Environment (Problems) – Page 12 – Public Intelligence Blog

Important contribution, not the whole picture, June 14, 2009

Paul Driessen

I shifted from four to five stars despite the gaps in this book's coverage because on second reading, it does what it set out to do very very well. I will review the other book I bought with this one, The Real Environmental Crisis: Why Poverty, Not Affluence, Is the Environment's Number One Enemy tonight or tomorrow.

What I find especially compelling about this book is that it blows the lid off “non-profits” that are in fact a form of unregulated racketeering, extortion and propaganda (lies). It is completely different from The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World which has its own data quality and analytic integrity issues.

I admire the author's early observation that corporations and non-profits have taken on too many similar characteristics, “to strethc the truth….reinvent relality…substitute hype, spin and clever advertising for honest….and play fast and loose with ethics, the law and the numbers.”

WOW.

The author does a good job of calling into question the applicability and reasonableness of how and when the four pillars of environmentalism are applied:

01) Stakeholder participation (when those representing the poor are not themselves poor and have never talked to a poor person)

02) Sustainable development (as opposed to sustained develop)

03) Preacautionary principle (see my review of Protecting Public Health and the Environment: Implementing The Precautionary Principle

04) Socially Responsible Investing

I am totally impressed by his skewering of specific non-profits (names are named, numbers are provided) that are nothing more than extortion schemes, lacking all academic and scientific credence and relying instead on hit and run lies, orchestrated publicity, etc.

The author impresses with the number of examples and well-cited sources, and two stand out: Greenpeace's lies regarding the Shell oil platform, lies they ultimately apologies for; and Zimbabwe's refusing 26 tons of corn from the USA for the starving poor of Zambia because their dictator was persuaded that the corn was in some manner toxic, genetically modified, and in violation of European trade policies.

I learn the concept of “dead capital” (what our Native Americans would have called a “commonwealth” that could not be deeded), and I see very good discussion of fair trade versus free trade and why wage equivalency may not be the best thing for all concerned.

The author has a fine chapter on the myths of renewable resources but ignored geothermal–the book also ignores nuclear, which may be a non-negotiable intermediate solution for Africa and Central Asia.

The entire discussion of DDT being banned and its consequences in terms of 20 million dead per year from malaria is very worthwhile–I may not buy in to the entire argument, but I certainly respect the author and would want him in the room as a counter-weight to others.

I absolutely love the concluding chapter on investor fraud and the cozy relationships among the non-profit racketeers and the corporations and their CEOs that end up buying into lies for profit and a “bye.”

The bibliography and notes and index are all worth perusing.

I am loading an image of the standard information patholigies that I address (up under the cover of the book being reviewed) and will end with an appreciative note for the importance of truth and morality that the author represents, demanding it from ALL sides. In that he is endorsed by Patrick Moore, a Greenpeace co-founder, who appears mortified at some of the lies and malpractices that Greenpeace today has promulgated or adopted.

Other books I recommend that the author is not really focused on:
The Next Catastrophe: Reducing Our Vulnerabilities to Natural, Industrial, and Terrorist Disasters
Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits (Wharton School Publishing Paperbacks)
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility–Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change
Ecological Economics: Principles And Applications
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

IO disagree with the author on one point: helping the poor as the expense of the environment is not a given. We spend 2.2 trillion a year on war and violence, when one third of that amount could give every one of the five billion a free cell phone (education one call at a time as advocated by Earth Intelligence Network), shelter, clean water, and a basic diet. (see calculations by Medard Gabel, EO Wilson, and Lester Brown).

This is a fine book, it may be a subsidized book (Heritage Foundation is in the mix) but it passes my smell test. Absolutely a voice to be heard.

2008/09/292009/12/04

Review: Hot, Flat, and Crowded–Why We Need a Green Revolution–and How It Can Renew America

4 Star, Environment (Problems), Environment (Solutions), Geography & Mapping, Politics, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

5 for intent, 3 for immaculate conception, 4 on balance, September 29, 2008

Thomas L. Friedman

I was not going to buy this book, having become generally disenchanted with the journalists style of ignoring the past 10-20 years of pioneering work by others, and instead interviewing one's way toward an immaculate conception of the same stuff.

HOWEVER, I was won over by his appearance on television, his passion for going green, and his articulate summarization of complex ideas. If you read a great deal, the book is a fast read with way too much detail. If you do NOT read a lot, this is a 5 star book with a wealth of detail you will not find in any one place elsewhere, buy it, read it SLOWLY, and be all the better for it.

A few notes for my failing memory and those who follow my reviews:

1) Better than average index, indeed, quite good and a real pleasure.

2) President Reagan undid most of the energy conservation progress made in the 1970's, costing us the equivalent of everything we are so desperate to get now.

3) Denmark is an example of getting it right, and of energy policy producing jobs and savings and quality of life beyond most people's wildest imagination.

4) George Bush Junior blew it (but the author is careful not to mention Dick Cheney's obsession with secret meetings with Enron and Exxon to plot the invasion and occupation of Iraq). The new president chose deliberately–and the author is compelling in quoting the White House press person on this point–to continue cheap gas and profligate energy waste as an American birthright of sorts.

5) Cradle to Cradle and Divesity are hot now. Duh. I quelch my annoyance as not seeing any credit to Herman Daly or Paul Hawkin or Club or Rome or Limits to Growth and so on, because later in the book he discusses how localities can become Noahs and Arks, and I like this section very much.

6) Energy Poverty is HUGE and I am thoroughly impressed by this section, which includes a discussion of how energy intersects with every other threat and policy (see my own new book on Amazon,Election 2008: Lipstick on the Pig (Substance of Governance; Legitimate Grievances; Candidates on the Issues; Balanced Budget 101; Call to Arms: Fund We Not Them; Annotated Bibliography) for more details and good graphics).

7) Energy Internet, Where IT Meets ET is quite special and alone worth the price of the book for those of us that do read a great deal.

8) Innovation *is* happening, and I am extremely impressed by his account of how the US Army has been discovering the value of going green, for instance, using renewable energy to power remote outposts so as to dramatically reduce the need to truck fuel over roads, reducing both targets and costs for the entire force.

9) US Government has no energy policy, and the private sector desperately needs one if the private sector is to make the 30-50 year bets on nuclear, wind, solar, bacteria, biomass, and so on.

10) China has 106 billionaires, and the balance of the book on China, both its challenges and its potential to go green and not make our mistakes, is also very valuable and provides coverage I have not seen elsewhere.

I found a number of gifted turns of phrase in the book, and they helped to balance the verbal vomit of facts and figures stuffed into the book.

Here are two quotes that I consider worth highlighting:

“American energy policy today, says Peter Schwartz, chairman of Global Business Network, a strategic consulting firm, can be summed up as ‘Maximize demand, minimize supply, and mmake up the difference by buying as much as we can from the people who hate us the most.'” [Schwartz forgot to mention that we borrow the money with which we buy….] p. 80.

“All the human energy and talent is here [in the USA], ready to launch. Yes, it can go a long way on its own…[b]ut it will never go to the scale we need as long as our national energy policy remains so ad hoc, uncoordinated, inconsistent, and unsustained–so that the market never fully exploits our natural advantages.” p. 375

The author appears to ignore or not include the extreme greed and the predatory capitalism that characterizes the energy companies, for example, Exxon eternalizing $12 in costs to the public for every $4 in gas we buy [i.e. they did NOT make a $40 billion windfall profit this past year, they instead stole this money from the public now and in the future.]

Here are some books that I read before this one, and that I recommend very highly for those who wish to delve into the pioneering ideas of others. The author is himself a distiller and obsever, not a pioneer, but unlike his other books, on this one, I give him extra credit for being relevant, on target, and passionate in the most positive way.

Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Social Movement in History Is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beauty to the World
Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, Third Edition
The Future of Life
The Biodiversity Crisis: Losing What Counts (American Museum of Natural History Books)
Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage
Leadership and the New Science: Learning About Organization from an Orderly Universe
How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, Updated Edition
The leadership of civilization building: Administrative and civilization theory, symbolic dialogue, and citizen skills for the 21st century
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

2008/08/032013/06/17

Review: The Next Catastrophe–Reducing Our Vulnerabilities to Natural, Industrial, and Terrorist Disasters

6 Star Top 10%, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Disaster Relief, Environment (Problems), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design

Superb, Crystal-Clear, Speaks Truth to Power, April 3, 2008

Charles Perrow

Amazon destroyed this review in error and I failed to keep a file copy. This is a reconstructed review–not nearly as good as the original–nothing I can do about it.

———-reconstructed review————-

This book is a learned essay, and I immediately discerned (I tend to read the index and bibliographies first, to understand the provenance of the author's knowledge) that the author has excelled at both casting a very wide net for sources, and at distilling and presenting those sources in a useful new manner with added insights.

Key points:

Natural disasters impact on 6 times more people than all the conflict on the planet.

Industrial irresponsibility, especially in the nuclear, chemical, and biological industries, is legion, and much more potentially catastrophic than any terrorist attack. Of special concern is the storage of large amounts of toxic, flammable, volatile, or reactive materials outside the security perimeters–this includes spent nuclear fuel rods, railcars with 90,000 tons of chlorine that if combined with fire would put millions at risk.

The entire book is an indictment of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) which the author says was designed for permanent failure (at the same time that it took over and then gutted the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)).

The author focuses on how concentrations of people, energy, and high-value economic targets make us more vulnerable than we need to be. Dispersal, and moving small amounts of toxic materials (just enough just in time, rather than a year's supply on site), can help.

The author outlines five remediation strategies:

REDUCTIONS of amounts

TRANSFERS from outside the wire to inside the wire

SUBSTITUTION (e.g. of bleach for chlorine)

MIND-SET SHIFT to emphasize public safety and regulation over profit

REFORM of the political system, where federal laws now set CEILINGS for safety rather than floors (one of many reasons we have 27 secessionist movements in the USA–the federal government is insolvent and abjectly corrupt and incapable).

We learn that post-9/11 we have spent tens of billions on counter-terrorism to ill-effect, while completely neglecting rudimentary precautions and protections against natural and industrial disasters that will inevitably turn into catastrophes for lack of competent organizations.

The author emphasizes that complex systems will fail no matter what, but it is much more dangerous to the public if the government and the industrial executives refuse to do their jobs. The author coins the term “executive failure” to describe top leaders who deliberately decide to ignore federal regulations on safety, and describes a number of situations where near-nuclear meltdown and other disasters came too close to reality.

The power grid, PRIOR TO deregulation, is treated as a model of a system that developed with six positive traits:

1. Bottom-up
2. Voluntary alliances
3. Shared facilities at cost
4. Members support independent research & development
5. Oversight stresses commonality interdependence
6. Deregulation is harmful to public safety

The author sums up the enduring sources of failure as:

ORGANIZATIONAL — flawed by design (pyramidal organizations cannot scale nor digest massive amounts of new fast information)

EXECUTIVE — deliberate high crimes and misdemeanors, seeking short-term profit without regard to long-term costs to the public safety. “We almost lost Toledo.” Buy the book for that story alone.

REGULATORY — the corruption of Congress, now known to be legendary.

The author tells us that globalization has eliminated the “water-tight bulkheads” within industries and economies, meaning that single points of failure (like the Japanese factory making silicon chips) can impact around the world and immediately. The author prefers to nurture networks of small firms, and this is consistent with other books I have read: economies of scale are no longer, they externalize more costs to the public than they save in efficiencies.

The book ends with an overview of the Internet, which is not the author's forte. He notes that our critical infrastructure is connected to the Internet, but I like to add emphasis here: all of our SCADA (supervisory control and data administration) are on the Internet and hackable.

I like very much the author's view that Microsoft and others should be held liable for security blunders that cost time and money to the end users. I recall that Bill Gates once said that if cars were built like computers they would cost very little and run forever….to which the auto industry executive replied: yes, and they would crash every four blocks and kill every fourth person (or something along those lines). We still do not have a desktop analytic suite of tool because of proprietary protections for legacy garbage.

I am certain that We the People can live up to the promise contained in Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace which, as with all books I publish, is free online as well as being offered by Amazon for those who love to hold and read and annotate hard copy.

Here are other books I recommend all of which support the author's very grave concerns about our irresponsibility as a Nation:
Pandora's Poison: Chlorine, Health, and a New Environmental Strategy
The Blue Death: Disease, Disaster, and the Water We Drink
The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead
The Informant: A True Story
Conspiracy of Fools: A True Story
The Republican War on Science
The Price of Loyalty : George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill
The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy
The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century