ISBN 978 1 84668 560 6. “What has Nature ever done for us? How money really does grow on trees” by Tony Juniper was published by Profile Books in 2013. Tony is best known as Britain’s foremost environmental campaigner and former director of Friends of the Earth. He is a very serious and popular environmentalist – and normally we would not read his books… But when a big serious environmentalist writes (or attempts to write) a book on the economic failings that destroy nature, even we sit-up and take notice. Does he do the subject justice? Almost certainly YES, but with some minor caveats. You cannot take the environmentalist out of Tony nor should we want to. Hence this book is what you would expect from him. Continue reading
Tag Archives: science
“Sustainability” Chris Goodall
ISBN 978-1-4441-7440-3. The “All That Matters” book on “Sustainability” by Chris Goodall was published by Hodder & Stoughton in 2012. This is a small book that fits nicely in your pocket with only 154 pages. The blurb says that “All That Matters” books are written by “the world’s leading experts”. Certainly Chris is that. We are a big fan (we admit it). We will read anything he writes including his excellent blogs. So it is interesting to see how his work has evolved over the years. Those who have followed his work can’t help but notice that THIS book reveals a lot about the current state of Chris’s mind. So, what does he think today about sustainability?
“Merchants of Doubt” by Naomi Oreskes & Erik M. Conway
ISBN 978 14088 2483 2. “Merchants of Doubt – How a handful of scientists obscured the truth on issues from tobacco smoke to global warming” was written by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway and first published by Bloomsbury in 2010 (this paperback in 2012). If you fast forward to the Conclusion in this book you may be forgiven for thinking you were still reading the last book we reviewed “Debunking Economics” by Steve Keen. For what links the two is how a dogmatic belief in “free market fundamentalism” can cause people to abandon all reason. As if under the influence of some bizarre cult perfectly reasonable people start to deny the very principle of reality: they start fighting scientific rationalism with propaganda.
Genetic Modification in our food: the gloves come off
Nothing more clearly illustrates the division between old fashioned green thinking & the modern sustainability movement than Genetically Modified food. A recent clash of Tweets between author Mark Lynas (“The God Species“) and Dr Vandana Shiva (author “Soil Not Oil“) exposes just how deep the battle wounds have become. The gloves are off but maybe both are missing the point.