Afraid of Less: What To Do About the Future

How bad can it get? The Earth is growing hotter than we can control, faster than we think. The science feels far away while the disastrous effects are all around us. We know now that many generations of industrialized people have caused the problem, but why can't this generation, the most advanced in history, marshal our efforts and resources to solve it-to ensure the survival of our children, and grandchildren, and great grandchildren? In Afraid of Less: What To Do About the Future, Thomas Corcoran looks at the climate change problem-"a problem as big as the planet"-and offers some ideas you may not have thought of and may not even now be ready to accept. Radical, inconvenient, costly...but impeccably logical, for responding to the planet's long-building distress will require the kind of reasoning that motivates change on a massive scale. But what change? Not content to define the problem and leave it to others to solve, this short, remarkable book offers "eight billion approaches to a solution"-first steps that we as individuals and our institutions can take. With time, the aggregate change in our mode of living will be dramatic. Getting there won't be easy, but it will be next to impossible if we remain paralyzed by fear. As Corcoran says, "Just start."