A coherent, well-written challenge to the status quo that guides readers who want to stop and reverse the effects of climate...
A wide-ranging indictment of modern society and its lack of sustainability.
In this book on climate change and the future, Boyd (Energy and the Financial System, 2013) draws on philosophers from Plato to Foucault as well as scientific research to indict modern society for its inability to plan for a sustainable future. He also offers suggestions for overcoming inertia, apathy, and active resistance to achieve a world that will survive. In clear, measured language, Boyd contends that one of the primary drivers of civilization’s problems, along with inequality and resistance to change, is shortsightedness, as in the acceptance of post–World War II economic gains: “Many mistook this fleeting phenomenon, created by a certain set of circumstances combined with cheap energy, for a long-term trend.” He goes on to point out this pattern of humanity’s shortsightedness in the context of weather patterns, industrial agriculture, and financial behavior. Boyd faults contemporary societies for failing to take a long-term view of their infrastructures, citing the conversion of working waterfront districts into housing in New York, London, and Toronto as a trend whose consequences will be felt as transportation costs increase. The book devotes a chapter to debunking myths propagated by those who do not see climate change as a dire threat, and he challenges the science behind the international goals for carbon emissions and temperature change in a thoroughly footnoted section. Boyd’s conclusion is summed up in one of his subtitles: “Any Version of ‘Business As Usual’ Is Not Tenable.” Instead, he recommends that readers accept that continuing growth and development are neither possible nor desirable: “Once the necessity for a no-growth/de-growth society is accepted, the ways in which society must change start to become apparent,” with many of those ways involving a shift from globalization to strong connections within local communities. An extensive notes section adds support to Boyd’s persuasive arguments that demonstrate the need for change in order to ensure that humans have a future.
A coherent, well-written challenge to the status quo that guides readers who want to stop and reverse the effects of climate change.Pub Date: March 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4602-5059-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: June 4, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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