Down to the Wire: Confronting Climate Collapse [Paperback]

Dr. David Orr is a university professor, trustee of a major environmental group called the Bioneers, and a participant in the Presidential Climate Action Project, which proposed global warming policies to the incoming Obama administration. In this book, he presents a case that our present form of society is doomed. Either we change it ourselves, or it will be extinguished by the stresses of climate change. Dr. Orr devotes his book to advocating the former, and to discussing how it might be done.

The scope of Dr Orr's thinking is quite impressive, to put it mildly. Readers of this book can expect numerous provocative references to writings in the fields of science, philosophy, law, government, religion, psychology, economics, ethics, history and political science. Dr. Orr discusses the ideas of a wide range of thinkers, from Deuteronomy to eighteenth-century English conservative Edmund Burke to the latest from the scientists working on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The list of sources at the back of the book is more than twenty pages long, and each is referenced somewhere in the body of the book. Dr. Orr locates the source of our troubles not with the greed of modern capitalists, but with the shortcomings of the Enlightenment philosophers and their predecessors; he singles out Francis Bacon, Rene Descartes, and Galileo, who, despite their great accomplishments, taught us to man is separate from nature, that mind is separate from body, and that whatever cannot be counted doesn't count(123, 147).

Dr. Orr begins his case with the assertion that we should have started working on climate change thirty years ago. We did not, and now we have used up our margin of safety. We have to cut carbon emissions 90 percent by 2050, and there is no time to lose.
I don't know enough science to know whether Dr. Orr is right about our margin. But I do know that a large number of the scientists doing climate change work agree with his sense of urgency. Anyone is free to disagree, of course. But those who do so need to be aware of the risks they are taking with posterity's lives. If we keep on merrily producing greenhouse gases, and the scientists turn out to have been right, we will have gambled and lost on the biggest bet in human history.

So, if we take the prudent course and commit to the changes needed to avoid climate disaster, Dr. Orr has a lot to say to us. He unequivocally denounces the gospel of economic growth (31), points out that corporations have no interest in the long-term future (36), and observes that we have no system of governance adequate to the tasks presented by climate change. (35)
He demolishes, at length and in detail, the mindset that treats climate change as a technical problem amenable to technical fixes. The buildup of dangerous concentrations of pollutants in the atmosphere is only one symptom among many; the others include our unwillingness to provide a living for millions of people (politely termed 'poverty'), greed, war, and the whole familiar panoply of social failings. He argues that all of these point to a fundamental failure of our model of civilization (160)
He calls for decentralized production of food and energy (175) and for democratic decisionmaking (63-67)
He has not the slightest confidence that corporations can play a constructive role without active government guidance. He calls on us to rein in their power and reminds us that the grant of a corporate charter comes with an expectation that the public interest will be served (208).
He thinks global capitalism is headed for history's ash heap, alongside communism, and calls on us to develop a better alternative.
He advocates the idea of the rights of posterity, a concept which has no standing in current law, and calls for a Constitutional amendment to protect it (72-76, 208)
He features extensive, and terrifying, descriptions of what climate change would really mean (17-21, 182-184)
Dr. Orr calls - not surprisingly - for better leadership, and opens his third chapter with extended discussions of Lincoln's leadership during the Civil War and Franklin Roosevelt's Hundred Days. The essential thing about Lincoln's transformative leadership, according to Dr. Orr, is that he held close to fundamental principles (slavery is wrong, the Constitution and the nation must be preserved) and sought to achieve healing and unity rather than demonizing his opponents. He understood that slavery was the fundamental issue of the day, taking priority over all others (tariffs, growth, etc). In that spirit, Dr. Orr calls on leaders to eschew sugar coatings, happy talk, and other forms of condescension, and to pay the public the compliment of assuming it can handle the truth.
His real faith, however, is in the grass roots, and he closes his book with stories of how local governments, universities, churches and citizens' groups are taking the lead in developing new economies.

Dr. Orr aims to provoke with this book, and he succeeds. His tone can be off-putting, his assumptions may not be entirely correct. But for anyone who has ever wondered whether business-as-usual is really sustainable in the face of modern problems, he provides an abundance of ideas about how we might order human affairs differently. For those who want to take action against climate change, he provides encouragement and inspiration by example. He makes a case that might lead to despair, but calls us to heed our better angels and overcome the most monumental challenge in history.

If there were only one book on climate change, would I pick this one?

No. But not because there is anything wrong with its content. I don't have any complaints about the material, except to say Orr hasn't written this book for Joe and Jane Public. Trust me. This is not a book for those who enjoy American Idol's preliminary screenings!

David Orr says climate change is coming. This is not news, since every (and I mean EVERY) professional scientific organization, from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) to the American Geophysical Union (AGU), agrees that the climate is out of wack, and getting weirder. There are many popular books that say this as well.

Orr's book is more of a... complaint? Work on the issue faster and harder? Take it more seriously? Blame Bush and the industries in bed with the petro-companies?

His writing style, and this book, is not for the Outdoor Life crowd. It is more for the Atlantic Monthly crowd. And since it, in many places, is critical of that same crowd, what is Orr expecting? "The 'American way of life' is thought to be sacrosanct. In the face of a global emergency, brought on in no small way by the profligate American way of life, few are willing to say otherwise. So we are told to buy hybrid cars, but not asked to walk, bike, or make fewer trips, even at the end of the ear of cheap oil. we are asked to buy compact fluorescent light bulbs, but not to turn off our electronic stuff or avoid buying it in the first place. We are admonished to buy green, but seldom asked to buy less or repair what we already have or just do without. We are encouraged to build LEED-rated buildings that are used for maybe ten hours a day for five days a week, but we are not asked to repair existing buildings or told that we cannot build our way out of the mess we've made. We are not told that the consumer way of life will have to be rethought and redesigned to exist within the limits of natural systems. And so we continue to walk north on that southbound train" (p. 186-187).

"We are now engaged in a global conversation about the issues of human longevity on Earth, but no national leader has yet done what Lincoln did for slavery and placed the issue of sustainability in its larger moral context. It is still commonly regarded, here and elsewhere, as one of many issues on a long and growing list, not as the linchpin that connects all of the other issues" (p. 88).

This depends on who you talk to, of course. If you are talking to the Deer Hunting with Jesus crowd, or the Dittohead crowd, there's no conversation even on a local level. In the US, global warming is not considered an issue by the millions of poor (although it will certainly affect the poor), and seemingly only a fund-raising opportunity for the right-wing political pundits (who milk this cow very successfully). Prius owners may think they speak for the trees, but for the tens of millions on government assistance, or in need of assistance, they are simply considered owners of an elite car. By the way, I don't own a Prius, but I did buy a used Civic Hybrid, as well as an ultra-low emission conventional gas car. I normally bike, bus, or carpool to work (except car-free Fridays... no cars).

What else does Orr claim?

"There is no simple remedy for public apathy, carelessness, ignorance, or meanness, but there is a steep price to be paid if such qualities become the national character. ...Whether or not we have reached the level of farce or tragedy, it is clear that the press is no longer the alert watchman it once may have been and that it no longer plays the role the founders thought necessary for a healthy democracy" (p. 61). The New York Times and the Washington Post don't play this role? This seems to be an indictment of the broader issue of "dumbing down" the news. Thank you, FOX Broadcasting!

"It is clear by now that we have seriously underestimated the magnitude and speed of the human destruction of nature, but we seem powerless to stop it" (p. 122). Agreed. Why? "We tend... to see things that are large and fast but not those that are small and slow. It is harder for us to see and to properly fear long-term trends, such as soil erosion over centuries or the nearly invisible disappearance of species. ... We know, too, that we are prone to deny uncomfortable realities at both the personal level and the societal level" (p. 163).

"A great deal now depends on what we do to develop the stamina, vision, and institutional resources necessary to carry the best of civilization through to the other side" (p. 160). And who defines "the best of civilization"?

"What do I propose? Simply this: that those who purport to lead us, and all of us who are concerned about climate change, environmental quality, and equity, treat the public as intelligent adults who are capable of understanding the truth and acting creatively and courageously in the face of necessity - much as a doctor talking to a patient with a potentially terminal disease" (p. 189).

So, if I can sum up Orr's message, it is these sixteen words: "We need to do something about climate change. Now. All of us. Leaders and leadership welcome."

I expect to be dinged for, of all things, not giving Orr's book five stars. So it goes. However, it's worth the paper it is printed on (and the carbon it took to produce) IF some readers don't use it as another justification why, with their Prius, they can commute to their work 40 miles away everyday (and 40 miles back) and think they are doing what it takes to solve the climate crisis, IF local, state, and national leaders find their backbones, or IF every reader, every day, does SOMETHING to support a sustainable world. I believe Orr would pass this test. I think I do. But there are millions of people who listen to talk show hosts every day repeating the mantra that the climate change crowd is unAmerican. Somehow, I don't think Orr's book has an answer to that. And I wish it did.

David Orr is the Moses of our times. I have read all the books he has written since discovering him a year ago at the Bioneers conference in San Rafael. In DOWN TO THE WIRE, he critiques cultural and constitutional history bedrocked by current scientific research aided by incisive analysis and steered by a faith that unerringly speaks truth to power and calls out the best in us. Words fail me in describing his erudition, expertise, and ineffable determination to stand up for life and for all of us and our children and all future generations of humans and all our relations on this exquisite planet. David Orr's newest book should be on the Christmas list for all those who care about and support life.

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