Recensori in anteprimaBill McKibben

Thirty years ago Bill McKibben offered one of the earliest warnings about climate change. Now he broadens the warning: the entire human game, he suggests, has begun to play itself out. Bill McKibben’s groundbreaking book The End of Nature -- issued in dozens of languages and long regarded as a classic -- was the first book to alert us to global warming. But the danger is broader than that: even as climate change shrinks the space where our civilization can exist, new technologies like artificial intelligence and robotics threaten to bleach away the variety of human experience. Falter tells the story of these converging trends and of the ideological fervor that keeps us from bringing them under control. And then, drawing on McKibben’s experience in building 350.org, the first truly global citizens movement to combat climate change, it offers some possible ways out of the trap. We’re at a bleak moment in human history -- and we’ll either confront that bleakness or watch the civilization our forebears built slip away. Falter is a powerful and sobering call to arms, to save not only our planet but also our humanity itself.

In honor of the bicentennial of Henry David Thoreau’s birth, this edition of Walden features an introduction and annotations by renowned environmentalist Bill McKibben, “We need to understand that when Thoreau sat in the dooryard of his cabin ‘from sunrise till noon, rapt in a revery, in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sang around or flitted noiseless through the house,’ he was offering counsel and example exactly suited for our perilous moment in time.”—Bill McKibben, from the introduction

A practical guide to generating less waste, featuring meaningful and achievable strategies from the blogger behind The Green Garbage Project, a yearlong experiment in living garbage-free. Trash is a big, dirty problem. The average American tosses out nearly 2,000 pounds of garbage every year that piles up in landfills and threatens our air and water quality. You do your part to reduce, reuse, and recycle, but is it enough? In The Zero-Waste Lifestyle, Amy Korst shows you how to lead a healthier, happier, and more sustainable life by generating less garbage. Drawing from lessons she learned during a yearlong experiment in zero-waste living, Amy outlines hundreds of easy ideas—from the simple to the radical—for consuming and throwing away less, with low-impact tips on the best ways to: • Buy eggs from a local farm instead of the grocery store • Start a worm bin for composting • Grow your own loofah sponges and mix up eco-friendly cleaning solutions • Purchase gently used items and donate them when you’re finished • Shop the bulk aisle and keep reusable bags in your purse or car • Bring your own containers for take-out or restaurant leftovers By eliminating unnecessary items in every aspect of your life, these meaningful and achievable strategies will help you save time and money, support local businesses, decrease litter, reduce your toxic exposure, eat well, become more self-sufficient, and preserve the planet for future generations.

Bestselling author and environmental activist Bill McKibben recounts the personal and global story of the fight to build and preserve a sustainable planet Bill McKibben is not a person you'd expect to find handcuffed and behind bars, but that's where he found himself in the summer of 2011 after leading the largest civil disobedience in thirty years, protesting the Keystone XL pipeline in front of the White House. With the Arctic melting, the Midwest in drought, and Irene scouring the Atlantic, McKibben recognized that action was needed if solutions were to be found. Some of those would come at the local level, where McKibben joins forces with a Vermont beekeeper raising his hives as part of the growing trend toward local food. Other solutions would come from a much larger fight against the fossil-fuel industry as a whole. Oil and Honey is McKibben’s account of these two necessary and mutually reinforcing sides of the global climate fight—from the center of the maelstrom and from the growing hive of small-scale local answers. With empathy and passion he makes the case for a renewed commitment on both levels, telling the story of raising one year’s honey crop and building a social movement that’s still cresting.

Nearly fifteen years ago, in The End of Nature, Bill McKibben demonstrated that humanity had begun to irrevocably alter and endanger our environment on a global scale. Now he turns his eye to an array of technologies that could change our relationship not with the rest of nature but with ourselves. He explores the frontiers of genetic engineering, robotics, and nanotechnology--all of which we are approaching with astonishing speed--and shows that each threatens to take us past a point of no return. We now stand, in Michael Pollan's words, "on a moral and existential threshold," poised between the human past and a post-human future. McKibben offers a celebration of what it means to be human, and a warning that we risk the loss of all meaning if we step across the threshold. Instantly acclaimed for its passion and insight, this wise and eloquent book argues that we cannot forever grow in reach and power--that we must at last learn how to say, "Enough."

The Wisdom of John Muir marries the best aspects of a Muir anthology with the best aspects of a Muir biography. The fact that it is neither, and yet it is both, distinguishes this book from the many extant books on John Muir. Building on her lifelong passion for the work and philosophy of John Muir, author Anne Rowthorn has created this entirely new treatment for showcasing the great naturalist's philosophy and writings. By pairing carefully selected material from various stages of Muir's life, Rowthorn's book provides a view into the experiences, places, and people that inspired and informed Muir's words and beliefs. The reader feels able to join in with Muir's own discoveries and transformations over the arc of his life. Rowthorn is careful not to overstep her role: she stands back and lets Muir's words speak for themselves.

McKibben (The End of Nature, 1989) turns a passionate and revealing spotlight on our headlong rush into technology. He explains an array of procedures--including germline engineering and therapeutic cloning--that represent a slippery slope. For although they hold the promise to cure disease, they also offer the option of "improving" or "perfecting" human beings, providing the ability to choose a child's sex, boost intelligence, or implant a predisposition to music. If we're not careful, we could end up engineering our children to the point that they're no longer human, he cautions. Technological advancements are proceeding so rapidly that we will soon need to make decisions about how much technology is enough. McKibben makes genetic engineering, robotics, and nanotechology understandable even to those readers who are not techno-savvy, and he makes a strong and compelling case for examining the medical, social, ethical, and philosophical arguments against certain technological advancements that come eerily close to leaving behind humanness and, thus, all the intangible irrationalities that make us who we are. This is a disturbing though ultimately optimistic book that explores the possibility of technology replacing humanity and rouses within us the impulse to declare: enough. -- From Booklist.

"Read it, please. Straight through to the end. Whatever else you were planning to do next, nothing could be more important." —Barbara Kingsolver Twenty years ago, with The End of Nature, Bill McKibben offered one of the earliest warnings about global warming. Those warnings went mostly unheeded; now, he insists, we need to acknowledge that we've waited too long, and that massive change is not only unavoidable but already under way. Our old familiar globe is suddenly melting, drying, acidifying, flooding, and burning in ways that no human has ever 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 with new binds and traps. A changing world costs large sums to defend -- think of the money that went to repair New Orleans, or the trillions it will take to transform our energy systems. But the endless economic growth that could underwrite such largesse depends on the stable planet we've managed to damage and degrade. We can't rely on old habits any longer. Our hope depends, McKibben argues, on scaling back—on building the kind of societies and economies that can hunker down, concentrate on essentials, and create the type of community (in the neighborhood, but also on the Internet) that will allow us to weather trouble on an unprecedented scale. Change -- fundamental change -- is our best hope on a planet suddenly and violently out of balance.

A crucial piece of the conversation about climate change, Diet for a Hot Planet makes the disturbing connection between food production and global warming. In 1971, Frances Moore Lappé’s Diet for a Small Planet sparked a revolution in how we think about hunger, alerting millions to the hidden environmental and social impacts of our food choices. Now, nearly four decades later, her daughter, Anna Lappé, picks up the conversation. In her groundbreaking new book, the younger Lappé exposes another hidden cost of our food system: the climate crisis. While you may not think “global warming” when you sit down to dinner, our tangled web of global food—from Pop Tarts packaged in Tennessee and eaten in Texas to pork chops raised in Poland, with feed from Brazil, shipped to South Korea—contributes to as much as one-third of the global warming effect. Livestock alone is associated with more emissions than all of the world’s transportation combined. Move over Hummer. Say hello to the hamburger. If we’re serious about the climate crisis, says Lappé, we have to talk about food. In this groundbreaking book, Lappé exposes the interests resisting this conversation and the spin-tactics companies are employing to defuse the heat. She also offers a vision of a food system that can be part of healing the planet—and the climate. Lappé explores how food can be a powerful entry point for tackling our most pressing environmental problems. With seven principles for a climate-friendly diet and success stories from sustainable food advocates around the globe, Lappé dishes up strategies and stirring inspiration to bring to life food that’s better for people and the planet. An engaging call to action, a spirited call for a food system for tomorrow, Diet for a Hot Planet delivers a hopeful message during this troubling time.

An ecologist and mother brings the overwhelming problem of global warming to a personal level, with a mix of memoir and science As Michael Pollan and Barbara Kingsolver examine food issues through their own families’ meals, Amy Seidl looks at climate change through family walks in the woods, work in her garden, and seasonal community events throughout the year. She brings home the reality of global warming by considering how it has altered her life, her daughters’ experiences outdoors, and the traditions of her quintessential small New England town—the iconic landscape celebrated by Robert Frost, Norman Rockwell, and many others. While it may be possible for some to ignore drowning polar bears and PowerPoint presentations, Early Spring considers the observations by our neighbors, families, and friends of the changing weather and landscape and puts them into scientific context. As an ecologist, Seidl explains how natural upheaval occurs in the microcosms of our backyards and parks: spring flowers blossom before pollinators arrive, ponds no longer freeze, and animals begin migrating at unexpected times. While the human community, including Seidl’s daughters, adapts to a changing climate, plants and animals also adapt, she shows, in ways both obvious and surprising. Through beautiful literary writing grounded in the science of ecology and evolutionary biology, Seidl offers both a personal and a research-based testimonial of global warming. “An eloquent celebration of commitment to family, community, and the ever-so-fragile natural world . . . Regardless of where you live, this may very well be one of the most important books you’ll ever read.” —Howard Frank Mosher, author of A Stranger in the Kingdom “Seidl ponders the human predicament in a titanic and visionary personal inquiry that remains fixed on promise even in the face of grim and unsettling facts. This is a brave book.” —Janisse Ray, author of Ecology of a Cracker Childhood “This is the voice we need to hear now: a biologist mother, with no time for despair, bearing witness to the unraveling of the ecological world within her children’s backyard—which is all of our children’s backyard. With urgency and grace, Amy Seidl delivers the message I’ve been listening for.” —Sandra Steingraber, PhD, author of Having Faith: An Ecologist’s Journey to Motherhood