The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight was an excellent read. The book is basically an overview of the critical breaking point at which we find ourselves today due to war, famine, overpopulation, deforestation, the oil crisis, the lack of clean water, and more. The book described all of these issues in a way that was easier to understand than trying to do your own research. Next the book described how we got to this devastating point. How could these things all be happening right now? What direction did we go in that took us down this path. Lastly, the book to a lighter note by offering up many solutions to the problem. The cool part of the last section of the book were that the solutions truly were things that we could all do. They weren't like stop buying, and stop driving, and stop eating.
There are absolutely more than 3 significant things I can take from this book, but here are 3 that will stick with me. First off, I learned how bad our situation really is. I think that the media does a good job diverting our attention from it with their smoke and mirrors, but the truth is we are running out of oil, and oil is our way of life. We need to start looking for alternative ways to live and invest the oil we have left into making those alternative sources into a viable reality. Secondly, I learned that our culture and other westernized culture have a lot to learn. We have to stop trying to be the dominators of everything (people, land, plants, animals). We could really learn a lot of lessons from older cultures who lived in harmony with nature instead of seeing it as a take what you can and give nothing back opportunity. We have to stop seeing ourselves as the highest life forms. We have to get out of the mindset that everything was put here for us to use and for our purposes with no consequences related to what we choose to do with it. Lastly I learned that the best solution there is would be to change our way of thinking because that is how you change a culture. It's easier said than done because culture, just like nature, is something that surrounds us. It is something we are submerged in from the time we are born until our death. How do you change something you hardly even realize is around you anymore?
I learned some pretty deep and important stuff from this book. For example if we change our way of thinking, than maybe we could change the social norms. It used to be that professors could smoke in the classroom, but now if a professor did that their would be outrage and disgust by many of the students and other faculty alike. In a matter of 30 years, the norms changed. What if we could do the same thing with recycling, or oil conservation, or numerous other things? What if the mass majority of people would be disgusted if they saw you throw away a bottle instead of putting it in the recycling? I think these and many other like it are the ideas this book tries to instill in the reader. Change is possible, not easy, but possible.
Would I recommend this book to others? Yes, absolutely. I think this book is stocked with important information and it has the power to change your perspective of being helpless in all of this environmental crisis if you go into it with an open mind. I don't think this book is for everyone, but I do think anyone wanted a pretty simple and to the point overview on all this eco-distress this is a good book to read!
Posts
