Having read The Road last year, and having just finished Far North, I’ve been increasingly fearful as I read Bill McKibben’s Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future . While McKibben does try and point out some of the ways that the world is not ending, the combination of globalization and agricultural specialization highlights the tenuous nature of our so-called advanced civilization…if the food in most American houses has traveled 1,500 miles to get there, what happens if this distribution network breaks? Maybe it’ll be less about 28 Days or the Machines than a Grapes of Wrath Style Dustbowl.

Happy thoughts on the night before everyone goes back to school.