An inspired synthesis of environmental, cultural, economic, and political calls to action.
A debut ecology book examines agriculture’s role in global warming and proposes individual and collective responses to avert a human-made sixth extinction.
In the climate crisis, Erickson, a screenwriter and filmmaker, finds potent drama: “A fight for our lives” and a ticking clock. His cast: disparate creatures, including Hazel the triplewart sea devil, Thomas Q. Piglet, Lucinda Monarch, Earl the Worm, Pat the Pooper (a microorganism), farm animals, meerkats, and numerous people—all facing different challenges but the same fate. The plot: unmask the “Arch-Villain” behind the interconnected crises of rural decline, unhealthy food, chronic illness, and climate change. The author pens poignant stories before deploying facts and figures. Children near factory farms suffer asthma. A piglet, ripped from its mother, never spends a day outdoors. A teen battles obesity. Family farmers confront policies tilted against them. Midway through, Erickson confirms “Industrial Agriculture. And factory farming…Big Ag. This is our Arch-Villain.” Concentrated animal feeding operations are not only inhumane; their hormones and antibiotics breed resistant pathogens. Monocrop methods, with pesticides, herbicides, and tilled fields left bare, destroy the soil’s microbiome, nature’s most effective carbon storage system. Large-scale regenerative organic farming, the author argues, could offset current carbon dioxide emissions. He advocates “compassionate activism”—raising awareness of farming and food issues, using purchasing power to reduce meat consumption and increase healthy options, and harnessing voter pressure to rewrite the Farm Bill and enact a Green New Deal. The ambitious book’s five chapters highlight compassionate approaches toward animals, self, the land, community, and democracy. Erickson’s writing displays passion, clarity, and a grasp of every topic he tackles. He is also verbose and prone to repetition. His refrains may delight some but annoy others. But his analysis is solid, and his sourcing is supported by 900-plus endnotes and four expert contributors (Berry, Fuhrman, McArthur, and Lewis) credited on the cover. An index and bibliography would enhance future editions. Erickson’s ability to connect climate science, copious data, and public policies with the lived experiences of people and other creatures sets this book apart. His emphasis on humane and caring methods reminds readers that winning hearts and minds is a prerequisite to capturing carbon.
An inspired synthesis of environmental, cultural, economic, and political calls to action.Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-73320-270-1
Page Count: 480
Publisher: TGH Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 5, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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