Down to the Wire, by David Orr
General observations
David Orr is one of my gurus, but the first time I read this book I was disappointed by its repetitiousness, vagueness, lack of sequential structure or sustained, fully supported and defended claims, and its preaching to the choir, who have already heard most of this many times. The central points were hardly controversial or new for us, but still unacceptable to the great majority of citizens who are looking more than ever at short term rescues or pleasures. For that reason the urgency and insistence of the tone seemed irritating and disrespectful of the audience. Compared to his last book, Design on the Edge, which contained a fascinating autobiographical narrative and a detailed account of the remarkable history of the building he was responsible for planning, designing and financing at Oberlin College, this book felt vague, uninspired, and sentimental. What does it mean after all to insist that what we should do is “deepen our humanity.” (202)
I also found it sadly dated. Though filled with topical references to the impending Obama adminstration, the events of the fifteen months since his inauguration made many of the proposals about transforming governance and launching a revolution in Washington seem painfully overoptimistic.
Nevertheless I decided to give it another try, either to be able to articulate specifically what I found wrong with the book or to give it a more sympathetic and engaged reading.
First, I confirmed what I suspected about the book’s process of composition. Most of the material here was previously published in the form of essays that Orr writes for the journal Conservation Biology and others. Many of these can be found at the website, That accounted for and in a way justified the sense that each chapter recovered much of the same territory and started from scratch rather than building on what preceded. Viewed from this perspective, each chapter had the coherence and scope of his remarkable speeches, such as the one I heard at the organizing conference for Focus the Nation in Las Vegas < And even when general points were repeated, Orr seemed in each essay to summon up different examples and sources. A second reading also revealed an overall structure of chapters that moved forward from beginning to middle and end despite the backtracking. Preface and Introduction both state the predicament and his solutions. We are facing what has been called a long emergency or a bottleneck, a worldwide period of crisis brought on by the environmental degradation and climate change that misguided human impacts have produced over the last 200 years. The way out will be long and arduous, and only possible with strong, transformative leadership, primarily in the presidency but also at all levels of government and society. Leaders have three leading tasks: move the citizenry out of a state of denial to a recognition of the dangers, develop energy policies that reverse our dependence on carbon and promote renewables, and foster a deepening of public morality emphasizing fairness, compassion, nonviolence and a sense of purpose and reverence for nature grounded in appreciation and gratitude. These three mandates are reaffirmed throughout the book.
The three chapters of section I, Politics and Governance, assert that Government is the only agency strong enough to effectively address the emergency but that government needs to be transformed. Chapter 1, Governance, asserts that the challenges of mitigating and adapting to climate change and its associated catastrophes can be faced by reversing the trend toward unregulated corporate power, trivialized and ineffective journalism, excessive consumerism and rule by lobbyists. This can be done by redistribution of wealth and privilege, publicly funded elections, smartening land use and agricultural policy, promoting universal access to communication media and promotion of small community autonomy. But first government itself must be transformed from its present corrupt and dysfunctional state to a just, effective and elevating one. This will have to be accomplished through a mechanism like a new Constitutional Convention and the establishment of a new consensus. Chapter 2 is a meditation on democracy, the form of government most likely to succeed despite its faults, the failures of its alternatives, like natural capitalism, and unregulated free-market capitalism, and the proposal of a legal, constitutional framework for instituting the kinds of social transformation needed to address climate change based on the new idea of the legal standing of future generations. Chapter 3, Leadership in the Long Emergency, compares today’s crisis with those faced by Lincoln and Roosevelt, and concludes that Obama can learn leadership lessons from both his great predecessors, which include the necessity of understanding and framing those crises both as legal-constitutional issues requiring preservation of law and tradition and as moral issues requiring deep personal insight and unshaken commitment. Orr repeats the laundry list of reforms mentioned earlier that Obama needs to accomplish. Chapter 4, Leadership, defines true leadership, like that of those predecessors, as the capacity to energize and give direction to the populace.
Part II, Connections, is transitional in the overall structure of the book, but provides a sample of some of Orr’s strongest qualities as a writer, manifested when he lets a more imaginative, associative principle guide his design. Chapter 5, The Carbon Connection, juxtaposes two powerful narrative descriptions: nature’s devastation of humans in New Orleans by Katrina, presumably caused by climate change, and humans’ devastation of nature in Coal Companies’ mountaintop removal, causing climate change. This is connected to Chapter 6, The Spirit of Connection, which explores spiritual and religious perspectives on Climate Change, differentiating the apocalyptic fundamentalism that both affirms and brings it on with the subjective experiences of wonder, reverence and gratitude for the gift of life that provide meaning and hope for those struggling to protect it.
Part III, Farther Horizons, contains three chapters overlapping earlier chapters and one another in content. Chapter 7, Milennial Hope, lists factors blocking us from taking the steps necessary to confront and deal with the coming crisis and solutions, psychological, political, and spiritual, concluding with a story of Gandhian non-violence displayed by Amish toward a mass murderer who shot a number of their children. Chapter 8, Hope at the End of our Tether, expands the emphasis on anti-militarism, Gandhian Satyagraha and other Gandhian principles like anti-materialism—shift from wealth to happiness—social justice, and localism. The final chapter, The Upshot: What is to be Done? echoes both Aldo Leopold and Lenin, verbally in the titles of two of their well known works, and thematically in calling for the creation of a community that includes natural beings and systems and in calling for a total revolution to be initiated by a vanguard of leaders, giving direction and energy to an awakened populace. The first section covering the same ground as the preceding chapters, this chapter and section ends with a powerful vision of a desireable outcome from the long emergency only ten years in the future, located in his home town of Oberlin Ohio, where the very specific programs he has set in motion as an activist and educator have run their course. The vision is startlingly similar to the kinds of programs and visions activists at Cal Poly and in San Luis Obispo County have dedicated themselves. More than anything in this book, these few pages (212-215) provide some of the grounds for hope that present conditions don’t encourage in regard to most of the books larger recommendations.
“Postscript: A Disclosure” is vintage Orr. It’s a recollection of the extraordinarily hot summer of 1980 when he and his brother worked like slaves on a farm in Arkansas, as the temperature reached 111 degrees and stayed there. It was then that he became interested in climate change. He says he felt it viscerally, the memory recorded in his body. That’s why it’s presented as a disclosure. But the impact of that memory, I’m afraid is unlikely to be felt until the rest of us consistently experience such nasty conditions, and by then it’s likely to be too late.
Annotated Outline
I.Preface
A.General
1.3 ways to commit suicide: nuclear annihilation, environmental degradation, technologies that can self replicate and find humanity useless
2.We’re in the bottleneck—E.O.Wilson—era
3.Optimism—we’ll come through chastened and bettered
4.Carbon trap—reducing footprint from 22 tons per person per year to 1-2 tons
5.1. Great leadership essential: courage to help public understand
6.Cassandras and Jeremiahs treated with denial
7.2. Long emergency ahead—leaders need clarity about best economic and energy options—climate destabilization outcome of system created by dangerously incomplete image of reality
8.3. foster vision of under stress, a humane decent future…kindness [vague]
9.Get worse before better for a long time. –need for a long term view, knowing we wont live to see results
10.Climate change not a problem to be fixed but worsening condition
B.His thesis
1.Different from two general positions:
2.1) rising tide of groups, planetary immune system—Hawken
a)However “no adequate substitute for better leadership at all levels”—bromide
3.2) focus only on solutions, not problems or dilemmas—
4.his position is neither; tech fixes not enough; need more analysis of source of problem—we need better leadership and improved democracy, more creative and competent management of the public business
C.This book is about consciousness raising—quote: leader’s task is consciousness-raising. [weak, over optimistic about Obama, controversial term and one that’s dated]
II.Introduction
A.Warnings have been ignored—trivia has been emphasized
B.Tepid response by US leaders to global warming
1.No tech solution—already stated
2.Abrupt changes are likely
3.We are still burning more fossil fuel
a)Extreme weather is breaking records – weak
b)Description of what will happen
4.Problem is really bad
5.Leaders denied and delayed—acted imprudently, no insurance
6.Positive side
a)Polls indicate Public awareness is increasing rapidly—weak prose and questionable
b)Markets for carbon
c)Boone Pickens investing in wind—old and misleading news
d)Cities and localities have climate plans
e)Not big enough transformation considered
C.Political failure
1.What leaders didn’t do—eight bullet points, including wasting money and starting wars
2.The enemy is all of us—lifestyle
3.New public priorities required
4.Must be dealt with by governments
D.Assumes we’ll succeed
1.Need for leadership
2.3 challenges:
a)prepare public to understand seriousness of climate change and challenge to our style of government
b)develop connections between energy choices and ecological consequences
c)provide honest vision of future, authentic hope
III.Part I: Politics and Governance
A.Ch. 1 Governance
1.Need new constitutional convention to alleviate anti-democratic and dysfunctional elements
2.Climate and environment are complex, interactive, nonlinear
3.Govt. operations are the opposite
4.Attributable to constitution’s obsession with property rights
5.Govt has been incompetent: organized to exacerbate environmental problems; shrouded in secrecy
6.Political demobilization of people, empowerment of corporations and military
7.Converging challenges—the five (plus 2)
IV.global warming consequences (again!)
(1)Not a moment to waste; 350 ppm
(2)Later disasters coming—as if this hadn’t already been stated
(3)The list repeated in expanded form…storms etc
(4)Level of public awareness and policy discussion doesn’t match gravity
(5)No technical solution
b)2.Breakdown of ecosystems
c)3. End of cheap oil
d)4. Blowback; military vulnerability
e)5. Collapsed financial system
f)All parts of long emergency, and will interact with one another
g)Another challenge is population growth—why an afterthought?
h)Also a bunch of domestic problems—infrastructure etc.
2.Implications—vague heading
a)First priority of govt is reduce emissions by climate and energy policy
(1)Not clean coal or nuclear
b)Economic growth should slow down; boom is bad
(1)We need to redistribute wealth; relearn frugality, sharing, neighborliness (how?)
(2)Resilience
c)Government will have to relocate and house growing numbers
d)Government will have to reorganize food system; localize
e)Government will have to mobilize people to work together; great leader
3.Government and markets
a)Corporations cant save us; rejecting market fundamentalism
b)Government must regulate them in interest of the public
4.Governance and public order
a)Our situation more grave than the founders’
b)Robust organizational ecology—Senge
c)Government must be better at getting its job done after decades of neglect
d)Box 1
(1)Land use—counter sprawl
(2)Landowners have too much power—coal companies etc
(3)Limits on property rights—adapting Locke
(4)The commons and public property; need for property constraints working on long term; example of NEPA
(5)System of ownership modified in favor of “trust conception of government” to protect other species
(6)Second section of Magna Carta: Charter of the Forest, to protect basic natural resources as the commons
(7)Basic guarantees of food and shelter underlie property rights.
B.Ch. 2 Late night thoughts about Democracy in the Long Emergency
1.Democracy and the Greeks—couldn’t manage it for long;
2.it may have thrived in last 200 years because of lack of scarcity of resources; everyone could try to get rich—scarcity may now threaten it
3.Also threatened by advertising and consumption which dumbs people down
4.Recent decades support skepticism about democracy
5.Hardin, Lovelock, Heilbroner see need for authoritarian govt to deal with environmental threat
6.Record of authoritarians is worse; commons were well managed by people
7.[Lapses again into description of coming crisis, losing thread of argument]
8.Alternatives to democracy
a)Conservatives: trust markets [already discussed]
b)Design revolution—government still needed
c)Natural capitalism—based on harnessing rational self-interest
(1)Not plausible because of lamentable history of corporations
(2)No reason even green corporations would be just or democratic 59
(3)Natural capitalists will keep consumer economy growing
(4)Overarching governmental supervision necessary
(5)Necessary but insufficient
9.Restoring democracy
a)Depends on wisdom of people, wisdom of crowds
b)Requires good press, which has failed
(1)Because of monopolization
(2)Short term profit obsession
(3)Restore it with fair and balanced rules, need to serve public interest, break up monopolies
c)This results from all the money in the political system
(1)All federal elections publically financed—[cf. Supreme Court decision]
d)Improve voting system
e)Habits of the heart—vs. contentiousness, right wing dirty war
f)Failure of liberalism and conservatism—liberals sell out to corporations, conservatives to fascists, who distracted us from noticing the transfer of wealth upward
g)Election of 2008 is desire for new direction, but unclear if we go there
h)Analogy to Greek: democracy diverted from serious issues 68 [correct]
10.Beyond left and right: case for protecting posterity
a)Examples of Democrats and Repubs coming together for NEPA, Clean Air and Clean Water Act 1969-1972
b)Roosevelt era
c)New agenda must be based on awareness of resource constraint
d)Concern for future –Burke
e)Law has nothing about the rights of posterity—how can it have standing?
f)Intergenerational obligation—searching for legal arguments [what about present day obligations: life, liberty, pursuit of happiness? Education? Crime-free homes, etc.]
g)[No answer supplied to a question that may be questionable—or not]
h)Proposes a statement of limitation of rights—“no generation and no nations have the right to alter the biogeochemical cycles of Earth or impair stability, integrity or beauty of natural systems, the consequences of which would fall as a form of intergenerational remote tyranny on all future generations.”
(1)Effort at Jeffersonian formulation
11.Box 2.1
a)Richard Posner, conservative legal scholar, book Catastrophe, calls for legal community to be more educated about science and large threats.
12.Box 2.2: Shelf life of economic ideas
a)Ideas have consequences: some of his ideas: consumption is bad, slow down, use less energy, don’t finance with debt, build economy on ecological realities, don’t allow stock to be sold until six months after purchase
C.Leadership in the Long Emergency [drawing heavily on Gary Wills and Arthur Schlesinger historians]
1.Analogy to civil war and Lincoln
a)[invoking Lincoln—looking for leadership 84]
(1)He frames the meaning of the civil war, from before it started until it was almost over, looking to a long term horizon
(a)Slavery a great wrong, preservation of Constitution was prior issue
(b)All framed as moral issues
(2)Didn’t equivocate about the wrong of slavery
(3)Needed to address it within the existing framework of law and philosophy
(4)Used language and logic brilliantly
(5)Did not abuse religion to describe slavery or the South
(6)Combined shrewdness and sagacity with moral clarity
b) Following his example: avoid complication and contentiousness—Climate change and sustainability are primarily issues of fairness and intergenerational rights, not technology or economics
c)We need to state the great and permanent wrong 89
d)We need to appeal to Universal Declaration of Human rights and the Earth Charter
e)Following Lincoln’s use of religion, “we need to ground issues of climate change and sustainability in higher purposes resonant with what is best in the world’s great religions but is owned by no one creed.” 90 NB Higher Purposes
f)We need leaders to persuade not on the basis of polls or spin, but persuasion at its best. [Gore?]
g)Civil war tragedy arose out of evasions of previous generations; same for climate crisis and sustainability crisis of the future.
h)Lincoln saw it as a longer term moral issue not solved by the war and the Constitutional Crisis. He laid the framework for future solutions by naming and defining the moral issue
i)Sustainability is a worse and broader crisis
2.Analogy to Roosevelt’s first 100 days
a)Model for restoring public confidence, though he didn’t solve underlying problems of economy