Books, Arts & Manners

The End of Nature, by Bill McKibben (Random House, 288pp., $19.95)

Three years ago, at a festival sponsored by the Telluride Institute in Colorado, the late Edward Abbey spoke as follows: “The homocentric view is self-destructive and infantile. The world is older, bigger, and more interesting than we are. Growth is the enemy. Every organism grows to optimum space, then stops.” If our great technological civilization, so-called, does not stop growing, he predicted, it will experience a great explosion, and, after that, collapse. “That’s why I’m an optimist,” Abbey concluded genially.

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Chilton Williamson Jr.

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The End of Nature, by Bill McKibben (Random House, 288pp., $19.95)

Three years ago, at a festival sponsored by the Telluride Institute in Colorado, the late Edward Abbey spoke as follows: “The homocentric view is self-destructive and infantile. The world is older, bigger, and more interesting than we are. Growth is the enemy. Every organism grows to optimum space, then stops.” If our great technological civilization, so-called, does not stop growing, he predicted, it will experience a great explosion, and, after that, collapse. “That’s why I’m an optimist,” Abbey concluded genially.