Chapter 4 - Lightly, Carefully, Gracefully

The final chapter of Eaarth, by Bill McKibben, is a bittersweet one. After stating all of the statistics, all of the personal stories, all of the drastic changes that are happening on this new Eaarth, McKibben illustrates the possible strategies for maintaining our world and our lives. Early in this chapter he states that, "the amount of people with too little to eat is now rising." Food is one of our most basic resources that we need to survive. And currently, "it takes the equivalent of four hundred gallons of oil annually to feed an American, and that's before packaging, refrigeration, and cooking." Why is it so complicated, ineffective, and harmful to our economy? It is obvious that we have to change our system of agriculture. The cost of shipping food to stores across the world adds up to be more than the price of growing food locally opposed to what most people think.

        I enjoyed reading Pete Johnson's innovative plan for growing food - having a moveable greenhouse which would be local, less expensive, and healthy. McKibben is right, we need small farmers throughout the country to make the change we need. In short, he states that we don't have a choice. Compared to China, we eat way more meat than we should and it's costing us. Plus, I know for a fact that I don't buy local foods when I should. I stick to the fast-food chains in Kalamazoo because they are inexpensive and quick. In this chapter, I was surprised that the people in the reality series Frontier House said that they rather live on the frontier but instead moved back to live in the suburbs.
         McKibben explains that we as human-beings need a controlled decline; we need the wisdom from the past and the knowledge of the present to hunker down and change the planet for the better. At the conclusion of the book, McKibben describes the Internet as being one of the best resources we have in our fight against global warming because of it's ability to connect neighbors. I strongly agree with this. People use the Internet more than ever now and could help make small changes here and there.

       My final thoughts:

• For one I am amazed at how much information McKibben as collected and has documented in this novel. It's incredible!
• The fact that he started out connecting his neighborhood and then made his awareness viral is truly inspiring.
• He has given me a few great ideas for the future - conserve, buy local, and make small changes daily to reduce emissions

For the song I have chosen for this final chapter, I need to give a brief description of how I discovered it and why I chose it. A couple years ago I watched all of the Harry Potter movies for the first time and one song stuck with me. The song is so different and so powerful for being in one of the final movies that I had to replay the scene over and over again. The meaning of the song is really up for interpretation, enjoy!

The link to the clip is here: O'Children Harry Potter

The link to the whole song is here: O'Children by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds