John Green reviews the era in which we live

I was familiar with John Green for his best-selling novel, The Fault in Our Stars, which if you have not read I recommend. Today, however, I will write about The Anthropocene Reviewed, his collection of essays adapted and expanded from his podcast. 

The anthropocene is defined as "the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment," that is, right now. Green reviews and rates different facets of the human-centered planet on a five-star scale as if they were restaurants—everything from the QWERTY keyboard and sunsets to Canada geese and the penguins of Madagascar.

He talked about the book in a New York Times interview in which David Marchese. the interviewer, noted that in the book Green gave the internet three stars and at the end asked a bunch of rhetorical questions, including: “What does it mean to have my way of thinking, and my way of being, so profoundly shaped by machine logic? What does it mean that, having been part of the internet for so long, the internet is also part of me?” 

Green's response: "The easy answer is that when the internet becomes part of you, you cede a certain amount of your overall sense of self to online experience, which can be wonderful in some ways. This is going to surprise you, David, but I was a big nerd when I was a kid. I would have loved to be able to connect with young people the way that young people can connect with each other now across time and space around shared interests. It would have been amazing for me to have a relationship with other people who were obsessed with collecting every version of the 1986 Chicago Cubs baseball cards. The internet has facilitated communication in lots of really beautiful ways. And then there is the cost." The cost he says without saying is that people in their posts can be ugly, vicious, and nasty.

Most of the 48 essays are short—four or five pages—and most include some history or background on the topic: first recognition that Halley's Comet was a comet (worth 4,5 stars), discovery of the Lascaux cave paintings (4,5), why teddy bears (2.5), air conditioning (3.0), staphylococcus aureus (1.0). 

Some readers may disagree with Green's ratings. Some may argue that you can't rate something like the internet at all. Three stars compared to what? Smoke signals? The telephone? No one can argue with the variety and discernment of Green's essays. An entertaining, interesting, and useful collection.