Shattered Earth: Approaching Extinction

Author Dr. Ian Prattis opens Shattered Earth in the not too distant future with a futuristic analysis of Climate Change and “the inevitable fate provided by the suicide pact engineered by corrupt corporations for most of humanity.”

From there, the award-winning writer examines destructive environmental trends and practices and explores ways to protect and preserve planet Earth.

Dr. Prattis employs a skillful blending of fiction, non-fiction and biographical narratives to effectively convey his message in a thought-provoking, reader-engaging manner.

Shattered Earth provides both a big-picture look at our planet’s environment in crisis along with a more individualistic-personal perspective, evident in his own experiences shared throughout this book.

This is also particularly evident in my own favorite section of Shattered Earth: The enthralling Part Three – Hello Darkness, a superbly written collection of fictional short stories, exploring everything from a broken lover’s loss of his self-created nurturing relationship-environment and subsequent encounter with a violent ocean environment; to a loner’s strong desire to save his natural environment from being destroyed by big developer bulldozers; to an act of arson; to an old man braving an incredibly harsh environment to save the life of a child – small-picture stories of  individuals engaged in environmental interaction.

Shattered Earth is a joy to read with an underlying message that we need to treat ourselves, our neighbours and our planet with much more care and concern – if you weren’t an environmentalist on starting this book, you will be by the time you finish reading it." - Michael B. Davie, author, Hammertown

Poet, Global Traveler, Founder of Friends for Peace, Guru in India, Zen teacher and Spiritual Warrior for planetary care, peace and social justice, Dr. Ian Prattis presently lives in Ottawa, Canada and encourages people to find their true nature, so that humanity and the planet may be renewed. Dr. Ian Prattis is Professor Emeritus at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. He is an award winning author of seventeen books. Recent awards include Gold for Redemption at the 2015 Florida Book Festival, 2015 Quill Award from Focus on Women Magazine for Trailing Sky Six Feathers and Silver for Environment from the 2014 Living Now Literary Awards for Failsafe; Saving the Earth From Ourselves. His novel - Redemption - is being made into a movie. His poetry, memoirs, fiction, articles, blogs and podcasts appear in a wide range of venues. He was born in the UK and has spent much of his life living and teaching in Canada. Born on October 16, 1942, in Great Britain, Ian grew up in Corby, a tough steel town populated by Scots in the heartland of England's countryside. Cultural interface was an early and continuing influence. Ian was an outstanding athlete and scholar at school, graduating with distinctions in all subjects. He did not stay to collect graduating honours, as at seventeen years old he travelled to Sarawak, Borneo, with Voluntary Service Overseas (1960 - 62), Britain's Peace Corps. Returning to Great Britain after Sarawak was an uneasy transition. He did, however, manage to stumble through an undergraduate degree in anthropology at University College, London (1962 - 65), before continuing with graduate studies at Balliol College, Oxford (1965 - 67). At Oxford, academics took a back seat to the judo dojo, rugby field, bridge table, and the founding of irreverent societies at Balliol. Yet by the time he pursued doctoral studies at the University of British Columbia (1967 - 70), his brain switched on. He renewed his passion for other cultures, placing his research on North West Coast fishing communities within a mathematical, experimental domain that the discipline of anthropology was not quite ready for. Being at the edge of new endeavours was natural to him, and continues to be so. He was Professor of Anthropology and Religion at Carleton University from 1970 to 2007. He has worked with diverse groups all over the world and has a passion for doing anthropology. His career trajectory has curved through mathematical models, development studies, hermeneutics, poetics and symbolic anthropology, to new science and consciousness studies. The intent was always to expand across existing boundaries, to renew the freshness of the anthropological endeavour and make the discipline relevant to the individuals and cultures it touches. He studied Tibetan Buddhism with Lama Tarchin in the early 1980's, Engaged Buddhism with Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh much later, Christian meditation with the Benedictines, and was trained by First Nation medicine people and shamans in their healing practices. He also studied the Vedic tradition of Siddha Samadhi Yoga, and taught this tradition of meditation in India. He was ordained as a teacher and initiator - the first westerner to receive this privilege - and is acknowledged in India as a guru. Later in life he lived in a hermitage in Kingsmere, Quebec, in the middle of Gatineau Park forest when his pet wolf was alive. He facilitated a meditation community in Ottawa called the Pine Gate Mindfulness Community from 1997 to 2017. At the outbreak of the Iraq war he founded Friends for Peace Canada - a coalition of meditation, peace, activist and environmental groups to work for peace, planetary care and social justice. He received the 2011 Ottawa Earth Day Environment Award and edits an online Buddhist Journal. In 2018 he received the Yellow Lotus Award from the Vesak Project for his spiritual guidance and teaching of the Dharma.