Cary Neeper's Blog: Reviewing World-changing Nonfiction, page 4

”Shutting down the shutdown.”

Review of an article by Sarah Myers in the Stanford Daily, Tuesday January 29, 2019--”Shutting down the shutdown.”

Since the shutdown track record of the U.S. President and Congress is not good, Myers suggests obvious options that seem to elude our elected pundits:
1)Congress could come up with a constitutional amendment that would maintain a funding package for one year so that “…the previous year’s funding package is automatically enacted…” if a new package can’t pass. Japan does this.
2)A simple majority (not 2/3) should pass the budget, and Congress should be able to override a Presidential veto. Myers gives this a thoughtful analysis, pointing out the “disadvantages” to easy veto overriding and “easily changed” Congressional procedures.
3)There could be Congressional time limits on budget negotiations.
4)Shutdowns could have consequences for Congress, like salary reductions. Refusals to work without pay should clearly be an option for Government employees and agencies.

I’m sure we are not alone in agreeing with Myers’ conclusion: “Structural change to our legislative process or to bureaucratic policies…” need to be made. Now!

Reviewing “How the Body Knows Its Mind” by Sian Bailock

“How the Body Knows Its Mind” by Sian Bailock, New York, Atria Paperback, Simon and Schuster, 2015.
Our physical environment--including our bodies and the way they do things-- “…influence how [we] think and feel.” Chapter 5 of this book is entitled “…How our Hands Help Us Think…” Watch any speaker, says the author. We usually use our hands to help us communicate. This book also goes on to explain learning by doing, the “Physical Nature of Emotion,” the benefits of movement and sports and laughter to our mental health and well-being.

There is a two-way street between body and mind. Holding a pencil in your teeth, even a fake smile can make you feel happier. Body expressions “send feedback to our brain,” providing relief, stress reduction, and emotion. Tylenol can reduce social as well as physical pain. Infants who crawl have better memory. Action creates thought.

The sea squirt tadpole has a brain until it finds a place to attach itself. Then “…their brain is absorbed by their body.” This makes clear why block play is so important for very young humans. Maria Montessori pointed out years ago that mental development is dependent on movement. Physical experience helps in learning math. Dancers learn choreography by physically acting out the movements. Or entire body can be useful in memory.

One chapter is devoted to Body Language. Body posture is important. No wonder exercise can make a big difference in our attitudes. It can also slow the influence of Alzheimers disease.

Unstable walking can indicate “cognitive impairment.” Sedentary rats have more heart problems than active ones.“How you stand can change your state of mind.” So can medication. Physical closeness can help you feel more connected. Bailock’s book makes all this, and much more, clear.

Reviewing “Inheritors of the Earth: How Nature Is Thriving in an Age of Extinction” by Chris D. Thomas

“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.”

Reviewing World On the Edge: How To Prevent Environmental Collapse by Lester R. Brown,

New York, W.W.Norton and Company, 2011
Do re-read this book. It’s 200 pages filled with data --all confirmed and expanded by recent events--erratic weather extremes, water loss, expanding deserts, rising temperatures, refugees and failed states.

The Earth Policy Institutes “Plan B” is simple--its conclusions all too obvious: “…we need to build an economy…powered [by] wind, solar and geothermal--one that has a diversified transparent system that reuses and recycles everything.

Changing our current economy requires “full-cost pricing.” Economists must calculate indirect costs and restructure taxes. Cutting income taxes while increasing gasoline taxes would provide “rapid economic growth.” Taxing carbon emissions is an obvious need-- being honest about costs of “…burning gasoline or coal…deforestation…over pumping aquifers and …overfishing.” We need to recognize the “sustainable yield limits of natural systems.”

In 2007 a Florida coal plant license was refused because “…the utility proposing it could not prove that building the plant would be cheaper than investing in conservation, efficiency, or renewable energy sources.”

The obvious quick fixes are “…eliminating fossil fuel subsidies…build[ing] together” instead of spending so much on the military, and “taxing each tree cut” and cutting only mature trees.

The extreme storms had already begun when this book was written. Surely Lester Brown’s Plan B makes a lot more sense than blindly assuming we must grow the economy, regardless. See Lester Brown

Reviewing "Wesley the Owl" and "Wild Things, Wild Places"

Wesley the Owl: The Remarkable Love Story of an Owl and His Girl by Stacey O’Brian, New York, Free Press, 2008.

Indeed, this is a remarkable story, told with elegant precision so that we learn how owls communicate, what they care about, what they won’t tolerate, how they love, eat, gripe, clean themselves, and how they express the obvious emotions we all share.

Enough said. It’s a real eye-opener. We are truly not alone in sensitivity and talent. Life on Earth is more ingenious than we have realized.

Wild Things, Wild Places by Jane Alexander, New York, Alfred A. Knopt, 2016.

The three parts of this book are divided into chapters named after countries, states, “Desert.” “Ocean,” and “Birds,” but the stories are focused more on the author’s experiences than on details about wild things.

In pages 292 and 293, however, the author does a nice job of reminding us that “We are all ”…connected in milliseconds and transport…while faced with the obvious need to…consciously manage the planet [and]…save the declining species of the world…it is a moral imperative as the most evolved creature on the planet to care for the home we share with all others. Everything we need or make comes from natural resources…’”

Reviewing Degrowth in the Suburbs

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.

Review of Life Without Oil by Hallett and Wright

Life Without Oil: by Steve Hallett and John Wright, Amherst New York, Prometheus Books, 2011.

I awoke one morning recently realizing how this “old” book mirrors The Archives of Varok, my 1970’s attempt (updated this decade) to explain why we “Must Shift To a New Energy Future.”

My dad saw it coming in the 1960’s--this need to pull back on our runaway economy and population bomb--when he could not find, anywhere in the world, matched rosewood to build a xylophone.

In Life Without Oil, the authors (writing before 2011) tell us that “The party’s over.
Technology will not save us, that “…globalization accelerates our destruction and deepens our vulnerability…” so we had better make “…communities and nations…more resilient to the coming collapse and more able to recover thereafter.” They make a detailed, well-documented case with extensive reference notes and Index.

The authors’ suggestions are just as valid now as they were eight years ago: sustainability must replace the current “…ethos of growth, where people share and conserve, rather than compete and consume.” I.e. don’t send food; support local production and “sustainable ecology.” Manage the commons. “Allow immigration” to solve problems of declining populations.

Europe is a good example of how population growth can reach a “rate near zero.” This world does not need to be another Easter Island, where ten communities competed for resources until the land was stripped bare.

We need to “…forego short-term economic needs” and invest in alternative energy technologies, “replace fossil fuels” while protecting the land and maintaining the wilderness, productive farmland, clean air and water.

Industry must be required to pay “…the economic price and the ecological price for the materials they use and the goods they produce and distribute…” . How? With careful planning. Remove subsidies “from polluting industries.” Increase their taxes when they pollute, trade emission permits and enforce regulations in the financial industry, especially where the natural environment can be protected.

The authors recognize that all situations can differ, but it makes sense that the pros and cons of various regulations can be balanced--just as we balance the right of way at a four-way stop on our highways. We all honor the rules: the car on the right goes first if two cars get to the intersection at the same time. Otherwise we simply take turns--first one there goes first.

Review of Cowed: The Hidden Impact of 93 Million Cows on America’s Health, Economy, Politics, Culture, and Environment

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.

Don Neeper's Blog series on the state of the U.S.

Blog 137 by Don Neeper "Is there a penchant for winning in [this] interconnected world?"
http://neeper.net/blog-137-american-a... …

For the entire blog sequence, last shown at top
http://neeper.net/don-neepers-blog/ …

A short review of a most critical issue: Blue Future: Protecting Water For People and the Planet Forever by Maude Barlow

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.