Apocalyptic Planet: Field Guide to the Everending Earth

 Introduction 

For those of you reading along on the blog but not having yet read the book…..

Craig Childs starts off the Introduction with questions….what is the meaning of apocalypse….one that destroys civilization, life on the entire planet?  How does it work?  Is there a way to stop it?  He writes about how his first experience with an earthquake reshaped his view of the earth.  He “understood in my bones the connected curve of the planet.  Nothing was separate.  We were all in this together, and I mean ALL, everything under the dome of the sky. “  His sentiments sound so much like John Muir.

Introducing this book to the class was easy, I thought.  Having read the book twice and now on my third reading for the class I have come to see it as providing a broader context for the subject of ‘climate change’.  What are the natural cycles of our planet and how does climate change now impact those cycles?  These and more questions will be explored throughout the next 9 chapters.

By way of a disclaimer I let everyone know I have no educational nor professional experience in any of the sciences covered in the book and that I was there simply to host the conversation.

Some participants hoped to cover solutions to climate change and I encourage any discussion of solutions that may arise in the conversation, but this book does not address solutions, only recounts Childs’ adventures/explorations into each environment and his perspective on earth’s natural cycles and the human impact of climate change on those cycles.

We had a brief discussion regarding Childs’ experience with the 1994 California earthquake and how it altered his relationship with the earth….”in those moments my picture of the earth was remade.”  “When the earth decides to roll, it is no longer our game.”

And while it was not mentioned in class, I feel that his comment, “Our version of the real world may be the most fleeting of pleasures.” captures the essence of the book in a nutshell.

Chapter 1 – Deserts Consume:  Sonora, Mexico

Class started off with questions of where exactly is the Sonora Desert of Mexico? How large is it? And why did the photos I pulled from the internet not resemble the description Childs wrote in the book?

Thank God for Google….one student immediately searched on Google and read that the Sonora Desert is 100,000 square miles encompassing Mexico and parts of Southwest US.  With that much land mass it seems likely that the land structure will vary considerably.

We briefly discussed the meaning of the word ‘erg’ which was a little confusing to some of us, me in particular with no background in Physics.  We settled on a definition of a certain type of sand dune.  Childs points out that the Gran Desierto of the Sonora Desert is the only bona fide ‘erg’ of North America.

Quickly the class declared Craig Childs crazy for attempting such a ‘picnic’, “a long, hot, dry, barren picnic”; to attempt such a trek with no GPS and no maps, depending solely on line of site appeared foolish and unsafe to some in the class.  

Questions were asked regarding how quickly would climate change move forward and there were several comments regarding the different estimates that were being offered up by different scientific disciplines.  Depending on your field of expertise, the answer will be different.  As Childs noted “the point of no return is a moving target.”

I shared with the class the Sierra Club presentation in January of the Kiribati island nation in the Pacific Ocean that is slowing being submerged by the rising Pacific Ocean.  We discussed how that looks for that island group and the Maldives, Miami, New Orleans, etc.  Everyone agrees, yes, it is a global issue.

We also wondered about the ‘bone yard’ that Childs and his companion, Devine, found.  We were wondering what happened?  Did they report it?  Has it been found by anyone before?  As a result, after class I Facebook messaged Childs asking the questions.  It will be interesting to see if he responds.  

We discussed the Dust Bowl of the 1930’s.  Childs reports that a “recent NASA study found that between 1931 and 1939 cooler-than-normal ocean temperatures from the tropical Pacific met with warmer tropical Atlantic waters, changing the global wind patterns that slowed the movement of precipitation from the Gulf of Mexico inland to the Great Plains.  With the Great Depression on, this meteorological signal could not have come at a worse time.”  Who knew that global patterns such as these had such a massive impact??!!  Who knew that they even existed??!!  The point was also made by the class that farming practices of the time probably did not help matters either.  

The discussion shifted from there to how this event impacted migration patterns of those living in the Dust Bowl and how attitudes today are impacting immigration laws/practices; big problems that we have yet to solve.  

Childs also confronts the possibility of severe droughts.  Childs quoted Jonathan Overpeck, a leading big-picture climate researcher as saying “I think we are significantly underestimating the severity of drought we could get in the future.”  We discussed briefly the state of water sources in places such as Atlanta, that is currently struggling and of course the southwest with its particularly arid climate.  None of us knew the current condition of our own Great Miami Aquifer, but we seemed to feel secure with the Ohio River as a main source of water for our region.  

There was more discussion on more topics, but I am not able to recall it all.  I was hoping to take notes during class….but that isn’t going to happen.  So I will do my best to capture the bulk of our conversations.

We did leave the day a little ticked that Childs let his food bag slip away into the great outdoors; seemed a little irresponsible as an environmentally concerned citizen.  He did however note that he and Devin passed out as if drunk at the end of their journey.  Given their experience, I wonder if I could have done better?