The Age of Consequences: A Chronicle of Concern and Hope

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. In less than a century, we’ve burned up half the planet’s known oil reserves, one trillion barrels. 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 the Age of Consequences: a time when the worrying consequences of our environmental actions, or inaction, have begun to raise unavoidable and challenging questions. How should we respond? What are practical (and realistic) solutions? In exploring these questions, White draws on his formidable experience as an environmentalist and activist and 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 and a chronicle of personal experience. Readers follow White as he travels the country and world: from Kansas to Los Angeles, New York City, Italy, France, Yellowstone, and New England. Along the way, he recounts stories of Amish farmers in Ohio, cattle ranchers in the Southwest, creek restorationists in New Mexico, local food entrepreneurs in Arizona, and carbon pioneers in Australia. Their stories inform and entertain, but they also reveal encouraging and hopeful answers to anguished questions about our collective future, including issues of sustainability, climate change mitigation, resilience, land health, collaborative conservation, ecological restoration, and regenerative agriculture. The Age of Consequences is an engaging and informative look at our current environmental predicament and an important contribution to the growing body of environmental literature by writers such as Wallace Stegner, Wendell Berry, Barbara Kingsolver, Bill McKibben and E.O. Wilson, and Michael Pollan.