The forum was one component of CEI’s review of the ACS position statement on global climate change. Position statements must be reviewed every three years, and the statement on climate change is one of four being reviewed this year.

To this reporter, the disconnects that are manifest in discussions of climate change were in full blossom on that Monday. Earlier in the day, I had read an op-ed piece in the New York Times, “Disaster at the Top of the World,” by Thomas Homer-Dixon, a professor of global systems at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, in Waterloo, Ontario. Homer-Dixon opens his essay with observations from a Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker plying the Arctic Sea, where temperatures are rising twice as rapidly as on Earth generally. He writes:

“Globally, 2010 is on track to be the warmest year on record. In regions around the world, indications abound that earth’s climate is quickly changing, like the devastating mudslides in China and weeks of searing heat in Russia. But in the world’s capitals, movement on climate policy has nearly stopped.”

Homer-Dixon argues in his essay that climate change may not be a gradual process that humans can easily adapt to and that a “devastating climate shock” may well be delivered in a very short time period. He maintains that nations should be preparing plans to deal with such a climate crisis.

In Boston, two speakers at the forum, Michael McElroy, a professor of atmospheric and environmental sciences at Harvard University, and James McCarthy, a professor of biological oceanography at Harvard, presented, first, a primer on climate change and, second, an examination of anticipated climate-change impacts.

An ACS colleague who sat through these first two talks with me commented, “How can you possibly listen to these two talks and not be convinced that this is a serious problem?”

The third talk, by John Christy, director of the Earth System Science Center and a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, and Alabama’s state climatologist, made an effort to answer that question. Christy is not a climate-change denier, but he is skeptical of the predictions of many atmospheric models that project significant increases in Earth’s temperature if atmospheric CO₂ levels continue to rise, and he presented a number of studies that he said called into question whether the models’ predictions matched measured temperatures. Christy’s presentation may have been more credible had he focused on fewer examples and done a better job explaining where his data had come from.

Christy also echoed many of the climate-change skeptics with less impressive credentials than his in his overall message, which was, basically, that climate-change models don’t match actual temperature measurements (a lot of climate scientists don’t agree); that even if rising atmospheric CO₂ levels are causing global warming, nothing we can do will make any difference; and even if we could do something about it, it would inflict an injustice on the world’s poor. Christy’s message, in other words, was a call for inaction.

Robert Socolow, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton University, where he is also the coprincipal investigator of the Carbon Mitigation Initiative, gave the concluding talk. In measured tones, Socolow talked of risks and benefits, of uncertainties in the science, and of the need for more research.

Nevertheless, two points Socolow made in his talk stood out for me. When it comes to climate science and policy:

• Never in history has the work of so few led to so much being asked of so many.
• What has seemed too hard has become what simply must be done.

Thanks for reading.

To this reporter, the disconnects that are manifest in discussions of climate change were in full blossom on Monday. Earlier in the day, I had read a long op-ed piece in the New York Times, “Disaster at the Top of the World,” by Thomas Homer-Dixon, a professor of global systems at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, Waterloo, Canada. Homer-Dixon opens his essay with observations from a Canadian Coast Guard ice breaker plying the Arctic Sea, and he writes:

The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet, and this summer its sea ice is melting at a near-record pace. The sun is heating the newly open water, so it will take longer to refreeze this winter, and the resulting thinner ice will melt more easily next summer.

 At the same time, warm Pacific Ocean water is pulsing through the Bering Strait into the Arctic basin, helping melt a large area of sea ice between Alaska and eastern Siberia. Scientists are just beginning to learn how this exposed water has changed the movement of heat energy and major air currents across the Arctic basin, in turn producing winds that push remaining sea ice down the coasts of Greenland into the Atlantic.

Globally, 2010 is on track to be the warmest year on record. In regions around the world, indications abound that earth’s climate is quickly changing, like the devastating mudslides in China and weeks of searing heat in Russia. But in the world’s capitals, movement on climate policy has nearly stopped.

Homer-Dixon argues in his essay that climate change may not be gradual and easily adapted to and that a “devastating climate shock” may well be delivered in a very short time period. He maintains that nations should be preparing a “Plan Z” to deal with such a climate crisis.

In Boston, two speakers at the forum, Michael McElroy, the Abbott Lawrence Rotch Professor of Atmospheric Sciences and the Gilbert Butler Professor of Environmental Sciences at Harvard University, and James McCarthy, Alexander Agassiz Professor of Biological Oceanography at Harvard, presented, first, a primer on climate change and, second, an examination of anticipated climate change impacts.

An ACS colleague who sat through these first two talks with me commented, “How can you possibly listen to these two talks and not be convinced that this is a serious problem?”

The third talk, by John Christy, director of the Earth System Science Center and distinguished professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, and Alabama’s State Climatologist, made an effort to answer that question. Christy is not a climate change denier, but he is skeptical of the predictions of many atmospheric models that project significant increases in Earth’s temperature if atmospheric CO₂ levels continue to rise, and he presented a number of studies that called into question whether the models’ predictions matched measured temperatures. Christy’s presentation would have been more credible had he focused on fewer examples and done a better job explaining where his data had come from.

Christy also echoed many of the climate change skeptics with less impressive credentials than his in his overall message, which was, basically, that climate change models don’t match actual temperature measurements (a lot of climate scientists don’t agree); that even if rising atmospheric CO₂ levels are causing global warming, nothing we can do will make any difference; and even if we could do something about it, it would inflict an injustice on the world’s poor. Christy’s message, in other words, was a call for inaction.

Robert Socolow, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton University, where he is also the co-principal investigator of the Carbon Mitigation Initiative, gave the concluding talk. Socolow primarily focused on the National Academies work on a major report on “America’s Climate Choices.” Four panels have already published their reports, and the final summary report will be released shortly. Socolow summarized the findings of the four panels and made a number of personal comments on those findings.

Of the many trenchant points Socolow made in his talk, two stood out for me. When it comes to climate science and policy:

• Never in history has the work of so few led to so much being asked of so many.
• What has seemed too hard becomes what simply must be done.

One other note on a completely different subject: One of yesterday’s events at the C&EN booth in the exposition was a book signing. George M. Whitesides, a chemistry professor at Harvard University, and Felice C. Frankel, an award-winning science photographer who holds concurrent positions at Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, signed copies of their new book, “No Small Matter: Science on the Nanoscale.”

Whitesides and Frankel at C&EN book signing event

These included Temechegn Engida, president of the Chemical Society of Ethiopia; Supawan Tantayanon, president of the Chemical Society of Thailand; Choon H. Do, president of the Korean Chemical Society; Eusebio Juaristi, president of the Mexican Chemical Society; David Phillips, president of the Royal Society of Chemistry; and Michael Dröscher, president of the German Chemical Society. A common theme of all of the presentations was the International Year of Chemistry 2011 activities being planned by chemical societies worldwide.

 A high point of the open meeting was the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the ACS and the German Chemical Society that commits the two societies to a three-year alliance focused on communicating the importance of chemistry to the general public and extending the rich history of collaboration between the two societies.

Prior to the signing, ACS President Joe Francisco addressed the open meeting, observing that the “far reaching exchanges between the German Chemical Society and ACS have culminated in this important memorandum. It is increasingly important that science become a global endeavor. A number of important issues are global in nature including climate change, access to clean water, and the need for sustainable energy. We need to facilitate interaction among scientific societies around the world to address these issues.”

Signing the memorandum were Francisco and ACS Board of Directors Chair Bonnie Charpentier for ACS and Michael Dröscher for the German Chemical Society.

Francisco (from left), Droscher, and Charpentier sign memorandum of understanding

Some background: The ACS Strategic Plan 2010 and Beyond consists of a vision, a mission, core values, and six goals. The first five goals are aspirational. Goal 1, for example, is: ACS will be the indispensable professional and information resource for members and other chemistry related practitioners. Goal 4 is: ACS will be a leader in communicating to the general public the nature and value of chemistry and related sciences.

Goal 6 is a little more prosaic: ACS will be a financially sustainable organization that serves members, chemistry, and related sciences.

The ACS Planning Committee, it seems, decided that maybe Goal 6 was out of place and ought to be either dropped altogether or have its intent incorporated into the preamble of the Strategic Plan, and the committee asked other committee chairs to sound out their committee’s membership on the idea. That’s what Adams was asking B&F to do, and he got several opinions, most of them less than enthusiastic about the idea.

Former Chair of the ACS Board of Directors Judy Benham, for instance, said that Goal 6 should be retained. “It is by no means trivial to be financially stable in difficult economic times,” she observed.

B&F committee member Anne O’Brien said that “it is important to emphasize that being financially sustainable is hard work.”

Dennis Chamot, a member of B&F and a past chair of the committee, as well as a member of the ACS board, said: “The first five goals are all invitations to spend money. Goal six balances that impulse.”

Current ACS Board Chair Bonnie Charpentier was the only B&F member to suggest a change in Goal 6. “I was one of the original ones to argue to include Goal 6,” she said. “I’ve changed my mind. I think its intent should be incorporated into the preamble.”

ACS President-Elect Nancy Jackson, who is a member of the ACS board but not a member of B&F, said that, “Some members believe that we are too focused on the return on revenue, and Goal 6 emphasizes that. This isn’t a goal; it is a tactic.”

No vote was taken. Adams asked B&F members to send further comments to him by Sept. 14 and that he’d draft a response from the committee.

What do you think? Review the six goals in the ACS Strategic Plan. Does Goal 6 fit? Or should it be removed? I’ll make sure that members of governance will receive any comments you have on the topic.

From an operations standpoint, ACS is doing just fine in 2010 financially. ACS Treasurer Brian Bernstein reported that the society expects a net contribution from operations of $14.4 million in 2010, which is $2.4 million favorable to the 2010 budget. Investment income is projected to be $14.5 million, which is just $400,000 short of the 2010 budget. However, the continued extremely low interest rates are causing problems for the society’s unrestricted net assets because the low interest rates result in a deficit in the value of the ACS defined benefits pension plan that has to be covered by funds from the society’s net assets. It’s all accounting, but it’s resulted in the society’s unrestricted net assets falling from $124 million at the end of 2009 to $98 million as of July 31, 2010.

Did you know that ACS Executive Director and CEO Madeleine Jacobs has started a blog on the ACS Network? Her first post went up on Aug. 4, and she used it to praise ACS’s outstanding staff on the occasion of the retirement of Marlyne Carr after 29 years of service to the society, the past six-and-a-half years as a special assistant to Jacobs.

As most of you know, Madeleine was C&EN’s editor-in-chief from 1995 to 2004, and in that position she was renowned for her graceful, witty, and thoughtful editorials. She says in her second blog post that writing those editorials was harder than writing a blog post. As her managing editor and the first person usually to critique the drafts of her editorials, I can attest to how hard she worked to polish them. I know her well enough to know that she will work just as hard to polish her blog entries; they’ll just be shorter than an editorial.

Check out Madeleine’s blog. And make it a point to leave a comment. We need to encourage her to keep up her blogging in the face of the many other demands on her time.

Speaking of that meeting in Boston, C&EN, C&EN Online, and “CENtral Science” will have quite a presence there. George M. Whitesides of Harvard University and Felice C. Frankel of Harvard and MIT will be at the Publications Division/C&EN booth in the exhibition hall on Monday, Aug. 23, from 11 AM to noon signing their fascinating and beautiful new book, “No Small Matter: Science on the Nanoscale.” Copies of the book will be available for sale at the booth.

C&EN’s sales and marketing team are once again hosting the ever-popular “green screen” event at which you can update your membership information and receive a framed print cover of C&EN with your picture on it for free. The green screen event will be held on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday from 8 AM to 5 PM in the North Lobby Registration Area of the Boston Convention Center. It will also be held on Sunday evening at the Pubs/C&EN booth in the exposition.

It’s no secret that blogs are hot (see above). C&EN’s “CENtral Science” is a portal to seven blogs covering a variety of important scientific topics—sustainability, chemical safety, pharma, chemical business, and more. Six keywords will be hidden among the blogs between Aug. 15 and 22. Collect all six and bring them to the C&EN booth at the exposition and receive a free, bright-yellow (I mean bright) “CENtral Science” T-shirt. Wear your T-shirt in the exposition hall on Monday or Tuesday and you might be selected to receive a VISA gift card (worth up to $50) given out every half hour.

C&EN’s Carmen Drahl and Lisa Jarvis, who in addition to their fine reporting for C&EN are responsible for The Haystack blog on “CENtral Science,” will both be attending the Boston meeting and tweeting and reporting from it. Leigh Boerner, who writes the Just Another Electron Pusher blog on “CENtral Science,” will also be tweeting and posting from Boston. Drahl is moderating the “MEDI Lunch & Learn: The Chem/Pharma Conversations Blogs & Beyond” at the Convention Center on Tuesday, Aug. 24, from noon to 2 PM. This mini-symposium features noted chem/pharma bloggers Derek Lowe (In the Pipeline), Ed Silverman (Pharmalot), David Kroll (aka Abel Pharmboy of Terra Sigillata), and Michael Tarselli of Scripps Florida.

And finally, C&EN Online Editor Rachel Pepling is giving a talk on Sunday, Aug. 22, at 1:55 PM at a Chemical Education Division symposium titled “Social Networking: The Next Generation.” Pepling will discuss our decision to refocus “CENtral Science” earlier this year and the portal’s usefulness to chemical educators.

We hope to see you in Boston at one or more of these events.

Thanks for reading.

Senior Editor Melody Voith talked to four niche consumer-brand companies about their relationships with raw material suppliers and profiled their efforts to work with those suppliers to ensure that the raw materials supported the companies’ green claims. Even for relatively small companies catering to high-end markets, Voith’s reporting suggests, ensuring a green provenance for raw materials is a challenge.

Soap manufacturer Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, for example, is committed to using only tropical oils that are certified to be organic and made under fair-trade practices. “Finding palm, olive, and coconut oils that meet Bronner’s high standards,” Voith writes, “has taken Gero Leson, the company’s chief operating officer, to the ends of the Earth.”

The kind of commitment practiced by Dr. Bronner’s simply isn’t possible for all companies, Voith notes. Unilever, for example, which makes Dove soap, is the world’s largest buyer of palm oil. Unilever has committed to buy all of its palm oil from certified sustainable sources by 2015, Voith writes. But the company acknowledges that “there isn’t yet sufficient volume coming through segregated supply chains where buyers can have confidence that the refined oil which they are buying comes from a plantation, mill, and refinery that have been certified sustainable.”

It’s easy to dismiss the sustainability efforts of niche players like Dr. Bronner’s and the other companies Voith discusses in her story. They’re small and they cater to upscale customers willing to pay a premium to demonstrate their green sensibility. But larger companies are paying attention to consumers’ increasing concern about the environment and their impact on it.

Walmart, for example, has 11 “Standards for Suppliers” posted on its corporate page. The “Environment” standard states: “Suppliers must ensure every manufacturing facility complies with national and local environmental laws, including all laws related to air emissions, water discharges, toxic substances and hazardous waste disposal. Suppliers must validate that all input materials and components were obtained from permissible harvests consistent with international treaties and protocols in addition to local laws and regulations.”

As Voith points out, the ingredient prospecting carried out by the companies she interviewed “may smooth the way for mass-market brands to improve the sustainability of their raw materials.”

This issue also contains many letters we received in response to my editorial “Addicted to Growth” (C&EN, June 28, page 3). As you can see, about an equal number of writers agreed and disagreed with the editorial. The editorial was also posted here on the “Editor’s Blog” and received a number of comments, the first two of which pretty much defined the scope of disagreement on the subject of endless economic growth.

The first reader to comment wrote: “After reading your editorial … ‘Addicted to Growth,’ I am appalled! ‘Earth … no longer exists’? This is a CHEMISTRY magazine and such editorials have no place within its pages. Furthermore, if you are not living on an Amish farm and riding to work on horseback, you are a complete hypocrite.

“‘Growth is a religion’? So is environmentalism!”

The second wrote: “I strongly agree with both McKibben’s sentiments and the Editor’s post, but I fear that humankind may prove incapable of implementing and accommodating a ‘controlled decline.’

“Instead, I often hear business and political spokespersons, developers, and engineers voice their earnest conviction that ‘when the economy recovers,’ jobs, economic growth, and construction will return to previous levels.

“If responsible leadership cannot envision and acknowledge a progressively resource-limited and ecosystem-damaged world, how can we plan for a controlled decline in growth—and wealth?”

Thanks for reading, and commenting.

Major chemical plants that cost $1 billion or more are now almost exclusively being built overseas.

Many think the decline of the U.S. chemical industry is inevitable, as countries such as China and India beckon with cheap labor and fast-growing domestic markets. But that’s far from the whole story. If it were, we’d see declining public and political support for other U.S. industries, such as the automotive industry, that have seen their jobs going overseas. We haven’t.

As chemical production has moved to other countries, so have high-paying jobs. U.S. chemical industry employment has declined by more than 20% in the past two decades. In 1990, our industry employed 1 million people. Today, we employ 780,000. These jobs, in turn, support nearly 4 million supplier and other expenditure-induced jobs. Why aren’t Americans shouting, “Keep the chemical industry jobs here!”?

I think the answer is that there’s a chasm between our industry’s own expectations and what the public expects of and knows about the industry. And unless we act, the U.S. chemical industry could become irrelevant on the world stage in a decade or less. More than 96% of all manufactured goods, including products essential to our national security, are directly touched by our industry. Dependence on foreign chemical manufacturing, like our dependence on foreign oil, is not a sustainable model for our country.

Three barriers stand in the way of success: communication, politics, and behavior.

Most people don’t understand the chemical industry. Many fear it. Nonetheless, our industry has a good safety record. On average, chemical companies that follow the American Chemistry Council’s (ACC) Responsible Care initiative are four times safer than the rest of the manufacturing sector.

However, the Responsible Care program, now nearly 25 years old, has yet to capture our nation’s awareness. Worse yet, a recent ACC survey shows that four out of five chemical plant line workers are completely unaware of Responsible Care. So it’s hardly any wonder that the vast majority of the public and their federal and state representatives are unaware of the program.

We need to start a conversation and keep it going. Every chemical company must act to build mutual understanding among its many stakeholders and with opinion leaders of all kinds, including elected officials, regulators, nongovernmental organizations, plant communities, critics, and employees. We must listen to them, act on what we hear, and use every communications channel available. These channels must include the Internet and social media, which allow direct and unfiltered information exchange.

Paradoxically, even as public trust of government is diminishing, legislation—some of it ill-conceived—is growing. Perception can overpower reality as some critics paint the chemical industry as having a poor understanding of chemical risks. Far too often, the industry finds itself at the end of the legislative pipeline when it should be at the beginning, designing solutions for the future.

The industry must secure a place at the negotiating table early. It must continually advance the understanding of how chemicals affect human health and the environment. Only then can it ensure that legislation is based on sound science.

Next, the industry must take to a higher level all of its distribution and employee safety, facility security, and environmental protection processes. We must hold ourselves to the highest standards, admit where we have fallen short, and follow up with corrective action.

The gap that exists between where the U.S. chemical industry is today and where it needs to be is wide but not insurmountable. It’s time to turn our energies to breaking down barriers and building bridges of opportunity for our industry, our nation, and the world.

Greg Babe

The survey doesn’t paint a pretty picture of the employment status of chemists. “Despite holding up fairly well in previous years,” Hanson writes, “chemists in 2009 found that jobs were more difficult to get, and their median salaries were falling pretty much across the board.”

When the survey was taken, unemployment among chemists had reached 3.9%, the highest rate of unemployment among chemists in at least the past 20 years. The median salaries among all chemists had declined 3.2% compared with 2008, falling from $93,000 to $90,000, Hanson reports. Salaries dropped in almost all measured categories of the survey.

Undoubtedly, the situation for chemists has worsened since the 2009 survey. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the overall unemployment rate for March 2009 was 8.7%. As you can see from the graph on this page, the overall unemployment rate continued to rise in the following months, peaking at 10.1% in October 2009 and hovering between 9.5% and 10% since then. There is no reason to suppose that chemists have fared any better than workers in general during those months. It is fair to conclude that the 2010 ACS salary survey will paint a picture that is even more negative than we are reporting in this issue.

However, there are some bright notes in the ACS survey. Our profession is becoming slightly more diverse. In 2009, 73.5% of survey respondents were men, down from 73.9% in 2008 and 78.5% in 1995. African American chemists increased from 1.8% of the total in 2008 to 2.8% in 2009; Hispanics represented 3.6% of the total in 2009, up from 2.7% in 2008; and Asians increased to 13.9% in 2009, up from 10.8% the year before.

The profession—or at least membership in ACS, which is what the survey actually measures—is also becoming marginally younger. The percentage of chemists under the age of 40 rose to 31.3% in 2009, the first time it has been over 30% in three years, Hanson reports. And the average age of chemists in 2009 was 47 years old, about a year younger than the average age in 2008.

A quite different sort of salary and career survey was released in late June by Nature. More than 10,500 scientists responded to the survey, which was open to respondents from March 22 to April 26. All practicing scientists were eligible to respond, including postdocs but not graduate students.

The primary goal of the Nature survey was to measure job satisfaction among scientists and the factors that contribute to job satisfaction. Overall, scientists in Denmark are the most satisfied with their lot; scientists in Japan, the least satisfied. Scientists in the U.S. ranked in the upper middle in overall satisfaction.

In terms of contributing to satisfaction, salary matters, of course, but it actually came in second in the Nature survey behind “guidance received from superiors or coworkers.” “Degree of independence” was ranked third as a determinant of overall satisfaction.

We hear it all the time, but I don’t think we take it seriously enough: Mentoring and other collegial social interactions on the job exert a powerful influence on people and go a long way in determining how they feel about their work.

Thanks for reading.

The purpose of the Environmental SCENE news channel is to enrich the home pages of the four journals on which it appears with news of interest to scientists working in environmental areas. Some of the news that appears in the Environmental SCENE news channel will come directly from C&EN. Every major department of C&EN—Business, Government & Policy, and Science/Technology/Education—contains such stories.

Other content in the news channel is being developed by C&EN’s Journal News & Community Department (JNC). JNC is staffed by two chemically trained journalists: Senior Editor Lila Guterman has an M.S. in chemistry from Caltech and a science writing certificate from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and wrote about science for the Chronicle of Higher Education from 1999 to 2008; Assistant Editor Michael Torrice holds a Ph.D. from Caltech and a science writing certificate from UC Santa Cruz. Guterman and Torrice will be writing news stories based on papers in ACS journals, and they will be commissioning stories on other papers from the four journals from a stable of highly qualified freelance writers.

You’ve already seen Torrice’s work in C&EN. He took the early lead in the magazine’s science and technology coverage of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, writing or contributing to three News of the Week stories and a Science & Technology Department story on the spill, and collaborating on the comprehensive cover story that appeared in the June 14 issue. You’ve also seen the work of some of the freelancers Guterman and Torrice are working with on the Science & Technology Concentrates page—concentrates written by freelancers have “JNC” at the end of the concentrate where the initials of the C&EN staff writer usually appear (e.g., C&EN, June 28, page 38, top left concentrate).

Since June 2009, C&EN stories based on research papers in the Journal of the American Chemical Society have been highlighted on the JACS home page. We plan to develop other news channels, such as ones devoted to analytical chemistry and instrumentation, organic chemistry, medicinal chemistry, and many more.

Additional news channels are dependent on completion of a major IT program being carried out at ACS, the C&EN Production Automation Program (CPAP). Almost everything that goes into creating the Web components of C&EN—C&EN Online, CENtral Science, and the Environmental SCENE, for example—is currently done manually. When the CPAP is completed, C&EN will have an entirely electronic, XML-based workflow and a dedicated content management and delivery system. This will give the C&EN Online and JNC teams much greater flexibility to deliver unique content to C&EN’s readers and the readers of ACS journals.

All of this is part of the continued evolution of C&EN. Yes, our principal manifestation is as a weekly newsmagazine devoted to the chemistry enterprise delivered in print and electronic formats to the members of ACS. C&EN’s essence, however, is as the journalistic arm of ACS’s Publications Division. As such, we deliver “Latest News” of the chemistry enterprise every weekday—18 stories, for example, during the week of June 21. The Environmental SCENE and future news channels will expand C&EN’s journalism to the ACS journals home pages. The archive of all C&EN content dating back to the magazine’s debut will be available to institutions in 2011. When CPAP is completed in early 2011, look for further evolution of our offerings to you.

Thanks for reading.

The catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Weeds resistant to glyphosate. Bacteria resistant to antibiotics. Global climate change.

The common factor? Humans want too much. Too many humans are greedy to the point of madness, and neither the global economy nor the global environment can withstand the onslaught of our greed.

Our greed, however, isn’t the root cause of the problems we face. Our greed is a symptom of a far more fundamental flaw in the way humans organize their societies and their economies: We are addicted to growth. That addiction to growth stokes the greed that drives the endless and often pointless consumption that we have defined as economic success.

The problem with being addicted to growth is that we live on a finite planet. No matter what growth’s apologists claim about finding more resources or harnessing new technology, an addiction to growth, by definition, must at some point collide with reality.

Proponents of endless growth insist that humans have always in the past overcome perceived resource limitations. This is a silly argument. We have been burning fossil fuels, the resources that underpin modern civilization, for a mere two centuries, a period of time that hardly qualifies as “always.”

In the new book “Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet,” Bill McKibben, an environmentalist and a scholar-in-residence at Middlebury College, argues that anthropogenic climate change/global warming is already well advanced. It is not a problem for future generations. It is a problem for us. McKibben makes a persuasive argument that humans must begin, right now, to adapt to a radically changed planet. Earth, the planet that humans evolved on and which gave birth to human civilization, no longer exists. In its place is a radically changed place, “with melting poles and dying forests and a heaving, corrosive sea, raked by winds, strafed by storms, scorched by heat. An inhospitable place.”

Most important, though, McKibben writes, is that it is a planet that will no longer tolerate growth. “Of all the things I’ve told you about our new planet … the most terrifying and strangest change would be the end of growth. Growth is what we do. Who ever dreamed it might come to an end?” he writes.

The first half of “Eaarth” is devoted to making the case that humans have already irrevocably changed the planet and that life in the future will have to be different because of those changes. The second half of the book focuses on what humans might do to achieve a good, sustainable existence on this new planet, as opposed to facing catastrophic collapse.

“The trouble with obsessing over collapse,” he writes, “is that it keeps you from considering other possibilities. Either you’ve got your fingers stuck firmly in your ears, or you’re down in the basement oiling your guns. There’s no real room for creative thinking. To its theologians, collapse is as automatic and involuntary as growth has been to its acolytes.”

McKibben insists that there is another possibility, that we should be able to create social structures and an economic system that do not depend on growth. Near the end of “Eaarth,” McKibben writes: “My point throughout this book has been that we’ll need to change to cope with the new Eaarth we’ve created. We’ll need, chief among all things, to get smaller and less centralized, to focus not on growth but on maintenance, on a controlled decline from the perilous heights to which we’ve climbed.”

“Eaarth” is a manifesto, one that delivers a message that many people won’t want to hear and that many will dismiss out of hand. Growth is a religion, and I think McKibben underestimates how fervently many humans cling to that religion. It is a religion, however, that flies in the face of physical reality, and as such, cannot be maintained.