Cleaner Greener Healthier: A Prescription for Stronger Canadian Environmental Laws and Policies

Published in 2015, this book is still current and is a good blueprint for future and current Canadian policy-makers and laypeople alike. If readers had illusions about Canadian health as I did, this book offered a number of myth-busting facts early on that are potentially shocking. For instance, early in the book I learned that our chemical burden is similar to our American counterparts. The author also teaches us that Canadians are bearing transgenerational vulnerability to certain diseases, while hot spots such as air pollution in Alberta's heartland is in fact similar to big cities.

Fortunately, the book is dense with references to every available study, citing WHO frequently as well as creating perspective, such as the fact that more than 1 in 4 Canadian has a family member who had sought treatment for environmental illness such as asthma or cancer. This mirrors some of the statistics on Health Canada's 2017 trend analysis "How Healthy are Canadians" but that study somewhat rolls smoking related cancers, cardiovascular diseases, and respiratory diseases together. I already thought Canadians had a high number of smoking-related deaths, but the book helped make it clear this is not about smoking.

The book also drew attention to the studies of the Conference Board of Canada, which found Canada ranks 10 out of 17 wealthy industrialized nations in regards to health performance, leaving Canada lagging well behind Sweden, Norway and France among others.
There is a massive lack of an environmental health strategy in Canada, one that causes Canada to even lag behind the United States in terms of health strategy, by as much as 20 years. How did we come to have such an alarming strategy gap regarding public health?

There have been a few attempted policy strides since the book first came out, but Health Canada's own website is not a terrific research source at the moment on this topic. The Environmental Impact Initiative page @ https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/corporate/about-health-canada/activities-responsibilities/strategies-initiatives/environmental-impact-initiative.html is literally archived, as is the Canadian Diabetes strategy page, "We have archived this page and will not be updating it" while a small "news item" announces it is radon awareness and lung cancer month.
This does not mean our government is not moving on these issues, but these are bad optics that do not contribute to a feeling of confidence around Canada's need for a comprehensive health strategy.

This book is readable and detailed. It outlines various contaminants in lay terms, and goes so far as to explore issues around antibiotics, the GMO debate, pesticides, and other exposure questions with detailed scientific evidence. The good news is that the Canadian Medical Association found 90 % of Canadians rank air pollution a high or moderate health risk, while 75% concerned about pesticides and herbicides and 82% are deeply concerned by climate change specifically as having potential to spread diseases. The book acknowledging the positive progress Canada has made in the past such as banning lead from gasoline, the reduction of dioxins by 99% in pulp and paper mills effluent, our advances in wastewater treatment, sulphuric levels from industry and in gasoline and the remediation of contaminated sites. These advances are encouraging given our immediate challenges.

Following quite a few interesting statistics, Boyd tackles a discussion of environmental injustice and structural inequalities in our society with considerable eloquence. The author uses the story of places where the burden of diseases are higher then average rates, and discusses environmental justice movement in these places. Useful histories include the story of Sarnia's Chemical Valley and the nearby Aamjiwnaang First Nation. The book also breaks down the adverse economic cost of environmental pollution which are massive with costs that run into the billions. Remarks this, despite great strides, at least according to Boyd's 2015 scan of circumstances, "there is no mention of environmental justice, environmental injustice, environmental equity, or environmental racism in any Canadian law, regulation, or policy at the federal, provincial, or territorial level." There are several statements like this that are quite the challenge to Canada and our policy-makers, and it's a tone that gives the book its vigor.
On pg 110, Boyd expresses some hope through the channel of children's environmental rights. A national strategic framework on children's environmental health was "finally released" in 2010. However, remarks, Boyd, Canada's environmental laws are strikingly substandard, and "the hour is late."
Notes are extensive, making this a helpful resource for anyone interested in understanding more about the solutions to our current environmental quandary. Recommended.

Boyd, D. R. (2016). Cleaner, greener, healthier: A prescription for stronger Canadian environmental laws and policies. UBC Press.

From Corporate Globalization to Global Co-operation: We Owe It to Our Grandchildren

This friendly orange book has back cover praise from, among others, Maude Barlow and Manfred Max-Neef. The author states the intention of the book is not "political or social or economic" but “where they all meet." It is a well-written and useful exploration of the potential of co-operatives to repair our economic woes, with a very spiritual sort of preface. Webb remarks, “co-operation is more important and healthier than the competition...and that love produces a better world.” The preface also quotes several spiritual references regarding gain, from Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, Taoism, and Sikhism and Confucianism, “One word sums up the basis of all good conduct...loving kindness. Do not do onto others what you do not want done to yourself.” Confucious, Analects, 15:23.
This book is divided into seven sections. The first section, titled, "A World of Ominous Uncertainty," takes on every grim topic imaginable, beginning with interrelated global issues, ecological overshoot, environmental destruction and extinction.
The next sections of the book go on to describe trends that are the greatest threats, with charts displaying oil prices, climate change, and freshwater depletion before Webb moves into the topic of destructive inequality and financial instability. This was followed by a section discussing "addiction to growth," and the erosion of democracy, while also presenting the under-explored issue of technological research for the few.
I found Dangerous Myths of Neoclassical Economics was a particularly well-written chapter that provides structure to and context to arguments that “economic outlook” is never at a positive point when millions of children are starving. The book achieves its stated aim in reminding us that such economics are destroying democracy and that Adam Smith was from a different era. The author also then usefully explodes the myth of free markets, “left unregulated, markets work for the very rich and work imperfectly or not at all for the bottom 80 percent of humanity.”
Section 6, titled, "Cooperative Renewal and Reform" is full of many excellent cases and examples, leading well into Section 7 which discusses cooperative-friendly public policy. Then, moving past policy, Section 7 cites a number of examples and is a very helpful read. "Legislation in Italy recognizes member loans as a valuable form of financing and provides financial incentives for them; allows cooperatives to put profits into indivisible reserves without paying taxes on them, permits cooperatives to have members (within a one member, on vote limitation) who do not use the services of the cooperative but only invest in it," and, we learn, requires co-ops to donate a percentage of their profits for the purpose of national cooperative development.
Other examples chosen by the authors include Danish Wind co-operatives, Midcounties Co-operative Energy in the UK, and TREC Renewable Energy Co-operative in Toronto.
The book remarks that co-operatives and co-operative leaders have in their hands the most powerful tools available to humanity to fuel the transition to a better world. The book asks, "will they have the courage, wisdom, and strength to play that important role?"
Leading in to the final section, the book cautions, "reality demands that we keep our eyes on both the positive and the negative.”
The concluding section, Dreaming of a Better World, is full of informed optimism coupled with a shrewd eye to the future. The author has clearly seen both positive and negative aspects of the cooperative process, and comes out a strong proponent of coops as a vital tool for social and economic empowerment worldwide. Dreaming of a Better World is followed by an extensive bibliography as well as a listing of organizational websites exploring economic alternatives.
All in all, a very cool little book from the heart by J. Tom Webb. I recommend it.

Webb, T. (2016). From corporate globalization to global co-operation: We owe it to our grandchildren. Fernwood Publishing.

Project Sunshine: How Science Can Use The Sun to Fuel and Feed the World

Project Sunshine addresses fossil fuel burning, alternative energy technologies that do not create greenhouse gas pollution and how to feed the growing population of the future. It uses a friendly walk-through-history to bring readers into the future without straying from the gravity of the topic. The book is very easy to read, and almost seems directed at a young adult audience. The authors are Tony Ryan, who is Pro Vice-Chancellor at the University of Sheffield and leads the Faculty of Science with a specialty in polymer science and journalist Steve McKevitt, a U.K. Government advisor on business innovation and international trade. It's nice to read a book deliberately written in such an accessible way. There's a lot of potentially new information in here, as the authors remark in the preface, "big problems require radical solutions."
In the second chapter, "Weathering a Perfect Storm" there is a bit of a science introduction, simplistic but entertaining, followed by the chapter “taking control,” which describes the author's outlook on human history and human-as-hunter-gatherer, before moving into chapter three, “States of Emergency.” By this point the structure chosen by the authors becomes clear, as the book helpfully describes civilizations that weathered crisis through technological advances.
The book is very British, as they pursue an Elizabethan comparison into several chapters in an interesting way, first describing the Elizabethan energy crisis in 1260, a point when coal could not be shipped to London as all available accessible sources had been exhausted, starting the practice of mining it. The comparison is that we now must begin to mine solar or be left in the dark.
The book also usefully talks about slash and burn deforestation in Britain, and the exploitation of arable land as historic lessons contemporary planners must learn from. After the history lesson, it explores Britain's vast wind and tidal power resources in a way that is informational and detailed. It admires the solar project Gemasolar and Seville, Spain and explores the potential for large-scale battery storage, such as those being developed at MIT. The energy section of the book is exhaustive, exploring battery types, predicting future technologies and exploring the pro-and-cons of all the current cutting edge technology, including hurdles that are still to be overcome and in some cases have been overcome since the writing of the book. It is very positive about algal biofuels and is also enthusiastic about Methanol as a liquid storage medium. Finally, it addresses the cultural problem of climate denial and climate change, referencing Al Gore, and addresses nuclear power, remarking, "the history of fission power is a lesson in the dangers of engineering compromise."
Moving from energy questions, the authors take on food sovereignty in the chapter “Feast or Famine.” True to the book's subtitle, the authors explore ways to feed the world, remarking, "the potential for GM is significant. Bio-engineering is well-placed to address many of the problems we have outlined: Salination, climate change, drought, flooding," an opinion I find naiive without specifics. Fortunately, the book does attempt to address the problems involved with genetic modification as well as why raising plants in sterile soil as not sustainable. The book then describes why a third of all food produced in the U.K. is thrown away at the time of writing, a "chilling fact" caused by "befuddled logic and consumer whimsy." With lines like, "the foods that fails to pass muster in this greengrocers beauty parade is discarded" Feast or Famine was my favourite chapter. This section also highlights "the moral and economic challenges of maintaining a diet high in meat and dairy," and the issues of class difference, "the better-off households produce an average of 5 kilos more waste per week then working-class households."
In general, I found this book to be a readable and engaging work, the collaboration of two surprisingly accessible writers. Project Sunshine has a great amount of current research and is dense with references and sources, it has pages of further reading at the end and I enjoyed become involved with the book through the history-lesson structure of the first half. The energy technology sections are not difficult for a layperson to understand and it lays a helpful groundwork for anticipating new technologies on the horizon. This general attitude throughout the book makes Project Sunshine a recommended sunny read for dark days.

Ryan, T., & McKevitt, S. (2013). Project sunshine: How science can use the sun to fuel and feed the world. Icon.

Energy Services for the Urban Poor In Africa

I chose to read this book because I was more interested in the between-the-lines information, which was whether the very poor in Africa are being forced into payment schemes around the theme of climate emergency in the process of solving Africa's energy crisis. The studies in the five-country cases sought to determine whether energy subsidies are well-targeted to the urban poor, the impact of energy subsidies on public finances and how electricity tariffs affect the operation of SME's (small and medium enterprises). I found the writing compassionate, the comparison between countries very readable and of interest to a layperson.
Bereket Kebede is currently development economist and is systems development manager at the Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company. The book is a publication of Zedbooks, a press specializing in international social science research and investigation based in London, UK and is an update from 2004. The book itself is a project of the African Energy Policy Network, a Nairobi-based NGO launched in 1989 that works with the UN and SIDA, among others, in examining future energy scenarios for African cities.
Subsidies in Sub-Saharan Africa are widely used to “improve the access of urban poor” to electricity, a population that relies largely on fuel-wood, kerosene, and dung as their main sources of energy. Many governments provide kerosene subsidies. Electricity supply is mainly dominated by government-owned utilities, so connection fees become an issue that can be spread out allowing connection access over a number of electricity bills. An example is Uganda which subsidizes 79 percent of the connection fees if customers are located within an 80 metre distance of a low-tension line.
The studies also examine the question of who receives subsidies and suggests removing kerosene subsidy because it tends to be only higher-income households that receive the largest portion of the subsidy. This was interesting, as it evidences government intervention to prevent improper exploitation of subsidies. Other ideas such as tariffs are also discussed, as each region has very different culture and human resources and technical capacity.
The book then discusses projects such as Zambia's Pamodzi Low Cost Electrification Project, “which uses a deferred payment system to enable poor urban households to own 2-plate cookers for which they pay over time.” In the Pamodzi project, use of charcoal and firewood was radically reduced, but participants then become dependent on the grid.
This made me wonder if climate change issues would result in the bullying of the poor in such areas to take on exorbitant and long-term expenses because their pre-existing (traditional) heating and cooking methods are interpreted as environmentally problematic.
Thankfully, the book addresses the ability for households to afford such expenses is also studied in detail, as is the capital cost of subsidy on the GDP. In many cases, upfront costs have been a major deterrent in terms of house wiring, utility fees, and electrical equipment such as bulbs, and other devices.
“It seems that despite subsidy, many households are not able to switch over." The examination of loans and repayment periods is presented in depth. Payback with an interest rate of 14 percent in five years was offered but the book remarked that some would need sixteen years. Many good suggestions are offered including increasing support for sustainable energy use which could help with the introduction of solar energy and other forms such as wind power.
This is a theme in Uganda, where advocates for the poor argue around price and support resistance to switching. The book does effectively explore these ideas and others, arriving not at a series of conclusions so much as a demonstration of trends. The book then proceeds to reinforce the relevance of the discussion with a series of regional profiles, addressing Zambia, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia and Tanzania and Uganda. By examining key trends, including which houses are on the electrical grid and the mandated book inquiry involving energy use in SME's.
It's a very comprehensive study with notes on each region as detailed appendixes, references and charts. There is detailed data regarding the researchers, the research approach and a transparent discussion of their data collection challenges.
I recommend this book as a groundwork for understanding the issues, but while it displayed how vulnerable this population might be to pressure, as it was an update to a 2004 publication, it did not directly address climate change so much as environmental degradation, but it demonstrated compassion for Africa's poor in the approach of these studies, which was reassuring to a reader. The book approached the rapid rate of urbanization in Africa and “the recent focus on poverty alleviation,” in a comprehensive manner. Today the authors are involved in putting the infrastructure in place that can address climate change goals in Africa, a place with the richest solar resources on the planet. The potential to power Africa in a way that avoids the fossil fuel dependency of the past has never been brighter, assuming political regimes and big energy interests can allow universal access to clean, affordable energy to gain ground in 2020.

Kebede, B., & Dube, I. (2004). Energy Services for the urban poor in Africa: Issues and policy implications. Zed.

Canada's Deadly Secret: Saskatchewan Uranium and the Global Nuclear System

****

It almost seems as if there is a cultural fog around the nuclear industry in Canada.
It is as if, because uranium requires "special handling," PR people ran in and made sure anything "hot" was not reported, causing the containment wall that should rightly be around uranium to instead spring up around the industry instead, allowing important events to remain somehow shrouded in irony and underreported.
In 2006, nuclear capacity worldwide was at its highest. To some, this appeared to be a "nuclear revival." In researching for this review, I found that Jim Harding, in a letter to the Edmonton Journal had remarked," in the midst of this supposed revival, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) projects that by 2030 there will be only 447 to 679 gigawatts (GW) of nuclear capacity worldwide. This is only 40 to 60 percent of what was predicted to exist by 1990, the last time there was industry-animated hype about a nuclear boom in the 1980s."1
Harding was right. Despite energetic building in the nuclear sector, worldwide total nuclear capacity has remained lower than that 2006 level ever since.2 World electricity for nuclear power generation holds at 10.2 in 2019 while solar, wind, geothermal and tidal power generation climb past 6.6%.
Canada's Deadly Secret was written in 2007, an interesting time in history, because it was a ray of truth in the middle of what we find looking back was considerable hype.
What I found memorable in the book was Harding's descriptions of Saskatchewan, "currently the largest uranium-producing region of the world," which he explains is undervaluing and drastically "sidestepping Aboriginal rights" in order to mine radioactive uranium on First Nations land. The huge pits and the sheer magnitude of radioactive tailings are heart-stirring..." Harding describes how "the deep scars and radioactive waste left on the land" is not the whole story. His book pursues the trail to "long-living toxic nuclear wastes like plutonium, a substance never before seen on planet earth..." as well as "the fissionable material that ended up in thousands of nuclear warheads (and) the DU left from the enrichment processes going into the uranium bullets now being questioned by the United Nations but used nonetheless by the US or NATO in its four most recent wars, and used in the casings of H-bombs ready to play their part in any number of possible genocides brewing in the war-rooms of nuclear weapons powers." This says Harding is the fuller implication of uranium mining in Saskatchewan and therefore, a larger responsibility of Canadians who cannot pretend not to know or care.
Radioactivity is scientifically interesting, it has created some important advances. That's fine. However, many would love to downplay the legacy of problems rife in Canada's nuclear industry. Throughout this time, rather than the shiny, clean presentation of the nuclear industry we see from advertisements, the nuclear industry has often been functioning very much like any other large, polluting industry, only the cumulative results are considerably more dire. As a result, some people make it their life's mission to take this industry to task. Jim Harding has been an anti-nuclear activist since the 1950s, and his dedication to battling the myth of the "good" nuclear industry is an impressive one. Along the way, he has gotten to know the industry very intimately. After all, because nuclear waste stays active and extremely dangerous to human life for thousands of years, it is the duty of all of us to know about and reinforce every mechanism that carefully monitors uranium. It is being pulled out of the earth during our lifetimes, while future generations will wonder who fought to ensure that uranium mining and the distribution of radioactive material is not made to seem like a small or irrelevant event. It seems our duty to earth's creatures thousands of years in the future to know about and generally ensure responsible policies towards the handling of this highly problematic aspect of nuclear material. More so as it is being touted as a "clean" energy alternative in an age when there are so many other truly clean alternative energy sources that do not bear the terrible aspect of a toxic legacy that future generations must bear.
Here Harding really hits the mark with scathing criticism of nuclear power's attempt to greenwash its toxic production process and general danger. There are some very convincing arguments without the support of Harding's expertise why nuclear power is not the way forward as we phase out coal. Around the world, nations are storing hundreds of thousands of tons of high-level radioactive waste, with no real plan on what to do with it. Nuclear plants are being shut down around the world, and the ones that are being built are going up at a very high price in carbon emissions. Caldicott remarks, "Canada's Deadly Secret exposes not just the 'environmental ticket' being used by the nuclear industry to try a comeback. It also explores the deadly corporate planning processes that reveal the growing partnership between the oil and the nuclear industries. The proposed twinning of nuclear power to help extract the greenhouse-gas-laden heavy oil in Western Canada's tar sands is quite extraordinary. Harding convincingly argues that sustainable development must be non-nuclear."

1.THE EDMONTON JOURNAL
2.https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/nuclear-power-in-the-world-today.aspx

Harding, J. (2008). Canada's deadly secret: Saskatchewan uranium and the Global Nuclear System. Fernwood.

Biosecurity: The Socio-politics of Invasive Species and Infectious Diseases

Biosecurity The Socio-Politics of Invasive Species and Infectious Diseases Ed. By Andrew Dobson, Keizer Barker and Sarah L. Taylor

The editors are professors and scholars in a variety of disciplines, from natural science to politics and political geography to resource management. This book introduces the ideas behind the science of Biosecurity. Biosecurity involves governance in response to concerns in protecting human health, biological organisms, and agriculture from pest and disease.
In the US the term generally invokes concerns involving bioterrorism whereas in numerous island states as well as New Zealand and Australia it involves an environmental conservation ethic, while in Britain and Europe it generally indicates concerns over agricultural security and pests and diseases.
These are quite different definitions. The categories do overlap a great deal, however, "as invasive plants spread plant pathogens," as well, "invasive animals introduce disease to agricultural domestic animals" and when laboratory security is breached, it is "dealt with as a bioterrorism event."
Biosurveillance, "the production, analysis, and circulation of information on potential invasive events or epidemics," forms the most crucial and ongoing aspect of biosecurity.
There were a few cool things about this book. I didn't realize biosecurity was so hotly debated with so many spin-off topics, rather than simply implemented. And the final part of the book was particularly thought-provoking, as it talked about climate change and how, despite every effort, different species are joining and at times replacing current ones. For a layperson, the idea of inevitability was a troubling idea, because I would like biosecurity to be strictly controlled. Part 2 was the most reassuring on this front, describing how we are continually finessing the system.
Interesting book usefully divided into four interdisciplinary parts.
Part 1 "Framing Biosecurity " establishes why we might need biosecurity, part 2, "Implementing Biosecurity" looks at the different frameworks that underpin biosecurity practices. Part 3, "Biosecurity and Geopolitics" looks at the international dimensions of the issue and part 4 addresses Biosecurity "from the point of view of the human/nonhuman relationship" as well as examining the implications of climate change.
I found another useful point in Part 1, chapter three, where contributor Bruce Braun points out that "we should be talking about biosecurities (plural) rather than biosecurity (singular) since the managing of biological risk takes many different forms in many different contexts." He also remarks that "biosecurity must be read as an ethical issue, not merely a technical or logistic one." I saw the merit in this assertion, as it involves, among other things, sorting life into desirable and undesirable forms worthy of protection within a boundaried area.
Part 2, the reassuring section of the book, compares governance approaches and also asks an ethical question, "too risky for whom or what?" The author Andrew Donaldson prefers New Zealand's approach, where the "practice is regarded as a subset of national security" using an "integrated approach" of monitoring, licensing and strict border control. He compares this with the UK, which among other things emphasizes animal over plant health, making it not as strong in dealing with plant-related challenges.
In Part Three, Addressing Biosecurity and Geopolitics, Clive Potter presents the idea that "risk assessment is a political tool," designed "to depoliticize the biosecurity issue and to render disputes amenable to purely technocratic solutions."
The question is layered as other chapters point out that biosecurity and risk assessment varies from place to place, and it is of high concern that such inconsistencies in various agencies affect the pathways of species.
The final section and conclusion address the future of biosecurity. It raises the point that future growth in international trade and travel will "cause invasions no matter how stringent containment policies are" not to mention other actions such as rewilding as "the very process of making life secure can generate new insecurities."
The book concludes with an assessment of future risks and uncertainties in the context of climate change and globalization. This final section takes on a difficult topic, as climate change alters the landscape considerably. They address the fear of an alien future and the more dramatic impacts of climate change. While a greater understanding of the ecology of infectious disease is needed to protect vulnerable populations, new technology is assisting them in rising to the task. Advances in the field of monitoring a new age of remote sensors are also taking a role, as is digital spatial mapping. Climate change has become the ultimate catalyst to increase efforts in preventing the influx of diseases. However, as this book was written pre-COVID, I will assume that much has been built upon this incentive. Near the wrap-up, to my surprise, the authors actually presented the opinion that rather than focusing on stopping invasive species, the future of our ecosystems may actually depend on the arrival of new species adapting to new places. Invasive species, in certain controlled cases, may have the potential to increase resilience and thereby maintain ecosystems in the long run. A bit of a grim read at moments but interesting and worth the investment.

Dobson, A. P., Barker, K., & Taylor, S. L. (2013). Biosecurity: The socio-politics of Invasive Species and Infectious Diseases. Routledge.

Out of the Wreckage: A New Politics for an Age in Crisis

I was pleased to get my hands on this book as I frequently read Monbiot in The Guardian and follow his ideas. As well I was hoping for some insight into the spirit and direction behind spontaneous British protest movements such as the Extinction Rebellion protesters. Canadian Naomi Klein refers praisingly of George Monbiot on the dust-jacket as having "a dazzling command of science and relentless faith in people." Klein is right, Monbiot writes with fluency on a number of topics, and turns a keen eye to political science, in particular a cultural view of history, the rise of Neoliberalism, and solutions that tackle the crisis of democracy. The book is structured by first establishing historical context for Monbiot's fresh view, while the remainder of the book addresses our current situation. He opens the book with the relevant truism, "you cannot take away someone's story without giving them a new one," and talks about storytelling as "the means by which we navigate in the world" as we "all possess a narrative instinct."
Monbiot addresses our cultural familiarity with contemporary story themes under an introductory subtitle: Heroes and Villians, tearing down the Social Democrat "narrative," as a neat, complete package, but simplistic and failing to deliver a strong enough defense against the exploitation of the poor by under-restrained corporations that has resulted in climate crisis. I for one consider Social Democracy a flawed but fairly well-meaning philosophy for what it does, but I also agree with Monbiot's remedies in the last chapters, it's just that if he were not living in a Social Democracy, but under a Dictatorship, he would not even be able to write. However in terms of tone, it seems this whole book involves the taking down of sacred cows, allowing Monbiot to eloquently propose Proportional Representation among other certainly worthy ideas in the final chapters, and I do enjoy the radical way he writes.
Mobiot then introduces the Neoliberal story. In this story, "the world fell into disorder...and Stalinism and Nazism" exemplified this, something no person can argue with, however, on the tail of this universal opposition to fascism came the attached belief that "collectivism crushes freedom, individualism and opportunity," collectivism having represented itself through fascist regimes that collectively enslaved, ethnically cleansed and generally killed millions. "Freedom-seeking entrepreneurs" are intended to be the heroes in the Neoliberal story, who will conquer over the "enforced conformity" of collectivism, "freeing society from the enslavement of the state."
Both widely-accepted stories are in trouble, says Monbiot, who remarks that he has been listening for a new story to fix or radically modify these somewhat dysfunctional narratives, only to continually encounter "silence" that "creates disparity."
This failure, says Monbiot, also means a movement that does not know its values. "Know your values," says Monbiot in a not-very-veiled message to a contemporary protest movement addressing climate change, it is "the bedrock of effective politics." Monbiot remarks that to do this you must know your principles, and have "a description of the world as we would like it to be." Then, being Monbiot, he actually gets concrete and lists a statement of 16 principles.
These are great and include, "We want to live in a place in which everyone's needs are met, without harming the living world or the prosperity of future generations," and from there he develops upon the principles listed. He dips from cultural to psychological questions frequently, asking if readers might ponder why we remember a terrorist act more then the candle-lot march in solidarity with victims. "Our innate tendency is to stand together against threats to our well-being, to treat an attack on one as an attack on all," Monbiot asserts. Yet we are in an Orwellian epidemic of loneliness with consumerism as the cause, with "a price on everything and a value on nothing." The author proposes that we have heard the story of Homo Economicus so many times that we have accepted it and it has come to define us, "it has changed our perception of ourselves," and this in turn, "has changed the way we behave." The consequences are a self-generating crisis and the loss of common purpose.
Having addressed alienation, Monbiot then gets on a roll and dissects the last few years of politics and the rise of Neoliberalism and it is a pleasure to read his writing. His well-constructed history of corporate interference in democracy includes how Barack Obama failed to help victims of foreclosure, and instead protected the banks "at all costs." He reminds us that Obama pushed for trade deals that handed power from citizens to corporations such as the "Trans-Pacific Partnership, the TTIP, and The Trade in Service Agreement." Shattering any other illusions readers may have had about Obama, Monbiot points out that in Obama's first three years in office, "95% of income growth in the US was captured by the richest 1% of earners."
The book asserts that the result of this was the way only 36% voted in 2014, America's lowest voter turn-out since 1942. The author goes on to describe an American political climate of Hilary Clinton leaks, voter alienation and disappointment in a way that is eye-opening. Part of this no-sacred-cows set-up was to create a contrast to the political scene in the U.K. where the election was not looking promising for the Labour Party until a draft manifesto was leaked, "presumably with the intention of sabotaging the party."
The manifesto revealed that the Labour party intended to make privatized services public, increase public spending, restore free education at university, enhance the rights of workers and the unemployed, restrict landlord exploitation and strengthen environmental rules and other public protections.
The UK voted in droves, Labour won 40 percent of the vote, gained an extra 30 seats in Parliament, and Conservatives lost their majority. Labour had become "propositional" as Jeremy Corbyn connected with voters. However Monbiot feels that Labour failed to "consolidate" by actively embedding their policies within wider change. He then pursues a further still entertaining discussion of political corruption and takes on the "Think Tanks" posing as expert advisors to policy. "Overt political spending by the patrimonial elite is supplemented by truckloads of dark money: the undisclosed funding of organizations involved in public advocacy...as hundreds of groups purporting to be either independent think tanks or grassroots campaigns were founded and financed by billionaires and corporations." True and nicely said, Monbiot. Having dismantled Neoliberalism in various nations, he proceeds to propose the most obvious solutions accrued from his years of writing and larger analysis, the fresh narrative Monbiot has waited for and then felt pressed to provide. The combined ideas are intended to enrich democracy and rectify systemic failings. The new narrative revolves around "every nation" having "a constitutional convention once every twenty years, to take stock of its political system." Here Monbiot cites Stuart White, who teaches politics at Oxford University, who argues that conventions "should mostly consist of people who do not already have a formal role in politics." Monbiot further proposes implementation of a long-awaited system of proportional representation in the form of the Single Transferable Vote or STV. Not one to leave stones unturned, Monbiot exhaustively describes the issues and offers simple and workable solutions, fair referendums, even coming up with ideas for dealing with "dark money," a major harm to democracy which he had expounded upon in the second half. "Stop treating them as charities," says Monbiot, and instead make "any organization involved in public advocacy declare all donations of say, $1000.00 or more." Also a rule, the same transparency regulation should be applied in parliament requiring media as well members "to reveal any financial interests pertinent to the debates they join." There's more. There's a lot of great solutions in here. Monbiot addresses the IMF, World Bank and UN Security Council, remarking, "The United States, uniquely, has veto power over all three" which impose austerity in poorer nations and "deregulation on their governments." He also critically points out that as the WTO and UN general assembly "operate almost entirely on the basis of presumed consent," the WTO "should be replaced by a new body- a Fair Trade Organization- which...allows poorer nations to protect their infant industries from foreign competition until they are strong enough to fend for themselves," which was actually the security feature of noninterference wealthier nations rely upon. As a consequence, "The World Bank and the IMF...should be replaced by a body charged with preventing excessive trade surpluses and deficits from forming, and therefore international debt from accumulating...overseen by...a directly elected world parliament." Monbiot's conclusion is an inspiring summary of his ideas, including an offer of optimism based on a dose of reality in terms of majority interest. "The frustration that almost all those who want a kinder, better, more protective political experience is that we know we have, in theory at least, the numbers on our side."

Monbiot, G. (2018). Out of the wreckage: A new politics for an age of crisis. Verso.