#8: The Neighborhood Project

The Neighborhood Project: Using Evolution to Improve My City, One Block at a Time, by David Sloan Wilson (New York: Little, Brown, and Company, 2011)

Summary:
"After decades of studying creatures of all kinds, evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson had an epiphany: Darwin's theory won't fully prove itself until it improves the quality of human life in a practical sense. And what better place to begin than his hometown of Binghamton, New York? Making a difference in his own city would provide a model for cities everywhere, the habitats for over half the people on earth.

"Inspired to become an agent of change, Wilson descended on Binghamton with a scientist's eye and looked at its toughest questions, such as how to strengthen neighborhoods and how best to teach our children. He combined the latest research methods from experimental economics with naturalistic studies of holiday decorations and garage sales. Drawing on examples from nature as diverse as water striders, wasps, and crows, Wilson took a scientific odyssey that led him everywhere from a cave in southern Africa that preserved artifacts from the dawn of human culture to the Vatican in Rome. Along the way, he spoke with dozens of fellow scientists, whose stories he relates along with his own.

"Wilson's remarkable findings help us to understand how we must become wise managers of evolutionary processes to accomplish positive change at all scales, from effective therapies for individuals to empowering neighborhoods and regulating the worldwide economy.

"With an ambitious scope that spans biology, sociology, religion, and economics, The Neighborhood Project is a memoir, a practical handbook for improving the quality of life, and an exploration of the big questions long pondered by religious sages, philosophers, and storytellers. By approaching the same questions from an evolutionary perspective, Wilson shows, as never before, how places define us."

Table of Contents:

1. Evolution, Cities, and the World
2. My City
3. The Parable of the Strider
4. The Parable of the Wasp
5. The Maps
6. Quantifying Halloween
7. We Are Now Entering the Noosphere
8. The Parable of the Immune System
9. The Reflection
10. Street-Smart
11. The Humanist and the CEO
12. The Lost Island of Prevention Science
13. The Lecture That Failed
14. Learning from Mother Nature about Teaching Our Children
15. The World with Us
16. The Parable of the Crow
17. Our Lives, Our Genes
18. The Natural History of the Afterlife
19. Evonomics
20. Body and Soul
21. City on a Hill

My Take:
A promising but ultimately frustrating book. As the jacket summary above indicates, it's impressively broad, all right. Ever since that systems thinking class I took in grad school and the occasional behavioral economics book I've read since, I've grown a bit more used to this sort of unorthodox synthesis, but it still impresses me; I wish I could do it. (I tried in a recent job interview, and while I don't know that I failed spectacularly, I certainly didn't succeed well enough to get the offer.)

And there's so much potential here. Using the principles of evolution to study not just natural, biological phenomena, but the evolution of cultures and cities? Trying to figure out when and why what Wilson incessantly calls "the hammer blows of natural selection" select for selfish, water strider behavior and when they tend to favor the more cooperative wasp hive activity? Noting that both nature and culture resemble the immune system, with innate, inherited components that evolve very slowly and reactive, learning components capable of responding to one's environment? Assessing neighborhood quality based on how much candy kids get on Halloween? This stuff is different, fun, and entertaining to read about -- especially in Wilson's clear, well-worded prose.

And then somewhere in the middle of the book, things bog down. While I understand that setting up a whole new cross-disciplinary institute is A Big Thing, the details and name-dropping around this conference and that workshop get to be a bit tedious after a while. More irritating, in spending most of the last half of the text (with the hilarious exception of the chapter on crows) on such minutae, Wilson devotes an entire book to talking about how evolutionary principles and data gathering might be used to improve city and neighborhood quality of life without actually getting into any details about what distinguishes "hill" and "valley" neighborhoods, what interventions might help transform the latter, and whether they worked. The closest we get is a few reminders that yes, park space and nature within city limits appear to be A Good Thing ... but the concrete recommendations for improving life quality and empowering neighborhoods the promotional blurb promises are never delivered.

#63: When the Killing's Done

When the Killing's Done, by T. Coraghessan Boyle (New York: Viking, 2011)

Summary:
"Principally set on the wild and sparsely inhabited Channel Islands off the coast of Santa Barbara -- the Galapagos of North America -- T. C. Boyle's powerful new novel combines action-packed adventure with a socially conscious, richly humane tale regarding the dominion we attempt to exert, for better or worse, over the natural world."

Alma Boyd Takesue is a National Park Service biologist who is spearheading the efforts to save the islands' endangered native creatures from invasive species such as rats and feral pigs, which, in her view, must be eliminated. Her antagonist, Dave LaJoy, is a muscular, dredlocked local businessman who, along with his inamorata, the folk singer Anise Reed, is fiercely opposed to the killing of any species whatsoever, and will go to any lengths to subvert the plans of Alma and her colleagues.

"Their confrontation plays out in a series of escalating scenes in which these characters violently confront one another, contemplate acts of sabotage, court danger and tempt the awesome destructive power of nature itself. Boyle deepens his story by going back in time to relate the harrowing tale of Alma's grandmother, Beverly, who was the sole survivor of a 1946 shipwreck in the channel, as well as the tragic story of Anise's mother, Rita, who in the late 1970s lived and worked on a sheep ranch on Santa Cruz Island.

"In dramatizing this collision between protectors of the environment and animal rights activists, Boyle is, in his characteristic fashion, examining one of the essential questions of our time: who has the right of possession of the land, the waters, the very lives and breath and souls of all the creatures who share this planet with us? When the Killing's Done offers no transparent answers, but like The Tortilla Curtain, Boyle's classic take on illegal immigration, it will touch you deeply and put you in the position to decide."

Opening Line:
"Picture her there in the pinched little galley where you could barely stand up without cracking your head, her right hand raw and stinging still from the scald of the coffee she'd dutifully -- and foolishly -- tried to make so they could have something to keep them going, a good sport, always a good sport, though she'd woken up vomiting in her berth not half an hour ago."

My Take:
Liked it a lot -- I'm usually a big Boyle fan, ever since The Tortilla Curtain, and this one didn't disappoint. Complex, interesting characters; decent story line; no pretty red bow to wrap everything up at the end.

My main critique (and perhaps this is with the dust jacket writer and not with Boyle himself) is that there wasn't quite as much conflict or tension in the plot as I might have hoped for. As this Onion A.V. Club review suggests, the author's portrayal of animal rights activist Dave LaJoy isn't exactly balanced or sympathetic; he owns a chain of high-end electronics stores he's never seen actually managing or working in, holds everyone except maybe his trophy girlfriend Anise in open contempt, and (in a recalled scene of his one and only long-ago date with Alma) has no qualms about ordering bottle after bottle of a restaurant's priciest wine, only to proclaim each one unacceptable after it's opened and send it back. Nice guy. He is fun to roll your eyes at, though, and does indeed eventually get a suitably dramatic comeuppance. (As Barbara Kingsolver's New York Times review reminds us, "Boyle has elsewhere dispatched characters by the likes of meteor strike and bear consumption.")

Alma's character is far more subtly rendered, though I still might have preferred to hear a bit more about how she herself thinks and feels rather than just who her parents and grandmother were. And while it's not really a tidy red bow, or even close, her own resolution seems a wee bit too clean -- perfunctory, perhaps.

Still, an excellent book, and one I'd highly recommend to others.

#22: Wesley the Owl

Wesley the Owl: The Remarkable Story of an Owl and His Girl, by Stacey O'Brien (New York: Free Press, 2008).

Summary:
"On Valentine's Day 1985, biologist Stacey O'Brien first met a four-day-old baby barn owl -- a fateful encounter that would turn into an astonishing 19-year saga. With nerve damage in one wing, the owlet's ability to fly was forever compromised, and he had no hope of surviving on his own in the wild. O'Brien, a young assistant in the owl laboratory at Caltech, was immediately smitten, promising to care for the helpless owlet and give him a permanent home. Wesley the Owl is the funny, poignant story of their dramatic two decades together. With both a tender heart and a scientist's eye, O'Brien studied Wesley's strange habits intensively and first-hand -- and provided a mice-only diet that required her to buy the rodents in bulk (28,000 over the owl's lifetime). As Wesley grew, she snapped photos of him at every stage like any proud parent, recording his life from a helpless ball of fuzz to a playful, clumsy adolescent to a gorgeous, gold-and-white macho adult owl with a heart-shaped face and an outsize personality that belied his 18-inch stature. Stacey and Wesley's bond deepened as she discovered Wesley's individual personality, subtle emotions, and playful nature that could also turn fiercely loyal and protective -- though she could have done without Wesley's driving away her would-be human suitors! O'Brien also brings us inside the prestigious research community, a kind of scientific Hogwarts where resident owls sometimes fly freely from office to office and eccentric, brilliant scientists were extraordinarily committed to studying and helping animals; all of them were changed by the animal they loved. As O'Brien gets close to Wesley, she makes important discoveries about owl behavior, intelligence, and communication, coining the term 'The Way of the Owl' to describe his inclinations: he did not tolerate lies, held her to her promises, and provided unconditional love, though he was not beyond an occasional sulk. When O'Brien develops her own life-threatening illness, the biologist who saved the life of a helpless baby bird is herself rescued from death by the insistent love and courage of this wild animal. Enhanced by wonderful photos, Wesley the Owl is a thoroughly engaging, heartwarming, often funny story of a complex, emotional, non-human being capable of reason, play, and most important, love and loyalty. It is sure to be cherished by animal lovers everywhere."

Table of Contents:

1. The Way of the Owl
2. To That Which You Tame, You Owe Your Life
3. Owl Infancy
4. Barn Owl Toddler: Love Me, Love My Owl
5. Flying Lessons
6. Attack Kitten on Wings
7. Love to Eat Them Mousies
8. Understanding Each Other: Sound and Body Language
9. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
10. A Day in the Life of a Biologist
11. Owls Are Not Waterbirds
12. Deep Bonds
13. The Sex Tapes
14. Fifteen Years of Trust
15. Twilight: He Whom I Tamed Saves My Life
16. The End
17. After

My Take: A sweet, funny, and sad in unexpected places book. Bonus points for its actually including some interesting information about owl behavior, and for being a book Twig and I could enjoy together (well, serially, but still).

#83 - Eaarth

Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet, by Bill McKibben (New York: Times Books, 2010).

Jacket Summary: "The bestselling author of Deep Economy shows that we're living on a fundamentally altered planet -- and opens our eyes to the kind of change we'll need in order to make our civilization endure.

"Twenty years ago, with The End of Nature, Bill McKibben offered one of the earliest warnings about global warming. Those warnings went mostly unheeded; now, he insists, we need to acknowledge that we've waited too long, and that massive change is not only unavoidable but already under way. Our old familiar globe is suddenly melting, drying, acidifying, flooding, and burning in ways that no human has ever seen. We've created, in very short order, a new planet, still recognizable but fundamentally different. We may as well call it Eaarth.

"That new planet is filled with new binds and traps. A changing world costs large sums to defend -- think of the money that went to repair New Orleans, or the trillions of dollars it will take to transform our energy systems. But the endless economic growth that could underwrite such largesse depends on the stable planet we've managed to damage and degrade. We can't rely on old habits any longer.

"Our hope depends, McKibben argues, on scaling back -- on building the kind of societies and economies that can hunker down, concentrate on essentials, and create the type of community (in the neighborhood, but also on the Internet) that will allow us to weather trouble on an unprecedented scale. Change -- fundamental change -- is our best hope on a planet suddenly and violently out of balance."

Table of Contents:

• Preface
• 1. A New World
  
• 2. High Tide
  
• 3. Backing Off
• 4. Lightly, Carefully, Gracefully

My Take: It's an exaggeration, but only a small one, to call Bill McKibben my hero.

Maybe I'm a poseur, because I haven't read much -- in fact, I don't recall if I've read any -- of the environmental books for which he's most famous. I haven't read The End of Nature; I didn't read Deep Economy.

I did, however, read Maybe One several years back, and it's no exaggeration to say that book changed my life. At the time, I was quietly but painfully torn between the growing suspicion that a three-person family -- Filbert, Twig, and me -- might be what we were meant to have, and the chaotic "one kid isn't a real family" houseful of my own childhood. True to form, I read just about everything on the subject I could get my hands on. Sure, there were plenty of books and articles about how to make sure your only child turned out Normal, but Maybe One ... Maybe One was an epiphany. For the first time, a single-child family seemed less like, "well, I guess maybe we can make it work OK" and more like a conscious, positive decision -- not just for the 3 of us, but for our communities large and small. (Around the same time, Twig began grade school, and we started getting to know several other close-knit, loving, and all-around-awesome one-kid families, which didn't hurt either.)

Digression aside, I can't help wanting to read Eaarth even though I know it'll be considerably more sobering than Goon Squad. In the first chapter, McKibben explains the title and his premise thus:

"For the ten thousand years that constitute human civilization, we've existed in the sweetest of sweet spots. The temperature has barely budged: globally averaged, it's swung in the narrowest of ranges, between fifty-eight and sixty degrees Fahrenheit. That's warm enough that the ice sheets retreated from the centers of our continents so we could grow grain, but cold enough that mountain glaciers provided drinking and irrigation water to those plains and valleys year-round; it was the 'correct' temperature for the marvelously diverse planet that seems right to us. And every aspect of our civilization reflects that particular world. We built our great cities next to seas that have remained tame and level, or at altitudes high enough that disease-bearing mosquitoes could not overwinter. We refined the farming that has swelled our numbers to take full advantage of that predictable heat and rainfall; our rice and corn and wheat can't imagine another earth either. ...

"But we no longer live on that planet. ... [T]he earth has changed in profound ways, ways that have already taken us out of the sweet spot where humans so long thrived. We're every day less the oasis and more the desert. The world hasn't ended, but the world as we know it has -- even if we don't quite know it yet. We imagine we still live back on that old planet, that the disturbances we see around us are the old random and freakish kind. But they're not. It's a different place. A different planet. It needs a new name. Eaarth."

McKibben's description of this new and different planet, at the end of this same chapter, stands in start contrast to the "sweet spot" depicted above:

"The planet we inhabit has a finite number of huge physical features. Virtually all of them seem to be changing rapidly: the Arctic ice cap is melting, and the great glacier above Greenland is thinning, both with disconcerting and unexpected speed. The oceans, which cover three-fourths of the earth's surface, are distinctly more acid and their levels are rising; they are also warmer, which means the greatest storms on our planet, hurricanes and cyclones, have become more powerful. The vast inland glaciers in the Andes and Himalayas, and the giant snowpack of the American West, are melting very fast, and within decades the supply of water to the billions of people living downstream may dwindle. The great rain forest of the Amazon is drying on its margins and threatened at its core. The great boreal forest of North America is dying in a matter of years. The great storehouses of oil beneath the earth's crust are now more empty than full. Every one of these things is completely unprecedented in the ten thousand years of human civilization. And some places with civilizations that date back thousands of years -- the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, Kiribati in the Pacific, and many other island nations -- are actively preparing to lower their flags and evacuate their territory. The cedars of Lebanon -- you can read about them in the Bible -- are now listed as 'heavily threatened' by climate change. We have traveled to a new planet, propelled on a burst of carbon dioxide. That new planet, as is often the case in science fiction, looks more or less like our own but clearly isn't. I know that I'm repeating myself. I'm repeating myself on purpose. This is the biggest thing that's ever happened. ... That's life on our new planet. That's where we live now."

Nothing like a little uplifting inspirational tract to get me in the mood for the holidays, eh?

(Later, after finishing the book) Interesting and worth reading, but not sure McKibben by himself has The Solution to the climate crisis, any more than Thomas Friedman single-handedly has the answer. McKibben's take is both gloomier and less exhausting than Friedman's. Gloomier, because he's pretty clear in asserting that Friedman's call for massive investment in green innovation and technology won't cut it; 30 or 40 years ago, perhaps, but it's too late for that now. Less exhausting, because McKibben believes more localized and regionalized decision-making and sustainability (and correspondingly, less centralization) are what's called for -- particularly in the area of agriculture. (I'm already a fervent if not terribly orthodox locavore, and his description of the Farmers Diner had me practically salivating.)

He also calls for increased use of the internet to promote knowledge and diversity in a more carbon-friendly way, though I found his description of exactly how this would work somewhat fuzzy, and less compelling than the local agriculture piece. This, for me, is where the book falls short. I finished Hot, Flat, and Crowded thinking Friedman's proposal might just work, but would be darned difficult to get off the ground. McKibben's, by contrast, probably requires less momentum, but probably won't be enough on its own. Maybe it's just my own resistance to change, but the implication that the majority of people can get buy without commuting, traveling long distances, or working for large, distant corporations because after all, we have the internet unconvincing -- at least as it's presented here. In short, while I'm still a McKibben fan (and have faithfully added Deep Economy to my reading list), I think the global warming solutions presented herein are helpful and perhaps necessary, but not sufficient, for combatting climate change. (The author himself would argue that he's not hoping to reverse climate change, but merely to slow it and make the fallout easier to live with ... but my position's still the same.)

#72 - Hot, Flat, and Crowded

Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution and How It Can Renew America, by Thomas L. Friedman (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2008).

Jacket Summary: "Thomas L. Friedman's phenomenal number-one-bestseller The World Is Flat helped millions of readers to see the world in a new way. In his brilliant, essential new book, Friedman takes a fresh and provocative look at two of the biggest challenges we face today: America's surprising loss of focus and national purpose since 9/11; and the global environmental crisis, which is affecting everything from food to fuel to forests. In this groundbreaking account of where we stand now, he shows us how the solutions to these two big problems are linked -- how we can restore the world and revive America at the same time.

"Friedman explains how global warming, rapidly growing populations, and the astonishing expansion of the world's middle class through globalization have produced a planet that is 'hot, flat, and crowded.' Already the earth is being affected in ways that threaten to make it dangerously unstable. In just a few years, it will be too late to fix things -- unless the United States steps up now and takes the lead in a worldwide effort to replace our wasteful, inefficient energy practices with a strategy for clean energy, energy efficiency, and conservation that Friedman calls Code Green.

"This is a great challenge, Friedman explains, but also a great opportunity, and one that America cannot afford to miss. Not only is American leadership the key to the healing of the earth; it is also our best strategy for the renewal of America.

"In vivid, entertaining chapters, Friedman makes it clear that the green revolution we need is like no other revolution the world has seen. It will be the biggest innovation project in American history; it will be hard, not easy; and it will change everything from what you put into your car to what you see on your electric bill. But the payoff for America will be more than just cleaner air. It will inspire Americans to something we haven't seen in a long time -- nation building in American -- by summoning the intelligence, creativity, boldness, and concern for the common good that are our nation's greatest national resources."

Table of Contents:

Part I: Where We Are

• 1. Where Birds Don't Fly
• 2. Today's Date: 1 E.C.E. Today's Weather: Hot, Flat, and Crowded

Part II: How We Got Here

• 3. Our Carbon Copies (or, Too Many Americans)
• 4. Fill 'Er Up with Dictators
• 5. Global Weirding
• 6. The Age of Noah
• 7. Energy Poverty
• 8. Green Is the New Red, White, and Blue

Part III: How We Move Forward

• 9. 205 Easy Ways to Save the Earth
• 10. The Energy Internet: When IT Meets ET
• 11. The Stone Age Didn't End Because We Ran Out of Stones
• 12. If It Isn't Boring, It Isn't Green
• 13. A Million Noahs, a Million Arks
• 14. Outgreening al-Quaeda (or, Buy One, Get Four Free)

Part IV: China

• 15. Can Red China Become Green China?

Part V: America

• 16. China for a Day (but Not for Two)
• 17. A Democratic China, or a Banana Republic?

My Take: Typical Friedman (though I have only The World Is Flat to compare it to): sweeping and occasionally overwhelming, but an engaging, provocative, and well-written volume. The author does a better job than you might expect of combining climate change and American hegemony without putting the reader to sleep. No mean feat, that.

The book starts with the premise that the US and the larger geopolitical economy have one foreboding thing in common: namely, right now, it looks like their best days are behind them. On the international stage, Friedman summarizes his earlier argument about the world's being flat: with the technological advances and the collapse of Soviet-style Communism we've seen over the last few decades, we have a more level global playing field, which increasingly allows workers in China, India, and elsewhere to compete for the same good jobs and aspire to the same high-consumption lifestyle that was once the exclusive providence of North America and Western Europe. On top of this, he suggests, it's also become hot and crowded, i.e., affected by global warming, and more heavily populated. Friedman expands upon the oft-cited fact that the world's population is expected to exceed 9 billion by 2050 with some alarming details: nearly 8 billion of these people will live in developing countries, and the bulk of this growth is expected to show up in the developing world's smaller cities, which already lack the infrastructure to support current populations. Closer to home, we in the U.S. have become steadily more disconnected from what's going on in the larger, warmer and flatter world, and too bogged down in petty red state-blue state cat fighting to tackle significant domestic issues (let alone international ones).

Those of us (or more accurately, those of you) who like warmer weather might not care, except that these trends have other, more troublesome consequences:

1. Energy and resource supply and demand: Deep down, most of us know that the world's supply of fossil fuels isn't inexhaustible. Bottlenecks for many natural resources already becoming apparent; witness the 2004 gas crisis, which Friedman attributes to a sudden spike in China's demand for oil. With worldwide energy consumption needs projected to double by 2050, and three times as many people living or approaching US levels of consumption, short. The problem is exacerbated by a long-standing American tradition of heavily subsidizing the energy industry, which lessens the impact of rising prices on demand, and thus reduces our incentives to cut back on our use and/or focus more on cleaner, greener alternatives.
2. Petrodictatorships: Yes, this is another of Friedman's catchy neologisms, but despite the sarcastic title phrase ("Fill 'Er Up with Dictators"), I found this to be one of the more intriguing parts of his argument. That our seemingly-limitless appetite for as much oil as we can get regardless of cost keeps prices high and funnels massive amounts of wealth to those countries that produce it is self-evident. What's interesting is where Friedman goes from here. For starters, he states that this is a bonanza for those countries' leaders; they've got enough money coming in to keep themselves and their friends in power without needing to tax their citizens. This isn't as good a deal for the citizens as you might think, though; few taxes means little incentive for the government to build public support through, oh, investing in education, or in infrastructure other than what's required to get the oil out of the country and to market. Not only does this pattern fund precisely the most intolerant, anti-modern, and anti-Western strands of Islam in the Middle East; it's also helped beat back many of the hard-won pro-democracy gains in Russia and Latin America, and helps subsidize both sides of the War on Terror.
3. Climate change: Here, Friedman borrows his catch phrase from environmentalist Hunter Lovins, writing not about global warming but "global weirding" -- greater and more rapid extremes, be they hot or wet or dry; tremendous geographical variability; and multiple changes that interact in ways we can't begin to predict. He asserts that the vast majority of scientists may disagree on the rate and degree of climate change we can expect, but that there's little question change is happening, and draws an analogy to a car driving towards a cliff on a dark, foggy night: even if you don't know exactly where the drop-off is, it's still a good idea to use your brakes.
   
4. Energy poverty: This was probably the least well-argued of Friedman's "consequences of hot, flat, and crowded" chapters, but still not without merit. Here, he argues that the world isn't completely flat ... and those yet untouched by the information revolution are at a greater comparative disadvantage than they were 50 years ago. With reliable energy, heat is more tolerable and (if fewer people are forced to move to megacities for work) crowds more comfortable. Without it, it's precisely those people most at risk from climate change who have the least ability to adapt, i.e., by digging deeper wells or desalinating water. While I'm not sure I agree fully with all his claims here, I certainly can't argue that regular rolling blackouts can't be good for political stability ... and that if and when those at the bottom of the world's economic ladder do come online, we'd better darned well hope it's powered by clean technology.
5. Biodiversity loss: Here again, our warming, "weirding" atmosphere and increasingly crowded cities have a tremendous impact on the world's non-human species. A few snapshots, according to Friedman: half the Earth's forests are now gone, along with 90% of our large predator fish and 20% of our corals.

Just when you've started to get good and depressed about the current state of affairs, Friedman presents a plan for what he thinks we should do about it. The world desperately wants and needs a new clean energy system, and whoever invents and deploys it will be all but guaranteed a dominant place in the 21st century global economy. The United States, with its well-established capitalist framework and unparalleled research universities, is particularly well-poised to be that someone. In addition to the obvious financial benefits, doing so would restore our international moral authority to a degree we haven't seen since World War II. If, however, we fail to seize the opportunity, we can rest assured that India or China will ... and reap all the rewards thereof.

A viable clean energy system requires three components: clean electrons, efficiency, and conservation. Since the Industrial Revolution, the world economy has been driven by "dirty fuels" (oil, coal, and gas) -- which are highly efficient, but not sustainable. Future growth will need to be powered by cleaner fuels that are reliable, abundant, and cheap. We can't get there without both increasing the level of research funding and finding ways to make those clean technologies we already have (i.e., wind, solar voltaic, solar thermal) more efficient and scalable. Moreover, our growth needs to be efficient, with producers supplying and consumers demanding buildings, appliances, cars, and packages that use less energy. Lastly, it must be predicated on an ethic of conservation, in which seeking to minimize one's energy impact is the norm.

Despite the plethora of "205 Easy Ways to Save the Earth!" articles in the media, a transformation of this nature is far more revolution than fad or party, and won't be easy. Our circumstances call for fundamental overhaul of our energy, transportation, and agricultural systems, to name a few -- a long-term, multi-trillion-dollar investment. To date, we haven't begun to exert even a fraction of the effort needed to make this work. Friedman argues that only the free market can effectively foster the supply of and demand for clean energy that we need, and that our current energy infrastructure is far from a free market; it's a system designed by coal, gas, and oil interests to keep those fuels cheap and pre-eminent. Appropriate tax and regulatory policy, coupled with adequate research funding, would (if you will) flatten the energy playing field, thus nurturing a variety of nascent clean energy options and allowing the market to cultivate the best ones.

Perhaps it was information overload, but I found the latter (Part III and subsequent) sections of the book significantly less compelling than the earlier pieces. I enjoyed the "Energy Internet" chapter, in which Friedman lays out a comprehensive, entertaining vision for how everyday life might look in a kinder, greener America, but couldn't help wondering if it wasn't a tad simplistic, or just how we might get from here to there in the time frame Friedman proposes. His skill at laying out a big picture that's both broad enough to seem important and sufficiently detailed to hold your interest is impressive, but by the latter half of the book, the overreliance on zippy phrases and colorful anecdotes starts to wear thin. Vignettes loosely tied together by broad brushstrokes are fine for sketching out a problem, but seem disjointed and superficial when it comes to the solution part of the argument. This quality is made more problematic by the lack of any endnotes or sources other than those referenced in the text -- which seems unusual in a book of this nature, and made me a bit skeptical about how well-founded some of Friedman's claims might be. I still think it's worth a read, but really wish I had a class or study group to chew it over with.

#53 - Food, Inc.

Food, Inc.: How Industrial Food Is Making Us Sicker, Fatter, and Poorer -- and What You Can Do About It, edited by Karl Weber (New York: PublicAffairs, 2009).

Jacket summary: "The movie Food, Inc. is shaking up our perceptions of what we eat. This powerful documentary deconstructing the corporate food industry in America has been hailed by Entertainment Weekly as 'more than a terrific movie -- it's an important movie.'

"Now, this unique companion book explores the challenges raised by the movie in fascinating depth through thirteen essays, most of them written especially for this book, and many by experts featured in the film. Highlights include:

• Eric Schlosser on the industrialization of our food supply
• Michael Pollan on the benefits of locally-sourced, organic eating
• Robert Kenner, director, on the making of Food, Inc.
• Marion Nestle on sorting out food facts from fictions
• Anna Lappe on how the U.S. food system promotes global warming
• Muhammad Yunus on the global impact of food industrialization
• Joel Salatin on how to declare your independence from industrial food
• Gary Hirshberg on how organic food is going mainstream

"If daily headlines about food poisoning, pollution, labor abuse, and rampant hunger have left you worried or confused about the foods you eat, Food, Inc. provides the facts behind the problems -- and shows you what you can do to make a difference."

Table of Contents:

Part I: Food, Inc.: The Film

• 1. Reforming Fast Food Nation: A Conversation with Eric Schlosser
• 2. Exploring the Corporate Powers Behind the Way We Eat: The Making of Food, Inc.

Part II: Inside the Food Wars

• 3. Organics -- Healthy Food, and So Much More
• 4. Food, Science, and the Challenge of World Hunger -- Who Will Control the Future?
• 5. The Ethanol Scam: Burning Food to Make Motor Fuel
• 6. The Climate Crisis at the End of Our Fork
• 7. Cheap Food: Workers Pay the Price
• 8. The Financial Crisis and World Hunger

Part III: What You Can Do About It

• 9. Why Bother?
• 10. Declare Your Independence
• 11. Eating Made Simple
• 12. Improving Kids' Nutrition: An Action Tool Kit for Parents and Citizens
• 13. Produce to the People: A Prescription for Health

My take: This book is exactly what it says it is: a companion volume to the movie. It's also well worth reading whether or not you've seen the movie, as it neither presupposes knowledge from the film or rehashes all the same ground that's visited there. Rather, it does a nice job of going into more detail about some of the points not really elaborated on in the movie -- specifically, the degree to which the "always low prices" in our industrial food system rest on the backs of exploited farm workers, and the role our food system plays in exacerbating climate change. On one hand, this is hardly a balanced perspective; on the other, I do believe Kenner's claim in the second chapter that he tried to present the big food companies' perspectives, but they simply refused to talk to him.

If you're wondering whether the movie is worth it, are interested in the subject without the visuals, or have seen the movie and want to know more, read Food, Inc. It just may put you off a lot of food items for good, though.

#48 - The Year of the Flood

The Year of the Flood, by Margaret Atwood (New York: Nan A. Talese/ Doubleday, 2009).

Jacket summary: "The times and species have been changing at a rapid rate, and the social compact is wearing as thin as environmental stability. Adam One, the kindly leader of the God's Gardeners -- a religion devoted to the melding of science and religion, as well as the preservation of all plant and animal life -- has long predicted a natural disaster that will alter Earth as we know it. Now it has occurred, obliterating most human life. Two women have survived: Ren, a young trapeze dancer locked inside the high-end sex club Scales and Tails, and Toby, a God's Gardener barricaded inside a luxurious spa where many of the treatments are edible.

"Have others survived? Ren's bioartist friend Amanda? Zeb, her eco-fighter stepfather? Her onetime lover, Jimmy? Or the murderous Painballers, survivors of the mutual-elimination Painball prison? Not to mention the shadowy, corrupt policing force of the ruling powers.

"Meanwhile, gene-spliced life forms are proliferating: the lion/ lamb blends, the Mo'hair sheep with human hair, the pigs with human brain tissue. As Adam One and his intrepid hemp-clad band make their way through this strange new world, Ren and Toby will have to decide on their next move, but they can't stay locked away."

Opening line: "In the early morning Toby climbs up to the rooftop to watch the sunrise."

My take: Due to its strange and unsettling setting, this book took a few chapters to reel me in, but was well worth the effort. Fascinating, funny, depressing, and ultimately hopeful, though not all at once.

We begin with the two principals and where they find themselves as the story opens, in Year 25. (Pay attention to the date stamps on the chapter headings; this is another of those stories that jumps around temporally, and if you don't catch this right away, you'll be very confused.) Toby and Ren have survived what's been dubbed the Waterless Flood (a superplague that apparently takes no prisoners) inadvertently, by virtue of their isolation: Ren, an exotic dancer/ call girl, because she's been shut up in Scales and Tails' "Sticky Zone" until her medical tests come back clean; and Toby, an herbalist/ beekeeper, because the God's Gardeners have sent her underground to protect her (and them) from an incredibly persistent Bad Guy from her past. And to begin with, that's all we -- and they -- know. Neither knows for sure how long her food supplies will hold out or who else among her acquaintances might be left alive, though the idealistic Ren hopes desperately for news of her friend Amanda.

From here, the story jumps around to fill us in on who Toby and Ren are, and how they got to the point at which the book opens. Both came from relatively comfortable, even bourgeois, beginnings, but saw their situations go south almost overnight. Toby, penniless and on the run after her parents' deaths, lands a job at a SecretBurger (so named because you never know exactly what kind of animal protein you're going to get), but finds herself "favored" by the aforementioned Bad Guy, whose M.O. is to slowly brutalize his chosen victims to death. Just as her time is running out, a well-timed scuffle with the God's Gardeners leads to her being adopted and even embraced by the sect (though she's never quite sure just how deeply she believes). Here, her path crosses that of the young Ren, whose mother abandoned their middle-class suburban life to cast her lot with the Gardeners' resident bad-ass, Zeb.

The complex tale of how the two get from A to B is engaging in itself, and peppered with background details that are both funny and disturbing. The shadowy CorpsSeCorp, which serves as both police force and government, wholly corporate-controlled and wholly corrupt, is but one example; the omnipresent Happicuppa franchise, eschewed by the Gardeners even though it does make one darned irresistible cup of coffee, is a lighter one. I also enjoyed the God's Gardeners hymns printed at the beginning of each chapter (real churchgoers will notice after awhile that there are only one or two tunes you need to sing 'em all), the saints and feast days, and the other finely-rendered minutae that give the sect -- somewhere between right-wing fundamentalists without the right wing, and the holier-than-though organic vegan movement familiar to anyone in a college town.

Read Year of the Flood. It's a good one.

No Impact Man

I think this one wins the "longest title yet" prize, and of course, is yet another addition to a growing list of books that aren't the classics. Oh well.

Also read No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process, by Colin Beavan (New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 2009). For those of you who somehow missed all the press, check Beavan's blog or this review. Liked this one more than I thought I would, probably because I was prepared for Beavan to come off as far more arrogant and self-righteous than he did.

#73 - Affluenza

Behind on blogging again. How is it that I have less time to write since I've been unemployed, rather than more? (Actually, I know how it is, but that's another topic.)

Anyway, #73 was Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic, by John DeGraff (Berrett-Koehler, 2001). In short, this one was a bit dated after 8 years, but nonetheless offers some interesting ideas, and is far more substantive than co-author David Wann's more recent Simple Prosperity. Based on a 1997 TV documentary of the same name, Affluenza posits that the U.S. is suffering from an epidemic of overconsumption, which the authors dub "affluenza" -- defined specifically as "a painful, contagious, virally transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety, and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more." The book uses the metaphor of a disease to describe the symptoms by which this condition manifests: swollen expectations, chronic congestion (e.g., traffic and storage spaces), fractured families, shopping fever, a rash of bankruptcies, and an ache for meaning. It then goes on to discuss the negative impact on our economy and environment, offer a self-diagnosis test so readers can see how badly they suffer from the alleged disease, and some treatment recommendations.

As suggested above, the concept doesn't seem quite as new anymore, in our post-9/11, post-simplicity movement world ... but then again, the current recession makes the ideas just as relevant, and perhaps it's books and programs like this one that helped bring the concepts of overconsumption and simplicity into the mainstream. (The book's recently been revised and a second edition reprinted, and I'd be mildly curious to see how this one differs from the original.) It's also a thought-provoking, if slightly corny, introduction to the topic for folks who haven't really questioned our cultural norms around affluence and conspicuous consumption before.

A Mixed Bag

So, dilemma of the day: Simple Prosperity, or Smugly Pretentious? My reactions to my 65th book of the year, whose full title is Simple Prosperity: Finding Real Wealth in a Sustainable Lifestyle, by David Wann (St. Martin's Griffin, 2007) were decidedly mixed. On one hand, Wann's central premise is appealing: it's possible even in contemporary American culture to live a life where we consume less, but enjoy more "real wealth" ("efficiency, quality, care giving, trust, and teamwork"); moreover, not only is this better for the planet, but it's better for us, yielding "a more moderate, more enjoyable, less frantic American lifestyle." It's also well-developed in many places, particularly in the opening and last few chapters. On the other, when he delves into specific examples of simpler, more sustainable choices, he often comes off as myopic and classist, mistaking "my own, or my loved ones' life choices" for "the right choices," without acknowledging that a) people's tastes and interests differ, and b) many of the "simple" alternatives he offers aren't feasible without a substantial up-front capital and/or educational investment. On balance, I was glad I stuck it out to the ends -- but there were many points in the middle chapters where that wasn't a foregone conclusion.

The seeds of this dilemma are evident in the book's preface. Wann's opening sentence is, "This is a book about how to recover from the debilitating disease of overconsumption." If that sounds familiar, you may be thinking of affluenza, defined first in a PBS program and then in a book Wann co-authored with John DeGraf and Thomas H. Naylor as "an epidemic of stress, overwork, waste and indebtedness caused by dogged pursuit of the American Dream." And whether or not it's familiar, you've got to admit that this is both an interesting concept and a tall order for one book. However, Wann goes on to describe the observations that led him to write Simple Prosperity in vivid, clear terms that suck you in (at least, they did me):

"Back when I was a teenager in the 1960s, I felt queasiness lurking in the euphoria of the American lifestyle. ... [I]t was obvious to me that the accelerating pace of life in the United States didn't have a real direction. Everything was becoming automatic, comfortable, and 'convenient,' yet other than going to the moon, banishing germs from our kitchens, and scrapping with the communists, we seemed to be floating up and away from reality like soap bubbles. We each wanted to expend as little effort as possible but still get paid handsomely for it so we could live the good life, before we ... popped. But somehow, the cost and dimensions of hte good life kept morphing, first into a 'new, improved life,' then a 'better' life. (There was always a better life.)"

By contrast, Wann claims to have observed at the same time that

"[P]eople whose lifestyle didn't center on money were often healthier and more interesting. They seemed more caring and unselfish, and they were passionate about doing active, celebratory things like playing music, dancing, playing chess or bridge, embroidering, fly fishing, cooking delicious meals, studying history, gardening, and staying current with political issues. ... What they earned seemed less important than what they learned. ... [I]n many cases, the ordinary, American Dream-life was much more expensive than the extraordinary lives of these unique, self-creating people who lived their lives rather than trying to buy them. They had real wealth, or you might say, the right stuff."

More specifically, Wann argues that over the last half-century, mainstream American culture has increasingly become synonymous with consumerism. Not only does this deplete both the environment and our wallets, but it also fails to provide what we really want and need: less stress, more control over our time, more energy, people in our lives who love and respect us, and safe communities. He argues that those whose lives are filled with "activities and passions that foster creativity and self-expression" are happier, healthier, and less inclined to shop and consume to excess.

From here, he goes on to suggest that the key to authentic satisfaction is to know ourselves: to figure out what we're good at and what we believe in. While I like the overall message here about "[following] a script you believe in, based on values that resonate for you," this is also the section of the book where I though Wann started getting a bit self-absorbed, and just didn't seem to get the real-world constraints most Americans live with. He tells the story of a friend whose script and values called her to make a living as an uninsured freelance writer, mentioning that she still gets top-notch medical care by persuading doctors to let her pay her bills in installments. He then goes on to talk about how he himself voluntarily left a conventional "good" job to live below the poverty line while writing a book, and how his sister defended his choice to their mother by citing all the things most people want money for that he already had: college educations for his children, a nice house in a good neighborhood, and travel to numerous exotic locales. While I don't doubt that this is more or less an accurate reflection of Wann's experience, I also don't think it's one easily replicated by just anyone. Homes, travel, and college aren't cheap; presumably, either Wann had enough money to pay for these at some point, or was lucky enough to find someone else who would.

We see more of the same in the "Mindful Money" chapter, which is mostly about how simplicity means "more value from better stuff." As Wann explains it, "[n]o one wants to spend money for products or experiences that don't deliver value. ... The new lifestyle will contain fewer things but better things, and the typical household will be less cluttered with junk." Sounds good to me, but when he then waxed poetic about his affinity for fine Belgian, Swiss, and Italian chocolate, and how different it is from "American chocolate, [which] has so much sugar and so many additives that it makes me feel jumpy -- and fat," it hit me: Wann is a Bobo. (This suspicion is confirmed later, in the chapter on housing, where he cites Jay Walljasper's criteria for good neighborhoods: "great spots to 'sip latte, watch foreign films, and browse used-book shops.'" For more on the whole Bobo phenomenon, check out this book, which coined the term -- even though I'm not usually a David Brooks fan.) The trouble is, what counts as "better stuff" is highly subjective, and the dividing line between "worthwhile investment" and "symptom of affluenza" is very grey. He speaks in glowing terms about his daughter's sojourn as an exchange student in Nepal, which sounds fascinating but costly, both environmentally (hello, carbon footprint, anyone?) and financially. Moreover, his suggestions on how to live simply and spend money mindfully contradict one another in places; for example, he urges us to spend less on housing by choosing smaller, more efficient houses, but then advises us to live close enough to walk to the places we want and need to go. Perhaps it's just me, but a home that meets all these criteria and is affordable is a pretty tall order in most places. Likewise, his adult son's decision to live in a parked van and work only two days a week is certainly unorthodox, but probably sustainable only so long as he remains healthy, strong, and unencumbered by recession or dependents.

In short, while I might personally agree that the "mindful" lifestyle and consumption patterns Wann describes are more appealing than some of those we're more accustomed to seeing, they seem like choices that are only available to a privileged few ... and in some cases, like ones that are at least as much about personal preference as they are about sustainability. What if I'd rather sip beer, watch high school football, and browse hardware stores than "sip latte, watch foreign films, and browse used-book shops"? What if I, too, am more interested in a neighborhood's "safety, walkability, public spaces, and proximity to both big-city culture and natural peace and quiet than in its "income, appearance, and exclusivity," but don't have the do-re-mi to live in Larchmont, the old home town Wann presents as idyllic ... without ever mentioning its homogeneity (92% white), affluence (median family income $164,000), and pricey housing stock (the median home price is over $900,000).

The underlying classism here is really a shame, because it makes the fence-sitters less inclined to take Wann seriously or think this book really has anything to offer them ... which means they miss out on a number of valuable insights. Larchmont aside, his comments on the importance of meaningful social relationships and communities and connections to the natural world were interesting and insightful (though the latter chapter is mostly drawn from Last Child in the Woods, itself a brilliant book). There are also some light bulb moments in the closing chapters, where he connects a call for "right-sizing" -- in particular, seeking housing and food that meet our needs precisely, rather than providing too much and still leaving us lacking -- to energy savings and better health (though I do wish he'd focused less on "organic" food and more on sustainability; for more info on the perils of "big organic" and how food that wears the organic label may not be as sustainable as you think, of course, read The Omnivore's Dilemma). Additionally, as perhaps the world's biggest anti-fan of reality TV, I love the riff on this subject, even though Wann is quoting Adbusters here: "'We live, you watch,' say the photogenic contestants. 'We're too dazed and confused to live, anyway,' respond the viewers, crunching handfuls of Cheetos."

The final chapter of the book, entitled "Cultural Prosperity," is really the capstone of Wann's argument. He calls for a cultural shift, "from an emphasis on material wealth to an abundance of time, relationships, and experiences." While his chart on the characteristics of cultural creatives seems a bit elitist (he might just as well have said "they listen to NPR"), the overall premise is good -- which, I guess, is true for the book as a whole.

"We'll get more value from less stuff and better stuff, by tapping into riches like quality products, brilliant design and redesign of cities and towns, cultural and aesthetic greatness, curiosity and fascination about how nature really works, cooperation with coworkers and neighbors, and generosity, just because it feels right. ... We're ready, in these most critical times, to continue the transition -- individually and culturally -- from the 'love of consumption' to the 'love of life.'"

#63 - The End of Nature

During less ungodly hours, I finished The End of Nature, by Bill McKibben (Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2006). The deceptively short book (186 pages) is apparently somewhat of a classic in environmental literature; it was originally published in 1989 and was one of the first books to discuss global warming in a manner laypeople could both understand and care about. Little has changed with this republication except for the author's introduction.

I need a new approach to reading non-fiction. It's not that I don't want to read it -- if I didn't, I'd stop checking the books out -- but I need to stop trying to read it the same way I do a juicy novel, where you just sit down and turn pages without any conscious effort. Reading non-fiction, especially on a subject I don't yet know much about, is much more deliberate, at least for me. It's horribly dorky, but I find myself taking mental notes as if I were doing the reading for a college class. This must say something about my learning style, though I'm not sure exactly what it is.

Anyway, this was an interesting and fairly readable book -- a bit unsettling and/or depressing, but given the subject matter, that's probably to be expected. In some ways, the book seems oddly quaint, and not in a good way; McKibben cites 1988's dramatic heat wave and Hurricane Gilbert as an example of the bigger, more devastating weather extremes we might expect; and I couldn't help but think that in our contemporary, post-Andrew, -Katrina, and -Wilma world, we've all but forgotten about the "good old days" when Gilbert was a big bad wolf. It also predates most of the first Bush administration, let alone those that followed it, which have changed the terms of the debate a bit. In short, McKibben's argument is that nature -- that is, as a force independent of and uncontrolled by/ unaffected by human beings -- is already ending, and global warming isn't a maybe, someday, eventually problem, but one we need to deal with Right. Now. (See how well we've responded in the last 20 years?) The book is divided into two sections; the first, titled "The Present" provides a short history of humanity's (in particular, the United States') concept of "nature," and describes the current (as of 1989) state of our natural environment. The second, "The Near Future," tells us why we should care, and what we can do about it. Specifically, he offers two options: one, which he calls "The Defiant Reflex," involves finding new, man-made, technological solutions to save the earth (which, he argues, might stabilize the temperature, but would still mean the end of nature as we now know it); and a second, "A Path of More Resistance," which calls for a new relationship between humans and nature, one in which human beings aren't of utmost importance, but respect and preserve nature for its own sake -- rather than as something that exists just for us to enjoy on weekends and vacations.

I had visions of writing a thorough review, complete with summary -- but I'm behind again and the book's already gone back to the libe, so this will have to do. Again, it's short, very accessible, and (especially together with Storm World) a good introduction to environmental literature in general and global warming in particular. (In fact, I've already added McKibben's Deep Ecology to my list -- admittedly, not a very exclusive club -- and am even more convinced that I need to go back even further and read Rachel Carson's Silent Spring to see where it all began.) Read it if the topic interests you even a little bit, and you're up for something sobering; if you want a bit more info or convincing, check out this review first.

#56 - Storm World

OK, I've fallen dreadfully behind in my blogging so here's a quick wrap-up of my last few books. I'll flesh 'em out if and when I have a chance.

Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle over Global Warming, by Chris Mooney (Harcourt, 2007). This book is about the debate over whether global warming is happening, and whether it is contributing/ will contribute to stronger hurricanes (more, stronger, faster winds, lower pressure). Interesting read, but not quite as accessible to the layperson (like me) as I'd hoped.