‘Apocalyptic Planet’ author speaks in Pittsfield

PITTSFIELD – Nationally-renowned author Craig Childs stopped in The Berkshires on the tail end of his speaking tour promoting his new book, Apocalyptic Planet: Field Guide to the End of the World.

Mr. Childs spoke at the Lichtenstein Center for the Arts in Pittsfield, a city-owned community arts space, on Nov. 17.

The talk, part of Mr. Childs’ first ever east coast book tour, was partially organized by Orion magazine, a nationally distributed bi-monthly magazine based in Great Barrington focusing on environmental and sustainability issues.

“We are very excited to have Craig Childs here,” said Orion magazine Editor Jennifer Sahn when introducing Mr. Childs. “Craig is an amazing wordsmith, an incredible adventurer…[a] sort of alchemist of science and the arts.”

For Apocalyptic Planet, Mr. Childs traveled to nine different locations around the globe to examine nine possible extreme futures for the earths.

“We have this idea sometimes that we live on this level playing field, that this planet will be the way it is forever,” he said. “Each landscape represents a dramatic change, a catastrophe of sorts. The earth itself is a storyteller.”

In his presentation, Mr. Childs talked about his travels to five of these landscapes: Greenland’s glaciers, the Sonoran Desert, a raging river in Tibet (an example of a seismic landscape), a volcanic lava flow in Hawaii and the most frightening future for him personally, the corn fields of Iowa. For that particular segment of the book, he spent three miserable days hiking with a friend through Iowa’s corn fields, a landscape he used as an example of a mass extinction.

Mr. Childs’ presentation held the small crowd gathered in rapt attention. A natural storyteller, his descriptions of his adventures included numerous personal anecdotes and observations he made over the course of his travels. He also augmented his talk with pictures and short video clips.

The essential message of his presentation was, while the earth does dramatically change, it also recovers, although not necessarily in a human time frame.

“This planet is hard to destroy; it has seen far worse than us, but we haven’t seen far worse than us,” said Mr. Childs, who talked about the need to preserve the environment, species and landscapes of today. “This place comes back, life returns, the story is never over here. This book is about a world that doesn’t end.”

After the presentation, Mr. Childs stayed to sign copies of his book.

Apocalyptic Planet is currently available from Pantheon Books.

His other books include Finders Keepers: A Tale of Archaeological Plunder and Obsession, The Animal Dialogues: Uncommon Encounters in The Wild and House of Rain: Tracking a Vanished Civilization Across the American Southwest. He’s also written articles for such publications as The New York Times, Men’s Journal and Orion magazine and is a contributor to National Public Radio (NPR).

Posted by Bera B. Dunau on December 27, 2012. Filed under Arts and Entertainment,Community Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry