Embracing Limits: A Radical and Necessary Approach to the Environmental Crisis

by Keith Akers

If you’ve ever wondered where we’re headed, and what a truly sustainable future might look like—this is the book for you.
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Climate change is only the best known of the many environmental crises that now threaten human civilization. It may not even be the most serious one.
Today’s civilization is like a kid with a credit card, thinking the party will never end. Politically speaking, there are no adults in the room. Perhaps there never were.
The area of land turned into desert or otherwise rendered unfarmable by humans is now larger than the area being farmed—which is itself being destroyed by the very methods used to farm it. Methods that depend heavily on fossil fuels every step of the way.
Meanwhile, the ever-more difficult extraction of the ever-rarer resources needed to manufacture the ever-expanding number of products our civilization requires (or desires) to keep itself going cannot be sustained. We live on a finite planet with finite resources—a fact that the world’s economies, based as they are on the concept of infinite expansion, refuse to acknowledge.
Recycling bottles, putting up windmills, and driving electric cars isn’t going to cut it. We’re told it will, because it’s comforting to think that small changes will save us. We—all of us—need to make massive changes, now. Nothing less will do.
This book details the challenges we face—and the solutions that may save us.

384 pages, Paperback

First published April 22, 2023

Reviews

[Kate Lawrence · Rating 5 out of 5]

At last someone knowledgeable is writing about "radical and necessary" actions we must take--and soon!--even though they seem not to be politically feasible at the moment. Those actions are to 1) substantially reduce personal consumption, 2) substantially reduce human population, and 3) drastically reduce or eliminate livestock agriculture. The author not only states these actions clearly, but supports them with considerable research and much deep thinking. I was one of the lucky ones to read this before publication.
No one wants to be told they have to scale back their purchasing of large inefficient homes, cars, lots of clothes and the frequent travel they may have become accustomed to, even though a less consumptive lifestyle can be rewarding. Many do not want to reduce or eliminate the consumption of animal products in their diet, even though the benefits to human health as well as to our planet would be enormous.
Wake up, everyone! Economic growth cannot continue on a finite planet, and Embracing Limits gives us the information and motivation we need to move forward and stop trying futilely to make the impossible work.

[Bonita · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book no one wants to read. Yet, it is the conversation that we need to have. A fair and entertaining recommendation for reading this book can be found on The Vegetarian Resource Group Blog

The author's endearing and simply-worded dedication of his book to his partner, Kate, is a reflection of the sincerity and love with which the author writes this book for all of us. The book is written in a way that allows the reader to pick and choose a chapter or page and be able to comprehend content without having read what comes before or after. The book is written in a way that allows young readers, teen or pre-teen, to enjoy its content. The book is written in a way that can promote informal discussion within a family unit, not just more formal academic settings.

In the past decade, influenced to some extent by the vegan practices of Keith and his partner Kate, I have pushed past my own apathy and fear to inform myself about the topics that Keith covers in "Embracing Limits." Most recently, I have been attending university-based presentations by local and global academics, authors, activists, and legal professionals, including a Constitutional Justice from Ecuador, whose messages corroborate the messages offered in "Embracing Limits."

If you do not have the funds to purchase this book, press your local libary to carry it.

[Bob Stocker · Rating 5 out of 5]

We are headed toward an ecological disaster. The climate is getting hotter. We're depleting oil and other resources. Species are going extinct. Soil is blowing and washing away faster than it is being generated. Neither politics nor traditional economics is adequately dealing with these issues. It seems we are doomed.

In Embracing Limits Keith Akers discusses these issues in depth and suggests ways to tackle them. The book is clear and concise and contains hundreds of references for anyone interested in pursuing these subjects further.

[Tom Manning · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well researched and written book on the environmental crisis that we're facing. It deals with issues such as climate change, soil erosion, peak oil and how we can push towards a plant based diet. It is easy to slip into the doom surrounding these topics but Akers does a great job of providing an outline of how we can avoid the worst case scenarios in each chapter.