About six weeks ago, I wrote a post about the pied piper Bill McKibben, his role as Scholar in Residence in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College, and the growing awareness of his latest campaign: Step It Up 2007*. Of course, McKibben is also the author of The End of Nature–the first book about global warming published for a general audience.

Since 1989, Mc Kibben has written numerous books and countless articles. His latest book, titled Deep Economy has just been published and is well worth reading. In a recent book review in the Los Angeles Times, Donna Seamon offered these observations:

Now, in his 10th book, McKibben offers an incisive critique of the unintended consequences of our oil-fueled, growth-oriented economy, and he calls for a new ecological paradigm…

Direct, common-sensical and unabashedly sincere, McKibben is a master of stark equations, striking analogies and resonant metaphors. He likes parables, sounding now and then like the Sunday school teacher he wryly admits having been. He is a writer on a mission, but he is not overbearing. He does not issue doomsday pronouncements; there isn't a hint of holier-than-thou smugness. No guilt-tripping or humankind-bashing. McKibben is concerned, even alarmed, but he strives to be hopeful.

And he is proactive. As part of his inquiry into the economics of food, a crucial subject, McKibben decides to eat only local foods over the course of one Vermont winter. As he chronicles his instructive experiment, he presents harrowing insights into the truth about big agriculture, citing industrialized farming abominations with cruelty to animals at one end of the grim spectrum and wastefulness at the other. Thanks to our "system of consolidation," McKibben observes, "the average bite of food an American eats has traveled fifteen hundred miles before it reaches her lips." Because "a gallon of gasoline weighs about seven pounds, and when you burn it you release about five pounds of carbon into the atmosphere," this isn't the ideal way to go.

McKibben is out on author's tour these days, having just been in Los Angeles and Seattle. His website offers a schedule of appearances and lectures through early May. Try and see him, if you can.

*Last Sunday, the count on Step It Up 2007 events was at 950, today it's up to 1005!

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