The End of Nature: Tenth Anniversary Edition [Paperback]

End of Nature is filled with errors, and although it uses apparently scientific data, the author is not concerned with accuracy or precision. In discussing his use of scientific information, and the response to the first edition of End of Nature, he states, "The science, however, was only one part of the original book - and not its most important." (p.xix) From here on out, the book is whines and compaints, nothing more.

For an example of incorrect data, take this gaffe "Trees and forest still cover about 40 percent of the land on the earth, but this area has shrunk by about a third since preagricultural times, and that shrinkage, it goes without saying, is accelerating." (p14 End of Nature). This claim is not only misleading, but false.

First of all, we have no concrete measurements for how much forest there may have been in preagricultural times. Secondly, the argument doesn't account for the growth of other perfectly valid and helpful environments, such as grasslands, that sometimes exude more oxygen than forests. But here's the biggest problem. Regarding forests, in the last century in the U.S. despite a fivefold increase in population, the percentage of land space covered by forests has remained constant - about one-third of the total land space. World forestland has also held steady over the last fifty years. That's right, steady.

At the same time world food yield per acre has DOUBLED since 1950, while world food prices fell by HALF from 1965 to 1990. We have been becoming more efficient farmers, better environmentalists who provide more and better food to the world, using less land, and at cheaper prices. In America, less farmers now produce more food and more efficiently. We feed three times as many people with one third the number of farmers on one-third less farmland than in 1900. With less than a fifth of the world's population, American ingenuity and resourcefulness now produces almost a quarter of the world's food

McKibben does not even provide a bibliography for his claims. The reader has no normal scholarly way to check his claims.

I'll tell you where I got my counter-statistics: Statistical Abstract of the United States, and, the eminent Julian Simon (read all his books, he won't let you down!)You can check my facts at your nearest local library.

McKibben's basic argument is that our relationship with the concept of "nature" as something separate and wild has changed, and in our pursuit for "a better life," we have totally wrecked the environment (p. 48). By changing the weather, for instance, we have altered every spot on earth, depriving nature of its independence, leaving "nothing but us" (p. 58). Stated differently, we have ended nature's separation from human society (p. 64).

Because nature provides us with a sense of comfort, reading THE END OF NATURE is not a happy experience. McKibben has issued a wake-up call, and his book should be required reading for any global-warming skeptic, or for anyone who drives a SUV. As Thoreau said, we are living lives of quiet desparation--we enjoy the consumptive, easy life. However, as McKibben's compelling argument demonstrates, such a lifestyle is incompatible with the well being of our planet. He encourages us not only to change the way we act, but also to change the way we think by adopting the radical notion that we learn to respect nature "for its own sake," as a "realm beyond the human," and give it "room to recover" from the damage we have done (pp. 174-77). This book was a life changer that prompted me, in part, to move from the concrete, urban sprawl of Phoenix, Arizona to Boulder, where there is a respect for open space, and where it is still possible to have a humble relationship with nature.

G. Merritt