Abundant Earth Toward an Ecological Civilization

Climate change, pollution, habitat fragmentation, species extinction – there is no shortage of daily press coverage of the slow-motion collapse of our planetary ecosystem. So why are we barely acting? In this radical and thought-provoking book, sociologist Eileen Crist eloquently lays out the familiar causes. More importantly, she exposes and calls out the dominant anthropocentric mindset that is keeping us on the runaway train to destruction. There is another way, she contends, but will it find mainstream acceptance?

Though not fuming with the misanthropic rage of The Selfish Ape, Crist's book is nonetheless a pointed and furious cross-examination of anthropocentrism. Something she rather calls a human supremacy complex driving relentless expansionism. What we are doing to the planet is nothing short of terraforming on a totalitarian scale, she writes. Wildlife is under systemic assault, its freedom obliterated and constricted. What you quaintly call fishing is a regime of plunder. Our actions are best described as colonization, domination, slaughter, destruction, genocide, annihilation, a biological holocaust.

One of the book's main themes is the power of language in shaping our thoughts and actions. Our very perception of the world – to the exclusion of other modes of thinking. Crist purposefully uses emotive language – not to shock, but to expose how anodyne descriptions normalize our actions. And, she emphatically says, there is nothing normal about deforestation, overfishing, industrial agriculture, or mountaintop removal mining. We commodify nature by speaking of natural resources, ecosystem services, or fish stocks. "Repurposing Earth as humanity's resource colony" thus becomes an acceptable course of action, nay, our god-given right. As quotes from historical sources show, the ideas of "taming nature" and "progress" go back millennia. It also conveniently glosses over the death and destruction involved.

Ironically, though Crist is lyrical in her descriptions, she does occasionally go overboard on the academic sociology-speak. To write that "the relationship between people and nature is always shaped by ideational-actionable constructs", or that it is "within the horizons of our imaginative-pragmatic capacity that we may become a people who abdicate human empire instead of struggling to ensconce it and clean up its self-endangering corollaries" are verbose and not helpful in transmitting her important message to a wider audience.

Next to providing an overview of our planetary crisis, the first part of the book criticizes technological fixes and the oxymoron of sustainable development, both of which seek to find solutions within the existing framework of perpetual growth. The second part of the book debunks three commonly heard refrains. One, that our impact and actions are natural, and that we have a long history of such behaviour. This is often propped up with the Pleistocene overkill hypothesis (see my review of End of the Megafauna for a critical evaluation). Two, that the idea of wilderness is defunct because there is no true wilderness left anymore anyway. Three, that our actions are (supposedly) spreading freedom to humans around the globe. In practice this means more stuff to consume, which requires us to destroy yet more of our natural environment.

Many books are lamenting our current predicament. Complaining is easy (see also my review of The Uninhabitable Earth). Whether they are actually worth reading stands or falls on their proposed solutions. This brings us to the book's third and final part: Crist's call for scaling down and pulling back. Her insights into the worldview-constricting power of language were enough reason for me to give her one thumb up. Here is where the second thumb comes up. She head-on confronts overpopulation, calling it *the* big multiplier when considering the environmental impact of everything we do, and urging readers that we *have to* break the silence around this final taboo. I have summarised my thoughts on this in my review of Should We Control World Population? (My answer, by the way, is "Yes!")

Scaling down means not just curbing population growth but actively depopulating. If we want to give all humans a fair and healthy standard of living without it costing the planet, a ball-park figure for optimum population size is two billion (see also A Planet of 3 Billion – the exact number will depend on what you plug into your equations). Crist sees the empowerment of women, and the universal availability of contraception and family planning as the only solution. We have good evidence that this works, see also my review of Empty Planet. She adds that past, more radical solutions, such as forced sterilisation or China's draconic one-child policy, are examples of how not to do it.

The pulling back part is where the book's subtitle comes into play. I do think that much of what she writes here, interspersed with frequent quotes from historical naturalists and radical environmental thinkers, becomes a bit woolly and does not offer a particularly actionable blueprint. Furthermore, Crist seems to draw on indigenous wisdom on how to relate to the world. For me, her talk of reconnecting with nature and honouring our relationship with the earth goes into cringeworthy spiritualism territory, but you may call me prejudiced. At least we both agree it will beat our current modus operandi.

To wit, to get towards an ecological civilization, Crist suggests, amongst others, to curb overconsumption, have fewer or no children, decentralize our economies, reduce global trade, stop eating meat, farm organically, and pursue massive rewilding efforts. Basically, we need to reset our thinking on what makes a good life and foster decency, virtue, and restraint.

To be clear, Crist does not advocate retreating to the caves, overthrowing civilization, and rejecting all modern technology. But what can stay and what should go? She remains vague on the particulars, adding that "it is impossible to foresee what such a civilization will look like; that will be a work in progress for future generations to shape". Calling this a cop-out would be too easy, her book makes crystal clear that our current approach – where destruction is a feature, not a bug – is broken. But the devil will be in the implementational details.

Despite some minor personal gripes, Abundant Earth is a very powerful book. The notion of our language shaping our perception is one of those "what has been seen cannot be unseen" ideas. When you pay attention to it you realise just how habitually we all speak of nature as a mere larder. Will Crist's radical ideas go mainstream? Time will tell. But as an eye-opening book and conversation starter, this one comes highly recommended.