The Burning Earth

THE BASIC PURPOSE of history, most might agree, is to help us understand the world we live in, how it came to be this way, and so forth. How to understand ourselves, and our lives. A seminal, new, magesterial work which accomplishes precisely that aim is "The Burning Earth; An Environmental History of the Past Five hundred years", by Sunil Amrith, an Ivy League scholar who writes brilliantly, compellingly. He eloquently weaves together a factual narrative including wonderful stories, characters, descriptions, and explanations of how human history and the environement are interconncted. Humans have been transforming their environment for thousands of years, and, of course, the Earth's natural environment, the ecosytsem, has shaped and influenced human development and history. Paleolithic and Stone Age humans altered the environment, and their lives were almost completely controlled by their environment. The more technologically advanced we have become, the more drastic the degree of our influence, and the more harmful and dangerous have become the environmental changes we have made. And the situation is not good. The impact, and the effects of that impact, that humans have had on the environment have never been clearer or more obvious than now, and are about to become much more obvious, and severe. Climate change is now apparent to all, and only the most devout climate deniers still dare to deny. The daily weather,everywhere, is so strange so consistently, on a daily basis, that not only is it obvious that the climate, everywhere, has changed, but also that the change is ongoing, will continue, will increase in speed, and will not stop. Its here, and its going to get worse, fast. This is the conclusion that the book inevitably, irrevocaibly points to, the same dire warnings we are now constantly, appropriately, exposed to and receiving. We simply have not acted and are not acting fast enough to prevent climate change from becoming severe, for us,in our lifetimes. In my lifetime, and I'm sixty nine. I wouldn't be surprised, for instance, if within the next five years, 2025-2030, we don't have a summer in my area in which the temperature rises above a hundred on June first, and remains there until Labor Day. I sure hope not, but, we'll see. But there is still hope for an eventual, ultimate solution. In fact, such a solution is clearly possible, within the laws of science. In a way, its no big deal, but we just have to do it. We have the knowledge and the technology, but, so far, not enough mass political will. We The People need to put more pressure on our leaders to lead, and to lead us to undo the damage we have done, before its too late. We have filled the air with carbon and other poisons, have devastated and poisoined the Earth, land, air, and water, and have almost succeeded in killing the Earth, including ourselves. But carbon can be removed from the atmosphere, and poisons can be cleaned up, removed from oceans, the land, and our bodies. Precisely how to remove the plastic and the radioactive atoms which evidently inhabit our bodies currently eludes me, but, it is to be hoped, not our scientists. As I move closer to the end of my life, I keep hoping that before I die I will have some idea of how its going to go: whether humanity is going to destroy itself and die, or repair and reverse climate change and environmental destruction, and thrive indefinitely into the future. As of right now, I'd have to say that its "nip and tuck", that it could go either way.