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 enlarge | Author: Bill Mckibben
Publisher: Holt Paperbacks
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
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Rating:  50 reviews
Sales Rank: 1737
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.8
ISBN: 0805087222
Dewey Decimal Number: 301
EAN: 9780805087222
ASIN: 0805087222
Publication Date: March 4, 2008
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| Customer Reviews:
 An optimistic way to avoid environmental collapse February 17, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
This brilliant book about the oncoming wreck of the global economy fails to answer the most elemental and yet essential question: How do we change human nature from wanting More! More! More!
Almost 50 years ago, the General Motors' exhibit at the World Fair was based on the idea, "Technology can point the way to a future of limitless promise." If McKibben or anyone else wants to understand the future, they need only look at today's GM, or Ford. The world is heading for a similar wreck; the survivors will be those who get out of the way.
This book is an example of the problem it laments; it is a dazzling example of the benign greed that is producing disaster, it offers cheery solutions well suited for miniscule groups of the conscientious, but it's not an answer. It merely uses more paper to explain the danger of using too much paper and other materials.
Let's be realistic: GM's vision of the future produced gray smog, stop-and-go rush hour traffic, road rage, OPEC prices, the rust-belt, inner-city blight, White flight, auto thefts and car bombings, plus global warming, used car sales people and SUVs. It's all a product of free decisions in a free marketplace. Now, GM is collapsing but Toyota thrives with its little cars and hybrids. It's how we got today's mess. What's the solution? More free decisions in a free marketplace?
McKibben is perfect when he points out small hunter/gatherer cooperative groups were normal for 99 percent of our history; but, he fails to come to grips with the monetization of relations among people during the past 5,000 years, and especially the last 300 years. Everything is now impartially subject to decisions based on free market pricing, which means the lack of hunter/gatherer cooperation is replaced by individualized competition.
Our economy is a wolf-pack that has turned on itself.
He cites the creation of the Industrial Age as beginning with Thomas Newcomen's invention of a practical steam engine in 1712; but he ignores the agonizing social upheaval people endured in fleeing old local sustainable farms and moving into cities. Any major change in our future will likely involve a similar human and material price. Someone needs to explain the "cost" of change and how it can come about.
One solution I'm involved with on a daily basis is Amazon.com -- which by making it easy to "recycle" used and donated library books has spared whole forests. Until such recycling occurs for much more than books, we must be content with dire forecasts about the oncoming wreck of the economy.
For most societies, the solution has always been collapse before radical change. McKibben offers little hope that America is different.
Doable? Other reviewers are optimistic. But, I look at the sorrow of ruins and fear people are too attached to past and present mistakes to see or accept alternatives. Perhaps McKibben is right; he is certainly an antidote to my pessimism. His analysis is interesting -- if doable; and if doabvle, it is vital.
This is a rough guide to a better future.
An Economy Based on Having Stuff is not Sustainable February 13, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is a great book group read! It is not too long, has great examples, and is a pleasurable read. Not a book just for economic eggheads, but for everyone!
When I read this book I wanted to buy 100 and share them with people and discuss the ideas in the book. Since then my book group also read the book and can't stop talking about it.
McKibben challenges the fundamental economic belief that having more will make us happier and is necessary for our country's economic survival. Instead he offers a different model for our economic life that is sustainable for the planet and for us as a people.
A Durable Future January 5, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Deep Economy is a very well written and important book. What I like best about it is the way Bill McKibben puts together a comprehensive way of looking at contemporary problems. He smoothly shows how individual consumer decisions, such as buying locally, and large scale environmental issues such as global warming are closely connected. I haven't read any of McKibben's earlier books, but he has been studying and writing about environmental and economic issues for several decades. The title is a play on the term "deep ecology," used by radical environmentalists. McKibben makes a persuasive case that economics is the best way to attack many of our most serious problems.
McKibben's most fundamental point is that we must question the widely held assumption that growth is necessarily a good thing for the economy. He concedes that for people living in extreme poverty, a certain amount of growth is indeed necessary, but that beyond a certain point it is counterproductive. Not only for the environment, but for happiness and well being. He quotes statistics that suggest accelerated growth in income and spending has been associated with a decline in overall happiness for Americans.This is partly due to what he calls "hyper-individualism," the extreme focusing on self that leads to alienation and the collapse of communities.
This is not, of course, an objective look at these issues, nor is there any pretense of this. I don't necessarily agree with all of McKibben's political assumptions. One could, for example, take many of the facts and possible solutions McKibben puts forth and interpret them in a more libertarian (rather than the anti-individualist, communitarian bias he has) way. But political ideology is not really the point of the book. McKibben believes, as do an increasing number of environmentalists, that global warming, peak oil (the world may be running out of oil very soon) and other environmental problems will soon make our current way of life (meaning Western, especially American) impossible. This is no longer a fringe position. With nations like India and China trying to emulate the American lifestyle, the prospect of running out of resources such as coal and oil no longer seems like a distant prospect. Add to this the issue of climate change and we really are facing a serious challenge to radically change the way we live.
Deep Economy is more than an alarmist tirade. It contains many hopeful ideas for the future, many of which are already being done. Probably the most basic and radical idea in the book is that local food production is actually more efficient than the mass production system that dominates the marketplace today. From local farmers markets across the U.S. to innovative solutions implemented in African, Asian and Central American countries, McKibben shows that the solution to virtually all food problems is simply for more people to grow and consume locally. The vast amounts of energy used in transporting food, the health concerns presented by genetically engineered crops and factory farmed meat all point to the extreme wastefulness of the agribusiness status quo.
McKibben prefers the term "durable" to sustainable, but it means basically the same thing. In this book, he makes a very good case that the only durable future we have is one that is far smaller, less wasteful and community-based than the present American model. Perhaps some of the most significant statistics he sites are towards the end of the book, where he compares American and European consumption patterns. This is important because Western Europeans are not poor or disadvantaged -in fact they have longer life spans, superior educational systems and work shorter hours compared to Americans; all this while driving smaller, more efficient cars, living in smaller homes and consuming about half the energy as Americans. This is proof that the American notion that "more" and "bigger" is better is a fallacy, and one we can no longer afford to believe in.
Essential, easy reading December 31, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
On a very basic level, "Deep Economy" by Bill McKibben is about global warming. But McKibben moves beyond the message we hear from people like Al Gore--unplug your cell charger and you've done your part!--to explain how our spending affects the environment and the strength of communities.
His ideas would almost seem to contradict his message--after all, spending locally and organically actually causes consumers to spend more money than if they did all our shopping through the internet or at Big Box stores. But the result--less energy spent in transporting goods, and more relationships bulit when neighbors meet face to face--is worth every penny.
One of the most frightening points he makes is that if people around the world lived as we do in America--owned the same percentage of cars, that sort of thing--we'd run out of resources. Scarier still is that we promote our brand of lifestyle through our movies and music, which cross borders; if a country the size of China buys this message, we're screwed.
A final point he makes is that all this spending isn't making us any happier--our satisfaction levels, as marked by surveys, have steadily decreased. "More" is not equal to "Better," he says.
The book is highly readable, even for all its facts and details. I purchased it for people who I know won't listen to people like Gore, sure that no one can come away from a reading of this book unchanged.
Deep Economy = Right on the money! December 26, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
If you are looking for a good entry-level book addressing some of the more complex social issues of our time, then Deep Economy is a good place to start. Like other social issues book that deal with social issues, Bill McKibben's book will probably scare and then anger the reader at first, but it's a message that can't be ignored.
McKibben's premise is that our current economy is based upon year after year growth and expansion and our environment and well-being can't take it too much longer. He argues that our unofficial national motto of "more is better" is killing us as we tear through our global resources and destroy our bodies. Technology, vocational efficiency and economic growth are turning us into the hyper-individualized individual that is easily manipulated and controlled by big business corporations. We are obsessed with consumerism and excess but studies are showing us that "more stuff" does not actually make us any happier thus it is pointless. Meanwhile we are destroying the Earth through the burning of fossil fuel and the little gains we are slowly making will be more then wiped out by the growth of China and India's economies which are trying to become like the USA. His solution is logical as he argues we must become more communal in every facet of our life. Our economies, our energy usage/distribution and our food system will all benefit the Earth as a whole if we can address these problems at the community level.
This is all pretty heady stuff that most of think about at some levels, but might not be ready to accept as a way of life like McKibben suggests. Nonetheless this is a great intro book while others out there go into these subjects with more detail.
Bottom Line: Because of its short length and uncomplicated prose, this is a great book to give to that special someone that hasn't read any social issue books yet but might benefit from it.
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