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This is an important, engaging, and challenging book. It addresses climate change and the variety of human responses to it, and also broadens its approach to observing human behaviour using the metaphor of the “human game”. McKibben uses a sociopolitical lens to examine many aspects of the human experience. These aspects include inequality and the technological developments of genetic engineering, artificial intelligence (AI), and how humans work with them.
As the author himself observes in the “opening note”, in some respects it is not an easy read and can be quite bleak at times. Whilst the themes may be confronting, this underlines the paradoxical aspects of the human responses to both climate change and technological developments.
McKibben’s writing style is that of a well-researched story teller, and it was a powerful experience reading it. I started out as one convinced of the need for urgent action in a number of human domains, and found that I needed to read it in stages because of its strong emotional impact and the evidence-based, detailed depth of treatment. After comprehensively setting out the current state of play of the “human game”, the book finishes by describing some possible options for action.
Bill McKibben is a seasoned climate activist and network builder, and has written many books as well as being a founding member of 350.org, a group which has supported a worldwide climate campaign. Although many of his arguments in this book are universal, the political and social analysis tends to focus more on the USA’s experience.
The book is written under four main headings: the size of the board; leverage; the name of the game; an outside chance; with an additional compelling epilogue.
McKibben sees the “human game” as encompassing all the factors that attach to humans and their activities. He asserts that: “… the human game we have been playing has no rules and no end, but it does come with two logical imp