Book Review: Hot, Flat & Crowded

I was happy to see the comment last week on the Monday roundup from Heather at Simple Green Frugal that she was going to review Thomas Friedman's latest book. And even happier when she agreed to share her review here. Heather's review is the premier for Hot, Flat and Crowded at the Bookworm. After reading the review I anticipate seeing more reviews for it though. Thanks for being first, Heather!

Although I've seen him interviewed a number of times on The Daily Show, "Hot, Flat, and Crowded" was my first Thomas Friedman read. The premise of the book is that the Earth as we know it today is "hot" (in the wake of global warming), "flat" (technology in communication and commerce has made it a "small world after all" in that we have access to the world, it's knowledge, and it's products with a second's notice), and "crowded" (the Earth's population is growing at an alarming rate).

As global warming meets instant gratification for a world full of people by today's standards of consumption, we get a host of problems ranging from what he calls "petrodictatorship" (the people against whom we are fighting the war on terror are the same people from whom we buy our oil - just a little conflict of interest) to widespread energy crisis (all the coal in the world can't get every human being up to the American standard of living).

Friedman stresses that America has fallen behind in it's status as a world leader; that while other countries have braced for the challenges ahead and are decades farther along in the pursuit of energy independence, economic stability, and sustainable living, the US has become lax. In generations past, we were such a leader and we can become one again, but only with determination, focus, and innovation.

“We have been living for far too long on borrowed time and borrowed dimes. We need to get back to work on our country and on our planet. The hour is late, the stakes couldn't be higher, the project couldn't be harder, the payoff couldn't be greater.”

He goes on to insist that,

“...if all the world's people start to live like us, it would herald a climate and biodiversity disaster. Does that mean that we don't want people to live like us anymore? No. It means that we have to take the lead in redesigning and reinventing what living like us means... Because if the spread of freedom and free markets is not accompanied by a new approach to how we produce energy and treat the environment, then Mother Nature and planet earth will impose their own constraints on our way of life - constraints and limitations that will be worse than communism... Without it, we are not going to be free much longer - and neither will anybody else.”

So far so good. I'm following along nicely. With the middle classes in China and India growing and demanding the "American" lifestyle, the Earth can't keep up with our consumption requirements. The Earth can't meet our demands and unfortunately, we're not really in a position to call the shots (aka Mother Earth certainly has the power to kick us kids out of the house). But then in his solutions, he contradicts himself from one chapter to another. In one chapter he says we can't "force" companies to go green and in other chapters, he says that in a green revolution, companies must be green or die. Ok.

Another example, and a quote I heartily agree with, Friedman says,

“Green is a value that needs to be preserved in and of itself, not because it's going to make your bank account richer, because it makes life richer and always has. At the end of the day that is what the "ethic of conservation" is also about. An ethic of conservation declares that maintaining our natural world that is a value that is impossible to quantify but also impossible to ignore, because of the sheer beauty, wonder, joy, and magic that nature brings to being alive.”

Sounds great, but in an earlier chapter, in a literary illustration of what the future might look like, he describes a very Jetsonian (as in the cartoon the Jetsons) lifestyle where every little nook and cranny of life is managed for us by a computer. Do you remember the Jetsons being very in touch with the "sheer beauty, wonder, joy and magic that nature brings to being alive?" His quote talks about being in touch with nature, yet an entire chapter earlier in the book is about how the green revolution will mean more "stuff" for everyone. Everyone can have the consumeristic American lifestyle. Yeah. Great.

But if I had to sum up Friedman's solution to "hot, flat, and crowded" in four words it would be "technology will save us." This is where it all falls apart for me. Heaven forbid anyone actually reduce their consumption. That would be un-American. Now, I'm not saying that there's no place for technology (in a sustainable future there certainly is); but this utopia he creates where the US government leads the world to create an entirely new infrastructure where the whole world can live the American dream through constant economic growth as well as endless consumption (but who cares because it's all sustainably powered) theory is a bit unrealistic, no?

Not that I believe it's wrong to work toward that utopian dream where the world's supply of products is produced in sustainable buildings, using sustainable resources; and he is definitely on the right track when he explain how and why we need to rethink the way we build buildings, do business, and engineer vehicles... but that's only one piece of the puzzle and frankly, Friedman pokes fun at what I view as a very equal and necessary puzzle piece - the power of the individual to do great things.

In the chapter, "205 Easy Ways to Save the Earth," he remarks that the efforts of the current "green revolution" isn't a revolution at all, but rather a costume party where we all have fun and the only thing that matters is that we "look" green. It's the fashion of the day. To a point I agree. The movement HAS to be more than everyone changing their light bulbs, but at the same time there are REAL people out there making REAL changes. Tell No Impact Man (or the lives he's inspired) that his journey has been for naught because within seconds consumptive demands in China negate anything he has ever done.

We have to fight this battle for life on planet Earth in two ways. Sure, our government (and I agree it HAS to be the US government) MUST lead the world in making innovative changes to reduce our impact on the Earth. BUT (and I think Friedman greatly underestimates us), there are people who know the stakes, they understand the odds, and they make changes in their life every day as well as inspire others in the process. And so has evolved a generation of individuals who see this goal of endless economic growth as the joke that it is. They know that living a simpler, greener, and more frugal life isn't about deprivation, it's about reconnecting with what makes us human. It's about health, and happiness, and quality of life. Great. Fund technology, give us wind and solar power, give us greener options, but don't underestimate the power of a simpler life; a life more in tune with the earth; a life without the distraction of "stuff."

Ok. I'm off my soapbox. Back to the book. Honestly, I learned a lot and it's worth spending the time to read. I agree with his synopsis of the problems, but in the end his solution sounds like a world with just more "stuff." I don't believe that is the answer. Technology can and will help us, but so will good old-fashioned values where nothing goes wasted. If you do check out the book, don't be discouraged that we are wasting our time in pursuit of a more simple-green-frugal life. I believe the only way out of what he calls "hot, flat, and crowded" is mindfulness. The kind us little guys practice every single day.

Book Review: Three Cups of Tea

Many thanks to Joyce from tallgrassworship for sharing yet another review with us. This time, she's reviewed a Blogging Bookworm favorite. It is wonderful to get so many perspectives on the book. We all seem to come to the same conclusion, though . . .

Over the past year, several friends have highly recommended Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace One School at a Time. I finally finished it this week, and I agree with them; it's a very inspiring read.

Greg Mortenson is a son of missionaries who spent a good part of his childhood in Africa. After a tour of duty in the military, he was pursuing his hobby of mountaineering in the Karakoram Mountains of Pakistan in 1993 when an aborted climb landed him in an extremely remote mountain village. The relationships he developed there, and his recognition of the deep desire the villagers had for an educated future for their children, ignited a passion in him for building a school for the village. Single-handedly, and against tremendous odds, he raised the funds, located the materials, and oversaw the labor of the villagers themselves to bring the first educational opportunity to their children. When word of this accomplishment got out in the surrounding area, other village leaders came to him to beg that he would help them do the same.

Eventually he formed the Central Asia Institute, a foundation set up to continue building schools in the most remote and politically fragile areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan, where the Taliban attempts to deny access to education for girls, and where radical madrassas train boys in the most extreme form of Islam. Mortenson's schools are open to girls as well as boys, and offer a standard secular education. Many who have followed the progress of the Central Asia Institute recognize it as the best hope for opening the area to peaceful relations with the West, as well as offering opportunities for these remote villagers to raise up teachers, medical workers, and leaders from their own ranks.

Mortenson's work in a region of the world that is currently in conflict with the U.S. has drawn the attention of Congressional leaders. He has been asked to brief Congress on conditions in the Afghan-Pakistan border area. He has put a human face on the people of Central Asia, and championed their desire to find ways to raise themselves up and interact peacefully with the West.

Reading the book is a terrific way to gain an understanding of a part of the world that may be daily in the news, but remains a mystery to most Americans. The ruggedness of the terrain, the misunderstandings of culture, the differences between the various strains of Islam, and the challenges the West faces in dealing with the emergence of radical Islam are all explored in Three Cups of Tea. Mortenson was in that part of the world when 9-11 occurred. He was captured and held by the Taliban at one point, and feared for his life. Yet, his love for the ordinary villagers caught in the maelstrom of war shines through in his work for them.

I came way with two thoughts: first, that the fruit of his efforts is only now beginning to ripen, as the first students of his schools reach adulthood and go on to higher education, leaving their villages for further training, and having interaction with the wider world. We will see the snowball effect of this as we move into the future. Secondly, as horrifying as 9-11 was, and perpetrated by those bent on evil, this one good has come from it: the attention on Mortenson's work that resulted has brought his organization the recognition and funding it deserves, and has lead to a burst of school building that will be, in my opinion, impossible to be erased by the Taliban, no matter how much they may try to eliminate the CAI schools. It is possible that the ultimate effect of bin Laden's attack on the U.S. will be the cultural and political opening of Central Asia to the rest of the world. It will be fascinating to watch.

I highly recommend this book, giving it five stars.

To learn more about CAI and it's work, check out their site. If you order the book through that site, or through Amazon, a portion of the cost will go toward Mortenson's work.

Book Review- "The More-With-Less Cookbook" by Doris Janzen Longacre

Except for being proficient at a couple types of cookies, I didn't even begin to learn to cook until I was in grad school. I lived in a co-op in which I was assigned to a "cooking team" and the head of our team sourced all our meals from the "More-with-Less Cookbook." When I moved on, I bought a copy of the book because it contained the recipe for my new favorite dinner. It would be a full 12 years before I read beyond that recipe!

My husband and I joke about it, now, but when we got married I was comfortable cooking two thingss: lasagna and boxed macaroni & cheese. And my husband didn't like boxed mac & cheese. I spent the first summer we were married devouring every cookbook I could find, and I started with More-with-Less. The book is a gold mine, but I should quit here and let our guest reviewer tell you the rest. Here's what Joyce from tallgrassworship has to say about it...

As our economic crisis deepens, and frugality has become the mode, I've thought more and more that I should post a review of "The More-With-Less Cookbook", by Doris Janzen Longacre.

As a young mom, living on a shoestring budget, and trying to learn how to cook from the large vegetable garden I grew to help feed my family, I came to rely on this remarkable little volume, with it's garden-to-table recipes, and instructions that emphasized cooking "from scratch". As a Christian, trying to align my lifestyle with the doctrine of justice for the poor, I loved it's emphasis on consuming only our fair share of the planet's resources, so that we could not only control our own budget, but have enough to give and share with others.

Amazingly, it's still in print, and available through Amazon.com, though Doris Janzen Longacre died of cancer in 1979, shortly after the publication of her second book, "Living More With Less". Both of these books were very influential for me, and have continued to color the way I look at homemaking over the years.

Longacre was commissioned by the Mennonite Central Committee to use her background as a dietitian to collect recipes and ideas from the world-wide Mennonite community and adjust those recipes to reflect contemporary nutritional research and food justice issues. Many of the recipes submitted by the mostly agrarian Mennonites were heavy on sugar and fat. Longacre experimented to readjust them so that the well-loved family dishes could be enjoyed just as much, but with healthier ingredients. She collected many meatless dishes, reflecting our growing understanding of the impact of raising livestock on our environment. She gave good, clear teaching regarding moving away from a meat-heavy diet while maintaining good nutrition. At the same time, she managed to celebrate the Swiss-German and Russian culture at the heart of the Mennonite denomination, and elevate the custom of unpretentious hospitality.

I practically wore this book out! It was my essential guide for learning to cook for my growing family for years. In pulling it out to reread the other day, I was flooded with memories of days in our kitchen, surrounded by small children who always wanted to stand on a chair next to me and "watch" as I worked with produce from the garden, or bulk items from a foster parent's food co-op we were part of, or the bags and bags of apples from a second cousin's orchard. Many a dollar was stretched, many a tummy was filled, based on the information and recipes found in this wonderful cookbook.

I hope that you will find a copy of "The More-With-Less Cookbook" and read it, really read it, and absorb the wonderful spirit of Longacre and the Mennonite cooks who submitted recipes to this collection. It has a place in every kitchen where the cook(s) are focused on meals made with love. I'd give it a 5 out of 5, for sustainable and frugal living.

From Australia - Bottomfeeder

I literally got a huge smile the other day when I found a review of Bottomfeeder at Kathryn's blog, Limes & Lycopenes. It was one of my top five books this year.

One of the things that made me smile about this review is Kathryn found three different covers for the book. And then of course I smiled because she liked the book and I liked the review. If you give Bottomfeeder a read, I hope you do too. In any event, big thanks to Kathryn in Australia for sharing the review.I’ve been buying some books recently. All sorts of volumes. Books about food, nutrition and cooking. As well as some meaty stuff on sustainability and the ethics surrounding what we eat.

And the first one is Bottomfeeder.

While it seems like one of those worthy books, the sort of thing you know you should read, but don’t really want to, Bottomfeeder is an absolute beauty.In it Taras Grescoe goes on a world tour, eating fish as he travels. He interviews restauranteurs and marine biologists, visits fish markets and joins fisherman out on their boats. All the while looking at the effects we humans are having on sea life.

Each chapter tells a story. About a location and a specific fish. From oysters in Chesapeake Bay, cod sold at the local chippy in Britain, through to sardines in the Med, shrimps in India and bluefin tuna sashimi in Japan, Taras Grescoe examines how what we eat impacts the local fish stocks. And the local environment.

It’s an alarming book. Grescoe’s account of our declining marine environment is worrying reading and he doesn’t shrink from the complexities and difficulties we face.

However, it’s beautifully written: full of humanity, a sense of history, humour and smart commentary. Plus wondrous descriptions of the actual fish themselves: the often bizarre creatures from the deep we catch and eat, yet know so little about.Taras Grescoe is a fish eater and after writing and researching the book, he is determined to keep on eating fish. However he wants to choose fish that is managed and caught sustainably. Therefore at the very end of the book, separated into the three groups No, Never; Depends, Sometimes and Absolutely, Always, is a list of what fish to eat and what to avoid.

W‎hile there is an increasing amount of information available on many aspects of eating sustainably, I’ve found good, smart information on fish hard to find. Taras Grescoe’s book fills many of these gaps.

If you’re interested in climate change, sustainability and where the food you eat comes from, then Bottomfeeder is an important book.

Book Review: Green Goes With Everything

This review originally appeared over at Passionate Green. It seems that we are all thinking about the affect of toxins not just on the environment but on ourselves. Thank you for sharing the review, Passionate!

With the witty and pleasant familiarity of friends at lunch, Sloan Barnett lets us in on human’s dirtiest (literally!) secrets. The nine chapters in this handbook, each named with a variation on the word “clean,” uncover the nasty health hazards of our seemingly simple everyday actions, including what we put on our bodies, what we use to fuel our cars, and what appliances we use in our homes.

None of the information in Green Goes With Everything is new; the facts on our environmental impact have already been well published. This book is unique and important, though, in that it includes so many facts all in one place, making it a great starting place for anyone who desires a greener lifestyle but doesn’t know where to begin. As each product and chemical is discussed, it is appropriately suggested that while it may or may not be hazardous – the EPA and FDA don’t have the money or manpower to do enough testing to reach a conclusive result – it is not worth risking our health and we should err on the side of caution. Suggestions for safer alternative products are made, mostly from Shaklee. There is a sizeable resource guide at the end of the book, listing companies, their websites, and what they do that can help the consumer.

Why didn’t this author use a green publisher? The book is about being green and yet, oddly, the book itself is not green. Secondly, why ignore the ill effects of the meat industry on the environment? Every meat eater contributes hugely to global warming, pollution, and water and energy waste, and yet the author mentions eating steak quite heedlessly. She also divulges the fact that she wears leather, while implying that people who do not are not normal. Even if no one cares what the manufacturing of leather does to animals, it is impossible to deny the dangerous chemicals that seep into our water supply whenever leather is made.

Those omissions are not enough to keep one from reading the book, however. It is an excellent resource and should be required reading for every inhabitant of our Earth. Parents and teachers especially should reference the accurate, up-to-date facts and figures to pass on the vital message that we need to think green in everything we do.

Book Review: The Green Beauty Guide

This book review comes to us from JessTrev, aka Olive S. Oyl, aka MamaBird, who blogs over at The Green Phone Booth. Jess has x-ray eye sight when it comes to toxins and can spot them in virtually everything. Even she, though, learned a few things from this gem!

This handy reference guide by Julie Gabriel's been making the rounds of some blogs I love. The funniest thing about the reviews? Take note that none of the bloggers are coughing up their review copies. That's as good a sign as any that a book has some gravitas.

Here's your basic lowdown on Gabriel: she's not a doctor, she's a beauty and fashion editor who saw the (organic, non-toxic) green light when she had a baby. I can empathize with that! But what she's got that I don't (besides perfect skin and years of swag bags containing all the latest in skincare to review) is an almost-encyclopedic grasp of potential toxins. While she refers us all to EWG's Skin Deep database (which I have great fondness for as well), I have to say that I think Gabriel's info is more accessible. In addition to in-depth information about specific toxins (not just synthetics but also organic ingredients of concern), she created a master list called "100 Toxic Ingredients You Don't Want In Your Beauty Products." I am so totally copying this and keeping it in my back pocket when I go to the grocery store. Pshaw! You have room for a 4 page document in your purse. Hey, maybe you already vigilantly access Skin Deep on your PDA so you don't need the hot list. Personally, I used to buy products with no parabens and then hold my breath. No more!!

Anyhoo, in addition to the toxins info which is more thorough and balanced than I have seen anywhere else (including a red flag for my personal least fave in many organic and crunchy products, those troublesome tea tree and lavender oils, the Guide also provides numerous recipes for homemade beauty products. These are beyond fun, and there's a wide range of options for different skin types. Finally, she does include some specific product recommendations for those times when you can't whip up some cucumber puree on the fly. I appreciate that she provides lower-cost yet safe(r) options as well as higher-end perfect options.

If you live in my neighborhood, I'd be happy to loan you the book! This one really is a keeper. Kind of like a Shop-Vac...you really want to have access to one but it could really be in a local lending library...I have the same sense about this book. Once my initial rush of beauty-product making subsides I'm really going to want to use this like a reference guide.

Until then? I'll be in the supermarket picking up fresh and delicious products to slather on my body's largest organ, courtesy of Julie Gabriel. Check out her website at for more recipes and tips.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Recommended for: anyone trying to figure out safer and healthier personal care consumption choices.

Book Review: How to Grow Fresh Air

I didn't really intend this to be "how to avoid toxins week," that's just what seems to be on everybody's mind! Anyway, this review comes to us from Joyce from tallgrassworship and I think it follows nicely after Joce's review of "The Body Toxic." Thanks for showing us a pleasant way to help solve a problem, Joyce. I might just have to get over my habit of murdering every house plant I grow!

As much as I love houseplants for their beauty, and the homeyness I think they lend to any room, there is another good reason to have them. In his book "How To Grow Fresh Air", Dr. B. C. Wolverton synthesizes 25 years of research on indoor air quality, and explains how we can prevent Sick Building Syndrome, which can cause allergic and respiratory problems. Since most Americans spend about 95% of their time indoors, this is very important information.

Wolverton worked for NASA, teaming with others to find ways to keep air breathable in space stations, and potentially in sealed modular housing that could be used to inhabit other planets. They studied what chemicals building materials, furniture, and appliances and electronics off-gas into the indoor atmosphere, and which plants most effectively remove certain gasses and toxins.

I appreciated the careful explanation of what chemicals are present in our buildings, and what effect they have on our health. Wolverton is able to make this information accessible to some one like me, who does not have a strong background in chemistry. He gives a clear review of the process of plant respiration.

After you learn all this information, there is a good chapter on caring for the plants. Then, most helpful of all, is an extensive list of plants to choose from, with photos, care information, and an explanation of which chemicals that particular plant is good at removing from the environment. For instance, some plants are very useful used in close proximity to computer equipment, some are especially good in bedrooms, since they do more of their breathing at night, when you are sleeping there, and so on.

I loved this book for it's readability, accessible research, and the way it broadened my understanding of the symbiotic relationship we have with the plant kingdom. If you are new to the houseplant world, you should be able to get off to a good start with the growing information. If you are an old hand at it, you will still learn plenty of interest to you. If you are interested in environmental issues, and how to live in a less toxic space, this book would definitely be of use to you, as well.

I would give this book 5 out of 5 stars.

Book Review: The Body Toxic

Our guest review today comes curtesy of Joce (aka JAM), who was kind enough to wade through this book and summarize it! Thanks, so much, Joce. I especially appreciate the list of suggestions on how to avoid introducing even more chemicals into our bodies!

The Body Toxic: How the Hazardous Chemistry of Everyday Things Threatens Our Health and Well-being by Nena Baker is a book that talks about the many chemicals that are present in the products we use every day, how they create a body burden within us, and what we can do to limit or remove them. The book is written by an investigative journalist who previously wrote about Nike’s Indonesian factories. Her works on that led to many improvements for workers, so let’s hope that her writing about chemicals in everyday products brings about positive change there as well.

The book begins by talking about the chemical burden that we all have within our bodies. People that have been tested show significant levels of many different chemicals, many of which are stored in fat cells, which means that even if you limit exposure from now on to those chemicals, they will be with you for a very long time. People who have lived very healthy lives are not free from this body burden, while it might be lower than some others, even “clean living” nets you lots of chemicals in your body.

There are then five chapters, each devoted to a different chemical (atrazine, phthalates, polybrominated diphenyl ethers, bisphenol A, and perfluorinated chemicals). Research is discussed which shows the effects of these chemicals on wildlife and how we are stewing in these chemicals at a level higher than what damages wildlife. There is a lot of explanation of how difficult it is to avoid these chemicals. For example, polybrominated diphenyl ethers are used in flame retardation, so not only are they in obvious places like mattresses, they are a significant part of every day items like TVs, microwaves, and dishwashers. Also, any item with a stain or wrinkle resistant treatment gets that way due to added chemicals.

The book then talks about new policies that are in effect, or will hopefully soon be in effect, to find safer alternatives to these chemicals. One of the most difficult things is that these are not labeled – for instance a consumer would not know whether a TV has an older, dangerous chemical in it or whether it has been reformulated. A lot of cosmetic companies are starting to reformulate and use that as a selling point, but in more traditional every day items it will be very difficult to know what the hazards are. The book ends with a list of what the author herself does personally to avoid excess chemicals, and then has some resources on environmental and public health groups where you can find out more information.

Overall, the book was very interesting, and pretty scary, but worth a read, even if some of the technical stuff can be skimmed over. I tend to go in spurts as to how worried I am about things – for a while I clean out my house and vow to use only safe things, but then convenience and laziness come into play and I go back to my old ways. This book is a good reminder to stick with things for the long haul. I’d give it 4 out of 5 stars, for medium to dark green readers.

I’m going to summarize what the author does to avoid chemicals, since I thought it was a great list and while I think the book is worth reading, if you don’t have it in your library system or if reading about chemicals is not something you can concentrate on right now, I suspect we could all move towards adapting some of her guidelines without reading the book. I think most of us know these already (or most of them) but reading that they were the things that the author does in her own life, after her very extensive research on the subject makes me feel like they are definitely worth doing and being reminded about.

Buy and eat organic foods whenever possible.
Don’t eat microwave popcorn (lots of chemicals in the paper packaging).
Ditch all plastic food containers, use glass or ceramic instead.
Cancel contract for monthly bug control inside and outside your home.
Decline all optional stain protection treatments for furniture and rugs.
Use low VOC paint for home improvement projects.
Replace BPA plastic bottle with aluminum bottle.
Vacuum and dust at least once per week (because dust is loaded with chemical pollutants).
Buy hard-anodized aluminum pots and pans when Teflon cookware wears out.
Ask retailers about things you buy. If they don’t know, contact manufacturers.
Read labels. Even if they don’t tell the whole story, they can give you clues.
Talk to family and friends about the changes you’ve made and why you make them.

Book Review: Depletion and Abundance

I share a phone booth with this week's guest blogger, the Green Phone Booth that is. Hannah, aka The Purloined Letter, aka The Green Raven, has offered to share her abundant thoughts on Sharon Astyk's Depletion and Abundance.

Leading the Way

"If we can take one message from Hurricane Katrina, it is that our government is probably not going to lead," writes Sharon Astyk in her new book Depletion and Abundance: Life on the New Home Front. "It wasn't the federal government that was first on the scene in Hurricane Katrina. It was regular people with boats, or at least courage, who got out there and rescued their neighbors and people they'd never seen and would never seen again. It was ordinary people who tended one another's hurts. It was ordinary people who sought solutions. It was ordinary people who led the way, and the government eventually followed."

Astyk's book is a reminder of the power of individuals to make a difference in the world during times of crisis. In New Orleans in 2005, it was Hurricane Katrina. Now we face a global financial crisis, climate chaos, war, and energy depletion (peak oil). People are struggling to hold on to their homes, to pay for their groceries, to know what to do next. As Astyk writes, "Now it is the time for ordinary people like us to get out our boats again and lead the way."

If you are like me, this book will make you rethink your assumptions about population, about the separation of public and private, about the global impact of creating local economies. As Green Bean said in her recent review, Depletion and Abundance is both troubling and reassuring. It will make you have moments of panic and it will also make you commit to creating a just and meaningful life.

I finished the book with a feeling not only of hope, but also with a feeling of radical responsibility. What I love best about Astyk's book is her unshakable commitment to her inner ethical compass. Usually, I am very resistant to authors telling me to do what they think is right for the world. But Astyk combines belief in universal morals (like truly committing our lives to taking care of elderly parents and children, connecting with our communities, and helping strangers in need) with acceptance and respect for diversity. Instead of feeling like she is preaching at me, I feel like she is inspiring me to try to live up to my ideals and attempt to be my highest self.

I highly recommend this book. I'm thinking about buying a second copy just so I can make all my friends read it and yet keep a copy on my shelf, too, for any moment when I need to be reminded what power we have and how we must use it.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars.
Recommended: For medium and dark green readers.

Book Review: End of Food

Ruchi a.k.a. Arduous was our very first guest poster. Since she spoke up on Rubbish here, she's gone back to school, to learn about policy, meet folks from all over the planet, and hopefully solve the world's problems. Today, she is weighing in on The End of Food. Thank you, Ruchi.

About a month ago, I spent some time in the villages of India. with my uncle who works for an NGO there. I had been to these villages on two occasions prior: one for a relatively long stay about 13 years ago, and one relatively short stay five years back.

The changes since my first stay 13 years ago were tremendous. The watershed development my uncle and his NGO have done has had a dramatic effect on the landscape. But one of the things I noticed particularly was that the crops had changed. Previously, the main cash crops had been sorghum and maize. Now I noticed that the sorghum had mostly been replaced by wheat.

I mentioned as much to my friend and tour guide, a member of the NGO for years, who had volunteered to show me around the villages. He laughed, deeply appreciating that I had noticed the change. "Ah, you see, when water comes, wheat replaces sorghum!"

I wondered why the sorghum was replacing the wheat, so I asked one of the local people if the villagers preferred wheat, through my friend who acted as a translator.

Strangely, the villager responded that they preferred sorghum! Confused, I figured something must have gotten lost in the translation. Why would the villagers switch to wheat if they preferred the taste of sorghum?

Later that night, my uncle answered my question. Very simply, wheat commands a higher price on the market than sorghum. Thus when the villagers have enough water to grow wheat, they grow wheat, even if their own taste preference would be to sorghum.

An obvious answer, and yet one that completely evaded me. But perhaps, had I already read The End of Food by then, I would have figured it out immediately.

The End of Food by Paul Roberts is an excellent book, providing a clear picture into the global food market. Similar to writers like Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser, Roberts carefully deconstructs the modern food industry, giving us a glimpse at the major players, and exposing the hidden problems with the way the industry is set up.

But Roberts also goes further than that. Instead of talking simply about modern times, Roberts also provides us with a detailed understanding of food production history, that further demonstrates just how unusual the increases in agricultural efficiency of the 20th century are. And importantly, Roberts does not merely focus on the first world food economy, but delves deeply into the food economies of under-developed nations.

Carefully, Roberts builds his argument to demonstrate effectively why the emerging food crisis developed, who is going to suffer the most, and what the dangers are if we don't succeed in reforming our food system.

As for who is going to suffer the most, it is unfortunately the people least responsible for causing the crises developing. Roberts writes:

Projections by Robert Mendelsohn of Yale University, an expert on climate and agriculture, and his colleagues suggest that eight countries in sub-Saharan Africa- Zambia, Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso, Togo, Botswana, Guinea-Bissau, and Gambia- could lose nearly three-quarters of their agricultural output, while the African continent as a whole could see its total food output fall by as much as $194 billion. Overall food security will also suffer: one report predicts that by 2080, climactic shifts will have increased the population of malnourished people by fifty-five million, nearly all of them in Africa. (226)

Clearly, we need to reform our system, but how? Roberts struggles a little to answer the question, and although that's frustrating, it's also understandable. Like Pollan, Roberts is somewhat critical of organic agriculture. Unlike Pollan, Roberts doesn't see the local food movement as the answer. Roberts argues:

The more fundamental problem with the food-mile concept is the same one that plagues organic: it's a simplistic solution to an extraordinarily complex problem. In the same way a pesticide-free head of lettuce may still not be environmentally friendly, distance isn't always the most important determinant in a particular food product's sustainability. Organic food produced in Chile and flown to the United States may represent massive food miles, but it also represents a shift in farming practices in Chile- fewer pesticides and synthetic fertilizers- which might be beneficial to the Chilean environment and people (285-6)

I can't really fault Roberts for not having a clear solution to the food crisis, because … well, it's a complicated problem. And ultimately, there are no easy answers, but there are some changes that we know can be made and should be made. Obviously, the American farm bill needs to be reformed. Clearly, it's important to educate the public at large. And as any nutritionist would remind us, we all need to eat healthier. And maybe, if we start to fix some of the things we know how to fix, we'll start to figure out solutions to the bigger problems.

Star rating: four out of five stars, and recommended for moderately dark green to dark green readers or for people who have already read The Omnivore's Dilemma and want a more global perspective.

Book Review: Small is Possible: Life In A Local Economy

Melinda at 1 Green Generation gardens, cooks, documents, challenges and generally makes things happen. Lucky for us she reads too and said yes to writing a guest review, which gives me the opportunity to put in a plug for her Buy Sustainably Challenge. The challenge has caused more than one pause in my buying habits. Good ones I might add. Check it out.

For now though here's her review. Enjoy.

Small is Possible: Life in a Local Economy, by Lyle Estill.

I have been making personal lifestyle changes for years now. I've replaced toxic home products with non-toxic products, and now I'm replacing those products with handmade cleaning and beauty mixtures I make from simple ingredients. I've reduced my family's CO2 output down to just 10% of what the average American household emits. I live in a small apartment that has a relatively small land and utility impact. Most of my furniture and at least half of my clothing are used. I eat just about as locally as I can. I don't live perfectly sustainably, but I'm doing a pretty good job.

And there came a point a few months ago, where I realized that all of those personal changes were great, but not enough. I needed to do more. Because as I make these changes, I am confronted daily by hundreds of people around me who are not making those changes. And as I make these changes, our community, our city, our state, our country and the world as a whole still has a lot of work to do.

So I came to read Deep Economy, by Bill McKibben. And I loved it. It was a book that exposed some of the real risks of climate change and resource depletion. And then -gasp- it began to delve into possible solutions. It hinted at an idea I'd been thinking about: that sustainable living is not just about eating locally, it's about living locally.

Once I finished with Deep Economy, I was hungry for more specifics. It took me a while to find another book to read. I picked up Simple Prosperity, but the book is dense, and I wasn't ready for such density. I was ready for a quick, easy, and informative read.

And so I happened upon Small Is Possible: Life in a Local Economy by Lyle Estill. It's full of inspiring tidbits about one community's attempts at creating a local economy, and it's fun to read.

Small is Possible reads as if it were fiction, telling the stories, trials, and tribulations of the individuals within the town of Pittsboro, North Carolina. And along the way, you begin to feel you know the characters, and you take a part of them with you into your own community. While certainly Pittsboro and its people are not perfection, they are real, and their successes are inspiring.

I will note that when I first began reading this book, I was turned off because the stories take place in a small town, while I now live in a large urban area with very different needs. But as I continued reading, I found that many of Estill's words apply to any community.

Open Source

One of my favorite ideas in the book is the idea of open source. Once you let go of this idea that everything must be copyrighted, everything must be owned and protected in order to make money, you become free. As you make new information available to others, they use it, improve upon it, and somehow down the line opportunities arise for you. Either you are hired as a consultant, or you have an idea that has been improved upon for free, or in some other way you are rewarded. And when you are working toward an model of sustainability, the planet is rewarded as well.

I have taken this idea to the blog world, where I no longer get angry when someone posts a blog entry of mine without asking. Because it's going out into the world, someone else is reading it, and when I let this go, usually I am somehow rewarded down the line.

I have taken this idea into the consulting world, into business relationships, and into life as a whole. It is an amazing thing. Like magic, or some would call it karma: as you give, somehow it comes back to you in a positive way.

Open source ideas quickly foster a more open community, a more open and honest society. A group of people or organizations all start working toward a common goal rather than all working against one another.

Beautiful, isn't it?

Finding Your Niche

Another beautiful idea is that a community needs a variety of people and businesses to thrive. And that as you begin living locally - and begin working toward a healthy community - people and businesses find their niches. And when you find your niche within the local economy, your own happiness rises. Your sense of well-being increases as you realize your positive and necessary contribution to society.

As we go further into debt and economic security throughout the world, nurturing our small, local, sustainable businesses and infrastructure will become increasingly important. It is our local economy that insulates us, it is our local infrastructure that protects us, it is our local community that sustains us.

I recommend this book. 4/5 stars. (Note: since it reads so quickly, I recommend checking it out at the library rather than purchasing it!)

** From here I plan to move on to more reading about local economies, so if anyone has any recommendations please let me know!! **

Book Review: Holy Cows and Hog Heaven

Remember that chick, Burbanmom? The funny one with the blog, Going Green, about small environmental changes us average Americans can make? The one who hung up her keyboard last week? She's been nice enough to stick a toe out of retirement to write a review for The Blogging Bookworm on a recent Joel Salatin book. Thank you, Burbs!

I recently joined the Richmond buying club for Polyface farms and was surprised to see that, along with fresh, grass-fed beef and pigerator pork, I was able to purchase Joel’s books as well. I’ve been wanting to read his work, but alas, my local library doesn’t stock Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal or Pastured Poultry Profits. So I was beyond tickled when I picked up my order and saw that they had comped me the book, Holy Cows and Hog Heaven: The Food Buyer's Guide to Farm Friendly Food, as a “New Customer Welcome Gift”. Truly nice folks, these Salatins!

Holy Cows and Hog Heaven gives you a peak into the workings of a local farm – very similar to The Omnivore’s Dilemma. However, one big plus to this book is that, in addition to detailing the difficulties faced by both consumers and America’s small farmers, it gives you – the consumer – definitive actions you can take to help ensure a sustainable food supply.

The book is a pretty quick read – I gobbled it down before I had even thawed out my first steak. It is broken down into bite-sized chapters that can easily be read while hiding in the bathroom – a big plus for a mom who likes to multitask while hiding from her kids. The writing is simple and colloquial, and Joel injects quite a bit of humor into the book. I felt as though I was sitting at the farmhouse kitchen table with him, enjoying a cup of coffee and discussing the ins and outs of his farm practices vs. the industrial food chain. In fact, many of the conversations felt eerily similar to ones I’ve had with my Dad – about how life was for him growing up and about how the government and big business has dramatically altered our relationship with food.

Some of the topics covered in the book include: What a farm friendly producer is - and how to tell if you’re buying from one; Why you should seek out farm friendly foods and, alternatively, why you should avoid the industrial food supply chain whenever possible; How to be a good farm-friendly patron; and How the industrial food manufacturers have created such a heavily regulated system that it is difficult, if not damn near impossible, for local farmers to sell their products directly to the consumers who want them.

Joel introduces a number of great ideas regarding policy shifts that he feels should be made to ensure a safer food system for America, and I agree with most of them. Decentralization of our food supply, transparency of our food chain, elimination of routine hormone injections and antibiotic in feed, returning our cows and pigs to their natural diet and so on. I was nodding my head in agreement through most of the book. There is, however, one point of contention I have with his ideals. Joel believes that the entire food industry is too laden with regulations to allow the small farmer to make a living selling his products directly to the consumer and so he calls for the removal of the current food safety regulations. His argument is that the good, clean farmers will do well because they will earn the trust of the consumers. As he puts it “I realize that many of you liberals who never saw a regulation you didn’t like may be suffering a stroke right now…”. Which, of course, made me laugh my ass off because I’m a huge bleeding-heart who does, in fact, love a good regulation as much as the next democrat. And I do disagree with his solution. I think MORE regulation is needed. Let me explain:

I shudder to think how many people will fall ill after buying from a “dirty” farmer before they decide he is not trustworthy. People should not have to play Russian roulette with their food and the government does need to bear some responsibility for checking food safety before the consumer pays the price. However, if the barriers to market entry are so great that a small family farm cannot operate, then I agree - something is wrong with the system. But we cannot remove the existing regulations that provide a minimal safeguard against the unhealthy practices of the industrial food industry. We’ve just recently witnessed what deregulation can do to a profit-driven Wall Street firm and I really wouldn’t want to see how that same greed and lack of regulation would wreak havoc with our food supply. Instead, what I feel we need to do is legislate a different set of regulations for the small, family-owned farm. One that takes into account the economies of small-scale farms and one that is based, as Joel suggests, on objective safety data, not regulations concocted in the sanitary confines of the House of Representatives. Similar to the differences between small businesses and corporations, we need to reduce the bureaucracy for family farmers, while still providing consumers with legislative rules for the large corporations who would have us dining on shit and hormones the rest of our lives, if it turned a profit.

Bottom line - I like this book a lot. He doesn’t talk down to me, doesn’t bullshit me, just tells me how a sustainable farmer sees things. He provides excellent resources for those looking to source out local foods and, again, I LOVE that he ends each chapter with specific actions YOU, as a consumer, can take.

Like me, Joel believes in the power each of us has, as individuals, to change the current system by simply opting out of the factory-farm food chain. He also is human enough to admit that “I enjoy a Snickers bar every now and then. And M&Ms won’t be hiding from me at a Christmas shindig. And I’ve even been known to eat a fast food meal – not at McDonald’s – once in a blue moon… But each of us, in some way, can affect the ultimate triumph of one of these two food systems.”

“My goal for each of us would be that we would at least think, at least break stride, before patronizing the industrial fare… we think about the environment, the plights of plants and animals, the nutrition of our families, we have a responsibility to act in accordance with some moral and ethical discernment. None of us will ever be 100 percent consistent. But we can aspire to be 50 percent. Or 60 percent.”

Sounds like a great goal to me. As I’ve said a million times – life is not an All or Nothing proposition. You do what you can to make a difference in this world – but you don’t make yourself crazy aiming for perfection.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is looking to opt out (or wonders why we should) of the American industrial food economy and needs a little direction. It also a great reminder to those of us who’ve already opted out that it’s important to shop LOCAL and not just organic.

Joel’s books can be purchased at http://www.polyfacefarms.com/ or through Powell's Books. I think I’ll be donating mine to the County Library so others can enjoy it.

Rating: If I consider “To Kill A Mockingbird” a “5” and Danielle Steele novels to be “1”s, I guess I’d give it a 4. Entertaining and fun, but you probably wouldn’t get Gregory Peck to play the lead.

Book Review: Crimes Against Nature

With politics dominating the headlines everywhere, why not also The Blogging Bookworm? Our guest green pundit, Bobbi from To Live Local recently polished off Robert Kennedy, Jr.'s book about the Bush Presidency and its impact on the environment. Thank you for sharing with us, Bobbi.

With President Bush deep into what I, as the mother of teenagers, call ‘senioritus’, you might ask why you should read Crimes Against Nature by Robert Kennedy, Jr. now, a book about what Bush and his oil buddies did. Even I asked myself that question, other than that the book was free (at the library) and small (my patience for tomes not what it once was). But it’s clear to me that I need a foundation to my growing political action. I need to understand about endangered species, the effects of strip mining in West Virginia, and the nuclear power plant meltdown just miles from my parents’ home in the West San Fernando Valley and the cancer it caused so many neighbors, including my parents and sister. How did the Republican administrations hack away at our freedoms through the rape and pillage of our resources?

Kennedy’s New York Times best seller meticulously lays down the case for how corporate cronyism got put into place so that government, ‘the problem’ to Reagan era Republicans, could be drowned in the bathtub. Read it and learn exactly how corporate types from the oil, gas, coal and nuclear industries were appointed as regulators to protect their own from ‘We the People.’ Rollbacks out of view from the public, manipulating and suppressing scientific data, intimidating enforcement officials and masking it in Orwellian doublespeak – it’s all here in well written detail. Kennedy has a highly readable style and while you may not be able to retain each reference, the overall effect is compelling.

Kennedy starts with a discussion of “the ‘public trust’ or commons – those shared resources that cannot be reduced to private property, including the air, flowing water, public lands, wandering animals, fisheries, wetlands and aquifers.” Some of the first acts of tyrants are handing over the public trust assets to private hands, the privatization of the commons. Indeed, “the legendary outlaw Robin Hood became a potent symbol of defiance against King John’s efforts to reserve England’s deer and wildlife for the privileged classes. When King John attempted to sell off the country’s fisheries and to erect navigational tolls on the Thames, the public rose up and confronted him at Runnymede in 1215, forcing him to sign the Magna Carta, which includes provisions guaranteeing the rights of free access to fisheries and waters.”

Kennedy builds his case, like the environmental lawyer he is, layer upon layer. Just his patience in pursuing legal means astounds me. I’d be pulling my hair out.

Here are some more quotes:

“You show me a polluter and I’ll show you a subsidy. I’ll show you a fat cat using political clout to escape the discipline of the free market and load his production costs onto the backs of the public…free market capitalism is the best thing that could happen to our environment, our economy, our country….free markets, when allowed to function, properly value raw materials and encourage producers to eliminate waste – pollution – by reducing, reusing and recycling…Corporate capitalists don’t want free markets, they want dependable profits, and their surest route is to crush the competition by controlling the government. The domination of our government by large corporations leads to the elimination of markets and, ultimately, to the loss of democracy.”

And the final paragraphs may goad you to action as they did me.

“Generations of Americans will pay for the Republican campaign debt to the energy industry and other big polluters with global instability, depleted national coffers and increased vulnerability to oil-market price shocks. They will also pay with reduced prosperity and quality of life at home. Pollution from power plants and traffic smog will continue to skyrocket. Carbon dioxide emissions will aggravate global warming. Acid rain and mercury will continue to sterilize our lakes, poison our fish, and sicken our people. The administration’s attacks on science and the law have put something perhaps even greater at risk – our values and our democracy.

George W. Bush and his court are treating our country as a grab bag for the robber barons, doling out the commons to giant polluters. Together they are cashing in or air, water, aquifers, wildlife and public lands and divvying up the loot. They are turning our politicians into indentured servants who repay campaign contributions with taxpayer-funded subsidies and lucrative contracts and reign in law enforcement against a booming corporate crime wave.

If they knew the truth, most American would share my fury that this president is allowing his corporate cronies to steal American from our children.”

Though it may feel like today’s headlines, the copyright on this book is 2004. As we continue to twist in the wind of the ongoing and unbelievable financial debacle, I know why I needed to read “Crimes Against Nature” and why I would suggest you do too. We’re going to be living with the results of the last 30 years for a long, long time. In order to undo the mess, we’ll have to remember the revolutionary stuff we come from and become the leaders we need or find some to follow since it’s so painfully obvious that we have none.

Here’s a UC Television clip of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. talking about his book. I’d line up behind him.

Rating: 3.5 - 4 out of 5. Highly readable, not dry, with a touch of biting humor, passionate. He makes a case, theme stated at the beginning and the end, years of accumulating evidence presented in between. Be willing to take the journey with him.

Recommended: Dark green, perhaps a kelly. Definitely for the partisan. Excellent grounding for political junkies and activists. Aside from being a Kennedy, he's a well respected, major player in the movement.

Book Review: Mountains Beyond Mountains

Our guest reviewer today comes from the midwestern United States. Joyce works on staff in the music ministry at her church in Savoy, Illinois. She read "Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World" on my recommendation, and I read it on kale for sale’s! With Haiti so much in the news recently, I thought it was a really appropriate book to review. Joyce reports that the president of the University of Illinois recently gave a copy of this book to every incoming freshman. Here's what Joyce thought of it.

While I was on vacation, I read "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder. This is a very thought provoking piece of non-fiction about a physician and anthropologist, Paul Farmer who is one of the founding members of Partners In Health, an organization which directs attention, money, and service toward the very poorest people on earth.

Farmer says there are two kinds of poverty: relative poverty, which we see primarily in the developed countries such as our own; and abject poverty, which is found in underdeveloped countries. The former is exemplified by those who are certainly restricted from higher education, full-service medical care, excellent nutrition, and comfortable housing by inadequate income and education. However, there is still a safety net in the form of food stamps, subsidized housing, universal primary education, and emergency medical treatment. When we think of the kind of poverty that was revealed by Hurricane Katrina, it was this kind of relative poverty. Certainly these people live in very trying circumstances, and feel marginalized in our affluent culture.

The latter, who are the focus of Farmer and his organization, have no safely net. They lack shoes, potable water, access to even basic education and medical care, their housing is totally inadequate (i.e., dirt floors, leaking roofs, no insect screens, no furniture, etc.), they are landless and often disenfranchised by completely dysfunctional governmental and cultural systems. For Farmer, the people of Haiti best exemplify this kind of poverty, and that country has been his primary focus.

Farmer had a very non-traditional upbringing, and, as an adult, practices Christianity in a non-traditional, though Biblically driven way. Many Christians would struggle with his salty language and some other eccentricities of his life-style. However, it would be hard to argue against the fact that he is one of the few who is absolutely focused on living out the teachings of Matthew 25- "Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."- meaning that he focuses on serving those who are hungry, thirsty, strangers, naked, sick, or in prison. He has used his education and the connections formed by his time at Duke and Harvard to bring attention and help to these afflicted people.

While others in Partners In Health chose to work with the big picture by bringing their needs to the attention of the World Health Organization or the Gates Foundation, Farmer has always been known for his personal attention to the individuals he treats. He argues that healing someone, then sending them back to the very conditions that caused their illness in the first place (malnutrition, impure drinking water, constant exposure to malarial mosquitoes, etc.) is a fool's errand. He takes a holistic approach to medical intervention. While he has long been one of the top experts on TB, he has also taken his methodology into the AIDS epidemic, including the explosion of cases of both diseases in the prison system of the former Soviet countries. He sees prisoners as humans in need of healing, no matter how monstrous their crimes, and is unique in his ability to rally a staid international medical establishment to tackle issues that most would not care to think about.

I found this book, and Farmer himself, inspiring. He will challenge you on every level to think about your prejudices, phobias, and political philosophies. You will, perhaps for the first time, realize what one individual can do to make a difference of global significance. You will wonder what you could be doing yourself. Your eyes will be opened, your comfort afflicted by what you read. I recommend it to everyone. 5 out of 5 stars.

Book Review: Uncertain Peril: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Seeds

I got excited last month when I read a one liner that Audrey at Eat Local Northwest had read Uncertain Peril. I waited for her to post a review of the book. And I waited. And waited. Until I couldn't wait anymore and simply asked her if she would. Well, she had written a review for her community garden newsletter but hadn't posted the review on her blog. I'm so glad I asked her about it. Here's her review and it's beautiful and smart. Thank you, Audrey.

Seeds have fallen into the wrong hands, writes Claire Cummings in Uncertain Peril: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Seeds.

What’s that again? You don’t think of seeds as something that would interest greedy multinational corporations, their armies of lawyers, and the U.S. government? Think twice. Seeds have always had a hand in destiny, since their genes direct how tall a plant grows, what kind of fruit it bears, and when it dies. A century ago humans began manipulating these genes to obtain better and hardier crops like hybrid corn.

Lately though genetic manipulation has taken a dark turn. Seed companies are deploying genetic modification to design novel plants to foster dependence on their products. Such altered seeds are known, of course, as GMOs. There’s Monsanto's Roundup Ready corn, a plant that isn’t affected by spraying with Roundup, Monsanto's best selling weed killer. And there are seeds with so-called terminator genes, whose plants grow sterile seeds, thus forcing farmers to purchase new seed every year.

Cummings reports on just how the US government has nurtured GMOs, issuing patents for individual genes and enabling multinationals to sue farmers wherever the modified genes appear in native crop populations – which can happen anytime wind carries pollen. Cummings tells how American food aid to impoverished countries not infrequently includes GMO wheat and corn seed rejected by North American growers. How the first provisional governor in Iraq, Paul Bremer, paved way for the entry of GMO seeds not long after Iraq’s seed bank was destroyed by American bombers.

This book is a wonky polemic, and Cummings takes the unrelenting position that GMOs are destroying civilization as we know it. Is she fair and balanced? I’m not convinced, in spite of Cummings’ credentials as a former USDA lawyer. Clearly there are downsides to GMOs and much that we just don’t know, both good reasons for caution. But consider a story like local do-gooder Bill Gates’ recent $17 million donation towards GMO sorghum for Africa, a food that was specifically engineered to be richer in vitamins A & E, amino acids, iron, and zinc. Is this just another boondoggle for agribusiness? Possibly, but since no one’s yet solved the most serious food problems of our time, I’m interested in hearing alternate perspectives on GMOs and those simply can’t be found in this book.

On a personal note, I picked up Uncertain Peril not long after a friend gave me a dozen Romano bean seeds, which she’d received from a dying eighty-nine year old neighbor who grew them all his life. He in turn had gotten them from his childhood pals, Italian immigrants whose families had grown the beans organically for hundreds of years.

So I read Cummings’ book while sprouting my friend’s Romanos and I got inspired, even if her punchline is sort of predictable – that organic growing can redeem us. I’ll be saving Romano seed this fall and want to try exchanging mine with others who save, if I can get viable stock. Because the alternative is a multinational corporation telling me what to eat. No thanks.

4 of 5 stars

Book Review: A Year Without MADE IN CHINA

I first heard of this book on an NPR radio interview and given my interest in all things local and therefore those things not local have been curious about it ever since. I raced to Megan's blog, Fix, when I saw she had reviewed it and asked if she was up for a guest post here. She was and here it is, in an extended version of her original review. Thank you, Megan! And per her review, just in time for some end of summer reading.

A Year Without "MADE IN CHINA," Sara Bongiorni's witty, very readable chronicle of her family's year boycotting goods from China, isn't exactly a green read, falling into the slightly outlying anti-consumerism category that interests eco-readers all the same. It's not clear why Bongiorni embarks on her experiment: she expresses exhaustion from all the plastic crap creeping into her home and a desire to see just how difficult it is to buy things from places other than China. She doesn't have any major revelations, just neurotic obsessing about China and funny anecdotes about her two kids and husband. It's a lot like 'Not Buying It', arranged by the months of the year but lacking Judith Levine's subtle pathos and pointed philosophic moments.

I was astonished by the amounts of crap (Chinese or not) Bongiorni and her husband declared they absolutely had to have, especially for their kids. Plastic Halloween decorations? Squirt guns? Either her freelance writing job and her husband's academic position are unlike any other in America, or they're in a mountain of plastic-induced debt - every time they go to Target, they walk away with a huge pile, seemingly everything in the store that's not from China.

Bongiorni is surprisingly un-self-aware about this fact and others, one of the major shortcomings of the book. She doesn't delve very deeply into the economic inequalities between the US and the rest of the world, nor does she often recognize her place in the equation. Once in a while, she expresses regret about inflicting some kind of punishment on a faceless Chinese worker, but the book completely lacks a discussion of the changing Chinese economy and what this means for China's citizens. To be fair, Bongiorni admits that every American replicating her experiment would seriously reverberate throughout the world she's not proposing it as a solution. She certainly succeeds at writing an entertaining book about her individual family's experience and probably edited out historical and philosophical background in order to keep it light.

But here's where the lack of clarity on the family's intentions for the experiment weaken its impact, in my opinion. Bongiorni's not not buying from China in order to protest the effects Chinese manufacturing have had on the environment. She's not not buying from China in order to discuss unfair labor conditions or human rights. She's not not buying from China in order to examine the effect exporting manufacturing and manufacturing jobs has had on the American economy. She's not even not buying from China in order to investigate the energy and resources that go into making and transporting plastic crap in general. She just not buying from China and laughing about it. And you will too.

Rating: 3 out 5 stars, owing to the book's lack of hard facts about making stuff in and exporting stuff from China. This probably made it much more fun to read. I literally couldn't put it down!

Recommended for newly green readers, though the book doesn't itself supply the connections between environmentalism and consumerism.

Also recommended for more experienced green readers, who can supply these connections and enjoy a breezy summer read for once.

Book Review: Bad Land

Here is a special guest post from someone who is APLS-tastic. Melissa, who blogs at Better Living, picked up this book for a book club discussion and was surprised to find that it was ecologically relevant and eye opening. Melissa, thank you for sharing your thoughts on Bad Land.

Bad Land: An American Romance by Jonathan Raban is an intriguing look at the movement of large numbers of families to the Great American Desert – Eastern Montana – in the early twentieth century. It’s a look at a period in American history that I knew essentially nothing about prior to this green read.

What makes this a “green” book? It may not have been intended as such, but it’s basically a look at a human effort to force the earth in this region to sustain a larger population than it was capable of. The US Congress of the day teamed up with the railroad companies to use the promise of land ownership to lure families to the region. Plots of 320 acres were given to virtually anybody willing to undertake the adventure. Even this amount of land usually proved not enough to sustain a family(!). There wasn’t enough reliable rainfall, and the quality of the soil was not of a high enough quality to farm in the manner attempted. In the end, most of the families who settled here left within little more than two decades with a sense of profound failure and bitterness.

It was almost eerie how many parallels there are between the experience of these homesteaders and modern American society. The first was the heavy reliance on credit to buy things that one could not afford. Instead of flat screen televisions and fast cars, it was newer and fancier tractors and farming equipment, but the inability to repay bank loans proved a major downfall for many of these families. Farm machinery was heavily marketed to the homesteaders, and there was always a newer, prettier, shinier model to strive for – the homesteaders version of keeping up with the Jones’. Raban attributes this mentality to the idea that “Self-sufficiency is politically dangerous. Good citizens need to meet monthly payments…[there] was powerful government encouragement to farmers to get into as much debt as they could manage to service.” Sound familiar?

It was well known that the Great American Desert had never produced the amount of crops that were being promised to the homesteaders, but a new science of soil was touted as the wonder child that would allow man to overcome nature. (GMOs anybody?) In the end, this method proved to be not only unsuccessful but in fact ended up stripping what precious little topsoil did exist on the land, making farming after the first few years next to impossible.

Facing starvation and living in poverty during the Great Depression, the homesteaders left en masse for greener pastures. It was later realized that rather than the 320 acres given to each family, the amount of land realistically needed to sustain a family in this region was closer to 3,840 acres – meaning that the land could feed less than one tenth of the number of people that had originally been convinced to migrate there.

There were a few promising messages to be taken from the book, one of which was the importance of community to the survival of these farms. Shared labor, tools, and resources were all vital to these homesteaders. Many people aiming to live a more sustainable lifestyle in modern society have recognized the importance of community building as an effort to reduce the impact of our modern lifestyles.

There is also a discussion of how those few who did remain on the family homesteads live an especially frugal lifestyle, and avoided the consumerism that many of their former neighbors fell prey to. Raban writes that the current homesteaders he met were not “self-consciously reverencing the past. They simply disliked throwing things away and lived convivially with the past because it was still serviceable.”

Those who attempted to make a life in the Great American Desert “tried to shape it according to their imported ideas of science, progress, community, landscape.” In the end, they were forced to acknowledge that “The land would wear just so much architecture and society, and no more. In the platonic republic of the United States, the land of limitless imagining…nature was not supposed to dictate the terms on which mankind could live with it. Of course, nature often struck petulantly back at man, with earthquakes, floods, hurricanes and fires” – it was near starvation and poverty that forced the homesteaders to make this realization. For the sake of all of us, I hope that those of us living on this planet today come to this same realization before it is too late.

Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars. Recommended for: at least medium green readers, or history lovers.

Book Review: Big Green Purse

Today we have a guest post from Joce, also known as JAM. She is a stay-at-home mom raising two school-age daughters and a bunch of chickens in New England. She's new to the blogging world and we're so glad you found us, Joce!

As I’ve been making changes in my own life, and reading more eco-books, I’ve started to be a bit more critical of many of the ones I read. In other words, it’s taking more and more to impress me! I was prepared to be disappointed by Big Green Purse: Use Your Spending Power to Create a Cleaner, Greener World for a few reasons - I thought it would be another consumerist guide to relieve guilt by buying more and more “green” items, and because my husband just plucked it off the new book shelf at the library – it wasn’t one that I had heard of and requested. But this book, but Diane MacEachern, was a happy surprise.

The author, who also wrote Save Our Planet: 750 Everyday Ways You Can Help Clean Up the Earth, is not only an environmental writer, she has advised the EPA, the World Bank, the WWF and more on protecting the planet. She also walks the walk, having built an eco-friendly house in Washington D.C. over twenty years ago. She has an engaging writing style which is easy to read and she comes across as very likeable, in my opinion.

The premise of the book is not to buy, buy, buy (a relief right there!) But it does acknowledge that even if we try to live a green lifestyle, we obviously do have to buy a lot – food, transportation, things for shelter, things for pleasure, etc. The book states that 75% of the dollars spent in America are controlled by women, so this book is targeted to women although anyone who makes purchasing decisions could benefit from it. I believe it is also targeted to women because women tend more to change their habits based on information, if they feel it is important and worthwhile. This isn’t a slam on men, but in my experience men tend to buy what they’ve always bought, or use price more as a determining factor, and women are more likely to stop and think about the impact of their purchases. This might be more of a reflection on the men I know, so if your men are super aware, know that I’m not talking about them!

The book starts with a complete summary of climate change - talking about chemicals in the environment, what’s happening to wildlife, water, forests, and air. It explains the Precautionary Principle, which states that “we should not wait to protect ourselves or the planet until we’re absolutely positive, from a scientific point of view, that certain products or activities…can indeed do damage …When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken, even if some cause-and-effect relationships are not fully established scientifically.”

The next chapter of the book explains the seven Big Green Purse Shopping Principles. They are:
Buy less
Read the label
Support sustainable standards
Look for third-party verification
Choose fewer ingredients
Pick less packaging
Buy local

There is a great emphasis on not buying - either borrowing, renting, making do with something else, or realizing something isn’t needed. That was really good to read.

The rest of the book is divided into chapters which cover different areas of purchasing –
Cosmetics and personal-care products
Cars
Coffee, tea, cocoa, and chocolate
Fruits, veggies, dairy, meat, poultry and seafood
Cleaners
Clothing, accessories and jewelry
Lawn, garden and patio
Baby and Children’s food, gear and toys
Lights, appliances and electronics
Furniture, paint, flooring and fabrics

Each of these chapters talks about ways to determine what you really need, figure out the best way to procure it, and gives a lot of details to back everything up.

Interspersed throughout the book are personal anecdotes of what the author does in her own life, spotlights on companies that are particularly good for the environment, as well as noting those you should avoid, and hints for greening the workplace. It also highlights changes that women can make immediately, green choices that are cheaper than the non-green alternatives, and suggestions of what to say to store managers to ask for more green options.

One thing I found particularly helpful was the lists of good eco-brands, especially in the personal-care products and cleaners category. This may get out of date reasonably soon, but for now it’s great to have a list of brands where she’s already done the research. She also warns about greenwashing, and shows readers how to tell the difference between claims that have nothing to back them up, and those that do.

There are a few things I wish were in there that aren’t – anti-perspirants with aluminum are to be avoided, but there aren’t any options given for women (although a few are given for men). Some of the green options are given without explanation that they’re not really equivalent to the traditional – for example, solar ovens are suggested as replacements for grills, and while she does say they cook “more slowly” and don’t give a grilled flavor, from reading Chile’s experience with solar ovens, I think “more slowly” is an understatement and many of us do not live in regions of the country where we get enough sun and heat for solar ovens to be practical. But these are pretty small quibbles – overall I really enjoyed the book and thought it had a lot of good information. It would not be overwhelming to a newly green reader, but it’s not too simplified for someone who has been moving toward a more sustainable lifestyle for a while already.

I would recommend this book, giving it 4 out of 5 stars, and best for light to medium green readers. If you’re already dark green, you may not learn too much but I think you would still enjoy reading it. If you purchase the book, I think you’ll refer to it when you need to buy your next laundry detergent or bottle of shampoo, and if you get it from the library, you might want to jot down a few good companies to keep in mind when you do need to stock up.

Book Review: Blue Gold

Are you pondering what book to read next? Ponder no more. Theresa from Pondering the Myriad Things tends to write well thought out, insightful book reviews about truly interesting green reads. That was why I asked her to be our next guest reviewer. She does not disappoint here with a powerful review of a powerful book.

For some time now I've been concerned about food issues, both personally and globally. A lot of my new learning has taken place in this area, as I figure out how to grow and store at least some of my own food, connect with my local food producers and eat a more localized diet. I'm also struggling to eat more mindfully, in appreciation of the food I am privileged to have available to me.

While I've been learning and doing those things, my husband Gord has been quite interested in things to do with water, and so it was he who bought and read this particular book about a year ago. It's been sitting around the house since then, beckoning me, but it was Green Bean's Be a Bookworm Challenge in May of this year that gave me the final motivation I needed to dive into this book at last. And now I think that water issues just might be my own personal Greenpa-esque "iceberg" to push on, since....well, you can't have food without water. It just doesn't get any more essential than water.

Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World's Water was published in 2002 and it is written by two Canadian authors, Maude Barlow (founder of the Blue Planet Project) and Tony Clarke (Executive Director of the Polaris Institute). It is chock full of both Canadian and international examples of the problems related to the commodification of water. The book's main premise is that since the year 2000, when water was deemed by The Hague's World Water Forum to be a human "need" but not a human "right," water became just another commodity, for sale like anything else.

The authors point out that the travesty of this Forum was that while it was touted to be a global government initiative, in reality it was "convened by big business lobby organizations...and the discussions focused on how companies could benefit from selling water to markets around the world (p.79)." Companies like Vivendi and Suez, the world's biggest private water 'service' organizations, as well as the conglomerates of Nestle and Unilever were in attendance. The conveners of the Forum pushed hard to have water declared a need, not a right, so they could have the authority to provide water 'services' on a for-profit basis, to those who could pay for it. If water had been declared a human right, then governments would have been responsible for ensuring that all people, regardless of the ability to pay, would have access to clean, safe water supplies. The authors point out that, "the story of what happened at the World Water Forum is the story of the separation of water from the land and from 'the commons' to which it belongs (p. 80).

"The book is divided into three large sections: The world's water supply crisis, the politics of water and its sale and distribution, and some principles and ideas as to how citizens can reclaim water as part of the public commons.

World Water Crisis: In the first section, the authors describe the life-giving nature of water and how ancient peoples knew how important water was to their very survival. Water and its symbolism have entered into most religious and spiritual traditions, for good reason. For most of history, humans have been acutely aware of their need for water and have treated it respectfully and conserved it carefully as a result. But in more recent history humans have treated water with the same exploitative attitude as they treat fossil fuels and the soil. We extract more and more water from underground aquifers as we continue to pollute our surface water (rivers, lakes, streams, wetlands, etc.). The authors note that "31 countries in the world are currently facing water stress and scarcity (p. 24)." They foresee that by the year 2025, two thirds (!) of the world's population will be "living in conditions of serious water shortage (p. 24)." "Aquifer overdrafts, massive urbanization, and unchecked pollution are withdrawing supplies for the world's water account, just when we need to be saving more (p. 25)." The authors go on to describe the numerous problems with wetland degradation, toxic runoff and other forms environmental damage that are compromising the remaining supplies of fresh water. The Alberta Tar Sands are one example cited of this type of damage; every year the tar sands projects deplete enough fresh water to supply a city of 70 thousand people for 20 years! And the water can't be returned to the watershed where it came from, because "it contains concentrated levels of minerals, as well as pollutants from the oil-drilling process (p. 14)."

The Politics of Water: In the second section, the authors describe in detail how agreements like NAFTA, the upcoming FTAA and other free trade arrangements (some out in the open, some behind the scenes) have set the stage for transnational conglomerates like Vivendi, Suez, Enron and RWE-Thames to obtain government contracts to provide their citizens with 'water services.' These contracts have certain profit margins in them that are guaranteed by the government of the country in question - paid for by citizens' taxes of course. Then, when the government insists that the company meets its contractual obligations (i.e., that water and sewer services be provided to all citizens, not just the ones who can afford it), the companies raise water prices to ensure their profit levels are maintained. Soon, only the rich can afford clean and safe water. The water and sewer services of many people get worse. And to add insult to injury, the water corporations are even enabled, by the free trade agreements, to sue governments of sovereign nations for impeding the free flow of commercial trade! Some governments (e.g., Bolivia), with the help of massive citizen uprisings, have been able to cancel the contracts and boot out the water company, but this hasn't happened very often. The World Trade Organization and the World Bank and International Monetary Fund are also large contributors to the problem. These organizations have made it compulsory that countries privatize their water systems in order to comply with 'development' goals set as part of their international aid and debt restructuring processes.

This, the second major section of the book was particularly maddening and disheartening. There was just case after case cited about how multinational corporations and agencies such as the WTO, IMF, World Bank and even the UN "serve to transfer political power from governments to corporations" (p. 175). Everything is for sale. They also talk about the destruction wreaked by international dam projects, George W. Bush's plan for a North American Water Corridor (i.e., redirecting north-flowing water towards the south) and companies like Coke and Pepsi who are repeatedly draining the aquifers of places in the developing world in order to keep making and selling their carbonated beverages. They cite one horrifying example where a mother can't afford enough water to drink, so she has little in the way of breast milk for her child, and the child is instead fed with Coke.

The Way Forward: The third section of the book focuses on how to shift our relationship with water and what collective action we can take. It outlines some of the things citizens and countries have been able to do to stop the privatization of their water supply and what citizens need to demand of their politicians before it is too late. Water is too important to life on the planet to be subordinated to the principles of the marketplace. The authors state, "Water must be declared and understood for all time to be common property. In a world where everything is being privatized, citizens must establish clear perimeters around those areas that are sacred to life or necessary for social and economic justice. Equal access to water is absolutely central to both life and justice." (p. 208)

The authors stress that we humans must renew our ties with nature and once again revere water's sacred place in it. They have developed ten principles on which humanity can proceed toward this new water ethic:

1) Water belongs to the earth and to all species.
2) Water should be left where it is wherever possible.
3) Water must be conserved for all time.
4) Polluted water must be reclaimed.
5) Water is best protected in natural watersheds.
6) Water is a public trust, to be guarded by all levels of
government.
7) Access to an adequate supply of clean water is a basic human
right.
8) The best advocates for water are local communities and citizens.
9) The public must participate as an equal partner with governments to
protect water.
10) Economic globalization policies are not water-sustainable. (p.221)

The authors conclude the book with a chapter on what people can do to move the world and its governments toward acknowledging these ten principles and actually changing how they handle water-related issues. Most of the methods they propose involve communities and countries taking political action in the form of, for example, supporting the anti-dam movement, opposing commercial trade in water, fighting for national water protection acts, and consistently confronting the IMF and the World Bank. The authors have what they call a 'beautiful dream:' that resolution of water issues in the world through the community-based enactment of the ten principles actions will:

become the source of global peace....finally humanity will bow before Nature
and learn to live at peace within the limits Nature gives us and with one
another; and that through our work together, the peoples of the world will
declare that the sacred waters of life are the common property of the earth and
all species, to be preserved for generations to come (p. 250).

I found this book to be densely packed with information -- so densely packed that it took me over two months to work my way through it. The information in the book is very precise and specific, and the authors are clearly dedicated and passionate about their work. They make a powerful case for an urgent and pressing water crisis that could well take most of humanity by surprise if we don't act soon (especially since the world is more focused on oil than on water these days). But a major drawback of the book, as I see it, is that its clarion call for change is getting buried under the overwhelming mounds of information it contains. In reading this book from cover to cover, you can't help but sense the urgency of the problem. But because of its density, I don't think many people will read the book all the way through unless they are specifically researching water issues or are just determined to get through it one way or the other (like anyone who is still reading this review!). Let's just say it didn't take long for me to clue in to why this book was in the bargain bin when Gord bought it. This is too bad, because it is an important book with a vital warning.

A second drawback of the book is its lack of information on what individuals can do to change their relationship with and usage of water. This may be because the authors are focusing on more coordinated community efforts, but I was 'thirsting' for some information on what I could do myself right now other than just stop drinking bottled water altogether, boycotting Coke and Pepsi, and stepping up my overall water conservation efforts. On the other hand, maybe it's up to each one of us to decide how the author's ten principles can best be enacted in our own lives, households and bioregions.

In rating this book, I'd give it a 3 out of 5 for readability, but a 5 out of 5 for comprehensiveness, and I'd recommend it for moderate or heavy duty green reading.

At the risk of waxing on far too long, I leave you with my favorite chapter of the Tao Te Ching in the spirit of rekindling our appreciation for the deep sacredness of water:

The highest goodness resembles water
Water greatly benefits myriad things without contention
It stays in places that people dislike
Therefore it is similar to the Tao
Dwelling with the right location
Feeling with great depth
Giving with great kindness
Speaking with great integrity
Governing with great administration
Handling with great capability
Moving with great timing
Because it does not contend
It is therefore beyond reproach

(Tao Te Ching, Chapter 8, as translated by Derek Lin)

Theresa
myriadthings.blogspot.com