Reading the Landscape of America contains good descriptions of succession and development in various communities, extending back to the last ice age. This helps in understanding what grows where, why places with similar geography and climate can be so different, and why some ecosystems are fragile (or endangered) and others are more robust. Being able to figure out why what you see is where it is, and understand the implications, makes visiting new places—or revisiting familiar places—more enjoyable and enriching. It’s too bad I didn’t read this book a few years ago.

I read the second (1975) edition, which adds to the first (1957) edition. Many chapters in the second edition add a ‘Revisited’ section, where Watts went to the same places years later. It’d be great if a current ecologist would write additional ‘Revisited’ sections to cover the changes of the landscape and science in the past thirty-five years. I’d buy a copy. Either way, I’ll probably read this book again.

This book is now published by Nature Study Guild Publishers and is on Google Books. The cover image is from the publisher.

BibTeX citation:

@book{watts1975,
	Author = {May Theilgaard Watts},
	Publisher = {Macmillan Publishing},
	Title = {Reading the Landscape of America},
	Year = {1975}
}

I now own a copy of The Complete Works of Francis A Schaeffer: A Christian Worldview. Schaeffer is the only author who has multiple entries in my short list of Books Everyone Should Read.

The fact is, however, that the historical conflict between science and Christianity is historical only in the sense that it is the creation of historians.

This is an important point that needs to be understood by more people. Far from being the historical Christian view, Young Earth Creationism did not gain wide popularity until after the 1961 publication of Whitcomb and Morris’ book The Genesis Flood. The spread of the ideas in Whitcomb and Morris’ book contributed to the wide acceptance of a distorted view of the early debates over natural selection. This view has become so prevalent that even many christians do not realize that the Young Earth Creationism and a war between religion and science is not the historical Christian perspective, but a recent development. Livingstone’s book is a welcome contribution to correcting this myth.

Now, to find a good book on Galileo…

BibTeX citation:

@book{Livingstone:1987,
	Author = {David N. Livingstone},
	Publisher = {William B. Eerdmans and Scottish Academic Press},
	Title = {Darwin's Forgotten Defenders: The Encounter Between
	             Evangelical Theology and Evolutionary Thought},
	Year = {1987}
}

BibTeX ref:

@book{lindeburg1998,
	Edition = {8},
	Editor = {Michael R Lindeburg},
	Publisher = {Professional Publications},
	Title = {Engineer-In-Training Reference Manual},
	Year = {1998}
}

My disagreements with Friedman are his technological over-optimism, solutions that increase complexity, and philosophy. I’ll ignore the philosophical differences in this review.

One example of Friedman’s overly complex, overly optimistic solutions is the smart electrical grid. I agree that we need a smart grid. The details are a problem I would like to work on. I disagree with Friedman’s vision of a smart grid. He basically says we should make the grid as smart as possible. This ignores the energy and reliability problems caused by unnecessary complexity. It is an example of a way of thinking common in engineering and politics: add a fix to what we have, even when fixing an underlying problem is easier and solves additional problems. This way of thinking creates unnecessary complexity and contributes to many of our problems. Unfortunately, it is easier to find support to add a law or feature than to change one. There are too many entrenched interests for a real solution to be likely without first moving through suboptimal answers, like the ones that Friedman proposes. Even though they can be better, these are the best likely solutions, so we should move forward as quickly as possible.

The section ‘Make the Word “Green” Go Away’ almost makes up for the rest of the book. Friedman says that green should be normal, so we should stop saying ‘green.’ This is an excellent point. The the word green has been abused recently, especially in greenwashing products. Adding an extra word makes it sound like being green is special. It isn’t. Sustainable practices must become the norm. There isn’t a good answer for this linguistic difficulty, but an improvement would be to drop the word ‘green’ and start calling other things ‘dirty,’ or some better term. It’s too bad stores won’t (or can’t) put soot symbols, or something, on boxes of anything that isn’t green. This would help make unsustainable products appear as different, and environmentally friendly solutions appear normal.

The solutions in this book aren’t always the best, but, Friedman’s proposals are pragmatic and more likely to be implemented than better solutions. While Hot, Flat, and Crowded makes some good points—and has some good quotes—I’d recommend reading a different book on Why We Need a Green Revolution. If you are interested in energy, I recommend Winning Our Energy Independence by S. David Freeman. For more on the business side, the best I have seen is Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution by Hawken, Lovins and Lovins.

BibTeX reference:

@book{friedman2008,
	Author = {Thomas L. Friedman},
	Publisher = {Farrar, Strauss and Giroux},
	Title = {Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a
		Green Revolution--And How it can Renew America},
	Year = {2008}
}

Winning Our Energy Independence: An Energy Insider Shows How by S. David Freeman is an excellent book by an expert. It is an apolitical pragmatic argument for how and why the USA should change our energy use from fossil fuels to renewables. Freeman spent decades rescuing power companies and improving their efficiency. If the guy called in to save failing power companies says making them greener saves them, we should probably listen. Freeman certainly has more accurate and thorough knowledge than the people claiming we can’t afford to move to renewable energy. He provides a good critique of the distorted system that has led to current inefficiencies.

… efficiency and renewables are cheaper even on the misleading pricing system we use. If we consider–and we must–the health costs of air pollution, the proliferation and radiation risks of nuclear, and the health and global warming costs of coal, it is a no-brainer.

Now that sustainable energy is economical–but still little used–Freeman proposes using subsidies to jump-start their implementation. He proposes a workable solution that will make the world a better place as well as saving money over the long term. I agree with Freeman’s assessment of the situation and the end results of his proposed solution. I don’t like all the details of his proposed solution, but it is probably more likely to happen than my preferred answer of removing the existing subsides to dirty power. The existing subsidies probably won’t be removed, so this is a more pragmatic, less idealistic solution.

In addition to the solution provided, I like that Freeman provides some numbers to go with statements I have heard from other sources. For example, an interisting statistic that I hadn’t seen anyone put a number with is that compared to the average car, a plug-in hybrid emits 1/4 the CO2. And that is when powered by coal generated electricity. The number goes down with cleaner power plants. This is in addition to the gasoline saved, “If everyone drove an HEV 60, it would cut gasoline consumption by over 70 percent.”

This is an excellent book that debunks all the arguments against moving to sustainable energy. I wonder if Freeman puts too much emphasis on hydrogen for storage, but over all his solution is reasonable. I spent far more time searching for original sources and checking his math than I did reading the book. If I hadn’t, this would have been a quick read. I would have preferred better footnotes, but the format used is appropriate for the intended audience. Winning Our Energy Independence makes my short list of books that everyone should read. As Freeman says, “There can be no more urgent task for humanity than to find, as rapidly as possible, alternatives to burning the limited fossil fuels on Earth.” I hope it is effective enough that I am able to move it from this list to a list of books that are interesting for their historic impact.

BibTeX reference:

@book{
	freeman,
	Author = {S. David Freeman},
	Edition = {First},
	Publisher = {Gibbs Smith},
	Title = {Winning our energy independence: an energy insider shows how},
	Year = {2007}
}

In chapter one, Lomborg lists four points:

1. “Global warming is real and man-made.” Very few people argue this point anymore.
2. “Statements about the strong, ominous, and immediate consequences of global warming are often wildly exaggerated . . .” This is very dependent on one’s source of information. News stories about any scientific paper often are not related to what the paper actually says. Reliable sources don’t have this problem. Lomborg seems to assume that almost any negative consequences of global warming are exaggerated.
3. “We need simpler, smarter, and more efficient solutions for global warming . . .” Of course. But Lomborg makes the mistakes of assuming current solutions are complicated, stupid, and not efficient. He then argues that since we don’t have a perfect, complete, and free solution, we shouldn’t try any solution.
4. “Many other issues are much more important than global warming.” Sure, there are other important issues. Lomborg tries to use this to bump AGW to such a low priority that it should be ignored. This only looking at one problem idea is silly.

Lomborg over-simplifies everything to economics. He assumes that the environment will adapt quickly enough that the direct effects of warming are the only ones worth considering.

He assumes that cutting emissions is expensive. There are expensive ways to cut emissions. Lomborg ignores the free and profitable ways to decrease pollution. He assumes that if something saves money, it would already be in use. This is frequently not the case. I have plenty of examples of bad solutions being used because someone didn’t bother checking for a better option. Lomborg tries to address this argument “Why . . . would you not have done so if it really already was on your own interest to do so.” He ignores the obvious laziness and ‘this is how we have always done it’ that often prevent good solutions from being implemented.

Lomborg looks at several problems caused by global warming. He mentions several engineering solutions. He then compares the cost of each of these solutions to his mysterious cost of reducing CO₂ to avoid that problem. This approach is flawed. Not only does he assume CO₂ reductions are expensive, he individually compares the cost of solutions to the total cost of solving global warming. For this type of comparison to be valid, he would need to compare the total cost of separately solving each of these problems to the cost of solving global warming. Even if he had done this sum, the comparison would still be misleading. This type of sum assumes that his list of problems are the only ones caused by anthropogenic climate change. It also leaves out the possibility of these fixes causing further problems.

Lomborg places a large emphasis on his ‘Copenhagen Consensus.’ This is his prioritized list of problems. He assumes that solutions are expensive and exclusive. He ignores the fact that some solutions can solve multiple problems.

He does, almost accidentally, have some good points. Reducing farm subsidies, at least for poor practices, can help. He conveniently forgets other subsidies that contribute to environmental problems. He says using fewer levies is a good idea. Elsewhere in the book he considers them a cheep solution.

The end notes in this book are very strange. The text itself is like a novel, any you have to guess when to look in the back for references.

Summary: This is an awful book full of cherry picking, silly over-simplifications, and diversion. The obvious holes are so annoying that I couldn’t read more than a small section at a time.

BibTeX reference:

@book{Lomborg:2007,
	Address = {New York},
	Author = {Bjorn Lomborg},
	Publisher = {Alfred A. Knopf},
	Title = {Cool It},
	Year = {2007}
}