Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet Top Quality

Bill McKibben is a really excellent writer, with a smooth, clever prose style. His books are always a good read. In this one, though, the content doesn't match the style.

There are two parts. In the first, he summarizes our environmental problems, especially global warming, which has gone too far for us to avoid terrible problems. We also face severe economic troubles, due to peak oil and huge debts. He draws many connections between the environment and the financial crisis that began in 2008. And he reviews the peak oil theory and the link between upcoming oil shortages, the world economy, and the end of globalization.

In the second part, he advocates that we give up the idea of constant growth and progress, and reconcile ourselves to a declining and shrinking economy. He advocates smaller political and economic structures and more localized economies, as he did in his earlier books, Enough and Deep Economy. There are some bizarre passages, like his quick history of US Federalism and the growth of the national government.

He is certainly correct about global warming, although he should be citing scientific sources, like the IPCC reports, not selected newspaper articles. The media have a history of sensationalizing everything and only present the far extreme part of any possibilities. The scientists more calmly, describe a range of possibilities, with the less awful being as likely as the most. No matter what, the future looks bleak enough to justify taking action, although total collapse is unlikely. In any event, our species will survive nicely. Even if the population of homo sapiens drops to one billion, as James Lovelock predicts, it would not be a catastrophe, if we take a long view of population history. The environmentalists' task remains protecting nature until the human plague recedes.

Would I recommend the book? It's not bad but there are two much better environmental books, more science based. These are Whole Earth Discipline by Stewart Brand and The Coming Population Crash by Fred Pearce. Brand is one of the founders of modern environmentalism; McKibben is just the sort of Romantic environmentalist that Brand skewers. Pearce is a veteran reporter with New Scientist; his book discusses the surprising drop in human fertility and its possible consequences. A reader would get much more information from these than from Bill McKibben's disorganized, illogical jeremiad.




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