Adventures in the Anthropocene: A Journey to the Heart of the Planet We Made

by Gaia Vince

We all know our planet is in crisis, and that it is largely our fault. But all too often the full picture of change is obstructed by dense data sets and particular catastrophes. Struggling with this obscurity in her role as an editor at Nature, Gaia Vince decided to travel the world and see for herself what life is really like for people on the frontline of this new reality. What she found was a number people doing the most extraordinary things.

During her journey she finds a man who is making artificial glaciers in Nepal along with an individual who is painting mountains white to attract snowfall; take the electrified reefs of the Maldives; or the man who's making islands out of rubbish in the Caribbean. These are ordinary people who are solving severe crises in crazy, ingenious, effective ways. While Vince does not mince words regarding the challenging position our species is in, these wonderful stories, combined with the new science that underpins Gaia's expertise and research, make for a persuasive, illuminating — and strangely hopeful — read on what the Anthropocene means for our future.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, Environment, Travel, Nature, Climate Change, Geography

448 pages, Hardcover

First published July 3, 2014

About the author

Gaia Vince is a freelance British environmental journalist. broadcaster and non-fiction author.
Vince, a dual British and Australian national, is a chemist who studied at King’s College, London and then at the University of Bordeaux before undertaking a masters in engineering design. To fund her university studies, Vince freelanced as a journalist and at the Science Museum, building a tandem career which led her to leave research and take up writing full-time. She writes for The Guardian, and, in a column called Smart Planet, for BBC Online. She was previously news editor of Nature and online editor of New Scientist.

Reviews

[Stephanie McGarrah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Adventures in the Anthropocene is a mediocre travelogue where the author visits places around the world living on the so called “front-lines” of climate change, and talks to people figuring out what, if anything, they can do to soften the blow. If you like Anthony Bourdain but hate food and want to hear even more of his awful politics, this might satisfy you. Obnoxious messages of hope are sprinkled liberally in between stories of catastrophes and the worse to come, which get more frequent and hopeful as the book reaches its dull conclusion which happened to be an amazingly cheesy and brightly optimistic prediction of the future as seen through the eyes of her fictional son. Her vision of the future is both straddles the line between an incredibly utopian future, and a banal, uninspiring future much like our own.

I did find the talk of geoengineering interesting, despite its superficial treatment. It just hammers home how much humanity has changed the landscape of the Earth. We are now forced to figure out how to artificially do what “nature” was providing us for free. Sadly, a book that could have had a lot more interesting things to say about this age and what survival will entail was exactly what I expected from mainstream book about climate change: more of the same.

[Jake · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a travelogue that seeks to look at the frontlines of the converging climate, biodiversity and resource crises of the planet. In many ways it is good, it is well written at times exciting and the case studies are well selected. However, it has some clear flaws.

While her case studies are diverse and interesting, she continues to have a romantic naivety about the possibilities of technology, urbanism and 'progress'. This is not uncommon amongst science writers talking about issues of international development, but equally misses the nuances of the complex desires and motivations that inform people of the many cultures of the world. Classic books of social science like The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism look at how culture and religion entwine.

The lack of a cultural analysis is the deepest flaw of the book. While she does at times engage with the reason the climate crisis affects the poorest she does little to look at the broader systems at play both from a historic perspective but also the civilizing, homogenizing drive of modern economics. A good example of this is where she writes 'cities are already the most environmentally sustainable way of housing humankind' (p.369), this is correct amongst high consumption individuals but not when incorporating the poor globally. It also neglects to understand the where the materials for urban populations and how benefits of increased density are often offset by the finite nature of resources in the immediate vicinity for example water shortages throughout South East England due to London's population of close to 10 million people.

The last chapter is a creepy and weird epilogue. Vince paints the picture of a rosy almost egalitarian future while making references to what sound like 40 years of terrifying horror before the world settled in it's response to the climate crisis. The new world is not without it's problems. She suggests that to see gasoline powered cars you would have to go to Afghanistan or Somalia, which hints at a continuation of the Global Noth/South divides of modernity. She also hints at the loss of biodiversity such as tigers, whale sharks and mekong catfish to name a few. I am left feeling this utopia, with many humanist benefits, remains a world less beautiful, diverse and bountiful as the one we have today. I wonder if this is the point? If it is, then it is one that needs to be made more clearly as for too many people techno-utopias have a fetishism which means people spend their days romanticising these dystopian futures.

The breadth and depth of case studies are Vince's saving grace. They are interesting and offer many thoughtful solutions to the problems we now face. However, they are, as she sometimes alludes to, stop gaps in a broader battle to understand what went so wrong with the global system. She does little to engage with the systematic nature of these problems often looking at the micro rather than the macro and mistaking technological fixes as solutions rather than stop gaps. As Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered points out, many of the problems we face today are the outcome of trade offs made solving problems in the past. She would do well to separate solutions which offer dignity, such as healthcare, sanitation, education and culture, from solutions which offer increased consumption and 'progress'. This economic, political and historical analysis is lacking.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Our planet is constantly changing. The energy that it receives from the sun drives the weather systems across the globe and feeds the plants that keep the oxygen cycle going. The internal processes of plate tectonics and erosion mean that the landscapes are constantly changing too. But now there is an extra factor too, our love of fossil fuels is changing the atmosphere in ways that we cannot fully understand, though the trends are there if you care enough to look. The data on all these changes is immense, so Gaia Vince, editor at Nature, decided the best way to understand the immensity of the changes happening would be to go and see it herself.

Her travels takes her to the rooftop of the world to see artificial glaciers being created, mountains being painted white to increase the albedo and looks at the positive and negative effects of dams. She tracks across deserts, climbs mountains, tiptoes through sewage and walks on one man's solution to the rising sea levels; floating islands and speaks to the head of a country that is going to disappear under the waves in the next few years.

It is an interesting book on the way that we have changed the planet so far and the long-term implications for dramatic change. As the world changes in dramatic ways, she sees human ingenuity in solving the problems that are being raised as the climate changes. By going to these places herself and seeing the problems first hand, she gets a better overall view of the state of the globe and thankfully does not hold back with her opinions as to what is happening. Even though it is four years since it was published, it is still a prescient book, but it would be nice to have a revised edition soon. The only downside for me was the epilogue; it was a very speculative and even hopeful vision of our world in 2100, a planet that had changed in so many ways; I can't imagine that it would be as comfortable as that.

[Keean Lessard · Rating 1 out of 5]

The closest I’ve come to not finishing a book. I wish I could give it a worse rating.

[Mariann · Rating 5 out of 5]

http://www.hyperebaaktiivne.ee/2018/0...

Gaia Vince'i "Seiklused antropotseenis" jäi mulle silma Lugemise väljakutse grupist. Mind paelusid nii raamatu kirjeldus kui ka huvitav pealkiri. Antropotseenist ei olnud ma varem midagi kuulnud. Wikipedia ütleb antropotseeni kohta nii: "See on ajastik, mida võib pidada inimese ajajärguks, milles inimtegevus ja meie ühiskond on muutunud Maad globaalselt ja geofüüsikaliselt muutvaks jõuks. Geoloogilisel ajaskaalal paikneb see kainosoikumi aegkonnas, kvaternaari ajastus, holotseeni ajastiku järel. Antropotseeni põhiline suur mõju tekkis, kui 18. sajandi teisel poolel algas Suurbritannias industrialiseerimine, kuna see tõi kaasa tööstusliku tootmise, mis põhjustas fossiilkütuste laiemat kasutuselevõttu."

Autor ütles üles oma töö, et asuda maailma avastama. Teda huvitas praegune pöördeline ajastu, kus inimene mõjutab pea iga oma teoga ümbritsevat maailma. Kumb valida - säilitada loodust või jäljendada selle toimimist kunstlikult? Naine külastab kohti, kus kliima muutumine kõige selgemalt näha on ning inimesed peavad olema leidlikud, et toime tulla. Ta kohtab inimesi, kes on end või koguni terve oma küla heale järjele aidanud.

Raamat pakkus hulgaliselt uut ja huvitavat infot. Põnev oli lugeda maailma nurgatagustest, kus toimuvast mul halli aimugi polnud. Mõned näited:
Vietnamis Mekongi jõel on vaimajad, mille alla riputatud võrgus saab pidada kalakasvandust. Kalu söödetakse läbi augu elutoa põrandas.
Belize ranniku lähedal on saar, mille üks kalur endale prügist ehitas - Westpoint island.
Pisikesse mägikülla Nepalis ei vii korralikke teid, kuid sealses koolis on korralik arvutiklass koos WiFiga.
Tulevikus võib põhiline toidukasvatus olla koondunud hoopis kõrbealadele.

Kujutasin arengumaades toimuvat hoopis teisiti ette ning pea üksinda kliimamuutuste vastu võitlevad indiviidid hämmastasid mind. Veel üllatas mind seos huntide ja puukborrelioosi arvukuse seos. Raamat pani mõtlema nii oma tarbimisharjumustele, toidulauale, taaskasutamise efektiivsusele kui ka igapäevasele energiahulgale. Lisaks oli tore teada saada, mis on potentsiaalne tulevikutoit - ülitoitvad ja vähe vett vajavad toidukultuurid - tuvihernes, kikerhernes, Ameerika hiidhirss, sorgo ja maapähkel.

Antropotseeni jooksul näeme kindlasti, kuidas üha suurem osa taristust täidab funktsioone, mida looduslikult pakkusid jõed, järved ja kosed. Ent samas läheneme üha nüansirohkemalt kunstlike märgalade loomisele, mille puhul arvestatakse inimlike vajadusi katvaid lahendusi planeerides ka loodusliku koosluse paljude ja üksteisest sõltuvate rollidega. Nii ei piirdu disain füüsilise struktuuriga, vaid hõlmab ka bioloogilist, hoides alles või luues toimiva mitmekesise ökosüsteemi, mis katab teatud määral vajaduse joogivee, niisutuse ja energia järele. (lk 106)

Mulle meeldis üüratult autori lähenemine teemale. Inimese mõju planeedile paelub teda ning ta ei mõista antropotseeni hukka. Lisaks probleemidele on välja toodud mitu erinevat lahendust, koos nii negatiivsete kui ka positiivsete tagajärjedega. Lisaks, on naine optimistlik ning näeb tuleviku heas valguses. Eriti meeldis mulle peatükk, kus kirjeldati, kuidas Galapagose saarel on 50 aastat üsna tulutult võideldud sisse toodud võõrliikide vastu. Üks mees, kes 20 aastat seda sama viljeles, muutis aga vaatenurka ja ütles, et äkki ei peaks kõiki võõrliike tõrjuma. Selle peale karati talle kõrri kui reeturile. Mina võtsin selle vaatenurga omaks, sest tegelikult me ei saa ajas tagasi minna ja taastada looduslikku olustikku, mis oli 100, 1000 või 10 000 aastat tagasi. Liikide välja suremine on muidugi ääretult kurb. Parim lahendus mu meelest on loomaaiad ja looduspargid, kus sobivates tingimustes elurikkust säilitada.

Kuigi raamat oli põnev, kulges lugemine aeglaselt. Põhjuseks oli tohutu hulk uusi teadmisi, mida loetu pakkus. Tegin palju pause, et infot seedida, teha märkmeid ja otsida internetiavarustest pildimaterjali ja muud juurde. Raamatus oli küll ka enda pildigalerii, kuid seal on iga peatüki juurde vaid 3 fotot. Autor rändas ringi aga rohkemgi ja tõi välja pisiasju, mille kohta oleksin samuti soovinud illustreerivat materjali. Näiteks paelus mind Ruy Ohtake projekt Heliopolis, mis ühe slummi elu edendas.

Plaanin ka endale selle raamatu soetada, sest tahan seda kindlasti kunagi uuesti lugeda. Põnev oleks tulevikus võrrelda planeediga toimunud muutusi autori kirjeldatuga. Seda teeb muide Gaia Vince ka ise raamatu epiloogis, tulevikunägemuses, mis meenutab mõnd futuristlikku utoopiaromaani.

"Seiklused antropotseenis" on kõige silmiavardavam ning mõtlema panev raamat, mida ma viimasel ajal lugenud olen. See oli algusest lõpuni põnev ning pakkus uut ja huvitavat infot. Mulle meeldis väga, et autor lähenes probleemidele erinevate nurkade alt, esitas mitmeid lahendusi koos poolt- ja vastuväidetega. Raamatu muutis sümpaatseks ka see, et suhtumine oli elujaatav. Nimelt ei mõistnud Gaia Vince inimese kujundatud planeeti hukka, vaid jäi positiivseks, kuigi kirjeldatud kehvad elutingimused ning elurikkuse vähendamine olid kurvad teemad.

[Tomislav · Rating 3 out of 5]

A few years ago, I was following a walking route through a residential neighborhood in a city I was visiting, when I passed a Little Free Library. I always look in those, and inside I found a shiny unread hardcover copy of Adventures in the Anthropocene by Gaia Vince. Her first name seemed a little pretentious, considering the topic, but perhaps it was given and not her choice. That’s not actually very important, but what I’m telling you now is that picking up this book was a complete impulse. It’s not the kind of thing I would have shopped for, or paid money for. But there it was, and home it came.

Gaia Vince is not a scientist, but a science journalist. That is, the emphasis in her writing is on human-interest stories over rigorous scientific rationale. And honestly, a lot of readers will prefer that. The book is structured in an interesting fashion. It is organized into ten long chapters, each featuring one terrestrial environment – such as Mountains, Rivers, Savannahs, Forests, etc. Within most chapters then, she first gives several pages of scientific perspective on the planetary history of that environment and the impacts of life in general and humanity specifically. Next is an extended travelogue describing her visit to a representative locale on Earth where people are dealing with consequences of human development and climate change. We meet some individuals there and learn about their lives, some tragic and some inspiringly innovative. Finally, a wrap-up with some generalizations about what humanity will face “in the Anthropocene.” It is an important point that we are not done; the alterations that we know today are not the endpoint. For example, this year might be the hottest in recorded history, but it’s going to get hotter than this! Unfortunately, from there, Vince also squeezes in numerous additional shorter pieces about other people in other places facing other problems, until the reader grows numb from it all.

The book was written in 2014, and I read it in 2023. There are occasional short-term specific predictions about things that will happen by 2018 or 2020, the accuracy of which can easily be checked now. Vince’s track record on specific predictions is not that great. Some human projects have languished, while others jumped ahead. I believe the general trends are accurate, however. One example, is that in the chapter on Cities, she speaks glowingly of electric bicycles and electric cars. In 2014, they were rare and somewhat experimental. In 2023, both are common, but have not been as transformative as she indicated. It was jarring to jump from the environmental degradation and hazards of rare earth mining in Bolivia in one chapter to the benefits of lithium-ion batteries in the next chapter. Among other things, it is lithium that is being mined there! I think she knows this, but my issue is a matter of inconsistent tone in the writing.

This book is much more about human adaptation to climate and planetary change, than about stopping it. And I think that is a more realistic future scenario, and a more useful topic to write about. Unfortunately, I feel this book needs some editorial tightening up. And by the way, I did enjoy the year 2100 scenario in the final chapter – it resembles the settings of the more serious of speculative fiction writing.

[yulia · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 ⭐️

one of the most important books i’ve ever read. each page was full of information and it changed my perspective on so many things, provoking deeper thought and consideration too.

it lost 0.5⭐️ for that epilogue though. i appreciate the intention but that thing did not have to be there.

[Raluca Daniela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Depressing

[Duncan McLaren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Vince's eclectic odyssey through the emerging 'Anthropocene' epoch is in equal measures enlightening, entertaining and frustrating. Chapter by chapter she travels through the world's physical and geographical regions: in turn discussing how humans are transforming rivers, farmlands, deserts, forests, cities and so on.

At her best she puts human faces to the dramatic shifts, illustrating both the power and resilience of our species. But she fails to piece together the politics and discourses of the Anthropocene, repeatedly swallowing - often without question - the simultaneously catastrophic and technologically utopian discourses of scientists and engineers. So although she often shows real sensitivity to the interests of the world's poorest and worst affected people - the solutions she offers are largely high tech - from geoengineering to wolves genetically modified not to like the taste of cattle!

"Nostalgia for the untamed rivers of the Holocene," suggests Vince, is "a pointless sentiment." But without a greater empathy for the people, species and systems of the planet, the Anthropocene she envisages would be a heartless place: an artificial pastiche of a flourishing planet.

All in all, well worth a read - but with a reflexive mindset. There are many possible Anthropocenes. Vince describes some, hints at more, but frames out most, especially those where social and cultural learning takes pride of place over technological progress.

[Caroline Rose · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this class as a required reading in my Master of Environmental Studies program. It is as accurate as a book about climate degradation that is sponsored by Wells Fargo and Target can be: it isn't. She flies all over the world to make commentary on global climate degradation. How much carbon footprint did those jet trips leave?

Adventures in the Anthropocene gave me a great opportunity to sharpen my radar for work based on false evidence that is touted as science. From political history to sweeping "scientific" claims she makes, the mistakes are glaring and the message she is trying to convey is hard to even try to understand. If you want a fictional story that pretends to be scientific, check this book out. If you are looking for scholarly work, or references to history and science that are actually true, try reading something that isn't sponsored by corporations that are heavily invested in fossil fuels.

[Angela Mortimer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great Summary of a Human Controlled Earth. A Must Read.
"if it's useful, we'll keep it; if not well...' One of the most simple phrases taken out of context, and yet in context, possibly the most terrifying in the book, in the chapter called Savannahs.
Author is a brave woman, visiting some often dangerous areas of the world the world, so she can sum up how man is coping in his new man-made world. She was inspired by our ingenuity coping and making the best of, for want of a better description, a dying world, by yesterdays standards anyway. So are we worth keeping? Can anyone come up with any reason why WE are worth keeping? Gaia Vince sees the best in us.
She tells you the worst and yet is optimistic the change is not all bad, She shouts out her enthusiasm for our ingenuity against adversity, but then says, the problems so cleverly solved are often not longstanding. People are being driven from their land to make way for many square miles of renewables, and suddenly these savers of our world are not as friendly anymore either, how disappointing. We obviously have more work to do, and I know we can do better, but in the meantime? I fear too that the carefully collected stats may be out of date by now, in a relatively short time.
Let's go back to that one short phrase and why I found it disturbing, Dystopian novels have been telling of our demise for a very long time, in ancient writings too, even before the Bible, and finding more voices in writers such as H.G. Wells, and many others, once we might dismiss it all as a writers fancy. Worse modern trends in government seem to be echoing same, slightly different than The Time Machine for the Morlocks will no longer be there.
Let me surmise that any of us who are not useful to our masters might met the same fate as the vanishing flora and fauna? Again echoing the policies of many present governments, stripping health care, pensions and care for the elderly, the disabled, et al. Leaving the Earth only for the greedy, perhaps to repeat history over and over, and without the joys of nature they will hunt in imaginary worlds. I hope too that, unless we evolve into better creatures, unhappy at earlier homo-sapiens stupidity, we never leave this planet.
Everyone should read this book.

[Susan Olesen · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book explores the notion that we are at the end of our evolutionary Holocene Era and entering into the Anthropocene, a time when the planet and its geology and history is being shaped by man. She explores the traditional and current situations across the globe in a variety of settings and cultures, incl. Savannahs, rainforest, mountains, oceans, and cities, to see where we've been and where we're heading, and how the most primitive people are adapting. She does not argue global warming, but shows repeatedly around the world how it is already here.

Although it's a good book you should read, it's still a bit naive. We haven't sunk a dime into infrastructure in 50 years; no one is going to pay to retrofit millions of buildings for energy efficiency, nor tear them down and put up new thoughtful ones. We can't even get our computers to stay upgraded or our lighting efficient in most buildings. Money is the object, and in this country, until we just accept reality - we're GOING to lose New Orleans, and Houston, and most of Florida, and the Jersey Shore, and maybe Boston and NYC too, until we are faced with the fact that it is more expensive to NOT upgrade than to move forward, we, the former leaders of the world, will never be players in the next century. I also think she's naive in her assessment that cities are the greatest thing in creation. Cities are nice. But I don't want to live in one. Ever. Ever ever. And in her dream world of efficient vehicles to get around happy green techno cities quickly, she ignores the fact of traveling between cities, or heaven forbid, cross country or overseas. If it was Mars and your little isolated pod city was all there was, great! But this is Earth, and we don't live like that. Never have, and probably never will.

An important worthwhile read, but some of the naivete irked me.

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a well written book that catalogs all of the ways in which humans are destroying the earth without regard. They are responsible for mass extinction of animals. They are responsible for destruction of our natural resources.

OK, there is more to it than that, but that is the unfortunate reality.

Why? Well, because that is what capitalism does. Sell off the animals, plants, and resource to the highest bidder, leaving behind a swath of destruction in its path. The rich get richer and the poor get left behind.

Ms. Vince does try to keep things positive by pointing out how innovation and invention may solve some major issues. Despite her best efforts, it is pretty clear that if humans do manage to survive, the planet will be a very different place. It will be a manufactured world, not resembling what I consider beautiful or natural.

Why don't people care about their planet? Why do I constantly see trash on the side of the road? Why do we value consumerism over environmentalism? How much more can the planet endure before people realize that the current trajectory of human exploitation is unsustainable?

This book raises a lot of questions about the way we live our lives, but in the end I just felt sad for my children.

----------------
Gift from Genna

[Stanley Hanks · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is probably the best book on the subject of the environment I have ever read. It is a travel book and an ecological compedium in one. In chapters entitled "Rivers", "Mountains", "Forests", etc., Gaia Vince first evokes the wonders of our planet, how it come to be, how we influenced it and adapted to it, how our influence has grown out of proportion, and why it is in danger now. The figures are bleak, there is plenty to be pessimistic about, but instead of engulfing the reader in pessimism she portrays exceptional people all over the globe who have new projects, interesting ideas, and who are making a difference (similarly to Cyril Dion's film "Demain"). Her prose is often striking, mesmerizing.

[Moses · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this book, Gaia Vince explores the past, present, and future of a variety of biomes in the Anthropocene, the new geological era caused by all the major ways humans have changed the very nature of our planet. She writes about how these ecosystems used to function during the Holocene (before significant disruption by humans) and mourns their loss, but also writes about how these changes are affecting the humans who live there, the creative solutions humans have come up with to adapt to a changing world, and what future prospects may look like. Vince is more of a techno-optimist than most environmentalists, and seems confident that humans will find clean energy solutions to the climate crisis, although even she does not have a very hopeful prognosis for coral reefs or small island nations. I appreciate that she spends a good amount of time on climate change but also addresses other environmental issues that are less commonly talked about. I learned a lot from this book and would highly recommend it, along with The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History , to anyone interested in environmental issues.

[Bianca A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting and informative in its own right. For people who want to better understand the human impact on the world and explore the potential future of human life on Earth. The title, book description and several Goodreads detailed reviews pretty much cover most of the book content. Environment and global warming and its effects are the main topics. The book is from the perspective of the author, a journalist who traveled around the world in many key areas affected by the global warming and tells the stories of things she's seen and draws conclusions. The scientists are claiming that we have entered a new era, the 'Age of Man', where Man has evolved into a natural force that shapes the planet and everything it contains, including its own civilization. This ends up being a bad thing due to the way we are conducting ourselves, destroying and consuming the environment that sustains us, until nothing will sustain us anymore. The book is therefore about the main challenge of our times: meeting our growing needs without doing further damage. There are a lot of solutions explored in the book and also many more to explore outside of it. All in all, an insightful read.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is probably a 4- or 5-star book (it did win the Royal Society Winton prize), but my rating reflects how much I enjoyed it. As other reviews point out, Adventures in the Anthropocene is essentially a travelogue cobbled out of Gaia Vince's globetrotting experiences. Across ten chapters (e.g. 'Atmosphere', 'Farmlands', 'Oceans, 'Forests', 'Rocks'), it discusses case studies from around the world (but typically in developing countries) of the consequences of human interference with the planet. At times it was a bit of a slog, but there were pockets of interesting things and I learnt about some cool technologies.

[Katri-Helena Allas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tohutult silmiavav, pani oma ninaotsast kaugemale vaatama, aga... kindlasti kolmandiku (kui mitte poole!) võrra liiga pikk, sama mõtet oleks võinud lühemalt edastada.

[Megan Bowbrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

I couldn't put this book down. I think it really cleverly explores the different areas of our natural world and how it is and will change, and how we are and will be adapting. As this was written a while ago, it was also interesting to research whether certain items discussed went ahead or not and how things compare to her predictions. Really great read.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book, though it took me a while to read as it was such a heavy topic. But I really enjoyed it as both a travelogue and a commentary on climate change. It was interesting to see how people were already finding unique ways to combat things even back in 2014. I thought it was a fascinating read, and I can safely say I have learnt a lot from it.

[Vaidya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Scary! Hopeful! Pessimistic! Optimistic!

So many ways to look at the world we live in, the way we live. Do you feel hopeful? Do you feel we are going down the drain? Most books look at the way we live and shake their heads. Gaia Vince does a lot of that, but she also has a lot of tales to tell, of hope, of people trying to survive, of making do, trying to leave behind a better planet.

At the very end, comes the point of choice. Which way do we go? Do we continue with our current unsustainable lifestyles - driving to work, consuming stuff we won't need, consuming stuff that causes catastrophes in other parts of the world? Or do we get our act together?

What she bets on is a mix of the two. We will get our acts together, but not before there is considerable strife, considerable bungling, and loss of life. And no, we are not going to be holding temperatures below any levels soon. The planet is not going to get friendly anytime soon. We'll just have to live through that. A lot of Wildlife is going to go extinct, a lot of ecosystems are going to be lost. But we kinda know that already, as much as we refuse to acknowledge that, don't we?

(Some stats were scary! Only 1% of what people use last more than 6 months! Whoa!)

[Albert Faber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written and very insigtful account of the present-day interactions between humanity and its environment. The Anthropocene is the epoch that forces to reconsider the new realities, which Vince explores in places around the world on themes like oceans, rivers, mountains, savannahs and farmland. It is an account of environmental stress and human invention, not necessarily in opposition to each other, but rather trying to find new ways of living. Many communities everywhere in the world lead the way, but it is, eventually, a quest for humankind.

Absolutely one of the best environmental books I have read

[Simon Bager · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although the latter part of the book took me a while to get through, I actually enjoyed it very much overall. Interesting stories from little known places, a combination of positive and negative stories, and fairly well-flowing language makes this an enjoyable read. If you are well-versed in the climate/environment-topics presented here, you'll find some passages dull or too simplified in their description, but the book is a good introduction to the area.

[Beth G · Rating 4 out of 5]

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the earth and what man has done to it and done for it. The author is a science journalist who decides to travel the world to see what is happening to the earth's surface and what people are doing to find solutions. It's fascinating and not all doom and gloom.

[Bettie]

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015...

[Martin Oetiker · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful book in so many ways. On the one hand it describes in stark terms the broad range of issues faced by humanity across the globe during the Anthropocene - the age of Man.

The book is divided by biogeographical regions - Atmosphere, Mountains, Rivers, Farmlands, Oceans, Deserts, Savannah’s, Forests, Rocks & Cities. Each chapter starts with a description of the changes we have made and the problems that we are facing in each of these environments. From the pollution and warming of our atmosphere, the shrinking glaciers in our mountain regions and the effect this has on the billions of people that depend on the gradual release of fresh water during the hot, dry summers, to the over exploitation of our soils, mineral resources & energy supplies.

On the other hand this book is full of inspirational stories of how individuals are tackling these problems and the many different solutions that have been found. Whilst not shrinking from the very real and daunting problems we face, it is a story of hope in the face of seemingly impossible odds, that individuals CAN make a difference to global issues.

I particularly enjoyed the last chapter and the epilogue, both of which paint a picture of our possible futures. The final chapter talks about urbanisation and provides examples of cities that have overcome some of these problems, like slums, sanitation, crumbling infrastructure. For example Medellin, the former Columbian drugs capital with one of the highest murder rates in the world, which has been transformed into a modern, functional and a more humane city. It looks forwards to cities of the future, like Tianjin Eco-city, a Sino-Singaporean project that aims to build an eco-friendly city with novel solutions, integrated transport, sustainable energy & food supplies and recycled waste and water supplies.

In the epilogue Gaia Vince imagines the world in 2100, through the eyes of her 87 year old son Kipp, who was born during the writing of this book. It imagines the environmental changes resulting from global warming, the desertification of the mid-latitudes and much of our farmland, the coastal cities abandoned due to rising sea-levels, the loss of corals and tropical forests, and the extinction of many species. But it also imagines some of the positive aspects like the greening of the high latitudes, new cheap & sustainable energy sources, changing diets, reduced poverty & global cooperation. Wishful thinking maybe, but like the rest of the book, the problems are balanced by possible solutions, thanks to the ingenuity and adaptability which is the hallmark of our species, Homo Sapiens.

[Billy O'Callaghan · Rating 4 out of 5]

About 10,000 years ago, “as the last ice age ended, a new epoch of global warming called the Holocene began.” In recent years, however, Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen has theorised that we have now entered a new era: the Anthropocene, the Age of Man.
The shift can probably trace its beginnings to the mid 19th century, with the Industrial Revolution, but the true impact of humans on the world has been apparent since World War Two: “driven by population explosion, globalisation, mass production, technological and communications revolutions, improved farming methods and medical advances,” it has become known as The Great Acceleration. “It took 50,000 years for humans to reach a population of 1 billion, but just the last ten years to add the latest billion… Meanwhile, our closest relative, the chimpanzee, is living much as he did 50,000 years ago.”
Where once geology dictated the shifts in climate, landscape and atmosphere, now the responsibility lies with the actions, either intentional or as a side-effect, of humankind. The facts are undeniable. Four tenths of the planet's land surface is used to grow our food. Three-quarters of the world's fresh water is controlled by us. “Man is no longer just another species… We have become the masters of our planet and integral to the destiny of life on Earth.” But as our growing population makes us ever more demanding of the natural resources and processes, the key to future survival will be in how we deal with the consequences of our own impact.
Gaia Vince is a highly regarded journalist specialising in science and the environment. For years she has reported on how the biosphere is shifting, the destruction of habitats and the extinction of various species, rising sea levels, deforestation and widespread drought. And yet, rather than fully embracing the dire nature of so many scientific prognostications, she has shown determination in mining the facts for glints of light among the gloom, writing about the triumphs of human endeavour, our inventions and discoveries. “We can create new life in a test tube, bring extinct species back from the dead, grow new body parts from cells or build mechanical replacements. We have invented robots to be our slaves, computers to extend our brains, and a new ecosystem of networks with which to communicate… We are supernatural: we can fly without wings and dive without gills, we can survive killer diseases and be resuscitated after death. We are the only species to leave the planet and visit the moon.”
It is in such a spirit – of acknowledging problems and seeking to recognise hopeful moments – that the author ventures out on the explorations that make up this book. The ambition: “to explore the globe at a crucial moment in its living history, at the beginning of this extraordinary new age… As I travelled through our changing planet, I looked at the world we are creating and wondered what sort of Anthropocene we want.” The result is a “story of ingenious inventions, incredible landscapes and about how we have come to our own Gaia for better or for worse.”
Vince is a fine writer, a considerable talent. The sheer scale of this book, which attempts to encompass the entire world and the impact of its dominant species across all of time past, is immense and thoroughly impressive, but at least as impressive is the sense of humanity that she brings to these pages. And the structure of her storytelling technique certainly contributes to the book's success. The author breaks down her observations and ideas into manageable portions across ten chapters, with each one focusing on a geological or environmental specific (under headings such as 'Mountains', 'Rivers', 'Farmlands', 'Rocks', 'Cities' etc.) in order to frame the intent of her bigger picture.
Each chapter opens with a short section of tight, impeccably referenced and statistically-backed scientific writing that puts the targeted subject in context, before shifting tack into social travelogue, with the author taking herself to some of the most remote and deprived corners of the world in order to witness on an intimate level the man-driven changes taking place in real time. These personal interactions, sometimes uncomfortable but rarely less than captivating, help illuminate the numbers, pull her theories to into proper focus, and are the true heart and joy of this book.
Vince kicks off in Nepal ('Atmosphere'), a country where a third of the population live on less than forty cents a day, for an encounter with Mahabir Pun, who, after twenty years in America, has returned on a quest “to transform his tribe's villages through the unlikely medium of Wi-Fi connectivity”. From here, her travels continue, through some of the murkiest and most spectacular corners of China, Africa and South America. Along the way, she accumulates “a series of stories about remarkable people living in extraordinary times.”
In the Maldives ('Ocean'), she meets Mohamed Nasheed, affectionately known as 'Anni', the nation's president known for his staunch position on human rights and a leading political voice on the subject of climate change, a man who once pulled the wild publicity stunt of holding a cabinet meeting underwater in an effort to bring world attention to the subject of rising sea levels.
The African grasslands ('Savannah') finds her walking in the footsteps of all our ancestors with a group of click-speaking Hadzabe tribesmen whose largely Stone Age existence is coming under increasing threat.
Drought-crippled Lake Turkana ('Deserts') is explored in the company of Fabio, a Catholic missionary priest who drives them through warring tribes. It is a place where even the animals, zebras and dik-diks, “travel in convoys to survive banditry.” Water is a two- or three-day walk and the nomadic pastoralists are losing constant ground to ambitious power-generating companies. One such, Desertec, has plans to harvest the gift of the sun (“The Sahara receives as much energy in six hours as the world uses in a year”) and eventually aims to provide 15% of Europe's electricity.
And in the lowlands of Bolivia ('Forests'), Vince learns about humanity's relationship with the world's greatest rainforest from an unlikely Amazonian warrior, a petite sixty-something named Rosa Maria Ruiz, who is risking her life to save it, waging constant battle against the widespread hunting and trafficking of wild animals.
To read 'Adventures in the Anthropocene' is to experience a kind of awakening. Years and even decades of media bombardment has imbued us with an acceptance of the Earth's precarious ecological state, and yet few us ever trouble to peek beneath the veneer of such reportage to the substance of what supports this doomsday talk. Without shirking the negatives, Gaia Vince uncovers enough glimmers of hope that she is able to put forward strategies which might help balance the future scales and allow humanity, and the planet now so firmly under our stewardship, to endure and even to thrive far into the future. In less adroit hands, the plethora of statistics could overwhelm, but the author has achieved a wonderful balance with this book, making it at once thought-provoking and eminently readable. The sheer reality of the numbers, and the depth of their significance, is breathtaking, and yet they capture and focus the imagination on the problems so that the reader cannot help but come away from this book feeling more connected.

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gaia Vince, a journalist and broadcaster specialising in science and the environment, took a two year journey across six continents to find out about the changes our planet has undergone and the ingenious ways ordinary people have learnt to deal with them. The Earth's geological history covers 4.54 billion years and includes five mass extinction events and the introduction of a new era each time the planet fundamentally changes. In her extremely well researched book Gaia Vince suggests that the time for that new era is now. Humanity is changing the face of the planet irrevocably from that of the Holocene and as we move into the so called Anthropocene, the age of man, we face an unpredictable future with many threats brought on by ourselves including the possibility of a sixth mass extinction event. It's not all doom and gloom however, the human race is also at its most resourceful, creating intelligent solutions and adapting to rapid changes in our environment. Take Chewang Norphel, a 74 year old man from Ladkh, Peru who is growing glaciers in high altitude deserts and providing some of the world's poorest farmers with irrigated water at a time when mountain glaciers are disappearing at a frightening rate.
Adventures in the Anthropocene, A Journey to the Heart of the Planet We Made is a fact lovers dream - did you know for instance that by 2050 urban air pollution will kill more people than dirty water; in the past century we have built 48,000 dams and diverted most of the world's rivers; in 2006 Uunartoq Qeqertaq island was born in the Arctic and that the planet has lost one third of its wild vertebrates to extinction since 1970. At times this book does feel a little like a text book from an Enivronmental Science class with copious amounts of data sometimes jarring with the human interest elements but in the end it doesn't matter. It's the interesting stories from the remarkable people Vince met on her journey that make this book such a compelling read. Divided into 10 sections covering every aspect of our planet from the atmosphere to the oceans, farmland to cities each chapter begins with an italicasised section explaining the science behind the topic. Vince then goes on to outline the dangers humanity faces, why these problems have arisen and the different routes being taken to try and develop workable solutions. Some of which may surprise you for example President Anote Tong of the island of Kiribati is actively planning the migration of his entire 113,000 population to another country because his island is disappearing beneath the waves. Consider the very real possibility of herds of elephants roaming the Australian bush who will eat the vast swathes of grasses and help to curb the destructive wildfires that rage out of control. Or maybe Klaus Lackner, director of the Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy at Columbia University will impress you with his plans to create artificial trees capable of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere more efficiently than the real thing.
This book could plunge you into despair about the state of the planet but Vince balances each chapter well, comparing and contrasting the Holocene with the Anthropocene and making a very good case for welcoming in this new era. During the Holocene remote villages were limited socially, economically and geographically but now a small village in Nepal receives an Internet connection using wifi linking them to the world wide conversation. Many times Vince declares that human behaviour needs to change at a cultural level - the way we eat, the way we cook, the way we socialise, even the way we think all needs to shift if we are to continue to thrive. Would we be so keen to care for our forests if we discovered artifical replacements? Should we spend the $3 billion per year needed to save our biodiversity or should we just accept the losses thus far and focus on maintaing the ecosystem we still have. The plight of the tiger is known world-wide but should we be trying to save those in the wild when we have 200,000 in captivity and it will be those ones people are more likely to see. These are the types of questions that can make you feel slightly uncomfortable as you realise they do actually have merit to them.
Vince explains that we are at a crucial crossroads where the human race must decide what nature we want and where we want it, perhaps even going so far as to declare if we don't need it's meat or skin, it doesn't provide transport or plough fields then do we really need that species? In the section on Savannahs, Vince talks about how the Galapagos Islands have been overrun by invasive plants so much so that the pristine flora & fauna of Darwin's time has disappeared and Mark Gardner, head of restoration at the Charles Darwin Research Station says "It's time to embrace the aliens." This type of thinking still meets stiff resistance but accepting what we do have seems to be the way forward. It's actually something of scientific paradox because we now understand how to bring back extinct animals so who knows - maybe in the future we will cycle species and have the decade of the cetacean. Or perhaps, as Vince suggests, we scoop up all the animals we want to keep and place them in an artifical yet perfect ecosystem away from man, preserved from change. Having visited the orangutans at Sepilok Orangutan Sanctuary in Borneo and watching how they interact with their visitors before being released back into the wild I think it would be sad to loose these opportunities to meet animals face to face but I appreciate the ideal.
It's such a shame that this book didn't include any photos from Vince's travels, she mentions her camera several times even telling us how a small boy in the slums of Villa Hermosa, northern Colombia, grabs her arm and grinning points to the camera and to himself - "the boy stands prouding in nothing but a threadbare pair of filthy shorts, his arms, back and forehead covered in lumps. The shutter snaps and the child rushes round to look at his image on the screen. Delighted, he stands hand in hand with a friend to wave off this visitor from another world who glimpsed his for an hour or so." I would have liked to see that photo.
It's interesting to see the emergence of social media news stories about some of the topics covered in this book such as skyscrapers planned in China that will clean pollution from the surrounding water and air and an info meme explaining that it takes 17 million barrels of oil each year to make water bottles for the U.S market - the equivalent of fueling over 1 million cars per year! The power of social awareness via the Interent will hopefully be a positive driver of change holding companies socially responsible for their actions and it also connects those ordinary individuals who are achieving great things with scientists and companies around the world. By sharing their experience, ideas and knowledge these extra-ordinary individuals will hopefully generate new thinking, new cultures and new technology to overcome the issues of the Anthropocene and whilst there will always be an internet troll somewhere commenting rather wasphisly about how Vince's extensive travelling has contributed to increased carbon emissions etc, I think we can safely say that she offset her carbon footprint.

[Leonhlk · Rating 5 out of 5]

(Rough Notes)
- Flows effortlessly between vivid depictions of our planet’s distant past, and humane descriptions of the lives lived today around the world.

- As we take into consideration the well-being of more stakeholders (e.g. indigenous people, nature) and as we understand the complex knock-on/butterfly effects of our actions (on ecosystems, geology etc.), decisions are going to become a lot more complicated. “In the Anthropocene, our earth-changing capabilities are more sophisticated than ever, but we have barely begun to comprehend the complexity of our impact.” Knowing how to deal with that complexity will require as much philosophy as it does science.

- Gradual change is neutral. Rapid change is brutal.


The book invites a sense of stoicism
- Life itself has been, an continues to be, the greatest miracle. “A super volcanic eruption at Toba in Indonesia 74,000 years ago nearly wiped us all out - the human population shrank to a few thousand.” One can’t help but feel a deep sense of gratitude and calm when considering that we live at the mercy of the next asteroid strike, supervolcanic eruption or mega earthquake.

- There isn’t a magic bullet to all of humanity’s problems just waiting to be found.

- Humanity will improve. The question is how fast. Humanity will continue to alter the planet, against our own interests and in violation of the responsibilities we have towards the natural world and other creatures. But the book has been given me hope that every year, we will know a bit more about how we are altering it, and every year we will want to damage it a little less, for the sake of our own wellbeing, and those of our fellow creatures. Seen in this light, the task for individuals who care isn’t to “save the planet” or “prevent catastrophic destruction”, but simply to keep knowing more, and helping others to know more, thereby accelerating the betterment of our species.

- Humans will adapt. The question is, again, how fast.

[Sheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

This should be required reading for any student of environmental science. This was an incredibly interesting and informative read, with some incredibly beautiful lines ("It takes a while for my heart to return to its usual pace, but it takes longer for the grin to fade."), and a roller coaster of emotions. This book lifts you from despair to hope every other page but ultimately leaves you aching to -do something-.

Described as part travelogue, part how-to guide, I think I would more accurately describe it as a quarter travelogue, a quarter how-to guide and half environmental studies lecture, but that doesn't make it any less interesting! I would have maybe liked to have the travelogue sections expanded at the loss of some of the more lecture-y informative sections, but for someone without an environmental science background, that part might have been the more important part to keep.

My minor complaints that drop it down to four stars are that 1) there were a few editing issues that didn't seem to be caught. Like big ones, like two sentences being merged together in a way that made the whole paragraph lose meaning. And my copy of the book seems to have a misprint on the title on the spine... "in the" is missing! I feel like this publisher needs to pay a little more attention to detail. 2) the book is outdated already. Several mentions to "by 2017 it is predicted too..." and stuff like that. I mean, I guess that's the problem with writing a book on such a relevant topic. I think it just means that the book could use a TV show or documentary to update it. ;)

I think I will recommend this to any of my environmentally minded friends, and, maybe more importantly, those that are not. I learned so much from this book (just pure information and in terms of what actions to take to make the Anthropocene more livable) and that knowledge needs to be passed on!