The New Eaarth

Eaarth. When I first saw the title of Bill McKibben’s 2010 book, I questioned the reason for the extra “a” within the commonly know word “earth”. I now see his idea behind the title, meaning that the Earth we used to know has changed drastically, the “new” earth. The purpose of this book, is to see what our reality has become. Global warming is our reality and it’s here now, so we need to start finding ways to fix the damage that has been done. It’s not just the U.S., this problem is much bigger than our country. This includes everyone on this planet, we’re one. Choosing to not address this problem is no longer an option. This could result in fighting, for what little natural resources are left. Then once the resources are gone, we still have to come up with another alternative. Bill McKibbens is saying that now is the time to make these changes, so we can still have what is left of this “old” earth.

“A New World”, the first chapter of Bill’s book, explains the earth we used to know in the 1900’, is no longer the same place. “In the four decades since, the earth has changed in profound ways... we’re every day less the oasis and more the desert.” (2). Alarming statistics, such as the amount of arctic ice melted between the years 2007 and 2009, losing about 22 percent sea ice each year. Our leading corporations in this world are fuel providers and vehicle producers, which is the leading cause for global warming. Bill really reaches out to the reader that fossil fuels are doing quite the number on our planet. 

In the second chapter “High Tide”, Bill expresses the changes we must make to see a difference, “New planets require new habits” (48). He pulls politics into this part of the book, explaining the struggles rich and poor countries go through to try and address environmental conditions. Wars are being fought because of this climate change. He also supports Barak Obamas push for spending on energy, education, and health care. Even though the spending would put us more into debt, it would put us on “a path way to growth” and would overall help to reduce deficits. The U.S. was built on the idea of unlimited growth, that the future will look like the past. That is merely a fantasy and the future is already much more different than the past. 

Throughout the last half of the book McKibben’s explains that maybe we should start “backing off”, the title of chapter three. He elaborates that we’re used to hearing the word “growth” and “sustainable”, and that it’s a good thing for our future. Bill states some new key words to represent our future now: Durable, Sturdy, Stable, Hardy, and Robust. These are all “solid” words. We often think that bigger and faster is better, but didn’t the steady slow turtle win the race?