The Story of Stuff How Our Obsession With Stuff Is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities, and Our Health-- And A Vision For Change

The Story of Stuff How Our Obsession With Stuff Is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities, and Our Health-- And A Vision For Change by Annie Leonard

This book is an anti-consumerist statement about consuming and wasting too much.  It describes how Americans waste huge amounts of materials.  Annie Leonard asks people to use less, use less toxic materials, buy things more carefully and choose more durable environmentally friendly products.

Annie Leonard is tracking how stuff is made.  It is a description of dangerous, inefficient, and wasteful consumption.  The book starts with extraction of resources, moves to production, then distribution, consumption, and finally disposal of goods.  She describes how the United States creates a society focused on getting more and more goods, planning to make them quickly obsolete, and then driving even more demand with advertising.

I like the idea of having fewer things that are more durable, better quality, and easier to reuse or recycle. I also can identify with the authors wish that people in the United States were more community focused.  I would like to see more recycled goods, green chemistry, and other products in supermarkets and stores.

However, I did find parts of this book to be a bit overbearing.  She is preaching at times against globalization, for fair trade, and often talks about human rights in fairly strong progressive language.  At points it seems unrealistic.  For example, she claims that we can survive on only solar and wind for energy.   Things like distributed hydroelectric, biofuels, and ocean power are not even touched on.

At the end of the book, we get a picture of a kind of agrarian paradise without cars, public gardens, and lots of public transportation.  It has a kind of far out feeling to it.  We are supposed to voluntarily reduce our carbon footprint to next to nothing.  It seemed a bit unrealistic.

The sentiment is easy to relate to.  I read the book as part of the Ecolibris campaign to read a book printed on recycled paper.   Recycling is something which I support.

I also found the book to be very much problem oriented.  Annie Leonard spends quite a bit of time writing against pvc plastics and incinerators which are quite toxic. I would have liked to see a litle bit more on solutions to environmental problems.  She makes some brief mentions of biomimicry technology and clean technology.  She derides clean technology as being impractical because there simply will be too many people.

I found this inteeresting. I am for more urban farming, urban greenhouses, farmers markets, and more local production of goods.  However, I don't have that every house should have a compost bin feeling.  I also like the idea of more car sharing and limiting use of cars to the minimum.  I like the concept of having public rental lots like zipcar.

This was an interesting book about wasteful, excess consumption.  However, it often had a politically correct feel to it.  It is worth reading if you are interested in the environment, a green lifestyle, or have an anti-consumerist world view.

The Vertical Farm Feeding The World in the 21st Century by Dr, Dickson Despommer.

The Vertical Farm Feeding The World in the 21st Century by Dr, Dickson Despommer

 This book is both utopian and visionary. However, I also found it to lacked some attribution for where the science and some of the philosophy for the things which he is describing are coming from.  He does not describe some of the more interesting and radical ideas that have come out of ecology recently.

Dr. John Despommier spends quite a bit of time describing how agriculture came into being. Then he describes how modern agriculture is wasteful from an ecological standpoint. I found some of his writing to be a bit overbearing. He jumps from bad modern farming methods to giant skyscraper farms.

There is very little of a median. He goes into greenhouses and how they work, but does not do much with bioshelters, organic farming, or natural pest control.

 He  also wants the vertical farms he is designing to be hermetically sealed liked the biosphere experiment. This did not work as planned in the biosphere experiment.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/biospheresci/


He also is arguing for moving hydroponics into the city. This is already starting to happen. It is just not happening in the fashion of skyscrapers. When he describes the advantages of a vertical farm, it is the exact same advantage of having urban greenhouses. I see urban greenhouses and farms as being incredible positive for people in cities.

The advantage which a vertical farm would have over a horizontal greenhouse would be that the system he is describing would use less land and probably have a greater surface area to place solar panels and wind turbines on.

He properly praises John Todd for his work on living machines which led to many breakthroughs with ideas for things like bioshelters, water purification based on living machines, and other concepts which are used in the book, The Vertical Farm. http://toddecological.com/eco-machines/



I distinctly remember reading about a multistory bioshelter farm design for cities in the book Bioshelters, Ocean Arks, City Farming: Ecology as the Basis of Design written in 1984 published by Sierra Club Books. This was the basis for a later book, A Safe and Sustainable World: The Promise of Ecological Design, Island Press c2005.



I think Dr. Dickson Despommier synthesized a new idea from the work of many others. The scale of a vertical farm is what differentiates his idea. It is hard to imagine a skyscraper filled with greenery.



There is also a single sentence citation for the book, Cradle to Cradle Remaking The Way We Make Things by William McDonough and Michael Braungart. This is a book about how to design things so there is very little waste in a closed loop system based on ecology. I did find it listed in recommended reads.
http://www.mcdonough.com/cradle_to_cradle.htm

Dr. Despommier also uses the term "natural capitalism" without explaining where it comes from. Natural Capitalism is a term for businesses that use environmental principles. It is also a book, Natural Capitalism by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins.



I wish he had spent some more time describing the workings of how a vertical farm is put together. For example, I might have liked a little more on how Aeroponics which came from NASA works. Incidentally, Dr. Despommier also mentions Biosphere II which was a closed loop system for maintaining humans for long time periods in space. Many of the potential systems he is describing come from space research.



Dr. Despommier's description of the Eurofresh Farms is quite interesting. They are in the middle of the Arizona desert. There is another example of a closed system farm in the antarctic not mentioned in the book where they grow fresh food for researchers. It is also preparation for growing food on Mars. http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=13724



The Vertical Farm which he is describing is a future design combining space research, agronomy, and bioshelter design inside a skyscraper. It uses both wind, solar, and biomass power. It commercializes concepts like aeroponics from NASA and adds to some ideas that already came from space research. Solar panels were originally invented at NASA.



This brings the theme to power in the book. Dr. Despommier describes how they will be using wind power, biomass, and solar power. He suggest plasma arc gasification as the way to get rid of biomass. Plasma arc gasification is very expensive. He also suggests that we grow fuel crops in vertical farms. Fuel crops like algae can grow on open water in big bags for far cheaper prices. I liked his sugestion from an earlier article in the New York magazine that they use pellet burning cogeneration for heat, power, and steam. http://nymag.com/news/features/30020/



Dr. Despommier says this can only be built by governments doing research; there is no venture capital interested in this. This statement bothered me. Mr. Despommier is wrong. Bayer is doing research for this and many other companies are working on projects which involve these technologies.
http://www.bayercropscience.com/bcsweb/cropprotection.nsf/id/EN_Editorial_Service_Issue_18_Agriculture?open&l=EN&ccm=500035



Other companies are seeking venture capital to build these projects like Home Town Farms. http://www.hometownfarms.com/  Many cities are becoming more interested in investing in urban agricultural greenhouses. In New York, there is http://gothamgreens.com/  whch supplies Whole Foods markets. There are also combined systems called aquaponics which create closed loops for growing fish and vegetables together. http://www.growseed.org/growingpower.html



I thought the book was very interesting and very flawed. Most of the advantages which he is describing could be done with rooftop aquaponics, or moving advanced greenhouses into an urban setting. I am not convinced that stacking one greenhouse after another into a skyscraper is a good idea. I can see smaller buildings of three or four stories tried first.   This would reduce pollution, provide fresh organic food, create new jobs, and a cleaner environment.  It is well worth doing.


In the appendices, there is a lot of material on hydroponics and urban hydroponics with many websites. It would have been nice to see him list a few green incubators like Green Spaces http://www.greenspaceshome.com/  or NYC Acre http://www.nycacre.com/ . Also, it would have been nice to see a little bit on aquaponics as well.



The best part of ths book was the illustrations. They are incredible pictures of green cities, buildings and skyscrapers. In fact, his descriptions of green buildings were also superb. This is an excellent reason to take a look at this book.



This is a fascinating and flawed book. I found many of his ideas to be very interesting, but impractical. Maybe, I had some problems with his not going more deeply into parts of the philosophy behind building a vertical farm. I also did not like his over focus on the idea that the government will fund research into vertical farms. Vertical farms incorporate some fairly radical ideas about science and technology.



This book hopefully will stimulate people to look at the fascinating new developments in aeroponics, hydroponics, recycling, green buildings, cradle to cradle design, ecological design, and alternative energy which this book presents. I think most people will find this book fascinating.  I did have some questions about the authors approach and philosophy.

Short list of Environment, Alternative Energy, and Clean Tech Books.

Short list of Environment, Alternative Energy, and Clean Tech Books.

Occassionally I like to summarize some of the books I have read on this subject and reviewed here.

Apollo's Fire: Igniting America's Clean Energy Economy by Jay Inslee and Bracken Hendricks (This book is about a progressive alliance called the Apollo Alliance).

The Citizen Powered Energy Handbook-- Greg Pahl
The book describes solar power (solar hot water and photovoltaic), water power (micro, small, medium, and large hydro, hydrokinetic, wave power, and tidal power), wind power, biomass (pellets, syngas, wood, cofiring), liquid biofuels (bioidiesel, ethanol, and SVO-- straight vegetable oil), and geothermal energy. Examples are given for both houses, district plants, and community efforts.

The Clean Tech Revolution: Discover the Top Trends, Technologies, and Companies to Watch (Paperback)Ron Pernick and Clint Wilder
(About clean technology investing).

Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things by William McDonough, Michael Braungart
(About making thngs so they are reusable)

Earth The Sequel:The Race to Reinvent Energy and Stop Global Warming (Fred Krupp)
(This book is focused on how we can come up with economic and technical solutions to global warming. )

Farewell My Subaru An Epic Adventure In Local Living by Doug Fine
(A story about a man who decides to live locally back to the land)

The First Billion Is the Hardest On a Life of Comebacks and America's Energy Future by T. Boone Pickens
(A biography, business history, and energy plan.)

Freedom From Oil: How the Next President Can End the United States' Oil Addiction (Hardcover)David Sandalow
(A discussion between the president and his staff on how
they can end America's addiction to oil.)

Green Investing A Guide To Making Money Through Environment-Friendly Stocks by Jack Uldrich
(A nice listing of many different alternative energy stocks.)

Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage (Hardcover)by Daniel C. Esty (Author), Andrew S. Winston (Author)
(Covers environmental strategy in business-- lean manufacturing, recycling, clean products, green advertising, waste reduction, alternative energy use in factories.)

Green Your Place In the New Energy Revolution by Jane Hoffman and Michael Hoffman
(An overview of different energy technologies)

Leviathan: The History of Whaling In America by Eric Jay Dolin
(You may not think of it this way, but whaling was America's first energy industry. Whale oil provided candles and oil to light the streets.)

Living Like Ed A Guide to the Eco-Friendly Life-- Ed Begley, Jr.
(This is a comprehensive guide on how to live a more environmentally freindly life. It covers the Home, Transportation, Recycling, Energy, In The Garden and Kitchen, Clothing and Hair and Skin Care. )

Natural Capitalism Creating The Next Industrial Revolution by Amory Lovins and Paul Hawken
(A book on how to create a capitalist society based
around green economics. This book is connected with The Rocky Mountain Institute http://www.rmi.org/)

A Safe and Sustainable World, The Promise of Ecological Design by Nancy Todd and John Todd (A rather radical book that talks about how to use ecology to design things. John Todd is the Creator of living machines and is very important in bioremediation.)

Stirring It Up How To Make Money And Save the World--
Gary Hirshberg.
(This is the Story of Stonyfield Farms, a very
environmentally oriented corporation.)

Untapped The Scramble For Africa's Oil-- John Ghazvinian
(An expose on oil in Africa).

Winning The Oil Endgame by Amory Lovins
http://www.oilendgame.com/ReadTheBook.html
(Another plan for oil independence)

Green Investing A Guide To Making Money Through Environment-Friendly Stocks by Jack Uldrich

Green Investing A Guide To Making Money Through Environment-Friendly Stocks by Jack Uldrich is a guide to companies that have alternative energy products.

The first part of the book is about how you need to do your due diligence on stocks. Jack Uldrich warns you against investing in companies that have not yet fully developeda working product that is on the market. Doing this can be extremely risky. I personally lost money on Finavera because of a failed test of their wave buoy energy technology. Unfinished and untested products are a very high risk. Many companies make promises on undeveloped products.

Due diligence is the process of checking companies to see if they are safe to invest in. Thismeans looking at the finances, management, products, marketing, human resources, and everyaspect of the company which you can get your hands on. Do your due diligence when investing.

Jack Uldrich correctly points out that over half of alternative energy investments are occurringin Fortune 500 companies that are doing a variety of different things. Archer Daniels Midland is invested in ethanol, General Electric bought Enron's wind business and made it profitable, Goldman Sachs is investedin Horizon Wind Energies and Sun Edison a solar company. Although, it is not described in the book,Bank of America is working on building the most environmentally friendly office building in the world.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_America_Tower_(New_York)

There is tremendous interest in clean technology. It is not just a passing trend. In the chapter on Fortune 500 companies and each proceeding chapter there are brief two page summaries of major companiesthat are invested in alternative energy and energy conservation. Many, but not all of the companies arepublicly traded companies. They are not just in the United States.
The chapters cover biofuels, solar, wind energy,alternative alternative energies, and energy conservation. Alternative alternative energies covers geothermal, wave power, fuel cells, and clean coal.

The book misses the boatwhen it comes to waste to energy conversion. There is nothing on Startech, a company developing a plasmafurnace for garbage http://www.startech.net/faqs.html, or landfill gasification. There is a little bit onanimal waste to biofuel in the chapter on biofuels. I don't think of clean coal as an alternative energysource. It is more of an attempt to clean up a very dirty source of power.

In each chapter, you get summaries of a variety of companies. I found two very interesting companies, Ormat Technologies for geothermal power and FPL Florida Power and Light (the nations largest producer of wind energy). I found in general like most books that advise about stocks, the book tended to be more bullish than bearish in stock opinions. This can be quite dangerous. Most companies are a tremendous risk to invest in. I am not giving any recommendations on investing other than saying it is risky. But, crossingthe street is risky.

This book is very to easy read. It is a general introduction to the subject. If you want to learn the basics of alternative energy investing this book is useful. The summaries are too simple to rely on them for making complete investment choices. I would look at them as snapshots or introductions to companies which you can do research on. The book is written in 2008, so most of the company information is still fairly recent. The book is not very long. The copy I read was a paperback. It is light and easy to carry around so it might make a nice subway read, or a read on an airport flight. I like the design of the book.

Todays Thoughts

I started reading Common Wealth Economics For A Crowded Planet. So far it focuses on four major issues, sustainable global economic development, common worldwide environmental problems like carbon emissions, drylands conflicts, and overfishing, population issues, and worldwide poverty traps. It is an interesting book focused on a left of center view of international issues. The author provides a lot of statistics and quotes a lot of science. It is not just a book that is purely political statements.

The labeling of books on the atlas stand was finished this morning. I also have started looking at books in the reference storage stacks to see if any of them can be discarded.

We are opening an account with Bookazine to order material. Previously we were only focused on Baker & Taylor for ordering. When I worked in Brooklyn, we used to order a lot of our mass market paperbacks from Bookazine. I think Bookazine does a slightly better job for mass market paperbacks than Baker & Taylor.

I was reading the Daily News, May 20 newspaper at the local greasy spoon diner. I had a turkey burger, a cup of minestrone soup, and a glass of water for lunch.

This time the paper surprised me. There was an article on the Tesla roadster, the all electric sportscar that can go up 125 miles per hour and has a range of 225 miles. This was on page BW 34. Also, there was an article on the Hunts Point green market. Apparently 25% to 50% of the pollution comes from idling big rig diesel trucks in the area. They are requesting business proposals to put in biodiesel or ethanol pumps. This was on page BW 4. For me, this is encouraging. I am a fan of renewable energy and transportation. It is nice to see these kind of articles in a major local paper.

The new books came in. I like looking at the unprocessed books. It annoys the technical service person sometimes. A bunch of GED books and a few ASVAB books came in which I had ordered. These still need to have security stickers, labels, and covers put on. Also, the book, Steampunk, Edited by Ann & Jeff Vandermeer came in. I am hoping to read it soon.

I rather like steampunk because it allows the writer to pastiche many of the characters from the classic science fiction books, John Carter, Captain Nemo, Mina, Queequeeg (not a science character) into their stories.

Sometimes when you are wandering in the land of social networking you find images and pictures which are quite entertaining. This is a link to a gallery of images called the Most Interesting Bookstores in the World. The images are quite striking. http://www.miragebookmark.ch/most-interesting-bookstores.htm

Leviathan A History of Whaling In America-- Eric Jay Dolin-- Review

Leviathan A History of Whaling In America by Eric Jay Dolin is a history of whaling in America. Even though the book is exhaustive in coverage of the subject, the writing makes the subject truly interesting. There are numerous anecdotes and incidents in history which are described in detail like the story of Mocha Dick, the whale which Moby Dick may have been based on. The book covers the expanse of American history from the colonists to the early 20th century.

One of the themes in this book is the pattern which whaling followed. Whaling started in America with drift whaling, people watching for beached whales, then the colonists started whaling close to shore to catch whales which were abundant in the coastal waters. As the whales became more scarce, whaling ships were built and sent out to sea, eventually becoming mobile whale oil processing factories. Then as the whales became more scarce, whale men spent as much as four years at sea trying to catch whales. Towards the end in desperation, American whale men attempted to hunt whales in the Arctic which led to a variety of disasters.

Another theme in this book is the way Americans viewed whales. In the beginning whales were fish of the sea to be taken as natures bounty. They were cold creatures that could be eaten by christians during holidays, they were a substitute for red meat. Whaling was a brutal business where animals were cut up to provide fuel, whale oil, grease for machinery, soap, fine candles, bone for corsets, and other products. Men took incredible risks in small boats to hunt giant creatures which could turn on them and kill them.

Where the whaleboats traveled, they devastated a variety of native creatures including whales. Sea turtles were viewed as an excellent source of provender by the whalers in the Pacific. The turtles were hunted to near extinction. When the whalemen headed north into the arctic, they took part in the hunting of walrus for oil, ivory, and skins. This was the brutal process of the seal hunt. The author pointed out that it wasn't until the 1850s when there were a lot less whales that people started calling the whalers brutal.

Another theme is that whaling was the first energy industry. It was whale oil which lit the big cities during the industrial revolution. London, New York, and Paris all required whale oil to keep their cities lit at night. This was considered a critical industry by the British and the Americans. During the American Revolution, the War of 1812, and the American Civil War, whaleships were captured as prizes or burned by privateers or warships.

This book contains a lot of detail about how whaling was done. There are descriptions of all the implements used, the processing of whales, and the running of whale ships. This was described as a dirty brutal job done by polyglot crews hailing from all over the world. The food was bad, the job was dangerous, and for the average crewman low paying.

The book has two sets of black and white illustrations. There are numerous old black and white photographs of the whaling process, scrimshaw, whale products, and the men and wives of the whaling crews.

I think the book is attempting to become a definitive source on American whaling history. The notes section runs from Pp. 375-451. There is a very detailed index as well. Despite this, the book is still very easy to follow.

Quoting the Eric Jay Dolin, website, http://www.ericjaydolin.com

"Eric Jay Dolin was awarded the 23rd annual (2007) L. Byrne Waterman Award, by the New Bedford Whaling Museum, for outstanding contributions to whaling research and history, for the publication of Leviathan. "

This is possibly one of the best history books I have read in a while. It was quite enjoyable to read and I learned a lot.