Enough is Enough
By Sara Jackson and Rachel Smeda, 12/05/05

Your typical summer reading has never been this complex. At Summer Welcome, incoming freshmen students at the University of Missouri-Columbia were encouraged to read and ponder a book by Bill McKibben entitled Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age. In the book, McKibben outlines the possibilities of a future with nanobots doing human work, global warming, germline genetic engineering in human beings, and other issues that had previously been considered “science-fiction”—until now. In this book, one of the most significant questions discussed is what it means to be human.

“These are issues that may well turn out to be the most important issues we face this century,” McKibben said.

McKibben gave a talk on the MU campus on Oct. 25, 2005. He related his views on global warming.
McKibben also addressed social matters in his presentation. He spent a year of watching TV, and from that experience, discovered that society and/or the media push the message onto the public that you, the individual, are the most important thing in the world.

“You would think that with all the focus on “me”, we’d be the happiest people on earth,” McKibben said.
With the modern idea of “community” being a thing of the past, we, as human beings, have begun to reach the limits of our satisfaction. Is that possibly why we would consider creating genetically custom-designed babies?

“I realize the profound limits, and I want those limits,” McKibben said.
McKibben’s book touches on the divisive topic of cloning, the “red line” in how far humans should go in their quest for scientific revolution.

“I have a daughter, and can’t even begin to imagine trying to plan what she should be,” McKibben said.
While the book raises tough questions for readers to answer on their own, the author avoided other hot areas such as religion and science.

“It doesn’t split people into liberal versus conservative; it reaches all people without targeting everybody,” McKibben said.

Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age can be purchased online or at the MU Bookstore. Bill McKibben also has his own website, www.billmckibben.com.

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