I lost interest in two books that I intended to read. I'm now reading a used copy of a book that I purchased from my favorite bookstore. The book is called Eaarth by Bill McKibben. McKibben has re-named our planet because it's changed so radically due to environmental damage.
I'm starting this post on the last day of October 2025. I wanted to finish Eaarth today to include it in my October reads. I met that goal. This will be a long complicated review involving research, so I am very likely to be working on it in November. I am glad to have had Bill McKibben's insights on environmental change.
What if illegal immigration to the United States is driven by climate ? I've never seen media speculation on the root causes of all this migration. It's something to ponder while I read the headlines scrolling across the bottom of my TV screen as I watch the news.
When I read in this book that petroleum supplies are dwindling , I looked up the number of electric buses that my local bus company has, and was alarmed by how few they were. They've got to get to the goal of total electric conversion of their bus fleet ASAP. Then I looked up the train system I use to get to other cities. I was relieved to learn that they are 100% electric.
Another issue brought up in Eaarth is corporate agriculture causing economic difficulties. Since corporate agriculture employs few people, it can result in more unemployment and crime. People have to feed themselves. If there are no legitimate jobs available, they may resort to illegitimate means of obtaining income.
In one agricultural area in Brazil, there were once eleven subsistence farms. Now there is a single corporate soybean operation, and the peasants have relocated to the edge of cities living in cardboard boxes. That sounds like the tragic circumstances of homeless people in the United States. There are increasing similarities between the U.S. and the Third World.
McKibben points out that suburbans have enough land around their homes that they could grow their own food. He thinks that even New York City residents could supply 10-20% of the produce they need by growing it themselves. But what about NYC's pollution? If I knew that food had been grown in a polluted environment, I would avoid it. The reason why I eat organic is to avoid toxic chemicals.
McKibben mentions lack of sufficient water as a limitation for suburbans growing their own food. He gives Las Vegas as an example where suburban agriculture wouldn't work. I stayed with someone who lived in the suburbs of Las Vegas, and everyone had a garden. According to Southern Nevada Water Authority, 90% of Las Vegas' water comes from the Colorado River and 10% comes from local ground water.
As for New York's power, McKibben believes that rooftop solar and wind turbines could meet 81% of New York's power needs, but it seems to me that in some neighborhoods the solar panels would be stolen. These neighborhoods would probably be too accessible for their own good.
McKibben thinks that since North Dakota can provide 14,300% of its needs, almost entirely through windmills, they could theoretically provide energy to other regions, but it would cost $100 billion to build the transmission lines. So it would be cheaper for every locality to produce energy locally, if possible. An Ohio wind farm would employ local people and the profits from getting it financed would go to Ohio banks, McKibben points out.
Some people think windmills are ugly. I don't understand that perspective and neither does McKibben. We both think that windmills are beautiful. I've always admired medeival windmills. McKibben says windmills are "the breeze made visible". That's very poetic.
McKibben thinks that every region of the U.S. could potentially produce clean energy. Hydropower could be an industry in the Northwest, offshore wind could be generated on the East Coast, solar energy in the Southwest and in the Southeast biomass from forests could be the main source of sustainable power.
McKibben blames the big utilities, who want to keep their power monopolies, for preventing clean energy from being implemented. No doubt that's true. Yet OTOH, McKibben says there are small companies that are using micropower plants to power a single building or a campus. That's been 1/3 of all new power businesses in the U.S. It plays a bigger role in the U.S. economy than new nuclear or coal plants.
An article I found dealing with mini hydropower plants states that they are a major factor in irrigation projects throughout the world. Bali was particularly mentioned as an example.
I imagine that small scale ventures will be the most successful means of implementing clean energy for the foreseeable future.
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