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4.31 AVERAGE
4.31 AVERAGE
This book took me a while to finish. Not because of the book itself, but because of my crazy routine.
It's scary-odd how such a book can be so actual more than 20 years later.
How can humanity still be debating and struggling with the same issues.
The book manages to both awe of how science have advanced while curling our hopes in fear of the chains that holds us back.
Getting to the end is also a hard emotional trip, as someone so beloved to many places itself in such a heartwarming and vulnerable writing.
It's scary-odd how such a book can be so actual more than 20 years later.
How can humanity still be debating and struggling with the same issues.
The book manages to both awe of how science have advanced while curling our hopes in fear of the chains that holds us back.
Getting to the end is also a hard emotional trip, as someone so beloved to many places itself in such a heartwarming and vulnerable writing.
A wonderful collection of essays in what would be Carl Sagan's final book. I was not prepared for that last chapter and it had me weeping in bed.
RIP Carl.
RIP Carl.
Being afraid of quantification is tantamount to disenfranchising yourself, giving up on one of the most potent prospects for understanding and changing the world.
What this book offers: thoughtful comments on climate change, abortion, and nuclear arms proliferation
My only previous exposure to Sagan was via his fiction, the novel and movie Contact. Now I have some sense of why he was such a beloved science communicator. Billions & Billions begins with a discussion of big numbers, using multiple approaches to help the reader get a sense both of what those numbers really mean and how, via exponential processes, seemingly small-scale activity can result in effects at drastically larger scales. This is an important foundation for the discussions of climate change that follow.
Sagan tells the story of the rise and fall of chlorofluorocarbons to illustrate both that human activity can have disastrous consequences for the environment, and that successful coordinated international action to curtail such harmful activity does have real historical precedent. I wasn’t too familiar with that history, so this was fascinating.
Unexpectedly, I also learned a lot about the history of abortion. The book includes a thoughtful essay Sagan co-wrote with his wife Ann Druyan, which makes an effort to present both sides’ arguments honestly and give them serious consideration. They argue that “[b]oth pro-choicers and pro-lifers (at least some of them) are pushed toward absolutist positions by parallel fears of the slippery slope,” but that the scientific realities, and the need to take seriously both women’s rights to control their bodies and the rights of young humans, call for a more nuanced view. One surprising claim to me was that the Catholic Church found abortion acceptable until the late 1800s, though some quick googling suggests the history was more complex than that.
Sagan also writes movingly about arms races. For those of us who did not live through the Cold War, it’s easy to forget about nuclear weapons; we learn about nuclear war in history books, as a threat that never came to pass. But the warheads are still around and they could still decimate our civilization in the space of minutes.
The book includes an inspiring essay that Sagan published in both the US and the Soviet Union called “The Common Enemy.” A trope in fiction is for two warring sides to come together when they realize they are being threatened by an even more menacing force. As Sagan points out, our own tendencies to destroy ourselves - by pursuing short-term gains that are ultimately disastrous for our environment, or by preparing ever-more-destructive weapons that ensure all our conflicts are increasingly catastrophic - should represent just such an enemy. The question is whether we’ll be able to unify against it before it wipes us out.
Sagan died before the publication of Billions & Billions; it concludes with reflections by himself and by Ann on his two-year struggle with illness. These are poignant, and leave one with the sense that they had a truly special relationship.
As ever, Carl Sagan confronts the mysteries of the universe through the intersections of science and religion, but his approach to the climate crisis is frighteningly apt despite this being written in the late 90s... maybe if Carl were here today, more of his vision of a sustainable planet and future would be closer within reach.
informative
slow-paced
It’s tragic that this is nearly 30 years old and we continue to face many of the same issues covered in this book. Not to say there hasn’t been progress, but it is an illustration of just how slow progress truly is.
I came for the cosmos and stayed for the environmental statements and warnings. As the final words from the world renowned thinker, I feel this is a great way to end a career.
I was looking to get a little perspective when I picked this off my partner's shelf. You can probably guess why, and every guess would be correct. It wasn't what I wanted it to be: I was looking for a more accessible Brian Greene, and this is not that.
What it is, is the work of an educated, compassionate man trying to communicate facts about the world because he things communication is important, because he believes we should have critical thinking tools to make educated decisions, because our fellow living things are subject to the decisions we, in our almost incomprehensible power, wield on this planet, and perhaps others.
This is one of those that I have no authority to write on. You probably know he died before it was published, and what a loss his death was to all of us. That loss is also representative of a different time, when believing scientists and studying science was not considered a political affiliation. He was widely admired and loved, for good reason. I don't know if he would generate the same response now.
What it is, is the work of an educated, compassionate man trying to communicate facts about the world because he things communication is important, because he believes we should have critical thinking tools to make educated decisions, because our fellow living things are subject to the decisions we, in our almost incomprehensible power, wield on this planet, and perhaps others.
This is one of those that I have no authority to write on. You probably know he died before it was published, and what a loss his death was to all of us. That loss is also representative of a different time, when believing scientists and studying science was not considered a political affiliation. He was widely admired and loved, for good reason. I don't know if he would generate the same response now.