Despite some quotidian impracticalities, this is sage advice for reducing plastic consumption, a necessity for our survival.
A comprehensive guidebook to anti-plastic activism.
Haunted by the deluge of plastic waste clogging up our ecosystems and killing wildlife, Australian activist Prince-Ruiz took action to stem the rising tide of plastic threatening the health of the planet. As she writes in a book co-authored by Finn, her formative, “penny-drop moment” came in 2011 when she toured a recycling facility and was struck by the sheer amount of waste that overwhelmed the workers. “The heart of the problem is how much we consume,” writes Prince-Ruiz, “and we can’t recycle our way out of it.” Since then, her personal journey through waste and recycling has become a global effort called the Plastic Free July movement, which involves more than 250 million people in 177 countries. The first third of the book is about the author’s unsurprisingly difficult personal task of eradicating all use of plastics for a month and how this gradually snowballed into a worldwide conservationist phenomenon. But Prince-Ruiz also delves into broader issues of eco-sustainability and unpacks our “throwaway society,” epitomized by single-use plastics. As in many books focused on environmental issues, the statistics are staggering, and this one is no different: “Since mass plastic production began just 60 years ago,” writes the author, “8.3 billion metric tonnes of plastic has been produced….As of 2015 around 9 per cent had been recycled, 12 per cent incinerated, and 79 per cent accumulated in landfills or the natural environment.” Of course, the author’s highly organized and meticulous campaign against plastics isn’t for everyone. For example, not all readers can commit to making their own soda crackers from scratch (to avoid using plastic wrap)—though it’s not that difficult to switch to a bamboo toothbrush or pick up your dog’s waste with toilet paper. To her credit, Prince-Ruiz never gets preachy or shrill in this passionate call to action.
Despite some quotidian impracticalities, this is sage advice for reducing plastic consumption, a necessity for our survival.Pub Date: Dec. 8, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-231-19862-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Columbia Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.
A warts-and-all portrait of the famed techno-entrepreneur—and the warts are nearly beyond counting.
To call Elon Musk (b. 1971) “mercurial” is to undervalue the term; to call him a genius is incorrect. Instead, Musk has a gift for leveraging the genius of others in order to make things work. When they don’t, writes eminent biographer Isaacson, it’s because the notoriously headstrong Musk is so sure of himself that he charges ahead against the advice of others: “He does not like to share power.” In this sharp-edged biography, the author likens Musk to an earlier biographical subject, Steve Jobs. Given Musk’s recent political turn, born of the me-first libertarianism of the very rich, however, Henry Ford also comes to mind. What emerges clearly is that Musk, who may or may not have Asperger’s syndrome (“Empathy did not come naturally”), has nurtured several obsessions for years, apart from a passion for the letter X as both a brand and personal name. He firmly believes that “all requirements should be treated as recommendations”; that it is his destiny to make humankind a multi-planetary civilization through innovations in space travel; that government is generally an impediment and that “the thought police are gaining power”; and that “a maniacal sense of urgency” should guide his businesses. That need for speed has led to undeniable successes in beating schedules and competitors, but it has also wrought disaster: One of the most telling anecdotes in the book concerns Musk’s “demon mode” order to relocate thousands of Twitter servers from Sacramento to Portland at breakneck speed, which trashed big parts of the system for months. To judge by Isaacson’s account, that may have been by design, for Musk’s idea of creative destruction seems to mean mostly chaos.
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781982181284
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
The book is not entirely negative; final chapters indicate roads of reversal, before it is too late!
It should come as no surprise that the gifted author of The Sea Around Usand its successors can take another branch of science—that phase of biology indicated by the term ecology—and bring it so sharply into focus that any intelligent layman can understand what she is talking about.
Understand, yes, and shudder, for she has drawn a living portrait of what is happening to this balance nature has decreed in the science of life—and what man is doing (and has done) to destroy it and create a science of death. Death to our birds, to fish, to wild creatures of the woods—and, to a degree as yet undetermined, to man himself. World War II hastened the program by releasing lethal chemicals for destruction of insects that threatened man’s health and comfort, vegetation that needed quick disposal. The war against insects had been under way before, but the methods were relatively harmless to other than the insects under attack; the products non-chemical, sometimes even introduction of other insects, enemies of the ones under attack. But with chemicals—increasingly stronger, more potent, more varied, more dangerous—new chain reactions have set in. And ironically, the insects are winning the war, setting up immunities, and re-emerging, their natural enemies destroyed. The peril does not stop here. Waters, even to the underground water tables, are contaminated; soils are poisoned. The birds consume the poisons in their insect and earthworm diet; the cattle, in their fodder; the fish, in the waters and the food those waters provide. And humans? They drink the milk, eat the vegetables, the fish, the poultry. There is enough evidence to point to the far-reaching effects; but this is only the beginning,—in cancer, in liver disorders, in radiation perils…This is the horrifying story. It needed to be told—and by a scientist with a rare gift of communication and an overwhelming sense of responsibility. Already the articles taken from the book for publication in The New Yorkerare being widely discussed. Book-of-the-Month distribution in October will spread the message yet more widely.
The book is not entirely negative; final chapters indicate roads of reversal, before it is too late!Pub Date: Sept. 27, 1962
ISBN: 061825305X
Page Count: 378
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1962
APPRECIATIONS
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
