collapses of civilizations (Anasazi, Easter Island, etc.) to see the failure of that logic. Even in un-failed civilizations in the stable Holocene-era climate, it wasn't true.2. National government is dismissed as being irrelevant to our current crisis since the apparent solution is dispersed and local rather than requiring huge, pooled financial resources such as those demanded for construction of the interstate highway system. This thinking ignores the realities of the nature of public goods and also ignores the important and powerful role national government plays in establishing rules of the commerce game. Case in point: If it weren't for national rule-making, our kids would still be breathing the fumes of leaded gasoline. State and local legislative decisions are not inherently superior in their outcomes to those made at the national level, nor are they any less susceptible to the influence of short-sighted business interests. Lead would still be part of the standard gasoline recipe if not for national action. The same type of power can be used for good once again if we can muster the grass-roots pressure that will force our elected representatives to address global warming in a serious way. 350.org is a great conduit for that type of pressure. Just don't dismiss the potential value of federal laws.3. I was really put off by McKibben's simplistic discussion of the fabric of future life. Okay, so we can produce food locally in many places, and we can generate quite a bit of heat using biomass (if we're lucky enough to live in a place where woody biomass can be grown in sufficient quantity or where there are enough cows producing enough poop to fuel our methane-producing digesters), and we can stay connected and entertained via the internet, but is McKibben's avoidance of other subjects such as transportation (of people, not food), medicine, clothing and hardware, etc. a statement that he believes those won't be available to the general public in the future world? Or is it that there wasn't room in his book to at least mention those complexities?4. Hydro and wind power are both treated as though unarguably benign. In reality, there are many complicating environmental issues related to hydropower. (Salmon, for one.) And many bird-lovers and biologists hate wind turbines not because they think turbines are ugly but because they are well-known for killing animals that fly. It may be that our best option necessarily includes building a dam in every possible canyon and putting up wind turbines everywhere the wind blows at least somewhat reliably, but a serious treatment of the subject demands at least a mention of the legitimate down-sides of these alternatives to coal-fired power plants.5. The last criticism I will mention here is more of a wish than anything else. It would have been nice if McKibben had more directly addressed the insane inefficiency of our existing housing infrastructure and had he presented any ideas about what we might do about it. I'm personally committed to making serious changes in how I live, but what do we do about our vast fleet of suburban stick-frame houses with almost zero thermal mass, pathetic insulation, wrong solar orientation, and long travel distances to any type of mass transit or commercial center? I'm living in a house that's all wrong, and replacing my windows, putting up solar panels and solar water heaters, and adding insulation to my attic isn't going to solve the problem. It's an energy hog any way you look at it. I make fairly good money, and even I couldn't possibly afford (or be able to finance) the kind of retrofit that would make my house anything but crazy from an energy standpoint. I can sell my house and build one that makes sense (those plans are in the works), but on a percentage basis, very few people in the U.S. can take that kind of action. If everyone tried to do it, the expanded new housing footprint and abandonment of embedded resources could be environmentally devastating. A transition to rational home design and in-place replacement of our existing housing stock is an essential part to freeing ourselves from dependence on centralized energy such as natural gas, heating oil, and large-scale power production. But the current housing and mortgage industries aren't set up to facilitate that type of transition. Localization of some parts of life won't resolve it, either. National leadership and revolutionary legislation (with teeth) may be essential to solving this difficult problem.I could add additional examples, but this has already been too long. Overall, I completely agree with McKibben on what our circumstances are and what lies ahead if we don't do something NOW to change our trajectory from the one on which humans have sent our climate. The science is pretty unambiguous on that. I'm a big fan of 350.org. I agree with McKibben that individual and local changes in habits and behavior can have immense influence on societal outcomes. What is most disappointing to me is that by being careless with some of his facts and by being a bit loose in his presentation, McKibben succeeds in undermining the credibility of climate science and gives doubters the space they need to justify keeping on doing what they're doing, which is running the planet into disaster.

In Eaarth, McKibben asserts that, due to climate change and the human activities that have driven it forward, we no longer live on the same planet that we did even a few decades ago. Therefore, he writes that we need to develop new habits in order to survive on it. He uses the first half of the book to show that climate change is problematic. In the second half, he outlines some potential solutions. One of his primary points is that we need to give up our political and economic pursuit of constant growth and adopt a lifestyle of maintenance. This transition will require us to relinquish our dependence on fossil fuels and to become smaller and less centralized. He claims that, by becoming smaller, we will also be able to develop stronger communities in which we contribute to the well-being of our neighbors rather than large, wealthy corporations. According to McKibben, we will never be able to get back to the conditions of a few decades ago, but with some drastic lifestyle changes, we can reach stability. He admits that the necessary changes will not come about easily or quickly.Overall, I thought this book was quite interesting. I found McKibben's subtle sense of humor entertaining, which kept the book from becoming dull. He provides a wealth of information and ideas. As someone who had never really given climate change much thought, I learned a great deal through this book. McKibben's proposed solutions primarily apply to the energy and food industries. Out of my own personal curiosity, I wish that he had spent more time discussing how he believes our transportation system should change. Although it's apparent that he thinks we should be traveling less, I would be interested in reading more detailed information. I also have mixed feelings about his claim that the Internet alone would keep our lives from becoming dull if we were to adopt simpler lives based in rural communities. Since we are so accustomed to a pursuit of novelty and entertainment, can it really be that simple? On the other hand, maybe that's his point. That lifestyle may not be as luxurious as the one we're used to, but if we are to survive, it will have to do.This is a very thought-provoking book that will inspire some people and could potentially upset others.

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 doesn't flinch from telling 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 addresses 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.

Amazing book... but who cares really? Habitat is lost, species extinct, oceans full of plastic. We don't care. But at least we will be entertained. If people cared, this book would be required reading. Since we don't, this is yet one more book from yet one more person who is pleading with this world to do something. I think it is too late though. Thanks for trying.

A masterful oversview of the planet's troubles is brought down to the local level where McKibben uses his knowledge and experience of Vermont small-scale farms and efficient food production systems to illustrate what has gone horribly wrong with megascale monoculture food systems. It's a must read--although things are changing so rapidly that it is already slightly out of date. Catch up with his latest book: Falter. And while you're at it, if you are American, read Dark Money by Jane Meyer. It's an eye opener and should be required reading for every US teenager approaching voting age.

Bill McKibben is awesome. What he does is awesome. This book is good, but others have done it better. Most memorable line is the title, Eaarth, because the world your children will inherit is not the world their grandparents grew up in.

While everyone else pussyfoots around the subject of humanity's impact on the planet we all inhabit, McKibben goes straight to the factual truth of the matter with undeniable details and "in your face" evidence. This may be a tough read for some folks who do not want to be held responsible or for those who expect things to go on as they have historically. It is more than a wake up call; it is a call to action. It is also a heads up for all of us who expect to be alive the day after tomorrow. HIGHLY recommended.