The ending chapter, "Lightly, Carefully, Gracefully" outlined a few areas we can work on specifically in view of the environmental issues, specifically global warming, facing us today. If summed up briefly, it would be: food, fuel, and the internet--going small and local. It paints a more hopeful, and bearable picture of what future can look like. It'll be hard, requiring more people to farm, more sacrifice in terms of "comfort," and more pressure for the powers that be to commit to maintaining our planet's livability, the last of which I think just may make it worth the effort.
McKibben really belabors the point that we think of economic and political systems as "big" and therefore unalterable. That's not true. For example, many who live in the Western suburbia take for granted that groceries come from supermarkets that purchase from hundreds of miles away, or that energy come from thousands of miles away (i.e. Saudi Arabia), or that urban "modernity" is the only civilized reality there is. I really appreciate how McKibben comes out saying the stupid things and actions that actually characterize 21st century comfortable American homes. It certainly wouldn't hurt to pay your neighbor local farmers for fresh produce, or to put up solar panels, to drive less and less faster, to live a simpler life and spend time with family instead of the TV.
Why haven't we done this though? (or least not enough people) or why aren't we doing this now? Is it that much skin off your nose to change an affluent lifestyle that's terrible for the world, and at times yourself? I mean if your diet mainly consists of boxed "chicken" pot-pie, take-out pizza, and coke, isn't that like walking on the path to destruction? I know so many people who do that though; it's scary. I wonder what people coming out of Wall-E feel like, or maybe they just forgot about it in a few hours....
McKibben really belabors the point that we think of economic and political systems as "big" and therefore unalterable. That's not true. For example, many who live in the Western suburbia take for granted that groceries come from supermarkets that purchase from hundreds of miles away, or that energy come from thousands of miles away (i.e. Saudi Arabia), or that urban "modernity" is the only civilized reality there is. I really appreciate how McKibben comes out saying the stupid things and actions that actually characterize 21st century comfortable American homes. It certainly wouldn't hurt to pay your neighbor local farmers for fresh produce, or to put up solar panels, to drive less and less faster, to live a simpler life and spend time with family instead of the TV.
Why haven't we done this though? (or least not enough people) or why aren't we doing this now? Is it that much skin off your nose to change an affluent lifestyle that's terrible for the world, and at times yourself? I mean if your diet mainly consists of boxed "chicken" pot-pie, take-out pizza, and coke, isn't that like walking on the path to destruction? I know so many people who do that though; it's scary. I wonder what people coming out of Wall-E feel like, or maybe they just forgot about it in a few hours....
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