#4 [2024/CBR16] The Heat Will Kill You First by Jeff Goodell

I generally avoid books on climate change because they scare the shit out of me. There's nothing like reading for hours about how we're mindlessly ruining our only planet to bring out maximum anxiety and helplessness. I'm always left with a deep urge to do something, and feeling that it's all out of my hands anyway. But I also don't like to be ignorant, so when I saw The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet (2023) by Jeff Goodell on NPR's "Books we Love" list, I figured it was time for me to face the mess we've made of this planet.

I listened to this on Audiobook, and I found it both interesting and informative. It wasn't exactly what I expected. There was plenty of information on climate change, how much we need to change our habits, and how late we are to the game in terms of actually making a difference. However, it did not go too much detail on fossil fuels, how much we are burning, and how badly we need to stop; that's more of a given. Instead, there are a lot of in-depth stories of people suffering from the heat we already have, and even personal stories of the author's travel near the Arctic. 

The book begins with the tragic deaths of a couple, their toddler, and their dog from heat exposure while on a hike in California. I remembered reading about this in the news because it was initially a mystery as to what killed them. Goodell goes into great detail of the family's plans for the day and what happened to them. And even though these deaths may or may not have been specifically caused by climate change, it does viscerally show how quickly heat can turn a fun, active day into an unexpected disaster. The author even details how he overheated while hiking in South America. It came on so fast, and he didn't realize how serious it was until it was over. It's a scary and dangerous thing.

In a long section on air conditioning, Goodell delves into the history of air conditioning, where it began, how it spread, and how it changed building styles. As we deal with higher and higher temperatures, more air conditioning just compounds the greenhouse gas problem as we burn more fuels to stay cooler. And because many buildings today were made for air conditioning, they are especially bad about using shade and breezes to naturally cool down.

Air conditioning is a nice segue into the problem with cities. Cities get significantly hotter than surrounding rural areas because of all the asphalt and lack of trees. Goodell discusses the heat wave in France that killed thousands of people. Paris was a city that was built in cooler temperatures, and the zinc, uninsulated roofs, make the upper apartments near death traps during heat waves. But all cities will have to deal with the heat. More trees, painting roofs and streets white, and other solutions have started being implemented in some cities, but you need money and political capital for that kind of thing.

One interesting discussion was about a woman who has created a model that can take natural disasters that occur now, and see if they were more likely to have occurred because of climate change. It is a way to more clearly see the effects of climate change and possibly even point a finger at those who are responsible.

This book mentions again and again how it is the poor who will suffer the most from climate change. The ones with means will be able to move, will be able to cool themselves, and be able to afford the higher cost of food and other essentials. The Heat Will Kill You First has accepted that we are now dealing with climate change, and is now focused on living with it.

So, did this book scare the shit out of me? Yes. But it was interspersed with a lot of detail and stories that occasionally took me out of "panic" mode. The author himself ends the book on a relatively positive note--saying that he has been inspired by all the smart, talented people working on this problem.

#49 [2023/CBR15] Elephant Memories by Cynthia Moss

CBR15Bingo: Africa (and Blackout!)

One of the best trips I've ever taken was when I went to Tanzania. We spent six days climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro and three more days seeing amazing animals on safari. I loved all of it. A large part of my personality would find it deeply satisfying to spend my life being some kind of wildlife biologist--observing wildlife in any number of places--but especially Africa. My life is very far from that dream, but I very much enjoy living vicariously through others. I often do this by reading books. (I also stumbled on a Youtube channel with daily safaris that I loved but don't have much time for anymore.)

Elephant Memories: Thirteen Years in the Life of an Elephant Family (1988) by Cynthia Moss is a relatively old book but it's right up my alley. I think it popped up on Amazon one day and sucked me right in. Moss began studying elephants in Amboseli National Park in Kenya in 1972.* The book covers thirteen years of births, deaths, family drama, feast, and famine. I learned a fair bit about elephants and how they live, and I thought it was really interesting. When I finished, I googled Cynthia Moss, and found that she's still in Africa and still involved in elephant research and conservation (as far as I could tell), which I was very happy to hear.

The book is structured both chronologically and thematically. Elephants can live over sixty years, so even thirteen years is just a glimpse into their lives. We learn about the elephants and how they grow over the years, but with each chapter also focusing on an element of elephant life. These include: drought, migration, mating, social relationships, babies, flexibility, and population dynamics.

The elephants in Amboseli National Park are generally pretty lucky. Poaching is not as extreme as in other locations, they have a fair bit of land where they are able to move about, and they have not been subject to very intense management (at least as of 1988). However, they still have their struggles. Drought can cause great struggle, often halting reproduction for years. In addition, even though the Masai, as pastoralists, are generally tolerant of elephants, they still sometimes spear elephants. In addition, as the Masai adopt farming and agriculture, the elephants and Masai's lives become more confrontational.

Moss named the elephants with each family all having names that start with the same letter. I sometimes found it difficult to keep track of all these names. However, after following their lives for so long, I became very attached to them. I really enjoyed this book, and even though it was written a long time ago, I would recommend it to anyone with similar interests.

* Amboseli National Park is very close to Tanzania, just North of Mount Kilimanjaro. Moss even occasionally discussed the elephants in Lake Manyara, a place I've visited!

#48 [2023/CBR15] The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben

It was back when I read Lab Girl by Hope Jahren* that I discovered trees and plants were much more interesting than I had ever thought. So, when I was looking for audiobooks to listen to and saw The Hidden Life of Trees (2016) by Peter Wohlleben, I was primed to learn more about them. I did find this book interesting, and I definitely learned some things. However, I sometimes found it difficult to always pay attention in the car. It was surprisingly easy for my mind to drift off and start daydreaming. In addition, I sometimes wished that Wohlleben would go into a little more detail about how plants work or why they know certain things.

I'd always thought of trees as simply things that are there, part of the scenery, and honestly not much different from rocks. But I was wrong; they have a pretty vibrant life, it's just lived at a much slower pace. In many ways, the depiction of Ents in The Lord of the Rings was prescient. It wasn't until I read Jahren's book that I learned that trees communicate threats to other trees. Wohlleben goes into even more detail. Trees in healthy, long-lived forests have a network of fungi in their roots that connect trees--even trees of different species. This "web" can pass information as well as nutrients, so that a tree in a drier location can grow better because of the help it gets from it's neighbors.

Trees are not just inanimate objects, but living beings who react to their environment as well as communicate warnings and distress to others. Trees can "feel" when they are being eaten, and they will pump compounds into their leaves that make them less palatable to leaf-eating bugs and animals. They will also pump compounds into the air that other trees sense, so others can arm themselves before the threat even arrives. 

Because human beings are so different from trees, learning about them is more challenging. It is easy to see that trees do not have what we have (brains, mouths, vocal cords) and assume that they are the simplest of creatures. Instead we have to think outside of the box and really dig in with an open mind to discover an entirely new world that we didn't understand. This knowledge makes a big difference in managing forests and understanding the importance of old-growth forests. When we manage forests for lumber and pulp, they lose some of their most important components.

Wohlleben also discusses how trees reproduce, how they deal with drought and climate change, and how they can slowly travel and evolve. I definitely learned some things and now look at trees in a different light. However, I often wanted more information from this book. Some of this comes from my own ignorance. I can name only a few tree species, so most of the time, I only had a vague idea of the kind of trees the book was discussing. In addition, though, I wish the author had explained more about how trees really work and how we know all this about trees. The author sometimes used extremely anthropomorphic language, perhaps to make the trees feel more accessible, but I found it more confusing than helpful.

* I highly recommend this memoir.

#18 [2023/CBR15] The Chimpanzee Whisperer by Stany Nyandwi with David Blissett

I found The Chimpanzee Whisperer: A Life of Love and Loss, Compassion and Conservation (2022) by Stany Nyandwi with David Blissett when I was browsing available audiobooks at my library to listen to on my commute. I was very lucky to stumble on a book that was perfect for me. I'm a huge admirer of Jane Goodall, and I've read at least one long biography of her life. I'm very familiar with her early research on chimpanzees in Tanzania, her efforts to improve the lives of chimps around the world, and her life-long focus on conservation. I was lucky enough to visit Tanzania back in 2018, and I thought it was a beautiful and fascinating country.  

This book is a memoir by Stany Nyandwi and his time spent with chimps in different countries throughout Africa. Stany worked at a number of chimpanzee sanctuaries that were a part of the Jane Goodall Institute. His ability to communicate with, take care of, and relate to the chimps was extraordinary. 

But there is even more to this story. Stany grew up in a hut in a village in the small African country of Burundi. Although I was familiar with Rwanda and the genocide and ethnic tensions between the Hutus and Tutsis, I did not know that this same dynamic was in Burundi as well. Stany is Hutu, and he went to work in Bujumbura as a "house boy" in rich, Tutsi households as soon as he was old enough. The work was indentured servitude at best, and was nothing like what Stany had been led to believe the work was like.

Finally, Stany was able to get a job cleaning cages at a chimp sanctuary in the city. The sanctuary had very limited means, but it was better than nothing. Stany eventually learned enough that he began to care for the chimps himself. Stany loved this job, but it wasn't without its struggles. He spent at least 6-7 hours walking to and from his village every day. And as the country got more violent, every commute became more treacherous. They were held at gunpoint and at least two sanctuary workers were murdered. Eventually it became too dangerous: the chimps were evacuated and Stany went with them. For years, he had no communication or knowledge of how his wife and children were doing. He was lonely and alone in a foreign country with only his work with the chimps as consolation. Stany later learned that his wife and children survived and he was reunited with them, but many members of his family had been brutally murdered.

Despite this tremendous trauma that could have understandably broken him, Stany continued to be a very gracious and loving person. Crediting religion for getting him away from alcohol, Stany continued to help chimps and the people around him. It really comes across in this book what a giving and forgiving person he is. 

In the end, the book shifts its focus back onto conservation, and what we can do to protect the chimpanzees and their habitats. This kind of thing always makes me feel powerless and frantic when I imagine the beauty of the world disappearing before our eyes as the billions of humans take over the last wild places. But you can give up or do the best you can with what you have. Both Stany Nyandwi and Jane Goodall are examples of people who have managed to be impactful against all odds. I'm very impressed by both of them. 

Also, so many conservation books that I read are from the point of view of Americans or Europeans. It was a nice change to see a book written by an African--to learn about his childhood, his country, and his struggles. It's impossible (and immoral) to save a country's animals, but ignore its people. This book was a fascinating glimpse into the extraordinary life of an amazing person, as well as a glimpse into a country that I had known nothing about.

#47 [2022/CBR14] The Emerald Mile by Kevin Fedarko

"He then offered one of the most infamous pronouncements that has ever been made about the Grand Canyon: 'Ours has been the first, and will doubtless be the last, party of whites to visit this profitless locality. It seems intended by nature that the Colorado River, along the greater portion of its lonely and majestic way, shall be forever unvisited and undisturbed.'"

In October of this year, (2022) I was able to go on a rafting trip down the upper section of the Grand Canyon. I went with a company that had six guides and about 22 guests. The trip was amazing. The people were fun, the views were beautiful, and the whitewater was exciting. At the end of the seven days, I (and some others) hiked out of the canyon on the Bright Angel Trail while the rest of the group continued down the canyon.

In August, I got a new boss and when I mentioned my upcoming Grand Canyon trip to him, he said he had a book for me to read, and that he would loan it to me. I wasn't particularly excited because I always have a long list of books I want to read, and I didn't want someone arbitrarily adding books to my pile. However, the next day he brought in The Emerald Mile (2013) by Kevin Fedarko, and it looked interesting. By this point I was starting to get excited about my trip, so I started reading it almost immediately.

And this book was the perfect thing to read right before my trip. (I later discovered that it's on the rafting company's recommended reading list as well.) Fedarko begins the book with three rafting guides illegally sneaking a dory into the raging waters of the Grand Canyon at midnight--attempting the fastest time from Lee's Ferry to Lake Mead. 

Fedarko also spends a good portion of the book giving us a broader view of the area and its history. He begins with the first Europeans who saw the Grand Canyon, and then does a quick overview of John Wesley Powell's courageous and crazy trip down the Canyon. He also discusses the great rift between the environmentalists and the Bureau of Reclamation as they fought over damming the river or leaving it pristine. I had no idea that the original plan was to dam the middle of the Grand Canyon. It would have made my rafting trip impossible, and I can't even imagine it. 

But they did dam just before the Grand Canyon with the Glen Canyon Dam, and Fedarko describes what a feat of engineering and mass that it was. And then he describes how there became such a surplus of water in 1983 that it threatened the dam itself. The dam operators were letting as much water as they could go through the spillways, but the spillways were falling apart. The people rafting downriver through the Canyon (out of touch with the rest of the world) were receiving warnings about high water levels from park service helicopters. And on one of the biggest rapids on the river, boats were being torn apart and people were dying.

In the midst of all this chaos, three river rafting guides took a dory and plunged it down the (now closed) waters of the Grand Canyon, hoping to make a speed record from Lee's Ferry to Lake Mead. 

Perhaps because I focused on Natural Resources Law and worked for The Wilderness Society, I found the description of the fighting over the dams utterly fascinating. The rest of the book was the perfect thing to read before my trip. I learned just enough about the history, the boats, the people, and the topography to have a better understanding of where I was going.

And when I got on my trip, one of the boats in our group was a dory! And even better, a woman (recently retired) on my trip was the first permanent, female park ranger in the Grand Canyon. She worked in the Grand Canyon in the 80's and remembers the chaos that the flooding water caused in the Canyon. She said they took a trip up to the dam, and she stood on top of it and the entire thing was shaking. I was so glad I went on that trip, and I'm so glad I read The Emerald Mile before I left.

#27 [2022/CBR14] Fuzz by Mary Roach

I've read a lot of books by Mary Roach, but I was unaware that Roach had published two new books since I'd last read anything by her. Somehow I'd missed both Grunt (2016) and Fuzz (2021) by Roach. I decided to remedy that and picked up Fuzz at the library.

Even though it's been years, I was hoping that I would still appreciate Roach's unique investigatory writing style. Where her most memorable books involved big topics like: sex, death, and space, I wasn't sure I would be as interested in: "when nature breaks the law." I read a lot of books about nature and animals, and I can be frustrated when the topic is not handled well. Fortunately, Roach created a sometimes thoughtful, sometimes funny book that was both interesting and informative.

Roach begins her book with a discussion of bears getting into trash in the alleys of Aspen. There are problem black bears around the country, but the wealth in Aspen adds an interesting dimension. Roach shadowed some of the career wildlife people whose job it is to deal with bears. Whenever you have humans and animals living in close proximity, there will always be some issues, but there are definite ways to reduce conflict. The challenging part is to get people to do what needs to be done. In Aspen, people were not securing their trash as required, and it made a significant difference. 

Roach continues on in her book to discuss elephants killing people and ruining crops, monkeys in India, leopards killing people, gulls at St. Peters, birds eating crops, and the killing of invasive species in New Zealand in order to save native species. They are all interesting topics. The difference in attitude towards animals between the United States and India was particularly interesting. In general, the United States is much less forgiving of animal trespasses, and death is quickly meted out while in other countries more care seems to be given to the animals. For instance, if an elephant kills a human, it will only be killed if it is determined that the animal acted aggressively. It is very possible for an elephant to accidentally kill a human and then nothing is done.

One other topic was controlling animal populations with birth control. I learned that the majority of wild mares in Theodore Roosevelt National Park are on birth control. I was a little surprised because I was up at that park last summer and didn't hear anything about it. 

A running theme is that with more and more humans encroaching more and more on land that has been used by wild animals that conflict is inevitable. There are no magic answers, and there will always be problems. "Meanwhile, you do what you can to reduce the heavy footfall of humanity: keep working to restore forests and set aside preserves." (66)

#47 [2021/CBR13] Vesper Flights by Helen Macdonald

Just over a year ago, I stumbled into birdwatching, and it has stuck with me. I feel like I've discovered  a whole new world that was right under my nose my entire life; I just wasn't looking. So, when I saw a bird on the cover of Vesper Flights by Helen Macdonald on NPR's Best Books of 2020, I was eager to read it. Vesper Flights is a collection of essays by Macdonald. They all explore the connection between humans and the natural world. There are a number of references to what human beings are doing to nature. I appreciate that Macdonald is a good writer who focuses on things that I find interesting, but the essays were a little hit or miss with me. Some of them I loved, some of them I couldn't quite understand, and others I just found mildly interesting. On the whole, I prefer one comprehensive story over short stories or essays, so it was hard for me to really get into this book. However, there were moments that felt like Macdonald was once again opening up a new world for me.

"Most of all I hope my work is about a thing that seems to me of the deepest possible importance in our present-day historical moment: finding ways to recognise and love difference. The attempt to see through eyes that are not your own. To understand that your way of looking at the world is not the only one. To think what it might mean to love those that are not like you. To rejoice in the complexity of things."

Macdonald is from England, so many of her stories are based in England. The one that stuck with me the most was "The Mysterious Life of Birds Who Never Come Down." Macdonald is talking about Swifts. These are birds that I had never seen and knew nothing about. I learned that as soon as they leave the nest, they spend their entire lives in the sky. They sleep, eat, and mate in the air. When females are nesting, they fly directly into their nest without landing. Although I've been studying birds for a little bit now, I had never imagined a bird that could live so apart from the Earth, whose bed could be in the sky. Macdonald describes how swifts will gather together near sunset and rise thousands of feet in the air in a phenomenon called Vesper Flights. She not only describes this amazing spectacle but calls people to look clearly at what's happening to the Earth and what we need to do to save it. She's talking about climate change and the massive decrease in wildlife and extinction of species.

"Swifts aren't always cresting the atmospheric boundary layer at dizzying heights; most of the time they are living below it in thick and complicated air. That's where they feed and mate and bathe and drink and are. But to find out about the important things that affect their lives, they must go higher to survey the wider scene, and there communicate with others about the larger forces impinging on their realm....Not all of us need to make that climb...but as a community, surely some of us are required, by dint of flourishing life and the well-being of us all, to look clearly at the things that are so easily obscured by the everyday."

In preparing this review and reminding myself of what I read, I just saw a glowing Amazon review from someone much older and facing their mortality. It made me wonder how I would feel about this book if I revisited it in twenty, thirty, forty years. I imagine it might speak to me in a stronger way.

"Not everything fits easily into our systems of classification. The world might be, it turns out, too complicated for us to know."

#7 [2021/CBR13] A Children's Bible by Lydia Millet

I first saw A Children's Bible by Lydia Millet on NPR's Best Books of 2020. It immediately caught my attention, but then I saw it was a finalist for the National Book Award and was one of the New York Times Best Books of the Year. It felt like fate was telling me to read this book. All I knew going into it was that it was some kind of allegory for climate change.

Evie is our narrator. She's probably fifteen or sixteen years old. Her parents have gotten together with a number of other families in a "great house" on a lake for summer vacation. All the kids sleep up in the attic and avoid their parents as much as possible. In fact, their parents are so embarrassing that the kids have started a game where they try to avoid anyone else figuring out who their parents are. Evie has a younger brother, Jack, who she looks out for since her parents aren't paying any attention. I felt an eerie sense of unreality while reading this book. On the one hand, everything that occurs is basically believable, but something also felt off. Why did the parents not care about their children? The disgust the teens felt for their parents felt familiar but also extreme.

The kids head down to the ocean for a camping trip on the beach and meet some incredibly wealthy children staying on a yacht. Shortly after they get back, they are deluged by a terrible storm. A tree falls onto the great house, crashing through the roof and soaking the attic. The parents react by getting high and having an orgy.

Evie's brother, Jack, is a sweet, sensitive kid. One of the parents gave him a children's version of the Bible. He's been reading it and interpreting it on his own. He and his friend, Shel, take it upon themselves to save the animals from the rising floodwater. When one of the older kids tells him that he needs two of every animal, he answers that other people would be saving animals, too.

The kids eventually ditch their useless parents and take off with a groundskeeper, hoping to make it to the safety and comfort of the home of the richest kid in their midst. They are sidetracked by bad roads to a farm where they meet up with four "trail angels" from the Appalachian Trail. A lot more happens to the kids. Their parents get sick, they face some bad guys, and a baby is born. Some of these things seem to come directly from the Bible, but it was hard for me to understand why. A baby is born, tracking the birth of Jesus, but she doesn't have much to do with the rest of the story. Jack decides that his Bible is in code; that God is actually nature, and Jesus is science. And if we believe in Jesus (science), he (it) will save us.

Eventually the kids and parents reunite at the rich kid's house. The kids plan for the worst, dragging their parents along with them. Even though the story of Revelation is not in Jack's Children's Bible, the older kids understand that's where they're heading.

I'm not sure how I feel about this book. It's a fast read and kept my interest, but it also just felt weird. There were enough odd things going on that this book did not feel like the real world. And the connection with the Bible--besides Jack's remarkable interpretation--felt somewhat random. Characters weren't acting as I would expect and they appeared and disappeared without warning. However, when I heard about the snow storms and power outages in Texas, the first thing I thought of was this book. I think it's one of those that's going to make more of an impact on me than I initially realized. 

#4 [2017/CBR9] "Desert Solitaire" by Edward Abbey

"Original sin, the true original sin, is the blind destruction for the sake of greed of this natural paradise which lies all around us--if only we were worthy of it." (208)

"We need the possibility of escape as surely as we need hope; without it the life of the cities would drive all men into crime or drugs or psychoanalysis." (162)

Desert Solitaire (1968) by Edward Abbey is one of those classic environmental books that I've heard about for years but never got around to reading. One reason I've avoided it is that I've often heard people comparing Desert Solitaire and Thoreau's Walden. When I tried to read Walden a couple of years ago, I hated it enough to stop in the middle of the book. It was so disappointing to find Thoreau so boring and pretentious, and I was afraid Abbey was more of the same. However, I was heading down to Zion in April on a backpacking trip, and I thought reading Desert Solitaire might get me primed for my Southwest adventure. Fortunately, I found Abbey to be an entertaining and thoughtful writer. Not only did I finish the book, but I really enjoyed most of it.

Edward Abbey was a park ranger at Arches National Monument in the summers of 1956 and 1957. He tells his story of the park and some adventures he had in the surrounding areas about that time period. Throughout the book, he explains his philosophy of people, wild places, and how the United States government should run the park system.

Back in 1956, Abbey was the only park ranger at Arches for the entire summer. The few tourists who could make it over the sometimes impassable dirt road mainly came on the weekends. Abbey raged against the paved road and the many "improvements" that were just beginning to come to Arches during his time there.

"Where once a few adventurous people came on weekends to camp for a night or two and enjoy a taste of the primitive and remote, you will now find serpentine streams of baroque automobiles pouring in and out, all through the spring and summer, in numbers that would have seemed fantastic when I worked there: from 3,000 to 30,000 to 300,000 per year, the "visitation," as they call it, mounts ever upward." (54)

I was ready to call Abbey out as a snob--wanting to enjoy the beautiful area himself while not letting anyone else in on the public lands, but that wasn't exactly his attitude. Instead, he disliked the way people related to the land. With public roads accessing all of the gems in the park, visitors sit in their car, popping out for photo ops now and again. They don't get outside and they don't experience nature. Instead he wanted to close the roads and use them for bikes and horses. I'm also guessing that Abbey would be appalled at the over 1.5 million people who visited Arches last year.

"Industrial Tourism is a threat to the national parks. But the chief victims of the system are the motorized tourists. They are being robbed and robbing themselves. So long as they are unwilling to crawl out of their cars they will not discover the treasures of the national parks and will never escape the stress and turmoil of those urban-suburban complexes which they had hoped, presumably, to leave behind for a while." (64)

Abbey was adventurous: from exploring unknown canyons and cliffs solo; hiring himself out as a ranch hand; and boating through Glen Canyon right before the dam was built, he definitely has a lot of knowledge and experience. In addition, Abbey is a good writer, often humorous, descriptive, poetic, passionate, and opinionated. I found myself highlighting passage after passage while reading.

"We think we have forgotten but we cannot forget--the knowledge is lodged like strontium in the marrow of our bones--that Glen Canyon has been condemned. We refuse to think about it. We dare not think about it for if we did we'd be eating our hearts, chewing our entrails, consuming ourselves in the fury of helpless rage. Of helpless outrage." (232)

However, I also had trouble with some of it. I was hoping to find a true kindred spirit of the outdoors. But Abbey was still a man of his time and he had some troubling and dated ideas, including some of his views on Native Americans. These varied from knowledgeable and compassionate to downright disturbing (calling for compulsory birth control). He also rolled an old tire into the Grand Canyon and killed a bunny with a rock just to see if he could do it--things that aren't drastic in the scheme of things but didn't sit well with me.

Mostly, though, I got a sense as I was reading the book that Abbey did not appreciate women. Maybe it was the fact that he seemed to be writing about and for men and that there was literally no mention of women in his book--at least until he said: "True, there are no women here (a blessing in disguise?)" (199) On this hunch, I looked him up in Wikipedia to find out more. I was shocked to learn that during the time period he was working as a ranger all summer and playing around in the canyons and mountains, he was married to his second wife. His life history is peppered with his five marriages and countless affairs. When he married another seasonal park ranger, I thought maybe he'd finally found a true partner. But he cheated on her, wrote an autobiographical book about the affair ("which was a contention in their marriage") and then dedicated that book to his late-wife after she died of Leukemia. Ugh. I can definitely see how someone so smart and adventurous would be appealing, but some people just shouldn't get married. And even though all of this information was not a part of the book, the knowledge of it affected my appreciation of the writer. It's hard to admire someone who would have dismissed you entirely because of your gender (unless he wanted to sleep with you).

#41 [2014/CBR6] "Green Illusions" by Ozzie Zehner

One day, that I can't remember now, although I'm sure it involved procrastination of some sort, I stumbled upon Goodread's list of Best Non-Fiction (non biography) books. I'm a fan of a good non-fiction book once in awhile, but I was still surprised by how many on the list that I've read and really enjoyed. When I saw Green Illusions (2012) by Ozzie Zehner, I was intrigued and a little wary:

"We don’t have an energy crisis. We have a consumption crisis. And this book, which takes aim at cherished assumptions regarding energy, offers refreshingly straight talk about what’s wrong with the way we think and talk about the problem. Though we generally believe we can solve environmental problems with more energy—more solar cells, wind turbines, and biofuels—alternative technologies come with their own side effects and limitations. How, for instance, do solar cells cause harm? Why can’t engineers solve wind power’s biggest obstacle? Why won’t contraception solve the problem of overpopulation lying at the heart of our concerns about energy, and what will?"

I have a background in natural resources and environmental law. My personality is naturally geared towards conservation, and I appreciate the beauty of the woods and open areas that I was lucky enough to grow up around. However, at first glance, I couldn't tell if this book was an attack an alternative energy, only useful as propaganda for the oil and gas industry. I was not interested in reading a partisan, right-wing screed aimed at attacking environmentalists. On the other hand, I find the dire, "the world is ending, and we're all screwed" themes of many environmentalists rather alarming and depressing. After doing some research, Green Illusions did not seem to be either one of these so I managed to snag a copy from the library.

Green Illusions is split into two parts. The first half of the book describes in detail why alternative energy is not going to be the environmental saving grace of our society, while the second half focuses on practical changes we need to make in order to deal with the energy and consumption issues facing the world now and in the near future. Glancing through the Table of Contents before reading, I was intrigued that there was an entire section on "Women's Rights."

The first half of the book was probably the most enlightening for me. Zehner looks with detail at various forms of alternative energy, including: wind, solar, hydroelectric, hybrid vehicles, nuclear, etc. It is often difficult to get information on these technologies from a neutral source, but even though Zehner has a thesis, he is refreshingly objective throughout these chapters. He discusses how each one works and the problems that will keep these energies from ever becoming a true alternative to oil and gas. Sure, they are useful in certain situations and can ease some of the burden of energy production, but they are either unreliable, too expensive, and/or have too many negative environmental effects when put on a large scale. Zehner's thesis is that these alternative energies are being bandied about as solutions to our energy problems, most often by politicians wanting to get elected, or companies looking for some shiny, green public relations. The optimistic ideals of alternative energy allow for people to believe that Americans can "technology" their way out of blind over-consumption. This allows money to be wasted on unrealistic projects that do little to address the actual issue. Zehner also brings up the idea that creating more energy only leads to more energy consumption. If alternative energy does get better and cheaper, energy prices will decrease and people will use more--not reducing oil and gas consumption and only increasing energy consumption.

The second half of the book details Zehner's solutions to save the world. As mentioned above, Zehner begins this section with "women's rights." Really, the focus of this section is on population growth. Part of the reason energy and consumption are such a problem are the sheer number of people in the world, and that number is growing exponentially. Although the magnitude of the problem of population growth freaks me out, Zehner's solution of focusing on women's rights is both reassuring and modern. When population control often comes with ideas of controlling women and/or marginalizing nations and ethnicities, Zehner focuses on the fact that population naturally decreases as quality of life increases and women are more educated and have more power in society. 

Other solutions to energy over-consumption that Zehner discusses are making the U.S. energy grid more efficient, and creating cities and neighborhoods that are more dense, with more access for walking and biking. Suburbs with the big box stores and wide roads are incredibly inefficient. People in New York City use the least amount of energy in the country. In addition, people tend to be healthier and happier when they can walk and bike to do errands and don't have to commute through traffic every day--Zehner uses the Netherlands as an example.

Zehner goes into a lot more detail and touches on more subjects than I am able to go over in this short-ish review. I was impressed by both the content and the writing, which is both conversational and surprisingly literary. This book reminded me of something I might have read in a seminar in college: a book that we could discuss for hours, and that would provoke my idealist soul into taking some action. With that in mind, I jotted down a couple of the websites and further reading materials available at the end of the book, in case my idealism continues to outweigh my ennui. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone with any interest in the subject, or any interest in learning about the subject.

National Women's Law Center - www.nwlc.org
International Women's Health Coalition - iwhc.org
Institute for Women's Policy Research - iwpr.org
volunteermatch.org
stopjunkmail.org
happyplanetindex.org
American Institute of Philanthropy - charitywatch.org

Sustainable Energy Consumption and Society by David Goldblatt
The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein

#4 (2013/CBR5) "Flight Behavior" by Barbara Kingsolver

I've read most of Barbara Kingsolver's books, so when I saw that she had written a new one, I immediately put a hold on it at the library. I started reading Flight Behavior (2012) with only the general expectations that came from enjoying her previous books and no real knowledge of the plot. And on the whole, I was satisfied. The writing was good, I liked and cared about the characters, and I rushed through to the end to find out what happened to them.

Dellarobia Turnbow is a 27-year-old woman with two children. She was married at 17 to a good, honest man, but probably not the right one for her. She lives a completely secluded life in the Appalachians in Tennessee. Her family lives in a small house built by her overbearing in-laws. She can't afford a newspaper anymore, the local library has closed down, and her husband even hogs the remote. Her youthful dreams and rebelliousness have been trodden down through years of fighting for the necessities for her family. But her dissatisfaction and misdirected restlessness still remains, and that's how we find her at the beginning of the novel.

When nature takes an unexpected turn and winds up on her property, bringing a much larger world and many different influences along with it, Dellarobia's life and perspective, and ambitions grow exponentially. I realize this is all very vague; it's just my attempt at being non-spoilerish.

I liked this book. My curiosity about how everyone would turn out kept me turning the pages. I felt that Kingsolver was particularly good with showing empathy for all her characters. There weren't any "bad" people, just everyone trying to do the best from their own background and perspective. I really liked Dr. Ovid Byron and his wife's relationship, especially when viewed from Dellarobia's perspective.

Now having said all that, I didn't think this book was perfect. Kingsolver is obviously a writer with an agenda, and even though I agree with her, it did feel a little preachy at times.

***SPOILIERS*** Also, even though I could relate with stomach tightening understanding the arguments between Dellarobia and her husband, their breakup discussions always felt a little off to me. And I'm not sure why Kingsolver went in this direction, but Dellarobia seemed to stop caring about her kids by the end of the book. She told her son she was leaving her husband in a round about way the day before his birthday! And then she gave him an Ipod or Iphone to make up for it. I wouldn't want my birthday forever linked to my parents' divorce. That sounds horrible. And then at the very end, water is rising all around Dellarobia, her home is floating away in the storm, and she doesn't even concern herself with her friends, relatives or even children??? "She comprehended the terms of what she saw, but couldn't turn away from it. Her children were elsewhere, at Hester's and at school, facing this by other means, as she understood they would have to do." ***SPOILERS***

Even with the couple of issues I had with this novel, I did enjoy it and would recommend it to others.

FAVORITE QUOTES:
-"The better part of friendship might be holding one's tongue over the prospect of self-made wreckage." (51)
-"Nobody truly decided for themselves. There was too much information. What they actually did was scope around, decide who was looking out for their clan, and sign on for the memos on a wide array of topics." (256)
-"Things look impossible when you've not done them." (649)

"Merle's Door" by Ted Kerasote

I love pretty much all animals, especially dogs, so you'd think I would have already read Merle's Door (2007) by Ted Kerasote. I had definitely seen it at Target, but by then I had already read Marley and Me (which I enjoyed), and from the cover, I just assumed it was a cheap rip-off of Marley and Me, trying to make some bucks off the earlier success. I find animals and especially animal behavior fascinating, but there are only so many life stories of family pets that I want to read, especially considering that I know how they're all going to end. But then my father bought and read Merle's Door and couldn't stop talking about it, so I borrowed it from him. And I ended up loving it.

Ted Kerasote was on a river trip with some friends on the San Juan river in Utah when a young dog joined their group. After taking the dog down the river with them, Kerasote adopts him, brings him home to the Tetons in Wyoming, and names him Merle. Merle is a smart, independent, exuberant dog that loves to hunt elk, hike, and ski, and is a perfect partner for Kerasote.

Although I quickly fell in love with Merle, I was struck by Kerasote's sensitivity in detailing his dog's life and feelings, his own life and feelings, and his love for the outdoors. I appreciated the way Kerasote thinks about his relationship to the animals and world around him, and I enjoyed vicariously living the independent, active, rugged life that he described. Even with all the detail provided, I found myself wanting to know more about Kerasote and his life. I'm not sure how this interest would translate to others who don't share the same views or love of animals, dogs, and wilderness, but I'll definitely be reading more by him.

#99 - "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson

A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail (1998) by Bill Bryson was another book I found on a "recommended books" list at the back of Queen of the Road by Doreen Orion. From the books on her list that I had already read, it seemed that Orion and I have very similar taste, so I've been using it as a major resource lately.

I haven't read any other books by Bill Bryson, so I wasn't really sure what to expect. Bryson, currently living in New Hampshire with his family, realized that the Appalachian Trail wandered by near his new home, and he decided one day to hike the whole thing. I have, of course, heard of the AT and know that it's in the East and very long, but details and history have always been obscured by my lack of knowledge. So, when I started listening (another Book-on-CD, which I have to stop doing; it's just not the same as having the book in your hands), I was immediately entranced and laughing. I like to camp and hike, so I could relate to Bryson's experiences; but something as formidable and long as the AT is way beyond my tendonitis-riddled body and time management skills, so experiencing the trail vicariously sounded perfect.

Bryson discusses his inspiration, packing, and planning as well as some history of the trail before he heads down to Georgia with his last-minute hiking partner, Stephen Katz. (Bryson is desperately afraid of bears and wanted a partner to help abate his fear--another thing I can relate to). Again, I loved this section of the book. Katz and Bryson's clash of personalities is classic odd couple stuff, and as they begin their adventure, I wondered how long it would take Katz to give up and head back home. But the two stick with it, and I was able to see the challenge, wonder, and fear of beginning such a formidable journey. Katz and Bryson climb mountains, battle snowstorms, and meet a variety of other hikers as they continue north on their quest. Bryson takes some time out to describe some history of the land around him and many of the birds and animals that no longer populate the area.

Spoilers? It is in Gatlinburg, Tennessee when it dawns on Bryson that they are never going to make it the entire way, and they skip a large chunk of trail and start again in Roanoke, Virginia. I was a little disappointed that they weren't going to hike the entire trail. Being a very goal-oriented person myself, if I were attempting to hike the entire trail, anything less would be inadequate. But I was enjoying hearing about life on the trail with Katz and Bryson. They were still traveling huge distances, on foot, by themselves, carrying everything they need. And they're both pretty amusing people--as described by Bryson.

But then they got off the trail entirely: Katz headed back to some work in Des Moines, and Bryson headed out for a book tour. For the rest of the summer Bryson did some day hikes of the AT by himself, and I quickly lost interest. It's one thing to not hike the entire trail, but I don't find much romance, excitement, or adventure in day hikes. There's no survival or independence, just walking back to your car at the end of the day. And without Katz, there were just stories (some interesting) of the neighboring towns and people surrounding the AT. With the great and demanding goal of hiking the AT shredded, I started getting tired of hearing about Bryson's opinions about his surroundings, other hikers, and Americans' views of nature. I was so relieved when Katz came back in order for him and Bryson to hike the last 100 miles in the Maine wilderness. But that ended in disappointment as well.

Although the second half of the book did not live up to my expectations and enjoyment of the first half, it wasn't bad. Bryson was entertaining and witty. In fact, I wonder if some of my annoyance with Bryson was inflamed by the reader, who sometimes rubbed me the wrong way and incomprehensibly mispronounced a number of words. I really wish I could enjoy books-on-cd as much as the real thing, but now that I've tried a number of them, I think I should stick with the written word.

#91 - "The Dangerous World of Butterflies" by Peter Laufer

I hate moths. Apparently Colorado is quite a haven for miller moths, and they have harassed me for much of my life. Although I have recently managed to turn a rather debilitating phobia into an uncomfortable unease, I still hate them. It's just that now I'm calm enough to kill them when they come into my apartment rather than freak out and run away. So you might wonder why I would choose to read a book about butterflies, The Dangerous World of Butterflies (2009) by Peter Laufer, especially considering that I have just learned that moths and butterflies are basically the same, except moths fly at night and butterflies during the day. I have to strongly disagree with this theory, however: I have never found a butterfly in my home or bedroom; butterflies have never dive-bombed me like miniature kamikazees; butterflies have never woken me up in the middle of the night banging repeatedly against the ceiling, walls, and windows of my bedroom; and butterflies have never come back to life like some demented zombie-moth after you slam them with a flyswatter (I'm not sure if this last one is actually true, since I've never tried to kill a butterfly).

Yet, I still voluntarily picked up The Dangerous World of Butterflies, and despite some shuddering when they talked about the butterflies' bodies, enjoyed reading it. The book caught my attention when I saw Peter Laufer on The Daily Show, promoting his new book. I've never read anything by Laufer before, but he told the story of how he had just finished writing an intense and depressing book on soldiers in the Iraq War. While doing some publicity, someone asked him what he was going to write about next, and he jokingly answered, "butterflies." A viewer in Nicaragua saw this and invited him to her butterfly reserve in Nicaragua. I enjoyed Laufer's banting with Jon Stewart, and I loved the idea of picking an almost random topic and finding the story within it.

And I learned that there's a lot going on in the world of butterflies. The North American Butterfly Association (NABA) bickers with collectors and breeders because they are against releases of butterflies for events such as weddings and funerals (apparently, this is becoming more popular) as well as the collecting of butterflies. Granted, I find it awfully creepy that breeders wait until the butterfly emerges from the chrysalis and then they put it immediately in a freezer to kill it before the wings can be damaged. And then collectors or artists take the dead butterflies and pin them, pull them apart, and use their parts. Ugh. It reminds me of some (obviously unforgettable) children's science-fiction books I read in grade school--The Tripod Trilogy, or something, where the aliens took the most beautiful girl from each village every year...and then killed her and stored her in a collection of drawers. But as much as it doesn't appeal to me, they're still insects. They're never going to have more protection than, for instance, livestock.

In the world of butterflies, common controversies that often surround bigger (and seemingly more important) animals still abound. Fish and Wildlife Service Agents hunt down poachers who capture, sell, and trade endangered species of butterflies. It appears that scientists and researchers sometimes think themselves above these laws, and often get away with it. Some butterflies are struggling to survive for a number of reasons, including the spraying of pesticides and loss of habitat. Two of the most interesting facts I learned were how the insect turns from a caterpillar into a butterfly. Apparently, the bug completely decomposes into a liquid before emerging as a butterfly. If you cut open the chrysalis in the middle of the process, you'll just find liquid goo. Kind of amazing. The other is the Monarch's multi-generational migration. One generation of butterflies is born in Mexico and they fly to Texas, or somewhere, where they lay some eggs and die. The next generation continues the journey north, dying and laying more eggs along the way. Three or four generations later, the monarchs are in New England. Yet somehow, this generation born in the middle of the United States gets back to Mexico, its winter grounds, even though they've never been there. Again, amazing.

There were a couple of problems with this book. The writing wasn't always super-impressive; some of the sentences felt awkward, and Laufer used a ton of long quotations from his subjects. I sometimes felt as if I were reading an interview. Laufer also jumped around a lot. A chapter about the environmental effects on butterfly habitat from building the wall between the U.S. and Mexico turned into a couple of pages about eating insects.

I also got the feeling that Laufer is pretty partisan (in a liberal kind of way, which makes it slightly more tolerable for me), and that he jumped at the chance to throw in a couple of punches on his favorite subjects. Creation v. Evolution got some attention because the owner of a butterfly farm in Florida was super religious, but it seemed off-topic to me. And if you're going to name-drop Ann Coulter and Bill O'Reilly, you're just trying to stir people up. Coulter and O'Reilly have no place in any kind of civilized discussion. And it's not that I don't agree with Laufer politically, but blatant partisanship leads to people not thinking, which I find really, really annoying.

#18 - You Are Here by Thomas M. Kostigen

You Are Here (2008) by Thomas M. Kostigen is another one of those books that I grabbed after seeing it on the display table at the library. I'm a natural conservationist, I've always hated wasting anything and that propensity extends to the environment. However, I still find it difficult to read books about the environment where I have to learn about all the natural beauty and splendor that humans manage to permanently desecrate every day, every hour, or every minute of our lives. Sometimes it's just easier to focus on your own life and live in ignorance. But maybe because of my work, I can't completely ignore what's going on. So, that's what made me watch An Inconvenient Truth, and that's what encouraged me to pick up this book. After all, as someone who worked for a nationally recognized environmental non-profit, it would be embarassing not to know some of the basics of the environmental problems that we're facing today.

You Are Here is a book that seeks to explain how the everyday habits of people impact the rest of the world. In doing this, Kostigen discusses the major environmental problems that we face today including air and water pollution, scarce resources, and climate change. Kostigen says that, "[t]oo often we don't connect our morality with the practicality of everyday things in our lives." The problem is that we never see the consequences of our actions. We're pretty lucky here in the United States, where we might hear about some environmental problem, but few of us actually experience theworst of the effects. Kostigen tries to educate the reader through this book by showing what happens to our trash after we put it on the curb, where our water comes from, and where the pollution goes. In order to accomplish this, he travels to nine different places throughout the world including the slums of Mumbai, India; the most polluted air in the world of Linfen City, China; a distant village in Alaska that is falling into the sea; and even the Eastern Garbage Patch in the Pacific Ocean.

I wasn't too sure about this book when I started reading it. Although I readily agree with the intent, I often find these books hard to digest. And even with this book, I found myself dreading to start another chapter because I knew I was going to learn that something else was being destroyed. But overall, I think this book admirably accomplishes what it set out to do. You Are Here is set up almost like a travel diary, so besides learning about the environmental woes of an area, you are sharing the experiences of the writer as he travels around the world and meets people in these exceptional places. I was also impressed by how Kostigen was able to limit the book to something manageable and meaningful. He focused on some of the major environmental problems such as climate change and pollution and managed to clearly describe the causes and effects of these issues with the backdrop of a real locale and real people that are being affected. He doesn't simplify the problems or solutions but also doesn't get too bogged down in detail and always had some kind of positive message about how we as individuals can make a difference if we actually know the consequences of our actions.

Although I am hopeful that many people already know much of what Kostigen talks about in You Are Here, I definitely learned something new in every chapter. Probably what impressed me most about this book, though, was that Kostigen managed to encourage change without being political, authoritative, blaming, or holier-than-thou. He gives examples of what people can do to make a difference but he lets the reader decide what might actually work in her life without being judgmental. Kostigen seems optimistic that people care enough about others that if we could see the effects we have on the world around us that we will want to make a difference if we possibly can.