Down to the Wire: Confronting Climate Collapse |  | Author: David W. Orr
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Category: Book
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Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 75,012
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 288
Number Of Items: 1
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Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.5 x 1
ISBN: 0195393538
Dewey Decimal Number: 363.34
EAN: 9780195393538
ASIN: 0195393538
Publication Date: September 17, 2009
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Product Description
"The real fault line in American politics is not between liberals and conservatives.... It is, rather, in how we orient ourselves to the generations to come who will bear the consequences, for better and for worse, of our actions."
So writes David Orr in Down to the Wire, a sober and eloquent assessment of climate destabilization and an urgent call to action. Orr describes how political negligence, an economy based on the insatiable consumption of trivial goods, and a disdain for the well-being of future generations have brought us to the tipping point that biologist Edward O. Wilson calls "the bottleneck." Due to our refusal to live within natural limits, we now face a long emergency of rising temperatures, rising sea-levels, and a host of other related problems that will increasingly undermine human civilization. Climate destabilization to which we are already committed will change everything, and to those betting on quick technological fixes or minor adjustments to the way we live now, Down to the Wire is a major wake-up call. But this is not a doomsday book. Orr offers a wide range of pragmatic, far-reaching proposals--some of which have already been adopted by the Obama administration--for how we might reconnect public policy with rigorous science, bring our economy into alignment with ecological realities, and begin to regard ourselves as planetary trustees for future generations. He offers inspiring real-life examples of people already responding to the major threat to our future.
An exacting analysis of where we are in terms of climate change, how we got here, and what we must now do, Down to the Wire is essential reading for those wanting to join in the Great Work of our generation.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 9
 A must-read whatever your opinion January 2, 2010
sandyt (Washington State, United States)
18 out of 19 found this review helpful
Dr. David Orr is a university professor, trustee of a major environmental group called the Bioneers, and a participant in the Presidential Climate Action Project, which proposed global warming policies to the incoming Obama administration. In this book, he presents a case that our present form of society is doomed. Either we change it ourselves, or it will be extinguished by the stresses of climate change. Dr. Orr devotes his book to advocating the former, and to discussing how it might be done.
The scope of Dr Orr's thinking is quite impressive, to put it mildly. Readers of this book can expect numerous provocative references to writings in the fields of science, philosophy, law, government, religion, psychology, economics, ethics, history and political science. Dr. Orr discusses the ideas of a wide range of thinkers, from Deuteronomy to eighteenth-century English conservative Edmund Burke to the latest from the scientists working on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The list of sources at the back of the book is more than twenty pages long, and each is referenced somewhere in the body of the book. Dr. Orr locates the source of our troubles not with the greed of modern capitalists, but with the shortcomings of the Enlightenment philosophers and their predecessors; he singles out Francis Bacon, Rene Descartes, and Galileo, who, despite their great accomplishments, taught us to man is separate from nature, that mind is separate from body, and that whatever cannot be counted doesn't count(123, 147).
Dr. Orr begins his case with the assertion that we should have started working on climate change thirty years ago. We did not, and now we have used up our margin of safety. We have to cut carbon emissions 90 percent by 2050, and there is no time to lose.
I don't know enough science to know whether Dr. Orr is right about our margin. But I do know that a large number of the scientists doing climate change work agree with his sense of urgency. Anyone is free to disagree, of course. But those who do so need to be aware of the risks they are taking with posterity's lives. If we keep on merrily producing greenhouse gases, and the scientists turn out to have been right, we will have gambled and lost on the biggest bet in human history.
So, if we take the prudent course and commit to the changes needed to avoid climate disaster, Dr. Orr has a lot to say to us. He unequivocally denounces the gospel of economic growth (31), points out that corporations have no interest in the long-term future (36), and observes that we have no system of governance adequate to the tasks presented by climate change. (35)
He demolishes, at length and in detail, the mindset that treats climate change as a technical problem amenable to technical fixes. The buildup of dangerous concentrations of pollutants in the atmosphere is only one symptom among many; the others include our unwillingness to provide a living for millions of people (politely termed 'poverty'), greed, war, and the whole familiar panoply of social failings. He argues that all of these point to a fundamental failure of our model of civilization (160)
He calls for decentralized production of food and energy (175) and for democratic decisionmaking (63-67)
He has not the slightest confidence that corporations can play a constructive role without active government guidance. He calls on us to rein in their power and reminds us that the grant of a corporate charter comes with an expectation that the public interest will be served (208).
He thinks global capitalism is headed for history's ash heap, alongside communism, and calls on us to develop a better alternative.
He advocates the idea of the rights of posterity, a concept which has no standing in current law, and calls for a Constitutional amendment to protect it (72-76, 208)
He features extensive, and terrifying, descriptions of what climate change would really mean (17-21, 182-184)
Dr. Orr calls - not surprisingly - for better leadership, and opens his third chapter with extended discussions of Lincoln's leadership during the Civil War and Franklin Roosevelt's Hundred Days. The essential thing about Lincoln's transformative leadership, according to Dr. Orr, is that he held close to fundamental principles (slavery is wrong, the Constitution and the nation must be preserved) and sought to achieve healing and unity rather than demonizing his opponents. He understood that slavery was the fundamental issue of the day, taking priority over all others (tariffs, growth, etc). In that spirit, Dr. Orr calls on leaders to eschew sugar coatings, happy talk, and other forms of condescension, and to pay the public the compliment of assuming it can handle the truth.
His real faith, however, is in the grass roots, and he closes his book with stories of how local governments, universities, churches and citizens' groups are taking the lead in developing new economies.
Dr. Orr aims to provoke with this book, and he succeeds. His tone can be off-putting, his assumptions may not be entirely correct. But for anyone who has ever wondered whether business-as-usual is really sustainable in the face of modern problems, he provides an abundance of ideas about how we might order human affairs differently. For those who want to take action against climate change, he provides encouragement and inspiration by example. He makes a case that might lead to despair, but calls us to heed our better angels and overcome the most monumental challenge in history.
dauntless inspiration October 26, 2009
N. lynn ivey (bodfish)
19 out of 24 found this review helpful
David Orr is the Moses of our times. I have read all the books he has written since discovering him a year ago at the Bioneers conference in San Rafael. In DOWN TO THE WIRE, he critiques cultural and constitutional history bedrocked by current scientific research aided by incisive analysis and steered by a faith that unerringly speaks truth to power and calls out the best in us. Words fail me in describing his erudition, expertise, and ineffable determination to stand up for life and for all of us and our children and all future generations of humans and all our relations on this exquisite planet. David Orr's newest book should be on the Christmas list for all those who care about and support life.
A top pick for any science or social issues collection December 18, 2009
Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Down to the Wire: Confronting Climate Change comes from one of the founders of the Presidential Climate Action Project and advocates that individual steps to change won't solve the problems looming upon us. His is a realistic look at how the world is and what will need to be done to fix it: it advocates leadership at the government level and is a top pick for any science or social issues collection.
Leadership Emergency March 15, 2010
Sacramento Book Review (Sacramento, CA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Orr provides an eye-opening case for the selfish role our governments play. We now have matured enough at citizens to realize the great havoc we raise on a planet doomed by our indulgences and failure to heed ecological warnings. We must assume responsibility of our planets maintenance, not for our political pride or correctness, but for our very existence.
In chapter eight, titled What Is to Be Done?, Orr calls upon leaders to lead the world into balance with nature to curtail a catastrophe from global warming. He outlines the political manifestation of the problem and proposes five challenges. Each involves the willingness of leaders to refrain from selfish pride and acknowledge that a problem exists. The lives jeopardized by climate change and rising sea levels are not hundreds of thousands--as in the Indonesian tsunami that killed 230,000--but rather in the hundreds of millions of people worldwide who reside in low-lying cities. Still, many policy makers sit on the sidelines and pretend our environmental issues will simply disappear.
I praise people like David Orr, who are brave enough to lay it all out in clear English: wake up, people! We are out of time. //Down to the Wire// is a book everyone must read.
Reviewed by D. Wayne Dworsky
Shocking....but.... October 15, 2009
D. Krstulovich (Oak Park, IL)
7 out of 11 found this review helpful
Your new book is TERRIFYING
or
(depending on one's level of faith)
M-O-T-I-V-A-T-I-N=G!!
Sign me up!
I'm READY!
Showing reviews 1-5 of 9
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