Chapter by Chapter Summary:
In the introduction of Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit, Al Gore shares his initial views/ concerns about the environment as well as many events in his life that led to his deep concern for the environment. One of these events includes his interactions with soil erosion on the farm where he grew up. Through this event, he learned to stop "gullies" from forming in the pasture because if this were to happen, it could cause massive erosion of the farmland and a loss of the top soil. He follows this with an explanation of how in Iowa they have lost about eight inches of topsoil due to the formation of gullies. This has resulted in erosion. Gore also explains how he was affected by his mother's strong reaction to Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring, as well as his encounter with the deadly toxin Agent Orange that was used in the Vietnam War.
While in college, Gore was introduced to the idea of a global environment threat and during his remaining years in college, he was able to study under professors that introduced him the concept of the Greenhouse effect. Gore also elaborates on his endeavors while he was a Congressman, Senator, and Presidential candidate. During this time he came into contact with experts about the environment and was able to see firsthand the adverse effects that industrialization and the poor decisions of government had on the environment. Because of this, his time as a congressman consisted of mainly studying the nuclear arms race. Through this, he began to separate the environmental issues that were fundamentally local in nature, such as nuclear waste sites, from those that represented threats to the entire globe.
In 1987 Gore ran for President, focusing his campaign on the well-being of the global environment. Having this as his central theme for the campaign did not help him get elected; rather it helped to introduce the possibility of a failing environment to the general populous and help strengthen many scientists' ideologies about the environment. Near the end of the introduction, Gore explains his primary motivation for writing this book. This motivation being how his son had almost died after being struck by a car. This tragedy gave Gore a new sense of urgency about what he valued most in life. This sense of urgency is what motivated Gore to write Earth in the Balance. Part One of Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit is split up into eight chapters that review the major global threats; global warming, ozone depletion, air and water pollution, deforestation, depletion of top soil, waste disposal and loss of biodiversity. The goal of the introduction is to dispel a notion that environmental problems are not serious and those problems require little to no action to try and resolve these problems.
In the first chapter, Gore mainly talks about the effects of global warming on the Earth and what is being done to make this threat increase each day. In the beginning of the chapter, Gore talks primarily about his trip to the South Pole and how ozone depletion is affecting the ecosystem there as well as the effects it is having on the organisms living there. Along with this, he also discusses the destruction that is occurring in the Amazonian Rainforest. In 1989, the people there were slashing and burning nearly more than one Tennessee worth of land each year. This destruction goes widely ignored since the Amazon is in another part of the world, meaning it is seen as something that is not our problem. In reality, the destruction of the Amazon could be seen everywhere. Gore describes one instance where a fully grown pheasant darts in front of his car, leaving him wondering why such a thing would happen. He soon discovered that a few miles from his house the last bit of pristine wilderness in the area was being bulldozed. According to Gore, the only way to fix the world is to reinvent and heal the relationship between civilization and the Earth.
Chapter 2 focuses on the crisis of the global environment; mainly that it is not a fast process but rather a slowly changing one that will take many years to finish. In one part of the chapter, Gore relates what the Earth is going through to a slow motion car crash. This relates to the environment because our ecological system is "crumpling as it suffers a powerful collision with the hard surfaces of civilization speeding toward it out of control." This is a perfect comparison because the change that humans are doing to the planet is like a car crash. For example, when people overgraze a pasture land it causes an extreme decrease in its ability to provide food. This will eventually provide a crushing blow the human population living there, just like the impact of a dashboard with a passenger. Continuing the car crash motif, Gore also goes on to explain how in order to see the destruction of the planet you have to see it from a distance. This means that we have to view the effects of pollution not just locally or nationally, but globally. Once people do this, they can accurately see the problems that the planet is facing. This can bring about societal change. After we locate the problem, it will be possible for us to look to the future and see that global catastrophe is not far off. Even though Gore effectively explains the facts and shows he how we are careening out of control and headed to a "car crash", he states that there are still people that are skeptics and dismiss the environmental crisis because lack of historical reference points.
With a title like Climate and Civilization a Short History, one can only assume that the chapter will be about how humans have adapted and changed their environments over the years. Instead, Gore talks about how different climatic events have led to various revolts, wars, and widespread panic all across the globe. He also talks about how there have been favorable climatic characteristics that have formed places like ancient Mesopotamia, which helped to shape agriculture and spawn various civilizations. Throughout the chapter, Gore explains how even slight changes in the climate have brought about major change and caused monumental changes in society. One example comes from after the Little Ice Age where it became slightly warmer in Ireland, causing humidity to rise. This rise in humidity is very conducive to the formation of the potato blight. The potato blight brought about what later became known as the Irish Potato Famine which killed millions of people and caused many to flee/ immigrate to countries like the United States. By writing about minor climatic changes throughout history Gore is showing that the major change that we as a society are heading to could lead to major problems for Earth's population.
Chapter 4 is an interesting chapter because it talks primarily about the changes that have occurred and will occur in our atmosphere. Primarily Gore talks about how air pollution in cities like Los Angeles and Tokyo can lead to acid rain and problems that can be associated with it. He then goes into extensive detail about what causes there to be substantial holes in the ozone layer above the Arctic and Antarctic. This hole in the ozone has also appeared over a city in South America, Ushuaia, Argentina in Patagonia. This ozone depletion has ironically increased the amount of smog above cities. In this chapter, Gore also talks about what global warming is and what types of effects it has on the planet. He states that the rising temperature is not the real danger of global warming but rather, it is the global climate system being thrown out of whack that is the true risk. The artificial global warming we are causing threatens to destroy the climate equilibrium we have known for the entirety of human history.
While Chapter 4 elaborated on global warming and the state of the ozone, Chapter 5 elaborates on the global water system. According to Gore, a raising sea level can occur in a few ways: higher average temperatures resulting in the melting of glaciers and polar ice caps, ice from Greenland and Antarctica being discharged into the ocean, and the thermal expansion of the volume of water in the warming waters. If the sea levels do rise, it could spell trouble for coastal cities and cities that rely on fresh water aquifers. Cities that rely on fresh water aquifers can be affected through the rising salt water of the ocean permeating the ground water and contaminating it, causing aquifers, such as the ones in Miami, to be unusable. Also because of rising sea levels, the water in the aquifers could potentially become contaminated from chemical wastes from the industrial civilization. Water could have the potential to rise as high as some farms which would mean that pesticides that are used on the crops could be washed into the ocean at a faster rate. We must take care to not poison and waste water because it is the life blood of every organism on Earth.
The next chapter is all about the effects of deforestation on humans as well as the global environment. In this chapter, Gore mainly focusses on tropical rain forests because they are a major producer of oxygen and have a high abundance of flora and fauna. Much of these rain forests are being destroyed to make room for pasture lands as well as for future housing developments/ cities. As these rainforest disappear we are losing an abundance of unique creatures that only thrive in the rainforest along with plants that can be used to make new medicines that could help slow the progression of certain cancers. According to Gore, disappearing forests aren't our only worry. We should also be worried about the expanding deserts that can arise from the land that has been cut down. Since the soil is so poor, the trees are the only things that can hold it together and the loss of the trees means that there is a higher chance of deserts forming. But, this process of deforestation can be reversed. According to Gore, reforestation initiatives have been successful in bringing back forests and halting desertification. The biggest thing that can reverse the current pattern of destruction is to dramatically change attitudes towards the environment and to remove the constant pressure due to population growth.
Chapter 7 is about the world's food production and how it is in jeopardy due to little genetic variability in the crop. The crops that grow naturally in the wild are able to reproduce with a variety of plants. These reproductive variety aids in the plants' ability to survive because it yields offspring that are better able to fend off diseases, pests, and predators while the plants that are grown on farms are mostly genetically modified. Although being genetically modified has its advantages of larger crop yield and faster growth, they are more susceptible to disease and predators. Gore talks about how because of genetically engineered crops across the globe have become susceptible to diseases such as blights and wheat germplasm. In the 1970's the United States suffered a severe loss of its corn crop due to the southern corn leaf blight. The blight took advantage of a trait that was bred into the corn and because of this the yield of corn crop that year was very low. Al Gore feels that the single most serious strategic threat to the world's food system is genetic erosion. Since scientist don't create new genes but rather use genes that are found in nature, the decreasing abundance of forests is proving to be a great challenge to those scientists who are trying to create a plant that can survive in a multitude of habitats. To close off this chapter Gore uses a very good analogy. It is that "we are, in effect, bulldozing the Gardens of Eden."
In chapter 8 Gore begins by stating that the clearest sign that our relationship with the environment is in crisis is the garbage that is spilling out of our cities and factories. Waste that is generated by Americans is generally dumped in a non-desirable place that is surrounded by less fortunate citizens and cheap. One of the biggest problems with waste is how it is disposed of. In cities, huge quantities of raw sewage are dumped directly into an adjacent river or body of water. Another big problem with waste is that we are running out of place to put all of it. Because of this problem, people have resorted to driving across the country to haul trash to small towns, forming landfills there. Many of these towns are rural towns that as of recently have become synonymous with garbage. Gore believes that we act like this because we believe ourselves to be separate from nature which, in turn, gives us an idea that we are greater than nature and can do what we please with it. Gore's closing statement is a powerful one. He states that "unless we find a way to dramatically change our civilization and our way of thinking about the relationship between humankind and the earth, our children will inherit a wasteland."
Part II contains five chapters in which the cultural, political, economics and even religious reasons for our current ecological predicament are explored.
In the first chapter of Part 2, Gore discusses how our political system has failed in the environmental sense. Our political system has failed because our politicians, like former President George H. W. Bush, promised to be "green presidents" and "confront the greenhouse effect with the White House effect." Almost immediately, Bush went back on his word and for his first two terms of Presidency he argued that no action on global warming was necessary or advisable until the completion of a major scientific study of the problem. The Chief of Staff at that time, John Sununu, openly despised the notion of global warming; campaigning actively to dampen any moves within the government to confront the issue. Many of today's politicians; Gore included, have become expert actors and will say/ do anything to get elected and once in office will go back on their word. Gore relates our ability to not react to important events around the globe to the world inability to react when Hitler started the Holocaust. This is a very somber comparison but it works, because if the world had reacted to this event sooner millions of lives would have been saved and a potential world war could have been avoided. This relates to global warming because countries around the planet are not taking it seriously and it could be more deadly than people initially think. Even though the political system is slow to react and many politicians go back on their word, there is a more sluggish area of society that still has yet to respond.
This sluggish system previously mentioned is our economic system. In the second chapter of Part Two, Gore goes into detail about why our economic system is so slow to respond to the recent environmental changes. The first step to fixing this is realizing that economics distorts our relationship to the world even as it gives us impressive new powers. An example that Gore gives of our increased care for economics but not nature is, when underdeveloped countries cut down rainforests. The money that they make is from logging, but the wear and tear on the equipment that is used will be entered on the side of expenses whereas the wear and tear on the forest itself will not be entered anywhere. This theme of economic blindness continues throughout the chapter and ends with a powerful quote from Winston Churchill. To paraphrase, Churchill states that "the era of procrastination is coming to a close and in its place we are entering a period of consequences."
The third chapter of Part 2 is about how we use science and technology too much and what we think is helping can, in reality, be hurting our global cause for environmentalism. The more knowledge and technology that we have obtained over the centuries, the more distant we have become from nature. This new technology and knowledge has made humans able to "tame" nature and use it to our benefit. This taming of nature has decreased our respect for nature dramatically because instead of wanting to go out and see the beauty of nature, we want better technology that can get us to our information fastest. But, this has given us too much information and much of it is never used and in a sense become a form of pollution. Gore also talks about an experiment that was performed forty years ago and was based on blocks. It found that males tended to build structures that would invade the space around them and be large. This is the type of thinking that our society has adopted; we expand and give no regard to the space around us no matter how precious that land could be.
The next chapter is titled Dysfunctional Civilization and describes what is happening in our society that is causing the lack of caring for the environment. Gore states that our society being dysfunctional is not theoretical. In the past century there have been world leaders such as like Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, and Mao Zedong that have performed unspeakable horrors. Each of these people has killed millions of their own people and the world has done nothing about it because it wasn't affecting their lives directly. He also compares our society to a dysfunctional family. This is accurate because our frenzied destruction of nature and natural habitats and our parent obsession with inauthentic substitutes for direct experience with real life.
The final chapter of Part two is entitled Environmentalism of the Spirit. This chapter is devoted to religious and philosophical attitudes towards nature. Here, Gore asserts that there is a crucial difference between the biblical concept of dominion and the concept of domination. He elaborates on a quote that God gave to Noah before the great flood, "Thou shalt preserve diversity by incorporating the teachings of Mohammed, the world is green and beautiful and God has appointed you his steward over it." He touches base with a few religions, showing how many of them have a deep relationship with nature. Gore is proving that even within religion there is a deep connection with the environment that we are ignoring, choosing to instead obtain material possessions. By experiencing nature to its fullest with our senses and with our spiritual imagination, we can glimpse the "bright and shining… image of God."
In the third and final part of the book, Gore unveils his plans that could potentially bring the world back into balance. The first chapter of this final part is entitled A New Common Purpose. It describes the critical need for the world to reach a general consensus about the environment and to join efforts on this cause. During this chapter, he questions the current economic framework and also indirectly contributes consumerism to the current environmental crisis. He also reminds us that the developing world has the right to achieve economic development and developed nations need to respect that right in their own proposed regulations. Throughout this chapter, Gore brings up the fact that we have the potential to develop environmentally friendly technologies and how they can be used to alleviate poverty. Along with these topics he brings up the ideology of "not in my backyard", or NIMBY for short. This is the idea that people don't want things such as fracking, homeless shelters, or oil wells in their backyard and that they should be put in a place that is far from their houses/ towns. This relates to the environment because there could be a proposed plan for a landfill in a town, but many people will oppose it because they will feel threatened by it. According to Gore, there is good news; more people are developing an environmental conscience. With this new conscience people are starting to join the effort to resist the destruction.
The final chapter, A Global Marshall Plan, describes Gores most detailed proposal to aid in saving nature. This proposal is similar to the Marshall Plan that was used to rebuild Europe after World War II, but it would dwarf it to the scale in which it is being used. It is organized into five strategic goals: 1) Stabilize the world's population through a three point program to increase literacy, reduce infant mortality and promote birth control methods, 2) Develop appropriate technologies through a Strategic Environment Initiative that addresses problems of agriculture, forestry ,energy, building technology, waste reduction and recycling, 3) Establish new global economic rules that foster sustainability, 4) Negotiate new international treaties that are sensitive to the differences between developed and undeveloped countries, 5) Educate the world's citizens to promote a new way of thinking about humanities relationship with Earth. Each of these five goals is considered in depth with specific examples and different recommendations on how to proceed. The key to the success of this plan is public awareness of how serious the threat to the global environment is. If the public becomes aware of what is truly going on in the environment maybe people will change for the better and try to make the world better and cleaner place for future generations.
While in college, Gore was introduced to the idea of a global environment threat and during his remaining years in college, he was able to study under professors that introduced him the concept of the Greenhouse effect. Gore also elaborates on his endeavors while he was a Congressman, Senator, and Presidential candidate. During this time he came into contact with experts about the environment and was able to see firsthand the adverse effects that industrialization and the poor decisions of government had on the environment. Because of this, his time as a congressman consisted of mainly studying the nuclear arms race. Through this, he began to separate the environmental issues that were fundamentally local in nature, such as nuclear waste sites, from those that represented threats to the entire globe.
In 1987 Gore ran for President, focusing his campaign on the well-being of the global environment. Having this as his central theme for the campaign did not help him get elected; rather it helped to introduce the possibility of a failing environment to the general populous and help strengthen many scientists' ideologies about the environment. Near the end of the introduction, Gore explains his primary motivation for writing this book. This motivation being how his son had almost died after being struck by a car. This tragedy gave Gore a new sense of urgency about what he valued most in life. This sense of urgency is what motivated Gore to write Earth in the Balance. Part One of Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit is split up into eight chapters that review the major global threats; global warming, ozone depletion, air and water pollution, deforestation, depletion of top soil, waste disposal and loss of biodiversity. The goal of the introduction is to dispel a notion that environmental problems are not serious and those problems require little to no action to try and resolve these problems.
In the first chapter, Gore mainly talks about the effects of global warming on the Earth and what is being done to make this threat increase each day. In the beginning of the chapter, Gore talks primarily about his trip to the South Pole and how ozone depletion is affecting the ecosystem there as well as the effects it is having on the organisms living there. Along with this, he also discusses the destruction that is occurring in the Amazonian Rainforest. In 1989, the people there were slashing and burning nearly more than one Tennessee worth of land each year. This destruction goes widely ignored since the Amazon is in another part of the world, meaning it is seen as something that is not our problem. In reality, the destruction of the Amazon could be seen everywhere. Gore describes one instance where a fully grown pheasant darts in front of his car, leaving him wondering why such a thing would happen. He soon discovered that a few miles from his house the last bit of pristine wilderness in the area was being bulldozed. According to Gore, the only way to fix the world is to reinvent and heal the relationship between civilization and the Earth.
Chapter 2 focuses on the crisis of the global environment; mainly that it is not a fast process but rather a slowly changing one that will take many years to finish. In one part of the chapter, Gore relates what the Earth is going through to a slow motion car crash. This relates to the environment because our ecological system is "crumpling as it suffers a powerful collision with the hard surfaces of civilization speeding toward it out of control." This is a perfect comparison because the change that humans are doing to the planet is like a car crash. For example, when people overgraze a pasture land it causes an extreme decrease in its ability to provide food. This will eventually provide a crushing blow the human population living there, just like the impact of a dashboard with a passenger. Continuing the car crash motif, Gore also goes on to explain how in order to see the destruction of the planet you have to see it from a distance. This means that we have to view the effects of pollution not just locally or nationally, but globally. Once people do this, they can accurately see the problems that the planet is facing. This can bring about societal change. After we locate the problem, it will be possible for us to look to the future and see that global catastrophe is not far off. Even though Gore effectively explains the facts and shows he how we are careening out of control and headed to a "car crash", he states that there are still people that are skeptics and dismiss the environmental crisis because lack of historical reference points.
With a title like Climate and Civilization a Short History, one can only assume that the chapter will be about how humans have adapted and changed their environments over the years. Instead, Gore talks about how different climatic events have led to various revolts, wars, and widespread panic all across the globe. He also talks about how there have been favorable climatic characteristics that have formed places like ancient Mesopotamia, which helped to shape agriculture and spawn various civilizations. Throughout the chapter, Gore explains how even slight changes in the climate have brought about major change and caused monumental changes in society. One example comes from after the Little Ice Age where it became slightly warmer in Ireland, causing humidity to rise. This rise in humidity is very conducive to the formation of the potato blight. The potato blight brought about what later became known as the Irish Potato Famine which killed millions of people and caused many to flee/ immigrate to countries like the United States. By writing about minor climatic changes throughout history Gore is showing that the major change that we as a society are heading to could lead to major problems for Earth's population.
Chapter 4 is an interesting chapter because it talks primarily about the changes that have occurred and will occur in our atmosphere. Primarily Gore talks about how air pollution in cities like Los Angeles and Tokyo can lead to acid rain and problems that can be associated with it. He then goes into extensive detail about what causes there to be substantial holes in the ozone layer above the Arctic and Antarctic. This hole in the ozone has also appeared over a city in South America, Ushuaia, Argentina in Patagonia. This ozone depletion has ironically increased the amount of smog above cities. In this chapter, Gore also talks about what global warming is and what types of effects it has on the planet. He states that the rising temperature is not the real danger of global warming but rather, it is the global climate system being thrown out of whack that is the true risk. The artificial global warming we are causing threatens to destroy the climate equilibrium we have known for the entirety of human history.
While Chapter 4 elaborated on global warming and the state of the ozone, Chapter 5 elaborates on the global water system. According to Gore, a raising sea level can occur in a few ways: higher average temperatures resulting in the melting of glaciers and polar ice caps, ice from Greenland and Antarctica being discharged into the ocean, and the thermal expansion of the volume of water in the warming waters. If the sea levels do rise, it could spell trouble for coastal cities and cities that rely on fresh water aquifers. Cities that rely on fresh water aquifers can be affected through the rising salt water of the ocean permeating the ground water and contaminating it, causing aquifers, such as the ones in Miami, to be unusable. Also because of rising sea levels, the water in the aquifers could potentially become contaminated from chemical wastes from the industrial civilization. Water could have the potential to rise as high as some farms which would mean that pesticides that are used on the crops could be washed into the ocean at a faster rate. We must take care to not poison and waste water because it is the life blood of every organism on Earth.
The next chapter is all about the effects of deforestation on humans as well as the global environment. In this chapter, Gore mainly focusses on tropical rain forests because they are a major producer of oxygen and have a high abundance of flora and fauna. Much of these rain forests are being destroyed to make room for pasture lands as well as for future housing developments/ cities. As these rainforest disappear we are losing an abundance of unique creatures that only thrive in the rainforest along with plants that can be used to make new medicines that could help slow the progression of certain cancers. According to Gore, disappearing forests aren't our only worry. We should also be worried about the expanding deserts that can arise from the land that has been cut down. Since the soil is so poor, the trees are the only things that can hold it together and the loss of the trees means that there is a higher chance of deserts forming. But, this process of deforestation can be reversed. According to Gore, reforestation initiatives have been successful in bringing back forests and halting desertification. The biggest thing that can reverse the current pattern of destruction is to dramatically change attitudes towards the environment and to remove the constant pressure due to population growth.
Chapter 7 is about the world's food production and how it is in jeopardy due to little genetic variability in the crop. The crops that grow naturally in the wild are able to reproduce with a variety of plants. These reproductive variety aids in the plants' ability to survive because it yields offspring that are better able to fend off diseases, pests, and predators while the plants that are grown on farms are mostly genetically modified. Although being genetically modified has its advantages of larger crop yield and faster growth, they are more susceptible to disease and predators. Gore talks about how because of genetically engineered crops across the globe have become susceptible to diseases such as blights and wheat germplasm. In the 1970's the United States suffered a severe loss of its corn crop due to the southern corn leaf blight. The blight took advantage of a trait that was bred into the corn and because of this the yield of corn crop that year was very low. Al Gore feels that the single most serious strategic threat to the world's food system is genetic erosion. Since scientist don't create new genes but rather use genes that are found in nature, the decreasing abundance of forests is proving to be a great challenge to those scientists who are trying to create a plant that can survive in a multitude of habitats. To close off this chapter Gore uses a very good analogy. It is that "we are, in effect, bulldozing the Gardens of Eden."
In chapter 8 Gore begins by stating that the clearest sign that our relationship with the environment is in crisis is the garbage that is spilling out of our cities and factories. Waste that is generated by Americans is generally dumped in a non-desirable place that is surrounded by less fortunate citizens and cheap. One of the biggest problems with waste is how it is disposed of. In cities, huge quantities of raw sewage are dumped directly into an adjacent river or body of water. Another big problem with waste is that we are running out of place to put all of it. Because of this problem, people have resorted to driving across the country to haul trash to small towns, forming landfills there. Many of these towns are rural towns that as of recently have become synonymous with garbage. Gore believes that we act like this because we believe ourselves to be separate from nature which, in turn, gives us an idea that we are greater than nature and can do what we please with it. Gore's closing statement is a powerful one. He states that "unless we find a way to dramatically change our civilization and our way of thinking about the relationship between humankind and the earth, our children will inherit a wasteland."
Part II contains five chapters in which the cultural, political, economics and even religious reasons for our current ecological predicament are explored.
In the first chapter of Part 2, Gore discusses how our political system has failed in the environmental sense. Our political system has failed because our politicians, like former President George H. W. Bush, promised to be "green presidents" and "confront the greenhouse effect with the White House effect." Almost immediately, Bush went back on his word and for his first two terms of Presidency he argued that no action on global warming was necessary or advisable until the completion of a major scientific study of the problem. The Chief of Staff at that time, John Sununu, openly despised the notion of global warming; campaigning actively to dampen any moves within the government to confront the issue. Many of today's politicians; Gore included, have become expert actors and will say/ do anything to get elected and once in office will go back on their word. Gore relates our ability to not react to important events around the globe to the world inability to react when Hitler started the Holocaust. This is a very somber comparison but it works, because if the world had reacted to this event sooner millions of lives would have been saved and a potential world war could have been avoided. This relates to global warming because countries around the planet are not taking it seriously and it could be more deadly than people initially think. Even though the political system is slow to react and many politicians go back on their word, there is a more sluggish area of society that still has yet to respond.
This sluggish system previously mentioned is our economic system. In the second chapter of Part Two, Gore goes into detail about why our economic system is so slow to respond to the recent environmental changes. The first step to fixing this is realizing that economics distorts our relationship to the world even as it gives us impressive new powers. An example that Gore gives of our increased care for economics but not nature is, when underdeveloped countries cut down rainforests. The money that they make is from logging, but the wear and tear on the equipment that is used will be entered on the side of expenses whereas the wear and tear on the forest itself will not be entered anywhere. This theme of economic blindness continues throughout the chapter and ends with a powerful quote from Winston Churchill. To paraphrase, Churchill states that "the era of procrastination is coming to a close and in its place we are entering a period of consequences."
The third chapter of Part 2 is about how we use science and technology too much and what we think is helping can, in reality, be hurting our global cause for environmentalism. The more knowledge and technology that we have obtained over the centuries, the more distant we have become from nature. This new technology and knowledge has made humans able to "tame" nature and use it to our benefit. This taming of nature has decreased our respect for nature dramatically because instead of wanting to go out and see the beauty of nature, we want better technology that can get us to our information fastest. But, this has given us too much information and much of it is never used and in a sense become a form of pollution. Gore also talks about an experiment that was performed forty years ago and was based on blocks. It found that males tended to build structures that would invade the space around them and be large. This is the type of thinking that our society has adopted; we expand and give no regard to the space around us no matter how precious that land could be.
The next chapter is titled Dysfunctional Civilization and describes what is happening in our society that is causing the lack of caring for the environment. Gore states that our society being dysfunctional is not theoretical. In the past century there have been world leaders such as like Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, and Mao Zedong that have performed unspeakable horrors. Each of these people has killed millions of their own people and the world has done nothing about it because it wasn't affecting their lives directly. He also compares our society to a dysfunctional family. This is accurate because our frenzied destruction of nature and natural habitats and our parent obsession with inauthentic substitutes for direct experience with real life.
The final chapter of Part two is entitled Environmentalism of the Spirit. This chapter is devoted to religious and philosophical attitudes towards nature. Here, Gore asserts that there is a crucial difference between the biblical concept of dominion and the concept of domination. He elaborates on a quote that God gave to Noah before the great flood, "Thou shalt preserve diversity by incorporating the teachings of Mohammed, the world is green and beautiful and God has appointed you his steward over it." He touches base with a few religions, showing how many of them have a deep relationship with nature. Gore is proving that even within religion there is a deep connection with the environment that we are ignoring, choosing to instead obtain material possessions. By experiencing nature to its fullest with our senses and with our spiritual imagination, we can glimpse the "bright and shining… image of God."
In the third and final part of the book, Gore unveils his plans that could potentially bring the world back into balance. The first chapter of this final part is entitled A New Common Purpose. It describes the critical need for the world to reach a general consensus about the environment and to join efforts on this cause. During this chapter, he questions the current economic framework and also indirectly contributes consumerism to the current environmental crisis. He also reminds us that the developing world has the right to achieve economic development and developed nations need to respect that right in their own proposed regulations. Throughout this chapter, Gore brings up the fact that we have the potential to develop environmentally friendly technologies and how they can be used to alleviate poverty. Along with these topics he brings up the ideology of "not in my backyard", or NIMBY for short. This is the idea that people don't want things such as fracking, homeless shelters, or oil wells in their backyard and that they should be put in a place that is far from their houses/ towns. This relates to the environment because there could be a proposed plan for a landfill in a town, but many people will oppose it because they will feel threatened by it. According to Gore, there is good news; more people are developing an environmental conscience. With this new conscience people are starting to join the effort to resist the destruction.
The final chapter, A Global Marshall Plan, describes Gores most detailed proposal to aid in saving nature. This proposal is similar to the Marshall Plan that was used to rebuild Europe after World War II, but it would dwarf it to the scale in which it is being used. It is organized into five strategic goals: 1) Stabilize the world's population through a three point program to increase literacy, reduce infant mortality and promote birth control methods, 2) Develop appropriate technologies through a Strategic Environment Initiative that addresses problems of agriculture, forestry ,energy, building technology, waste reduction and recycling, 3) Establish new global economic rules that foster sustainability, 4) Negotiate new international treaties that are sensitive to the differences between developed and undeveloped countries, 5) Educate the world's citizens to promote a new way of thinking about humanities relationship with Earth. Each of these five goals is considered in depth with specific examples and different recommendations on how to proceed. The key to the success of this plan is public awareness of how serious the threat to the global environment is. If the public becomes aware of what is truly going on in the environment maybe people will change for the better and try to make the world better and cleaner place for future generations.