Rating: 
Summary: Powerful, incredible, A MUST READ
Review: This is an incredible book. At times difficult to face the subject matter, but well worth the effort. I have changed my behavior out of reading this book. It's a "life changer" and a must read. I also recommend "The Prophet's Way" by the same author. Read this book and give it away!
Rating:
Summary: An absolute must read!
Review: I've bought 15 copies and sent them to friends with a request that they then pass their copy on when they finish. My hope is that this becomes "fashionable" and this book gets national attention. In Al Gore's words, " The Earth is in the Balance".
Rating:
Summary: This is a life changing book.
Review: This is a brilliant book, written in a clear and engaging manner. I could not put the book down. The author clearly shows the current state of the world, how we got there and specific ways that we each can turn the tides of destruction. I have altered my behaviour out of reading this book. I immediately read "The Prophet's Way", also by the author. I encourage you to read both of these books.
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Summary: good summary of the problem, misses the point of solution
Review: A man fathers three children and then writes a book about the monumental dangers of overpopulation. Perhaps he did not realize those dangers until after the third child was born. Perhaps one or more of his children was adopted. Perhaps he does not see the connection between the three-child family and population growth. But when the reader sees the book's dedication to these three children, and the author then prescribes a number of, well, original solutions to the population problem AND DOES NOT MENTION THE IDEA OF SMALL FAMILIES, what are we to think? Thom Hartmann's The Last Hours of Ancient Sunshine is a baffling and ultimately cruel book. Part I outlines our present environmental predicament, and though one may wish to quibble with a fact here or there, his presentation is appropriately horrific, and puts proper emphasis on the explosive growth in human numbers as the central engine of our run toward apparent oblivion. Part II makes the case that this population growth and the necessary gobbling of resources that has accompanied it, as well as a number of other cultural ills, are a result of the culture of city/states. Tribal cultures, on the other hand, have lived peacefully and sustainably for tens of thousands of years, says Hartmann, and we have much to learn from them. This is a new argument to me, and Mr. Hartmann makes a plausible case for it. But then in Part III, he writes as if he had not read Part I. In answer to the question "What can we do about it?," he offers this prescription: meditate daily, work for equality for women, avoid consumerism, respect different cultures by avoiding trying to assimilate them, make your own electricity, dump your TV, move to the country with a few like-minded friends and start a self-sufficient community, and put rituals into your life. Not once does he mention having no more than two children! Let's say half of the citizens of New York City read this book and took it to heart, deciding to follow the author's example by moving to Vermont and living in the woods, burning local wood for heat, and having three children. The environmental destruction would be monumental! For starters, the population of Vermont would be multiplied by six. The picture of millions of newly enlightened Americans pouring out of the cities, buying up rural land to build houses and plant crops and cut firewood would be funny if the stakes were not so high. Living "tribally" may well be the only way humans can live sustainably in the long run, but human numbers are vastly too large now for any such thing to be possible. The best hope for avoiding a worldwide economic, nutritional, and public health collapse is strong support for international family planning, beginning here in the United States with the adoption of a national policy of ending growth. It ought to be in the mind of every teenager that having a child is an environmental process, and that having three children is gross irresponsibility. If this cultural change does not happen, no ritual, no conversation with the trees will save us. Mr. Hartmann inexplicably ignores two other issues that seem central: the role of government, and dietary habits. Like it or not, we are stuck for the foreseeable future with a representative form of government that can be (if the message is strong enough, and especially if campaign finance reform is instituted) responsive to the will of the people. At present, only feeble support for family planning comes from Washington, and that support always comes over the objections of the Christian Right. If the citizens of this country saw the danger of population growth clearly enough, government could respond in ways that would make a critical difference. Secondly, given that huge proportions of the grain and clean water available in this country go to livestock, a mostly vegetarian American diet would account for a significant reduction in our environmental impact, and would allow much land to revert to badly-needed forest. Mr. Hartmann's call for a more spiritual approach to life in the last part of his book misses the point of the first part. We are in this mess because of our irrational and myopic thoughts about the environment and the economy. Changing the story from one religion to another leaves us no better off. (The author shows that the great religions of the city/states, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, all contribute to attitudes of earth-domination. But later he identifies himself as a Christian, and praises Judaism. Never does he indict the religions that see large families as praiseworthy and see birth control as sinful. Why?) Science and rational decision making are the only possible paths out of this crisis. (And certainly the silly attempts at justifying claims of spiritualists by misquoting quantum mechanics that appear again here are a disservice to science.) Part I of this book, coupled with a rational approach to changing our self-destructive attitudes and practices, would make for a valuable book. I hope Mr. Hartmann will be willing to participate in such a project someday.
Rating:
Summary: A must read !!
Review: "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight" left me with a sense of shame, then sadness, then hopeful and finally very motivated to be an agent for change in whatever way I can. Hartmann has done a wonderful service by providing an clear picture of the state of our world today. Merely reading the facts is a startling, enlightening experience. I certainly came away with a sense of the challenges we face, a sense that we are all in this together, and a sense of next steps I can take as an individual. Thank you Mr. Hartmann.
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Summary: Also read The State of Humanity by Julian Lincoln Simon
Review: Available from amazon.com is this amazing book. It gives some true data regarding the state of the planet. In some cases it slays the doomsayers, but the message is clear: Humanity can change the state of the planet for better or for worse. When you act change it for the better.
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Summary: Read this book!
Review: ... and keep reading it. Please do not be discouraged by the first half of the book. The second half is worth getting to. Yes, the world is a mess. Yes, we will use up all of our sunlight--fossil fuels. Yes, there is something that you can do to help. Yes, it is important that you help. Yes, only love will prevail.
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Summary: A superbly researched, clear wake up call to survival
Review: When I put this book down I felt an overwhelming sense of sorrow at the arrogant folly that has become endemic to our so-called civilised cultures. In our mission to 'harness' nature we are in the process of destroying the mother that gave birth to and feeds us. Thom Hartmann uses the glaring evidence of the past to wake us up to the self destructive patterns we are following. Hartmann's reasearch demonstrates how every 'great civilisations' has succeeded in activating their own destruction.. This book didn't just open my eyes to the enormous problems we face, it also offers some radical yet simple and workable proposals for our salvation. Isn't it fascinating that the very greatness that we admire in the Romans, the Greeks and our own culture has been created by raping the earth and pillaging those people we so condescendingly call primitive. And, isn't it interesting that as empires rise and fall, those 'primitive' people are still there surviving in harmonious cooperation, rather than in violent competition, with nature. This is the crux of Hartmann's plea. This book should be required reading for every human on this planet. Perhaps a first step is to ask ourselves who in our lives we value enough to share this book with. It's already on my gift list. Let us go down in history as the first civilisation to look at those older cultures and ask not 'why do you lag behind' but 'how do you do what you do to survive and what can we learn from you? The clock is ticking faster and faster as the big hand of civilisation moves once more towards the bewitching hour. We can stop it if we adopt Hartmann's proposals. Then, and only then, might we have a chance wake up before the alarm goes off and triggers the time bomb that is waiting to destroy yet another so-called civilisation. I urge you to read this book NOW before it is too late.
Rating:
Summary: essential reading
Review: What appears to be a universal reaction to Thom Hartmann's Ancient Sunlight is the realization that it should be required and essential reading material for as many people as possible and as soon as possible. The fundamental somnambulism in our (Western) global 'culture' means that any effective wake-up call will have to be forceful. Thom Hartmann's book provides just this. His choices of the dire world-wide circumstances that face us is perhaps overshadowed by the truth that we absolutely cannot dodge one or many of the 'bullets' headed our way. It simply isn't possible to sustain our current lifetsyles and consumption patterns any longer. While virtually every global problem can be distilled down to one overriding one, namely overpopulation, we are all inherently guilty of complicity in the world's ongoing destruction by virtue of our outlook and conditioned behaviour from our Western mindset. Yet finally, i have to agree with Thom Hartmann that the future is malleable, that our current path is open to change; it is crucial that we not only wake up to our predicament but that we also DO all we can individually to change our world. This book provides ample scope and examples for how we can begin to turn the ship around and develop an aware, sustainable and integrated life with our planet, jettisoning our destructive credos of constant growth and material acquisition. The Chinese curse: 'may you live in interesting times' is now with us all, inescapably. We must all do what we can to awaken ourselves and those around us to the realities of our actions. The road ahead will not be easy, but as the author outlines, we can either be a part of the problem or a driving force towards the cure. Sleepwalking and denial are no longer viable options. If there is any meaning to what any of us do, it is to fully appreciate that we must start to lay the foundations of the world that will supercede the present one. This book provides one of the best maps to date toward that end.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant!
Review: An extraordinary summary of the situation of the world and what we can do about it...
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