Tough New World – A Review of Eaarth

Posted by: Keith Meatto on: June 2, 2011

• In: Book Reviews | Books
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Emergency on Planet Eaarth

Humanity ravished Mother Nature and Mother Nature fought back. Thanks to global warming, ice caps and glaciers are melting, forests and wetlands are vanishing, and temperatures and sea levels are rising, along with famine, disease, and natural disasters. Meanwhile, we’re running out of fossil fuels, the lifeblood of modern life and, ironically, the fuel that is speeding its destruction. Even if the world miraculously got green overnight, it’s too late now to undo all the damage, but if we dig down and get creative, we can cut our losses and insure our survival.

This is the essence of Eaarth: Making A Life on a Tough New Planet. In his latest book, writer and activist Bill McKibben adds an ‘a’ to the word ‘Earth’ as a way to argue that human despoliation has made the planet fundamentally different, i.e. worse, than ever before in its history. We will never live on “Earth” again, he says, but if we play our cards right, we can engineer a “relatively graceful decline” for life on “Eaarth.”

McKibben speaks with authority. Some 20 years ago, he was among the first to write about global warming for a popular audience. He has published more than a dozen books and in 2009, organized a environmental campaign that CNN called “the most widespread day of political action in the planet’s history”

Early in the book, McKibben promises to make the reader’s eyes glaze over with statistics –and he keeps his word. Still, Eaarth stays lively with anecdotes about the author’s visits to China and Bangladesh and life in his current home of Vermont, which he sees as a microcosm of the world and a model for reform. Elsewhere, he lightens the tone with folksy analogies. Americans’ dependence on oil is “a 5,000 mile straw through which we suck hydrocarbons from the Persian Gulf.” If the Third World is a man on a treadmill, the First World is a sadistic personal trainer with his hands on the controls. Our current economic policy is “a jolt of Viagra” that has temporarily invigorated a flaccid system, but can’t make the good times last all night.

In the first half of the book, McKibben plays the prophet of doom with a litany of crises and natural disasters and predicts a future of compounded catastrophes. Through repetition and emphasis, the message is clear: Ecocide equals suicide. Or as McKibben says: “We’re running Genesis backward: decreation.” Along the way, McKibben doesn’t vilify specific corporations, polluters, or politicians (though he does take several potshots at New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman). Instead, he says we’re all responsible for the sickness –and health—of the planet.

In the second half, McKibben turns sunnier and more pragmatic. As he admits, any solutions will take time, money, sacrifice, and ingenuity. Many of his remedies are familiar. Up with bicycles and public transportation. Down with cars and SUVs.  Up with local, organic farms with diverse crops. Down with factory farms and monocultures. Up with farmer’s markets and community gardens. Down with supermarkets and Wal-Marts.

One of his larger ideas is to curb our addiction to economic growth. He acknowledges the position is “un-American,” but says that we don’t have any choice. Americans may think we are exceptional, but compared to the power of nature we’re as vulnerable as anyone on Earth. Or for that matter, Eaarth.

Keith Meatto is co-editor of Frontier Psychiatrist. He recently reviewed The Death of the Liberal Class by Chris Hedges and The Pale King by David Foster Wallace.

Tags: Bill McKibben, Books, Climate Change, Environment