The Earth and I

Almost all environmental books treat the environmental crisis as though humans are in charge of nature, rather than part of it. The Earth and I is the first book to put all preconceived notions aside and to ask, naïvely: Who are we really? What is our relationship to the earth? How is it possible that we, out of all the millions of species, have come to destroy our common home? The answers are surprising and have far-reaching implications for those searching for solutions.

Part One tells what is happening to the earth’s systems and how they are being destroyed. It rewrites the two-million-year history of humanity’s tenure on the earth as if we are part of nature and not separate from it, and describes both the earth and the universe as living systems. It paints a global, coherent picture of the devastation to Earth’s air, water, forests, and creatures that is not found elsewhere. It reviews assaults on these systems that are not treated adequately, if at all, elsewhere: chemicals; radiation; plastics; detergents; biocides; noise; cars; and guns.

Part Two, ＂Digging below the Surface,＂ asks why, and enters territory not previously explored by environmentalists. It describes the various ways to make a living on the earth--hunting and gathering, shifting agriculture, nomadic herding, settled agriculture, and industrial technology--as choices, not eras--choices coexisting with one another until today. It rewrites economics. It explores the relationship of warfare, slavery, religion, and human sexuality to the environmental crisis. And it is forced to conclude that these aspects of human culture are not only shaped, but created by the technologies we use; that the use of non-human sources of energy interferes with human psychological development; and that the unfulfilled urges within us explode in the violent technologies that are destroying our planet.

The solutions, if it is not too late, therefore lie in wise choice, rather than wise use, of our technologies.

Arthur Firstenberg spent his childhood summers studying nature and learning wilderness skills in upstate New York, at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, in the mountains of Yosemite National Park, and on an island off the coast of Newfoundland. In college he studied physics, mathematics, ancient civilizations, and foreign languages, while spending half his time hiking, canoeing, skiing, and rock-climbing. After graduating he lived with small farmers on the coast of northern Norway, and among the traditional Maya of Guatemala.

In 1986 he walked across the United States as part of the Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament, and with every step witnessed what was happening to the Earth he loved and all its creatures. And when he tried to escape to the Canadian Arctic, he saw it was happening there too. He researched and wrote this book in an effort to learn why. Thirty years later, the answers have not changed; they have only become more urgent. He has thoroughly updated this book to show how, and again, why, and what each individual who shares our planet can do to save it.

Arthur is a scientist, journalist, and practitioner of several healing arts. He is the author of The Invisible Rainbow: A History of Electricity and Life.