Anthropologist Vincent Ialenti has stylishly penned a most intriguing book, “Deep Time Reckoning: How Future Thinking Can Help Earth Now.” Ialenti address two specific audiences: readers interested in “ancestor thinking” or “deep time,” that is, adopting a future-oriented perspective on the world and on life; and readers interested in nuclear power, specifically the radioactive waste aspect of it. An anthropologist, he embedded himself in the life and work of an army of specialists working to bury Finland’s spent nuclear fuel far below the ground, keeping the world safe from the radioactive poisons for thousands of years or longer. The patient Finnish approach is twenty five years old and completion is not planned until the next century. Deep Time Reckoning delves, analyses, and muses, with Ialenti concerned about how the Finns are tackling this monumental task and why the Finnish population wholeheartedly backs it (imagine anything similar in America!); but also how the rest of world can learn from Finland, especially in order to tackle the climate emergency. The author’s passionate, cogent voice, and his wide-ranging essaying, might also lift Deep Time Reckoning out of its specialist concerns and find it a deserved wider audience.
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