Cary Neeper's Blog: Reviewing World-changing Nonfiction - Posts Tagged "water"

Blue Future: Protecting Water For People and the Planet Forever by Maude Barlow, New York , The New Press, 2013.
Of all the issues that drive us and disturb us, this one strikes the closest to home. Without water, we simply cannot live, hence access to water is a right that must be protected.

Rivers and lakes ignore political boundaries and, so far, "...international water disputes--even among fierce enemies--have generally been resolved peacefully..." In these times of threatening overpopulation and its stresses, we must guard the "300 arguments between states around shared rivers.”

Tap water problems have led to overuse of bottled water with its plastic clogging the seas, while big money profiteers from its sale, which undermines its availability as a right. “It is crucial [the author says] that nations ratify the [1997] UN Convention on The Law of Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses to secure the future and resolve conflicts. In 2006 The World Wildlife Fund campaigned for this Law’s ratification. It is now signed by 36 countries and was “…brought into force” On August 17, 2014.

No issue seems more important than this. It’s never too late to encourage others to respect this urgent right to life’s basic need. This readable book should be required reading for all politicians and businesses.

Blue Future: Protecting Water For People and the Planet Forever by Maude Barlow, New York , The New Press, 2013.
The thesis of this book: Of all the issues that drive us and disturb us, this one strikes the closest to home. Without water, we simply cannot live, hence access to water is a right that must be protected.

Rivers and lakes ignore political boundaries and, so far, "...international water disputes--even among fierce enemies--have generally been resolved peacefully..." In these times of threatening overpopulation and its stresses, we must guard the "300 arguments between states around shared rivers.”

Tap water problems have led to overuse of bottled water; its plastic is clogging the seas, while big money profiteers from its sale, which undermines its availability as a right. “It is crucial [the author says] that nations ratify the [1997] UN Convention on The Law of Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses to secure the future and resolve conflicts. In 2006 The World Wildlife Fund campaigned for this Law’s ratification. It is now signed by 36 countries and was “…brought into force” On August 17, 2014.

No issue seems more important than this. It’s never too late to encourage others to respect this urgent right to life’s basic need. This readable book should be required reading for all politicians and businesses.

by Denis Hayes and Gail Bapu Hayes, New York, W.W.Norton + Co., 2015.

The title says it all--almost. The impact is much larger than we have imagined. In startling detail, the Hayes describe the harm we have done to our country and ourselves by tolerating the overproduction and cruel practices used to create beef, and veal, and milk.

The authors illustrate sensitive ways to raise cattle, providing them with longer, productive lives. They quote Temple Grandin, reminding us how she has instructed the industry in humane practices. A few pages are devoted to the clear hormonal evidence for bovine emotion and suffering--their sentience, which we can no longer deny. Their conclusions are clear: we must eat less beef and do away with feed lots.
Several excellent pages are devoted to the work of Allan Savory, who has restored thousands of deserts in Africa, turning them into green grazing lands by “holistic management” of cattle grazing land. The Hayes point out lessons learned—1) that some deserts are natural and needed to reflect some solar heat and 2) that the complexity of restoring grass lands requires due diligence in watching the ground and keeping the herds moving continuous, as they did in the early days of Africa.

Perhaps the most revealing notes are the author’s summary of how big business and money have taken over corn, “grain facilities”, and meatpacking. These “…giant interests have funded the campaign of both Republicans and Democrats. Hence small farmers supported the “candidate who promised to kick the government off the farm”

Do read this book. You’ll eat less beef, if any.

Degrowth in the Suburbs: A Radical Urban Imagery by Samuel Alexander and Branden Gleeson, Singapore, Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.

In order to face the consequences of global warming and to find a secure, orderly future, we need to find a way for everyone (not just scientists or academicians) to understand and act on our real options. Therefore, I recommend this book, beyond page 16, as a thorough review of the causes, many of the options, and the changes needed to prevent the most tragic consequences we now face. In my lay-readers’ view, the introduction and first pages of this book were not helpful, overloaded with curt generalizations and jargon that provide no information and require careful interpretation. The rest of the book is quite readable, valuable in its urgency and thorough treatment of our current dilemma.

The reader will find the bulk of recommendations and conclusions very similar to those published by Herman Daly in the 1970’s, developed over the years, and currently presented in short articles published on steadystate.org by Brian Czech and others. Degrowth in the Suburbs provides helpful confirmation of steadystate theory and its practice, as portrayed in my series, The Archives of Varok, but Daly’s work is not cited in the long references cited at the end of each chapter.

One question arose in the first chapter. The word “neoliberal” was not defined other than relating it to neglecting “…the centrality or urbanization to the creation of value.” At the end of the book another reference was made to the “…neoliberal falacies like the ‘liveable city.’” The authors don’t provide details, but I assume they are referring to the neoliberal (?) idea that energy use per capita is or can be much smaller in large cities simply because the distance between people is less. Thus, centralized food distribution and public transport requires less energy. The authors don’t address the fact that cities are still growing and, in any case, will need to increase efficiency until they can disperse to “degrowth in the suburbs.” The authors don’t address how that major puzzle cold be solved.

Nothing else is neglected in this book’s thorough descriptions of how we can degrow and use less energy--the two major themes in the book. In chapter 2 on the “Energy Descent Future” the authors remind us why nuclear and renewable sources of energy will probably not be enough. They summarize the rise of hi-energy use in industry and agriculture, discuss the concept of Peak Oil, and suggest that it is too late for carbon sequestering. A book published in 2011 (“Life Without Oil: Why We Must Shift to a New Energy Future” by Steve Hallett and John Wright, New York, Prometheus Books) agrees.

Chapter 3 provides a nice summary of nuclear energy problems, and presents a good case that “techno-optimism is misguided.” Wind and solar energy will help, but both have storage problems, and nothing will solve our “private car addiction.” We need public transport powered by renewables and lower mobility, while transcending the “growth paradigm.” A redoing of banking is in order to ”…disconnect economic growth from energy consumption” with “…planned economic contractions, increased localization, broader distribution of wealth and judicious deindustrialization…” (Chapter 4)

The authors declare that such changes won’t be done by governments. They must be done in the “social-cultural sphere.” The authors suggest that we look at the Transition Towns Movement and the Eco-Village Movement. Chapter 5 continues by suggesting voluntary simplicity, low-impact practices, reduction of energy demand, use of solar ovens (which my daughter finds delightful in Indianapolis). Don’t fly. Don’t eat meat or dairy. Transition Initiatives mean eating local food, permaculture, and giving up cars. “Consumerism does not satisfy the human craving for meaning.”

Chapter 6 gives us a view of what 2038 could look like, given these suggestions. Water capture, waste composted and used, with food grown our your own plot would mean the end of corporations and obesity. Farming jobs would increase, as would the fix-it-yourself paradigm. Reuse and sharing would increase and local coins would be reinvented and used. Voluntary simplicity would “defeat capitalism.”

Governing policies are discussed in Chapter 7. “Principles of justice, self-limitations and ecological democracy” call for degrowth. GDP is known to be a poor measure. The use of resources would need to be limited. This should also reduce labor hours. Government should provide public transportation and health care. Forests would be revived. Banks would be regulated again. Wealth and estate taxes could provide local housing for those in need. A basic income or negative income tax of 3% could level the playing field for the poor.

If you have fretted, as I have, about how we are to make the transition to a more stable future from our current habits of energy overuse and population overgrowth, do read this book. The ideas are not new, but they echo with splendid detail the work done since the 1970s. Herman Daly and many authors, of both ficiton and non-fiction, have seen the dangers coming and now agree on many of the basics, regardless of political positions once held.

“Inheritors of the Earth: How Nature Is Thriving in an Age of Extinction” by Chris D. Thomas, New York, Hatchette Book Group, 2017.

We can only hope that the author is right about what is thriving on Earth: In spite of the damage we humans have done to our home- (and most likely only) planet, we have created new homes for other life and stimulated their evolutionary creativity.

An award-winning professor of conservation biology at the University of York, UK, Chris Thomas gives us a rare glimpse of hope for Earth’s future, in spite of the excesses of technology and human over-population. Earth was once quite warm (three million years ago) and the continents’ future coming together again will change all Earth’s species’ options eventually, in spite of any human impact.

Meanwhile, ocean-going containers move species around so that “many microbes…have near-global distribution. It makes our “neophobia” and “hatred of foreign species” in our locales seem a little silly--certainly not worth a “costly control and eradication of…alien species.”

“Life is a process, not a final product, “ the author says. Therefore, maintain flexibility for future change. Humans are as normal as anything else that lives. Accept the fact that we must “..live within our planetary boundaries.”

What to do? Read pages 230 to 242, if nothing else. There the author tells us: 1) “…accept change” and prod it in a “desired direction.” 2) “…maintain flexibility for future generations,” for we cannot imagine their world. We should encourage “as many species as possible in minimizing extinction.” 3) Our evolution and presence “are natural within the Earth system…We should encourage “as many species as possible. Genes, like species, survive because they keep track of the changing world.” Specific options are suggested on page 240, following a thoughtful discussion of whether or not to resurrect those who have recently gone extinct. 4) “…create near biological success stories by whatever means” by helping “…direct the evolutionary process.”

The Next Species: the Future of Evolution in the Aftermath of Man by Michael Tennesen, New York, Simon and Schuster, 2015
This book gives us a visit to the tropical Andes to search for rare or dangerous or unknown species to illustrate the fear that we humans have triggered a massive extinction, followed by our own demise due to massive overpopulation and decimation of Earth’s natural resources.

The author reviews past extinctions, the losses and the opportunities for innovation that gave us new species. The role played by plate tectonics is noted, and the author tells the stories of his personal journeys in discovering the past from the Oldivoi gorge to current population growth in the world’s cities and the population explosion of human youth.

A history of farming is next, with our current nitrogen problem and its “overwhelming presence.” Disease—epidemics and resistance to antibiotics. Next, our oceans exhibit over fishing, acidification and warming plus fertilizer runoff. Shark numbers have declined, for one. Water availability and the misuse of land leads to a review of volcanoes and the changes that came with recovery of various disasters. Ocean problems are followed by the current demise of predators and the historical loss of large species to human hunting.

So we should move out to Mars? Is that topic really worth a whole chapter? In 50 to 100 years we could succumb to climate change, ocean acidification and invasive species. Then the author makes a remarkable statement about how man can stop “killing himself…we would have to push back from the table of reproduction, resource growth, and limit our use of natural resources.

Of course. Why not? That’s the solution the steady state economist Herman Daly has been developing since the 1970’s. Of course ecosystems will eventually recover from our demise, if our demise occurs—but why should it? We’re not stupid, are we?

Courtney White by Courtney White, Chelsea Green Publishing, Vermont, 2015

This collection of “Low-Cost, Low-Tech, Nature-Based Solutions “for “Combating Hunger, Drought, and Climate Change”. has some handy advice for “implementing a wide variety of regenerative land management practices.”

Make compost by covering manure with wood chips, straw, and a little corn. It will keep your cows warm all winter. Then, in the spring, feed your pigs while they aerate it, turning the anaerobic into “fluffy aerobic soil.

“What can I do for the planet?”…Eat less feedlot meat.” Feed lots are “crowded, stinky, and grassless.” They’re also cheap, and too abusive. “They make no ecological sense for the stress the cows ;suffer. They make cattle lose 15% of their weight, while being more “susceptible to disease.” Eat grass fed meat.

Plant food crops in rows between “solar panels at a height of four meters.” That’s good for water efficiency and could reduce transpiration needs.

Waste vegetable oil from restaurants should be warmed or stored for a few weeks so food bits can settle, then given free to farmers for automotive or tractor fuel.

Since it takes so much water for sanitation disposal, human waste should be collected, heated, checked with PhyloChip, and used as fertilizer in agriculture. See CCC’s Thermophile Project, Marin County, CA’.

For other manure disposal, bring on more dung beetles.

Check out grandin.com and the Wild Farm Alliance for strengthening the alliance between farmers, ranchers, and conservationists worrying about wildlife vulnerability-- “habitat destruction, or fragmentation…water pollution, pesticides, and other effects of industrial production.

We may be thoughtless or feel helpless, but we don’t need to trash the planet.

Tipping Point For Planet Earth by Anthony D. Barnosky and Elizabeth A. Hadly, St. Martin’s Press, N.Y., 2015.

Fifty percent of Earth’s land “…has been changed from forested prairies to farms and pavement.” This book gives us a laundry list of what to do. Now, five years after this book’s publication, as we dominate Earth’s global ecosystem…”we are seeing more of what the authors predicted--genocides, and scarcities of food, water and oil. As the globe’s complexity increases, irreversible “state-changes” become real, not just likely

The authors’ numbers tell the tale: Human populations have increased “threefold from 1950 to 2015, double from 1969 to 2011. Eighty percent “live below poverty levels, and nearly a billion have inadequate food and water. Drought and hot weather have “been going on since 2010, while rapid growth of the human population continues--but could be brought down fast with a promise of “education and economic betterment.”

The rest of the book focuses on “stuff” and storms, hunger and thirst, too many diseases and war--all ready to push us over the tipping point if not reduced or controlled. Five Earths are required for all the world’s population to enjoy the American lifestyle.

The needed shift in our thinking is obvious: 1)Level our percapita consumption, 2) Change economic modeling from growth to consistency, and 3) Encourage reuse, and design products that leave no environmental footprint.

On page 238 one finds the authors’ summary of ways to reverse our rush to the tipping point. Conserve water, consume less, educate women with economic opportunities and health care, recycle, buy experience not things, design products with low environmental footprints, use carbon-neutral energy sources, eat less meat and waste less in distribution, waste less water, produce energy from waste, use wind and solar, track vectors and minimize deforestation, and avoid war by lowering population growth and ensuring basic needs while recognizing the one “common theme that runs though all solutions: “There is no such thing as local any more.”

Inheritors of the Earth--How Nature is Thriving in an Age of Extinction
By Chris D. Thomas, Hatchette Public Affairs, N.Y., 2017.

Author Chris D. Thomas is a biology professor at the University of York, UK. As a “prolific writer” of “210 scientific journal articles and 29 book chapters,” we welcome his conclusion: Though we humans have “irreversibly changed” our planet home Earth, not all the news is bad. New species on Earth are being formed at the highest level ever.

In his Prologue, Thomas treats us to a summary of Earth’s “diversity of immigrant critters,” and trees and shrubs, while we humans leave our “indelible signature.” Earth’s vegetation is now 1/3 human food. Though we are responsible for the acidification of the oceans, climate change, and the loss of many species, there are others that are thriving. Since we “live in a globalized world,” we need to understand what we can do to encourage the “new hybrid plant species” and keep “as many species as possible alive on our global Ark.” We do no good with a “loss-only view.”

Thomas leaves us with the duty to “maintain robust ecosystems,” using “maximum efficiency to “fulfill all human needs” while “generating the least possible collateral damage.” While accepting inevitable change, flexibility is required while we minimize the number of species that become extinct. We could hybridize new species, even create biological diversity. Such new species may have future importance.

We can “shed self-imposed restraints” and “introduce new species” to new geographic regions, diverse landscapes, even develop new insects that eat our weeds. We can “help direct the evolutionary process.”In five million years, we could be credited with increasing Earth’s biological diversity. We could be responsible for a ‘sixth genesis.”

The author doesn’t forget to remind us that humans need to do the obvious: stabilize and then reduce the human population, minimize consumption, reduce our foot print obtaining food, recycle the water we use, and reduce greenhouse emissions. Those are the tall orders, recognized in this creatively hopeful but realistic book.