Earth Odyssey by Mark Hertsgaard - Book Report/Review Example

Earth Odyssey: Book Report The book “Earth Odyssey” written by Mark Hertsgaard deals with the burning issues of environmental pollution and the anthropogenic impact on the state of our common home, the Earth. The author spent several years on the trip around as much as nineteen countries on four continents exploring the most itching environmental problems and the reciprocal impact of human activity and environmental conditions and collecting the opinions of both competent people and residents of the imperiled areas concerning the prospects of human species survival in the nearest future. To my thinking, this book remains extremely relevant nowadays despite the fact it was published almost two decades ago. Moreover, recent trends in environmental pollution and human economic activity make its relevancy growing at a rapid pace. Some things have changed since 1998 (the Kyoto protocol on CO2 emissions has been signed by a large number of countries, China has finally superseded the U.S. and become the largest economy worldwide, considerable success has been achieved in development of renewable energy (a good example is Australia), but the issue of danger posed by human beings to the planet still remains itching, for the Earth constantly brings it to the fore with natural disasters and lethal effect produced on people by the environmental pollution. Probably, the most capturing aspect of the book for me is the way Hertsgaard traces relations between humans’ economic activity and environmental perils: “Indeed, many modern environmental hazards are rooted […] in economic activities and technological choices that bring pleasure, profits, paychecks, or simple survival to millions” (Hertsgaard). It is notable indeed that after the end of the Cold War, the issue of nuclear weapon use went out of the focus, giving way to the delusive and controversial theme of people’s consumerism. Humans are engaged in use and production of motor vehicles, advertising and marketing processes or deforestation for the sake of land. The interesting point in the author’s position – and a very reasonable one – is that almost entire human activity is somehow related to and aimed at consumerism and multiplication of comfort and profit. In fact, the real-life situations and examples listed by Hertsgaard both impose admiration and terrify. Admiration is imposed primarily by the powerful striving of humans to improve their life conditions, while their proneness to overlook effects of technological and industrial advance is awful. Chemicals polluting water, soil, and air, greenhouse gas emissions, disastrous potential of nuclear energy, - all these things are tolerated as long as people can make ends meet, live comfortably or even afford certain surfeits. And Hertsgaard’s book interestingly brings this tendency to the foreground, and it is vividly illustrated already in the first chapter depicting the Chinese city of Chongqing, where the ‘healthy’ state of the environment and population is sacrificed to industrial development. The second valuable contribution of the book to my worldview was made by the speculations on the development of life on the planet from the historical perspective. To my thinking, the author conveyed two vital ideas related to the topic. Firstly, people have always influenced the environment in different ways, and with development of civilization, this influenced gradually strengthened, placing the “burden on the earth’s ecosystem” (Hertsgaard). People’s striving to insure supplies of clean water, produce enough food to feed the growing population and others have always affected the state of environment. Therefore, this view showed that human beings have never lived completely independently from the environment, i.e. life and evolution of human civilization has always occurred at the environment’s expense. Secondly, Hertsgaard communicates a rather extraordinary idea referring to the viewpoint of Desmond Morris, the zoologist: the history of life on earth shows that almost all the biological species are doomed to extinct one day like dinosaurs did due to their vulnerability to natural forces or other biological species. However, people prove to be an exception from this general rule and the “earth’s dominant species” (Hertsgaard), for our species seems to be the most adaptive and resistant to the changing conditions. On the other hand, the framework drawn by the author hints that human species is approaching the point, where its own activity, environmental impact and strivings towards development might lead to extinction. This means that our species can possible extinct, but it seems that our extinction would be our own fault. Despite versatility of the material presented in the book, the main idea Mark Hertsgaard tried to communicate to the readerships remains rather clear: human beings need to change the attitude towards their environment, strategies of resources’ use and general lifestyle in order to survive in future. The author’s point is to illustrate the condition many industrial areas are driven into and consequences people face – this wide and diverse range of examples from Dinka people to Chernobyl helps Hertsgaard to reach the minds of the readership and makes his arguments very convincing. Moreover, it is notable that the story of Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the post-Soviet territory of Ukraine mentioned by the author adds another aspect to the main idea of the book: any borders are irrelevant, when it is about environmental damage or problems, - the Earth is our common home. Here, I would like to recall the Kyoto protocol as the evidence for the author’s viewpoint: this agreement considers CO2 emissions into the ozone layer, the part of the atmosphere, which obviously has no borderlines, yet many countries seek to take care of its condition together. The author managed to convince me of the acute need for changes in the patterns of consumption and energy use as well as of methods of production in order to survive. Moreover, the idea of “saving” the human species implies evening up life conditions between the developed and developing countries and sharing resources. Probably, some people could have a different opinion on the viewpoint of Hertsgaard, denying the need for transition to renewable energy and transforming ways of industrial production. Mainly, these could be people, who directly get benefit from the current state of affairs. For example, the main opponents of Hertsgaard’s perspective might be the owners of large industrial companies, which consume much coal for combustion, or developers of nuclear energy capacities. Moreover, the author states: “Most people want to do right by the environment and, if given the chance, they will — as long as they are not penalized economically for it” (Hertsgaard). This implies that ecologically friendly types of human activity are often more expensive than traditional ones, therefore, there is reluctance among the businessmen and even ordinary people to switch to less harmful types of energy and production due to the possible financial losses. Work Cited Hertsgaard, Mark. Earth Odyssey: Around the World in Search of Our Environmental Future. Broadway Books, 1998. Read More