By: Tatiana Schlossberg
Hennepin County Library hardcover 236 pages plus acknowledgments and notes
Published: 2019
Genre: Non-fiction, environment
Schlossberg died recently and as I was reading about her, I got curious about this book. Requested and received, it's due back today. Time to blog!
Her book had four main sections in addition to the introduction and conclusion. Technology and the Internet, Food, Fashion, and Fuel. Of course, each of these topics is interrelated. She did a good job of presenting the issues concerning the environment.
Page 6: I hope I can help you understand how complicated this stuff is - if something sounds simple, it probably isn't.
She writes in a way that makes the complex understandable without dumbing it down.
Page 8: It's up to us to create a country that takes seriously its obligations to the planet, to each other, and to the people who will be born into a world that looks different than ours has for the last 10,000 years or so. If we aren't paying attention, others with destructive intentions or different motivations might make the decisions for us.
I think this is already happening. As I was reading this book, I reflected that people seem to already be "on board" with concerns about the environment or defiantly opposed to changing things to protect the environment.
Page 16: That became Sprint, which was an acronym for Southern Pacific Railroad Internal Network Telecommunications.
I just put this here because I didn't realize "Sprint" was an acronym! I love learning new things.
Page 26: People who study energy and efficiency call this phenomenon the rebound effect: when savings from efficiency or dematerialization are canceled out by corresponding growth of use.
This is an interesting concept . . . "rebound" - save money by becoming more efficient, but use more because there is more use.
Page 52: Lithium ion batteries have changed the way we use technology: we can have cell phones and laptops because the batteries can be shrunken down enough to power an iPhone, and they are rechargeable.
Battery technology both fascinates and horrifies me. I am saddened by how many devices in my life (and toys for kids) require batteries. Perhaps I need to be more deliberate in what I buy and use. (Says the woman who's in love with her hybrid, plug-in car.)
Page 54: Some lithium comes from the Atacama region in Chile and in the salt flats of Argentina, harvested from lands where indigenous groups hold surface and water rights, though the vast profits from lithium production are not shared with them. These communities struggle with sewage treatment and drinking water and are often unable to heat their schools.
It's heart-breaking that the rich and powerful get what they want and the poor suffer. This is a global problem!
Page 56: Spread out over a lot of people, it's not a lot for each one of us, but the point is the aggregate: as a society, we're just throwing energy away.
She was writing about vampire power here. Again, I'm guilty of leaving things plugged in while not in use. It's easier . . . but I could make better use of power strips. We do like our conveniences, don't we?
Page 61: Using your electricity-guzzling game console to stream movies is probably, overall, less impactful to the planet than buying a new device altogether. But the important thing is to put any of these devices and all of the resources they use into context. I know that's not a satisfying answer. But it turns out there aren't really very many satisfying answers. Sorry.
Just as with the "rebound" idea, it's interesting that there is this balance between older devices which use more energy than more efficient ones and upgrading (wasteful and uses more energy to produce more devices.) Also, I like her conversational tone. It's part of what makes this book so readable.
Page 87: "It's become a social norm to waste food; no one thinks it's abnormal to eat half a burger and throw away the rest."
This one caught my attention for the opposite reason. My family was a "waste not, want not" household. We grew up thinking there was nothing worse than throwing food away. So my siblings and I continue to eat even when we're sated, to the point of unhealthy eating habits. I'm fine with putting food away for leftovers, but I've had to teach myself that throwing food in the garbage (or compost) is okay.
Page 88: And more than thirty years later, there are still no national laws about dating foods.
Although she makes a joke about "dating" foods, it is troubling that there are no standards for labeling foods in the US. I know many people who will throw away anything past the date on the container. Sniff it; look at it. I eat "past date" food often. It's usually fine. Wastefulness and overconsumption are horrible, especially when so many people on planet Earth are going hungry.
Page 111: First, it accepts the current energy-intensive, industrialized agricultural system, and it advocates outsourcing our emissions to other countries. . . . . Second, it obscures the dizzying amount of food and everything else that we ship around the world because we can, and because it's become cheaper to grow food in one place and ship it to another.
Yes, we are accustomed to getting what we want when we want it. But we are part of a global society. It's not the 1800s when eating "local" was a necessity. I'm not sure what she's advocating we do. The more I read, the more frustrated I got. She identifies problems but doesn't provide much in the way of suggestions and solutions.
Page 113: Of all the things I've written about so far, writing about fish has been among the most challenging. Is it because I think fish are kind of gross? Probably. Is it because I don't really like to eat fish, and I don't think that most people do, either, but they pretend because they want to seem better than me? Also probably yes that is true. All because they "want to eat healthy"? Sure, fine. But without making this about me (why stop now?), it's also because writing about fish is possibly even more complicated than some aspects of the food system I've discussed up until now . . . .
She's kind of funny here, but also a little bit irritating.
Page 124: She also told me that Stella McCartney, a fashion brand and designer committed to sustainability, has at times tried to figure out how to source a certain product in a sustainable way, but the employees discover they can't find any information and end up commissioning reports and studies themselves . . .
Interesting that there's less research on the issues around fashion . . . because it's a "women's" topic. Also interesting that Stella McCartney tries to work sustainably.
Page 137: Currently, humans are rapidly consuming groundwater without knowing when it might run out, especially in some of earth's driest places.
This! The issue of water is a huge one for me. I'm so thankful that we have lots of lovely water in Minnesota. I would not buy property in Arizona (or anywhere in the Southwest US) due to this very problem.
Page 143: . . . ocean plastic, for the most part, has been broken up by ultraviolet radiation, wind and waves, tide and time.
This sounds encouraging, but it's just adding to the microplastics problem. Reading this made me think we might be closer to the Rapture and Armageddon than not . . .
Page 152: We get rid of about 60 percent of the clothing we buy within a year of its being made; we used to keep our clothing at least twice as long.
This made me laugh! I rarely buy new clothing and have several garments in my wardrobe that are ten years old or more. (I have a mock turtleneck my mom bought for me and she died in 2014. I also have a sweater of hers from the 1950s.) My lack of fashion sense is very good for lower consumption of resources!
Page 166: Call it poetic license; call this book poetry; call me Ishmael.
Again, there are times her casual writing style got a little much . . . She used the phrase "whole hog" and went off into this little side joke.
Page 182: But the TVA officials (they had brought the president of the agency and chief engineer to meet with me, the cub reporter, which felt like a little much) were telling me that there wasn't anything to see here.
Reading this made me think of Erin Brokovich and the Julia Roberts movie made about her investigating PG&E. Big companies with lots of money generally don't care about the people who suffer because of their polluting.
Page 185: When Andrew Wheeler, Pruitt's replacement and a former coal lobbyist, became acting administrator of the agency, the first rule he signed was the revision of the coal ash rule . . .
Almost all of Trump's cabinet appointments during his first term were horrific. Putting a coal lobbyist in charge of the EPA is insane!
Page 185: Part of the goal of this book is to explore how we are all in this together, how the systems we participate in affect all of us, even if not directly.
Exploration . . . again, people reading this book are likely already on board (like me) and people who are opposed are probably not going to read this book. I was frustrated with the lack of suggestions and solutions.
Page 186: And that starts with understanding how this works, because for those of us who had the luxury of not knowing what coal ash is, our lack of awareness if part of the problem - that's how these problems start and how they become so entrenched as to seem unsolvable.
Okay, awareness is good. Once we have awareness of the problems, what can we do?
Page 195:. . . Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming, a book that ranks one hundred of the most effective solutions to end global warming . . .
Perhaps I should have read this book instead!
Page 201: But it would seem colonialist and patronizing if more developed countries like the US, EU member states, and Japan were to tell these developing countries that they shouldn't get to have air-conditioning because it would use too much electricity, as we sit here, cool and comfortable, basking in the artificial breeze of privilege.
Yes, it would seem pretty awful for us to tell others they ought to conserve energy when we indulge ourselves.
Page 225: . . . because so much of our built environment was built when the car existed, and so our society is largely organized around the car.
This is uniquely American, right? Society organized around cars? I'm guilty - I use my car extensively and regularly.
Page 230: The problem is we want everything to be everywhere, and we want to be there too,as quickly as possible. We want to be cool in our homes without paying too much for it, get our things on demand, stream video, get in our cars or rideshares and do whatever else we want, and also have our southern forests protected. So really, once again, the problem is us.
Yes, the problem is us. How to solve the problem?
Page 232: . . . we have pushed the planet to its limits, unconsciously sacrificing the future to meet the needs, real or imagined, of the present. In the name of convenience or immediate gratification or profit, we've created a world where we use resources because we can, with little attention paid to our waste and the problems it creates.
This is the heart of her book.
Page 233: You may feel like I've laid out a set of enormous problems and not given you a way to solve them. But I don't think that's true.
Her suggestions are too little, too late. They aren't actionable steps. I've requested Drawdown from the library. Rest in peace, Ms. Schlossberg.
