Powering the Future

Powering the Future: A Scientist's Guide to Energy Independence Daniel B. Botkin

Botkin is an inspiring person with credentials that include over five decades of experience in environmental science. He is Professor Emeritus at U C Santa Barbara and President of the Center for the Study of the Environment. His writing career began with several science books combining computer modeling and Forest Ecology, and more recently among his works are the classics Discordant Harmonies, and The Moon in the Nautilus Shell; Discordant Harmonies Reconsidered. He writes quite beautifully and is considered an important American thinker and a world-renowned ecologist. He's written at least 12 other books and is a seasoned educator with a widely-used environmental science textbook among his works.
Energy independence is an important topic to be versed in, and Botkin has blended his eloquence with his capacity to write science for a layperson. This is an in-depth analysis, but Botkin has a style that is friendly and easy to read. It's not difficult to understand the scientific concepts he addresses without the daunting aspect of reading something that is considered "in-depth."
The book opens describing recent urban grid blackouts and continues in this direct, down-to-earth fashion. Each energy source is assessed in a special chapter. After the assessment, he follows by addressing energy distribution systems and how things currently work or fail to work, along with inefficiencies and options.
Chapter 7 is a discussion of solar power, and, like the other chapters, makes a reader feel like they are included in the evolution of the science behind the electrical power. The chapter involves opportunities for entrepreneurs, the upside and downside of solar energy and various intriguing new off-the-grid solar technologies. It also addresses the idea of on or off-the-grid in general and is a well-rounded exploration of the topic. It even has a section dedicated to sun-powered vehicles and each chapter includes thinking around transportation. The book is an objective assessment of prospect, costs, limitations, risks, dangers and the trade-offs associated with every leading and emerging source of energy including oil, not gas, coal, hydroelectric, nuclear, wind, solar, ocean power, and biofuels.
To be honest with you, I expected him to be in favour of the type of nuclear reactors that recycle nuclear material, thereby reducing radioactive waste, and that he would talk about new systems for minimizing radioactive waste and other advances that the nuclear industry has developed to assure us they are cleaning up their act. However, Botkin assessed the nuclear industry but then once he came to inefficiencies and failures, didn't give them a passing grade. What I enjoyed about the book the most was that Botkin directly addresses the concern that we cannot continue with our current standard of living while scaling back and shifting our energy consumption. Botkin believes we can, and sets out to prove it throughout the book. I think Botkin succeeds in this endeavor, which makes the book highly reassuring throughout, perhaps too reassuring, given what is at stake.
The final third discusses solutions, the scientific and economically sound path to sustainability and energy independence. Here Botkin's book is most clearly an indispensable primer that should be on the desk of policy-makers, not to mention students, schoolchildren, and everyday people.
In section three of the final chapter, Botkin explores how. This includes designing an energy system, transporting energy, pipelines, the concept of grid vs a smart grid, and a number of other interesting features. Botkin believes that governments are underfunding some of the essential mechanisms required for change, and these include research and development of alternative energy sources, railroads, and going full ahead with solar and wind.
It's not a huge book, but it's still an extraordinary undertaking considering the breadth of the topic(s) involved, one helluva primer rather than the entire owner's manual for energy independence in America.
The resounding message is that the energy and the planning is available to get even a large country like the United States out of crisis, and free from the grip of nuclear power dependence as well.
His analysis and rejection of nuclear power is certainly the point causing the most criticism of the book from the outside world, but it's why I like the book the most.
Energy independence is possible, there is a road map, and this is an excellent example of how it can be done. To paraphrase the back dust-jacket, which also includes the well-earned praise of required reading and a declaration that the book is comprehensive: you may not approve of his allocation of resources, but it's still an impressive read and certainly one of the more thought-provoking books on the topic. Uplifting and recommended.

Food Sovereignty in Canada

Environmental Book Review 

Food Sovereignty in Canada

Creating Just and Sustainable Food Systems edited by Hannah Wittman, Annette Aurelie Desmarais and Nettie Wiebe

Fernwood Publishing, 2011

 An ideal, accessibly academic and historically-rich choice for the curious. A wealth of insights regarding the evolution of the Food Sovereignty movement in Canada, this book explores every reasonable question someone new to the topic might ask. Although a variety of authors are profiled within, each piece is written an open tone that conveys idea-sharing and urgency at the same time, supported with studies and solid, well-noted research.

Prefaced with a three page list of acronyms, the compilation introduces the toil behind a surprising number of organizations invested in what lands on your plate. Concerningly, some of the most noble among them, such as the misunderstood Canadian Wheat Board, (which operates a one-desk “monopoly” that has staunchly protected farmers from gouging by corporate agricultural interests) are threatened like never before. The book explains that the self-image Canada maintains, as “breadbasket to the world” was created in the Forties, when Canada supplied ship-loads of high-quality wheat to “war-needy Britain or hungry nations else where.” From the early Forties to the late Eighties, Chapter one author Nettie Weibe explains, Canadian governmental policy functioned under one of two paradigms that have controlled our farms. Our “breadbasket” days were supported by the core premise that “because agriculture is a unique sector due to its importance for national food security and economic development, it is therefore entitled to special attention from governments.” Special regulations protected Canadian farmers from brute market forces and created mechanism that increased their market power. However, at present, “the neo-liberal paradigm (late 1980's to the present) holds that agriculture is an economic sector no different from any other,” an outlook that has resulted in the removal of subsidies and protection while changing essential controls (such as in the area of food safety) to “regulation for competition.” While failing to solve issues that existed for Canadian farmers before the “breadbasket” era, the result of the Eighties-era neo-liberal paradigm shift is visible everywhere, in the form of environmental degradation on a mass scale as large corporations take advantage of this vulnerable market, as well as a heart-breaking depopulation of rural areas, and all-time low farm incomes for the producers remaining. Remarks researcher Darrin Qualmann, “Canadian net farm income from the markets has been negative for the past two-and-a-half decades.” Weibe and co-author Wipf suggest that paradigm shifts occur in the event of a crisis, when assumptions about the social value of public policies become incorrect. Because of this, the arrival of a third paradigm, that of Food Sovereignty, has taken a natural and prominent place in challenging the destructive course of corporate power over Canada's agricultural heritage. Contributor Darrin Qualmann explains in Chapter 2, “as farm families have watched their net incomes deteriorate, and as taxpayers have been tapped to cover farm losses, the dominant agribusiness corporations have consistently racked up record and near-record profits. Many of the worst years for farmers have been the best years for agribusiness companies. This is no coincidence.”

Still, perhaps because Canadian populations are overwhelmingly urban, as many of us roll down the supermarket aisles of misleading labelling experiencing a disconnect from the practices and processes that produce our food, we may have missed the fact that Canada, “breadbasket of the world” is under seige, and that the infrastructure and the literal roots of Canada's agriculture are being pulled asunder by corporate interests. Comments Weibe, “this relentless pressure to adopt new technologies and increase production in order to protect Canada's 'global leader' reputation is coupled with an equally virulent drive to protect and increase the Canadian agricultural trade advantage.” The impact is that food quality, and the sustainability of Canadian agriculture, crushed under the control of consumer and profit-oriented markets, is faltering. And Canada is paying dearly, not only culturally, but, financially, as we offer our devalued product to other nations more savvy in establishing national policies to control the influx of GM food. “The experience of having GM-contaminated Canadian flax rejected by European buyers has been costly for Canadian farmers.” However, farmer resistance to the damaging use of pesticides and “terminator seeds” for profit, and the greater issue of global food security, is under ruthless attack by large corporations, a nightmare that nation after nation is confronting. Sadly, in some cases, such as starving African nations resisting GM-contaminated corn in 2002, the corporations have exploited political circumstances to overpower them.

Writes Weibe and Wipf, “a clear, public way of institutionalizing the food sovereignty paradigm in Canada would be to entrench food rights in the Canadian constitution and laws, as has been done in several other jurisdictions.” In fact, quite a number of other nations, including India, (as detailed in Soil Not Oil by Vandana Shiva) have new laws emphasizing the right to food. “The Food Sovereignty paradigm views agriculture as part of an entire food system...a new national food policy also requires a significant departure from the current policy process in order to be both meaningful and successful.” Fortunately for Canada, the groundwork for input exists in the form of a formidable and long-standing network of relevant organizations available to provide expertise to policy-making process, vital to integrating both consumers and farmers with government policy-making.

The book remarks, “achieving food sovereignty in Canada hinges on making some fundamental changes in our domestic and trade policies, our diets, our 'food cultures' our view of our place in the wider world, and many of our relationships to each other and our environments,” calling for “sweeping changes to current agricultural policy. The first challenge is to develop a comprehensive national food policy, incorporating the presently seemingly disparate policy areas such as agriculture, health care, social welfare, the environment and justice,” thereby “institutionalizing a food sovereignty paradigm in Canada.” Duly noted by export data from Statistics Canada and Agriculture and Agri-food Canada, Neo-liberal trade policy has resulted in mass dumping of low-cost Canadian surplus onto other markets, creating destabilization globally, and offering further evidence that a coherent food sovereignty approach would benefit other nations as well. Remarks Qualmann, “Monsanto realized record sales for a fifth consecutive year in fiscal 2008, delivering compound annual earnings growth of 20 percent plus during that time...” (Monsanto annual report 2008.)” However, “the policies and strategies advanced by Ottawa, the provinces and the large agricultural corporations, such as Monsanto, are money-losers for Canadian farm families.”

In the chapter “Indigenous Food Sovereignty,” Dawn Morrison notes that “the highest level of agricultural production in the mainstream economy take place on areas that were once important traditional harvesting sites.” Morrison sensibly calls for “adaptive management,” as a “flexible, process-oriented approach, “ providing the necessary “methodological framework for working across cultures to redesign the global food system” and “restore traditional harvesting and management strategies.”

Fortunately, the necessity for a fresh paradigm waits for no one. Food Sovereignty as a national concept has grown in the hearts and minds of many, and is taking flight exclusive of public policy changes. Writes Rachel Engler-Stringer, “In the latter part of the 1990's the term 'community food security' began to be used in North American public health discussions,” and “the emergence of a community food security network developed independently from the discussions about food sovereignty, which were being developed at about the same time.” Nutritional researchers soon realized that locally grown produce was far healthier for community nutrition and strengthening to local food systems while promoting good working conditions for farmers. Social justice soon blended with nutritional concepts, and new incentives around sustainable food choices cultivating an awareness of food sovereignty ideas. Soon collective kitchens, farmer's markets, food hubs, and urban agriculture emphasized locally produced food.

“Urban food charters, food coalitions and food policy councils are all positive signs of this trend,” writes Yolanda Hansen in her piece, Growing Community. Describing a rich history of community urban gardening in Canada that dates back centuries, Hansen comments that “the participants in community gardens were often marginalized people, primary the working poor and immigrants, who used these gardens as empowering spaces. These principles continue to influence contemporary community gardens and demonstrate the applicability of food sovereignty to this urban practice.” On the larger front, in the chapter “Getting to Food Sovereignty: Grassroots perspectives from the national Farmers Union The NFU, which is “the largest voluntary direct-membership national farm organization in Canada,” talks about the extraction of wealth from farmers. Terry Boehm, President of the National Farmers Union, explains “from a tactical perspective, working with agricultural critics and others in political parties has been important in delaying or amending legislation. For local food movements and consumer-based food movements, small regulatory changes and legislative pieces make huge differences, so that political piece is terribly important. We've often been told that governments have to act a certain way because of international obligation or that trade agreement. But really its national political decision for governments to participate in those agreements and then behave how they want to behave using those agreements as justification. So I can't emphasize enough, whether it is on seed sovereignty, genetic sovereignty or control issues, autonomy, the ability to organize cooperatives, to engage in class action lawsuits, whatever it might be, it's all political engagement in that respect.”

Interestingly, in Transforming Agriculture: Women Farmers Define A Food Sovereignty Policy for Canada, the need for such political action is reiterated with a very special perspective. The writers explain, “farm women are significantly involved in decision making on matters concerning the ongoing operation and management of the farm...Women farmers have a distinct analysis of agricultural policy and specific ideas about what an inclusive agricultural policy would look like. Yet farm women were conspicuously absent in the department of agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's (AAFC) consultation process leading up to the Agricultural Policy Framework (APF) and it appears no specific efforts have been made to include them in subsequent national agricultural policy development. We have to ask what kinds of issues would women have raised if they had participated in the consultations.” In fact, farm women provided a detailed response, including four major policy strategies to be included in a domestic food policy: “Shift government focus from free trade to fair trade; shift government focus from cheap food to quality food; emphasize production for local and domestic consumption; and reduce importation of foods that can be grown domestically.”

A comprehensive and admirable work, I would encourage any Canadian with an interest in partaking in any discussion of Canada's food to read this book. In the spirit of the Food Sovereignty movement, I'd like to close with a quote from Hilary Moore, president of NFU Local 310. “What I'd like to see groups do, instead of trying to work within the system, is to radically challenge the status quo...There needs to be a cultural shift. You almost wish for a sense of wanting to be self-reliant and the national pride that goes with that.”

Wittman, H., Desmarais, A. A., & Wiebe, N. (2011). Food sovereignty in Canada: Creating just and Sustainable Food Systems. Fernwood Pub.

Global Energy Justice Problems, Principles, and Practices

The book is one of three books produced by the Energy Security and Justice program and Vermont Law School's Institute for Energy and the Environment. Concerned with philosophical questions of justice, it asks questions involving vital decision-making while matching eight “philosophical justice ideas" with eight problems. The book opens with a quote by Thomas Malthus, 1820: “The science of political economy, and the distribution of resources, bears a nearer resemblance to the science of morals and politics than to mathematics.”

At first reading, we notice each page of Global Energy Justice Problems, Principles and Practices is densely footnoted, an impeccable academic point of study clearly lluminating the ideas behind the work. In the first chapter, the book presents Energy Justice as a “concept and tool.” It offers the definition of an energy-just world as one that equitably shares "the benefits and the burdens involved in the production and consumption" of energy services. Included in this definition is the fair-handed treatment of “people and communities in energy-decision-making.” The book goes on to explore “energy” conceptually, a word with both scientific and social implications, followed by an examination of justice in a similar manner.

At the beginning of each themed chapter was a discussion of Classical moral philosophy of the sort law students are expected to be versed in when defining issues. It was here that it became hard not to notice the almost exclusive input of male thinkers, while the (blindfolded) Lady Justice was remarked upon as representative of "most icons" of justice “across cultures, have been female,” according to the authors. I don't intend to shred an excellent third book in a comprehensive and groundbreaking series, one that is defining a generation of lawyers and lawmakers in the gritty environmental court battles of the coming decades. However, the book does indeed bear the ommitance of feminist input or eco-feminist ideas. By doing so it implies that Philosophy must be as tough in the face of courtroom scrutiny as the words of Aristotle and Plato, and some philosophies are just not tough enough to do this.

In the first chapter we find a chart with topics: Energy Efficiency, Energy Externalities, Human Rights and Social Conflict, one for concepts: Virtue, Utility, Human Rights, and a column for major philosophical influences: Plato, Bentham, Kant etc., with a few words on their relevance next to their names. This chart allows readers to note that only two female influences (Nussbaum and Edith Brown Weiss) are cited among twenty-one males. The authors have indeed chosen to leave Feminism, Eco-feminism, Environmental Philosophy and the philosophical writings of Feminists to one side in order to opt for exclusively for these more Classical Western philosophers. There is no question that this is an excellent and important book, however, it feels almost a sigh of relief that Nussbaum and Weiss chose to write on male philosophers and therefor could be included. I couldn't help but consider a young feminist-minded law student arriving at the chart and realizing they were in a discipline where a key textbook could respectably dodge the existance of the entirely scholarly field of Environmental Philosophy, not to mention its many Feminist and Eco-feminist offshoots, in order to simply debate Plato-style the morality questions of Virtue vs Utility vs Human Rights.

Infact, the debates within are lively, and the book is a useful toolkit to anyone interested in these questions, as the current legal system is mired in old-school references to morality which these familiar names furnish. The book's approach to moral and philosophical questions within energy justice practice will be taken with appropriate gravity by established scholars because of this "conservative" approach, but the omittance will also be noticed by young students who hopefully move the discussion further along.

It was 2014 when the book was was first issued as a widely-read academic textbook. Considering the essential role women are playing globally in leadership and in grassroots movements focused on energy justice and energy rights, the choice of familiar all-male philosophers could make a reader feel as if the book unintentionally paved the way for a “soft landing” for energy executives who could claim through lawyers from progressive Vermont Law School that they were invested in a moral approach to energy justice without ever having to even consider female and non-male philosophers.

It is a damn good book otherwise and has received a lot of praise. If you are comfortable with the premise of so many dead white male philosophers structuring the moral questions, it is a well-written and comprehensive volume loaded with useful ideas. At the end of this review I will however address the question of feminism more directly.

Chapter 2, which talks about the global energy system, slides straight into some well-researched background on fuels specifically, addressing “prime movers, delivery system and end-uses” and discussing pipelines, how many there are and where they are. The chapter addresses the story of oil tankers and kinds of ships that deliver fuel. It remarks that the US requires “more than 20 million barrels of oil per day” and how they dodge laws by being owned by independent shipping companies. It describes well the underdocumented quantities of spent fuel, oil-polluted ballast water and other discharge “that add up to five Valdez spills,” each year in environmental damage of the ocean. There are more charts with extensive details and comparisons, and the chapter also examines critical materials such as concrete, steel, “rare earth” uranium and how they feed the electricity grid. This chapter also writes extensively on environmental and social impacts such as air pollution and climate change, water quality and availability, and land use change. As the authors remark, at least 15% of land use change is caused by "the direct clearing of forests for fuel wood...and energy crops" something often underconsidered. It's an excellent chapter, a grim but sobering start leading towards the solutions framework offered later in the book.

Chapter 3 opens with the Aristotelian question “what is the purpose of our energy systems and technologies?” Chapter 3 then explores the familiar philosophic concept of Virtue, and is titled Virtue and Energy Efficiency. In Aristotle's philosophy, Virtue poses the question, “who should own a beautifully made flute?” The answer is if not the maker of the flute or those who appreciate it, surely it should be owned by the one who plays the flute well. The book then applies this idea of Virtue to the energy grid, and finds that it is not making particularly beautiful music, but is in fact grossly inefficient, with many examples to drive the point home. Similar inefficiencies are cited in the transport sector, the electricity sector and the the industrial sector. The authors remark, “the United States wastes more energy each year than Japan harnesses for its entire economy,” and so, virtue-wise, the book concludes that Japan deserves the more beautiful flute of Virtue, and most certainly in comparison to the US.

Energy efficiencies are covered in detail in chapter 3, as an issue which "also affects the US military, impacting national security.” One example offered by the book was particularly noteworthy, "the amount the US military spends on air-conditioning for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan may exceed $20 billion...equal to what the G-8 pledged to foster new democracies in Egypt and Tunisia.” The chapter also addresses the inefficiency of “aging energy equipment and infrastructure,” remarking that nuclear and cole plants are all "older than thirty years," and some coal-fired plants “are older than seventy.” This problem also extends itself to hydro-electricity as "over half the dams in the United States" will require major modernization to pass reliscencing “by 2017.” The chapter then explores Platonic and Aristotelian ideas involving an ideal state, and remarks that Plato decided that “objects and times in our world are only imperfect and temporary representations of their true form.” Therefor, these ideas when looking at the Energy would suggest Plato would like us to “strive to create” an ideal perfect energy system.” The authors also examine Aristotle’s ideas and conclude, “a virtuous energy system would...achieve its end of delivering energy services the most efficiently and prudently.” It adds that both philosophers spoke of balance, and that could be interpreted as to use energy “efficiently and with minimal waste.”

Because the textbook does not give even a nod of recognition to the field of Environmental Philosophy or to so many great women philosophers and lawmakers who also are strongly associated with or deeply relevant to environmental law, I decided to make a list. I even wondered, bad of me because this book is like a bible to environmental law students, if the extensive footnoting and citation in the book itself was not the work of a female grad whose name was buried somewhere or not even mentioned at all. Considering the field of environmental ethics is rich with female lawyers and philosophers, I decided to create a list of interesting environmental and philosophy-minded feminists worth reading if you are a law student or even just a reader who has had been impressed by the book, but wondered if there were more discussions of ethics, morality and environmental law than those found in Global Energy Justice Problems, Principles and Practices.

Dr. Anita Allen is a professor of philosophy and a professor of law, Dr. Angela Davis is formally a philosopher, Dr. Val Plumwood was an uncompromising environmental philosopher and ecofeminist, Dr. Karen Warren devoted her life to environmental ethics and feminist philosophy, Dr. Carolyn Merchant is an ecofeminist philosopher and historian of science, and all are established academics who are indespensible reading involving this topic. Dr. Ruth Chang is a philosopher who writes about decision-making, the whole point of the first chapter chart, and has a career in law as well. In fact, I suppose if I should supply twenty-one possible philosophers, (since the book cited twenty-one male philosophers and only two women) I would add Mary Wollstonecraft and Simone de Beauvoir, and grudgingly, Hannah Arendt, as they were philosophers who explored the same classical theories entirely consistent with the male philosophers that were chosen instead. As Global Energy Justice Problems, Principles and Practices for reasons of conservatism in the legal world was pressed to offer a male-gendered interpretation of philosophical concepts, I would also suggest feminist philosopher bell hooks on the interconnectivity of race, capitalism and gender, Dr. Sara Ahmed, who writes on intersectional, feminist and queer theory, and philosopher Dr. Judith Butler, a gender theorist, offer indespensible cultural criticism of relevance to any debate involving morality and Environmental Law. Philosopher Simone Weil writes on rootedness to land. No one wrote on Moral Philosophy quite like Iris Murdoch, while the under-appreciated moral philosopher Dr. Mary Midgely also involved an animal rights perspective. Michele Moody-Adams is a philosopher and professor of both political philosophy and legal theory. Dr. Barbara Herman is a professor of philosophy and law, Onora O'Neill is a political philosopher who focusses on international justice and ethics, Dr. Vinciane Despret is a philosopher of science, Dr. Rosi Braidotti is a philosopher who writes on environmental humanities, Dr. Rebecca Newberger Goldstein is a philosopher who writes on science. By 2014, when Global Energy Justice Problems, Principles and Practices. was published, editor and writer Dr. Elizabeth Willott had released Environmental Ethics: What Really Matters and it had been available since 2011. It is a book involving both classical philosophy and contemporary readings in the topic. Dr. Vandana Shiva is formally a philosopher, as well as a physicist and social activist, and is a writer with indespensible non-Western insights. Dr. Rosemarie Tong is a feminist philosopher who writes on the environment, Dr. Nina Witoszek edits books promoting the ideas of eco-philosopher Arne Naess, Dr. Irene Klaver is a professor of environmental philosophy who writes on radical ecology, Robin May Schott is a feminist philosopher who writes on development and ethics, Dr. Alison Stone write on environmental philosophy, Dr. Freya Mathews is a environmental philosopher who writes on culture. I offer these just as examples, as all were available at the time of publication.

In Chapter 3, the What Is To Be done section begins to shine as why this is a great book. Each chapter is equipped with a What Is to Be done section, something that contradicts its grim start. The section in this case explains Electricity Demand-side Management and Transportation Demand-side management brilliantly as solutions, offering examples of countries which have implemented policies successfully to this end. The book cites a study which claims, “cost-effective energy measures” could reduce consumption by an astounding 30-70 %” in the US. It continues by describing smarter grids and incentive policies, leading into Chapter 4, which tackles Utility and Energy Externalities. “GHG and the resulting changes in climate are an externality because they impose costs far away, temporally and geographically, from emitters.” This chapter has a number of charts and establishes “true costs” of everything: From transportation basics to mountain top removal and uranium mining. These are done with great detail and also frankly discuss the damage to human life in a way that law students and lay-people will find helpful as a framework. Similar to the other, this chapter has a “What is Justice” section that describes the ideas of philosophers Bentham and Aristotle as well as some others. The "What is to be Done" section explores different types of carbon tax, strategies such as Environmental Bonds, and other helpful examples. Chapters 5 and 6 of the book address Human Rights and Energy. Chapter 5 includes a call for overhauled and improved environmental assessment and extractive industry transparency initiatives with examples. Chapter 6 explores Energy and Due Process, and again has many examples of corrupt events including involuntary resettlements, improper licencing and deception, and the impacts these problems have caused in particular upon indigenous communities and communities of people of colour. In What is to Be Done, Chapter 6 emphasizes “broader public involvement and participatory energy decision-making” and “debates, referendums, review boards and consultations,” as well as the importance of “free prior informed consent.” Chapter 7, Energy Poverty, Access, and Welfare addresses issues from the perspective of philosophers John Rawls, Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. Interestingly, in addressing the great inequalities in energy access globally, Nussbaum's list of “central human functional capabilities” is evoked. Nussbaum remarks that the concept of “justice” does not neccessarily provide “any concrete guarantee that people will remain healthy or that they will have satisfying lives" only that their issues will be addressed formally, an inadequate effort according to Nussbaum. Solutions in Chapter 7 include “investing in small-scale renewable energy,” harnessing the “pro-poor public-private partnership approach,” and “social pricing and assistance programs.” The book describes several examples of these programs in some depth and is interesting and inspiring. Energy subsidy, Freedom, Energy Resources and Future Generations are all discussed in chapters 8 and 9, and each topic leads well into chapter 10. Chapter 10 discusses fairness, responsibility and climate change in an illuminating way, while chapter 11, the closing chapter, addresses the necessity of comprehensive intervention. Presenting an energy justice framework in a way that is already beginning to be widely accepted by many nations, Chapter 10 is particulalry inspiring. The final chapter is a bit of a tough and stark one in terms of facts, but nations are already responding to these urgent concerns and adopting workable frameworks. The book urges us to remember that there is an importation of values behind technologies, that of “luxury, comfort and happiness” and that the way energy can “redistribute social, political and economic power" is as important as how such technologies generate the power in the first place.

Plato: “A state ordered with a view to the good of the whole should be most likely to find justice.”

Sovacool, B. K., Dworkin, M.H. (2014). Global Energy Justice. problems, principles, and practices. Cambridge University Press.

Water in Canada:A Resource in Crisis by Hanneke Brooymans

This 2011 book published by Canadian Currents is written with that same sort of Alberta-grown call-to-action tone backed up by solid data that made Alberta journalist Andrew Nikiforuk reknown for his exposure of the oil sands industry. Water in Canada begins with a foreword by Dr. David Schindler, Killam Memorial Professor of Ecology at the University of Alberta and an expert in water-related issues.As Schindler remarks in the forward, Canadians are surrounded by freshwater, making it easy for us to take freshwater for granted. However, this view is "at variance with what freshwater experts deal with and read about every day.” Describing his own experience, Schindler quotes, "it is like the view from the locomotive 10 seconds before the train wreck."As Schindler promises, Brooymans compiles all the expert data, (and insider facts) and writes the story of Water in Canada as an excellent read. She is a real life Edmonton Journal writer with that Albertan drive to speak the truth, and the book is a summary of years of research by herself and others committed to studying detailed measurements now exposed to the public eye. In her challenging introduction she muses, how would humans "handle environmental issues if they lived to be 200 years old? How cavalier would people be about their tinkering with the atmosphere's carbon dioxide concentration, for example, if they knew they were the guinea pigs?" It is an interesting philosophical approach, and it sets the tone for an examination of ways we have allowed industry to destroy the nature to the enrichment of a few and the detriment of many, based on a shared cultural assumption of infinite water resources. Brooyman remarks, “ Canadians are not water rich- we only think we are." She adds, “can we snap out of our collective delusion in time? Maybe. But that would require a significant boost in the country's collective water literacy, which is currently as shallow and murky as a mud puddle." Expect plenty of water-related expressions in the book, the book is rife with them, but then tend to be placed at just the right moment, and so work to give punch to the writing rather than to detract. The book, written like all good journalism, delivers regarding water politics, economic issues, sustainability and other concerns. Brooyman also ventures from the philosophical to the psychological, describing a mental condition called “environmental generational amnesia” as a driving concern of hers throughout the book."Yes, humans are adaptable...but do we want our grandchildren drawing on shrunken, polluted streams and rivers and frolicking in filthy puddles that used to be crystal-clear lakes and thinking this is normal? It could easily happen. Peter Kahn, a human development psychologist, calls this environmental generational amnesia. With each generation the amount of environmental degradation increases, but each generation in its youth takes that degraded condition as the non-degraded condition-as the normal experience."In exploring the quantification and health of our water supply describes the mechanics of the hydrologic cycle in an intriguing way. It is hard to write science for lay-people, but Brooyman does an exceptional job. Lake volume data in Canada is not generally available, as "while volume is measured for larger lakes (80 to be exact), the 2 million smaller lakes are relatively shallow." Brooyman explains that there are “645 lakes larger than 100 square kilometres, and Statistics Canada estimates they hold 17, 398 cubic kilometres of water. River length and outflow is also measured, as well as maximum discharge. Water assets based on a region depend on many factors, including precipitation and other features.” Brooyman also explains mapping groundwater (I wondered how they did that) and uneven distribution, which is fascinating, adding something I mused upon, Ontario has the most people and the least lakes.Each chapter in the book is well-sequenced, moving quickly to a study of the business of bottled water. Part Two, (the book is divided in three parts) water governance, including fair-handed information on governance of the Great Lakes and other international waters. The final part of the book, Part Three, is called “ the future of water” and includes a chapter on changing attitudes, another on changing climate, and a discussion of future care-taking, clean up and research. Finally, she includes an examination of the potential for business to exploit opportunities in ensuring clean-water technologies meet their mark. Or market. A tight, optimistic conclusion includes inspirational words from Maude Barlow and the extensive bibliography and index. Highly useful, a recommended read.

Brooymans, H. (2011). Water in Canada: A resource in crisis. Canadian Currents.

Climate Capitalism

Hunter Lovins and Boyd Cohen

Capitalism in the Age of Climate Change

Very well-written and represents a peek into the strategy of some major power interests dedicated to rescuing our little blue ball. It's also a bit of a user-friendly wake-up book, and I liked it. “People raised on images of limitless possibilities, muscle cars, Western superiority in world markets, and a rising standard of living watched in shock as General Motors, the iconic American business, melted in bankruptcy in 2008. For many the magnitude of that collapse has yet to sink in. Nor has the recognition that Toyota became the world's largest car company-riding to prominence on the success of fuel-efficient vehicles that seem an affront to everything that made America great. GM's emergence from bankruptcy is similarly based on a small electric hybrid.” 

The book does amply demonstrates how intelligent use of market mechanisms can solve the climate crisis not at a cost but as an investment, delivering enhanced profitability and a stronger economy as well as a better future for the planet. While “the best and fastest way to protect the climate is to reduce the unnecessary use of fossil energy. It is also the fastest way to an immediate return investment.Cutting waste saves money, whether you are a business leader or a head of a household.”

Citing unemployment, (25 % in Detroit,) and citing Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth as a must-read, the books describes climate change as a “ a moral issue,” and asserts that solving climate change is “THE WAY OUT of the economic crisis.” It also asserts that disasters are “not only a humanitarian disaster but a business risk.” The author then outlines the inside story of capitalism's response to climate change, in what turns out to be, regardless of your degree of reverence for market forces, a very entertaining series of case studies. 

The book also introduces the not-a-commonly-use-household word “The Investor Network on Climate Risk,” a consortium of sorts which comprises over 80 institutional investors collectively managing more than 480 trillion in assets and launched in 2003. This group  introduced a 10 point plan for leading financial investors to address climate risk and seize investment opportunity. But wait, before you think it's exclusively disaster capitalism, the key point became disclosure, as well as laws requiring a company to disclose any environmental liabilities that could affect an investor's  “view” of an organization. Sounds so stuffy and papery, but not really when we are talking about the influence of trillions of dollars. Since 2002, the UK's Carbon Disclosure Project has surveyed the 500 biggest companies in the world. Instead of the CDP being an annoying gadfly, the results were embraced by some pretty big players as extremely useful stuff. By 2006, 60 percent of the companies surveyed had actively replied, realizing the value in making public commitments to support limits on greenhouse gases, other emissions and to disclose climate risk information to investors. The CPD now represents over $64 Trillion in assets, almost a third of all global institutional investor assets. Just to give you a sneak view into some of her generously sprinkled case studies, the author describes the odyssey of Walmart, their commitment of 417 million in new lighting systems. In 2005 Walmart pledged to be supplied by 100 renewable energy, to create zero waste and to sell products that sustain resources and the environment. Ambitious but doable, and it paid off. In 2008, while the rest of the stock market was experiencing a crash, Walmart's stocks rose. As well, Walmart called a meeting that year in China of its 1000 largest suppliers, Chinese government representatives and the CDP among other attendees with the intention of aggressively building a more environmentally and socially responsible supply chain. Walmart began phasing in the plan by 2009 and expanding to suppliers around the world by 2011. Companies that met the criteria most stringently would be chosen as sources for products and materials, the others Walmart rejected for the big blue trash bin of corporate failure.

Another case example which I liked in the book is in Florida, where the Florida Governor wanted to implement aggressive efforts to reduce their carbon footprint, and was willing make great expenses to do it. Instead Florida found doing so would add $28 billion by 2025 and is enjoying the boom. Thanks to such examples, it is now well-established that protecting the environment creates, rather than costs jobs.  “The United States is losing global leadership by lagging in the new green gold rush.”

There are other fascinating examples, especially in her The World Without Oil chapter, and if you read it, you will these include Richard Branson of Virgin Air's progress with biofuels and airline emission reductions, which Monbriot sees an one of the most major polluters left to tackle. There is also discussions of the use of algae to create biofuel, and much more!  Hunter Lovins in her ever-present black cowboy hat is the President and Founder of Natural Capital Solutions, Professor of Sustainable Management at BARD, and celebrated co-creator of the “Natural Capitalism” concept, as well as being a sought speaker and mentor named Millennium TIME Magazine Hero of the Planet. Her co-author, Boyd Cohen, Ph.D., is a climate strategist focused on urban environments, and a sustainable development leader.

A highly indexed book, extensively footnoted, I quite enjoyed it. Recommended read.

Lovins, L. H., & Cohen, B. (2011). Climate capitalism: Capitalism in the age of climate change. Hill and Wang.

On Fracking

On Fracking by C. Alexia Lane

2013, Rocky Mountain Books, 127 pages.

This is a helpful little hardcover written not in a biased way but with an examining look at the issues. Although it is just a tiny book, one you could slip into your pocket and bring along to the office or the next commute, it looks at “the potential contamination of groundwater source; the potential ecotoxicological effects from fracking, climate change and water management initiatives; and the bioengineering of organisms to enhance shale gas extraction.” Opening with a little history of the story of oil in North America, C. Alexia Lane does a commendable job of discussing the development of this industry, new drilling technologies, and the arrival of Rachel Carson and her book Silent Spring 1962 in a section usefully called, “That Was Then.” “Section “This Is Now,” leads into industry interest in the highly controversial method called fracking,“multi-stage hydraulic fracturing of underground rock strata in conjunction with direct drilling- downward, then horizontally or at an angle into the desired formation” using high-pressure chemically-mixed water, involving flow back fluid that slowly returns the chemical cocktail of contaminants and water to the surface, over the course of months. Because it involves what some might call the environmentally suicidal mixing of chemicals into our precious groundwater, industry and everyday citizen alike acknowledge that “fracking threatens the integrity of both our surface water and our groundwater sources.” An industry with a massive lack of regulatory policies regarding contamination, the fracking industry suffers from a lack of understanding about our groundwater, and our species in general suffers from a lack of understanding regarding the future impact of this somewhat experimental new method. Not one to present the reader with recent images of chemically-mixed water issuing from kitchen taps that is actually flammable, C. Alexia Lane focuses on discussing the huge amount of ground water used in this process in an era when all clean water requires protection. Water management is made complicated by the way it is governed, because it is not “based on hydrological connectivity” but is governed at thew moment by piecemeal legislation and regulation. Conflicts occur most frequently when it flows across man-made boundaries, something both surface and groundwater inevitably does. Lane examines some of the better and most intelligent policies and proposals never put in place, and informs us that Canada requires strong new laws protecting water governance that are similar in design to American laws if we are not to risk the wholesale destruction of our water table. Not only laws, cautions Lane, but a need for a national framework, is extremely pressing. While in the United States there are laws overseen and enforced by federal bodies, Canada is beginning to appear to the U.S. as if it is relying upon industry to self-regulate, an absurd situation. Lane examines a case study in Alberta and one in Texas: places where fracking because there is already a water scarcity is creating havoc. In Texas, freshwater resources are dwindling, making drought a new issue in which fracking contamination now plays a role. Interestingly, “acute and chronic components of many individual fracking fluid components have been documented” but not the cocktail of fluid in combination with local geology. With no long term data, stringent measures are needed fast, and, because of the soluble nature of fracking chemicals, it is considered technically not possible to clean this water, and impossible to consider with any advance in future technology the remediating of our precious and ancient groundwater to anything like its original state. As well, groundwater becomes vitally important to our survival as secure clean surface water harder dwindle and change. While proponents of fracking argue that the drilling process goes past groundwater to deeper sites, the book explains that while much fracking goes to depths that pass through potable groundwater, (and some fracking even occurs on the same depth as groundwater) that deep drilling only causes the contaminant cocktail to rise back to the surface after passing up through the pristine groundwater table from below. Lane refers to the issue of water management as “time-sensitive”and states that citizens must participate in encouraging the appropriate implementation of legislation to protect our freshwater. Vermont has banned fracking, North Carolina is “demonstrating the precautionary principle” and other places are well-advised to follow this example. British Columbia and Alberta require enforcement of public disclosure of chemical ingredients in fracking fluid, there is a moratorium of fracking in Quebec, and a full ban on fracking in Nova Scotia until 2014 is being challenges by industry now. Because of the vital and ancient nature of groundwater, Lane states, “we all have stake in protecting its integrity.” However, “in the face of extensive fracking operations across the continent,” this will require considerable focus and Lane directs that “we must be steadfast and vigilant to achieve our water preservation objectives.” Closing with extensive notes and references, the book is optimistic about the urgent need for legislation, transparency and the outright banning of certain procedures in order to defend ancient underground water, as well as massive amount of surface water, from industrial contamination. Remarks Lane, “the power resides within each of us and all of us together.”

Lane, C. A. (2013). On fracking. RMB Rocky Mountain Books.

Saris on Scooters: How Microcredit is Changing Village India by Sheila McLeod Arnopoulos

Read this book! The women described within these pages demonstrate an extraordinary courage and determination to not only survive, but to thrive. One of the ways they shift oppression into small industry supporting struggling communities is through the action of microcredit, a concept made famous by Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus. Sheila McLeod Arnopoulos, who has won the GG literary award and is a former journalism professor, based on trips between 2001 and 2008, spent 21 months in India meeting the grassroots women who put their communities on the map with their brilliant use of the microcredit system. She dedicates the book to the Dalits who showed her such trailblazing courage. The book is organized into 26 chapters, each with several charming photos telling the story of women facing extraordinary adversity. Opening with the story of a young woman who drove the bootlegger out of her rural community, (where moneylenders were charging as much as 120% on interest) she and her collegues established self-help groups to escape loan-sharking, enslavement and dowry deaths, and accessing life-changing microcredit for their projects. Enslavement, generally to the high-pesticide cotton crop-picking industry, is extremely common for girls, as child labour is poorly protected, (according to the 2001 census, there were 65 million child slaves across India). Rural women activists fought back with a cotton seed collective, forming a federation of 35 villages and determining there were at least 800 girls enslaved in their region, many of them sick from pesticide-related illnesses. The group is slowly making headway, producing profitable pesticide-free cotton and prohibiting child labour on their crops. The book continues with stories of literacy campaigns, including education for girls forced to drop out in order to work in cotton. In each case, they directly challenge tradition and unite to make a better future for themselves in the process. In chapter 10, McLeod Arnopoulos visits the Navdanya farm, and interviews the women in 2004 who are maintaining the seedbank that grew into the familiar name and made Navdanya the world-famous story of inspiration it is today. Also of note in the book are the various examples of Muslim and Hindu women working side-by-side, during an era of deadly conflict and strife. The author comments that the streets of Amedebad reminded her of the October crisis, with tanks in the streets because of sectarian violence. Despite his, she locates SEWA, the Self-employed Women's Association, who had organized themselves into cooperatives and unions, and then started their own bank after existing banks refused to help them. Through the bank, which allowed the members to pay off debts and take out loans under very reasonable conditions, the women also accessed accident and health insurance coverage for their members. The membership was a mix of Muslim, Hindu and other groups, and offered literacy programs and leadership programs. Arnopoulos writes, “consisting of a blend of gutsy young college-educated women organizers along with steadfast grassroots women leaders from slums and villages, SEWA was responsible for the formation of a range of unions covering incense stick-rollers, street vendors, home garment workers, headlong workers, construction workers, paper-pickers, bidi-rollers, and more. In addition, over 85 autonomous cooperatives had been created for several occupational groups.” By reading of these success stories, we can imagine the hope microcredit offers for women in Canada, where many ghettos exist, such as those experienced by women who may have trained for a speciality such as nontraditional trades but have no support, no possible way to transport their equipment to work, no way to demonstrate their skills to their market and are overlooked for jobs younger applicants consistently fill. The microloan system gives hope to those who have lived below the poverty line their entire lives in so-called developing and first world nations alike. Microcredit and the spirit behind microcredit systems suggests a world where the poor may use their own volition to better themselves, something that is surely a human right. To use our own strengths to build a future based on our own basic skills, driven by our own healthy human ambition and industriousness is a right we find frequently an issue even in Canada, while in places such as India where microcredit is used brilliantly by the women in this book, a future hope in this life-and-death struggle is made a little more fathomable to millions.

Arnopoulos, S. M. L. (2017). Saris on scooters: How microcredit is Changing Village India. Read How You Want.