 In Beyond Civilization, Daniel Quinn
says:
People will listen when
they're ready to listen and not before. Probably, once upon a time,
you weren't ready
to listen to an idea than now seems to you obvious, even urgent. Let
people
come to it in their own time. Nagging or bullying will only alienate
them.
Don't preach. Don't waste time with people who want to argue. They'll
keep
you immobilized forever. Look for people who are already open to
something
new.
Five years ago, I became ready to listen, and, starting with Full House and Ishmael,
began to learn the truth about what is happening to this world, and
what we can, and can't do, to save it from civilization's excesses.
Here's the updated list -- 80 books and articles that have forever
changed my
worldview and my purpose for living. The fifteen most critical readings
have a numbered triangle in front of them, with the numbers reflecting
the order that, I would suggest, it makes most sense to read them in.
What Life was Really Like Before
Civilization: Revisionist History
- [
 1] Full House, by the
late Stephen
J. Gould.
The presence of man on Earth was an unlikely and random occurrence, and after the
next Extinction Event life on the planet is likely to evolve
very differently. We are not the Crown of Creation. - The Wealth of Man
by Peter
Jay. The life of pre-historic man was easy, idyllic, and very
pleasant. Hunt big slow game an hour a day, relax and enjoy the rest.
- The
Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race, (online) essay
by Jared
Diamond Why the adoption of agriculture was 'a catastrophe
from which
we have never recovered'.
- [4] The Story of B and Ishmael by Daniel Quinn.
Also the IshCon
discussion forum. The first two of these three books
are fictionalized stories about human history from a different,
anti-civilization perspective, with penetrating, astounding analysis
and insight. Ishmael is more
popular but I prefer The Story of B
which recapitulates the entire theses in a series of 'lectures'. The
two critical lectures are online here.
- Original Affluence,
by Marshall Sahlins.
If you wanted to defend a new society that featured rigid hierarchy,
agonizingly hard work, suffering, frequent starvation and slavery,
wouldn't you try to portray
the alternative life as 'short, nasty and brutish'?
- Extinction, by Michael
Boulter. Our planet's history is one of cycles punctuated by
massive extinctions and new beginnings. Our only choice is whether to
end this one sooner (a century) or let it end later (several millennia).
- The Axemaker's Gift
by James
Burke
and Robert Ornstein. How innovativeness has been increasingly corrupted
to concentrate and retain power, instead of making the world better.
- [12] A Short History of Progress, by Ronald Wright.
A survey of past civilizations makes clear that savagery and short-term
thinking are responsible both for humanity's evolutionary success and
its destruction.
- [13] Straw Dogs, by John Gray.
While we have a responsibility to try to make the world better and
joyful, for those we love and leave behind, we cannot be other than
what we are: a fierce, brilliantly adaptable species destined to bring
out the next great extinction, and annihilate ourselves in the process.
What's Going On
Under our Noses: The Real News
- The Unconscious
Civilization, by John Ralston Saul.
How and why we've become helpless slaves of the political and economic
system we built.
- Ockham's Razor, by
Wade Rowland.
What's wrong with our modern values, and where to look for new ones.
- Beginning Again, by David Ehrenfeld.
A biologist's plea for a new partnership with nature, and prediction of
the mechanized world coming apart like a broken flywheel if we don't
heed his advice.
- [5] A Language Older Than
Words, by Derrick Jensen.
A profound and disturbing argument for why moderate answers to our
current predicament won't work.
- [6] The
World We
Want, by Mark Kingwell.
Why we are best served by trusting our
instincts rather than what we are persuaded is moral or rational.
- People
Before Profit, by Charles
Derber -- How rampant corporatism ravaged
the vast
majority of people worldwide in the 1800s, and is doing so again.
- State of the World,
by WorldWatch
Institute, The 7 trends that most threaten eco-collapse: population
growth, rising temperature, falling water tables, shrinking cropland
per person, collapsing fisheries, shrinking forests, and the extinction
of plant and animal species.
- World Scientists' Warning
(online), by the Union
of Concerned Scientists. "Human beings and the natural world are on
a collision course. No more than one or a few decades remain
before the chance to avert the threats we now confront will be lost and
the prospects for humanity immeasurably diminished. A great
change in our stewardship of the Earth and life on it is required if
vast human misery is to be avoided and our global home on this planet
is
not to be irretrievably mutilated."
- Dream of the Earth
by Thomas Berry.
"We are in trouble just now because we do not have a good story.
We are in between stories. The old story, the account of how we
fit into it, is no longer effective. Yet we have not learned the
new story."
- Healing Time on Earth, by David Brower. An argument that life without wilderness is meaningless and unsustainable.
- The Future
of Freedom, by Fareed
Zakaria. How cultures change, and why they don't.
- The New
Rules of the World, by John Pilger.
A devastating
portrait of how the world really works.
- The
Demon in
the Freezer, by Richard
Preston. How vulnerable we all are to
individual acts of terror, chaos and sabotage.
- [10] Against the Grain,
by Richard
Manning. How and why grain monoculture evolved, and how it's ruining the
Earth.
- Population Projections,
by US
Census Bureau. They're no longer assuring us that US and Global
Population will level out at 300 million and 9 billion. Would you
believe 1 billion and 12 billion by the end of the century, and still
rising?
- Global Warming, by
NOAA.
An online synopsis of US scientists' consensus on the causes and
consequences of global warming.
- This Overheating World -
Worried? Us? (online essay) by Bill McKibben. Article
in the UK journal Granta explaining the psychology, and
cynical political expediency, of denial.
- Are Cities Changing Local
and Global Climates?, (online) by NASA.
Studies of urban microclimates and how they contribute to local
climate change and instability.
- Restoring Scientific
Integrity
(online) by Union of
Concerned Scientists. The Bush regime's distortion of scientific
research to forward its
own political agenda, and how it threatens our planet.
- Climate Collapse,
by David Stipp
(online article) from Fortune Magazine. The possibility and chilling
implications of
global warming producing sudden drastic climate shifts.
- Conservative Myths on
Global Warming (online) by Blogger
Carpe Datum. A brief but thorough explanation of the science behind
global warming, and the reasoning behind scientists' connecting it to
human activity and worrying about the risks of resultant instability
- The Empire Strikes Out,
by Kenny
Ausubel. Corporatism and acquisitiveness run amok are ruining our
world, but nature always bats last.
- The Tragedy of the Commons,
by Garry
Harding. The commons, that which belongs in common to all of us, is
disappearing -- Why nobody really cares.
- Elizabeth
Costello, by JM Coetzee.
Why we tolerate a holocaust against our
fellow creatures on Earth.
- The Machine in Our Heads,
by Glenn Parton.
How the ecological crisis is rooted in a human psychological crisis.
- Rogue Primate, by John Livingston.
How anthropocentric cultural prosthesis has led our species astray, and
how we can find our way back by rediscovering "the sweet bondage of
wildness".
- In Defiance of Gravity, by Tom Robbins. An (online) essay that argues we must "insist on joy in spite of everything."
- The Slow Crash, by Ran Prieur. An (online) essay that explains how civilization will end, not with a bang, but with a series of whimpers.
- [15] The Long Emergency, by James Kunstler.
The story of our dystopian future, caused by our cultural incapacity
for preparedness, and sparked by resource scarcity and cultural
conflict.
About Gaia: What
Nature is Really About
- [2] When Elephants Weep,
by Jeff Masson. Compelling
scientific evidence that animals feel deep emotions.
- Mind of the Raven,
by Bernd
Heinrich. Compelling scientific evidence that animals are
intelligent, complex, rational and communicative.
- The Sacred Balance
by David Suzuki. A
passionate explanation of James Lovelock's Gaia Hypothesis, the need to
redesign how we live, and the importance of spending more time in
nature.
- The Hidden Dimension,
by Edward
Hall. We need space and a natural environment to be healthy and
human. When we're deprived of them, we get mentally ill.
- [7] The Spell of the Sensuous,
by David
Abram. How to reconnect with nature, and rediscover wonder.
- The World is Dying, by Richard Bruce Anderson.
Online essay about our instinctive grief over knowing what we are doing
to our beleaguered planet, and our feelings of helplessness about how
to remedy it.*
- The Weather Makers, by Tim Flannery. A scientific explanation of global warming, how we are causing it, and the possible consequences.
- The Truth About Nature, by Dave Pollard. My own essay, synthesizing the ideas in this reading list.
Toolkit for Change: Knowledge We
Can Use
to Save the World
- [3] Freeman Dyson's Brain
(online interview), in Wired Magazine.
The
twin keys to building a better world are (a) establishing viable
self-sufficient local communities to replace big centralized states and
governments, and (b) selective more-with-less technologies like
solar/wind energy coops and biotech medicines.
- The Developing Ideas
Interview (online) with economist Herman Daly.
An economic and tax program that favours communities and commons
instead of corporations, and a 'contract' to reduce our population and
ecological footprint.
- Tools for Conviviality, by Ivan Illich.
"The re-establishment of an ecological balance depends on the ability
of society to counteract the progressive materialization of values.
Otherwise man will find himself totally enclosed within his artificial
creation, with no exit." Full book is online.*
- Beyond Civilization, by Daniel Quinn. A prescription for creating a post-civilization world, starting with preparing yourself.
- The
Unconquerable World, by Jon Schell.
Why non-violence and
consensus-building are the only viable way forward.
- The Support
Economy, by Shoshana
Zuboff A model for a post-capitalist economy.
- Unequal
Protection, by Thom
Hartmann. The case for denying 'personhood'
to corporations.
- When Corporations Rule
the World, by David Korten.
The need to get corporations out of politics and create localized
economies that
empower communities within a system of global cooperation, overcoming
the
myths about economic growth and the sanctification of greed, and
focusing
instead on overconsumption, poverty, overpopulation, and reining in
untrammelled
corporate power.
- Radical
Simplicity, by Jim Merkel.
How to free yourself from
possessions and wage slavery without sacrifice.
- The Tipping
Point, by Malcolm
Gladwell. What makes things change.
- The Wisdom of Crowds, by James Surowiecki. Why collective wisdom is better than accepted wisdom and expertise at solving problems, and how to tap it.*
- Ten Ways to Make a
Difference, by Peter Singer.
A pragmatic recipe for change.
- [8] The Truth About Stories,
by Thomas
King. The truth about stories is that that's all we are. Want a new
society? Write a new story.
- The Boycott List,
by Responsible
Shopper, and Good Stuff,
by the WorldWatch
Institute. What not to buy, and what to buy instead.
- The Corporation,
by Joel
Bakan. An action plan for undermining corporatism.
- [9] Humans in the Wilderness,
by Glenn
Parton. How we might reintroduce humans, well-spaced-out, into a
primarily wilderness Earth.
- At Home in
the Universe, by Stuart
Kauffman. How self-organizing,
self-managing systems work.
- EarthDance (entire
book online), by Elisabet
Sahtouris. Eleven steps to cultural metamorphosis (my summary is here)
- eGaia (entire book
online), by Gary
Alexander. How to achieve peace,
cooperation and sustainability (replacing war, competition and growth,
the fuels of our current culture) and a future state
vision with vignettes from
individuals' lives in a balanced and harmonious future world.
- [11] The Commonwealth of Life, by Peter Brown. A 14-point plan for stewardship of the Earth based on an accepted set of duties, responsibilities, and universal rights.
- Cradle to Cradle and The Hannover Principles, by Bill McDonough. Cradle to Cradle outlines a 5-stage design and materials usage approach to sustainability. The principles should drive the way we design, develop and operate cities.
- [14] Creating a Life Together, by Diana Leafe Christian. How to create and sustain model Intentional Communities.
- The Growth Illusion and Short Circuit, by Richard Douthwaite. A blueprint for creating Sustainable Local Economies. Short Circuit is free online [my summary is here].
- Biomimicry, by Janine Benyus. Lessons and approaches from nature that could transform and inspire our processes for food production, harnessing energy, manufacturing, health care,
education, collaboration and entrepreneurship.
- The Cellular Church, by Malcolm Gladwell.
An online essay that suggest cellular organization principles might
allow us to accomplish, bottom-up, what political entities cannot.
- Is Your Genius at Work?, by Dick Richards.
A guide to deciding how your talent and passion (your 'genius') can be
applied to your purpose, and hence how you can best help to save the
world.*
- To Be Of Use, by Dave Smith.
A sustainable entrepreneur's explanation of why creating natural,
sustainable enterprise is essential to our planet's survival, and hence
to our own peace of mind.*
- Sustainability Within a Generation, by the David Suzuki Foundation. Eleven public policy programs that could achieve this extraordinary goal. This essay,
by me, explains how these programs, along with my own four proposed
programs (a sustainability information exchange, sustainable
enterprises, personal sustainable living programs, and sustainable
intentional communities) could bring both top-down and bottom-up
synergies to achieving sustainability.*
The table of contents of all 150+ articles I've written about Saving the World is here.
(*In the update footnote earlier this week, these additions were inadvertently omitted)
|
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
