Destination: Books

Assessing Climate Books

The Heat Will Kill You First is a well-researched and well-written book, but with a title and a cover that isn't exactly encouraging to readers. (I wonder about the publisher's decision to market "a hell-on-earth" book jacket.)

Jeff Goodell begins the book with graphic details on the heat wave in the summer of 2021 in the Pacific Northwest, and its horrific effects on people, crops, salmon—you name it. (The opening is similar to the beginning of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Ministry for the Future.) Goodell explains the way heat affects human beings and animals both who are ill-equipped to handle rising temperatures.

Other topics include:

• How scientists can now prove which ecological events are caused by climate change and which are not. This matters as future generations can begin to legally hold current fossil fuel corporations responsible for the climate catastrophe (again it sounds like something right out of Kim Stanley Robinson). Interesting to note that heat waves, which much of the world experienced last summer, are considered direct consequences of climate change.
• Destruction of the ocean ecosystems most notably a phenomena known as the Blob, a heat dome the size of Texas that has disrupted the entire Pacific Ocean food chain.
• That you can’t rely on good air conditioning to remedy the problem. (If Phoenix lost power for a day or two in the summer it would result in heat-related deaths in the thousands). Air conditioning is only as good as your electric grid. 

As a remedy, Goodell writes:

"There are ways to limit the damage. The most obvious one, which I mentioned earlier: stop burning fossil fuels and move to clean energy alternatives. That may happen in some places faster than you think (at least for electricity generation)." A case in point, I recently returned to my boyhood home in East Central Illinois and Indiana for a visit and was amazed by the number of wind turbines.

Turbines on a hillside graveyard near Earl Park, Indiana

Also, Tatiana Schlossberg’s Inconspicuous Consumption: The Environmental Impact You Don’t Know You Have is a valuable book as it explains all the factors that drive our carbon-intensive society (reviewed here). It’s not nearly as stark as the Goodell’s book and it’s good start to understand the ways to reduce fossil fuel consumption with our daily habits. 

And by the way, Robinson’s speculative novel Ministry for the Future (review here) has a taint of optimism as well.

The next Destination: Books pop-up will be at the Freedom Farmer’s Market at the Carter Center on Saturday morning November 18th. In the meantime, both books are available at our online store at https://bookshop.org/lists/destination-favorites

https://bookshop.org/lists/destination-favorites

 

Thinking Outside Our Skulls

There are two books that have been at the forefront of my thoughts lately. One is Ministry for The Future by Kim Stanley Robinson, and the other is Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds and Shape Futures by Merlin Sheldrake.

Ministry for the Future

The recent high temperatures in the U.S. and Western Europe remind me of the opening chapters of Ministry for The Future, Robinsons speculative novel about the not-to-distant future of a planet coming to grips with global catastrophe. Robinson’s book begins with a cataclysmic heat event in India killing millions of people.

Depressing reading? Yes sorta, but as you read on, the Robinson book shows that the future doesn’t have to be so bleak if we combine technology and a willingness to make political change--even if it takes some real arm twisting.  The book shows us a way out and that is a cause for optimism.  For more about the book, visit a posting "Speculating on the Future" on my companion blog. There you will find more about the book and links to Ezra Klein's recent interview with Robinson.

In the interview Robinson remains guardedly optimistic. He thinks the planet has reached a sweet spot that climate change definitely has our attention (no small task) and it’s not too late to do something about it.  This makes sense. If things are too catastrophic then we are too overwhelmed to do anything, but if the negative impact is too mild then it is too easy to ignore. 

Alas, we have reached the sweet spot of misery.

Entangled Life

Like Ministry this book is supposed to change your life, which is always makes me skeptical, but you cannot read it and not be amazed about all the possibilities.  What I appreciated about Sheldrake’s short book is that he provides a readable overview of how fungi have played an unheralded pivotal role in the planet’s ecosystem.

He includes chapters on defining the fungi (e.g., truffles) and how they operate in labyrinths underneath our feet. There is a chapter on lichen (which are well suited for space travel BTW), the long history of hallucinogenic mushrooms, and the possibilities of mushrooms being used to combat pollution and soil contamination.  There are some color photographs to illustrate Sheldrake’s book including this oyster mushroom growing out of jar of old cigarette butts. *

Both Ministry and Entangled books address these topics individually, but what contributes to their popularity is that they provide a vision of the possibilities if we just “think outside our skulls," as Sheldrake writes.

You can browse through both books at our next pop-up at the Freedom Farmers Market at the Carter Center in Atlanta on Saturday morning, July 30th.

*This photo of the Sheldrake book comes from Rob McCoy who has written a mushroom classic entitled Radical Mycology, where he has used a white rot fungus, the Pleurotus mycelium to grow oyster mushrooms from used cigarette butts.

Electrify

Electrify: An Optimists Playbook for a Clean Energy Future (MIT Press, 2021) by Saul Griffith is a briskly paced book advocating that the best way to slow climate change is to shift the electric grid away from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. Included in this strategy is connecting our day-to-day necessities (especially electric cars) into that grid. 

Griffith writes that the transmission lines that move the electricity generated by wind and solar energy to the population centers needs to be upgraded.  What makes Griffith's argument compelling is how he uses data to solidify the points he is trying to make. In the appendix, he provides succinct answers to address the main concerns that people will have.

Coincidently, there is one question about utilities that caught my attention:

Appendix A, page 198

Georgians for Renewable Energy

Griffith's sentence "If you really want to make a difference, get yourself elected to the board of your state's utility commission and steer it in the right direction"  really resonates because Georgians now have an opportunity to do something meaningful.

The Georgia Public Service Commissioners (PSC) is a committee of five members that make recommendations on Georgia Energy Policy. On May 25, 2022, the PSC is holding hearings on the Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) which is mapping out Georgia's energy future. 

One important way you advocate for clean energy renewables is to comment on the PSC public comments page, but the form has to be filled out properly. Fortunately, a group Decatur Cares About Climate has made that easier by providing step by step instructions HERE. 

If enough people comment,  these commissioners will take notice because they are probably not used to being flooded by citizens input.

 

Additional References

A lengthy radio interview with Saul Griffith from October 29, 2021 on the NPR show Climate One.

The NPR show 1A aired a show on the topic, "Our Climate Is Heating Up and We Know How to Stop It, But Will We?." Members of the panel reinforce Griffith's arguments that the technology is now available for significantly cleaner energy, but the two main obstacles are the transmission line issue and the political will to make it happen.

And finally, you should read Electrify. Order a copy here from Destination: Books. 

Ammo for Eco-Poopers

As defined in the last posting an Eco-Pooper is a person that brings up the negative environmental ramifications of any product or activity being considered or discussed (like Jason in the ABC sitcom Abbott Elementary). If you are that person, or want to be that person, or you would prefer just being better informed, Tatiana Schlossberg’s Inconspicuous Consumption: The Environmental Impact You Don’t Know You Have merits some of your attention. (An updated paperback version is available in March at the Destination: Books online store via Bookshop.org.)

Schlossberg, the climate beat reporter for The New York Times has compiled a comprehensive list of what we buy, the way we buy it and how we live impacts the environment. She connects the dots from all over -- Mongolia, Columbia, and Iowa to our front porch.

She divides the topic into sections on Technology and the Internet, Food, Fashion, and Fuel and then parses them into shorter chapters. For example, Fashion is divided into “Thirsty for Denim”, “Athleisure Forever!”, “Fast Fashion, but Going Nowhere”, “It’s Not Wood, It’s Rayon" and “The Yarn That Makes the Desert.” In the latter piece Schlossberg shows how the consumer lust for inexpensive cashmere had caused climate chaos in Mongolia that has resulted in the expansion of the Gobi Desert and rising ozone levels in California.

Similarly, in "The Great Big Cargo Route in the Sky" Schlossberg uses roses grown in the South American country of Columbia to illustrate the impact of air freight on the environment. She writes:

"In 2017, 4 billion flowers (roses and others) weighing 200,000 tons total (about one-tenth of pound per flower) were flown from Columbia to the United States… Carrying all of those flowers (and just the flowers, not including their packaging) used 114 million liters of fuel and released 360,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide, according to an estimate from the International Council on Clean Transportation."

Two takeaways from this excerpt: 1.) Schlossberg includes her statistics and references throughout the book (mostly in the footnotes) and 2.) If you don’t want to buy your sweetheart roses this Valentine’s Day you have a readymade excuse (even though they have probably have already landed stateside).

And roses are nothing compared to coal ash, the highly toxic by-product of burning coal in power plants that is primarily stored in water near lakes and streams, until it is not. (The disaster at the Kingston, Tennessee Fossil Plant in 2008).

And then there is most unfavorite revelation in the “The Greediest Crop” piece which is about environmental problems surrounding corn. (I grew up in the town known as the Buckle on the Corn Belt and I love corn-on-the-cob). Too much corn is being grown partially for use as the gasoline supplement ethanol and for the feeding of livestock. Moreover, how the corn is grown exacerbates the problem.  Besides the fossil fuel burned to grow the corn/ethanol, corn is being grown as a monoculture crop requiring larger amounts for fertilizer and it is more susceptible to disease and insects (more pesticides needed). She explains how the endless acres of corn creates droughts and floods as well. News reports of violent flooding with thunderstorms that destroy crops and livelihoods in the Midwest are serving as constant reminders.

If there is a bright spot in Schlossberg’s book is that it does not have an overly bitter or condemning tone and she has lighter moments to keep it in perspective. She quips, “My love for disappointing facts as perhaps you have come learn is endless.”

Inconspicuous Consumption is simply a one stop shop, summarizing the role each consumer plays in harming and perhaps changing some habits to save the planet.