What do you think?
Rate this book
Dangerous Years: Climate Change, the Long Emergency, and the Way Forward
A leading environmental thinker takes a hard look at the obstacles and possibilities on the long road to sustainability
This gripping, deeply thoughtful book considers future of civilization in the light of what we know about climate change and related threats. David Orr, an award-winning, internationally recognized leader in the field of sustainability and environmental education, pulls no punches: even with the Paris Agreement of 2015, Earth systems will not reach a new equilibrium for centuries. Earth is becoming a different planet—more threadbare and less biologically diverse, with more acidic oceans and a hotter, more capricious climate. Furthermore, technology will not solve complex problems of sustainability.
Yet we are not fated to destroy the Earth, Orr insists. He imagines sustainability as a quest and a transition built upon robust and durable democratic and economic institutions, as well as changes in heart and mindset. The transition, he writes, is beginning from the bottom up in communities and neighborhoods. He lays out specific principles and priorities to guide us toward enduring harmony between human and natural systems.
This gripping, deeply thoughtful book considers future of civilization in the light of what we know about climate change and related threats. David Orr, an award-winning, internationally recognized leader in the field of sustainability and environmental education, pulls no punches: even with the Paris Agreement of 2015, Earth systems will not reach a new equilibrium for centuries. Earth is becoming a different planet—more threadbare and less biologically diverse, with more acidic oceans and a hotter, more capricious climate. Furthermore, technology will not solve complex problems of sustainability.
Yet we are not fated to destroy the Earth, Orr insists. He imagines sustainability as a quest and a transition built upon robust and durable democratic and economic institutions, as well as changes in heart and mindset. The transition, he writes, is beginning from the bottom up in communities and neighborhoods. He lays out specific principles and priorities to guide us toward enduring harmony between human and natural systems.
320 pages, Hardcover
Published November 22, 2016
19 people are currently reading
183 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
February 11, 2017
I found nothing to disagree with in this book. Literally nothing! This is sad considering the bleak picture of our current predicament that Orr paints; the sheer scale of the corruption of societal governance that he identifies.
His account hinges on the idea of a "long emergency" tied to the triple threat of climate change, run-away artificial intelligence, and nuclear weapons outside proper political control. We've just entered the long emergency - and the journey is bound to take at least a century. How terrifying it will be depends on our ability to grow - fast! - in terms of wisdom and ethical reflective capacity.
A book filled with paragraphs of startling, evocative wisdom and beauty...
His account hinges on the idea of a "long emergency" tied to the triple threat of climate change, run-away artificial intelligence, and nuclear weapons outside proper political control. We've just entered the long emergency - and the journey is bound to take at least a century. How terrifying it will be depends on our ability to grow - fast! - in terms of wisdom and ethical reflective capacity.
A book filled with paragraphs of startling, evocative wisdom and beauty...
November 21, 2017
This is not my first Orr-led rodeo, and I would argue this is perhaps his worst book I have encountered yet. That's not because the ideas in this book are bad, merely a dense aggregation of green consciousness rhetoric that covers a lot of the bases. However, Orr does gloss over/ignore environmental justice, at least in any explicit formulation. It appears to me that Orr makes the implicit argument that climate>justice, akin to that of Kevin DeLuca in "A Wilderness Environmentalism Manifesto", but these ideas are poorly fleshed out and in conflict with much of his discourse and the whole idea of green consciousness discourse.
There are many good and great ideas in this book, but will you notice the important thoughts or be taken in by the massive number of oft-disconnected ideas concentrated by Orr in his latest work. Too broad-ranging to be an effective polemic and too abstract and superficial to be an actual call to action. Dangerous Years settles for an amorphous and uncommitted position within environmental disaster literature, something we must be increasingly intolerant of in "the long emergency".
There are many good and great ideas in this book, but will you notice the important thoughts or be taken in by the massive number of oft-disconnected ideas concentrated by Orr in his latest work. Too broad-ranging to be an effective polemic and too abstract and superficial to be an actual call to action. Dangerous Years settles for an amorphous and uncommitted position within environmental disaster literature, something we must be increasingly intolerant of in "the long emergency".
February 17, 2017
Lot's of great info here, which is sometimes scientific, but still easy to understand. I wish that every American would read the chapter titled "Denial," because Orr brings up some excellent reasons why we choose to "not believe" in climate change. Here is one that resonated with me: "Americans, in particular, seem to have made a fetish of optimism and positive thinking no matter what the science or the numbers." I believe in positive thinking, but why not shift the positive thinking away from denial and instead to job creation and technologies, that allow for money making and quality of life. To believe in climate change does not lose our ability to have a rosy outlook, it just shifts our focus in thinking.
April 6, 2019
Orr articulates, connects, and expands upon the eco-cultural crisis to such extent that I feel stymied by the sheer weight of issues when I sit down to write my reflections. What are you to say in summary when you have a book of prophecy in hand, and when you look up, people are “eating and drinking, marrying and being given in marriage” (though the actual behaviors are not so innocent as that) as before, only worse and more egregiously since the time the prophet spoke? I felt a sharp sting of pain when I learned that the book was published in May 2016. A more hopeful time.
The value of Orr’s work to me, at my time and place in life, is that he so effectively ties strings together. He facilitates the recognition and strengthening of connections in the web of eco-cultural knowledge that I became intellectually cognizant of in college - though I already had an emotional cognizance of it to some extent, from my rural background and childhood. The book calls me to answer the questions - how should I then live? how do I pursue my life’s work and the Great Work? - already in my mind given my current stage of life. On reflection, I keep circling back to these topics - holistic land management, the creation of a sustainable agroecology, communication, resource dissemination, making connections - so the question then becomes, where do I go from now? Which I’m still actively working on. It’s good and healthy to have a goal and a sense, however vague, of calling - thus, despite its sober and wide-ranging critique of the current state of affairs, I choose to call Dangerous Years a galvanizing, rather than a depressing, work.
Orr does become polemic at times, but given the magnitude of the threat, that’s excusable, even necessary - though such language should be reviewed and thoughtfully edited to avoid imparting an off-putting sense of superiority and arrogance, which unfortunately seeps through his writing at times (especially in the chapter on Oberlin). This is not the book for a broad or contentious audience. I also find issue with his lack of inquiry into the long-term sustainability of solar power; renewable energy is absolutely imperative for the present moment, but the system that produces and sustains it should still be understood and critquied as it (hopefully) becomes widely implemented.
The value of Orr’s work to me, at my time and place in life, is that he so effectively ties strings together. He facilitates the recognition and strengthening of connections in the web of eco-cultural knowledge that I became intellectually cognizant of in college - though I already had an emotional cognizance of it to some extent, from my rural background and childhood. The book calls me to answer the questions - how should I then live? how do I pursue my life’s work and the Great Work? - already in my mind given my current stage of life. On reflection, I keep circling back to these topics - holistic land management, the creation of a sustainable agroecology, communication, resource dissemination, making connections - so the question then becomes, where do I go from now? Which I’m still actively working on. It’s good and healthy to have a goal and a sense, however vague, of calling - thus, despite its sober and wide-ranging critique of the current state of affairs, I choose to call Dangerous Years a galvanizing, rather than a depressing, work.
Orr does become polemic at times, but given the magnitude of the threat, that’s excusable, even necessary - though such language should be reviewed and thoughtfully edited to avoid imparting an off-putting sense of superiority and arrogance, which unfortunately seeps through his writing at times (especially in the chapter on Oberlin). This is not the book for a broad or contentious audience. I also find issue with his lack of inquiry into the long-term sustainability of solar power; renewable energy is absolutely imperative for the present moment, but the system that produces and sustains it should still be understood and critquied as it (hopefully) becomes widely implemented.
March 19, 2019
On tämä varmasti aivan hyvä, ei siinä, on on. Mutta silti tätä en oikein osaa suositella kenellekään. Tässä ei ole oikein mitään vikaa, muttei mitään hyvääkään, siis kirjana. Orr on tehnyt läksynsä ja haluaa ilmeisesti pelastaa maailman kaikelta, mutta yhteiskunnallinen analyysi on seitinohutta ja siihen päälle käsitteellis-filosofista, mikä on yhdistelmänä vain tylsä.
Kuinka rasittavaa on, kun kirja ei ole hyvä! Tulee syyllinen olo siitä, että tämmöistä on kauhealla vaivalla tehty ja mussa on joku vika varmaan. Ylipäätään oon kyllä sellainen taskulämmin diggailija, joka harvoin on tyystin pitämättä mistään. Tässä piti vähän kiihdytellä, että pääsi loppuun.
Isoin ongelma on siinä, että Orr ei oikein jaksa rakentaa pointtia. Kirjoittaja vyöryttää ja vyöryttää lukijan päälle kaikkea mikä liittyy etäisesti asiaan — ilmastoon, biodiversiteettiin, kapitalismiin (tosi pinnallinen analyysi), tekoälyn vaaroihin — ja heittelee siihen päälle ajatuksia. Jotkut ovat ihan hyviäkin, esimerkiksi “long emergency” on käsitteenä varmasti käyttökelpoinen, ja ajallinen käsitteellistys itsekin käyttämäni ”hätätilan” päälle voisi olla ihan toimiva.
En oikein oppinut mitään enkä ollut kauheasti eri mieltä mistään, enkä saanut mitään irti. Mälsintä oli, ettei ollut oikein uutta kulmaa mistä katsoa tuttuakaan asiaa, koska uusien näkökulmien takia sitä kirjoja tietysti myös lukee. Ei ole parempaa keinoa olla joku muu.
Voisi ehkä sopia sellaiseksi buustauskirjaksi ympäristöherätyksen saaneelle. Sellaiseksi tosin liian pitkä. Naomi Klein ja jopa Monbiot tekee saman paremmin ja monet muut, esim. Barnosky, Hamilton, Angus, Andreas Malm syvällisemmin.
Kuinka rasittavaa on, kun kirja ei ole hyvä! Tulee syyllinen olo siitä, että tämmöistä on kauhealla vaivalla tehty ja mussa on joku vika varmaan. Ylipäätään oon kyllä sellainen taskulämmin diggailija, joka harvoin on tyystin pitämättä mistään. Tässä piti vähän kiihdytellä, että pääsi loppuun.
Isoin ongelma on siinä, että Orr ei oikein jaksa rakentaa pointtia. Kirjoittaja vyöryttää ja vyöryttää lukijan päälle kaikkea mikä liittyy etäisesti asiaan — ilmastoon, biodiversiteettiin, kapitalismiin (tosi pinnallinen analyysi), tekoälyn vaaroihin — ja heittelee siihen päälle ajatuksia. Jotkut ovat ihan hyviäkin, esimerkiksi “long emergency” on käsitteenä varmasti käyttökelpoinen, ja ajallinen käsitteellistys itsekin käyttämäni ”hätätilan” päälle voisi olla ihan toimiva.
En oikein oppinut mitään enkä ollut kauheasti eri mieltä mistään, enkä saanut mitään irti. Mälsintä oli, ettei ollut oikein uutta kulmaa mistä katsoa tuttuakaan asiaa, koska uusien näkökulmien takia sitä kirjoja tietysti myös lukee. Ei ole parempaa keinoa olla joku muu.
Voisi ehkä sopia sellaiseksi buustauskirjaksi ympäristöherätyksen saaneelle. Sellaiseksi tosin liian pitkä. Naomi Klein ja jopa Monbiot tekee saman paremmin ja monet muut, esim. Barnosky, Hamilton, Angus, Andreas Malm syvällisemmin.
October 5, 2023
Rather than rehash the science of climate change and the likely results, Orr instead largely focuses on the economic, political, and philosophical underpinnings of the climate crisis and how we need to change our thinking on both a personal and societal level in order to forestall disaster.
Although he primarily focuses on American culture and its political system, most of the philosophical aspects and societal realignment are generally applicable to most of the developed world.
He comes out swinging, with scathing and withering attacks against the institutions and ideologies that created and continue to irresponsibly enable the dumping of too much carbon into the atmosphere, long after we knew better, culminating in as brutal and venomous diatribe against the inherent evils of capitalism as I've ever read, in any context.
As a technologist, I generally take a dim view to those that only see the downsides to technology, while dismissing the possibility that any societal good can result from technological advances. But despite disagreeing in principle with much of Orr's outlook, it's hard to argue with the results to date. He is 100% correct that the climate catastrophe isn't just a technological problem, and that more than a quick technology fix will be sufficient to get us out of this mess.
He also glowingly praises the Amish and the US Green Building Council as examples of organizations that are doing good, blithely ignoring the many significant problems of each. But his message that we should "Do good and necessary work," reform our educational institutions to create well-rounded and civic-minded citizens, reforge relationships with nature, and take a systems approach to governance and decision making are all spot on.
Bottom Line: Add to the Required Reading List
Although he primarily focuses on American culture and its political system, most of the philosophical aspects and societal realignment are generally applicable to most of the developed world.
He comes out swinging, with scathing and withering attacks against the institutions and ideologies that created and continue to irresponsibly enable the dumping of too much carbon into the atmosphere, long after we knew better, culminating in as brutal and venomous diatribe against the inherent evils of capitalism as I've ever read, in any context.
As a technologist, I generally take a dim view to those that only see the downsides to technology, while dismissing the possibility that any societal good can result from technological advances. But despite disagreeing in principle with much of Orr's outlook, it's hard to argue with the results to date. He is 100% correct that the climate catastrophe isn't just a technological problem, and that more than a quick technology fix will be sufficient to get us out of this mess.
He also glowingly praises the Amish and the US Green Building Council as examples of organizations that are doing good, blithely ignoring the many significant problems of each. But his message that we should "Do good and necessary work," reform our educational institutions to create well-rounded and civic-minded citizens, reforge relationships with nature, and take a systems approach to governance and decision making are all spot on.
Bottom Line: Add to the Required Reading List
November 3, 2020
I had never heard of David Orr before reading this book. I wish I had because he is an impressive and insightful thinker. So many different areas are included in this book in order to analyse the current climate situation, psychology, economics, politics and religion are some of the main ones except for biology and ecology then of course. This impressive reach is necessary since Orr critiques reductionism. Reductionism might have worked before, but it has also put us where we are. We have failed to see the bigger picture and we are loose systematic thinkers. We can "predict" causes in the reduced way of thinking, but those are not the only causes, or maybe not even the most important ones. Systems causes other things than the smallest parts of that system do. And here Orr's contribution might be the most significant one. He argues that we need wisdom and judgement. For this the humanities are essential as I understood him. But he also shows what a systematic discerning thinking might look like. I am very impressed by this book and I think it does point to a way forward even if we as humans are very bad in dealing with long emergencies.
August 8, 2017
This is very, very good if you want to read the philosophy and politics behind the climate crisis we find ourselves in now. Ideas for what can be done are laid out -- but most of the contributors seemed reluctantly pessimistic about whether our politicians and nations can put aside monetary interests in favor of saving our planet from becoming a nightmare for our children and grandchildren.
The book is deep and heavy economic and political philosopy -- and I admit I had trouble sticking to it and didn't completely finish it before the due date at the library came. But for those who want some deep thought about complex issues, this is a good one.
The book is deep and heavy economic and political philosopy -- and I admit I had trouble sticking to it and didn't completely finish it before the due date at the library came. But for those who want some deep thought about complex issues, this is a good one.
June 2, 2017
What a sad coincidence that I finish this amazing book on the same day that POTUS Trump decides to pull out of the Paris agreement. I'm saddened by this. However, like Mr. Orr points out the change needs to happen in local communities by "we the people". I hope to make this book my secular bible and to study its concepts and ideas for solutions as I embark on my dream to build better environments. Thank you to Dr. Orr and all those who have paved and led the way, I will be closely following you all.
*This book is a must read*
*This book is a must read*
January 31, 2020
I’ve read many books on climate change and sustainability, but this is the first that ties every corner of our anthropogenic world to this single, massive issue. It’s a book I would recommend to my colleagues who also work in the field of renewable energy and ESG, but also to members of my friends and family who still struggle to understand this nuanced challenge ahead of us.
April 24, 2020
A great deep dive on social, psychological, economic, political and societal impacts of climate change.
October 11, 2023
’Tis the times’ plague, when madmen lead the blind. [Shakespeare]
October 31, 2019
Am I the only one bothered by the lack of acknowledgement of Kunstler's book The Long Emergency, which about 15 years earlier addressed many similar issues, albeit in a less academic manner? If I was to publish a book, I'd at least do a catalogue search to check what else was published with a similar title - no?
I generally agree with the points Orr makes but I failed to grasp his original contribution to the climate conversation. He does however win the prize for the greatest number of enumerations with more than 8 items in a single book. :) Some very lucid, impactful statements earn him my 3 stars.
I generally agree with the points Orr makes but I failed to grasp his original contribution to the climate conversation. He does however win the prize for the greatest number of enumerations with more than 8 items in a single book. :) Some very lucid, impactful statements earn him my 3 stars.
Read
November 18, 2019Really thoughtful and erudite (but accessible) book on how we've gotten into this mess of a warming planet and strategies (rooted in fundamental political, economic, and cultural change) for the future. The planet will not be the same one we grew up in, but, according to Orr, we can survive if we have the will to change. Highly recommended big ideas book.
December 23, 2018
Exceptional book that gets to the heart of the current climate crisis and spells out essential steps out of it.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews