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Maybe One is more about the concept of having only one child per family, than a sanctimonious sermon on the perils producing more than that lone baby will have on the world. Understandably the implications of overpopulation for the planet's resources isn't something the average American cries into his Cheerios about every morning, but Maybe One argues that we must start thinking about family size and stop thinking of population as an "abstract issue" that has no bearing on our lives. McKibben produces compelling if not controversial arguments for curbing the U.S. population explosion, a population which he believes could grow by at least 50 percent by the year 2050 to possibly 400 million people. That's a lot of mouths to feed, fuel to burn, and waste to dispose! McKibben's arguments are a mixture of the highly personal (he speaks in great detail of his decision to have a vasectomy) to the highly global (McKibben cites scary statistics about the greenhouse effect, species extinction, soil erosion, and food shortages). He is particularly passionate about "only children" and that it really is okay to have just one child, arguing that only children are often more intelligent and confident than their multiple-sibling friends.
Like in The End of Nature an earlier McKibben book concerned with man's catastrophic contribution to the greenhouse effect, McKibben urges us in Maybe One to really think about our relationship with the earth. He writes, "No decision any of us makes will have more effect on the world (and on our lives) than whether to bear another child." Prophetic words, but words many parents will find difficult by which to abide. --Naomi Gesinger --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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The importance of this book to the near future of the United States is hard to exaggerate. It is a must for every young American, and everyone who cares about the quality of human life and of the environment.
McKibben's premise is this: if large numbers of people choose to limit their families to one child, the maximum population of the United States will be lower by a critical amount.
Most environmental thinkers recognize the central role of population growth in environment issues, including in this country. The United States is the third most populous country in the world, and the fastest growing industrialized nation. Bill McKibben has the courage to tell the truth: the only way to limit population growth is to choose small families. Deciding how many children to have, like it or not, is more than a private decision. It is very much a decision that will effect the quality of life of all Americans over the next 100 years.
McKibben gently demolishes long-held beliefs in the poor adjustment of only children. He also argues against legislated population control, though one might make the case that such measures may become necessary if voluntary family limits fail.
McKibben's relaxed, peppy style makes this book accessible to everyone, and his topic is the most important one for contemporary America.
As the mother of one child, a son who is now raised and responsible and happy I am always looking for books that dispel the myths about only children being selfish, spoiled, maladjusted loners (the authors words). The author doesn't just talk theory. And he walks his talk, in sharing the personal choice and experience of having a vasectomy.
His work is thorough in showing how misplaced and out of context religious admonishments to go forth and multiply are. How we no longer need large families to work the farms much less the nine month school year. That we as a society need to rethink what children should be to society at large and get over the whole lug headed logic that as women we are not complete unless we reproduce and do so more than once. Or that real men are only the ones who create an heir, and usually a male one at that.
I also appreciated immensely his challenging people to stop seeing a child as a hobby and start looking at the child as an individual with rights and that an only child that is reared with a mindset of personal responsibility is the best future citizen. And the fact is as his work shows, is this. Todays family with more than one child is the very family who succumbs to guilt buying. Over consuming and children with poor health i.e.obesity and altruistic thought that is not embraced but if taught is done so out of guilt feelings.
the book is split into four sections. Part One: Family Part Two: Species Part Three: Nation Part Four: Self. And am so grateful the author has noted the works of Granville Stanley Hall who was born in 1844 and would go on to John Hopkins and do some earthshaking research as well as create the first research university in psychology.
The inescapable truth glaring through this sort of calculation is that unless you manage a SuperFund site, you are not likely to make a more environmentally important decision in your life than whether to add another human being to the earth (and if so, how many). Perhaps McKibben's book will help reduce the ridiculous spectacles I see where a bountiful family of multiple children scamper from a monstrous SUV (with Earth Day bumper sticker) at a recycle site, offering some newspapers and crushed cans and then hulking home (after gassing up, of course), beaming and self-congratulatory at what they are doing for the earth compared to their wasteful brethren in, say, India. You can reuse and recycle to your little heart's content and not come close to having a fraction of the environmental impact of not having had one of those children-particularly American children.
Now at this point someone will usually ask "but what if that child not born had grown up to be another Ed Begley, Jr or John Muir???" Of course it's just as likely (that is, unknowable) that the child will be another Rush Limbaugh Julian Simon, arguing that ultimately human ingenuity will always find a way out of our problems (since it always has in the past). The fact is I fear Simon may be right (at least on this point). Humans probably will find a way around most if not all of the limitations on human growth and continued happiness. Unfortunately many of those "limitations" will be much of the rest of the ecosystem. If you live comfortably in a human-centered worldview where humans properly exercise dominion over birds and the fishes, then stay tuned, you're going to love the next few hundred years. If, however, you value other components of the ecosystem other than humans (or acknowledge their right to exist whether we value them or not), Simon won't have much to tell you. You can't get something out of nothing. Each of the 240,000 new humans added to the earth each day aren't eating nothing or building their homes from nothing or fueling their fires and cars and machines from nothing. They will get these things from something, and that something is the rest of our ecosystem. The plain fact of the matter is that as human population expands, other components of our ecosystem contract. Humans are rapidly converting earth biomass to human biomass. If you like that state of affairs, keep on truckin'. Otherwise read McKibben's book and take some meaningful action to work to an alternative...