Review: Human Footprint

I recently happened to see a National Geographic documentary called Human Footprint. This was made in 2008, but this was the first time I saw it, so I decided to write a short review. The main idea of this documentary is to show the impact of an average American on the environment visually. The quantities of products consumed over a year or a lifetime are actually physically laid out in various different configurations. Rather than just using numbers, which often be very abstract to many people, this physical presentation is an effective way to communicate the message. It should be noted that this is essentially a remake of a UK documentary with the same name, narrated by David Tennant, which aired a year earlier.

As with An Inconvenient Truth, the documentary does a relatively good job of laying out the problem, but offers only the same trite and insufficient solutions we have heard many times. American consumption of everything from diapers, to food and clothing, and to energy is laid bare. A fair amount of time is used to discuss electricity use (more than half of which is powered by coal) and the automobile. It is pointed out that Americans have more cars and drive further than anyone else in the world, and that the US consumes a quarter of the world's energy even though they have only five percent of the population.

I think the biggest value of the documentary is that it effectively shows not only that American consumption is very high, but it also compares American consumption and carbon emissions to both European countries and the third world. This is important because it demonstrates that this level of consumption is obviously not necessary for a high quality of life. It also makes clear that the third world is not responsible for the bulk of the problem, though it would have been better if the documentary had also mentioned historical consumption and carbon emissions by the West.

Unfortunately, the documentary doesn't spend much time on the effect of this consumption on the rest of the world, though to be fair, this was not its main focus. Still, without the consequences of the consumption being strongly communicated, viewers might not appreciate the full extent of why such high consumption levels are bad. One segment does use the example of coltan mining to show how our consumption can impact people in the third world. Coltan is a rare mineral required for many electronic devices such as cell phones, and Americans throw out millions of these every year. Eighty percent of it is located in the Congo, and efforts to mine it are causing severe environmental and human consequences.

The documentary is at its weakest when it discusses solutions to these problems. The same tired suggestions are presented: Raise or lower the thermostat in your home by two degrees. Install more efficient light bulbs. Consider a hybrid. We have already known for some time that such minor lifestyle changes, while necessary, are far from sufficient. When it comes to cell phones, the suggestion is simply that we recycle more of them. There is no mention of actually reducing consumption in the first place or of conservation in general, never mind suggesting we modify our transportation infrastructure or switch to alternative energies.

For many people, especially Americans, who aren't aware of how high their consumption is, or what effect it has on the environment, this documentary might serve as a useful introduction. However, despite the elaborate displays, it doesn't seem to take the problem seriously enough, and it completely fails to offer any real concrete solutions that might actually make a difference. I would recommend this documentary only as a starter for those unaware of environmental issues, which should be followed up more serious works.

Capitalism During a Crisis

Many scientists and environmentalists are often accused of trying to undercut capitalism simply because they are pointing out the tremendous damage we are doing to the environment and are warning us about the consequences. By saying that we cannot continue growth because we have exceeded the carrying capacity of the planet, they are seen as deliberately trying to sabotage the predominant Western economic ideology. Of course, science is only about facts, not ideology, so if the facts are telling us something that is in conflict with our beliefs, perhaps we need to adjust our beliefs. Still, let's set that aside for the moment and look at how Western capitalist countries, and the US in particular, have dealt with serious crises in the past.

We have several examples in the twentieth century that can provide some insight. The first is the Great Depression. During the twenties, there was a period of rapid growth in the economy and accelerating speculation in the stock market. Investing in stocks had previously been limited to relatively wealthy individuals, but during this period a much wider segment of the population began to put their money in the stock market, encouraged by good financial news, opportunistic brokers, and outright Ponzi schemes. Many didn't really understand what they were investing in, and there were few regulations requiring accurate reporting by public companies. Not surprisingly, an unsustainable bubble was created, which popped in the crash of 1929.

During the next decade, people suffered many serious problems. Unemployment was at record levels, food was in short supply, millions lost their homes and farms and many had to live in shanty towns. Industrial production dropped in half, thousands of banks folded, and the housing industry declined by eighty percent. Thousands of Americans actually emigrated to the Soviet Union looking for better lives.

Clearly this was a serious crisis. How did the US government respond? Wage and prices control were put in place. Massive public works programs were setup, employing millions, to build transportation infrastructure, distribute food and clothing, and build libraries, parks, schools and theatres. The New Deal established a wide variety of social programs, including Social Security, which provided old age, unemployment and health insurance benefits, among others. In other words, the free market was deliberately limited and the government took a much more active role in the management of the economy. This took place under both Republican and Democratic administrations. In a pinch, it was capitalism that had to give.

Once World War II began, centralized government control and management was expanded even further. Many items were rationed. Price controls were vigorously enforced and hoarding become a serious offence. Personal vehicles were banned except for official or essential use. Within months all automobile factories were converted to the production of war materiel, including tanks, planes, weapons and ammunition. The production of automobiles and many other products was simply suspended. Fascism clearly represented a global crisis, and it demanded a serious response. The free market was put on hold.

Of course, the US was not unique in their approach. Similar things were done in most other western countries as well. Indeed because of the need to maintain order and rebuild after the war, the UK kept their rationing system until 1954, almost ten years after the war ended.

During the seventies, people had to deal with rapidly rising food prices, low employment, and the oil crisis. Again, wage and price controls were put in place, and the national speed limit was lowered. Gasoline was rationed, and minimum fuel economy standards were put in place for vehicles. Auto racing was limited or cancelled in some cases, and a wide variety of conservation measures were undertaken. This was all done under a Republican administration.

None of this should be surprising. During an emergency or crisis, rapid change is needed and the resources of a society need to be diverted for other purposes. New laws need to be passed and people need to be encouraged to do things differently so that everyone can work together towards a common national goal. This necessarily means a limitation on the rights and priorities of the individual and a focus on the well-being of the collective. This approach helped many survive the depression, and it helped to win World War II.

We now face a new crisis with climate change. The lives of millions, if not billions, are at stake, as is the future of our civilization. This is a bigger and more serious problem than we have ever faced before. Does anyone expect laissez-faire economics and the free market to solve this problem? No, solving this problem will require significant government intervention, and significant changes in our lives. A crisis demands strong, urgent, and coordinated action. This doesn't necessarily mean the abandonment of capitalism, but at the least it will mean putting it on a short leash. This is, after all, precisely the approach we have taken in the past.

Carbon Storage

Carbon sequestration, or carbon storage, is one method proposed to help reduce carbon emissions and mitigate the effects of global warming. The idea is that activities that generate massive carbon emissions, such as oil refining or coal-based power production, can be modified so that much of the carbon is stored instead of released into the atmosphere. Various new technologies have been proposed to separate the carbon at the point of production, and then store it in some way, underground for example. Unfortunately, none of this technology has yet been proved, and there is no non-experimental application of it anywhere at this point. Additionally, carbon storage, even if feasible, does not address many of the other environmental impacts of the industrial activities involved.

One problem with carbon storage is that it usually requires the construction of new plants or facilities. Even in that case the best estimates suggest that a coal-fired plant, for example, could require 25-40 percent more fuel, and could increase the cost of energy production by as much as 90 percent. This also requires the construction of a storage facility which will demand significant energy and financial resources. Modifying existing plants for carbon storage would be vastly more expensive, making the viability of doing so questionable.

Some have suggested that in a couple decades, with sufficient research and development, it might be possible to generate power with carbon sequestration for the same price as today, or even a bit less. However, we don't have the luxury of waiting for this new technology, assuming it is even possible. We need to reduce emissions now. The other problem is that this would require building new coal plants (or oil refineries, etc.) when we need to be reducing our use of fossil fuels. By closing down existing coal plants or oil refineries, we can reduce emissions immediately, and any reductions done today are worth several times more than hypothetical reductions done in the future, because the longer carbon is in the atmosphere the more harm it can do. This would also mean we could end the horribly destructive practice of mountaintop removal.

Another problem with the idea of carbon storage involves how we actually store the carbon. One suggestion has been that we pump it into the deep ocean. Aside from the cost issue, this would be environmentally devastating. Our oceans are already dying, and one significant problem is ocean acidification. The oceans are a carbon sink, so as more and more carbon enters the atmosphere, more and more is absorbed by the ocean. This is killing coral reefs and making it difficult for many creatures to grow their shells. The last thing we need to be doing is deliberately adding more carbon dioxide to the oceans.

Another proposed method of storage is to pump the carbon underground. This involves compressing it and pumping into existing geological formations, such as old oil fields, or unminable coal seams. One problem here is the potential for leakage, made especially problematic because of the high pressure. Some leaks have already happened during tests, resulting in the death of wildlife. In 1986, there was a significant leak of naturally sequestered carbon in Cameroon. This resulted in 1700 deaths and a large amount of livestock being killed. Even with the best pipes and monitoring systems, some geological features may be unstable, which could lead to future leaks. Earthquakes or other natural events could also trigger a leak. And, as with nuclear waste, these carbon storage areas will need to be monitored and managed for thousands of years.

The other problem with carbon sequestration, aside all of the above, is that it ignores all other environmental considerations. One of the reasons we need to reduce our energy use, and industrial activity generally, is not just to reduce carbon emissions, though that is important, but to reduce further damage to the environment. We are already over carrying capacity, yet every year there are less forests, less wetlands, and less species, as well as more pollution, more dead zones, and more desertification. Every time we degrade the environment, we are reducing our ability to produce food, as well as the planet's ability to absorb our pollution. We are also threatening the habitats of many species, including our own.

Many people are desperate for a quick fix that can solve global warming, while allowing everything else to go on as before. Unfortunately, in the case of carbon storage, the technology is not yet proven to be either technically or financially feasible. Additionally, the proposed storage methods are either risky or can directly cause environmental harm. Also, it is precisely business as usual that has caused most our environmental problems in the first place. Further industrial growth and expansion will only make the problem worse.

There is, however, one method of carbon sequestration that is cheap, effective, and risk-free. It requires no ongoing monitoring, new facilities or new technology. It has no negative side effects and won't damage the environment in any way. As George Monbiot has said, It's called leaving fossil fuels in the ground.

Biofuels

A few years ago, the promotion of biofuels an as alternative energy source, especially to replace gasoline, reached a high point. Since then several issues, such as concern about food prices, and whether or not more energy is needed to produce the fuels than we get out of them, have meant that biofuels have begun to fall out of favour. Nevertheless, many people and organizations are still pushing biofuels despite the fact that they cannot be used sustainably on any large scale.

First, let's look at the issue of energy by itself. There are many different types of biofuel, but for many of them, the amount of energy needed to make them is higher than the amount of energy we get out of them by burning in a gas tank or power plant. Fossil fuels are needed to make the fertilizer to grow the biofuel crop, more fossil fuels are needed to run the farm machinery, and yet more is needed to process the crops into a usable form of biofuel. Ethanol is one of the most popular and widely used forms of biofuels. The Wall Street Journal references one study that says:

They've found that it takes more than a gallon of fossil fuel to make one gallon of ethanol--29% more. That's because it takes enormous amounts of fossil-fuel energy to grow corn (using fertilizer and irrigation), to transport the crops and then to turn that corn into ethanol.

Other types of biofuel have similar problems, such as oil from sunflowers, which requires roughly twice as much energy to make as it provides. Other biofuels, including those produced from soybeans or sugarcane, on the other hand, may provide a net energy benefit. However, we have to also consider all the other impacts from their production, which we will see below.

Regardless of whether a given biofuel may be produced at a net energy loss or gain, they are still dependant on the use of fossil fuels. As oil supplies begin to decline after peak oil, their use in agriculture (either for food crops or biofuel crops) will start to become limited. Those supplies still available will likely be several times more expensive, which will also limit their use for agriculture. Already today, many biofuel crops, such as ethanol, can only be financially justified because of large subsidies. Without subsidies and cheap oil, they just don't make sense.

Just as many biofuels require more energy than they provide, unsurprisingly, many of them produce more carbon emissions than fossil fuels, when their entire lifecycle is taken into account. However, this is not always true, many biofuels, especially "next generation" kinds, can save as much as fifty percent of emissions as compared to fossil fuels. Many of these crops can only grow in certain parts of the world though, and can provide only a relatively small supply using current cropland.

This is where the calculations break down. In order to grow enough crops to produce large amounts of biofuel, vast areas of land need to be cleared and dedicated to their production. Aside from the obvious ecological damage, this is catastrophic in terms of carbon emissions. A study published in the journal Science puts it starkly:

...converting rainforests, peatlands, savannas, or grasslands to produce food-based biofuels in Brazil, Southeast Asia, and the United States creates a ‘biofuel carbon debt’ by releasing 17 to 420 times more CO2 than the annual greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions these biofuels provide by displacing fossil fuels.

Brazil is often held up as an example of a country which is successfully using biofuel to sustainably power their automobiles. Yet, Brazil has reclassified 200 million hectares of natural habitat to be used for biofuel, mostly sugarcane. Forty percent of their biofuel comes from soybeans, and the Amazon rainforest is being cleared by roughly 325,000 hectares a year in order to increase its production. And for all this Brazil only has roughly 8 million vehicles powered, partly, by biofuel. The latest standards require 25 percent ethanol, but the other 75 percent is still gasoline or diesel. Far from being sustainable, Brazil is desperately destroying their country in order to just partly offset their use of fossil fuels, on which they remain entirely dependant.

But, what about the US? The US has roughly 250 million vehicles on the road! Do we even have enough land left to clear to grow enough biofuel to power all of that? Humans are already over carrying capacity, yet we are still continuing to destroy more natural habitat, precisely when we need to be protecting and restoring it. There is no way we can produce enough biofuel just to power our cars, let alone any type of electricity generation, without rapidly accelerating our destruction of the environment.

Our agricultural methods are already unsustainable and badly depleting soil and water, as well documented by Lierre Keith in her book The Vegetarian Myth. We urgently need to transition to a more sustainable way of producing food. The last thing we need is an expansion of agriculture in order to produce biofuels designed to allow us to maintain an extremely inefficient transportation system. Instead, we need to reduce the number of cars and trucks and switch to rail instead.

Biofuels are not completely useless, however. On the small scale, they can serve to provide small amounts of power for local needs, such as operating tractors, or charging batteries. The reuse of food waste to make biofuels, for example, is likely a good idea in some cases. This type of small-scale biofuel use can fit in with a larger alternative energy strategy that can help us live sustainably, though at a much lower level of consumption than today.

Those working on biofuels may be honestly interested in reducing the use of fossil fuels and helping the environment. But there is no way they can provide enough energy to replace them, while allowing us to continue our lives as before. If we honestly want to reduce our use of fossil fuels, the solution is simple, we need to drastically reduce our use of energy, our waste, and our general overconsumption.

Review: The Vegetarian Myth

Lierre Keith has recently published an enlightening and provocative book called "The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability". The book takes a hard, scientific look at various arguments for vegetarianism and veganism. It also examines many of the moral and ethical arguments for this lifestyle, and asks whether a vegetarian diet is truly consistent with those values. The book is also about a personal journey for the author, who was herself a vegan for many years, and ran into serious health problems on account of this. Finally, it is a call to arms, to defend the planet and the environment, against those who would give it no quarter.

The author takes on vegetarianism in three main sections. The first looks at moral arguments for vegetarianism, including the desire to avoid death and suffering. She agrees with reducing suffering, but by looking more deeply at agricultural methods, and the co-evolution of species, she counters that avoiding death is an impossible (and counter-productive) task. She then tackles political arguments for vegetarianism, including the desire to reduce hunger and improve sustainability. She agrees with these goals, but argues that a vegetarian diet, and the agricultural methods needed to provide it, are entirely in opposition to such goals. Finally she addresses arguments that a vegetarian diet is healthier and more nutritious. Through the use of logic, and extensive reference to scientific studies and trials, she makes some persuasive arguments in favour of an omnivore diet, with a strong preference for meat and other animal products.

The book is more than just a scientific critique, though. The author was herself a vegan for twenty years, driven by idealism and a strong desire for justice and sustainability. During this period she suffered significant permanent damage to her health. She documents her long struggle with ideology on the one hand, and the scientific reality of nature as she truly is, on the other. Though the book covers very serious topics, she manages to introduce a sense of humour from time to time as she talks about her trials and tribulations, especially when learning to grow her own food.

The book is also a call to action. The author takes an unapologetically radical stance and argues that our current economic and social system, even civilization itself, as we have come to know it, is the problem, and needs to confronted and resisted, by all possible means.

Moral Vegetarians

It is important to note that the author goes to great pains to make the point that she is not opposed to the ethics or morals of most vegetarians and vegans. Indeed she shares those beliefs passionately, which is why she adopted such an extreme diet in her own life. Her argument is that ideology has triumphed over reality, and we need to base our decisions on sound science. She says:

What separates me from vegetarians isn’t ethics or commitment. It’s information.

To demonstrate this, she gives some examples of the profound lack of knowledge about ecology and general biology many vegetarians have. She relates the incredible story about a western vegetarian who made a posting on a web forum suggesting that fences be established throughout Africa in order to separate predators from prey. Even worse, he suggested that all the carnivores could eat grass instead (which of course they can't, as the author points out, only ruminants can digest grass). Apparently, fellow forum posters didn't find this outrageous, and many chimed in with their support for this idea. One need only watch the occasional nature documentary to recognize the folly here, assuming common sense is insufficient.

This worldview shows the type of cult-like thinking that some groups can descend into. Of course, predators and prey are all part of a healthy ecosystem. Without the predators, the prey population can explode, which can lead to overgrazing and other problems. It goes beyond that, though, as the author points out, there is not just a food chain, but a food circle. Animal waste, such as manure, feeds plants and helps them grow, which provides more food for animals. Many plants require animals for their pollination, and some animals have evolved to depend on a single plant species for food. And when animals finally die, including us, we feed the soil. Everything is interconnected.

The main problem, according to the author, is the desire by vegetarians and vegans to avoid death. By not eating animals, the theory goes, one is taking the moral high ground and avoiding being the cause of death. Note that in the case of factory farms, there's no dispute, the author agrees completely that these are cruel and unnatural and should be banned. But if we don't eat animals, that means all our food comes from agriculture. This is where the author spends much of her time in this section. She argues that agriculture is the cause of not only massive death, but the extinction of countless species and the general destruction of the natural environment.

For food to grow, of course, we need soil. A small section of soil can contain millions of creatures and thousands of different species, it is not just "dirt". Soil is naturally built up over thousands of years as species die and are broken down and absorbed by tiny creatures. Animals and plant waste, and their remains, all contribute to this. Nothing is wasted. Agriculture means clearing the land of all the native plants and animals so that annual crops can be planted. We humans want annual crops because they produce large seeds that are worth harvesting for food. But by relying only on annuals, we degrade the soil so that eventually nothing will be able to grow, and the land could even turn to desert.

The author makes a point of distinguishing between plants that live a long time (years, decades, or sometimes even hundreds or thousands of years), and those that live for only a single year. The former are called perennial polyculture. In other words, many different plant species, living a long time, and supporting an ecosystem of many different animal and insect species. Annuals cannot grow in such environments, but they don't need to. They lie in wait, sometimes for hundreds of years, until the coast is clear. Fires, floods, or other natural events will eventually expose the soil, and this is when annuals spring to life. They usually live only a single season, so they must grow quickly, and then discard large seeds that can lie in wait for the next opportunity. They fill a temporal ecological niche, and they also serve an important function. Their roots protect the soil and ensure it is not blown away or carried away by flooding. Their growth also ensures the soil isn't exposed to too much sun for extended periods, which could result in the soil drying out.

But humans want the annuals for their large seeds, so that means we clear the land, plough the fields, and plant the seeds. What happens to the plants and animals that used to live there? On a small scale, they could move elsewhere. On a large scale, they simply become extinct. There goes the idea of agriculture being free of death, the author notes. In many areas, though, agriculture requires more water than is provided by ambient rainfall. This means irrigation, which means damming and diverting rivers. This allows the crops to grow, but leaves entire ecosystems barren and dying as rivers and streams dry up. Yet more species gone. Finally, the soil itself degrades, since there are no new nutrients to feed it, and after a period the entire area becomes infertile, and dries out. The birthplace of Western civilization is in southern Iraq, which textbooks still refer to as the Fertile Crescent. Today, of course, it is only desert.

I can only touch on the topic in this review, but the author's point is clear, I think. All life requires death. Predators feed on prey, prey feed on plants, and soil feeds on all of us. This is natural and sustainable, and it is how ecosystems evolved. Agriculture, though, destroys life in a way that is permanent and unsustainable. In either case, it is impossible to have a diet that is free from death. Vegetarians who believe this may be well intentioned, but they don't understand nature and their arguments are often naive and disconnected from reality.

Political Vegetarians

The author begins this section with the standard arguments I've heard many times myself, and had not really questioned. Meat requires several times more resources than grain, therefore it's unsustainable, and it also generates more carbon emissions. Meat requires more water, more energy, more food, and more land. An order of magnitude more grain is needed to feed animals to produce meat compared to humans just eating the grain itself directly. How can we possibly justify this when many in the world are starving? The stats are convincing, and, despite some small quibbles, essentially accurate. But they start with a false premise, that is, animals should be fed grain. In fact, ruminants, such as cows, evolved to eat grass, not grain, and they cannot digest this properly. Indeed it is actually harmful to them and causes severe health problems. Of course, they are killed and butchered before this becomes relevant, so it's easy to ignore.

I won't go into the statistics, but the author presents some convincing evidence that, given a proper diet of grass, either in a pasture, or within a natural ecosystem, meat "production" (if we must refer to it that way) consumes no more resources than the production of grain, and in some cases, may use less. When you consider that many areas of the world aren't suited to agriculture anyway (which is only possible now because of energy-intensive industrial methods), and many animals have valuable secondary products (such as milk), the ratio can be turned on its head. That's without considering the fact that cows on pastures can build soil, while grain monocrops destroy it.

Animals raised naturally do not require external inputs of water or energy. They feed on what grows within the ecosystem, and they contribute back to it. The water they consume is also expelled and fertilizes the soil. The only source of this water is precipitation, so no rivers have to be diverted. No fossil fuel energy is needed to run machinery or to produce fertilizer. The entire cycle is self-contained and self-sustaining. We are part of this cycle, of course, so we can eat these animals and there will always be more, as long as we do not over hunt. The soil also builds up, which means carbon dioxide is absorbed. When viewed this way, meat looks a lot more sustainable than grain.

This chapter also gets into many of the reasons why grain production is so high, and what impact this has had on world food production, especially in the third world. One of the points made is that in the West, farmers receive large subsidies for growing grain, because it is so cheap that selling it does not provide enough income for them to stay in business. This just means an even larger supply, which depresses prices further. Then, much of this grain is dumped on the third world, at prices that undercut what local subsistence farmers can sell for. So, these farmers abandon the land and move to the cities (or in many cases, commit suicide). So, we have a growing number of urban poor, and fewer and fewer people working the land. This makes it much harder for third world nations to feed themselves, and makes them dependent on the West.

The author gives many example of hunter-gatherer societies that were able to live sustainably for thousands of years. However, I found it refreshing to note that she does not view these societies through rose-coloured glasses, as many modern primitivists do. While there were many tribes that lived in an egalitarian way, there are also many that didn't. She gives many specific examples of tribes where women were treated brutally, raped and poorly fed. Some tribes practiced infanticide. The author rightly distinguishes gender relations, and social justice, from sustainable practices. You can have a patriarchal society that is sustainable, or an egalitarian society that degrades the environment. The goal is not to model our lives on a past hunter-gatherer society, but to learn what lessons we can from them.

Nutritional Vegetarians

As someone who has never been a vegetarian, I didn't expect the third section on nutritional vegetarians to be as interesting as the first two. I was surprised, however, to find this section both fascinating from a scientific point of view as well as devastating to those making arguments in favour of a vegetarian diet. This section also gave me the "warm and fuzzies" since I generally eat an old fashioned meat, potatoes and salad dinner, with plenty of butter. I also never drink pop (I usually stick with milk) and rarely eat sweets, mainly because I was raised that way. It made me feel good to know the food my parents and grandparents fed me was nice and healthy, just as I had always thought. I also found some of the section quite sad and depressing when I read the stories about people who had caused serious damage to their health or the health of their children, often through the best of intentions, including the author herself.

The author begins by looking at the anthropological evidence. By examining bones and other evidence scientists know that at least since Australopithecines, an early form of human that lived 4 million years ago, we have eaten meat, and we are very well adapted to it. Meat has much more nutrients than plants, and it is much more nutrient-dense. The human brain requires a lot of energy, and it is a diet of meat that allowed our brains to grow to the current size. Our digestive tracts also shrank 60 percent during this period. Contrast this to gorillas, who have small brains and much larger digestive systems. Gorillas, of course, are vegetarian.

Humans cannot directly digest the cellulose in plants. This is why we eat the creatures that can. We get our solar energy third-hand. First, the plants photosynthesize, then other animals eat the plants, and finally we eat them. We've lived and eaten this way for millions of years. Also, plants cannot move to avoid predators, so they protect themselves in other ways, primarily by producing toxic chemicals. This is why we need to cook and process foods such as grain, wheat and potatoes. Cows can eat grass because they have four stomachs, and a long and intensive digestive process. Humans and other carnivores cannot do this.

Until the development of agriculture, roughly 10,000 years ago, we did not eat these foods. The anthropological evidence also clearly shows that after agriculture was adopted, the size and height of humans declined, due to malnourishment. The bones also show evidence of many new diseases which are completely absent prior to this period. Hunter-gatherers generally worked only about 17 hours a week. Agriculturalists instead have to work very long hours doing back-breaking labour. Their reward for this work is a poorer source of food, less nutrition, and more disease.

Aside from anthropology, the author makes reference to many studies into local indigenous groups, from around the world, during the past century, and they all conclude the same. These groups were generally disease-free so long as they stuck with their traditional food sources. Cancer, especially, was virtually unknown. Once these groups began to become assimilated and eat modern food, however, the rate of disease shot up. One example is the Inuit, who despite getting 80 percent of their food from animals products, did not experience cancer. A 1952 study by Queen's University in Ontario concluded:

It is commonly stated that cancer does not occur in Eskimos, and to our knowledge no case has so far been reported.

We are frequently told by the media that a high-fat diet is bad and a low-fat diet is healthy. However, this is based on just a few studies that were not well-controlled, and where the data was cherry-picked to match the desired conclusion. The author cites study after study, from many prestigious organizations and journals, that completely disprove this. This includes the American Cancer Society, the National Institutes of Health, the National Cancer Institute, The New England Journal of Medicine, the British Medical Journal and The Lancet. Time and time again, those on low-fat diets were shown to have worse health, and those who ate more fat were healthier and had less incidence of heart disease. The author notes:

In 2006, the American Cancer Society said flat out that “there is little evidence that the total amount of fat consumed increases cancer risk.”

The New England Journal of Medicine has done many studies on breast cancer and diet. Their conclusion: the less fat women eat, the higher the likelihood of breast cancer.

In 1999, another installment was published, and dietary fat was still protecting women from breast cancer. “For every 5 percent of saturated-fat calories that replaced carbohydrates in the diet, the risk of breast cancer decreased by 9 percent.” The National Cancer Institute found the same protection from breast cancer in saturated fat.

In other words, carbs are bad for us, fat is good. It appears as though this is not really a controversial issue within the scientific and medical community, yet in the media, it is a different story. In the rest of this section, the author goes on to provide a mountain of evidence showing that a vegetarian diet, and especially a vegan one, are very bad for our health. She also provides detailed scientific explanations of why this should be, and how it is connected to our biology and our evolution. She also spends a lot of time discussing the growing use of soy and tofu by many vegetarians. These products go beyond being just unhealthy, they are literally poisonous. A lot of detail, as well as some sad stories, paint the full picture.

A Personal Journey

Throughout all the arguments and scientific data, the author tells her own personal story of how she came to learn these facts for herself, and what they meant for her life. She tells the story of how at a very young age she felt a deep connection to nature and was already concerned about how humans were damaging the planet and the life on it. She was appalled by the suburban sprawl in which she lived. Vegetarians and vegans had a simple message, and a simple answer. She embraced this and became a vegan.

Some of the most moving parts of the story are when the author talks about her growing awareness of the health impacts of her diet. She talks about being tired all the time, and needing to rest frequently, and then seeing pictures of healthy native people with perfect teeth, right to the end. She mentions the terrible realization that she has done these things to herself, and that must have been a truly bitter pill to swallow. Denial is a very strong defence mechanism, and a painful one to overcome. In another section she talks about how she would sometimes collapse in a heap on the floor if she couldn't find her keys, as a result of a chemical imbalance caused by her diet. These are certainly difficult things to talk about, but she makes it quite clear that one of her goals is to help others who are in a similar situation. She hopes that others can learn from her mistakes.

One thing I find interesting about the author's story is that after twenty years of being a vegan, though a more and more reluctant one towards the end, she took the brave, and rare, decision to update her beliefs to match reality, rather than modifying reality (at least in her mind) to match her beliefs. Yet she also held to her core morals and values. Vegetarianism might not be the answer, but the question remains the same: How do we save the environment, and stop those who seek to destroy it?

A Call to Arms

The analysis presented in this book is clearly not intended solely as an academic exercise. Nor is it an attempt to persuade the intended readership to change their political beliefs. A lot of effort has been expended on convincing those who already agree with the author's general position (protection of the environment) to re-evaluate their beliefs. Without an understanding of how nature works, and the impacts of human activities on it, any efforts to protect the environment will be ineffective at best, and counter-productive at worst.

The author points out that lifestyle changes, or consumer choices, are never going to save the planet. Buying a hybrid car, or changing lightbulbs, is not going to make much of a difference. The author does suggest three things we can do at a personal level, however. First, she suggests not having children, because there are already too many people and we are over carrying capacity. Second, get rid of your car. Instead of buying a hybrid, walk, bike or take transit. The third suggestion is to grow your own food. Even this won't be enough, but this is a good starting point.

The author's main argument, though, is that the focus needs to be on organized political resistance. Without challenging power, and fundamentally changing how we do things, and how our society is organized, nothing significant can truly be accomplished. She suggests that if we cannot be directly involved in this work, we should at least provide support to those who are doing it. This is clearly a radical call, but given the state of the world, it is hard to find much fault in it.

Conclusion

While I am already fairly educated in environmental matters, I learned a lot from this book. For those interested in sustainability, it provides some essential information. For those who may not be interested in politics, it is also very valuable from a health perspective, and can hopefully help people to improve their health and the health of their children. Taken as a whole, though, it is a pretty big wake up call. We are being challenged to re-examine much of what we have been taught growing up, and much of what many of us simply take for granted.

I think one of the main strengths of the book is its focus on science over ideology. The scientific method is the only method we know of that can lead to reliable and verifiable facts about the world, or in other words real knowledge. But science can only tell us what is not what should be. Without accurate information, we cannot develop effective strategies. But we also need morals and ethics to tell us where we want to go. We create our own values, and it is we who decide what is right and what is wrong, and what is important and what is not. Justice and sustainability require both moral commitment, and scientific understanding. This book supplies both.

I highly recommend this book for anyone concerned about the environment, and the world our children and grandchildren will live in. It is also clearly targeted at those interested in vegetarianism or already living that lifestyle, and I would recommend anyone in that category to set aside their preconceptions and give the book a chance. You can get more information about the book and the author at her website.

Alternative Energy

No source of alternative energy can ever replace fossil fuels, renewable or otherwise. The deposits of oil, coal and natural gas we are consuming as fast as possible were created over tens and even hundreds of millions of years. Once they are gone, they are gone. However, this doesn't mean that renewable, sustainable forms of energy, such as wind, solar or geothermal, cannot serve an important role.

The first mistake is thinking that we can just replace fossil fuels with a collection of alternatives, without otherwise changing how we do things. But fossil fuels essentially represent millions of years of stored sunlight, and no other energy source can even come close to the energy density they provide. If we could store up millions of years of wind energy (or solar, or tidal) we might have something comparable. But this energy was clearly not stored, and we need energy today, not millions of years in the future.

The second mistake is thinking that we should even try. It is precisely our massive use of energy, and our giant industrial economy, that is causing massive environmental damage. We are already over carrying capacity, so we need to move towards repairing the environment, not further damaging it and depleting our natural resources. The last thing we need is more overfishing, more deforestation, more soil degradation, and the continued paving over of natural habitats. We need less economic growth, not more.

But, just because alternatives such as wind or solar cannot allow us to continue business as usual, that doesn't make them useless, indeed this should be considered an advantage. If we can dramatically scale back our consumption and waste, and switch to more efficient transportation methods, they can provide enough energy to allow us to live healthy, comfortable, happy lives. They only thing they cannot do is to allow us to live extravagant and wasteful lives.

Alternative energies, even if widely deployed, will never provide enough energy to maintain a transportation system based on cars and trucks. Even if we switch to electric cars, we could not produce enough electricity to charge hundreds of millions of them. There is also the issue of maintaining an enormous road system, which requires a great deal of energy and resources. The widespread use of rail as an alternative, both for cargo and personal transportation, however, would require substantially less energy. Travel and tourism would also need to be reduced, especially airline travel, which isn't possible without fossil fuels anyway.

At the local level, cities need to be designed in a more sustainable way, and many experts and city planners are already working hard on this. Walkable communities would become the norm, with an intermixing of residential and commercial areas, so that many fewer people need to commute. Instead of sprawling suburbs, with large houses, each with their own lawn, residential areas would be much more densely packed, with smaller and more efficient homes. With good insulation, and the use of passive solar, residences in many areas can get by with almost no active heating or cooling.

With the elimination of most cars and trucks, efficient and dense housing, and massively reduced consumption, it begins to become possible to envision the practical use of alternative energies. Rather than building millions of wind turbines, or covering entire deserts with solar panels, relatively small scale deployments of alternative energy generation systems across a country can serve to meet people's needs. We would have enough energy to keep ourselves warm, cook our food, keep the lights on, run local hospitals, and power other vital services.

Certainly, our way of life would be different from today. We would be living simpler lives, with less gadgets and electronic toys, and other material goods. But we would also likely have less stress and more free time. We are not talking about the stone age here. By decreasing industrial activity and the production of useless or disposable goods, we would also be decreasing pollution and improving the environment, which would help to improve our health.

Alternative energies can never be deployed as a plug-in replacement for oil and coal. They can't match our current energy demand, but it is precisely our current energy demand that is destroying the planet. However, alternative energy can provide more than enough power to meet our basics needs, and even to ensure our health and comfort. It is possible to live sustainably, to live within our means and the means of our planet, and still live happy and fulfilled lives.

The Lawn

The ubiquitous lawn is something so familiar and so common, that we rarely think about it, beyond the need for its regular maintenance. Yet lawns are very wasteful, environmentally damaging, and a strong source of carbon emissions. If we are to move towards a more sustainable future, we need to re-examine the lawn and look for alternatives.

Originally, the natural lawn was just an area of grassland that was regularly grazed by sheep, cows, or other livestock, in other words, pasture. The idea of suburban homes, surrounded by large artificially maintained lawns, didn't begin until the end of the 19th century in the United States. Cities at that time were dirty, polluted and rife with disease. A home in the suburbs was intended to recreate the idea of a "country home" where those who worked in the city could escape to. After World War II, with the rise of the automobile, this idea exploded and the suburban lifestyle we take for granted today really took off.

Unlike natural lawns, of course, the typical suburban lawn must be maintained. We generally don't keep livestock anymore, so we obviously cannot rely on grazing. This means the lawn must be regularly mowed, often using fossil fuel energy. To prevent weeds, pesticides are needed, and in many areas fertilizer (made from fossil fuels) and watering are needed, as the soil is not being naturally built up, and there is insufficient ambient rainfall.

A pasture could be maintained solely through natural processes, such as regular rainfall, the grazing of livestock, and the natural fertilizer provided as waste products from that livestock and other local animals. Soil would be naturally built up, and the pasture would also be a source of food and other resources. Cows provide milk, sheep provide wool, and livestock of all types provide food. No energy input, other than the sun, is required. Carbon is absorbed by the soil and the plants.

Artificial lawns, however, are a net source of carbon. As a recent study concluded, when the cost of maintenance is included, the typical lawn generates four times more carbon than it stores. This makes sense when you consider the carbon released by gas or electric mowers, the use of fossil fuel based fertilizer and the degrading of the soil. Nitrous oxide is also released from the soil because of fertilization, which is a greenhouse gas 300 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.

It's even worse, though, as the study doesn't appear to take into account the emissions involved in manufacturing millions of lawn mowers, leaf blowers, sprinklers, trimmers, and other tools, or their transportation, storage, and sale. Also, in much of the world, grasses could not grow without regular watering. In some areas, this water must be diverted from far away, involving the construction of large dams, pipelines, waterways and other infrastructure. Clearly, the amount of energy required to build and maintain such infrastructure is significant.

Outside of the energy cost, however, the diversion of water on such a large scale has many other environmental impacts. Entire streams and rivers have dried up in many areas, leading to the collapse of local ecosystems. Many animals have been forced to flee, and those that could not move or adapt have simply gone extinct. For plants and fish, this has been even worse, leading to more extinction and a great loss of biodiversity.

Another problem is simply the loss of land. A dense residential community takes up several times less space than the typical suburban sprawl. Much of the land paved over and converted into lawns was originally farmland, or just natural forest, grassland, wetland or savannah. The natural landscape lost can no longer provide a home to animals, or absorb carbon from the atmosphere. Large houses, widely spaced, require more materials and energy to construct, and they require a larger, more energy-intensive infrastructure.

There are many alternatives to lawns. We can simply build more densely, without space for lawns, yet include natural parks and other green areas throughout a community. In Europe some common areas like these are still used for grazing today. Some of the space could also be used for community gardens, or other projects to grow more food locally. Others could simply be left in a natural state, leading to the return of animals and a variety of plant species. In existing neighbourhoods, lawns can be replaced with gardens, switched to other plants that require less or no maintenance, converted into permaculture, or simply allowed to take their natural shape.

The threat of global warming, and other environmental damage, is only increasing. There is a recognition that we need to move towards a sustainable way of life, yet very little is being done outside of the narrow scope of encouraging better consumer choices and minor lifestyle changes. Even simple and obvious steps, with little impact on the majority of people, are being ignored. We need to also examine those things we take for granted, like lawns, and ask if they can ever be sustainable. If the answer is no, then what exactly are we doing?