Apocalypse rhetoric in Eaarth and Parable of the Sower

Human-caused climate change has been wreaking havoc on the Earth for some time now. Most people educated on the climate change crisis have referred to it as a driver towards an apocalypse, or a widespread, tangible crisis pressing humanity, and a prediction of an Earth unable to support us. The term apocalypse is also a genre of literature in which some authors use it as a rhetoric for things that have to change now in order to survive. Bill McKibben warns us of the predicted apocalyptic setting of Earth due to the effects of human caused climate change in his journalistic book, Eaarth. Almost complimenting Eaarth, Octavia Butler in her futuristic science fiction book, Parable of the Sower, works to depict and immerse us in a setting in which this apocalypse has already occurred. McKibben and Butler use the apocalypse in their different forms of literature to persuade the reader to work at transitioning to more resilient and less harmful agricultural systems and societal structures.

The greatest difference in the two texts is the stages of apocalypse. McKibben warns us of an impending apocalypse that has been predicted through facts and figures of Earth’s decline. On the other hand, Butler depicts a setting in which an apocalypse has already occurred by describing the experiences of fictional people trying to survive it. Nevertheless, both of these authors agree that the apocalypse is a result of human-caused climate change. One environmental issue that contributes to climate change is the way in which we farm. This is bad news for us because once the negative effects become too severe, farming is going to be very difficult to be successful at.

McKibben explains that one of the issues with agricultural systems is that we depend heavily on industrial mono-cropping, which is large agribusinesses only producing one crop in large quantities. To show how this dependence would hinder our survival when facing apocalyptic disasters, McKibben first sets up a glimpse into the future of any type of agriculture by quoting secretary of energy Steve Chu, “I don’t think the American public has gripped in its gut what could happen. If we don’t dramatically slow global warming, the rapid melt of the Sierra snowpack means we’re looking at a scenario where there’s no more agriculture in California. I don’t actually see how they can keep cities going.” This scenario is just one of the apocalyptic disasters that McKibben introduces. He later contrasts a late blight devastation of vegetable gardens growing industrial-farmed tomato seeds with how the Hurricane Mitch disaster affected Central American small farms. While all the genetically engineered tomato seeds were wiped out by late blight, sustainable small farms faced less damage from the devastating hurricane: “Diversified plots had 20 to 40% more topsoil, greater soil moisture, less erosion. They suffered far less economic losses than their conventional farm neighbors.” Late blight and massive hurricanes are crises characteristic of an apocalypse, but using these two anecdotes, McKibben portrays small, diversified farming as the better method of surviving these disasters. Butler also promotes a change in agricultural systems but without ever mentioning monomaniacs. For example, towards the end of Parable of the Sower, when Lauren’s alliance is settling down in hopes of starting their own community, Lauren reveals that she had been gathering a long list of different seeds to be grown and gardened. The apocalypse works within this image of building a community literally from the ground up (hence the garden they will establish) by depicting this way of farming and producing food as their only way to survive.

McKibben and Butler use the apocalypse to encourage the societal structure of community as a way of adapting to and surviving the effects of climate change. In the last chapter of Eaarth, McKibben gives the details of Front Porch Forum, an online forum for neighbors that connects a neighborhood and allows people to communicate and help each other. Throughout the first three chapters, McKibben provided an overwhelming amount of facts and figures indicating environmental crises that will pressure humans. These built up to the last chapter about what we can do to relieve this pressure, including creating more cohesive communities. According to one of the people that McKibben quotes, “I don’t think people will create silos for themselves and hide in houses to shield themselves from hard times. They’re going to look for people to help solve those problems. Those tend to be your neighbors.” Communities are possible for every pressured and confused individual to contribute to because even during an apocalypse, we will all have neighbors; there are just too many people to not be surrounded by others. In Parable of the Sower, Butler gives evidence of this with Lauren’s expanding alliance and also evidence that communities give you a greater chance of survival by portraying the post-apocalyptic hardships of starvation, stealing, death, etc. Lauren starts her alliance with her two neighbors from home, Zahra and Harry, and then welcomingly allows others to join her traveling group. When her expanded alliance finds a place they can settle down, she urges them to stay to help build their own community. Butler starts the year 2026 in the book with this passage: “Civilization is to groups what intelligence is to individuals. It is a means of combining the intelligence of many to achieve ongoing group adaptation. Civilization, like intelligence may serve well, serve adequately, or fail to serve its adaptive function. When civilization fails to serve, it must disintegrate unless it is acted upon by unifying internal or external forces.” Achieving ongoing group adaptation, in this context, would be adapting to climate change, and can only happen when individuals combine what they can offer to each other. In this case, individuals may not be willing to help each other, but if they realize that this is necessary to survive an apocalypse, they may rethink their actions. The apocalypse that the people in Lauren’s world have witnessed motivates them to change because of its inescapable devastation and the innate human perseverance to live.

The two most similar passages in Eaarth and Parable of the Sower both combine small scale farming and better communities as the method for surviving the apocalypse. The first by McKibben states “So there will be dinner, if we’re resourceful and clever, and if more of us are willing to do the work of farming, and if we build the kind of community institutions that make us more resilient, less vulnerable. It won’t be easy; as flood, drought, and pests spread, we’ll be pressed to keep up.” And by Butler, “There’s no guarantees anywhere. But if we’re willing to work, our chances are good here. I’ve got some seed in my pack. We can buy more. What we have to do at this point is more like gardening than farming. Everything will have to be done by hand — composting, watering, weeding, picking worms or slugs or whatever off the crops and killing them one by one if that’s what it takes.” McKibben’s is pretty straightforward, while Butler uses the word ‘we’ to indicate a group of people needing to work together to produce food for their little community. In both of these passages the background apocalyptic writing is what really persuades the reader to believe they need to “be willing to work” and persuades them to listen because their or future generations’ survival is at risk, based on the crises that have been predicted or portrayed.

The clear goal of both texts is to make the reader believe that change is necessary in improving and dealing with current and future environmental conditions. McKibben clearly states “My point throughout this book has been that we’ll need to change to cope with the new Eaarth we’ve created”, while Butler repetitively uses “God is Change” as the foundation for the book. Transitioning from huge monoculture agribusiness and weak neighborhood ties to small scale local agriculture and resilient, sustainable communities involves a willingness to commit to activating a change.

The contemporary issue facing us now is that this willingness is not upheld by the majority of people on Earth. Positive change is not happening because there are too many people supporting the harmful, unsustainable, and vulnerable monoculture agribusinesses. Facts, figures, anecdotes, and experiences can only go so far to warn readers that Earth’s climate change-induced decline will adversely affect them. Having a rhetoric term such as the apocalypse used by McKibben and Butler can motivate readers to be part of the solution. The apocalypse term is so persuasive because it has been given the notion that the crisis will affect everyone and therefore compels them to make a change if they know their way of life and even survival are at risk.

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