A review by samdalefox
The End of Nature by Bill McKibben

informative reflective sad medium-paced

3.5

I included 'The End of Nature' as part of my climate change reading since it's largely referred to as the first book on global warming written for a general audience. I thought it would be insteresting and important to see what that looked like. In summary, the forward from the 2005 edition is by far the best part. The content of the original varies wildly in tone and quality. I concur with others' main criticisms however, I think there is still value in reading it to get a sense of the philosophy McKibben's is attempting to describe.

Pros 

• Although we only get it in dribs and drabs, I believe McKibben is actually trying to articulate an important philosophical aspect to our relationship with nature and the changing 'character' of nature. I've provided some quotes that attempt to illustrate this below. This philosophical attempt was definitely novel for that time. To be discussing anthropocentric vs deep ecology views in 1989 was surprising to me, and also disappointing to think how little progress we've made culturally since. 
• He never says the words explicitly, but his critcisms are implicitly anti-capitalist. 
• Many of his suggestions to mitigate the worst effects of warming are still applicable today: - reduce animal agriculture, reduce car culture, rewilding over genetic and geoengineering, population control, and have been further developed. 

Cons

• The science described/explained in the book is almost entirely outdated now. We have crossed thresholds, discovered new tipping points, developed new models of understanding climate change, and even solved the ozone hole and acid rain problems! It is interesting from a historical point of view, but unecessary to read for people new to climate change science, I advise these people to read more modern works to get more up to date science. 
• The constant reference to Christian God was offputting. I did find the theology chapter genuinely interesting, though not well thought through and argued, and I believe the author would have made a stronger argument if he had kept his religious references to this chapter. Through a modern lens it screamed dated white christian male western centric. A complete 180 in tone from reading The Red Deal, 2021. 
• Often repetitive, needed a stronger editor.
• Strays into the doom-there-is-nothing-we-can-do territory a little too often for my liking. However, his views are entirely justified considering the magnitude of the dilemma. At the time of original publishing I imagine this was an attempt to try and inform people of the severity in the expectation they would take action.

Quotes

"By the end of nature, I don't mean the end of the world.  The rain will still fall and the sun shine, though differently than before. When I say nature, I mean a certain set of human ideas about the world and our place in it. But the death of those ideas begins with concrete changes in the reality around us. Changes that scientists can measure and enumerate. More and more frequently these changes will clash with our perceptions until finally our sense of nature as eternal and separate is washed away. And we will see all too clearly what we have done." 

"For the first time the people doing the polluting were at some remove from the pollution. In such a situation the usual environmental ideas don't work because the problem is outside our normal way of thinking" 

"So there is a sadness if losing something we have begun to fight for. And the added sadness or shame of realising how much more we could have done. A sadness that shades into self loathing. We, all of us in the first world, have participated in something of a binge. A half century of unbelievable prosperity and ease. We may have some intuition that is was a binge, and the earth couldn't support it, but aside from the easy things; biodegradable detergent, slightly smaller cars, we didn't do much. We didn't turn our lives around to prevent it. Our sadness is almost an aesthetic response. Appropriate because we have marred a great profilgate work of art. Taken a hammer to the most perfectly proportioned of sculptures." 

"The greenhouse effect is a more apt name than those who coined it imagined. The carbon dioxide and trace gases act like panes on a glass greenhouse. The analogy is accurate, but it's more than that. We have built a greenhouse, a human creation, where once there bloomed a sweet and wild garden."

"Simply because it bears our mark, doesn't mean we can control it. This new nature may not be predictably violent. It won't be predictably anything, and therefore it will take us a very long time to work out our relationship with it, if we ever do. The salient characteristic of this new nature is it's unpredictability. Just as the salient feature of the old nature was it's utter dependability".

"The most obvious alternative action, international government action, will be almost as difficult. For any program to be a success, we must act not only as individuals and as nations, but as a community of nations. Unless all act together, the world watch institute warned, there is little reason to act separately."

"It might be a good way to describe a philosophy that is the opposite of the defiant consumptive course we've traditionally followed. What would it mean to our ways of life, our demographics, economics, our output of carbon dioxide and methane, if we began to truly and viscerally think of ourselves of just one species among many."

"Wendell Berry once argued that without a fascination at the wonder of the natural world, the engery needed for it's preservation will never be developed. That there must be a mystique of the rain if we are ever to restore the purity of the rainfall."