Eaarth

What Hacker News says

1. gdubsJul 2019
   Bill McKibben’s “Eaarth” is a good one.
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2. dredmorbiusDec 2024
   Figure I've got (from Bill McKibben's Eaarth IIRC) is that lorries average 59 ton-miles/gallon, whilst barges on canals net 514 ton-miles/gallon. (McKibben doesn't include rail, which is slightly less efficient though you can think of rail as effectively steel barges.)

   I suspect the reason lorries are rating lower is that they're not typically filled to maximum weight capacity, and likely have greater idling losses.

   Though a more recent (2017) source gives a better showing for overland transport:

   The study shows that barges can move a ton of cargo 647 miles with a single gallon of fuel, an increase from an earlier estimate of 616 miles. In contrast, trains can move the same ton of cargo 477 miles per gallon, and trucks can move the same ton of cargo 145 miles per gallon.

   <https://maritime-executive.com/article/barge-transport-wins-...>

   The study being "A report commissioned by the U.S. National Waterways Foundation".

   "A Modal Comparison of Domestic Freight Transportation Effects On the General Public: 2001–2014"

   <https://nationalwaterwaysfoundation.org/file/31/final%20tti%...> (PDF)

   Upshot regardless is that water transport is efficient, if not always convenient.

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3. dredmorbiusSep 2023
   On sources: I'm highly partial to the work of William Ophuls who's been writing on this topic for a half century. His PhD thesis was published in 1977 as Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity (with an update in the early 1990s). That largely lays out the problematique, both in terms of resources and political dynamics. The book's old enough that many of its own projections can be tested, and I think these hold out exceptionally well, particularly in highlighting the (then future) rise of China as a global economic, political, and military force. Ophuls has gone on to suggest at least the framework of solutions, most especially in Plato's Revenge (2009), though that remains fairly high level. What really makes Ophuls's works tremendously valuable is his bibliographic notes which are comprehensive and, to use a favourite word of his, synoptic. The note for Ecology in particular covers much of the previous several decades' literature on growth and perspectives from both optimistic and pessimistic viewpoints, and Ophuls is exceedingly fair in considering both. I've gone back to many of those sources myself (Maddox, Kahn, Simon) to compare notes. I've actually typed out the note from Plato's Revenge, which captures a sense of his practice, though that focuses more on recent and political topics: <https://web.archive.org/web/20230607050023/https://old.reddi...>. In that sense, Ophuls is an excellent entry point into the literature as a whole. He has a website at <http://www.ophuls.org/William_Ophuls/Home.html> though in various states of disrepair.

   Ophuls's political-ecological approach is being carried on by Thomas Homer-Dixon: <https://homerdixon.com/writing/>

   There are other authors: Bill McKibben's Eaarth (sic), Joel Magnusonn's The Approaching Great Transformation, the book Natural Capitalism by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins, all of which I have to hand. Vaclav Smil has written his own damned library on resources and sustainability from a technical perspective, largely looking backwards though with some forward-looking elements. I particularly recommend Energy in World History (1992, 2019) and Energy and Civilization (2017). Energy Transitions (2016) tackles the specific question of converting to a sustainable-energy path: <Energy Transitions>. And there's a long list of other Smil publications.

   Kate Rayworth's Doughnut Economics is another prescriptive work looking at ways forward. <https://www.kateraworth.com/>

   The original Limits to Growth (Meadows, Meadows, Randers, & Behrens) remains relevant, and is freely available online: <https://donellameadows.org/the-limits-to-growth-now-availabl...>. I strongly recommend reading primary sources over hot takes, interpretations, and commentaries. It's also helpful to remember that LtG served not as a prescription but as an alarm: there's a clear problem and we've got to wake up to it. Sadly, more than 50 years onward, that alarm continues to be ignored by many (including within this thread).

   The now-defunct Worldwatch Institute published an annual State of the World publication which was an anthology of articles on sustainability generally, from 1984--2017, and give an excellent sense of the breadth and progress of thinking on these topics. Those are mostly available via the Internet Archive: <https://archive.org/search?query=worldwatch+institute+state+...>

   Worldwatch's founder, Lester R. Brown, has written numerous books, his latest covers this topic, The Great Transition: Shifting from Fossil Fuels to Solar and Wind Energy <http://www.earth-policy.org/press_room/C68/market_forces_dri...>

   Looking at the energy picture alone, there's David MacKay's Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air, which breaks down the technical picture, with a focus on Britain though applicable elsewhere, clearly and soberly. Freely available online: <http://www.withouthotair.com/>

   That's just skimming the top of a huge literature. There are a tremendous number of different viewpoints, of topics and approaches, and of course disagreement. Contrary to the assertions of some, however, there are specific and actionable recommendations to be found. Looking into the bibliographies and notes of the works listed should launch you further in whatever direction you care to explore.

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4. gdubsNov 2018
   I think it was in Bill McKibben's book "Eaarth" that I was surprised to learn that back in the 1970's, after the "Limits of Growth" was published, polls showed that people were generally OK with moving towards an economic system that prioritized sustainability over growth. (Unthinkable in today's political climate.)

   In our current system, growth == prosperity, generally. But, if you believe Climate Science – then, well, this model is unsustainable. It needs tweaks at minimum (carbon tax, etc), and a total reimagining at best (e.g., Star Trek, The Next Generation.)

   That said, I find Stewart Brand's argument compelling that a collapsing population can spell environmental disaster, because in a strained economy, protecting the environment is the last thing on people's minds. They will burn the cheapest, most accessible sources of energy available.

   But perhaps the real story is income inequality. The working class is told the economy most keep growing for their benefit – yet, since the 1970s, wages have been relatively flat. America, in particular, has seen enormous growth over the past half-century (even if it has slowed in recent decades) – yet that money has concentrated itself into a very small number of pockets.

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5. jsz0Dec 2010
   You may remember good books vividly but there are a ton of mediocre books and bad books that are about as useless as any web page and as easily forgotten. I feel like sometimes people romanticize books far too much. I recently finished Eaarth by Bill McKibben and I felt like the whole book could have been nicely covered in a 10 paragraph blog post. It wasn't a bad book, not even very long, but I couldn't tell you much of anything about it other than "climate change is bad." I guess my point is you have to be pretty selective about the quality of books you read just as you need to be selective about the quality of web content you read. The plus side of the web is brevity makes the bad choices more tolerable. You don't spend days reading a bad web article hoping it might get better. (It got good reviews. It must be good. Just a few more pages...)
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