The best way to introduce this book is to quote the first sentence of the blurb: “Techno-Fix challenges the pervasive belief that technological innovation will save us from the dire consequences of the 300-year fossil-fuelled binge known as modern industrial civilization“. Stinging, provocative, and radical, Techno-Fix puts its fingers on many a sore spot with its searing critique.
Techno-Fix: Why Technology Won’t Save Us or the Environment, written by Michael Huesemann and Joyce Huesemann, published by New Society Publishers in September 2011 (paperback, 435 pages)
You might ask why, in 2021, I would bother reviewing a book published ten years ago. Both for the prosaic reason that I have had this book for some years without reading it, and because I am working on a little something that I cannot divulge yet. Plus, as it turns out, because this book is still relevant despite having been published in 2011.
The Huesemanns, Michael a biotechnologist with an interest in sustainability, Joyce an academic and activist, pull no punches in Techno-Fix. Our technology has brought us tremendous affluence and a world population growth spurt, but it also has unintended consequences that are both unavoidable and unpredictable. Some examples discussed here are climate change resulting from the generation of energy, the unknown effects of most synthetic chemicals, the pollution accompanying industrial activities, or the way the introduction of the car reshaped the world.
Even more outspoken is their statement that most technology is exploitative, abusing ecosystems, animals, and other humans. The industrial and globalised nature of much technology blunts us to this by creating distance in either space or time between exploiter and exploited. Do you know where your stuff comes from and who made it? Do you have a care for the planet your grandchildren will inherit? With the same fury that would later characterise Abundant Earth, the authors speak of the human domination of nature and the brainwashing by television and other mass media. The frequent references to TV might seem outdated given how online social media has ballooned in the last decade, but it has arguably not changed the beast much. And where free-market trade does not get us the needed resources, “high-tech military technology plays a key role in ensuring the continued exploitation and control of natural resources that are essential to maintaining the materialistic consumer lifestyle” (p. 68). Theirs is a bleak outlook on our modern society indeed.
Surely, new technology can fix the problems old technology created? To the Huesemanns, counter-technologies such as geo-engineering schemes are like handing you another spade as you are digging your own grave—they come with their own unintended consequences. Furthermore, they write, efficiency gains (e.g. dematerialisation) have their limits and are often followed by increased consumption, a phenomenon known as the Jevons paradox. Ironically, despite increased affluence in the developed world, psychological research shows that happiness and well-being have not increased. Instead, we are stuck on a hedonic treadmill, furiously desiring ever more. The profit motive behind most technological developments results in solutions that benefit corporations and their shareholders, not the public at large.
Since these drawbacks are known, why does the belief in technological progress persist? The authors draw parallels between religious faith and techno-optimism, with the latter rising as the former waned. Furthermore, seemingly objective practices such as risk assessments and cost-benefit analyses are skewed towards continued technological development, downplaying or neglecting externalized costs. Finally, they take serious issue with the uncritical acceptance of new technologies due to the widespread belief that progress is inevitable and that technology is value-neutral, i.e. just a tool that can be used for good or evil.
Up to this point, much of what they write resonates with me, but I found their proposed solutions a mixed bag, strongly disagreeing with some of it. Since we cannot hex our way out of our problems with more technology, we need, I agree, a paradigm shift. They draw an interesting parallel with Kuhn’s book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Just as scientific dogmas disappear not because minds are changed but because the old guard dies, future generations will change the way we live. Current generations will, by and large, be too set in their ways, too unwilling to give up their affluence. Plus, expect pushback from industries and corporations that stand to lose the most.
I think it should be stressed at this point that the Huesemanns are not technophobes advocating a return to the caves (although some of what they say is not far off). Technology has a role to play if it is employed more responsibly. To avoid stepping off the Seneca Cliff into wholesale collapse, they envision a transition to a steady-state economy that acknowledges planetary boundaries (some Planetary Accounting might help) and practises long-term sustainability.
The latter would require three things. First, 100% renewable energy generation. This, they admit, brings its own share of problems, one of which they remarkably do not even mention: the need for a vast infrastructure constructed from non-renewable materials. Speaking of which, second, we need to use renewable resources exclusively and phase out non-renewable resources, or fully recycle them where this is not possible. Other than the difficulties—if not impossibility—of finding replacements for most non-renewable resources (including basic ones such as all metals), they pass over the fact that materials cannot be endlessly recycled, requiring a constant input of virgin material. Third, waste can only be discharged at rates than can be assimilated by ecosystems, and those that cannot be biodegraded (read: most synthetic chemicals) should be discontinued. They acknowledge that, clearly, this would require a sea change in our attitudes: a society that embraces self-limitation rather than unfettered abundance. All of this is necessary, I agree, but it also seems almost unimaginable. If the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed one thing, it is how willingly people will relinquish liberties and accept restrictions imposed upon them.
There were a further three issues raised here that I mildly to strongly disagree with. First, they are justifiedly very critical of the corruption of medicine by the so-called medico-industrial complex, specifically pharmaceutical companies. Rather, we should focus on prevention and lifestyle changes (sure), accept the inevitability of death (agreed), and embrace holistic medicine (hmmm). Once they start talking of the power of placebo effects and the body’s innate ability to heal itself I become a bit uneasy. There is a kernel of truth in there but, in my opinion, you are at the top of the slide that reads “pseudoscience this way”. Second, they appear to contradict themselves by stressing the importance of efficiency in saving precious resources but also wanting things to go small-scale and local again, holding up organic agriculture as a shining example (something of which I am sceptical). You cannot have it both ways, we scale up production processes for more than just profitability. Third, they surprisingly really have it in for genetic engineering. Other than completely ignoring the pervasiveness of horizontal gene transfer (one could say nature invented genetic modification billions of years before we did), they are unwilling to acknowledge it will be one of the necessary tools to keep feeding the world, deal with the impact of climate change on crops, or that we can take the best of both approaches.
The Huesemanns acknowledge human overpopulation at several points: “More people generally translate into more problems” (p. 44) and unless “the size of the human population [is] stabilized and reduced, and the materialistic consumer lifestyle largely abandoned, there is little chance that our environmental problems will be solved” (p. 83). This is more than most authors do. Shame, then, that they do not dedicate a chapter to the thorny questions of whether we should control world population, what population size is optimal for the planet, and how many children to have (if any).
Instead, their last chapter felt to me like barking up the wrong tree. It calls for “critical science” (sensu Ravetz), which would stand in opposition to current scientific practice. Scientists need to take responsibility for their work, refuse dubious research financed by corporations, and abandon the excuse that they are not responsible for the end-uses. These are some really good points, but to put the onus almost completely on scientists struck me as, frankly, ridiculous. Some of their claims here really irked me. People choose this profession because of the relatively good income? Or the claim on page 329 that scientists and engineers do not really mind that problems are not solved as it guarantees their long-term employment? I normally hear a related version of that argument from climate-change deniers. I do not know what planet the authors live on, but my personal experience in academia showed me a world where you routinely work 60 to 80 hours a week on grant money or (if you are really lucky) a 40-hour contract while chasing short-term projects (known as PhD and postdoc positions) well into your forties before having a shot at a permanent position. When conditions are this exploitative it is no wonder many choose the job security and decent income offered by companies. If you want to keep scientists out of the clutches of well-paid corporate jobs and have them act as whistle-blowers you will have to properly reward and protect them, something only briefly acknowledged here.
In light of my criticism, would I recommend Techno-Fix? Yes, there is much I thoroughly agree with here. I applaud the authors for tabling controversial ideas and challenging readers with probing questions and assignments in an appendix. Furthermore, the book is thoroughly researched and annotated, very readable (including regular, useful summaries), and still relevant.
Other recommended books mentioned in this review:
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]]>“There is a vast, arterial power humming all around us, hiding in plain sight” (p. 320). With these words, geographer Laurence C. Smith concludes his engaging and impressive book on the environmental history of rivers. Touching on a multitude of topics, some of which I did not even know I cared about, I found my jaw dropping more than once.
Rivers of Power: How a Natural Force Raised Kingdoms, Destroyed Civilizations, and Shapes Our World, written by Laurence C. Smith, published in Europe by Allen Lane in April 2020 (hardback, 364 pages)
For a big book on the environmental history of rivers, you expect some classical history, Brian-Fagan style. Rivers of Power does not disappoint and dishes out fascinating introductions to the ancient Harappan civilization in South Asia who mastered municipal plumbing two millennia before the ancient Romans, the early Mesopotamian cities that sprang up around the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, and the importance to ancient Egypt of the Nile and its annual flooding.
But Smith ranges far wider—take his sections on more recent historical events that revolve around rivers. One of the decisive battles of the American Revolution was Washington’s nighttime crossing of the Delaware River which helped America win its war for independence with Britain. Or the sordid history of Britain’s opium wars in China, which relied heavily on shipping traffic up the Yangtze River and the opening of so-called treaty ports to force China to accept the importation of opium in exchange for goods the English wanted. These are both examples of historical episodes I knew little about, but for which Smith here provides context and background in a pleasingly compact manner.
Rivers can also influence human affairs in more roundabout ways and Rivers of Power includes some remarkable examples. The disastrous 1889 Johnstown flood changed the face of US law forever. When a neglected dam belonging to a gentlemen’s country club burst, it wiped this Pennsylvanian settlement off the map. When neither the club nor its millionaire members could be held responsible for the death and destruction caused by their negligence, the ensuing national uproar led to the introduction of strict liability laws, creating a culture of litigation that persists to this day. Similarly, Smith argues that the 1927 Mississippi flood changed the face of US politics for good. Herbert Hoover cleverly used the disaster for self-promotion, contributing to his victory in the next presidential election. But when he never made good on his promises to provide black sharecroppers with mortgage payments for land resettlement, it spelt the end of African American support for the Republican Party.
Smith possesses some serious writing chops and has contributed pieces to the Financial Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and other major outlets. My jaw dropped more than once. The identity of the young German boy that historians now believe was saved from drowning and grew up to be an influential statesman? That reveal hit me like a bombshell. Some of the details of the aftermath of the Johnstown flood make for chilling reading. And the interview with a veteran of the Vietnam war, a war largely fought from riverboats in the Mekong delta, was particularly gripping.
And what of the topics I would otherwise snooze through? Normally, my eyes are likely to glaze over when you say “transboundary river treaty” or “mega-dam geopolitics”. Instead, I found myself reading with great interest about Laos’s unilateral decision to build dams in the Mekong River, or the current construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam in one of the Nile’s two main tributaries and the political upset this is causing in Egypt. Smith also makes clear the immense scale at which we are now modifying landscapes. No longer content with simply building dams and canals, China, India, and several African countries are in the process of rerouting whole drainage basins in megaprojects known as interbasin transfers. Rivers of Power will teach you as much about historical events as it does about current affairs.
The above is but a sampling of the numerous interesting stories and studies that Smith covers here. In a book that wanders this widely, there will inevitably be sections that are of less interest. For me, it was the last chapter on riverfront redevelopment projects. Instead, I wanted to read more about Smith’s own hydrological research. For example, I was surprised at how brief his mention of the upcoming SWOT satellite mission was, given that he has been involved in conceiving and planning it for nearly two decades. Short for Surface Water and Ocean Topography, it will map the whole of the Earth’s surface waters in 3D. At the same time, it is testimony to the huge amount of research that Smith has put into this book that he is not choosing the easy option of writing mostly about the topics he knows intimately.
Despite the chapters appearing long at the outset, they have been divided into shorter subheaded sections, so I never found the book wearing on me. Although no references or annotations are given in the text, the reference section at the back is organised according to the same subheaded structure, so finding sources and more information is fairly painless.
If I have to gripe about something, I feel that Smith is sometimes a bit too neutral in his reporting. Riverfront redevelopment is all fine and dandy but is a luxury for nations that have off-shored their heavy industry. Or take Egypt, which has single-handedly commandeered most of the Nile’s water discharge through the 1959 Nile Waters Agreement: “A new international agreement […] is badly needed. Yet any reduction in the total volume of water flowing downstream is potentially devastating for Egypt” (p. 155). To call Egypt not acknowledging upstream nations a “glaring omission” as Smith does here is putting it mildly, it strikes me as a scandalous example of overreach by a single nation.
Furthermore, a chapter dedicated to the effects of climate change on rivers would have been prudent—coverage of it is now scattered over different chapters. There is, for example, the shocking fact that half of the world’s glacier-fed rivers are past peak water (this refers to the highest discharge rate from glacier melt). Or the increased likelihood of more extreme floods thanks to the Clausius–Clapeyron relation (warm water holds more water vapour and will result in more rainfall—in effect increased temperatures accelerate the evaporation–precipitation cycle).
But these are minor complaints. Overall, Rivers of Power is bristling with fascinating and skilfully told riverine topics. Though meandering widely, it remains captivating throughout thanks to Smith’s excellent writing.
Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however.
Other recommended books mentioned in this review:
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]]>“The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Conflicting Visions of the Future of our Planet“, written by Charles C. Mann, published by Picador in June 2018 (hardback, 618 pages)
Mann has written a big, chunky book that is a biography of these two men. By scouring archives of correspondence and written material left by both men, and through interviews with people who knew them, he gives a detailed and deeply researched picture of their lives and careers, and how these came to shape the way they think.
Both men saw the same problems facing the world in the 1930s and 40s, but championed opposite solutions. William Vogt, the titular prophet, saw doom and gloom in our future if we didn’t rapidly curb consumption and population growth. His 1948 book The Road to Survival laid the blueprint for the familiar brand of apocalyptic environmentalism that was later espoused by Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb and the Club of Rome’s The Limits to Growth (Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update is a relevant sequel to that work), and he is the godfather of the idea of sustainable development. Norman Borlaug, the titular wizard, meanwhile saw opportunities and was a fierce believer in the power of science and technology to make a difference. His work to improve wheat varieties through systematic cross-breeding and careful use of agronomic techniques launched the green revolution that greatly increased global wheat harvests and staved off famine. Though both men are no longer alive, their legacy lives on, and their disciples still argue amongst each other, perhaps more bitterly than ever.
Next to a dual biography, Mann also spends a significant part of The Wizard and the Prophet looking at four great environmental challenges, asking how Vogtians and Borlaugians have dealt with them, or propose to do so. There is food, where the two views clash in organic agriculture vs. biotechnology such as GMOs. There is freshwater, where low-tech solutions such as reducing water consumption, recycling rainwater, and drip irrigation are pitched against high-tech solutions such as large-scale desalination plants, dams, and pipelines. There is energy, where renewables such as solar and wind energy face off against nuclear and fossil fuels (though interestingly, there is also a conflict between small, distributed forms of solar and wind power versus large centralised wind and solar farms). And then there is climate change, where Vogtians champion renewables to stabilise carbon dioxide levels, and the planting of forests to reduce it, while Borlaugians champion high-tech solutions to combat it, such as carbon capture and storage (CCS) and geoengineering (see Morton’s The Planet Remade: How Geoengineering Could Change the World for a readable introduction).
So, Vogtian or Borlaugian, prophet or wizard, which are you? The answer is likely to be a bit of both. As Mann also points out, these two men represent ends of a continuous scale. Personally, for example, I am sceptical of some of the claims put forth by the organic agriculture movement and am an unabashed cheerleader of genetic modification. I intend to read Conventional and Organic Farming: A Comprehensive Review through the Lens of Agricultural Science to back myself up with more data, Tomorrow’s Table: Organic Farming, Genetics, and the Future of Food offers a rapprochement of sorts, while my review of Seeds of Science: Why We Got It So Wrong on GMOs pretty much sums up my views on that topic. But where climate change is concerned, geoengineering sounds like a bridge too far to me.
But I feel we are missing part of the picture here. And so does Mann. What of the mother-of-all-problems: overpopulation? Vogt had outspoken views on fertility reduction and birth control but Borlaug remained mute on the topic if I am to believe Mann. There is a third school of thought, a more misanthropic and nihilistic view that is common amongst biologists and that I strongly sympathise with. Mann speaks to that charming rebel Lynn Margulis, who plainly says that humans are destined to wipe themselves out, as all successful species must, Vogtian or Borlaugian fixes notwithstanding. Until we learn to control our population numbers, she likens us to bacteria in a petri-dish, our biology urging us to procreate until we have used up all available resources.
The idea of the world being one of finite resources seems utterly logical to me. Forget peak oil, how about peak everything? I have found Bardi’s Extracted: How the Quest for Mineral Wealth is Plundering the Planet and Abraham’s The Elements of Power enlightening in that respect. Here Mann disappoints me, the only point in the book where he does, as he struggles to understand this. It is easy to comprehend Dennis Meadow’s exasperation on page 405 at Mann’s suggestion that rich nations could somehow buy their way out of such problems. Similarly, his assertions on page 404 that population growth in developed countries has not always been accompanied by eco-catastrophe completely overlooks the central thesis that Bowyer made in The Irresponsible Pursuit of Paradise: namely that we have merely shifted the burden of resource extraction to developing countries.
With The Wizard and the Prophet, Mann has really gone to town, combining a deeply-researched biography of two influential figures with how their intellectual legacy is being applied today. The book sprawls richly, occasionally meandering into obscure details, but never losing sight of the driving narrative. Mann has unearthed some remarkable period photographs to illustrate the book with, although a timeline is unfortunately lacking.
Can we yield the best of both Vogt and Borlaug’s thinking, while controlling and ultimately reducing our population numbers? If you came here looking for salvation, this is not the book for you. Mann has purposefully not made this book a blueprint for tomorrow. If, however, you want to understand how and why today’s discussions around environmental problems and the future of humanity are shaped the way they are, this book is a must-read.
Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however.
The Wizard and the Prophet paperback
, hardback, ebook or audio CD
Other recommended books mentioned in this review:
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