The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight: Waking Up to Personal and Global Transformation

I would consider this to be a classic of modern environmental writing.
Hartmann goes into detail on the current state of the world (in 1999, but still), how we got to this point, and how we can change things for the better in his view.
His main point; that changing the predominant culture in our world from one that values wealth accrual, domination, and assimilation, to one that values community, resiliency, and the connection that we share with everything on our planet.
I share his beliefs. Reading this book was frightening, but also gave me a lens through which to have some hope about our future. I'm glad that he touched on the tendency of "Young Culture" to think that someone/technology/god will save them from themselves. The writing show more style was easy to understand, but rather repetitive at points.

My main gripe with Hartmann is that he fails, in my view, to consider how many people are in such deep and crushing poverty that they simply don't have the time/energy to change their lives in the ways that he says they should. Perhaps I'm just pessimistic, I don't know. I appreciate his positivity. show less

Right in the title, the author makes a most important point about the way our society is operating. The nature of our crisis is simple: to feed our economy and way of life, we are exhausting a stored reserve of ancient sunlight that took millennia to form. The consequence is both that this supply of easy energy will end and that we are dumping all that stored C02 into the atmosphere where it warms our climate. Hartmann explains all of this, as well as how he thinks our culture got to this perilous point, and offers his ideas on how we might be able to get ourselves out of this jam. Whether you think it will work depends on whether you are an optimist or a pessimist.

Important book to read in order to understand the science behind global warming. Thought that the ending was a little preachy and do not necessarily agree with author's perspective for the solution. All and all, I think it was interesting and I'd recommend it.

A good basic book on the perils we all face with the depletion of our precious hydrocarbon energy supply. Mr. Hartmann does a good job of explaining the problem and does try to propose a solution but his solutions seem a little light weight for such a heavy problem.

Some interesting ideas, gets pretty crazy further into the book, but I did like the collection of ideas in Part 1. Something to think about.

Great quote (Quoted by Hartman quoting Victor Grey):

"Physicists tell us that according to the laws of wave mechanics, the intensity of (any kind of) waves that are in phase with each other is the square of the sum of the waves. In other words, two waves added together are four times as intense as one wave, ten waves are one hundred times as intense, etc. Since thought is an energy, and all energy occurs as waves, we believe that 80,000 people all thinking the same thing together are as powerful, in terms of creating the reality that we all share as the 6,400,000,000 people that will inhabit the show more planet around the turn of the century, in their random chaotic thought. Therefore, 80,000 people all believing only in love will be enough to change the planetary reality." show less

This is easily my favorite non-fiction book, and I look forward to reading the update. One of my students insisted that I read it, and even handed me his Dad's copy. I will be sure to have my students read parts of it as we learn about Environmental Science next year. Well done, Mr. Hartmann.

A book that ought to become part of every persons library, be in every school. Perhaps if people read and listen to the wisdom held within its pages we may find that the planet and humanity have a chance in preserving what is not yet quite destroyed.