The Age of Consequences: A Chronicle of Concern and Hope

by Courtney White, Wendell Berry (Introduction)

Overview

Our planet is approaching a critical environmental juncture. Across the globe we continue to deplete the five pools of carbon - soil, wood, coal, oil, and natural gas - at an unsustainable rate. We've burned up half the planet's known reserves of oil - one trillion barrels - in less than a century. When these sources of energy-rich carbon go into severe decline, as they surely will, society will follow.

Former archeologist and Sierra Club activist Courtney White calls this moment the Age of Consequences--a time when the worrying consequences of our environmental actions- or inaction - have begun to raise unavoidable and difficult questions. How should we respond? What are effective (and realistic) solutions?

In exploring these questions, White draws on his formidable experience as an environmentalist and activist as well as his experience as a father to two children living through this vital moment in time. As a result, The Age of Consequences is a book of ideas and action, but it is also a chronicle of personal experience. Readers follow White as he travels the country --- from Kansas to Los Angeles, New York City, Italy, France, Yellowstone, and New England.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781619026209
Publisher:	Catapult
Publication date:	01/12/2016
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	688,616
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.60(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

A former archaeologist and environmental activist, Courtney White is the co-found the Quivira Coalition, a nonprofit dedicated to building bridges between ranchers, conservationists, public land managers, scientists and others around practices that improve land health. Today, his conservation work focuses on building economic and ecological resilience on working landscapes, with a special emphasis on carbon ranching and the new agrarian movement. He is the author of Revolution on the Range: the Rise of a New Ranch in the American West and Grass, Soil, Hope: a Journey through Carbon Country. He lives in Santa Fe, NM.

Wendell Berry is the author of over fifty books of poetry, fiction, and essays. He lives with his wife in Kentucky.

Table of Contents

Introduction Wendell Berry ix

Prologue 1

Part 1 Concern 9

1 Late High Fiesta 11

2 Independence Day 17

3 The Imperative 23

4 The Parade 31

5 Terra Madre 41

6 Westward Ho 48

7 To Complexity and Beyond 59

8 Dirt Day 64

9 Life is Great 71

10 A View from Europe 79

11 Lucky Us 90

12 A New York Interlude 98

13 The Windmill 105

14 Chasing Irene 118

Part 2 Hope 135

15 The New Ranch 137

16 An Invitation to Join the Radical Center 161

17 Hope on the Range 165

18 The Working Wilderness 174

19 Thinking Like a Creek 188

20 Conservation in the Age of Consequences 199

21 Big Things in Small Places 206

22 No Ordinary Burger 214

23 Redefining Local 221

24 The Carbon Ranch 228

25 The Fifth Wave 237

Acknowledgments 259

Editorial Reviews

"Hope in a book about the environmental challenges we face in the 21st century is an audacious thing to promise, so I'm pleased to report that Courtney White delivers on it."--Michael Pollan

"What we have in Courtney White's book is a recording of one passing phase of that frontier. And what a pleasure it is to see the real Wests captured in their flow! What a reassurance it is to see the Wests recorded in their living reality, instead of getting another view of someone being cut off at the pass in the Alabama Hills of the Kanab Desert, shooting wildly with both hands from guns that never need re-loading."--Wallace Stegner

"I have asked Courtney White to lend his essay 'The Working Wilderness' to this collection for three reasons: First, I think it is a good essay. Second, it tells of a serious and continuing effort on the part of some ranchers and conservationists to develop local knowledge sufficient to support a locally adapted land economy. This is an effort that is needed simply because it is necessary . . . Third, it is an essay about cooperation between people and nature, between people and their places, and between ranchers and conservationists. This, again, is necessary . . ."--Wendell Berry

"Courtney White has lived and worked at the radical center of collaborative conservation in the West for more than two decades, literally re shaping dialogue and land stewardship in the region through his innovations. But with this book Courtney demonstrates that his own essays on these concerns can rightfully take its place alongside Scott Russell Sanders, Peter Forbes, Richard Nelson and Wendell Berry for its eloquence, depth and lasting impact on the conservation movement."--Gary Nabhan

From the Publisher

11/24/2014
Echoing the official United Nations report on global climate change released in March 2014, White, an environmental activist and cofounder of the nonprofit Quivira Coalition, warns that the planet faces a severe environmental crisis. He argues, using alarming research, that corporate greed has depleted the Earth’s once-abundant resources “at an unsustainable rate,” noting that half the planet’s oil has been burned in less than a century. White laments that American presidents have said all the right things but done nothing, despite UN reports confirming that climate change is largely man-made and that increased greenhouse gas emissions can undermine civilization itself. His sincere, and often humorous, narrative spans America and Europe, covering the recent Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico and the threat posed to Venice by rising sea levels. White’s considerable insight emphasizes the need to save “a diminished world” before the point of no return. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

02/01/2015
In less than 100 years, we have consumed more than half of the world's known oil reserves. We have reached a time that White (Conservation for a New Generation; Grass, Soil, Hope) describes as the "Age of Consequences"—the end of a figurative fiesta when our collective hangover kicks in, and kicks in hard. In a series of reflections written between 2008 and 2012, White chronicles his personal experience of living in such a time. Although he makes dire observations about our tendency to splurge and to navel-gaze, the author also argues that there is hope for the future. He contends that conservationists, consumers, and producers can reach compromises in their use of resources by embracing the "radical center." As evidence, he relates the stories of ranchers and farmers who improve the land by working it. By its nature, this book presents fears and hopes that are bound to a particular moment in time. Some might question the objectivity of this narrative; however, by revealing his personal journey with climate change, White makes an overwhelming problem more accessible and immediate to a potentially desensitized audience. VERDICT Recommended for readers of popular science, current events, and social and environmental history.—Talea Anderson, College Place, WA

Library Journal

2014-11-06
A series of essays that explore some of the most pressing environmental challenges we face today and optimistically suggest some solutions.Inspired by an urge to explain to his children what has been done—or not done—to the environment and to chronicle his journey as an environmentalist, activist and parent, White (Grass, Soil, Hope: A Journey Through Carbon Country, 2014, etc.) started a blog on Earth Day 2008 titled A Chronicle of the Age of Consequences, from which the essays in the first half of this book are culled. The Age of Consequences, explains the author, is the moment we are living in now, where the unsustainable ways we have depleted our resources have become impossible to ignore. White reflects on the words of renowned environmentalists, poets and philosophers, as well as his own personal experiences and travels—to places like Venice, Italy and Horse Progress Days in the middle of Ohio Amish farm country—to paint a simple but compelling case for why we should be concerned. By admitting his own inability to constantly align his decisions with his values, White strikes a refreshing tone that will resonate with readers turned off by the superior or condescending attitudes of some environmentalist writers. "We ought to walk," he writes of his mornings shuffling two young kids off to school, "...but for reasons that are not entirely clear to me, we don't." In the second half of the book, White shares stories of unconventional, progressive ranchers and farmers across the country to suggest new ways of approaching conservation. Throughout, he balances abstract questions and ideas with tangible life experiences. After describing the overwhelming "cornucopia" he was presented with at a natural foods store, he was reminded of a quote from poet Ogden Nash: "Progress was good for awhile…but then it went on and on." Though White presents no earth-shattering revelations (or solutions), readers will be engaged by his frank and thoughtful discussion of our modern environment.

Kirkus Reviews