Download Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet AudioBook Free
"Read it, please. Right through to the conclusion. Whatever else you were likely to do next, nothing at all could become more important." —Barbara Kingsolver
Twenty years ago, with The End of Character, Costs McKibben offered one of the initial warnings about global warming. Those warnings proceeded to go largely unheeded; now, he insists, we have to acknowledge that we've waited too much time, and that substantial change isn't just inescapable but already under way. Our old familiar globe is instantly melting, drying, acidifying, flooding, and burning up with techniques that no people has ever before 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 up with new binds and traps. A changing world costs large amounts to defend—think of the money that went to repair New Orleans, or the trillions it will require to convert our energy systems. However the endless economic expansion that can underwrite such largesse is determined by the stable planet we've were able to damage and degrade. We can't rely on old behaviors any more.
Our hope is based, McKibben argues, on scaling again—on building the type of societies and economies that can hunker down, concentrate on essentials, and create the sort of community (in the neighborhood, but also on the web) that allows us to weather trouble by using an unprecedented level. Change—fundamental change—is our best expectation on a planet instantly and violently out of balance.
