Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet: Amazon.ca: Bill McKibben: Books

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Book Description

Publication Date: Mar 15 2011

"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.

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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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Since he first heralded our era of environmental collapse in 1989's The End of Nature, Bill McKibben has raised a series of eloquent alarms. In Eaarth, he leads readers to the devastatingly comprehensive conclusion that we no longer inhabit the world in which we've flourished for most of human history: we've passed the tipping point for dramatic climate change, and even if we could stop emissions yesterday, our world will keep warming, triggering more extreme storms, droughts, and other erratic catastrophes, for centuries to come. This is not just our grandchildren's problem, or our children's--we're living through the effects of climate change now, and it's time for us to get creative about our survival. McKibben pulls no punches, and swaths of this book can feel bleak, but his dry wit and pragmatic optimism refuse to yield to despair. Focusing our attention on inspiring communities of "functional independence" arising around the world, he offers galvanizing possibilities for keeping our humanity intact as the world we've known breaks down. --Mari Malcolm --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

" '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. Earth with one "a," according to McKibben, no longer exists. We have carbonized it out of existence. Two-a Eaarth is now our home."—The New York Times Book Review

"A passionate appeal. . . . McKibben's engaging and persuasive book will add greatly to the sense of urgency. It will add realism to the case for strong adaptation to the changes that our past and current actions are bringing to our natural world."—The New York Review of Books

"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

"Bill McKibben [is] probably the nation's leading environmentalist... Important strands of environmental thought merge in McKibben's new book, making for some truly scary reading and prompting urgent questions about the nature of the environmental catastrophe at hand... [Eaarth] offers a view of economic growth not typically encountered in mainstream discussion, with all its moral dimensions unmasked and clarified... The urgency of his moral advocacy demands attention."—The Boston Globe

"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

"If one book can help, this is it."—Winnipeg Free Press

"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

"What I have to say about this book is very simple: Read it, please. Straight through to the end. Whatever else you were planning to do next, nothing could be more important."—Barbara Kingsolver, author of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

"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, 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."—Tim Flannery, author of The Weather Makers and The Eternal Frontier

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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Old facts mixed with new ideas May 18 2010

By Matthew Sanderson TOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

The planet we once knew as Earth is gone, and we must learn to survive on this strange new world we now inhabit -- Eaarth. This is the basis of Bill McKibben's latest book; one half being the same old, the other being some interesting, some might say radical, ideas.

If you've ever read a book with global warming or climate change as its topic before, you'll know to be ready to be overwhelmed by a myriad of numbers, some interesting, some not so much -- some being ones you've already read. The first half of the book is concerned with convincing us that global warming is a current reality; however, if you're reading this book, you likely already believe it is. We already know global warming is responsible, directly or indirectly, for many a bad thing -- bad things we've already read about a hundred times over from other authours writing on the subject (and McKibben himself in his previous works). I felt this re-analysis of the effects of climate change could have been shortened without drastically reducing the impact of the text.

If, however, you get past the beginning, you'll find Mr. McKibben actually presents some interesting thoughts. He advocates for smaller communities, a clear connection to the land we live on, and a smaller, more localized, variety of economies safe from global catastrophe such as a world-wide recession. As McKibben says, bigger is not always better.

While the first part of the book is largely negative in tone, the second is positive -- perhaps too positive. How do you show a populace already convinced of their need for iPods and iPads that there is another, more fulfilling, way? One based on community, not material gain? Unfortunately, he doesn't give us that answer.

Overall, while not a ground-breaking work, McKibben does present some ideas to mull over and to consider. I only wish he had have concentrated more on presenting his ideas on how to live on this new Eaarth, instead of showing us, again, why global warming is such a bad thing. Not likely to convince those who are not already convinced, it will at the very least, make you think.

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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Eaarth, by Bill McKibben May 27 2010

By Dorothy Cutting

Format:Hardcover

Bill McKibben says the reason his book's title has an extra "A" is we're already living on a different planet, because so much has changed in such a short time. We have to look at our world in a different way to understand this.

His easy way of writing, laced with humour and unforgettable images, make this book readily understandable for everyone. And it's short: You can read it in just a few days.

In the first half, he explains how life on our planet today has been changed by global warming, Some of what you read will surprise you and even shock you, but all of it is interesting.

On page 99, he starts writing about solutions -- possibilities for our future and methods for adapting to our new environment. He writes, "Like someone lost in the woods, we need to stop running, sit down, see what's in our pockets that might be of use, and start figuring out what steps to take."

He tells us how we can manage the changes that will be affecting our lives, rather than just let them happen to us. He says, "We've got to make our societies safer, and that means making them smaller. It means, since we live on a different planet, a different kind of civilization." He describes how we can make this very different world workable -- "how we might keep the lights on, the larder full, and spirits reasonably high."

Alan Weisman, author of The World Without Us, writes, "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 you faith in the future, with us in it."

I'll give this book five stars any day. My children and grandchildren will be getting copies to keep by their bedsides, to be read and re-read in the years to come.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Here's where we are, here's what we can do Nov 7 2012

By Mark Young TOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:Paperback

Devastating, horrifying and hopeful. This is a new book by the author of "The End of Nature," which was written twenty years ago to warn us of the dangers of climate change if we didn't act quickly to reverse the amount of carbon emissions. Well, guess what, we didn't listen and in fact everything is much worse now. And not only that, the author admits that he was wrong in some of his predictions - wrong about how quickly things would begin to change. They are changing much faster than anybody anticipated.

This chronicle of "Earth with an extra 'a'" is the news of what is happening now and what will come along very soon. Even if we act now, and get total carbon under 350 parts per million, we have gone too far along to reverse certain key trends which are already in motion. We are just going to have to live with this new planet we have built for ourselves. The stable planet that sustained civilization for 10,000 years is gone, McKibben says, and the new one he calls "Eaarth" will not be as hospitable to humans.

But give the guy credit... instead of spending forever on "I told you so," he does get down and dirty with a prescription for making positive change for the future. If he can be hopeful, I guess I can, too.

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