The Planet You Inherit
Letters to My Grandchildren when Uncertainty's a Sure Thing
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- $24.99
Publisher Description
For the first time ever, love letters consciously written by elders of one geologic epoch to the young of another.
Our children's and grandchildren's generation will face a different world, one affected by climate instability, mass uncertainty, and breathtaking extinction. In fact, the next generation will face the reality that human activity is changing the planet from one geological epoch to another.
From this vantage point--two generations across two geological epochs facing a fundamentally changing planet--Larry Rasmussen writes to his grandchildren. As a grandfather invested in a green earth and climate justice as well as a scholar of faith-based earth ethics, Rasmussen bridges this gap between generations to write to the future about climate change, global citizenship, democracy, and legacy. In topics ranging from ""A Viable Way of Life"" and ""Democracy"" to ""Where We've Come From"" and ""Who We Are Now,"" Rasmussen explores the large questions of justice, meaning, and faith, encouraging us to speak to and look to the future generation and their future world.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This impassioned call to action by ethicist Rasmussen (Earth-Honoring Faith) meditates on climate change and the role faith might play in allaying it. In a series of dispatches addressed to his young grandsons, Rasmussen waxes poetic on humanity's future and expounds on the role that Christianity can play in the climate crisis. He explains that his grandsons' generation marks the transition from the Holocene to the Anthropocene, the first epoch during which Earth's climate will be significantly impacted by humans. Rasmussen reminisces on major crises of his lifetime, including John F. Kennedy's assassination, 9/11, the Covid-19 pandemic, and the January 6 insurrection, lamenting the role that "religious pride" played in the attack. Warning his grandsons that the stakes they face are higher than those posed by these events, he posits that their task "will be to remap the world on an altered Earth for a different way of life in an uncharted future." To meet this challenge, Rasmussen urges keeping faith in the power of a universal God found within the beauty and wonder of nature. Though these heartfelt missives sometimes stray from their focus on the environment, they capture the apprehension surrounding ecological collapse while outlining a faith-based mindset for healing the environment. These ruminative letters resound with pathos and hope.
