Our Angry Earth

346 Pages·2018·2.87 MB·English

by  Isaac Asimov

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Table of Contents
About the Authors
Copyright Page

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INTRODUCTION
Kim Stanley Robinson
Isaac Asimov and Frederik Pohl met in the late thirties in New York, when they
were teenagers. Both of them were associated with a group of like-minded
young science fiction writers called the Futurians. The Futurians were interested
in the Young Communist League and other leftist causes, and this was true to an
extent of Asimov and Pohl as well. Both of them later recalled these years very
entertainingly in their autobiographies, Asimov’s In Memory Yet Green and
Pohl’s The Way The Future Was, and Damon Knight’s memoir The Futurians
includes funny portrayals of them both. During those years they wrote a few
stories together, as most of the members of that group had a habit of doing.
Quickly Asimov’s solo stories established him as one of the most famous
science fiction writers alive. Pohl’s career had a more scattered beginning, and
along with writing short fiction, often in collaboration with Cyril Kornbluth, he
worked extensively as an editor and a literary agent. Both men joined the Army
during World War II, and Pohl worked as an Army meteorologist, giving him
experiences that are perhaps relevant to this book. I recall a dinner in Portales,
New Mexico, in 2005, during which Pohl discussed the phenomenon of virga
with pleasure; it’s a kind of rainfall that doesn’t reach the ground, and he liked
both the word and the sight of those sheets of rain hanging in the sky.
Soon after the war ended both men returned to civilian life, and wrote
prolifically through the next four decades. Though somewhat similar in their
aesthetics and politics, they were quite different in character, at least in public.
Asimov was sanguine and ebullient, a cheerful polymath and public intellectual
who could write well on any topic, and spent most of his time in Manhattan.
Pohl was saturnine and watchful, and was mostly a science fiction insider, who
traveled extensively and lectured frequently. They both remained as committed
to liberal politics as they had been in their youth, which put them at odds with
some other writers in the science fiction community, especially during the
Vietnam War. They were both forthright advocates of the scientific method and
the scientific community, and both could be called environmentalists from the
moment the term was invented.
By the end of the 1980s, both of them had become concerned that the
multiple ecological problems afflicting the planet were going to merge into a
larger biosphere crisis that would be greatly exacerbated by climate change.
What could they do about it? They were writers, and so they concluded their best
chance of making an effective intervention was to write a book warning their
fellow citizens of the danger of the situation. This book would first list and
analyze all the problems, then suggest viable solutions to them. Writing such a
book wouldn’t be easy—the subject is massive and complicated—but these two
writers were up to the task. Asimov was simply amazing in his ability to
comprehend and synthesize large bodies of information and present them
clearly. The four hundred books he wrote in his lifetime covered nearly that
many topics, and these weren’t mere summarizations; his clarity of expression,
good judgment, and awareness of context made them truly interesting. Asimov
on the Bible? On Shakespeare? On chemistry? He was really good on all these
subjects, and many more. As for Pohl, he was also a polymath and a fine writer,
and the environmental situation was his special topic of expertise, and a matter
of increasing concern to him.
So the two men made a great team, and they combined to write in a clear
informative style. You can’t distinguish their voices in this text, but I suspect
they split the job about equally. Even if the book was Pohl’s idea, and he talked
Asimov into lending his fame to the project by coauthoring it—even if Pohl
brought the bulk of the preparatory materials to the table—I think it most likely
Asimov jumped fully into the work, and did his fair share or more. Write half of
a synthesis of the entire planetary situation? This was what he liked to do and
was always doing. So here these two old pros took on a task they cared deeply
about, and the result is very impressive.
Kim Stanley Robinson
January 2017
INTRODUCTION
Isaac Asimov
Throughout history, the doom-criers have been with us. We have heard of
Cassandra, the daughter of Priam of Troy, who told the Trojans constantly that
their city would be destroyed—but was never believed.
Before her, there must undoubtedly have been prophets of doom among the
Egyptians and the Babylonians, and the history of the early Jews was
particularly rife with such matters. The prophet, Jeremiah, was constantly
predicting the destruction of Judah, and after him there came a long line of
people (including John the Baptist), who said, “Repent, for the Kingdom of
Heaven is at hand.”
The Day of Judgment (which represents the coming of the Kingdom of
Heaven) is an ever living threat, and even today, such sects as Jehovah’s
Witnesses and the Seventh-Day Adventists expect it at any time.
All these doom-criers, however, based their hopeless commentary on religion.
Humanity was full of sin (by which most religious people meant “sex,” for they
never seemed as concerned about murder, theft, and corruption as they did about
a little sexual amusement) and, as a result, a righteous and vengeful god was
going to destroy everyone and everything. Look at the Flood. Look at Sodom
and Gomorrah.
Few people ever took these religious doom-criers seriously, however, for the
simple reason that few people ever agreed on religion, and because thousands of
years of threats of divine retribution had always come to nothing, anyway.
—But now the situation has changed.
It is not adultery and fornication that is threatening humanity, but physical
pollution. It is not an angry god who is threatening to destroy everything; it is a
poisoned planet—poisoned by us.
Humanity is being threatened by its own deeds, yes, but the deeds that are
threatening us with destruction do not involve the breaking of the ten
commandments.
The coming of doom is, instead, the result of deeds that do not seem evil on
the face of it. Because we are concerned with improving the health of mankind,
and its security, our population has increased markedly, especially in the last
hundred years, to the point where Earth cannot support us all.
Because we have industrialized ourselves in order to lift the curse of physical
labor from our backs, we have poured the poisons produced by the internal-
combustion engine into our atmosphere and dirtied it to the point where we can
scarcely breathe it.
Because we have learned to make new materials for the greater convenience
of mankind, we have produced chemical toxins that are saturating our soil and
water.
Because we have found a new source of energy (and destruction) in the
atomic nucleus, we face the threat of nuclear war, or even if we avoid that, the
permeation of our environment with dangerous radiation and nuclear wastes.
This book is not an opinion piece. It is a scientific survey of the situation that
threatens us all—and it says what we can do to mitigate the situation.
It is not a hopeless cry of doom at all. It is a description of what we face and
what we can do about it. And in that sense, it is a hopeful book, and should be
read as such.
It is not too late—
But it may become too late, if we wait too much longer.