New book explains how America lost its way and how young people can bring it back

Every now and then a book just grabs me and won’t let go long after I read it. My brain is still processing a book by Bill McKibben, whom I had the pleasure of interviewing at Reader’s Corner for his latest, “The Flag, the Cross and the Station Wagon: A Graying American Looks Back at His Suburban Boyhood and Wonders What the Hell Happened.”

McKibben is an author and activist known mainly for his environmental crusades, but his latest ranges beyond climate change and addresses the role of religion and country in shaping our current-day culture.

His book “The End of Nature” is considered one of the very first clarion calls for action on climate change, and his environmental activism over the years helped bring climate change issues to the top of the list of public policy challenges facing the planet. Thanks to McKibben organizing the opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline, the Obama administration shut down the effort.

In his new book, McKibben relates how Americans have retreated to their suburban encampments where all neighbors look white, and restrictive covenants for many years keep out those who were not white. Property values climbed to historic levels, and before you know it, prospective homeowners of color found it impossible to participate in the American dream of owning their own home. Where I lived, it was not uncommon for the clergy — parish priests in the case of my Catholic upbringing — to sympathize with the narrow and prejudicial views of their parishioners who feared housing integration.

McKibben’s religious roots are in the mainline Protestant churches of his suburban boyhood. He credits those churches of the day with building a sense of community that we find missing in our culture today. No shock here, considering the decline in church membership, which McKibben calls the equivalent of a neutron bomb going off across American Christianity with buildings intact, but membership absent.

In 1958, 52 out of 100 Americans belonged to a mainline Christian church. In 2016, only 13 out of 100 could be found affiliated with the mainline Protestants. Meanwhile, evangelical church membership soared as its leaders and members turned conservative in their politics.

McKibben calls the houses of worship of his youth the “Rotary Club in prayer.” Today, in the place of a church membership and clergy that fostered community, he finds a hyper-individualism that has moved into the space once occupied by Protestant leaders whose successors today no longer play a leading role in our culture.

Returning to the theme of climate change, McKibben tells a fascinating tale of President Jimmy Carter during the oil shock years of the 1970s. Carter called a press conference to show off the installation of solar panels in the White House and proposed massive government support of solar power. The support didn’t come, but Carter’s successor, President Reagan, wasted no time taking down the solar panels and sending them into obscurity. McKibben wonders what our climate crisis might look like today if opinion makers and shapers of the day would have acted on Carter’s lesson on alternative energy sources. Was Carter’s a failed presidency in that regard or were those in government at the time those who failed to act on his foresight?

Focusing on the family station wagon of his youth, McKibben addresses the role Americans have played in creating the climate change crisis. From his station wagon days, he tells us how we graduated to SUVs, and I would add that we have also increased the number of cars per family and also added Chevy Silverados and F-150s, among other gas guzzling pick-up trucks, to the list of vehicles that have thrown more American-generated carbon into the atmosphere than any other nation on earth.

The effects of the carbon that Americans have foisted on the planet do not land only on those who contributed heavily to the problem.

For example, according to McKibben, those climate refugees from Honduras standing in lines waiting for access to America come from a country that produced about a ton apiece of carbon dioxide a year, which is one-sixteenth of the current American total. Yet, many Americans balk at welcoming these refugees when, in fact, we have played a large role in the challenges these refugees now face as climate change wreaks havoc with their countries.

Brace yourself for the ultimate solution McKibben suggests for our neighbors in the global south. Given the mathematical impossibility of reducing emissions to meet our actual obligation that has accrued over the years, McKibben shares some research on just what size check America would have to write to our neighbors to the south. Let’s just say it’s way too many zeros to appear doable to the average American.

Try to explain any of this to the America First crowd, and I can already hear the weeping and gnashing of teeth from the self-righteous who believe “exceptional America” can do no wrong. Instead of acknowledging our complicity, they deny climate change, wave the flag and beat their chests with patriotic fervor.

If you are looking for patriotic fervor these days, honest-to-goodness love of country and a deep-seated desire to improve the lot of all Americans and fellow travelers around the globe, then pick up a copy of Bill McKibben’s book. It will refresh your knowledge of the American Revolution, examine the loss of mainstream Christianity’s power and authority over the years and identify missed opportunities to correct climate change.

McKibben closes his take on his own upbringing and how it explains where we are today with a burst of hope for the role our young people can play in the future. He has spent his life mobilizing and working with young people to carry on the work of fighting climate change and rectifying inequality across the globe.

He understands that his generation has failed to halt the assault on the climate, but he urges older Americans to support and encourage our nation’s youth who now pick up the baton to make a difference in the challenges facing America.

Visit his 350.org to learn more about how average Americans can make a difference. It’s a message that certainly jibes with this time of year when we celebrate America’s independence and love of country.

Bob Kustra served as president of Boise State University from 2003 to 2018. He is host of Reader’s Corner on Boise State Public Radio and he writes a biweekly column for the Idaho Statesman. He served two terms as Illinois lieutenant governor and 10 years as a state legislator.