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Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?
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.
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.
291 pages, Hardcover
First published April 16, 2019
539 people are currently reading
4,181 people want to read
About the author
Bill McKibben
198 books774 followersBill McKibben is the author of Eaarth, The End of Nature, Deep Economy, Enough, Fight Global Warming Now, The Bill McKibben Reader, and numerous other books. He is the founder of the environmental organizations Step It Up and 350.org, and was among the first to warn of the dangers of global warming. In 2010 The Boston Globe called him "probably the nation's leading environmentalist," and Time magazine has called him "the world's best green journalist." He studied at Harvard, and started his writing career as a staff writer at The New Yorker. The End of Nature, his first book, was published in 1989 and was regarded as the first book on climate change for a general audience. He is a frequent contributor to magazines and newspapers including The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, Orion Magazine, Mother Jones, The New York Review of Books, Granta, Rolling Stone, and Outside. He has been awarded Guggenheim Fellowship and won the Lannan Prize for nonfiction writing in 2000. He is a scholar in residence at Middlebury College and lives in Vermont with his wife, the writer Sue Halpern, and their daughter.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/billmc...
http://us.macmillan.com/author/billmc...
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January 31, 2019
America is being held hostage by a curmudgeonly few who insist there is no man-made climate change. Meanwhile, the vast majority of both citizens and scientists seethes. To that, Bill McKibben’s Falter proposes two solutions: solar panels everywhere, and forcing a cultural shift using nonviolent organizing. He doesn’t tackle the huge overpopulation issue, forcing gas and diesel vehicles off the road, mass extinctions, or even what to be aware of in the coming years. It is rather odd for an environmentalist’s book.
The first 200 pages all seem to be tangents. He talks at length about the invention of gene splicing, Ray Kurtzweil’s drugs, gene editing, inequality, artificial intelligence and libertarianism. And Ayn Rand. Lots of Ayn Rand. She keeps coming back, again and again, because of her religion of selfishness. It has spread to the political and commercial leadership of the country, and is a main cause for the country turning its back on climate change and pollution, he thinks.
There is a special emphasis on Silicon Valley’s obsession with beating death. McKibben finds all kinds of tech billionaires putting investment dollars and purchases in having themselves frozen, or their heads frozen, or just plain planning to be around forever. That Google’s investment arm is focusing on such efforts should rightly infuriate the world. The “Don’t Be Evil” gang is wasting its resources on inhuman self-preservation, not exactly improving the planet. Not that it can possibly succeed anyway, if the human race is decimated by climate change, which seems all but a sure bet. Much surer, at any rate, than finding a way to live forever on Earth.
Pulling salient environmental points out of Falter is not easy, but I’ve collected these:
-Everyone should slow down, take stock and make repairs. Consider where we want to be.
-Past history no longer applies to our future. We’re entering unknown territory, with no way out. The future is far from bright; it is totally uncertain.
-Business is so anti-government it had to dismiss climate change, because it would require strong action by government.
-A team of economists says there’s a 35% chance the UN’s worst case scenario is too optimistic
-The amount of heat prevented from leaving the Earth by all the CO2 is the equivalent of four Hiroshima atomic bombs - every second.
-Just 100 firms account for 70% of the world’s emissions
-We are now able to put some real numbers to climate change. There are several surprises, all of them negative. Oceans are heating faster, and acidifying more than models predicted. Ice melt is proceeding at several times the rate predicted. For example, the Greenland ice sheet is melting from below as well from above, as the underlying rock heats up.
It is only in the final 50 pages that McKibben swings into action on his opening premises. Solar will help immensely, if we would just deploy it. But it has two things going against it: the fossil fuel industry, which will be hurt by it and can find no profitability in it, and that it is mathematically impossible for solar and wind to replace much more than a fraction of our energy consumption (Though McKibben doesn’t point that out).
As for nonviolent actions, he talks about the first Earth Day in 1970, when, he says, 20 million came out in support. That was 10% of the population. Today, there are similar marches all over Europe in support of the Earth, but the USA is dormant, ruled by the minority.
The whole book is framed by what McKibben calls the human game. He looks at the effects of various factors by how much or little they might affect the human game. There are three great existential threats to the human game: nuclear war, destroying the ozone layer and climate change. Gene editing and artificial intelligence: a lot, space travel: not so much.
From all his cited factors, there is one glaring absence that quickly became obvious and was never explored. What we really need is a functioning democracy.
David Wineberg
The first 200 pages all seem to be tangents. He talks at length about the invention of gene splicing, Ray Kurtzweil’s drugs, gene editing, inequality, artificial intelligence and libertarianism. And Ayn Rand. Lots of Ayn Rand. She keeps coming back, again and again, because of her religion of selfishness. It has spread to the political and commercial leadership of the country, and is a main cause for the country turning its back on climate change and pollution, he thinks.
There is a special emphasis on Silicon Valley’s obsession with beating death. McKibben finds all kinds of tech billionaires putting investment dollars and purchases in having themselves frozen, or their heads frozen, or just plain planning to be around forever. That Google’s investment arm is focusing on such efforts should rightly infuriate the world. The “Don’t Be Evil” gang is wasting its resources on inhuman self-preservation, not exactly improving the planet. Not that it can possibly succeed anyway, if the human race is decimated by climate change, which seems all but a sure bet. Much surer, at any rate, than finding a way to live forever on Earth.
Pulling salient environmental points out of Falter is not easy, but I’ve collected these:
-Everyone should slow down, take stock and make repairs. Consider where we want to be.
-Past history no longer applies to our future. We’re entering unknown territory, with no way out. The future is far from bright; it is totally uncertain.
-Business is so anti-government it had to dismiss climate change, because it would require strong action by government.
-A team of economists says there’s a 35% chance the UN’s worst case scenario is too optimistic
-The amount of heat prevented from leaving the Earth by all the CO2 is the equivalent of four Hiroshima atomic bombs - every second.
-Just 100 firms account for 70% of the world’s emissions
-We are now able to put some real numbers to climate change. There are several surprises, all of them negative. Oceans are heating faster, and acidifying more than models predicted. Ice melt is proceeding at several times the rate predicted. For example, the Greenland ice sheet is melting from below as well from above, as the underlying rock heats up.
It is only in the final 50 pages that McKibben swings into action on his opening premises. Solar will help immensely, if we would just deploy it. But it has two things going against it: the fossil fuel industry, which will be hurt by it and can find no profitability in it, and that it is mathematically impossible for solar and wind to replace much more than a fraction of our energy consumption (Though McKibben doesn’t point that out).
As for nonviolent actions, he talks about the first Earth Day in 1970, when, he says, 20 million came out in support. That was 10% of the population. Today, there are similar marches all over Europe in support of the Earth, but the USA is dormant, ruled by the minority.
The whole book is framed by what McKibben calls the human game. He looks at the effects of various factors by how much or little they might affect the human game. There are three great existential threats to the human game: nuclear war, destroying the ozone layer and climate change. Gene editing and artificial intelligence: a lot, space travel: not so much.
From all his cited factors, there is one glaring absence that quickly became obvious and was never explored. What we really need is a functioning democracy.
David Wineberg
April 18, 2019
57th book for 2019.
I would like to find nice things to say about this book, as I am sure McKibben's heart is in the right place, but this book is a hot mess.
McKibben's basic contention is that the human dream—whatever that is—is 'faltering'. We are rushing at high speed into climate change, designer babies and AI superlords, and this all has to do with the 1% having been weened on the cold dry objectivist nipples of Ayn Rand. His solution, which isn't really spelt out in any detail, is solar panels and collective action.
Mixing in designer babies and AI super-intelligence as worries with global warming does a real disservice tackling the existential threat that is climate change. His proposed solutions are unfortunately presented so superficially to have the weight of a bumper sticker.
2-stars.
I would like to find nice things to say about this book, as I am sure McKibben's heart is in the right place, but this book is a hot mess.
McKibben's basic contention is that the human dream—whatever that is—is 'faltering'. We are rushing at high speed into climate change, designer babies and AI superlords, and this all has to do with the 1% having been weened on the cold dry objectivist nipples of Ayn Rand. His solution, which isn't really spelt out in any detail, is solar panels and collective action.
Mixing in designer babies and AI super-intelligence as worries with global warming does a real disservice tackling the existential threat that is climate change. His proposed solutions are unfortunately presented so superficially to have the weight of a bumper sticker.
2-stars.
June 4, 2020
“A writer doesn’t owe a reader hope—the only obligation is honesty. . .”
I think of Bill McKibben as perhaps the leading environmental writer today; certainly he is one of them. He’s emerged, largely because of his activism through his organization, 350.org, as a leader, helping organize the fight against the Keystone Pipeline, helping get universities and other organizations to divest from fossil fuels. As an environmental activist myself for close to fifty years, I have been reading about the deep threat we have faced and very much still face in trying to save the human race/stop the ecological destruction of the planet, including such heroes as Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, Edward Abbey, and so many others.
I have read and reread and reviewed here Bill McKibbens’s The End of Nature and Eaarth, where he very clearly and eloquently makes it clear that the end of the human race could come within decades--and not centuries--if we do nothing or little to take climate change seriously and end out use of fossil fuels. No one wants to read a book with this subtitle, because, well, we are already “distracted” by several life-threatening problems, including a pandemic, deep and widening racial divisions erupting into violence, we have endless war and unhinged dictators supporting the fossil fuel industry to line their own pockets even as the resultant refugee crisis widens. Yet I say, don’t give up: You will read no more important book this year. I would make it required reading of every human on the planet (but that would make me a communist, wouldn’t it).
Here’s the executive summary:
“Put simply, between ecological destruction and technological hubris, the human experiment is now in question.”
Or, if you prefer:
“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds”--J. Robert Oppenheimer, as he watched the first bomb test, quoting from Hindu scripture.
For most of you that read the papers, you are aware of the IPCC reports; here’s one:
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/2019-refin...
You know that melting glaciers and rising sea levels and rising temperatures are not good for humans on the planet, that we are seeing m\urederous heat, massive and unprecedented floods, droughts, storms, loss of coral reefs and other species. We know this:
“In fact, there are half as many wild animals on the planet as there were in 1970, an awesome and mostly unnoticed silencing.”
And we know this:
“For two hundred years, human economic activity has largely consisted of digging up fossil fuels and setting them alight.”
McKibben updates what we now know with yet another level of warning, turned to eleven, citing all I list above and grounding it in a criticism of Ayn Rand as the greed-based individualist “philosopher/novelist” guiding the Koch brothers (Dark Money), Exxon (Rachel Maddow’s Blowout) and the rest of the fossil fuel industry and all of their purchased politicians. He talks of (also Ayn Rand-lovers) Silicon Valley and their investment in technological “solutions” such as genetic modification or cryonics (freezing yourself or at least your brain so you can graft it onto your robot self that may or may not survive the deluge), all helping exacerbate the widening inequities planet-wide.
McKibben says even if literally today we changed how we live completely and stopped using all fossil fuels there would still be massive disruption to our ways of life that make this little lockdown pale in comparison, but also (continuing and widening) massive dislocation, and death to many many people. But he also says we have something we have known about for decades that we know now for sure can quickly and cheaply replace gas and oil and coal: renewables such as (especially) solar and wind power, though we all know Trump and his buys have no intention to do anything about the environment except to stop protecting it. He shows us just a glimpse of what is happening with solar power in continents such as Asia and Africa. He invites us to protest and vote and act in every way possible and join some local and global environmental organizations.
Falter is a kind of summary of where we are in accessible terms. Tine has almost run out, and he and many others are writing and saying it loudly, if anyone cares to listen, but this book lays it out succinctly. I highly recommend this book written for the general public and thankfully a New York Times bestseller.
I think of Bill McKibben as perhaps the leading environmental writer today; certainly he is one of them. He’s emerged, largely because of his activism through his organization, 350.org, as a leader, helping organize the fight against the Keystone Pipeline, helping get universities and other organizations to divest from fossil fuels. As an environmental activist myself for close to fifty years, I have been reading about the deep threat we have faced and very much still face in trying to save the human race/stop the ecological destruction of the planet, including such heroes as Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, Edward Abbey, and so many others.
I have read and reread and reviewed here Bill McKibbens’s The End of Nature and Eaarth, where he very clearly and eloquently makes it clear that the end of the human race could come within decades--and not centuries--if we do nothing or little to take climate change seriously and end out use of fossil fuels. No one wants to read a book with this subtitle, because, well, we are already “distracted” by several life-threatening problems, including a pandemic, deep and widening racial divisions erupting into violence, we have endless war and unhinged dictators supporting the fossil fuel industry to line their own pockets even as the resultant refugee crisis widens. Yet I say, don’t give up: You will read no more important book this year. I would make it required reading of every human on the planet (but that would make me a communist, wouldn’t it).
Here’s the executive summary:
“Put simply, between ecological destruction and technological hubris, the human experiment is now in question.”
Or, if you prefer:
“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds”--J. Robert Oppenheimer, as he watched the first bomb test, quoting from Hindu scripture.
For most of you that read the papers, you are aware of the IPCC reports; here’s one:
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/2019-refin...
You know that melting glaciers and rising sea levels and rising temperatures are not good for humans on the planet, that we are seeing m\urederous heat, massive and unprecedented floods, droughts, storms, loss of coral reefs and other species. We know this:
“In fact, there are half as many wild animals on the planet as there were in 1970, an awesome and mostly unnoticed silencing.”
And we know this:
“For two hundred years, human economic activity has largely consisted of digging up fossil fuels and setting them alight.”
McKibben updates what we now know with yet another level of warning, turned to eleven, citing all I list above and grounding it in a criticism of Ayn Rand as the greed-based individualist “philosopher/novelist” guiding the Koch brothers (Dark Money), Exxon (Rachel Maddow’s Blowout) and the rest of the fossil fuel industry and all of their purchased politicians. He talks of (also Ayn Rand-lovers) Silicon Valley and their investment in technological “solutions” such as genetic modification or cryonics (freezing yourself or at least your brain so you can graft it onto your robot self that may or may not survive the deluge), all helping exacerbate the widening inequities planet-wide.
McKibben says even if literally today we changed how we live completely and stopped using all fossil fuels there would still be massive disruption to our ways of life that make this little lockdown pale in comparison, but also (continuing and widening) massive dislocation, and death to many many people. But he also says we have something we have known about for decades that we know now for sure can quickly and cheaply replace gas and oil and coal: renewables such as (especially) solar and wind power, though we all know Trump and his buys have no intention to do anything about the environment except to stop protecting it. He shows us just a glimpse of what is happening with solar power in continents such as Asia and Africa. He invites us to protest and vote and act in every way possible and join some local and global environmental organizations.
Falter is a kind of summary of where we are in accessible terms. Tine has almost run out, and he and many others are writing and saying it loudly, if anyone cares to listen, but this book lays it out succinctly. I highly recommend this book written for the general public and thankfully a New York Times bestseller.
May 6, 2019
Scientists believe the end of the Cretaceous period came with a “rock larger than Mt. Everest traveling twenty times faster than a bullet” slammed into the Gulf of Mexico leading to a 1,000ft tall tsunami and a “blizzard of meteorites”. Scientists believe the end of the Cretinous period, will when Americans stop believing in endless growth on a finite planet. A barrel of oil is equal today to 23,000 hours of human labor. Unburned methane that escapes to air, traps heat 80x more efficiently than carbon dioxide. 270,000 sharks are killed every day. Without the oceans to cool the heat, the temperature on the planet since 1955 would have risen a whopping 97 degrees Fahrenheit. Bill says of Obama that “He was elected to run a political system based on endless growth.” Ten years before Hansen’s report, Exxon knew it was destroying the planet. Their public affairs manager released in a secret memo, “Emphasize the uncertainty”. That disinformation campaign costs us ten vital years to try to save the planet. The cool new term for that greedy stuff is “predatory delay”. When you fight a right-wing Ayn Rand fan, ask if they know that she was scathing about Christianity. Donald Trump said Ayn Rand’s “Fountainhead” is his favorite book - yes, right after “Stuart Little”. Bill very coolly reduces the entire American Right’s and Ayn Rand’s mindset into: “If greed warps your life, you assume it must warp everyone’s”.
Then Bill goes AWOL for five chapters (15-19) and he starts speculating how many humans will become genetically enhanced while regular people will be called “Naturals” and will work as our servants. How this will somehow happen after a global total financial collapse worse than the Great Depression, fishery collapse, electrical grid collapse, or routine extinction level events, Bill does not say. During the five-chapter blackout, Bill waxes on about AI and high-tech stuff that has no business being in this book. En route, will he dare mention that Silicon Valley has more Super Fund sites than anywhere else? No. On page 231, Bill dismisses the entire subject of scale in a single paragraph (will explain later). Thankfully he mentions the steady-state economy but only briefly and refuses to tell us about CASSE or Herman Daly or steady state thinking today. This book gave me more cool Jeopardy style answers to questions, than it made me think about our collective future. Two 2019 much better books, by Dahr Jamail and David Wells, took far more risks than this book did. Last cool fact in this book: spaceflights are risky for so many reasons, but you may have a bigger chance of cancer by cosmic radiation bombardment while you are up there than dying by a flight accident. Wow. But more important for Jeopardy than saving a carbon-constrained planet.
Bill McKibben was the Climate Change Voice #1, whatever happened? In 2008, Pat Murphy’s book “Plan C” had it all: 90% reduction in energy use by all us in the west was needed immediately, end of subject. Does Bill talk here about needing 90% reduction in our profligate energy lifestyles? No. Does Bill see our future problem as critically compounded by overpopulation, inequality, the end of growth, upcoming collapse, capitalism, permanent war, industrial agriculture, or failure of BOTH parties, -no. He mentions none of these. Evidently Naomi Klein’s anti-capitalism’s stance is far to the Left of Bill. Will he even remind his many rich followers of the costs to the planet of their plane rides and explain why Greta takes the train? –no Bill won’t.
And how can Bill write this book and not mention the obvious elephant in the room: Green energy cannot save us because it CANNOT be scaled up sufficiently. Whether you read Ozzie Zehner’s book, “Green Illusions” or Derrick Jensen’s unpublished book on the Myth being saved by green energy, the answer is clear. You cannot scale green energy up to the scale of industrial civilization – Bill apparently cannot conceive of the role of scale in our green future. Green energy requires fossil fuels for their manufacture. Rare earth and elements will disappear if you really scale up green energy. Energy intensive to make, turbine blades need maintenance and replacement. Some say, ramping up solar to just 10% uses up all the silver in the world. Try doing that to every element needed and scaled up for a Green Economy. Then do the math and/or envision the actual mining. Bill ignores the Peak movements (running out of) in this book which we are experiencing right now: Peak Water, Peak Sand, Peak Oil, Peak Soil, Peak Resources, and the list goes on. But, will Bill mention any of them in this book? No. It is wildly irresponsible for Bill not to mention that all of us must strive to live to lower our energy footprint (90%), as well as the footprint of our all-consuming capitalist nation. Bill Richardson and Jimmy Carter were destroyed for suggesting Americans self-sacrifice but that is what the future demands of us, so why doesn’t Bill McKibben stand up here and say so as well? And why not write in 2019 about climate change like Naomi Klein, by attacking the #1 culprit: Industrial Capitalism? I thought Bill knew there was no green future without at least 90% reduction, without addressing structural inequality, and that green tech can’t save us. Oh well. I had high hopes for this book, but honestly, I don’t even know its point; apparently it was to fulfill a publishing contract and keep his name out there.
Then Bill goes AWOL for five chapters (15-19) and he starts speculating how many humans will become genetically enhanced while regular people will be called “Naturals” and will work as our servants. How this will somehow happen after a global total financial collapse worse than the Great Depression, fishery collapse, electrical grid collapse, or routine extinction level events, Bill does not say. During the five-chapter blackout, Bill waxes on about AI and high-tech stuff that has no business being in this book. En route, will he dare mention that Silicon Valley has more Super Fund sites than anywhere else? No. On page 231, Bill dismisses the entire subject of scale in a single paragraph (will explain later). Thankfully he mentions the steady-state economy but only briefly and refuses to tell us about CASSE or Herman Daly or steady state thinking today. This book gave me more cool Jeopardy style answers to questions, than it made me think about our collective future. Two 2019 much better books, by Dahr Jamail and David Wells, took far more risks than this book did. Last cool fact in this book: spaceflights are risky for so many reasons, but you may have a bigger chance of cancer by cosmic radiation bombardment while you are up there than dying by a flight accident. Wow. But more important for Jeopardy than saving a carbon-constrained planet.
Bill McKibben was the Climate Change Voice #1, whatever happened? In 2008, Pat Murphy’s book “Plan C” had it all: 90% reduction in energy use by all us in the west was needed immediately, end of subject. Does Bill talk here about needing 90% reduction in our profligate energy lifestyles? No. Does Bill see our future problem as critically compounded by overpopulation, inequality, the end of growth, upcoming collapse, capitalism, permanent war, industrial agriculture, or failure of BOTH parties, -no. He mentions none of these. Evidently Naomi Klein’s anti-capitalism’s stance is far to the Left of Bill. Will he even remind his many rich followers of the costs to the planet of their plane rides and explain why Greta takes the train? –no Bill won’t.
And how can Bill write this book and not mention the obvious elephant in the room: Green energy cannot save us because it CANNOT be scaled up sufficiently. Whether you read Ozzie Zehner’s book, “Green Illusions” or Derrick Jensen’s unpublished book on the Myth being saved by green energy, the answer is clear. You cannot scale green energy up to the scale of industrial civilization – Bill apparently cannot conceive of the role of scale in our green future. Green energy requires fossil fuels for their manufacture. Rare earth and elements will disappear if you really scale up green energy. Energy intensive to make, turbine blades need maintenance and replacement. Some say, ramping up solar to just 10% uses up all the silver in the world. Try doing that to every element needed and scaled up for a Green Economy. Then do the math and/or envision the actual mining. Bill ignores the Peak movements (running out of) in this book which we are experiencing right now: Peak Water, Peak Sand, Peak Oil, Peak Soil, Peak Resources, and the list goes on. But, will Bill mention any of them in this book? No. It is wildly irresponsible for Bill not to mention that all of us must strive to live to lower our energy footprint (90%), as well as the footprint of our all-consuming capitalist nation. Bill Richardson and Jimmy Carter were destroyed for suggesting Americans self-sacrifice but that is what the future demands of us, so why doesn’t Bill McKibben stand up here and say so as well? And why not write in 2019 about climate change like Naomi Klein, by attacking the #1 culprit: Industrial Capitalism? I thought Bill knew there was no green future without at least 90% reduction, without addressing structural inequality, and that green tech can’t save us. Oh well. I had high hopes for this book, but honestly, I don’t even know its point; apparently it was to fulfill a publishing contract and keep his name out there.
October 31, 2019
Falter is a screed on climate change and the end of times. I love dystopian novels, but the this book is nonfiction and its first third is written (metaphorically) in all caps. It does not explore issues, allowing up to draw conclusions, but forces them down our throats while we choke.
And I am choir. I believe in climate change, have recycled since I was a teenager, and don't eat meat, at least partially for ecological reasons. Despite being a member of the choir, Bill McKibben's style of argument rubs me the wrong way. I can't imagine that non-believers will find Falter more compelling. His occasional snipes at Trump, while appropriate, will not buy him fans from that audience – which he/we need to do if we are going to create change.
And, I am leading a discussion of this book/this issue as part of our orientation of incoming freshmen in a red section of my state. I would have given up reading Falter if I hadn't agreed to this discussion. If I were a new student, especially a more conservative one??? The Nature Conservancy's guide for discussions on climate change offers the following tips about such discussions:
In addition to my concerns about the argument, I have problems with the details of McKibben's argument. For example, he talks designer babies, but his science about the genetics of psychological traits is weak. Even if you could identify the gene for intelligence – it's more likely to be 50 or more genes – the phenotype is also likely to be related to negative outcomes (e.g., schizophrenia or autism).
Falter becomes more accessible toward the end, as McKibben discusses the roles of solar panels, advocacy, and thinking as groups rather than individuals. (Ayn Rand and libertarians are gonna be the death of us. Literally.)
McKibben is a strong and interesting writer – if you get past the rhetoric. However, I would have found it easier to parse his argument if his chapters and sections were titled. I had a difficult time seeing and organizing the transitions in his argument. Why designer babies and AI in this book on climate change? I get it, but I had to work to get there.
2 1/2 stars.
Update: I heard McKibben speak recently. He still clearly says that we face a large problem, but he was almost optimistic during his talk and, because I'd expected so little, I felt more optimistic.
And I am choir. I believe in climate change, have recycled since I was a teenager, and don't eat meat, at least partially for ecological reasons. Despite being a member of the choir, Bill McKibben's style of argument rubs me the wrong way. I can't imagine that non-believers will find Falter more compelling. His occasional snipes at Trump, while appropriate, will not buy him fans from that audience – which he/we need to do if we are going to create change.
And, I am leading a discussion of this book/this issue as part of our orientation of incoming freshmen in a red section of my state. I would have given up reading Falter if I hadn't agreed to this discussion. If I were a new student, especially a more conservative one??? The Nature Conservancy's guide for discussions on climate change offers the following tips about such discussions:
1. Meet people where they are.McKibben did not write following The Nature Conservancy's guidelines and, I'm afraid there will likely be a boomerang effect: an attempt to persuade someone of one position results instead in the adoption of the opposite position.
2. Connection outweighs facts.
3. The goal is conversation, not conquest.
4. Focus on the person across from you.
In addition to my concerns about the argument, I have problems with the details of McKibben's argument. For example, he talks designer babies, but his science about the genetics of psychological traits is weak. Even if you could identify the gene for intelligence – it's more likely to be 50 or more genes – the phenotype is also likely to be related to negative outcomes (e.g., schizophrenia or autism).
Falter becomes more accessible toward the end, as McKibben discusses the roles of solar panels, advocacy, and thinking as groups rather than individuals. (Ayn Rand and libertarians are gonna be the death of us. Literally.)
McKibben is a strong and interesting writer – if you get past the rhetoric. However, I would have found it easier to parse his argument if his chapters and sections were titled. I had a difficult time seeing and organizing the transitions in his argument. Why designer babies and AI in this book on climate change? I get it, but I had to work to get there.
2 1/2 stars.
Update: I heard McKibben speak recently. He still clearly says that we face a large problem, but he was almost optimistic during his talk and, because I'd expected so little, I felt more optimistic.
August 10, 2019
3.5*
Autorius, amerikietis aplinkosaugininkas, jau prieš trisdešimtį metų mus įspėjo apie klimato kaitos pavojus. Tad, tiek metų dirbtantis šioje srityje autorius kelia šiokį tokį pasitikėjimą. Šioje knygoje McKibben apžvelgia kas mūsų laukia netolimoje atetyje ir ką reiškia būti žmogumi apskritai. Taigi, daug dėmesio klimato kaitai, aplinkosaugai(kas be ko), genų inžinerijai, dirbtiniam intelektui. Beje, ar žinojote, kad Kinija (kas gi daugiau) jau turi genetiškai modifikuotus dvynius - Lulu ir Nana. Vienas iš jų neišgyveno, tiesa. Institutas, kur dirbo gydytojas, vykdęs šį eksperimentą, uždarytas. Lyg ir pradėtas tyrimas...Bet faktas - kad tai jau jau nebe ateitis. Kliūna Ayn Rand ir jos laukinio kapitalizmo filosofijai. Daug liaupsių saulės energijai. Taip pat apžvelgiami kiti naujausi išradimai. Mane sudominęs - vertikali žemdirbystė. Šiek tiek keistai nuskambėjo, kad autorius taikius! protestus priskiria prie paskutinių (at)(iš)radimų. Užsimenama apie planetos galingųjų svajas ir planus pratęsti gyvenimą iki kelių šmtmečių ar net patapti nemirtingais, galų gale apie (ne)galimybes palikti šią planetą...ir, žinoma, pataria mums lėtinti tempą...slow down!
McKibben šia knyga kviečia mus diskutuoti, joje nėra kategoriškumo ir baigia jis ją su viltimi, kad viskas dar mūsų rankose...
...nors šiaip, darosi akivaizdu, kad 'the future doesn't need us!'
Keletas ištraukų iš interviu su autoriumi:
'I feel I know just as much about climate change as anyone in the world, but what surprises me, always and forever, is just the speed with whitch things are happening. The stuff happening now is stuff that - back when I was writing 'The End of Nature'' - we thought would happen in 2080 or 2100. I was recently in Greenland watching big chunks of it fall off. To see the planet unraveling before youreyes is shocking.'
'People not only take the natural world for granted, they take human meaning for granted because it has always been there. But it won't be the minute we're turned into pieces of technology.'
Autorius, amerikietis aplinkosaugininkas, jau prieš trisdešimtį metų mus įspėjo apie klimato kaitos pavojus. Tad, tiek metų dirbtantis šioje srityje autorius kelia šiokį tokį pasitikėjimą. Šioje knygoje McKibben apžvelgia kas mūsų laukia netolimoje atetyje ir ką reiškia būti žmogumi apskritai. Taigi, daug dėmesio klimato kaitai, aplinkosaugai(kas be ko), genų inžinerijai, dirbtiniam intelektui. Beje, ar žinojote, kad Kinija (kas gi daugiau) jau turi genetiškai modifikuotus dvynius - Lulu ir Nana. Vienas iš jų neišgyveno, tiesa. Institutas, kur dirbo gydytojas, vykdęs šį eksperimentą, uždarytas. Lyg ir pradėtas tyrimas...Bet faktas - kad tai jau jau nebe ateitis. Kliūna Ayn Rand ir jos laukinio kapitalizmo filosofijai. Daug liaupsių saulės energijai. Taip pat apžvelgiami kiti naujausi išradimai. Mane sudominęs - vertikali žemdirbystė. Šiek tiek keistai nuskambėjo, kad autorius taikius! protestus priskiria prie paskutinių (at)(iš)radimų. Užsimenama apie planetos galingųjų svajas ir planus pratęsti gyvenimą iki kelių šmtmečių ar net patapti nemirtingais, galų gale apie (ne)galimybes palikti šią planetą...ir, žinoma, pataria mums lėtinti tempą...slow down!
McKibben šia knyga kviečia mus diskutuoti, joje nėra kategoriškumo ir baigia jis ją su viltimi, kad viskas dar mūsų rankose...
...nors šiaip, darosi akivaizdu, kad 'the future doesn't need us!'
Keletas ištraukų iš interviu su autoriumi:
'I feel I know just as much about climate change as anyone in the world, but what surprises me, always and forever, is just the speed with whitch things are happening. The stuff happening now is stuff that - back when I was writing 'The End of Nature'' - we thought would happen in 2080 or 2100. I was recently in Greenland watching big chunks of it fall off. To see the planet unraveling before youreyes is shocking.'
'People not only take the natural world for granted, they take human meaning for granted because it has always been there. But it won't be the minute we're turned into pieces of technology.'
January 20, 2019
if greed warps your life, you assume it must warp everyone's.if bill mckibben's prescient warnings had been heeded some thirty years ago, perhaps his new book wouldn't be so urgent and grievous. presuming the question asked in falter's subtitle isn't a rhetorical one, has the human game begun to play itself out?, a preponderance of the evidence seems to offer a resounding, unequivocal 'yes' in reply. the 350.0rg founder's writing remains incisive and engaging, but falter isn't likely to find many readers among the audience for whom it would be most necessary.
broadening the scope of existential threats beyond climate change, mckibben also considers the increasing dangers of gene editing/germline engineering and artificial intelligence. in all, falter is a deeply unsettling book and mckibben doesn't mince words when writing about the very real possibility that it's too late for our species to make the changes necessary to ensure our survival. that is not to say, however, that he is without hope, for the whole last part of the book is titled "an outside chance."
falter is fascinating, falter is frightening, but, perhaps most importantly, it's unflinching in its observations of the present human moment — and the growing likelihood of a dark future waiting ahead.
the extra heat that we trap near the planet because of the carbon dioxide we've spewed is equivalent to the heat from 400,000 hiroshima-size bombs ever day, or four each second.
May 10, 2019
In some ways, this is the scariest book I have ever read. McKibben's object is questioning whether humans--because of natural limits or the consequences of our actions--are doomed to plateau, regress, or die out.
McKibben takes a panoramic view of the poor choices we have made and the various precipices we have driven ourselves off of as a species. In the same way that Yuval Hariri (whom he name drops multiple times in this short book) chronicles all of the ways in which humans may be progressing, McKibben gives us an oddly lighthearted survey of the dangers we face yet refuse to recognize. It's scariest and most effective as an accounting of how utterly we have fucked ourselves, by way of fucking our planet, our only home and source of resources.
McKibben's goal of scaring his reader was so complete that when he started to introduce solutions, I wasn't even receptive to his suggestions. They seemed too much like half-measures. Massive solar panel banks? Nonviolent resistance? What in the world would make him think that such things are sufficient, given the knowledge we already have about how irreversible the damage we have done is? Instead, when he trots out ideas like "we have to genetically engineer subsequent generations to be more empathetic, to understand that the consequences of their actions accumulate and are difficult to chart out" my thought was not "atrocious! we must not sacrifice our principles!" but instead "yeah, we must just be flawed as a species to have gotten to this place; let's just change the entire paradigm."
Probably not the goal he intended, but an evocative book nonetheless. An important read in this day and age.
McKibben takes a panoramic view of the poor choices we have made and the various precipices we have driven ourselves off of as a species. In the same way that Yuval Hariri (whom he name drops multiple times in this short book) chronicles all of the ways in which humans may be progressing, McKibben gives us an oddly lighthearted survey of the dangers we face yet refuse to recognize. It's scariest and most effective as an accounting of how utterly we have fucked ourselves, by way of fucking our planet, our only home and source of resources.
McKibben's goal of scaring his reader was so complete that when he started to introduce solutions, I wasn't even receptive to his suggestions. They seemed too much like half-measures. Massive solar panel banks? Nonviolent resistance? What in the world would make him think that such things are sufficient, given the knowledge we already have about how irreversible the damage we have done is? Instead, when he trots out ideas like "we have to genetically engineer subsequent generations to be more empathetic, to understand that the consequences of their actions accumulate and are difficult to chart out" my thought was not "atrocious! we must not sacrifice our principles!" but instead "yeah, we must just be flawed as a species to have gotten to this place; let's just change the entire paradigm."
Probably not the goal he intended, but an evocative book nonetheless. An important read in this day and age.
May 29, 2019
A cri-de-coeur for the planet. All the things we work on and worry about will be brought to naught if these existential concerns are not addressed. The simultaneously worst and best thing is that the solutions exist and are feasible... The clock is running down...
September 25, 2019
This is a book about the possibility that the human species is in its twilight, either due to ecological collapse or transhumanist technologies that will effectively make humanity superfluous. I was hoping for a more novel framework based on his idea of the "human game" (more or less the career of the species, discarding any outside metaphysical measures like divine judgement), but for the most part he focuses on running down the existential threats posed by climate change, AI and human bioengineering. McKibben is a talented writer who does a good job at explaining these threats.
After many chapters of familiar nightmare fuel, the last quarter of the book is about possible solutions to our existential crisis. He identifies these in massively ramping up solar power production and exerting democratic pressure on our ascendant tech overlords. The argument as a whole is a clarion call to return to democracy, which he have largely in fact lost to a small cadre of elites in the fossil fuel industry and Silicon Valley. These elites are deeply influenced by the basically inhuman ideology of Ayn Rand-style libertarianism and have crafted for us a world built on its precepts. The human game has had villains many times before, but these ones are different for having gained enough leverage to potentially put an end to the whole thing once and for all.
All in all, this is a wise and important book. In addition to democracy, Mckibben calls for an ethic of pacing ourselves and spreading the gains of material improvement for awhile rather than continuing to charge headlong into new frontiers of growth and technological development. He has an egalitarian attitude that certainly skews to the left for the most part but should also appeal to genuine conservatives interested in preserving human connection and community. For those less previously informed about the subjects he discusses, like AI and climate disruption, this book would probably feel revelatory. To me personally it felt like the product of reading between the lines of Yuval Noah Harari's Homo Deus and recognizing how alarming it actually is. I might speak with McKibben later and publish an interview based on the book, which I feel should be widely read by the public.
After many chapters of familiar nightmare fuel, the last quarter of the book is about possible solutions to our existential crisis. He identifies these in massively ramping up solar power production and exerting democratic pressure on our ascendant tech overlords. The argument as a whole is a clarion call to return to democracy, which he have largely in fact lost to a small cadre of elites in the fossil fuel industry and Silicon Valley. These elites are deeply influenced by the basically inhuman ideology of Ayn Rand-style libertarianism and have crafted for us a world built on its precepts. The human game has had villains many times before, but these ones are different for having gained enough leverage to potentially put an end to the whole thing once and for all.
All in all, this is a wise and important book. In addition to democracy, Mckibben calls for an ethic of pacing ourselves and spreading the gains of material improvement for awhile rather than continuing to charge headlong into new frontiers of growth and technological development. He has an egalitarian attitude that certainly skews to the left for the most part but should also appeal to genuine conservatives interested in preserving human connection and community. For those less previously informed about the subjects he discusses, like AI and climate disruption, this book would probably feel revelatory. To me personally it felt like the product of reading between the lines of Yuval Noah Harari's Homo Deus and recognizing how alarming it actually is. I might speak with McKibben later and publish an interview based on the book, which I feel should be widely read by the public.
April 16, 2019
This book should be required reading for everyone—it is by turns sobering, infuriating and eye-opening and written throughout in clear, conversational (and even at times humorous) prose that manages to make a scientific study read like a page turner. Bill McKibben begins Falter with a survey of the symptoms of climate change that are currently threatening our planet; although I was familiar with these issues on some level already, he marshals so many frightening examples and statistics that the urgency of the situation hit me like never before. Part 2 is a look at how we got here (the infuriating part), detailing the missed opportunities and—more insidious—the deliberate misinformation and misdirection on the part of corporations and politicians that squandered 50 years during which we might have forestalled the devastating effects of climate change we are living with now.
McKibben then shifts from environmental threats to a discussion of more existential threats to our very humanity itself, such as genetic engineering and artificial intelligence (AI). This turned out to be the most fascinating part of the book for me—I was particularly riveted by anecdotes from Silicon Valley that would be risible were they not so frightening. Having laid out the problems in the bulk of the book, McKibben injects a (muted) note of optimism with a final section of proposed solutions such as solar panels and non-violent political action.
As I said, everyone, regardless of their politics, should read this book (although I do wish McKibben had resisted a few political comments which—while I am in complete agreement—might alienate some readers). Not an easy topic, but a necessary discussion. Thank you to NetGalley and Henry Holt for providing me with an ARC of this title in return for my honest review.
McKibben then shifts from environmental threats to a discussion of more existential threats to our very humanity itself, such as genetic engineering and artificial intelligence (AI). This turned out to be the most fascinating part of the book for me—I was particularly riveted by anecdotes from Silicon Valley that would be risible were they not so frightening. Having laid out the problems in the bulk of the book, McKibben injects a (muted) note of optimism with a final section of proposed solutions such as solar panels and non-violent political action.
As I said, everyone, regardless of their politics, should read this book (although I do wish McKibben had resisted a few political comments which—while I am in complete agreement—might alienate some readers). Not an easy topic, but a necessary discussion. Thank you to NetGalley and Henry Holt for providing me with an ARC of this title in return for my honest review.
August 22, 2019
This is the most important book I believe I have ever read. To say it is sobering is an understatement. Every sentence is full of facts, figures and deep meaning about the future of our planet and humanity in general, and I would have been better served to read this rather than listen to it. It took me 3 weeks of careful listening, and constant rewinding, during which I took 5 pages of notes which I will compile into a more detailed review here once I settle down from the awful reality of this book. If I thought they would read it, I would buy everyone I know a copy of this.
October 11, 2019
"Put simply, between ecological destruction and technological hubris, the human experiment is now in question."~ Falter by Bill McKibben
I was a teenager in the late 1960s when I read Ayn Rand's novels. I was still reading for story and too young to understand Rand's philosophy. I never returned to reread her books. Bill McKibben's Falter has educated me on Rand and the impact of her ideas on shaping the world we live in today.
The list of Rand-inspired movers and shakers is impressive: Alan Greenspan was a personal friend of Rand and people who revere Rand include Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Paul Ryan, Rex Tillerson, Ronald Reagan, Mike Pompeo, Ray Dalio (a Trump confidant), and Donald Trump.
Rand called her philosophy 'objectivism,' which is really libertarianism. It's anti-government, believing there should be no limits on the individual's self-interest and quest to personal achievement. There is no consideration of the needs of others, the people who can't or won't do for themselves, those leeches on society. Don't limit my rights and privilege for the common good and tax my wealth for the government to give to those people.
It is a philosophy readily adopted by business. Unimpeded growth without restraints is the goal of capitalism. Drill for all the oil and dig for all the coal anywhere, without limit. It's someone else's problem to clean up any mess we create. Too bad if we contaminate the water or air or devastate the land or cause earthquakes.
Right-wing politicians love Rand; don't tax me to pay for programs that benefit the losers; small government is good government. This leads to obscenely rich business owners, like the Koch brothers, funneling money to right-wing politicians who will protect their interests.
Then there are the Silicon Valley visionaries funding research into aging and how to live forever and genetic engineering and the creating of AI.
Are these good things? Will these technologies improve human life? Or will they create a larger socio-economic divide, even a separation between regular humans and improved humans? What would a world without death look like? Would those living suppress the number of humans to be born?
McKibben asks, has the 'human game' begun to 'play itself out?' Has our progress advanced to the point that we are negatively impacting our species? Is continual growth sustainable? Growth in technology, wealth, improvement via genetic engineering?
Can we alter climate change? Will we slow down growth to a sustainable rate? Will we put our effort into renewable energy? We are the only species on Earth that can place limits on ourselves, band together to achieve outcomes that improve our mutual community. But...will we? Or will humanity's future look like the movie Wall-E, brain-dead screen-addicts floating in space while a robot runs our lives?
"There are people who...hate the idea of society, who organize campaigns against public transit, who try to dismantle public schools and national parks, who instinctively head for the gated enclave. I don't think their rule will last forever...but they currently possess a savage leverage, perhaps power enough to end the human game...
"The endless efforts to gerrymander districts, suppress voting, race-bait, gin up cynicism in our politics, confuse us about issues such as climate change--these are nothing more than efforts to weaken society so it can't exert power over its most dominant individuals."~from Falter by Bill McKibben
Will the pendulum be swung away from disaster by nonviolent activism and a WWII era rise in commitment to the common good--fighting for our lives? Our fate is in our hands.
I received a free book from the publisher through LibraryThing. My review is fair and unbiased.
I was a teenager in the late 1960s when I read Ayn Rand's novels. I was still reading for story and too young to understand Rand's philosophy. I never returned to reread her books. Bill McKibben's Falter has educated me on Rand and the impact of her ideas on shaping the world we live in today.
The list of Rand-inspired movers and shakers is impressive: Alan Greenspan was a personal friend of Rand and people who revere Rand include Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Paul Ryan, Rex Tillerson, Ronald Reagan, Mike Pompeo, Ray Dalio (a Trump confidant), and Donald Trump.
Rand called her philosophy 'objectivism,' which is really libertarianism. It's anti-government, believing there should be no limits on the individual's self-interest and quest to personal achievement. There is no consideration of the needs of others, the people who can't or won't do for themselves, those leeches on society. Don't limit my rights and privilege for the common good and tax my wealth for the government to give to those people.
It is a philosophy readily adopted by business. Unimpeded growth without restraints is the goal of capitalism. Drill for all the oil and dig for all the coal anywhere, without limit. It's someone else's problem to clean up any mess we create. Too bad if we contaminate the water or air or devastate the land or cause earthquakes.
Right-wing politicians love Rand; don't tax me to pay for programs that benefit the losers; small government is good government. This leads to obscenely rich business owners, like the Koch brothers, funneling money to right-wing politicians who will protect their interests.
Then there are the Silicon Valley visionaries funding research into aging and how to live forever and genetic engineering and the creating of AI.
Are these good things? Will these technologies improve human life? Or will they create a larger socio-economic divide, even a separation between regular humans and improved humans? What would a world without death look like? Would those living suppress the number of humans to be born?
McKibben asks, has the 'human game' begun to 'play itself out?' Has our progress advanced to the point that we are negatively impacting our species? Is continual growth sustainable? Growth in technology, wealth, improvement via genetic engineering?
Can we alter climate change? Will we slow down growth to a sustainable rate? Will we put our effort into renewable energy? We are the only species on Earth that can place limits on ourselves, band together to achieve outcomes that improve our mutual community. But...will we? Or will humanity's future look like the movie Wall-E, brain-dead screen-addicts floating in space while a robot runs our lives?
"There are people who...hate the idea of society, who organize campaigns against public transit, who try to dismantle public schools and national parks, who instinctively head for the gated enclave. I don't think their rule will last forever...but they currently possess a savage leverage, perhaps power enough to end the human game...
"The endless efforts to gerrymander districts, suppress voting, race-bait, gin up cynicism in our politics, confuse us about issues such as climate change--these are nothing more than efforts to weaken society so it can't exert power over its most dominant individuals."~from Falter by Bill McKibben
Will the pendulum be swung away from disaster by nonviolent activism and a WWII era rise in commitment to the common good--fighting for our lives? Our fate is in our hands.
I received a free book from the publisher through LibraryThing. My review is fair and unbiased.
May 3, 2019
This book presents a good overview of what McKibben refers to as the human game - human life and our responsibility to the planet as well as future generations, and the factors that are shaping the present moment and threatening our future: climate change, AI, corporate greed, gene modification. McKibben makes some excellent critiques and his writing is engaging enough that it kept me interested throughout. I particularly liked the notion of the "game," even if it does seem rather romantic. What is the objective of our game? Can we agree to the rules collectively?
July 28, 2021
Very topical book now that my former hometown in Germany : Rheinbach has been washed away in July 2021, a place that I would have considered one of the safest places in the world.
Everybody has to read this book just to remember the scale of what is happening. Unfortunately there seem to be no solutions.
Everybody has to read this book just to remember the scale of what is happening. Unfortunately there seem to be no solutions.
February 13, 2020
(Full disclosure: Bill is a friend. He was a neighbor for almost 20 years and blurbed my books.)
Falter is a bracing, ambitious, yet very accessible book. McKibben's goal is to outline what he sees as the great threats facing humanity - not mere challenges, but forces that could clobber or just end civilization. And then he gives us hope.
The dire threats start with climate change, as befits one of the world's leaders in that field. Falter then adds genetic engineering and bad forms of AI. One of the book's strengths is how clearly it explains these issues, combining deep research with engaging, even funny prose.
How does this lead to optimism? McKibben begins by showing that a planetary shift away from fossil fuels is within our grasp, led by the realization of cheap solar power. Next, he argues that nonviolent activism is a recent (century-old) development, and it's one we need to both study and use, because it can transform the world. He then suggests we slow down our current pace of rapid technological and economic development, in order to enjoy what we've achieved, and also to address inequalities in that enjoyment.
There are many highlights and provocative thoughts. For example, in discussing how the energy industry fought to sap climate science for a crucial generation, when it admitted to itself that anthropogenic climate change was happening and they were leading it, McKibben asks us to consider how to view this: "There should be a word for when you commit treason against an entire planet." (73) Later, he asks us to rethink what "conservative" and "radical" mean, as climate change activists, nominally liberal, want to conserve a vanishing world, while right wingers, putatively conservative, seek to change or allow the transformation of the world (192).
I'm not sure I fully buy the idea of slowing or pausing development at peak human. Partly that's because I see human ingenuity as having both more capacity in general and more room to grow across all kinds of fields, from health care to storytelling and space travel. I also see more possibility in the growing integration of the species across borders, including the emergence of new organizational forms. I hold out hope for technological ways to address climate change, including carbon sequestering devices.
But having this kind of argument is all too rare in 2020, and it's the strength of Falter that it lets us think this hard about the future. Strongly recommended.
Falter is a bracing, ambitious, yet very accessible book. McKibben's goal is to outline what he sees as the great threats facing humanity - not mere challenges, but forces that could clobber or just end civilization. And then he gives us hope.
The dire threats start with climate change, as befits one of the world's leaders in that field. Falter then adds genetic engineering and bad forms of AI. One of the book's strengths is how clearly it explains these issues, combining deep research with engaging, even funny prose.
How does this lead to optimism? McKibben begins by showing that a planetary shift away from fossil fuels is within our grasp, led by the realization of cheap solar power. Next, he argues that nonviolent activism is a recent (century-old) development, and it's one we need to both study and use, because it can transform the world. He then suggests we slow down our current pace of rapid technological and economic development, in order to enjoy what we've achieved, and also to address inequalities in that enjoyment.
There are many highlights and provocative thoughts. For example, in discussing how the energy industry fought to sap climate science for a crucial generation, when it admitted to itself that anthropogenic climate change was happening and they were leading it, McKibben asks us to consider how to view this: "There should be a word for when you commit treason against an entire planet." (73) Later, he asks us to rethink what "conservative" and "radical" mean, as climate change activists, nominally liberal, want to conserve a vanishing world, while right wingers, putatively conservative, seek to change or allow the transformation of the world (192).
I'm not sure I fully buy the idea of slowing or pausing development at peak human. Partly that's because I see human ingenuity as having both more capacity in general and more room to grow across all kinds of fields, from health care to storytelling and space travel. I also see more possibility in the growing integration of the species across borders, including the emergence of new organizational forms. I hold out hope for technological ways to address climate change, including carbon sequestering devices.
But having this kind of argument is all too rare in 2020, and it's the strength of Falter that it lets us think this hard about the future. Strongly recommended.
July 7, 2019
A great book by an important environmentalist Bill McKibben who wrote Eaarth and The End of Nature. He discusses what the Earth is facing and the causes for it. He makes clear while Trump is the leader of climate denial while the gas/oil billionaires are funding his campaign and filling his cabinet. He also discusses the ideology surrounding Ann Rand’s book, The Fountainhead. He also explains what is currently happening to the Earth, what Tech company CEOs seem to be thinking about (mainly themselves). He also outlines what he thinks people can do to help. Great book and easy to read.
May 22, 2019
McKibben’s new book is far-ranging and deeply philosophical. Who would have expected him to get deeply into artificial intelligence and genetic engineering (besides, of course, climate change), and then tie it all together? I wish I could say I feel better now, having read Falter, but I don’t. Nor was that McKibben’s intent, to make us feel better. The house is, indeed, on fire.
March 3, 2025
The beginning of the book was by far the strongest, but it could also be that I'm more interested in climate issues. The author's deep dive into Ayn Rand and the Koch brothers' influence on modern conservatism was extremely well done and fascinating and horrifying. Wow do they suck. The second half of the book deals with the potential issues with artificial intelligence (if only he knew in 2019 what we know today) and genetic engineering. It felt a little odd to focus on those things given the grave danger of climate change highlighted in the first section. Much more speculative and not as engaging.
Overall, I found the style to be a bit too meandering and editorialized. It felt a bit odd to throw random jabs at Trump in unnecessary places (again, 2019 Bill Mckibben would be SHOOK) if your goal is to bring people in and educate. It was also interesting that Elon Musk was one of the rare billionaires highlighted as having more nuanced thoughts. I don't expect authors to be fortune tellers, but reading something from a point in time can be funny that way.
Overall, I found the style to be a bit too meandering and editorialized. It felt a bit odd to throw random jabs at Trump in unnecessary places (again, 2019 Bill Mckibben would be SHOOK) if your goal is to bring people in and educate. It was also interesting that Elon Musk was one of the rare billionaires highlighted as having more nuanced thoughts. I don't expect authors to be fortune tellers, but reading something from a point in time can be funny that way.
Read
September 10, 2019I don't know when I've read a nonfiction book that made such a nakedly transparent appeal to the emotions more than the intellect. Rhetorically it is sometimes dazzling and sometimes over the top.
The first section is a depressing look at our present and likely future: a planet despoiled by climate change; greedy fossil fuel executives and Koch brothers who basically sealed the planet's doom; genetically modified babies creating a super-race of those rich enough to afford it; artificial intelligence taking over and shoving humans aside; or maybe tech tycoons making themselves immortal.
Then, in the latter half of the book, McKibben offers a possible salvation in the form of the better angels of our nature; solar panels; and nonviolent political action. It doesn't seem like quite enough to defeat the forces arrayed against it, but what else do we have?
Best cameo of Jane Austen ever comes when he's in an African village that has recently begun to enjoy the benefits of electricity thanks to solar. Everything in town comes to a halt when a certain TV show comes on: a Punjabi soap opera loosely based on Sense & Sensibility.
The first section is a depressing look at our present and likely future: a planet despoiled by climate change; greedy fossil fuel executives and Koch brothers who basically sealed the planet's doom; genetically modified babies creating a super-race of those rich enough to afford it; artificial intelligence taking over and shoving humans aside; or maybe tech tycoons making themselves immortal.
Then, in the latter half of the book, McKibben offers a possible salvation in the form of the better angels of our nature; solar panels; and nonviolent political action. It doesn't seem like quite enough to defeat the forces arrayed against it, but what else do we have?
Best cameo of Jane Austen ever comes when he's in an African village that has recently begun to enjoy the benefits of electricity thanks to solar. Everything in town comes to a halt when a certain TV show comes on: a Punjabi soap opera loosely based on Sense & Sensibility.
Read
September 5, 2022A real page-turner, I couldn't put it down!
March 8, 2021
Bill McKibben's been the go to popular journalist on the environment for more than 30 years, and Falter is the best available summary of the mess we're in and the realistic (though, given the power of capitalist dark money, unlikely) paths out. The key phrases--technologies, he calls them--are solar panels and non-violence. Making it through the early sections can be existentially challenging, but he promises not to leave you in despair, and doesn't.
March 9, 2020
When we buy something, it's easy to think "tada!" But everything, as McKibben writes, "comes with strings attached." Oddly, we ignore those strings and our ability to ignore everything at the end of those strings is not only a problem but it now threatens the human game. Although McKibben does not mention James P. Carse, it might be worth revisiting the opening of Finite and Infinite Games:
I mostly found the book interesting, but I often felt I'd already explored this territory in KSR's Red Mars and in Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake.
There are at least two kinds of games: finite and infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play. Finite games are those instrumental activities - from sports to politics to wars - in which the participants obey rules, recognize boundaries and announce winners and losers. The infinite game - there is only one - includes any authentic interaction, from touching to culture, that changes rules, plays with boundaries and exists solely for the purpose of continuing the game. A finite player seeks power; the infinite one displays self-sufficient strength. Finite games are theatrical, necessitating an audience; infinite ones are dramatic, involving participants.McKibben worries that the most powerful among us are not playing an infinite game any longer. Although there are signs that the planet is straining to withstand our demands on it, we continue to ignore the strings attached to everything we do. When McKibben examines the people who hold the most power in society, he notes that they explicitly or implicitly subscribe to Randian neoliberal ideas about social obligation (i.e. that we owe others almost nothing). In their neoliberal selfishness, these power brokers are doing everything in their power to advance climate change, artificial intelligence, and genetic engineering, even though they threaten the human game.
I mostly found the book interesting, but I often felt I'd already explored this territory in KSR's Red Mars and in Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake.
August 18, 2024
If greed warps your life, you assume it must warp everyone’s.Sort of a response to Pinker’s brainless, obsequious Enlightenment Now.
McKibben pushes back on Mr. Pinker’s empty assertions and manicured graphs (and the types of mind that gave rise to it) with a sweeping, wide-ranging, but coherent argument. This is not just an environmental book, to some reviewers’ evident chagrin; nor is it just a book of social critique or political or economic theory. Falter aims high and broad: our civilisation is big, layered and complex; it’s threatened in complicated, interrelated ways. McKibben glances through the sorts of material that Pinker and his fellow mindless cheerleaders applaud: things look good, right now. But all that evidences is how much we stand to lose should things go wrong. And then McKibben turns to all the ways that they can go wrong.
Unmistakably more careful, responsible and honest than its competitors, this book is a powerful antidote both to insouciant techno-optimism and hand-wringing pessimism. McKibben doesn’t shy away from or minimise the challenges that lie in front of our fragile, interdependent global civilisation—more than can be said for his notional peers. He doesn’t wallow in doubt and depression either.
There is a big, important job ahead of us, McKibben tells us in no uncertain terms. There are powerful forces with a strong interest in leading us to believe nothing need be done at all, or making it difficult to move forward even when we know it’s what we have to do. Here, though, are some of the tools we need. Let’s get to work.
June 7, 2019
I think this is one of the strongest books Bill McKibben has written - passionate, coherent, intelligent as always, but he seems to have tapped into something more in Falter.
By juxtaposing the issues of climate change and AI, McKibben seems to have identified something both obvious and profound - that some people are "not particularly attached to humans." The libertarian cult of the rich and the techno-utopians of Silicon Valley both share this radicalism - "willing to alter the chemical composition of the atmosphere, eager to confer immortality" (p.192), while directing their wealth and power against social constraints like regulation and taxation (which underwrite civilized life). The challenge is clear, here.
McKibben even pulled off a bit of optimism (solar power technology and the 'technology' of nonviolent resistance) without triggering in me a spontaneous cringe-shudder. (Though I think we all know we need to do more than power a village in Ghana ...)
By juxtaposing the issues of climate change and AI, McKibben seems to have identified something both obvious and profound - that some people are "not particularly attached to humans." The libertarian cult of the rich and the techno-utopians of Silicon Valley both share this radicalism - "willing to alter the chemical composition of the atmosphere, eager to confer immortality" (p.192), while directing their wealth and power against social constraints like regulation and taxation (which underwrite civilized life). The challenge is clear, here.
McKibben even pulled off a bit of optimism (solar power technology and the 'technology' of nonviolent resistance) without triggering in me a spontaneous cringe-shudder. (Though I think we all know we need to do more than power a village in Ghana ...)
May 15, 2019
Everyone, please read this one.
July 8, 2019
A good overview of climate change, growing inequalities and the rise of artificial intelligence, fueled by idealogues on the right and the effects we are already seeing on our planet.
July 29, 2019
So, global warming is the ultimate problem for oil companies because oil causes it, and it's the ultimate problem for government-haters because without government intervention, you can't solve it. [p. 121]
[T]he human game . . . does come with two logical imperatives. The first is to keep it going, and the second is to keep it human. [p. 17]
Bill McKibben has a lot on his mind. Having sounded the alarm on climate change back in 1989 (cf. The End of Nature), he now returns to that topic at a time when the situation has become far more grim. "More than half of all the greenhouse gases emitted since the start of the Industrial Revolution have spewed from exhaust pipes and smokestacks since 1988" [p. 66]. Ice sheets are melting at an alarming rate; drinking water and irrigation sources are drying up; wildfires are increasingly destructive; record high temperatures are being registered across much of the globe; oceans are acidifying and rising. Yet, around the world, government responses for the most part have ranged from tepid to atavistic, the most consequential cases being especially disheartening. The Trump administration's contempt for environmental protection is well known, and since taking office in January, 2019, Brazil's president Jair Bolsonaro has significantly accelerated destruction of the Amazon rain forest, declaring that his country's "vast protected lands were an obstacle to economic growth".
But McKibben fears that an uninhabitable earth represents just one way that the "human game" might end. He's also worried about performance-enhancing drugs, social/economic inequality, indefinite life-extension (as envisioned by Silicon Valley prophets such as Ray Kurzweil), and "germline engineering" aimed at producing designer babies. All of these scenarios, McKibben argues, subtract from our humanity, and he devotes interesting chapters to each of them. Nonetheless, the latter two aren't quite yet upon us, and there's been significant backlash against the first two, so there seems to be some hope of combating them. Important though they may be, these four concerns lack the urgent threat posed by global warming, and they probably should have been addressed in a different book. Which takes us back to climate change, where the author is most authoritative.
McKibben points to a constellation of factors that explain why the problem now seems so intractable. Exxon knew in 1977 that burning fossil fuels contributed significantly to the "greenhouse effect", but instead of using that information to develop alternative energy sources, the company joined with other major oil companies to sow confusion and doubt over the emerging scientific consensus. Profits soared. Later, with the advent of fracking, the sudden availability of huge natural gas supplies seemed like a godsend, since "when you burn natural gas it gives off half as much carbon dioxide as the coal that powered most of the nation's, and the world's electric supply" [p. 67]. Moreover, "The big oil companies controlled much of the natural gas supply, and they wouldn't protest" [p.68]. Unfortunately, studies soon revealed that when the gas escapes into the air "it traps heat in the atmosphere about eighty times more efficiently than carbon dioxide" [p. 68]. During Obama's presidency, the decline in carbon dioxide pollution was basically offset by methane that escaped during fracking.
So, opportunities have been lost, and what once could have been a relatively easy battle against global warming now verges on the impossible. Although genuinely clean energy sources (solar panels, wind turbines) are available and growing cheaper at a rapid pace, they haven't been produced at anything close to the scale that would be required to effect a significant reduction of fossil fuel use.
Over the years, the political pendulum has swung back and forth from left to right, between public good and private greed, so one might predict that the oil and gas barons' ascendancy will soon give way to a more socially responsible agenda. But even if their influence diminishes, the time they spent wielding the levers of power put them "in control at precisely the moment when they could do the most damage", thereby locking "in new forms of inequality that can't be undone even by revolution. As the temperature climbs, it's the poorest who suffer most, a suffering that isn't going away" [p. 118].
What, then, is to be done? McKibben advances two main proposals, one aimed at goading governments into action, and the other promoting actions that need to be taken. The first calls for massive nonviolent protests -- protests of the sort that have historically resulted in significant social change. Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King are obvious models, but so was the Earth Day protest in 1970 "when twenty million Americans (a tenth of the population) joined in demonstrations in every corner of the country. . . . Richard Nixon, no environmentalist, had little political choice but to sign the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and other environmental laws still in effect today" [p. 220].
The second proposal calls for a massive investment in solar energy, and to a lesser extent in wind farms and hydroelectric dams; presumably this would involve both government and private financing, although McKibben doesn't address that point explicitly. There are lots of heart-warming but relatively small success stories in this arena, both local and global, and McKibben highlights some of them. Most important, he cites data showing that by 2050 we could derive all of our power from "green" sources, while at the same time creating millions of new jobs and lowering energy costs. As McKibben grants, this would require a huge mobilization of resources, something akin to what the United States accomplished by enlisting many factories in the World War II effort (for example, automobile companies began building tanks, a radiator company made helmets, a fabric company made parachutes). But what was done before can, at least theoretically, be done again.
Those two ideas seem eminently sensible, and McKibben's prologue introduces a "note of hope". But late in the book, after remarking that humans are unique because, although we can destroy, "we can decide not to destroy", he admits to suspecting that we probably won't make that choice: "we are faltering now, and the human game has indeed begun to play itself out" [p. 255].
Isn't the ultimate tragedy one that was foreseen and could have been prevented?
May 28, 2021
In his book,Falter, Bill Mckibben approaches the human impact on the planet earth. And, doing so he describes this action as a game, the human game. A game that according the author has no specific rules and only goal is to be an endless game.
Defining human game as boundless is saying that the absence of rules have implications on the it evolves, i.e., on the way more or less insistent we play it, and the aggressivity we put in it with obvious implications on the bord of the game itself.
In the first chapters Bill McKibben does an historical perspective explaining why this board has always been increasing. First with the discovery of new territories (America, Africa, Australia) and, be the 19 century when it seems that we had no more land to discover, a new territory stuffed with resources was discovered and fossil fuels where surfaced. And these huge amounts of energy disposable for use allow us to grow in number and in consume.
This is why life nowadays is the way it is. It has an enormous impact on the energy consumed and that had a negative feedback impact in our board.
As we grow in number and in consume patterns, resources were being shorter, but human ingenuity and the continuous demand for new resources had allows to this vertiginous growth, and balanced things till now.
As we growth and consume increases, large amounts of CO2 are released into the atmosphere and this has a shocking effect. Our board is shrinking.
During the last millenniums levels of CO2 where wavered but remained always below 330 ppm. Since the 50th, CO2 levels had increase exponentially and reached 410 ppm in 2019. With this huge increase in CO2 comes global warming. Here the scientists do not agree about the level that we will reach in the next years (next eleven to be more precisely) but the majority think that the increase in 2º Celsius will be not feasible. Three, five or even further will be more realistic.
Bill McKibben after explaining eloquently this context, he approaches the consequences that these alterations will impact in our way of living. Waters will rase, land will be shortened, cities near the ocean costs will be flooded, atmospheric catastrophes will arise more frequently, seas will die, coral reefs will disappear, polar ice will be history and pictures, agriculture will be less productive, dry places will get dryer, wet places will get wetter, live will impossible in large areas, hunger and disease will increase, climate refugees will rise, wars will flare, biodiversity will shrink, the world will an impossible place, and nothing good will happen.
And if you think that this message is bad enough, the worst is yet to come. All these effects have a positive retro feedback, and there is a delay of time (years, decades) between alterations and effects. We are f***** my friend, just wait.
Has the author said, that seems like to be on the top of a skyscraper, and be advised not to jump. But yet we jump, and on the start we think “this is not so bad!”. But as we approach the floor we will ask: I am going too fast. Can I stop?” No, we can’t!
So here we are. Our Board is shrinking!
And as we can figure this out since the least 50 years, why can’t turn our path on a more viable direction?
In the following chapters Bill McKibben deal with this question, and according to him, the main reason for this blindness is firstly the time lapse between causes and effects. Humans are not biological prepared to react when faced with a fore coming threat. No one will run if warned that a tiger will come in a next year.
And alongside this, is greed, one of those human feelings that dropped without a leash (regulation) will have a negative impact on human (social) development.
According to the author liberalism, and more specific objectivism or libertarianism and their mental supporter, Ayn Rand had proposed in her novels (The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged) a world where “laissez-faire” with complete absence of governmental regulation where the rule, i.e., no rule for the individual will. This economic path had his followers, and among them were Alan Greenspan, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Margaret Thatcher, and many others among political and economic key points. This led to an era of consume leverage after the 70th, and if you look at the exponential increase in CO2 atmospheric levels, you will understand what the relation was.
With this political environment, and globalization holding hands, oil companies and industry leaders in general, stat this vertigo for growing that puts us the place we are today.
This is a very enlightening book about intricacies and mechanisms that rule our society. And as a frightening warning about the world we are ruling out of this mess, Bill McKibben alert us to the fictitious hops that could come from areas as artificial intelligence, genetic engineering or space exploration with the myriad idea of extra-terrestrial planet colonization. All of them dangerous areas that, if not properly planed and regulated could lead to more iniquity, human suffering and despair.
After such depressing message, Bill McKibben ends his book proposing two attitudes with great importance.
The first attitude is the demand for alternatives sources of energy, and the second is an individual and social position of “non-violent resistance” for the adoption of political options like an “New Green Deal” a massive investment that could point us to a world with forests, wild life, biodiversity, cold waters and a globe with ice on top and rich reef-corals in the middle. An earth at least as rich as our fathers had left to us.
Defining human game as boundless is saying that the absence of rules have implications on the it evolves, i.e., on the way more or less insistent we play it, and the aggressivity we put in it with obvious implications on the bord of the game itself.
In the first chapters Bill McKibben does an historical perspective explaining why this board has always been increasing. First with the discovery of new territories (America, Africa, Australia) and, be the 19 century when it seems that we had no more land to discover, a new territory stuffed with resources was discovered and fossil fuels where surfaced. And these huge amounts of energy disposable for use allow us to grow in number and in consume.
This is why life nowadays is the way it is. It has an enormous impact on the energy consumed and that had a negative feedback impact in our board.
As we grow in number and in consume patterns, resources were being shorter, but human ingenuity and the continuous demand for new resources had allows to this vertiginous growth, and balanced things till now.
As we growth and consume increases, large amounts of CO2 are released into the atmosphere and this has a shocking effect. Our board is shrinking.
During the last millenniums levels of CO2 where wavered but remained always below 330 ppm. Since the 50th, CO2 levels had increase exponentially and reached 410 ppm in 2019. With this huge increase in CO2 comes global warming. Here the scientists do not agree about the level that we will reach in the next years (next eleven to be more precisely) but the majority think that the increase in 2º Celsius will be not feasible. Three, five or even further will be more realistic.
Bill McKibben after explaining eloquently this context, he approaches the consequences that these alterations will impact in our way of living. Waters will rase, land will be shortened, cities near the ocean costs will be flooded, atmospheric catastrophes will arise more frequently, seas will die, coral reefs will disappear, polar ice will be history and pictures, agriculture will be less productive, dry places will get dryer, wet places will get wetter, live will impossible in large areas, hunger and disease will increase, climate refugees will rise, wars will flare, biodiversity will shrink, the world will an impossible place, and nothing good will happen.
And if you think that this message is bad enough, the worst is yet to come. All these effects have a positive retro feedback, and there is a delay of time (years, decades) between alterations and effects. We are f***** my friend, just wait.
Has the author said, that seems like to be on the top of a skyscraper, and be advised not to jump. But yet we jump, and on the start we think “this is not so bad!”. But as we approach the floor we will ask: I am going too fast. Can I stop?” No, we can’t!
So here we are. Our Board is shrinking!
And as we can figure this out since the least 50 years, why can’t turn our path on a more viable direction?
In the following chapters Bill McKibben deal with this question, and according to him, the main reason for this blindness is firstly the time lapse between causes and effects. Humans are not biological prepared to react when faced with a fore coming threat. No one will run if warned that a tiger will come in a next year.
And alongside this, is greed, one of those human feelings that dropped without a leash (regulation) will have a negative impact on human (social) development.
According to the author liberalism, and more specific objectivism or libertarianism and their mental supporter, Ayn Rand had proposed in her novels (The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged) a world where “laissez-faire” with complete absence of governmental regulation where the rule, i.e., no rule for the individual will. This economic path had his followers, and among them were Alan Greenspan, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Margaret Thatcher, and many others among political and economic key points. This led to an era of consume leverage after the 70th, and if you look at the exponential increase in CO2 atmospheric levels, you will understand what the relation was.
With this political environment, and globalization holding hands, oil companies and industry leaders in general, stat this vertigo for growing that puts us the place we are today.
This is a very enlightening book about intricacies and mechanisms that rule our society. And as a frightening warning about the world we are ruling out of this mess, Bill McKibben alert us to the fictitious hops that could come from areas as artificial intelligence, genetic engineering or space exploration with the myriad idea of extra-terrestrial planet colonization. All of them dangerous areas that, if not properly planed and regulated could lead to more iniquity, human suffering and despair.
After such depressing message, Bill McKibben ends his book proposing two attitudes with great importance.
The first attitude is the demand for alternatives sources of energy, and the second is an individual and social position of “non-violent resistance” for the adoption of political options like an “New Green Deal” a massive investment that could point us to a world with forests, wild life, biodiversity, cold waters and a globe with ice on top and rich reef-corals in the middle. An earth at least as rich as our fathers had left to us.
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September 30, 2019I’m a big fan of Bill McKibbon. He speaks the language of my conservationist heart. Part 1 (climate change) was nothing new to me, but always worth reviewing the facts. Some was clearly lifted right from The Water Will Come by Jeff Goodell. Part 2 has a really good segment on Ayn Rand objectivist philosophy cultivating the right-wing libertarian billionaires shaping modern America. Parts 3 and 4 were a little out there (designer babies, defeating death, colonizing space), but I agree with all of his major points. Humanist solidarity over sociopathic objectivism all day long.
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