!1: Now is the time Dank: the Quest for the Very Best Marijuana: A Breeder's Tale Order Today!
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Over All Rating Reviews : Great Deal : $19.77
Date Created : Nov 12, 2010 12:51:27
Based on the author's 20 years of passionate selection and experience, Dank: The Very Best Marijuana is the story of one breeder's quest for pot perfection. Author Subcool, both a talented photographer and a well-known breeding whiz, describes each step of his journey toward ganja heaven: raising each strain, mixing and matching traits, and ultimately choosing the offspring that will advance to become the newest pinnacle in pot — the newest dank. Revealing his thought processes as he assesses the traits that will go forward, Subcool provides an intimate portrait of each variety's personality. Beautifully lit photos and full-color spreads accompany these complete descriptions of over 35 varieties, with detailed profiles of each strain's aroma, taste, and high, as well as how it grows, and what it looks like. Useful appendices feature full genetic trees of each strain discussed.
!1: Now is the time Pandora's Seed: The Unforeseen Cost of Civilization Order Today!
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Over All Rating Reviews : Great Deal : $14.99
Date Created : Oct 29, 2010 19:34:34
In The Journey of Man, renowned geneticist and anthropologist Spencer Wells traced human evolution back to our earliest ancestors, creating a remarkable and readable map of our distant past. Now, in his thrilling new book, he examines our cultural inheritance in order to find the turning point that led us to the path we are on today, one he believes we must veer from in order to survive.
Pandora’s Seed takes us on a powerful and provocative globe-trotting tour of human history, back to a seminal event roughly ten thousand years ago, when our species made a radical shift in its way of life: We became farmers rather than hunter-gatherers, setting in motion a momentous chain of events that could not have been foreseen at the time.
Although this decision to control our own food supply is what propelled us into the modern world, Wells demonstrates—using the latest genetic and anthropological data—that such a dramatic shift in lifestyle had a downside that we’re only now beginning to recognize. Growing grain crops ultimately made humans more sedentary and unhealthy and made the planet more crowded. The expanding population and the need to apportion limited resources such as water created hierarchies and inequalities. The desire to control—and no longer cooperate with—nature altered the concept of religion, making deities fewer and more influential, foreshadowing today’s fanaticisms. The proximity of humans and animals bred diseases that metastasized over time. Freedom of movement and choice were replaced by a pressure to work that is the forebear of the anxiety and depression millions feel today. Wells offers a hopeful prescription for altering a life to which we were always ill suited, recommending that we change our priorities and self-destructive appetites before it’s too late.
A riveting and accessible scientific detective story, Pandora’s Seed is an eye-opening book for anyone fascinated by the past and concerned about the future.
!1: Best Buy If you are even remotely interested in how we (humans) arrived at our present state, this book will prove to be as fascinating as anything you have ever read. I won't go into the details other than to say that the author's ability to explain the complexities of population genetics is in large part one of the books' values. I found it worth reading several times- the first time as the MP3 audio version and then as a paper book so that I could mull over some of the more complex topics. Absolutely worth several reads and the author himself is excellent at narrating it. on Sale!
!1: Now is the time Survival of the Sickest: The Surprising Connections Between Disease and Longevity (P.S.) Order Today!
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Over All Rating Reviews : Great Deal : $5.31
Date Created : Oct 16, 2010 00:30:19
Joining the ranks of modern myth busters, Dr. Sharon Moalem turns our current understanding of illness on its head and challenges us to fundamentally change the way we think about our bodies, our health, and our relationship to just about every other living thing on earth. Through a fresh and engaging examination of our evolutionary history, Dr. Moalem reveals how many of the conditions that are diseases today actually gave our ancestors a leg up in the survival sweepstakes. But Survival of the Sickest doesn't stop there. It goes on to demonstrate just how little modern medicine really understands about human health, and offers a new way of thinking that can help all of us live longer, healthier lives.
!1: Best Buy My Opinion of Survival of the Sickest: Author: Dr. Sharon Moalem: By Carlos Topher
This book is very interesting, it is about diseases, history and the creation of life. It also explains how what we think of as sickness may have benefited our ancestors, leading us to things we can do about it. From the past to now, our genetics have been affected by diseases and the environment. This book explains some of these factors have affected our genetic history.
The Moalem says that people with diabetes can survive lower temperatures and this is because the sugar acts as an anti-freeze. During the Ice Age, people who had diabetes survived better against the cold, and this book explains the possible benefit to our ancestors.
Also, the author has a theory that humans used to live in water. He explains that water birth could be more comfortable for women. They could stand up in the water and give birth safely, by themselves with less pain. The safety he noted by the fact that babies don't breathe under the water until they feel the air on their cheeks.
To further support the theory that we once lived in water, our bodies have less hair than most other mammals. We are like dolphins in the hairlessness of our bodies and they live in water. Additionally, mammals who live in water have fat attached to their skin as we do too.
Sun light is both good and bad. It is good because your body can use it to make vitamin D. Vitamin D is necessary to construct bones and to prevent Rickets. Sun light helps to convert cholesterol into vitamin D. Too much sun light could be harmful because it could burn your skin. Melanin protects the skin from burning and gives it a darker color. The author explains why we have different skin colors, reminding us that lighter-skinned people were favored in areas where there is less sun light, and darker skinned people were favored in places where there is more sun light. Today people who find themselves in the wrong light zone can correct a vitamin D deficiency with supplements, this explains why they put vitamin D in the milk.
This book is also about the creation of life, it explains that every virus, bacteria, plant, animal and human, has to live long enough to reproduce in order for its offspring to survive. Reproduction, the author explains, is the main goal of a life form. It is even more important than the individual survival, introducing the idea that we have to die in order to allow our offspring to improve. Another reason for dying, the author explains, is that older individuals die so that their parasites die with them, to protect the young.
You might think that "Survival of the Sickest" would be a boring book, but it is not. In a fact this book is good and I recommend it. Dr. Moalem explains how diseases may have helped our ancestors get through several historical events, such as an ice age. The author introduces the idea that humans once lived in water, with evidence like our hairlessness, and I think that it is amazing. I believe that this book would help you understand the relationship between vitamin D and sun light. Additionally this book talks about the nature of life, reproduction and death. on Sale!
!1: Now is the time Pandora's Seed: The Unforeseen Cost of Civilization.(Brief article)(Book review): An article from: Science News Order Today!
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Date Created : Oct 02, 2010 01:51:04
This digital document is an article from Science News, published by Science Service, Inc. on July 17, 2010. The length of the article is 329 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details Title: Pandora's Seed: The Unforeseen Cost of Civilization.(Brief article)(Book review) Author: Nathan Seppa Publication:Science News (Magazine/Journal) Date: July 17, 2010 Publisher: Science Service, Inc. Volume: 178 Issue: 2 Page: 30(1)
±1±: Now is the time How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like Order Today!
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Over All Rating Reviews : Great Deal : $13.55
Date Created : Sep 03, 2010 07:15:10
Yale psychologist Paul Bloom presents a striking and thought-provoking new understanding of pleasure, desire, and value. The thought of sex with a virgin is intensely arousing for many men. The average American spends more than four hours a day watching television. Abstract art can sell for millions of dollars. People slow their cars to look at gory accidents, and go to movies that make them cry.
Pleasure is anything but straightforward. Our desires, attractions, and tastes take us beyond the symmetry of a beautiful face, the sugar and fat in food, or the prettiness of a painting. In How Pleasure Works, Yale University psychologist Paul Bloom draws on groundbreaking research to unveil the deeper workings of why we desire what we desire. Refuting the longstanding explanation of pleasure as a simple sensory response, Bloom shows us that pleasure is grounded in our beliefs about the deeper nature or essence of a given thing. This is why we want the real Rolex and not the knockoff, the real Picasso and not the fake, the twin we have fallen in love with and not her identical sister.
In this fascinating and witty account, Bloom draws on child development, philosophy, neuroscience, and behavioral economics in order to address pleasures noble and seamy, highbrow and lowbrow. Along the way, he gives us unprecedented insights into a realm of human psychology that until now has only been partially understood. 3 illustrations
±1±: Best Buy Often science writers can make even the most exciting topics, such as pleasure, boring and technical. Bloom takes advantage of the inherently interesting topic he's writing about and his own extensive psychological knowledge to deliver a book that is both intelligent and fun. Bloom is primarily a developmental psychologist, and this book touches on his work with babies and young children many times. Bloom develops his theory of the human mind- the idea that we are all born essentialists- and surprises the reader with fun trivia along the way. The writing is clear and concise throughout. This is what popular science writing is supposed to be like! on Sale!
±1±: Now is the time Female Authority: Empowering Women through Psychotherapy Order Today!
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Over All Rating Reviews : Great Deal : $24.34
Date Created : Aug 19, 2010 22:00:04
For women in Western society, there is no straightforward path of development to autonomous adulthood. The double-bind of female authority--that a women cannot be both a healthy adult and an ideal woman-- is the context in which a woman must construct her self in this culture. Whether she sees herself as "too needy" or "too controlling," "too insecure" or "too self-reliant," she is gathering evidence to support a theory of personal inadequacy. The traditional perspectives of psychodynamics and psychopathology reinforce women's sense of inferiority. How then does a woman claim her own authority-- the validity of her own truth, beauty, goodness, originating in her own experience.
Young-Eisendrath and Wiedemann break with the tradition of "deficit thinking," the examination of what is absent, wrong, or deficient. Recognizing this as a fundamental barrier to the empowerment of women, they work instead from an understanding of what is already strong and satisfying in the lives of women and girls in a patriarchal society. This volume unravels the paradox of female authority through the examination of its sociocultural, symbolic, and personal dimensions. Chapters 1 through 4 present a re-visioning of the female self, using the psychologies of C. G. Jung and Jane Loevinger as major theoretical frameworks. The authors argue for a modification of Jung's concept of "animus' --the repressed masculine in the girl or woman--and in chapters 5 through 8 present a detailed model of psychotherapy based on five stages of animus development. Using a wealth of clinical material from their own practices --including two extended case presentations in chapters 9 through 11-- the authors skillfully illustrate their own efforts to help women assume greater personal authority. The book's concluding chapter presents New Texts and Contexts for Female Development.
Unique in its combination of feminist theory, social psychology, and Jungian psychology, FEMALE AUTHORITY offers a fresh approach to the analysis of gender concerns in identity. The book will be of great value to practitioners and theoreticians in the human services. The discussion of women's self-esteem and personal authority, and the probing of conflicts inherent in female identity in our society, place this book among the major recent contributions to the development of a psychology of women.
±1±: Best Buy Polly Young-Eisendrath and Florence Wiedemann examine the process of how women in the American culture develop autonomy. The authors, as Jungian analysts, explore the female path of individuation using characters derived from Greek Mythology and contemporary case studies. The path involves a successive integration of the unconscious animus complexes throughout the woman's life-span. In Jungian psychology the animus appears to be the source inside the female unconscious which provides male representations within women's dreams. The authors outline a five stage model for animus development by providing a path through psychotherapy. The model for ego development for women includes moving away from a symbiotic relationship with one's mother characterized by Demeter and Persephone and overcoming dependencies and stereotypes exemplified by Pandora and Zeus. Finally, the process evolves through a series of tasks involved within her relationship with her mate as seen in the Amor-Psyche myth. The work is brilliantly creative as it addresses the quest of many American women regarding finding one's Self on a depth psychological level The book offers a path by interweaving a series of mythological models with case study examples. This book is destined to be a classic in the psychology of women. on Sale!
±1±: Now is the time How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like Order Today!
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Over All Rating Reviews : Great Deal : $13.69
Date Created : Aug 19, 2010 05:00:08
Yale psychologist Paul Bloom presents a striking and thought-provoking new understanding of pleasure, desire, and value. The thought of sex with a virgin is intensely arousing for many men. The average American spends more than four hours a day watching television. Abstract art can sell for millions of dollars. People slow their cars to look at gory accidents, and go to movies that make them cry.
Pleasure is anything but straightforward. Our desires, attractions, and tastes take us beyond the symmetry of a beautiful face, the sugar and fat in food, or the prettiness of a painting. In How Pleasure Works, Yale University psychologist Paul Bloom draws on groundbreaking research to unveil the deeper workings of why we desire what we desire. Refuting the longstanding explanation of pleasure as a simple sensory response, Bloom shows us that pleasure is grounded in our beliefs about the deeper nature or essence of a given thing. This is why we want the real Rolex and not the knockoff, the real Picasso and not the fake, the twin we have fallen in love with and not her identical sister.
In this fascinating and witty account, Bloom draws on child development, philosophy, neuroscience, and behavioral economics in order to address pleasures noble and seamy, highbrow and lowbrow. Along the way, he gives us unprecedented insights into a realm of human psychology that until now has only been partially understood. 3 illustrations
±1±: Best Buy Often science writers can make even the most exciting topics, such as pleasure, boring and technical. Bloom takes advantage of the inherently interesting topic he's writing about and his own extensive psychological knowledge to deliver a book that is both intelligent and fun. Bloom is primarily a developmental psychologist, and this book touches on his work with babies and young children many times. Bloom develops his theory of the human mind- the idea that we are all born essentialists- and surprises the reader with fun trivia along the way. The writing is clear and concise throughout. This is what popular science writing is supposed to be like! on Sale!
±1±: Now is the time Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet Order Today!
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Over All Rating Reviews : Great Deal : $12.81
Date Created : Aug 05, 2010 08:38:17
"Read it, please. Straight through to the end. Whatever else you were planning to do next, nothing could be more important." —Barbara Kingsolver
Twenty years ago, with The End of Nature, Bill McKibben offered one of the earliest warnings about global warming. Those warnings went mostly unheeded; now, he insists, we need to acknowledge that we've waited too long, and that massive change is not only unavoidable but already under way. Our old familiar globe is suddenly melting, drying, acidifying, flooding, and burning in ways that no human has ever seen. We've created, in very short order, a new planet, still recognizable but fundamentally different. We may as well call it Eaarth.
That new planet is filled with new binds and traps. A changing world costs large sums to defend—think of the money that went to repair New Orleans, or the trillions it will take to transform our energy systems. But the endless economic growth that could underwrite such largesse depends on the stable planet we've managed to damage and degrade. We can't rely on old habits any longer.
Our hope depends, McKibben argues, on scaling back—on building the kind of societies and economies that can hunker down, concentrate on essentials, and create the type of community (in the neighborhood, but also on the Internet) that will allow us to weather trouble on an unprecedented scale. Change—fundamental change—is our best hope on a planet suddenly and violently out of balance.
Bill McKibben is the author of The End of Nature, Deep Economy, and numerous other books. He is the founder of the environmental organizations Step It Up and 350.org, and was among the first to warn of the dangers of global warming. He is a scholar in residence at Middlebury College and lives in Vermont with his wife, the writer Sue Halpern, and their daughter.
Twenty years ago, with The End of Nature, Bill McKibben offered one of the earliest warnings about global warming. Those warnings went mostly unheeded; now, he insists, we need to acknowledge that we've waited too long, and that massive change is not only unavoidable but already under way. Our old familiar globe is suddenly melting, drying, acidifying, flooding, and burning in ways no human has ever seen. We've created, in very short order, a new planet, still recognizable but fundamentally different. We may as well call it Eaarth.
That new planet is filled with new binds and traps. A changing world costs large sums to defend—think of the money that went to repair New Orleans, or the trillions of dollars it will take to transform our energy systems. But the endless economic growth that could underwrite such largesse depends on the stable planet we've managed to damage and degrade. We can't rely on old habits any longer.
Our hope depends, McKibben argues, on scaling back—on building the kind of societies and economies that can hunker down, concentrate on essentials, and create the type of community (in the neighborhood, but also on the Internet) that will allow us to weather trouble on an unprecedented scale. Change—fundamental change—is our best hope on a planet suddenly and violently out of balance.
“Bill McKibben may be the world's best green journalist . . . What really sets Eaarth apart from other green books is McKibben’s prescription for survival. This won't be just a matter of replacing a few lightbulbs; McKibben is calling for a more local existence lived ‘lightly, carefully, gently.’ It’s a future unimaginable to most of us—but it may be the only way to survive.”—Time
"Eaarth is the name McKibben has decided to assign both to his new book and to the planet formerly known as Earth. His point is a fresh one that brings the reader uncomfortably close to climate change . . . Unlike many writers on environmental cataclysm, McKibben is actually a writer, and a very good one at that. He is smart enough to know that the reader needs a dark chuckle of a bone thrown at him now and then to keep plowing through the bad news."—Paul Greenberg, The New York Times Book Review
“Bill McKibben may be the world's best green journalist . . . What really sets Eaarth apart from other green books is McKibben’s prescription for survival. This won't be just a matter of replacing a few lightbulbs; McKibben is calling for a more local existence lived ‘lightly, carefully, gently.’ It’s a future unimaginable to most of us—but it may be the only way to survive.”—Time
“Superbly written . . . McKibben is at his best when offering an elegant tour of what is already going wrong and likely to get even worse. . . . Eaarth is a manifesto for radical measures.”—The National Interest
“A valuable slice of acid-tongued reality.”—San Francisco Chronicle
“This book must be read and his message must be understood clearly in Congress and in the streets. Indeed, throughout the world.”—The Capitol Times (Madison, Wis.)
“Sounds a clarion at a time when the findings of climate scientists have been all but drowned out by skeptics and right-wing bombast. McKibben, however, does not doubt that facts will trump ideology. . . . McKibben is an eloquent advocate.”—The Oregonian (Portland)
"With clarity, eloquence, deep knowledge, and even deeper compassion for both planet and people, Bill McKibben guides us to the brink of a new, uncharted era. This monumental book, probably his greatest, may restore your faith in the future, with us in it."—Alan Weisman, author of The World Without Us
"The terrifying premise with which this book begins is that we have, as in the old science fiction films and tales of half a century ago, landed on a harsh and unpredictable planet, all six billion of us. Climate change is already here, but Bill McKibben doesn’t stop with the bad news. He tours the best responses that are also already here, and these visions of a practical scientific solution are also sketches of a better, richer, more democratic civil society and everyday life. Eaarth is an astonishingly important book that will knock you down and pick you up."—Rebecca Solnit, author of A Paradise Built in Hell and Hope in the Dark
"Bill McKibben foresaw 'the end of nature' very early on, and in this new book he blazes a path to help preserve nature's greatest treasures."—James E. Hansen, Director of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
"Bill McKibben is the most effective environmental activist of our age. Anyone interested in making a difference to our world can learn from him."—Time Flannery, author of The Weather Makers and The Eternal Frontier
"For 20 years McKibben has been writing with clarity and zeal about global warming, initially in the hope of staving it off and now in an effort to lessen its dire impact. With climate change under way, we now live on a far less hospitable planet than the one on which our civilizations coalesced for 10,000 years amidst resplendent biological diversity. McKibben postulates that because today’s planet is so much hotter, stormier, and more chaotic with droughts, vanishing ice, dying forests, encroaching deserts, acid oceans, increased wildfires, and diminishing food crops, it merits a new name: 'Eaarth.' Although his meticulous chronicling of the current “cascading effects” of climate change is truly alarming, it isn’t utterly devastating. That’s because McKibben, reasonable and compassionate, reports with equal thoroughness on the innovations of proactive individuals and groups and explicates the benefits of ending our dependence on fossil fuels, industrial agriculture, and the unbalanced, unjust global economy. What distinguishes McKibben as an environmental writer beyond his literary finesse and firm grasp of the complexities of science and society is his generous pragmatism, informed vision of small-scale solutions to our food and energy needs, and belief that Eaarth will remain a nurturing planet if we face facts, jettison destructive habits, and pursue new ways of living with creativity and conscience."—Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred review)
"The world as we know it has ended forever: that's the melancholy message of this nonetheless cautiously optimistic assessment of the planet's future by McKibben, whose The End of Nature first warned of global warming's inevitable impact 20 years ago. Twelve books later, the committed environmentalist concedes that the earth has lost the climatic stability that marked all of human civilization. His litany of damage done by a carbon-fueled world economy is by now familiar: in some places rainfall is dramatically heavier, while Australia and the American Southwest face a permanent drought; polar ice is vanishing, glaciers everywhere are melting, typhoons and hurricanes are fiercer, and the oceans are more acidic; food yields are dropping as temperatures rise and mosquitoes in expanding tropical zones are delivering deadly disease to millions. McKibben's prescription for coping on our new earth is to adopt maintenance as our mantra, to think locally not globally, and to learn to live lightly, carefully, gracefully—a glass-half-full attitude that might strike some as Pollyannaish or merely insufficient. But for others McKibben's re...
±1±: Best Buy EDIT of 2 August 2010: However great the mind or the man, we all make mistakes. Paul Hawkins made his with Monsanto, I've made mine. ClimateGate established with clarity the fraud associated with both the fabricated science and the intended "sub-prime mortgaging" of the Earth's atmosphere. Maurice Strong and Al Gore are pushing fraud, not fixing. Mercury and sulfer and methane are bigger problems than carbon, and global warming is a small element--not even close to being the main event--within Environmental Degradation, threat #3 after poverty and infectious disease. It troubles me when people vote against the messenger--McKibben is a great man--he's also made a mistake. Get over it and do more reading, integrate more, and it will all come out fine.
I was so annoyed with the narrow first third that glorifies the likes of Al Gore, Thomas Friedman, and Larry "women can't think like scientists" Summers that I was actually contemplating three stars. This is a weakly researched book that buys into the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Maurice Strong carbon fraud, while ignoring the vastly more intelligent findings of the High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility--Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, in which Environmental Degradation is #3 and more broadly defined.
Any book that quotes the discredited James Hansen of NASA and that builds a case around Op-Eds and undocumented assertions is a stain upon scholarship, and the first third of this book falls into that sinkhole. Despite many references to the Copenhagen summit, there is not a word in this book about ClimateGate (see the Rolling Update at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog) and therefore I find this author guilty of active misrepresentation in this specific instance. The author is spending too much time with newspapers and not enough time with books representing the distilled reflections of others.
Having said that, and deducted one star for the lapse, I find the balance of the book absorbing, fascinating, and rich in gems of insight and fact. It should be read in conjunction with:
Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update Human Scale High Noon 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them The Future of Life Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Natural Disaster in America The Next Catastrophe: Reducing Our Vulnerabilities to Natural, Industrial, and Terrorist Disasters The Real Global Warming Disaster: Is the Obsession with "Climate Change" Turning Out to Be the Most Costly Scientific Blunder in History? Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, Revised and Updated 5th Anniversary Edition: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits
My criticism and praise of this important work are based on the above and the other 1,600 non-fiction reviews I have posted to Amazon, all more easily accessible in 98 reading categories at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Network.
Early points that got my attention:
+ Altered planet (elsewhere I have read that changes to the Earth that once took 10,000 years now take three years
+ Need to scale back, strive to restore 58-60 degree Fahrenheit global average
+ Every additional degree in Celsius brings with it roughly 6% more lightning that starts forest fires and tundra fires
+ The number of abandoned boats on the shores once populated by fisherman is beyond alarming
+ Excellent analogies by the author of what is needed (mindful that we have blown trillion we did not have on the Iraq-Afghanistan misadventures and the bailing out of criminally-unethical Wall Street speculators)
- Green Manhattan Project - Ecological New Deal - Clean-tech Apollo mission
Biomimicry, Ecological Economics (Herman Daly), True Cost, Cradle to Cradle, and Sustainable Design are not in this book. This is an Op-Ed survey that is also very weak on history (Civil War to 9/11) hence the book is unbalanced. It is so busy sounding the carbon fraud alarm it ignores mercury and sulfur while also ignoring all the other terrible things we do to wheat and corn and other crops through pesticides, genetics, political mis-direction, and active fraud.
There is also nothing in this book about the human brain, moving into the sea, or the forthcoming disclosure of extraterrestrial technologies and cultures that are beginning to sweep through governments (see the free online DVD "The Day Before Disclosure," summarized and linked with many books at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog.
Other details that impress:
+ Impact of global warming on mosquitoes spreading disease among humans, and beetles spreading disease among trees.
+ Impact of floods in Bangladesh and other previously war-torn countries in surfacing and relocating land-mines that took years to mark and isolate.
+ Generic discussion of how shortages of land and water lead to war.
The second half of the book is easily five-star stuff, focusing on the management of a graceful decline. The author is, however, oblivious to crime and corruption and the many reasons why a power shift is going to be needed that elevates the five billion poor while isolating the damage that the Rothchilds and their banks can do.
He prescribes:
01 Mature 02 Stop doing many things--move to Slow Food, Slow City, Slow Money 03 Decentralize and scale back 04 Local first, local currencies, keep money local 05 Change concept of national security from global to local 06 Recognize the cost of global war at the local level to local taxpayers 07 Achieve food security across America (where I might add, poverty is doubling) 08 Restore small family farms as "just right" mix of scale and product cost to consumer 09 Stop pesticides so fish can be part of water-flooded crops--elsewhere I have read that the only two sustainable forms of agriculture today are those of the Amish and the Cubans 10 Change world diet (Frances Lappe Moore addresses this in Diet for a Small Planet) 11 Reverse the use of oil as a substitute for human muscle, revert to people-intensive processes
+ I learn that a gallon of diesel can move a ton 59 miles by truck, 514 miles by barge
+ The author touches on the hidden wealth of communities and relationships, this is an emerging field of literature, see the brilliant book, Hidden Wealth of Nations
+ Livestock (and I would add pets) are 50% of the global warming problem (to which I would add also the feces in ground water and then vegetables problem)
+ Conservation means no less than a 20% cut in present uses of fossil fuels
+ Author cites Anthony Lovins with respect to being able to cut oil use by 50% and electricity by 75% with proper conservation processes.
+ LOCAL wind turbines and solar are stressed, instead of the mega farms that have been proposed
+ Author believes that fossil fuel consumption must be cut by a factor of 20
+ The Internet, rather than driving places, will be the novelty machine that also creates social capital via electronic mail and forums--I am impressed by how local forums create local community in what were once "bedroom" sprawl areas.
The concluding insight is alone worth the price of the book: eliminate middlemen and intermediaries everywhere, this will cut prices in half while also conserving fuel and other costs associated with layers of control and price increases that are simply not necessary.
Citing Phillip Longman and T. A. Frank on page 106, he speaks of "informational capital" and the manner in which centralization and the disconnect between those granting loans and those servicing them helped fuel the sub-prime mortgage crisis--this is of course after Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX) and the other 99 unethical Senators passed the deregulation bill written by lobbyists, without reading it. on Sale!
±1±: Now is the time The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves Order Today!
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Over All Rating Reviews : Great Deal : $15.28
Date Created : Jul 08, 2010 00:57:17
Life is getting better—and at an accelerating rate. Food availability, income, and life span are up; disease, child mortality, and violence are down — all across the globe. Though the world is far from perfect, necessities and luxuries alike are getting cheaper; population growth is slowing; Africa is following Asia out of poverty; the Internet, the mobile phone, and container shipping are enriching people’s lives as never before. The pessimists who dominate public discourse insist that we will soon reach a turning point and things will start to get worse. But they have been saying this for two hundred years.
Yet Matt Ridley does more than describe how things are getting better. He explains why. Prosperity comes from everybody working for everybody else. The habit of exchange and specialization—which started more than 100,000 years ago—has created a collective brain that sets human living standards on a rising trend. The mutual dependence, trust, and sharing that result are causes for hope, not despair.
This bold book covers the entire sweep of human history, from the Stone Age to the Internet, from the stagnation of the Ming empire to the invention of the steam engine, from the population explosion to the likely consequences of climate change. It ends with a confident assertion that thanks to the ceaseless capacity of the human race for innovative change, and despite inevitable disasters along the way, the twenty-first century will see both human prosperity and natural biodiversity enhanced. Acute, refreshing, and revelatory, The Rational Optimist will change your way of thinking about the world for the better.
±1±: Best Buy This is a little embarrassing, but right now, right in front of you, millions of ideas are having sex. They might be having it right inside this Amazon review page. I know, freaky, right? According to author Matt Ridley, the secret of humans' success is exchange, and while trade in physical objects is a big part of that, the exchange of ideas is really the thing that has kept this whole civilization thing moving forward for the last 10,000 years or so, and especially in the last 200 years. And when it comes to ideas having sex, the Internet is the ultimate "swingers' club."
Ridley's book "The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves" is quite a bit more serious than that first paragraph makes it sound, but it does describe a key point. He says, "Without trade, innovation just does not happen. Exchange is to technology as sex is to evolution. It stimulates novelty." Another key thing that exchange and trade allow is specialization. Self-sufficiency sounds good in theory (and in practice if you are in a basic survival situation), but when it comes to growth, prosperity, and happiness (all closely linked), specialization means more of everything for everybody. If multiple people in a community have different skills and products, and if exchange is allowed, everyone has the potential to benefit from the knowledge and output of everyone else. Ideas are especially valuable in part because sharing an idea is like lighting a candle for someone else - now you both have a lighted candle (or an idea of how to do something better). When knowledge is shared in a community, it becomes something like a "collective brain." And when the community expands to include the entire world, interconnected by vast transportation networks and with the Internet as its central nervous system, you can have the wild orgy of exchange of ideas, goods, and services that we call the modern world.
Ridley spends most of the book in a chronological journey through the development of civilization, from the first inklings of exchange and specialization some 200,000 years ago (when we really diverged from other species including our close cousins the apes), through expanded barter systems, to the development of agriculture some 10,000 years ago. Of course climate stability had a lot to do with that as well, but an interesting point is that trade is what really made agriculture interesting and worthwhile. There was also the development of energy sources, from human power (including slavery, unfortunately), to animal power, to various forms of "current solar" energy (water power, wind power, burning wood, etc.), to various forms of "stored solar" (coal, oil, natural gas). There are more steps, but it's clear that the modern world is based to a great extent on exchange and specialization, including free trade and the free exchange of ideas. These have in turn produced a wide range of innovations in social systems and technology and led to the astounding prosperity that most (but of course not all) people in the world enjoy today. Ridley points out that while Louis XIV used some 498 servants to prepare his meals, a modern person of average means has many more people working for him or her (mostly indirectly and on a shared basis) to make easily available food, clothing, medicines, transportation, entertainment, and everything else that we take for granted in modern life. In this sense the average person today is richer than a king in the seventeenth century.
But if things are so great and getting better all the time, why are so many people so pessimistic about the present and the future? Ridley doesn't have a good explanation for this, though he knows he's fighting from a minority position (optimists must be naive!), and he shows that it has always been so. People were fretting over "peak coal" in 1830, and convinced that things had improved so much in the previous half century that there could be no place to go but down. But of course the rest of the nineteenth century was in fact a golden age of technological and social development. Things like slavery and child labor declined not so much because people became nicer, but because energy sources and manufacturing methods made them less necessary (or you could say affordable).
The Rational Optimist is not really an ideological work. While there is a strong sense that Ridley believes that markets generally work better than governments (especially corrupt governments like many in Africa), he's not saying that governments are not necessary. He's certainly a strong proponent for free trade and individual rights, which are strongly correlated with a sense of well-being or "happiness." He also believes that things will continue to get better, even for Africa, as long as we keep moving forward in terms of trade and openness. Although anything can happen including terrorism, crazy governments, natural disasters, etc., his optimism is based on considerations of history and of how things really work, not on wishful thinking or on some belief that prosperity is humanity's right or destiny. It's more or less what we do.
I personally tend toward optimism myself, and this book has given me a lot to think about including many reasons for optimism that I hadn't thought about before. I highly recommend this book. on Sale!
±1±: Now is the time Pandora's Seed: The Unforeseen Cost of Civilization Order Today!
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Over All Rating Reviews : Great Deal : $15.20
Date Created : Jun 16, 2010 06:11:33
In The Journey of Man, renowned geneticist and anthropologist Spencer Wells traced human evolution back to our earliest ancestors, creating a remarkable and readable map of our distant past. Now, in his thrilling new book, he examines our cultural inheritance in order to find the turning point that led us to the path we are on today, one he believes we must veer from in order to survive.
Pandora’s Seed takes us on a powerful and provocative globe-trotting tour of human history, back to a seminal event roughly ten thousand years ago, when our species made a radical shift in its way of life: We became farmers rather than hunter-gatherers, setting in motion a momentous chain of events that could not have been foreseen at the time.
Although this decision to control our own food supply is what propelled us into the modern world, Wells demonstrates—using the latest genetic and anthropological data—that such a dramatic shift in lifestyle had a downside that we’re only now beginning to recognize. Growing grain crops ultimately made humans more sedentary and unhealthy and made the planet more crowded. The expanding population and the need to apportion limited resources such as water created hierarchies and inequalities. The desire to control—and no longer cooperate with—nature altered the concept of religion, making deities fewer and more influential, foreshadowing today’s fanaticisms. The proximity of humans and animals bred diseases that metastasized over time. Freedom of movement and choice were replaced by a pressure to work that is the forebear of the anxiety and depression millions feel today. Wells offers a hopeful prescription for altering a life to which we were always ill suited, recommending that we change our priorities and self-destructive appetites before it’s too late.
A riveting and accessible scientific detective story, Pandora’s Seed is an eye-opening book for anyone fascinated by the past and concerned about the future.
