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

Aug 24, 2023 Tomislav rated it liked it

Shelves: science

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. I 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. ...more

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