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John Allen (right) at the book launch for "Me and the Biospheres"; with Ecoversity web editor Stephen Miller (left) and the poet Rose (center).
(see more pics)
Photos: Lisa Law
| Ecoversity: Recent Books of Note | ||||
 
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Eaarth
Making a life on a tough new planet Bill McKibben Bill McKibben's latest book is an earnest and important effort to help humanity come to terms with the facts of anthropogenic climate destabilization, to understand and prepare for what will likely happen in the years to come, and to familiarize us with the ways we can already now start building a sustainable future and ameliorating the worst effects of our impacts on Earth systems. If you had to read only one book on climate change, it's consequences for us, and what we can do about it, this is it. (If 2, then include James Hansen's "Storms of My Grandchildren" reviewed below.) Here are some representative passages from "Eaarth": "For the ten thousand years that constitute human civilisation, we've existed in the sweetest of sweet spots. The temperature has barely budged; globally averaged, it's swung in the narrowest of ranges, between 58 and 60 degrees Fahrenheit. That's warm enough that the ice sheets retreated from the centers of our continents so we could grow grain, but cold enough that mountain glaciers provided drinking and irrigation water to those plains and valleys year round; it was the 'correct' temperature for the marvelously diverse planet that seems right to us. And every aspect of our civilisation reflects that particular world. . . "But we no longer live on that planet. . . the earth has changed in profound ways, ways that have already taken us out of the sweet spot where humans for so long thrived . . . The world hasn't ended, but the world as we know it has- even if we don't know it yet. We imagine we still live back on that old planet, that the disturbances we see around us are the old random and freakish kind. But they're not. It's a different place. A different planet. It needs a new name. Eaarth. ". . . We'll need to change; to cope with the new Eaarth we've created. We'll need, chief among all things, to get smaller and less centralized, to focus not on growth but on maintenance, on a controlled decline from the perilous heights to which we've climbed . . . The momentum of the heating, and the momentum of the economy that powers it, can't be turned off quickly enough to prevent hideous damage. But we will keep fighting, in the hope that we can limit that damage. And in the process, with many others fighting similar battles, we'll help build the architecture for the world that comes next, the dispersed and localized societies that can survive the damage we can no longer prevent. Eaarth represents the deepest of human failures. But we must still live on this world we've created- lightly, carefully, gracefully." - Bill McKibben, Eaarth |
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Storms of My Grandchildren
The truth about the coming climate catastrophe and our last chance to save humanity James Hansen James Hansen, dean of US climate scientists, first warned the world of the danger of radical climate change due to CO2 emissions a generation ago; he considers himself a scientist and 'not a communicator' and hoped that his research would be enough to motivate necessary policy changes. A few years ago he decided he had to do more, and he has been speaking out ever since. "Storms of My Grandchildren" is his first book, and as the title implies, represents his effort to set the record straight in a comprehensive way on the question of human-caused climate change, and deliver a blunt warning to us about our future on Earth. Hansen's book is a review of the relatively short but lively history of climate science and the growing recognition- and denial- of the dangers of the use of fossil fuels. It is also a call to arms beyond political boundaries and especially the boundaries of what is deemed 'practical'. His critique of "cap and trade" as a policy response is devastating and convincing (he favors a carbon fee at the source), and he denounces the posturing, and double-dealing of polluters as well as the half-hearted and half-witted efforts of compromised NGOs.
In a chapter titled "The Venus Syndrome", Hansen looks at the case of Venus, whose own runaway greenhouse effect left it baked and desolate a long time ago, and explores where on the curve of our own climate forcing might lie our point of no return, where catastrophic runaway warming is initiated here on Earth. Hansen's fear is not so much of a 3° or 6° rise in global temperature, as that rising atmospheric CO2 brings us ever closer to Earth's point of no return. Hansen frequently uses the phrase "if we burn all the fossil fuel" instead of, for example, 'if we don't stop burning fossil fuels'. They mean of course the same thing, but his formulation has the advantage of spotlighting the total carbon injection, and then modeling the resulting climate forcing and climate change. Bottom line: If we burn all the fossil fuels, the ice sheets will melt entirely, raising sea levels by 250 feet, the warmer seas triggering the massive release of the methane hydrates, setting the stage for the runaway greenhouse.
Video: Hansen talks about "Storms of My Grandchildren" 'Storms' website / 'Storms' at Amazon
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The Empathic Civilization
The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis Jeremy Rifkin "a new rendering of human history and the meaning of human existence." Arianna Huffington has chosen The Empathic Civilization for this month's HuffPost Book Club. She writes: "The Emphatic Civilization is a fascinating book that boldly challenges the conventional view of human nature embedded in our educational systems, business practices, and political culture - a view that sees human nature as detached, rational, and objective, and sees individuals as autonomous agents in pursuit primarily of material self-interest. And it seeks to replace that view with a counter-narrative that allows humanity to see itself as an extended family living in a shared and interconnected world. "Please read The Empathic Civilization and join in our month-long discussion about it. Not only will Jeremy Rifkin be regularly blogging about the issues his book raises, we will also be featuring posts from over 30 of the world's leading scientists, scholars, and public policy intellectuals in a many fields, which will allow us to have a robust and informed discussion on what it will take to create and nurture a truly empathic civilization." (HuffPo Book Club) |
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An Ocean of Air
Why the Wind Blows and Other Mysteries of the Atmosphere Gabrielle Walker An Ocean of Air is a highly engaging history of the discovery of the nature of our world's atmosphere, and the reader will quickly discover there is much more to the story than he or she might have thought. Gabrielle Walker has been climate-change editor at Nature and features editor at New Scientist; she has presented many programs for the BBC, and is visiting professor at Princeton University. |
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Mycelium Running
Paul Stamets Willem Malten has reviewed "Mycelium Running" on his Vortex blog; here is an excerpt: Paul Stamets is a legendary observer of the fungi kingdom, and has been, ever since his first encounter with mushrooms as a forester some 30 years ago. They soon took over his imagination. Over the years Stamets wrote a series of beautiful books which generously informed an increasingly fungi-philic public on every step of his investigations into the life-form of mushrooms: their growth and cultivation, their phenomenal reach and expansive properties, their potential in medicine and environmental re-mediation strategies, and their key role as decomposers. "... Mycelium is the neurological network of nature....interlacing mosaics... information-sharing membranes... in constant molecular communication with its environment ..." (view full post at Vortex) - Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World 
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Gardening at the Dragon's Gate
Wendy Johnson "Wendy Johnson follows in the footsteps of Thoreau . . . Her book is succulent, full of surprises, wise, tender, tough, and delicious to read. It is for everyone who wants to live a rich, deep, life." - Jack Kornfield, author of The Path With Heart 
and After the Ecstasy, the Laundry
"A glorious book . . . deep philosophy with dirt beneath its fingernails." - Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economy 
and The End of Nature
"If Earth took a human voice, it would be Wendy's: wry, fierce, passionately attentive to detail, and so startling in its wild freedom it's almost scary.. . . This book is a tonic to the soul. I dare anyone to read it and not be shaken into a fuller, gladder life." - Joanna Macy, author of World as Lover, World as Self 
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Field Notes from a Catastrophe; Man, Nature, and Climate Change Elisabeth Kolbert Highly acclaimed in it's original form as a series in the New Yorker magazine, this smart and lucidly written book is composed of vignettes of the people who are in effect the scouts out there on the front lines of the approaching catastrophe of climate change. |
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With Speed and Violence: Why Scientists Fear Tipping Points in Climate Change
Fred Pearce This is an absolutely fascinating and compelling read... a survey in 37 chapters of the triggers to rapid climate change which most concern climate scientists now. No summary can do Pearce's book justice, so I'll defer to Lester Brown's endorsement from the book jacket: "If you want to quickly get up to date on climate change and its consequences, I recommend With Speed and Violence. If you can only read one book on climate change, this is it." |
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New Green History of the World
Clive Ponting Ponting masterfully surveys the impact of humanity on the biosphere of earth, starting with our hunter-gatherer period (99% of human history), the agricultural revolution, rapid population growth and the beginning of large scale human-caused exterminations (e.g. chapter 8, "The Rape of the World"), and through the petroleum age until now. This guide is an easy, compelling read, which in the end builds a portrait of our species' impact on the planet over the last 10,000 years, with many surprising narratives filling in the details along the way. Clive Ponting's "New Green History of the World" is the 2007 updated version of his 1992 "Green History of the World". |
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The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth
E.O Wilson The Harvard pioneer of conservation biology and creator of The Encyclopedia of Life, wrote this impassioned plea from a 'secular humanist' to a Southern Baptist pastor- a plea to fully appreciate the wonder of life on Earth and cooperate to preserve it in it's full healthy diversity. "In my opinion, Pastor, the ascent to Nature and the restoration of Eden do not need more spiritual energy. Of that, people have a superabundance. Rather, spiritual energy must be more broadly applied, and more exactly guided by an understanding of the human condition. Humanity's self-image has risen far during the past three hundred centuries. First lifted by religion and the creative arts, it can rise still higher on the wings of science." |
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The Superorganism
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Me and the Biospheres
John Allen From the press release: "Anyone suffering from the Global Warming Blues will cherish this uplifting account of the most ambitious environmental experiment of our time: Biosphere 2, a miniature Earth under glass, the world's largest laboratory for global ecology. John Allen's memoir, 'Me and the Biospheres' is a rich and complex narrative, filled with rollicking adventure, exceptional camaraderie and mind-bending science." |
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Browse recent Amazon listings: Climate Change
Eco-Sustainability
Oceana
Polar Warming
Earth Future
Bees and Beasts
Hosting Bounty
Biodiverse
Water
Films: Climate Change
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RSA Animate explains Rifkin's Empathic Civilization thesis
More Amazon Listings:
Climate Change
Eco-Sustainability
Oceana
Biodiversity
Water
Polar Warming
Earth Future
Bees and Beasts
Hosting Bounty
Films on Climate Change
Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization
Lester Brown's new book can be read or downloaded online at Earth Policy.
Lester Brown spoke at the Lensic in Santa Fe on Oct 29. Watch a 5-part Youtube sequence of Lester giving essentially the same presentation at Greenfest 08 here.
