The main thesis that is being promoted throughout the entirety of McKibben’s 1989 book The End of Nature is that there is no reason to think that the ways of humanity’s future will continue being defined by the ongoing techno-cultural progress, as it is the case nowadays. The author’s line of argumentation, in this respect, is concerned with the assumption that the very logic behind the socio-economic realities in today’s world, presupposes the eventual eruption of social cataclysms, which in turn are to be brought about by the depletion of natural resources and by the accumulation of hazardous industrial waste.
Even today, McKibben argues, humanity is being in the position to affect the surrounding environment in just about any way it wishes: “For the first time human beings had become so large that they altered everything around us… We had ended nature as an independent force” (151). To support the soundness of his claim, the author refers to several climatic trends, assumed have been triggered by the industrial activities of humanity, such as ‘global warming’.
According to McKibben, it is not only that ‘global warming’ is the by-product of humanity’s continuous advancement, but also that it is something that will eventually lead to the ‘end of the world’, at least in the sense of preventing people from being able to lead the indulgent lifestyles, to which they are accustomed. As he noted: “The increase in carbon dioxide and other trace gases will soon heat the world if it hasn’t already done so” (649). This led the author to conclude that the assumption that the course of our civilization’s advancement is linear (directed upwards), does not stand much ground and that it is only and matter of time before humanity finds itself on the threshold of facing extinction.
The best way to address the situation, the author considers people’s would-be willingness to limit their consumerist appetites and to switch to the environmentally friendly mode of existence. In this respect, McKibben recommends undertaking such drastic measures as the complete abandonment of heavy industries and finding some kind of ‘final solution’ to the problem of overpopulation. According to him, it would also help rather substantially if the group of committed environmentalists (like himself) was put in charge of defining the socio-economic ways of the world.
Yet, the author is far from suggesting that this would result in ensuring a fairer distribution of wealth among the rich and poor on this Earth. After all, according to him: “Overwhelming poverty… affects the rich as well as the poor, in that it keeps all discussions of solutions muted” (3042). Instead, McKibben proposes that people should be willing to adopt an active stance, while struggling with the consumerist anxieties in themselves, without specifying how this could be implemented in practice.
The author’s line of argumentation cannot be considered convincing even slightly, because the close examination of many of the presumably scientific ‘facts’, upon which it rests, reveals them to be utterly fallacious. To illustrate the validity of this suggestion, we can refer to McKibben’s insistence that the ongoing ‘global warming’ has been triggered by the so-called ‘greenhouse effect’, which in turn McKibben considers the direct consequence of the process of carbon monoxide being pumped into the air by coal-operated power plants. This suggestion alone exposes the author as someone not very familiar with even the most basic laws of physics.
If anything, the abundance of greenhouse gases in the planet’s atmosphere helps to keep it ‘cooled off’, because just as it is being the case with the ozone layer, their presence prevents infrared heat (that comes from the Sun) from reaching the Earth’s surface. Even if we were to assume that man-made carbon monoxide does contribute to the planet being ‘overheated’, it would still not change the fact that the eruption of one average-sized volcano emits as much of this gas into the atmosphere, as do all the world’s coal-operated power plants for the duration of a few hundreds of years.
Therefore, it is rather ironic that McKibben insists that: “We could exercise our reason to do what no other animal can do: we could limit ourselves voluntarily, choose to remain God’s creatures instead of making ourselves gods” (3233). After all, it is namely the assumption of humanity’s ‘semi-divinity’, on the author’s part, out of which he seems to be gaining his argumentative insights into the discussed subject matter.
It never occurred to McKibben that the continuance of technological progress is the foremost precondition that makes it possible to preserve nature. Had the author been aware of the well-known historical examples of this suggestion’s validity, he would have refrained from blaming progress as the source of humanity’s current evils. It would certainly come in handy for the author to learn that it has named the Industrialism-led invention of ironclads that prevented the destructions of forests in Europe, as early as in the 18th century (wood was no longer needed to build ships). McKibben would have also benefited from learning more about what were the literally ‘smelly’ realities of living in Europe’s largest cities, before the advent of Industrialization allowed to equip these cities with sewer-systems.
There is a certain rationale in assuming that criminology students should benefit from reading The End of Nature because this book represents a typical example of neo-Liberal/environmentalist demagogy, to which the so-called ‘environmental activists’ resort when it comes to justifying their money-extortionist practices. The most lucrative ‘feat’, achieved by environmentalists, was the adoption of the 2007 Kyoto Protocol by the UN, under the statutes of which every country-signatory is required to come up with the annual monetary compensation (in millions and even billions of dollars) for being considered an ‘industrialized nation’.
Therefore, while exposed to the book, criminology students will learn why it continues to be possible to turn environmental crazes into the instrument of making huge money out of the thin air, without having to face the prospect of criminal persecution.
Other than this, McKibben’s book cannot be referred to as such that deserves to be recommended for reading by anyone. The anti-scientific essence of many of the author’s claims is much too obvious to believe that this book represents any other value, but strictly instrumental. The only thing that it does is providing some formal justification to the environmentalist philosophy.
Bill McKibben was born in 1960. During the eighties, he was able to gain social prominence as a journalist and as an ardent supporter of the environmentalist movement. At that time, he contributed heavily towards fostering what later became known as the ‘Freon-craze’ (gas Freon in aerosol-sprays was declared responsible for destroying the ozone layer over the Earth – something that eventually proved to be a complete hoax).
Nevertheless, it was named in the aftermath of having founded the web-resource 350.org in 2009 and the Global Work Party in 2010 that McKibben was able to gain some public notoriety, as a classical ‘extreme environmentalist’. What helped rather considerably, in this respect, is that he used to be arrested for organizing mass-rallies against the ‘sheer evilness’ of some industrial sites (associated with the emittance of CO2) in the U.S. and abroad. However, this experience proved helpful to him. As of today, McKibben can pursue a luxurious lifestyle – being a world-famous environmentalist, which allows him to charge $5.000 per hour for giving lectures in American colleges and universities, on the subject of how it is important to love nature.
I believe that the above-provided biographical sketch is fully consistent with the essence of this paper’s criticism of McKibben’s book. Many naïve people still believe that the extent of one’s intellectual advancement positively relates to the measure of his or her willingness to defy the very notion of progress, as something innately evil. The End of Nature will appeal to them. This, however, cannot be seen as the indication of the reviewed book’s discursive soundness.
Rather, it should be looked upon as yet another proof of the validity of the idea that if Western civilization is indeed bound to decline, it will be due to the affecting factor of ‘capitalist greediness’ rather than to the factor of ‘environmental pollution’. Therefore, it will be thoroughly appropriate to conclude this paper by reinstating once again that The End of Nature is far from being considered particularly insightful.
Works Cited
McKibben, Bill 1989, The End of Nature. Web.