Red Cedar

Following a long foray into fiction to the exclusion of anything else, I’ve had a spate of non-fiction come into my life this month – thanks to the Vancouver Public Library online ordering system which spit several books out to me just as my union/work schedule was getting quiet. This is the first of three I am reviewing this week. The other two (both) by Rebecca Solnit will come tomorrow.

Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet | Bill McKibben
There are a number of quotes peppering the bookjacket that impress upon the reader the need to read this book, which made me wary at first. I have grown a bit tired of the “you have to read this” work on climate change, peak oil, and environmental collapse in general – particularly after coming out of some fairly radical environmental work. I’m pretty sure I know all the stats and I worry that reading more of them will just trigger me in ways that are stressful rather than energizing. But I picked up Eaarth anyway – and was compulsed to read it to the very end.

McKibben makes a forceful argument that the world we grew up in exists no longer, that climate change and resource depletion have combined in ways that are *right now* altering everything about our existence, even if we don’t realize it quite yet. This changed planet is so different from our old one that it needs a new name – hence the title Eaarth. His statistics and anecdotes are well-researched and hard-hitting – I found myself both incredulous and outraged for the first two chapters of the book as McKibben unrolls proof after proof of the planet’s changing ecosystems, the refusal of government decision-makers to take the crisis seriously, and what this potentially means to the future of human and animal life. But at the same time he doesn’t shut the door on the possibility of change, or the possibility of survival on the planet.

A friend of mine described hearing McKibben on the radio talking about the book and his organization 350.org as “presenting the most humane and compassionate argument I have heard on this subject” – which is the way he writes this very hard reality. In Eaarth, the ways in which we might change our approach to each other and our global habits are outlined in ways that seem practical – almost do-able. If only we can convince communities to act together to bring change on the macro level. If only we can work in our neighbourhoods to bring change right now on the micro level. It means a global commitment to bringing carban dioxide emissions down below 350 ppm and staying there. I means a local commitment to equality, community, and valuing life in everything that we do. It means more bicycles and less cars. It means more solar and community gardens. It also means ensuring that the message gets up through the chain that the people won’t support governments who don’t support life any longer. Which is all a tall order, but as McKibben argues, an essential one if life is to continue on the new planet Eaarth.

Even McKibben isn’t sure if it’s all too little, too late which is one of the things I appreciate most about his writing. He has the same doubts many of us have about our ability to do the things we need in order that to survive. But at the same time he understands the need for positive hope in examining the communities that are already working towards the change required for survival. Getting off the grid, producing more food right at the doorstep, developing networks of community support. There is a growing movement of this sort in North America and Europe – and there are growing movements of pressure in less-developed nations on the industrial world to change now, or else. Which is the small candle we need to hold to our future prospects.

I can’t recommend this book enough, for the importance of its argument and clarity of vision. For its compassion, and its hope. At first I was going to say – activists everywhere need to read this – but I think this is a book for everyone who wants to know where things stand and where they could end up if we don’t work together. If we don’t evolve towards a kinder, smaller, world.