Loading...
19th out of 31 books
—
6 voters
My rating:
add to my books
The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight: The Fate of the World and What We Can Do Before It's Too Late
While everything appears to be collapsing around us -- ecodamage, genetic engineering, virulent diseases, the end of cheap oil, water shortages, global famine, wars -- we can still do something about it and create a world that will work for us and for our children’s children. The inspiration for Leonardo DiCaprio’s web movie Global Warning, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlig...more
Paperback, 400 pages
Published
December 18th 2007
by Three Rivers Press
(first published 1998)
There is a good chance some of your friends read this book. Sign in to see!
sign in »
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
782)
Michele
marked it as to-read
Saw this author in the DVD "11th Hour." He discusses the difference between living on "current sunlight" and "ancient sunlight."
Current sunlight is the energy we are currently receiving each day from the sun to our food source, etc. Most of our human history involved living with "current sunlight."
Since the Industrial Revolution, we have used "ancient sunlight. Ancient sunlight is the energy stored in the earth from fossi...more
Current sunlight is the energy we are currently receiving each day from the sun to our food source, etc. Most of our human history involved living with "current sunlight."
Since the Industrial Revolution, we have used "ancient sunlight. Ancient sunlight is the energy stored in the earth from fossi...more
I was so irritated with certain of the author's premises that I found myself arguing as much as reading. But then it is good to read things that you don't agree with - it offers the opportunity to learn something new. I learned a different way of looking at the "Older Cultures" - that is the tribal cultures. I learned a very interesting method of sustainable farming used in the Amazon by (I think) the Kayapo tribe. I really give the author credit for realizing that no specific meas...more
As of September 2008 we’ve officially entered the end of the oil age. Our economic system based on infinite growth has run into the limits of the physical world. Now that our social systems must rapidly adapt to a new reality of energy scarcity, we must pay special attention to the humans within those systems. Thom Hartmann’s Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight is a particularly lucid roadmap to a new social order by focusing on the actions an individual can take in the context of our ecological cris...more
This is a half-baked treatise that uses global warming and peak oil as a rationale for "spiritual" living. Actual science and studies are thin on the ground.
I really should have guessed that something was up when looking at the recommendations: they are from the authors of "The Crack in the Cosmic Egg", "Conversations with God", "Conscious Evolution", "The Shaman's Doorway", "A Deep Breath of Life" and "Voice of the P...more
I really should have guessed that something was up when looking at the recommendations: they are from the authors of "The Crack in the Cosmic Egg", "Conversations with God", "Conscious Evolution", "The Shaman's Doorway", "A Deep Breath of Life" and "Voice of the P...more
The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight by Thom Hartmann
This book written in 1998 about the state of the environment and our dominant culture is incredibly terrifying in it’s accurate predictions of where and on what time-table our Earth’s resources are running out and what the consequences will be. It’s accuracy makes the continuing predictions that much more terrifying and poignant reading the book today. I recommend this book to anyone who thinks that they can or should simply ignore o...more
This book written in 1998 about the state of the environment and our dominant culture is incredibly terrifying in it’s accurate predictions of where and on what time-table our Earth’s resources are running out and what the consequences will be. It’s accuracy makes the continuing predictions that much more terrifying and poignant reading the book today. I recommend this book to anyone who thinks that they can or should simply ignore o...more
From a blog post I wrote in 2005:
Anyone who doesn't believe in global warming or the negative affect we're having on our planet should read this book and see if their belief stays the same. Thom Hartman has clearly done his homework and presents a lot of research.
His main point is that we're quickly using up our 'ancient sunlight' by which he means plantlife, oil, natural gas and coal mostly. The causes for this mass use is attributed to our exponential increase in popula...more
Anyone who doesn't believe in global warming or the negative affect we're having on our planet should read this book and see if their belief stays the same. Thom Hartman has clearly done his homework and presents a lot of research.
His main point is that we're quickly using up our 'ancient sunlight' by which he means plantlife, oil, natural gas and coal mostly. The causes for this mass use is attributed to our exponential increase in popula...more
Kathleen
is currently reading it
Thom Hartmann is an amazing surge of energy on the planet! He's a radio host, author and I don't know what else yet, but I was recently introduced to him by a good friend and bought this book to see if he was all he was cracked up to be. Well, this book is amazing; so much so that I bought another, "Cracking the Code," which I haven't started yet.
This is the first real environmental book I’ve read and it passed my Random Page Test, causing me to sit down for an hour in the bookstore reading it. It was so good I even bought the hard cover edition! From Amazon.com: "Thom Hartman offers a highly persuasive argument for adopting the spiritual values of our ancient ancestors, which means living with a strong connection to the earth as well as the sun that nourishes us all. Nowadays, humans often perceive themselves as separate from natur...more
This is an amazing book that describes the situation on our planet and how we got here. It also gives suggestions of what we can do - self-sufficient communities. I learned many things that I did not know before. This is where I first learned about corporations having the rights of people. It was a real eye-opener for me
"think of the earth as a living organism that is being attacked by billions of bacteria whose numbers double every forty years. either the host dies, or the [parasite] dies, or both die." ~gore vidal (as quoted in the book)
this was originally published in 1999, when we had "now reached the halfway point of our supplies of oil." nearly a decade later, most of the book remains as pertinent as when it was written. while thom hartmann is an exceptional writer, there...more
this was originally published in 1999, when we had "now reached the halfway point of our supplies of oil." nearly a decade later, most of the book remains as pertinent as when it was written. while thom hartmann is an exceptional writer, there...more
Wow. This isn't easy to read at all...in fact I don't think I even finished the book. But some of the stuff you learn about how the human population is exploding and consuming the earth and all it's resources, makes you a little scared for the future of life on this planet.
Eh, was never into Global warming theory but Thom discussed about how the earth's resources are fast becoming depleted due to exponential growth of human population... Based off from a bit of new age-y environmental perspective.
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 per...more
I read this book many many years ago, and It still has left a mark, written in 1998 and it is still appropriate, though I am not as radial as I was when I read this, I still recommend it.
It's nice to see some plausible solutions to all of our environmental problems and impending doom, but I'm in total disagreement with his more religious-based arguments/positions.
Read this book if you dare. It will haunt you.
Global warming is the least of our problems. Mankind has had and will continue to have effects on this planet of immense impact. To ignore that and fail to do what is necessary to alter the direction we are going as a species is folly. We fail to comprehend the changes all around us in terms of the using up/pollution of resources necessary to sustain life as we know it. We fail to appreciate the necessity for a sustainable ecosystem incl...more
Global warming is the least of our problems. Mankind has had and will continue to have effects on this planet of immense impact. To ignore that and fail to do what is necessary to alter the direction we are going as a species is folly. We fail to comprehend the changes all around us in terms of the using up/pollution of resources necessary to sustain life as we know it. We fail to appreciate the necessity for a sustainable ecosystem incl...more
Even though this book was published in 1998, a lot of it is still spot-on. Offers many other good books to consider as well. At the end gets a bit tedious and honestly goes in a different direction than which I had thought it would go.
GREAT READ!
An interesting perspective on the realities of our environment and how we are creating both good and bad through our actions.
An interesting perspective on the realities of our environment and how we are creating both good and bad through our actions.
One of the most important books that I have ever read. I highly recommend it to anyone and everyone. Thanks to picket for sharing this one with me.
Excellent read. Great explanation of how ancient civilization got us into the socio-economic mess we're in today.
This is perhaps the most important book our culture may ever have the chance to read. Even if you walk away already having known the facts presented within (very unlikely), the call to seeing the fundamental reason behind the plight we currently find ourselves in is the core of this book. I don't believe you can effectively have any position on global warming or world hunger without seeing things as they truly stand, and this is the very first book I have read that has provided that viewpoint....more
Dhyana
is currently reading it
I just started reading this, and I've been told that it's one of the most fantastic books of the year.
A mind-blowing assessment of the fundamental problem facing humanity today: energy dependence upon a non-renewable resource. This book is a must-read for those who wish to be challenged with aspects of undeniable truth. That said, there are some conclusions that Hartman reaches that are unique to his particular experience and might not be justified for the whole of the human race though he implies otherwise. For all you neocons out there, don't bother. This book will only serve to weaken you...more
would give this 15 stars if possible. an amazing, life changing book
Really liked it! This is why I want to live tribally...
view 1 comment
We need to wake up and be aware of what we are creating.
Would everyone on the planet please read this book? Hurry!
Definitely an important book. I learned a lot about the ways in which we are destroying the earth-and this book was published in 1998, so the dire straits the author describes have only gotten worse since then. The first chapter freaked me out so much that I didn't get back to reading it for a while. It's a real eye-opener, and probably should be required reading. Also, it's well written. The last portion of the book, in which Hartmann talks about what we can do to solve this disaster, is n...more
Excellent and passionate - I'd have given this book five stars except for some factual errors that were kind of jarring and made it hard to trust any other data if I didn't know whether or not it was correct. But the main thrust of the book is beyond reasonable debate, the point that our society as it currently operates is unsustainable both because we're rendering our environment unlivable and because the fossil fuels are finite and we're running through them at a speed that guarantees we'll r...more
This book has Thom's sociological worldview.
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ecology | 1 | 3 | Dec 18, 2008 05:06am |
Readers Also Enjoyed
Thom Hartmann is a progressive radio talk show host, author, and retired businessman who was born and grew up in Michigan.
His daily progressive radio talk show is syndicated and distributed to radio and television stations nationwide and in Europe and Africa.
Thom has spent much of his life working with and for the International Salem relief organization. In 1979 Hartmann a...more
More about Thom Hartmann...
His daily progressive radio talk show is syndicated and distributed to radio and television stations nationwide and in Europe and Africa.
Thom has spent much of his life working with and for the International Salem relief organization. In 1979 Hartmann a...more
Share This Book
No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »
