When it comes to environmental issues, certain topics steal the limelight, with climate change, deforestation, and biodiversity loss being prominent examples. However, humans have only so much time and energy available, meaning that other, potentially more pressing problems might not get the attention they deserve. Resource depletion, specifically all the materials we dig up from the Earth’s crust, has always struck me as one of them. It is easy to underestimate just how thoroughly dependent modern civilization is on a vast range of very basic substances. As we continue to extract these at ever-accelerating rates, competition and conflict seem inevitable. Guessing by the title of this book, Australian business journalist Geoff Hiscock seems to think so too. Yet this book was not quite what I was expecting.

Earth Wars: The Battle for Global Resources, written by Geoff Hiscock, published by John Wiley & Sons in April 2012 (hardback, 286 pages)

Hiscock’s main goal with Earth Wars is to introduce the major economies (especially China and India) that are consuming Earth’s resources and the kinds of resources they are competing for. Given that this book was published in 2012, it is inevitable that some information here is outdated, although the larger theme of future resource conflict holds up. Two factors, in particular, have given this book a somewhat limited shelf life.

First is Hiscock’s choice to give a snapshot of the state of play at the start of 2012. After having introduced the major movers and shakers (the trading, mining, and energy companies), a large part of the book consists of chapters discussing both resources and capacities. The former covers primarily fresh water, fossil fuels (oil, gas, and coal), uranium, and metals such as copper and iron ore, both how much is being consumed and how much is still in the ground. The latter gives an overview of the sizes and output of mines, oil and gas fields, refineries, power stations, and assorted renewable energy infrastructures. The book goes into great detail which companies have stakes and investments in what and for how much, and which countries are expected to become important resource suppliers and see strong economic growth. By now, of course, this snapshot of the global economy has become dated, but as a historical overview of where we were at the time of publication that is fine.

“Given that this book was published in 2012 [Hiscock’s] snapshot of the global economy has become dated, but as a historical overview of where we were at the time of publication that is fine.”

A second aspect of this book that has aged less well is Hiscock’s mention of the numerous forecasts, outlooks, predictions, and plans of all these companies and countries. Following up on each statement would be tantamount to rewriting this book, but when out of curiosity I did some spot checks it was clear that things have not always panned out as expected. For example, the Ok Tedi copper mine in Papua New Guinea, subject of a 1996 environmental damage lawsuit, did not close in 2013 as expected, while the plans to turn the Australian Olympic Dam mine into the world’s largest open-pit mine were shelved by the time this book was published. Other things came to pass, but not quite as expected. The Brazilian Belo Monte dam was completed in 2019 rather than 2015, but already seems to be running into trouble, while the repeatedly-mentioned planned merger between global commodities trader Glencore and mining company Xstrata turned into a takeover. Of course, I do not expect Hiscock to have a crystal ball, but readers will have to keep this in mind.

Every reader comes to a book with certain expectations of what will be discussed. These not being met does not necessarily mean the book should be judged negatively. With that caveat in mind, I was nevertheless surprised that Hiscock fails to engage with the impossibility of endless growth on a finite resource base, all the more so as he is aware of it. The publisher’s blurb mentions the “ongoing scramble for finite natural resources“, chapter 1 opens with the acknowledgement that “the pressure on the planet’s finite resources is rising rapidly” (p. 1). Even the concept of the Great Acceleration is not new to him, as evidenced when he quotes Rio Tinto chief executive Tom Albanese, speaking in 2011: “Over the next 30 years it is projected that the world will consume as much copper as it has over the last 10,000 years” (p. 139). Regarding iron ore mining in Australia Hiscock estimates that “By 2020, mining in the Pilbara could reach 1 billion tonne a year, meaning that without further resource discoveries, the ore could be gone within 30 years” (p. 162). Does this not set any alarm bells ringing?

“I was […] surprised that Hiscock fails to engage with the impossibility of endless growth on a finite resource base, all the more so as he is aware of it.”

The book’s title suggests that the likely outcome is (violent) conflict. And though Hiscock highlights hotspots, he does not really explore this theme. Nor does he ever question any of the industry executives or business leaders he had access to while writing this book. What will they do when the resource party fizzles out? Is it even ethical or desirable to turn the planet inside out to get at the last resources? I feel this is a missed opportunity, especially from a journalist with access to some very elite business circles. I will have to dust off my copies of Bardi’s Extracted and Klare’s The Race for What’s Left for a future review.

As Eileen Crist highlighted in Abundant Earth (I keep coming back to this book), the language people employ is very revealing. Earth Wars describes our planet as an endless portfolio of assets to be acquired, of reserves to be brought on stream, of blocks to be developed. And I get the uncomfortable feeling that when Hiscock speaks of Earth Wars, he is not talking about the actual warfare in our future, but of the competition between businesses. Like a game show host, he writes of Russia that if it can get its act together and overcome the many challenges ahead “it will be a genuine Earth Wars winner“. And a bit further on: “If the Earth Wars were a sporting contest, here’s how the half-time score might stand at the beginning of 2012 […]” (p. 261).

Beg your pardon?

This is not a lazy Sunday afternoon game of football where afterwards we all get to pat each other on the back for a match well played and go home for supper! It is hard not to come away with the impression that these business sectors are run by people with some serious tunnel vision.

“I get the uncomfortable feeling that when Hiscock speaks of Earth Wars, he is not talking about the actual warfare in our future […] Like a game show host, he writes of Russia that if it can get its act together […] “it will be a genuine Earth Wars winner“”

Putting these ideological differences aside for a moment, there were some interesting bits I did take away from this book. The book drives home the point how interconnected these industries are with pretty much everyone having fingers in each other’s pies. Hiscock also lifts a corner of the veil on the little-known business sector of global commodity traders that aim “to keep the lowest possible profile” (p. 39) – the upcoming The World for Sale promises to rip the veil off this completely. And though sand does not feature here, he does briefly mention the importance of rare earth elements that “one day may prove the biggest mining bonanza of them all” (p. 2). I discuss these more in-depth in reviews of The Elements of Power and The Rare Metals War.

For readers interested in the economics of natural resources, Earth Wars provides an in-depth snapshot. By its very nature, this picture is now dated, and not all material here has aged well. The title personally led me to expect a different take on the topic than the one Hiscock delivers here, so I will be turning to below books to explore this topic further.

Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however.

Earth Wars

Other recommended books mentioned in this review:

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

Something happened to the world sometime after 1945. Something that included the end of World War II and post-war recovery, but was far more fundamental than that.

Humanity went into overdrive.

In my reading on the Anthropocene, this book and this phrase keep cropping up. The Great Acceleration gives a bird’s-eye view of the environmental history of our world since the 1950s. A period when multiple factors—technological, medical, and demographical—converged to propel the human species onto a trajectory of unprecedented growth.

The Great Acceleration: An Environmental History of the Anthropocene Since 1945, written by John R. McNeill and Peter Engelke, published by Belknap Press (a Harvard University Press imprint) in April 2016 (paperback, 275 pages)

Let me begin with two pieces of background information to set the scene. First, this book. It was originally published in 2014 as chapter 3 of the book Global Interdependence. This, in turn, is the sixth volume of Harvard University Press’s ambitious book series A History of the World which is almost complete (only the second volume remains in preparation as of this moment). At well over 1,000 pages per volume, these books are no lightweights and notable contributions have been reissued in paperback, as happened for this book in 2016.

Second, the term “Anthropocene”. Coined in the year 2000 by Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer, it describes the most recent period in human history in which our activities, and especially their unintended consequences, have started significantly impacting, even overwhelming, Earth’s natural biogeochemical cycles. I have previously reviewed The Anthropocene as a Geological Time Unit which makes the geological case for this term (McNeill contributed to this book). The Great Acceleration draws on environmental history to make the case that the Anthropocene started around the 1950s. In four large chapters, the authors touch on a range of topics to show how this has been “the most anomalous and unrepresentative period in [our] 200,000-year-long history” (p. 5).

“The Great Acceleration gives a bird’s-eye view of the environmental history of our world since the 1950s. […] “certainly the most anomalous and unrepresentative period in [our] 200,000-year-long history“”

First they turn to two of the biggest drivers of the many Anthropocene signatures: energy and population. Fossil fuels unlocked plentiful energy, with the coal-driven Industrial Revolution just a warm-up exercise. In the decades after World War II, several factors converged (the rise of consumer culture, the desire for affluence going global, oil overtaking coal) to explode energy consumption. Of all the quoted numbers I will just mention one: “our species has probably used more energy since 1920 than in all of our prior human history” (p. 9). Cheap energy expanded the scope of what was economically rewarding, bringing into existence new energy-intensive activities, e.g. the Haber–Bosch process to produce artificial fertiliser. Another contributing factor was, of course, population growth, with our numbers more than tripling from 2.3 to 7.2 billion between 1945 and 2015. Of note, though, is McNeill and Engelke’s nuanced attitude on this topic. Through a range of examples they show that the axiom of modern environmentalism, that more people means more environmental damage, “is not true always and everywhere. When and where it is true, the degree to which it is true is extremely variable” (p. 50). That said, our hunger for energy causes environmental problems at every step: during extraction (mining and drilling), refinement, transportation (particularly oil spills), and burning (air pollution).

Closest to home for me was the second chapter which covered climate and biodiversity. Some of the topics discussed here are the rise in atmospheric CO₂, the history of climate science, and its entry into the political arena. But also biodiversity loss, global deforestation, and overfishing. When you plot these in graphs, many of them, though not deforestation, show a clear upward inflection point around the 1950s.

“”The entire life experience of almost everyone now living has taken place within the eccentric historical moment of the Great Acceleration“. […] We take this to be the new normal, but this “brief blip in human history” cannot last.”

Less familiar ground for me was the chapter covering cities and the economy. This discusses urbanisation and its discontents (poverty and slums, and the effect of the car on suburbs) and experiments with green(er) cities. Economic growth was enabled by, again, abundant energy, population growth (more people means more economic activity), and technological inventions. Two particularly influential inventions are highlighted here. First, the humble shipping container that, since its invention in 1956, “did more to promote international trade than all free trade agreements put together” (p. 136). Second, the explosion around WWII in mass production of many new variants of that miracle material: plastic; though that love affair quickly soured when we discovered most of it ends up in the ocean. McNeill and Engelke furthermore consider both global economic patterns (former colonies and socialist countries being brought into the capitalist fold) and regional economic shifts in Asia and Russia, plus the dissenting views of ecological economics and sustainable development that have nevertheless not been able to stem economic growth.

The most interesting chapter for me was the last one on the Cold War and the rise of environmentalism. Noteworthy highlights here are the environmental cost of nuclear weapons production and testing, and how it spawned much of the environmental movement. The insanity of China’s Great Leap Forward that, through failed grain production and Mao Zedong’s fetish for steel production, took a staggering toll on both humans and the environment. Or the environmental legacy of the Cold War in Southern Africa and Vietnam—we all know Agent Orange, but look up Rome plows. When McNeill and Engelke chart the rise of the environmental movement, they look well beyond the cliché of young hippies and the idea that only wealthy Westerners, no longer worried about meeting their basic needs, have environmental concerns. Environmentalism became wedded to social justice movements for many of the world’s poor who found themselves at the receiving end of what Rob Nixon has called the “slow violence” of pollution and climate change. And it became wedded to political dissent in socialist Russia and China where environmentalism was long suppressed.

“”to date, the Anthropocene and the Great Acceleration coincide. But they will not for long” […]. Their disentangling heralds a new transition […] for which we are woefully unprepared.”

The most frightening and simultaneously eye-opening insight this book offers is that of shifting baselines: “Only one in twelve persons now alive can remember anything before 1945. The entire life experience of almost everyone now living has taken place within the eccentric historical moment of the Great Acceleration” (p. 5). We take this to be the new normal, but this “brief blip in human history” cannot last. The authors remain agnostic on whether the future holds sustainability or collapse, whether our environmental legacy will haunt us for generations to come or outlive us. However, “to date, the Anthropocene and the Great Acceleration coincide. But they will not for long” (p. 208). Their disentangling heralds a new transition, whether to collapse or a steady-state economy, for which we are woefully unprepared.

The range of countries and historical episodes included make The Great Acceleration a deeply informed and refreshingly broad work. If you want to understand how the whole world veered onto a radically new trajectory post-1950s, this compact book is a fascinating and quick read that offers a bird’s-eye view.

Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however.

The Great Acceleration

Other recommended books mentioned in this review:

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

Harvard University Press’s A History of the World series:

__________________________________________________________________

What is the price of humanity’s progress? The cover of this book, featuring a dusty landscape of tree stumps, leaves little to the imagination. In the eyes of French journalist and historian Laurent Testot it has been nothing short of cataclysmic. Originally published in French in 2017, The University of Chicago Press published the English translation at the tail-end of 2020.

Early on, Testot makes clear that environmental history as a discipline can take several forms: studying both the impact of humans on the environment, and of the environment on human affairs, as well as putting nature in a historical context. Testot does all of this in this ambitious book as he charts the exploits of Monkey—his metaphor for humanity—through seven revolutions and three million years.

Cataclysms: An Environmental History of Humanity, written by Laurent Testot, published by The University of Chicago Press in November 2020 (hardback, 452 pages)

To be frank, Testot deals with the first 2,988,000 years in the first two chapters. Understandably, as the pace of progress was initially slow, and comparatively little information is available to us from the palaeontological and archaeological records. Thus, he starts his history proper with the agricultural revolution ~12,000 years ago. Given the synthesizing nature of this book, Cataclysms will be a feast of recognition for readers that are familiar with the literature.

Some examples include the near-simultaneous rise of agriculture in several places, with geography playing an important role in which plants and animals were available to domesticate, or the fall of the Late-Bronze Age civilizations in the 12th century BCE. The myth of virgin rainforests and the long history of agriculture practised in the jungle. The microbiological onslaught that accompanied the Columbian exchange when Christopher Columbus and other explorers brought new epidemics to the Americas, or the scourge of mosquito-borne diseases that later decimated European colonialists overseas. The medieval Little Ice Age and the global crises it precipitated, or the worldwide impact of the Tambora volcanic eruption. The Great Acceleration in the 20th century and the recognition of the Anthropocene. All of these have been chronicled at length in books and other publications.

“Given the synthesizing nature of this book, Cataclysms will be a feast of recognition for readers that are familiar with the literature.”

Testot also mentions episodes that I was barely familiar with; partially, I suspect, because he can draw on the French history literature. For example the eruption of the Samalas volcano that seems to have served as a transition between the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. Or the 15th-century mining for silver in the Andes and the immense pollution that caused. Or the environmental roots of the expression “mad as a hatter” (it involves the 17th-century beaver trade). Cataclysms sometimes seems to forget it is an environmental history book. Thus, the environment takes a backseat when he describes the Axial Age, the period between 800 and 300 BCE that saw the birth of universal religions and philosophies in both Asia and Europe that are still with us today. Similarly, the chapter charting the rise of money, empires, and trade in Europe and Asia before the Common Era only at the very end examines the environmental impact of it all.

The book’s style might divide opinions. Testot throws all his eggs in the proverbial narrative basket. The book is clearly deeply researched, but the notes section at the end encompasses a mere 16 pages. Testot must have decided that supporting every claim and fact with a footnote would have distracted from the story he tells. Although the references contain many interesting books and publications, those wishing to check up on certain claims will have to do their own research. Furthermore, the book is strikingly devoid of photos, maps, graphs, and tables, bar a single chart of the human world population through time in the appendix. As such, I felt Cataclysms did not deliver on the dustjacket’s promise of providing “the full tally” the way e.g. Vaclav Smil did in Harvesting the Biosphere. Those wanting a more data-driven overview will probably want to check out Cataclysms‘s big contender for 2020, Daniel R. Headrick’s Humans versus Nature. I had the chance to rifle through a copy, though not yet read it in full. At 604 pages with a 100-page notes section (and some illustrations), it promises to be a denser read.

“[The book] will undoubtedly charm newcomers to the field with its narrative style and ambitious scope […] but I suspect that seasoned readers will crave something more dense and data-heavy.”

Testot’s outlook for the future is bleak, though his concluding chapter wanders somewhat aimlessly. Rather than offering an overview of which planetary boundaries we have breached and how far in overshoot we are, Testot focuses on what he calls the upcoming Evolutive Revolution before turning to some likely consequences of climate change. This final revolution could either pan out as the pipe-dream of transhumanism where nano-, bio-, and information technologies converge into the singularity that would make humans immortal / obsolete as Artificial Intelligence takes over (something Testot is critical of), or we may end up as mutants in the chemical cesspit that we are making of our planet. Throw in a conclusion and an epilogue to the English edition that both reiterate main points from the book, and it starts to feel a little bit like Tolkien’s struggle to let the reader go in the last book of The Lord of the Rings.

Environmental history has become a rather crowded subject and opinions will probably be divided on whether Cataclysms stands out from the crowd sufficiently. It will undoubtedly charm newcomers to the field with its narrative style and ambitious scope—Testot knows how to spin a fine yarn and provides an entry point to many fascinating chapters in world history that readers will want to explore further. I certainly enjoyed reading it, but I suspect that seasoned readers will crave something more dense and data-heavy.

Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however.

Cataclysms

Other recommended books mentioned in this review:

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

The legendary British broadcaster and natural historian Sir David Attenborough needs almost no introduction. Since his first appearance on our television screens in 1954, he has gone on to a long and distinguished career presenting and narrating groundbreaking nature documentaries. And he shows no sign of slowing down. His voice and style have become so iconic that he has been dubbed the voice of nature. Over the years, he has increasingly expressed concern over the state of the natural world, and in A Life on Our Planet Attenborough fully engages with this topic. However, when you turn to the title page you will notice the name of a co-author, Jonnie Hughes, who directed the Netflix documentary tied in with this book. As Attenborough explains in his acknowledgements, Hughes has been particularly instrumental in the writing of the third part of the book, together with substantial assistance from the Science Team at WWF. This is Attenborough’s witness statement, yes, but whose vision of the future is it?

A Life on Our Planet: My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future, written by Sir David Attenborough with Jonnie Hughes, published by Witness Books (an imprint of Ebury Press) in October 2020 (hardback, 282 pages)

A Life on Our Planet is divided into three parts, the first of which features highlights from Attenborough’s filmmaking career. Interwoven with vignettes that you might recognize from his autobiography are short episodes in the history of life on our planet and the rise of human civilization—this is Attenborough writing at his finest. Overlaid is his increasing concern for the changes he has witnessed. Each chapter heading ominously lists the human world population, the atmospheric carbon level, and the estimated percentage of wilderness remaining in a certain year.

The brief second part, “What Lies Ahead”, serves as a bridge to the third part and introduces several important concepts. One is the Great Acceleration, the period following the 1950s in which our activity and impact on the environment ramped up tremendously. The other is the Planetary Boundaries model drawn up by Johan Rockström and colleagues, which I brought up in my previous review of Planetary Accounting. This Earth systems science framework demarcates a “safe operating space for humanity” by identifying nine planetary processes and systems with their boundary values, several of which we have exceeded with our actions. In just ten pages, the book then looks ahead to some likely environmental tipping points in our near future, such as forest dieback and permafrost melting. I was expecting a longer section along the lines of Lynas’s Our Final Warning and Wallace-Well’s The Uninhabitable Earth, but clearly, this book has no interest in dwelling on the catastrophes ahead.

“Interwoven with autobiographical vignettes are short episodes in the history of life on our planet and the rise of human civilization—this is Attenborough writing at his finest.”

This brings us to the vision for the future, which is where the question of authorship becomes increasingly blurred. At times I was not sure whether I was reading Attenborough’s voice or a WWF policy brief. The book takes the planetary boundaries model with its ecological ceiling and Kate Raworth’s modification known as the Doughnut model, which adds a social foundation to it, i.e. the minimum requirements for human well-being. It then outlines some of the changes required to significantly reduce our impact on the planet, leaning towards “green” and nature-based solutions aimed primarily at restoring biodiversity. The overall tone here is hopeful and the book hits many relevant points, though I have some criticism.

Let’s start with what I appreciated. First, and this feels like Attenborough speaking, it gets its philosophy right, tackling anthropocentrism: “We moved from being a part of nature to being apart from nature […] we need to reverse that transition” (p. 125). It also acknowledges the shifting baseline syndrome in the context of fisheries and beyond: how each generation takes an increasingly impoverished environment as the new normal. Right out of the gate it tackles the need to move beyond the paradigm of perpetual growth and abandon Gross Domestic Product as our prime measure of welfare. Agriculture will have to rely on far less land through solutions that are high-tech (e.g. hydroponic greenhouses run on renewable energy), or low-tech (e.g. a shift away from monocultures to something more approaching functional ecosystems via regenerative farming and the growing of mixed crops). Most important would be a change from a meat- to a plant-based diet. Attenborough again: “When I was young […] meat was a rare treat” (p. 169). We should want less stuff and require our things to be repairable and recyclable, moving ultimately towards a circular economy. This all ties in nicely, although it is not spelt out here, with an ethos of self-limitation that we need to reclaim.

“This brings us to the vision for the future, which is where the question of authorship becomes increasingly blurred. At times I was not sure whether I was reading Attenborough’s voice or a WWF policy brief.”

Carbon capture will have to be achieved not by high-tech solutions, but by both reforestation on land and the farming of kelp forests in the sea (Ruth Kassinger already made the point in Slime that algae might just save the world). Both these solutions will help the massive rewilding efforts this book envisions: Marine Protected Areas will help fish populations to recover, resulting in sustainable fisheries, while on land more habitat will become available for wild animals. And, finally and importantly, the book tackles human population numbers, aiming for the humane solution of stabilising the world population as quickly as possible at 9–11 billion people by lifting people out of poverty and empowering women.

The holistic package proposed here, underpinned with examples of success stories from around the globe, almost makes it sound like we can have it all. Can we? The authors acknowledge that many of these transitions will not come easily and will require everyone to come together and cooperate (in itself a tall order). Where achievability is concerned, the devil is in the details, and I do feel that these are sometimes glossed over and that taboo subjects are avoided.

Take agriculture—there is no mention of the tremendous potential of genetically modified organisms. Similarly unmentioned regarding renewable energy is the concept of energy density and our reliance on increasingly energy-dense fuels as civilization progressed. There is no consideration of the tremendous amount of resources needed to build and maintain the necessary infrastructure. A combined solution of renewable and nuclear energy (admittedly a non-renewable) is considered a no-no. And though a circular economy is a step up from our linear system of produce-use-discard, you cannot endlessly recycle: a constant influx of virgin material is required. Not all metals can be economically recovered, nor all the compound materials we make unmade. Ever tried unfrying an egg? Entropy does not run that way.

“The holistic package proposed here […] almost makes it sound like we can have it all. Can we? […] these transitions will not come easily and […] the devil is in the details.”

The word “overpopulation” is studiously avoided, which is remarkable as Attenborough has been outspoken on the subject elsewhere (see this short explainer or the 2011 RSA President’s Lecture). The closest he gets to it here is when he writes that “we have overrun the Earth” (p. 100). Later, the possibility of a demographic transition to a declining world population is mentioned, but not the suggestion put forward by some that a lower world population of, say, 2–3 billion might be more sustainable. And though Attenborough points out increased longevity as a contributing factor, there is no examination of our relationship with death. Should we really direct all our efforts to maximising life span? At what cost, both environmental and quality-of-life-wise? And, lastly, the now-dominant narrative of female empowerment is only half the story and puts the onus squarely on their shoulders. Making contraception and abortion available to women is needed, but better still would be to prevent pregnancies by starting with male education. Condom, gentlemen?

Admittedly, I am arguing details here. Though they need serious consideration in my opinion, much of what is proposed here is sensible. A Life on Our Planet is very accessible and admirably concise. Its central message, that things cannot continue as they are, stands. If there is anyone who can communicate this to a wide audience, it is Sir David Attenborough. Some of the writing here will stick with you long after you have closed the book: “We often talk of saving the planet, but the truth is that we must do these things to save ourselves.” (p. 218). Here speaks a wise elder who, even at 94, indefatigably defends our environment.

Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however.

A Life on Our Planet

Other recommended books mentioned in this review:

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

Growth as a process is ubiquitous. It is the hallmark of every living organism. It motivates much of what we as humans do, as often unspoken as it is outspoken. It is the narrative lens through which we examine societies and civilizations past and present. And it is the altar at which economists worship. You would think that nobody in their right mind would write a book that tries to encompass all of the above. Leave it to a deep thinker such as Vaclav Smil to prove to you otherwise.

Growth: From Microorganisms to Megacities, written by Vaclav Smil, published by MIT Press in September 2019 (hardback, 659 pages)

Smil, a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Manitoba, has a bit of a reputation. An interview in Science introduced him as “the man who has quietly shaped how the world thinks about energy“, Foreign Policy included him in their Top 100 of Global Thinkers of 2010, and none other than Bill Gates devours his books. He has written about 40 of them – some of which are on my shelf and many more on my wishlist – but I admit with some trepidation that this is my introduction to his work. He has built a research career around energy: how we generate it, how we use it, and how it shapes our civilization. So why a book about growth? Because, as he points out, growth requires the conversion of energy.

By his own admission, a book that aims to cover such a broad topic has to be restricted in both scope and depth. Notably excluded is growth at the subcellular level, including the (epi)genetics and biochemistry of biological growth. But that leaves plenty of other topics. The first chapter introduces the reader to patterns and outcomes of growth without going into the mathematical nitty-gritty. Patterns include linear, exponential, hyperbolic, and (importantly) sigmoid or logistic growth; outcomes include normal and power-law distributions (e.g. Pareto and Zipf). The remainder of the book systematically discusses growth in living organisms, energy converters (i.e. power generators and secondary devices that use electricity), man-made artefacts (e.g. tools, buildings, infrastructure, vehicles, and electronics), and complex systems (populations, cities, empires, economies, and civilizations).

“[…] civilizations have come to rely on ever power-denser fuels, from wood to coal to oil to nuclear”

Before discussing artefacts and complex systems, Smil first gives an in-depth treatment of energy converters as “the history of civilization can be seen as a quest for ever higher reliance on extrasomatic energies“. In particular, civilizations have come to rely on ever power-denser fuels, from wood to coal to oil to nuclear. This is easily the most technical chapter of the book, rich in engineering details on the growth in both capacities and efficiencies of the machines we use to generate energy. It provides a more solid foundation than Rhodes’s book Energy, though it focuses on generation capacities rather than consumption of fuel reserves.

Biologists reading this book might feel a bit short-changed by the chapter on growth in nature. Though Smil covers growth in micro-organisms, trees, animals, and humans, much of what he discusses comes from intensely studied applied fields such as forestry, agriculture, and animal farming. There is less information about wild animals, animal populations, or ecosystems. And allometry – how shapes and proportions change with size – is only briefly mentioned when he discusses metabolic theory and expresses his scepticism of its universal applicability as promoted by e.g. Geoffrey West in his book Scale. For more on this topic see e.g. Wentworth Thompson’s classic On Growth and Form, Animal Body Size, and The Design of Mammals.

Short-changed or not, this chapter serves two important ends. First, to show the many similarities between growth in living and non-living systems. Second, to highlight that few people (especially economists) understand growth and think that anything other than organisms can grow indefinitely. These similarities are not mere curiosities and many systems show logistic growth patterns that result in a characteristic S-shaped curve when plotted. Initial slow growth gives way to rapid growth after which growth slows down and approaches an asymptotic limit. This is as true of the spread of viruses and animal or human body size as it is of the growth over time of the size of building cranes or the maximum velocities of different modes of transportation.

“[…] few people (especially economists) understand growth and think that anything other than organisms can grow indefinitely.”

But logistic growth is not universal and Smil warns of indiscriminate use of such curves to forecast growth. He explicitly bases his cautious conclusions in this book on a meticulous quantification of past observations, rather than making bold predictions. Bigger is not always better (engineers try to minimise the length of tunnels and bridges). Sometimes growth shows no particular trend and periods of stasis are followed by sudden jumps (the size of cathedrals) while civilizations can rise and fall (and rise again). Or growth can be limited by other factors such as cost (the height of skyscrapers). Some of the processes graphed here are caught in an early phase of logistic growth (the volume of internet traffic), while others show the decline that can follow afterwards (the size of the US railroad network). Reconstructing historical growth of cities, empires, and civilizations is particularly tricky. Data is patchy and proxies imperfect. Growth of empires is often measured by territory size, though most areas were only under nominal control – in practice local rulers often continued to be in charge.

I found the section on economic growth particularly revealing. Smil highlights the problems with the commonly used measure of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and alternatives, and provides an eye-opening quantification of the energy and material flows underpinning our economies. Economists tend to either take these for granted or ignore them, but, as Smil has written elsewhere, we are still living in the iron age. The widespread techno-optimism that has come with Moore’s law and the astounding advances in computing power is misplaced and he is critical of dematerialization advocates, pointing out that, in absolute terms, we are only using more of everything.

Growth is a whopper of a book: 659 pages, with a 99-page reference section. And Smil knows it: twice he refers to the “persevering reader”. Early on he warns that his systematic quantification is “unavoidably repetitive” and parts of the book are indeed somewhat dull. There is no grand theory being pushed here. But that is the whole point of the book: “grand predictions turn out to be, repeatedly, wrong”, he notes in his preface. What really characterises Smil’s attitude is caution, nuance, and scepticism. And nowhere does this show more than in his final chapter, where he ponders what comes after growth.

“There is no grand theory being pushed here. But that is the whole point of the book: “grand predictions turn out to be, repeatedly, wrong”, [Smil] notes in his preface”

Smil has, in his own words, a “respect for complex and unruly realities”. Energy and climate scientist David Keith was more outspoken by calling him a “slayer of bullshit”. Next to slamming dematerialization and perpetual growth advocates, he calls the idea of an imminent circular economy misleading (“modern economies are based on massive linear flows”), highlights the fallacy of thinking that economic growth can be decoupled from energy and material inputs (“[it] contradicts physical laws”), and considers sustainable development “one of the most misused descriptors of desirable human actions” that “leaves all key variables undefined”. But he does not side with prophets of doom either, labelling peak oil advocates “a new catastrophist cult” that “mix incontestable facts with caricatures of complex realities”.

On balance though, it is clear what camp Smil falls in. Quoting from Emmott’s book 10 Billion that “we urgently need to consume less. A lot less” shows him agreeing with the sentiments of scaling down and pulling back that Eileen Crist expressed in Abundant Earth. To arrive at this conclusion “there is no need to be a catastrophist”. The way Smil sees it “Good life within planetary boundaries is possible […] but not without fundamentally restructured provisioning systems” (more on that in my review of Planetary Accounting). And, as he points out in his conclusion to the book, we have to accept the “impossibility of infinite growth on a finite planet“.

Growth is a book that, well, grows on you. Yes, reading it is a substantial investment of time, but Smil’s meticulous and cross-disciplinary approach provides many insightful ideas – of which I have mentioned only a few – that lead to a well-reasoned conclusion. And as my personal introduction to his writing, it has convinced me that I urgently need to read more of his books.

Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however.

Growth paperback, hardback, ebook, audiobook or audio CD

Other recommended books mentioned in this review:

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

More from Less makes the optimistic case that our impact on the planet is diminishing. We are past “peak stuff” and thanks to continued technological innovation our economy is dematerializing. That is to say, economic growth has become decoupled from resource consumption. Or, as the title puts it succinctly, we are getting more from less.

I was initially sceptical when I learned of this book. My outlook on the state of the world is not nearly as optimistic. So, from the blurb’s counterintuitive claim that “we’ve stumbled into an unexpected balance with nature”, to Steven Pinker’s triumphant endorsement that those who think we’re doomed by overpopulation and resource depletion are wrong – I was ready to go bananas on this book. But I would be a poor reviewer if I let my prejudices get the better of me.

More from Less: The Surprising Story of How We Learned to Prosper Using Fewer Resources – And What Happens Next, written by Andrew McAfee, published in Europe by Simon & Schuster in October 2019 (hardback, 352 pages)

More from Less starts with Andrew McAfee (a former Harvard Business School professor who is now a research scientist at the MIT Sloan School of Management) asking the reader to keep an open mind. He was initially sceptical too: surely, as our economies grow, we consume more resources? To understand how we got to believe this, he first provides some history and background. Starting, as one must, with Malthus’s famous Essay on the Principle of Population, McAfee highlights how population growth was kept in check by food supply for the longest time. Until it wasn’t. Malthus did not foresee all the technological advances that came during and after the Industrial Revolution: urbanisation, combustion engines, electricity, indoor plumbing (underappreciated, writes McAfee), plentiful synthetic fertiliser thanks to the Haber-Bosch process, and (thank you Norman Borlaug) the Green Revolution.

McAfee balances this by pointing out the dark side: the Industrial Revolution was achieved on the back of slavery, child labour, colonialism, pollution, and the wholesale extermination of animals. This ultimately led to concerns: Earth Day, Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb, the Club of Rome’s report The Limits to Growth (and its update), the IPAT equation (Impact = Population × Affluence × Technology), Jevons paradox (efficiency gains are often spent elsewhere, not reducing impact after all), Kenneth Boulding’s concept of Spaceship Earth… again, McAfee hits most of the relevant notes here.

For many decades, economical growth and resource consumption increased in lockstep with each other, until we hit what McAfee has earlier called the Second Machine Age, hinting at the power of computers. Since then, resource use has stabilised or decreased while the economy has kept growing, at least in the US. Examples discussed here include metals, agricultural input, wood, building materials such as sand and gravel, and energy consumption.

“For many decades, economical growth and resource consumption increased in lockstep with each other, until we hit what McAfee [calls] the Second Machine Age […]. Since then, resource use has stabilised or decreased while the economy has kept growing,”

McAfee sees four factors driving this dematerialization. First, unsurprisingly, technological progress, which has resulted in increased efficiency and reduced resource consumption when manufacturing goods. Second, capitalism, with competition encouraging companies to invent above technologies and cut costs by using less raw materials. The third, public awareness, refers to people’s willingness to embrace progress (the resistance to GMOs and nuclear power are given as examples of progress stalling when this does not happen). The fourth, responsive governments, means governments that are willing to listen (to their people, to new ideas), capable of governing and enforcing rules, and free from corruption. Democracies excel at this, argues McAfee.

The last part of the book then describes how these four factors have gone global, and what they have achieved. McAfee’s argumentation is again, in one word, balanced. Some achievements are good (increased health and wealth), others are a mixed blessing (urbanisation and fewer but larger companies), and some are worrying (a decline in so-called social capital: the disappearance of jobs has led to a feeling of disconnection in communities, especially in the US). Nor is he blind to the challenges ahead, such as climate change. Everything is not alright. But he thinks the way out is through. We need to step on the proverbial accelerator and spread all four drivers of dematerialization far and wide (though see Geoffrey West’s Scale for an interesting critique of whether this acceleration in technological breakthroughs can be maintained).

More from Less flows well, its chapters following logically on from each other. Despite my initial apprehension, I found much here to agree with. Like McAfee, I wholeheartedly support continued scientific research and technological development (I have written about GMOs and other biotech tools before). Still – and I take note here of his remarks about the power and persistence of negative thinking – I do not share his optimism to the same extent. My objections are threefold.

“Everything is not alright. But [McAfee] thinks the way out is through. We need to step on the proverbial accelerator and spread all four drivers of dematerialization far and wide.”

First, does the decrease in US resource consumption account for production that has moved overseas? McAfee mentions that US Geological Survey data on mineral consumption includes imports and exports, but I am not sure this is the same. A footnote says resources in finished goods are excluded but argues that, at 4% of the economy, they are negligible. I question whether that is a useful comparison in a service-industry-heavy economy such as the US. What percentage of all US goods does this represent? The scope of the data underlying other examples is less clear and McAfee does not clarify this point. A major theme of The Irresponsible Pursuit of Paradise was that developed countries smugly claim to have cleaned up their act when in reality they have shifted the burden of resource extraction to developing countries. As McAfee acknowledges, without sufficiently detailed data you cannot establish if dematerialization is a global or local phenomenon. And, given a globalised economy, we need to exclude the possibility it is an artefact of not doing your bookkeeping on resource extraction properly.

Second, some critical factors go unmentioned. So, the smartphone is held up as a shining (shiny?) example of capitalism giving us one device where there used to be many. But McAfee fails to mention that those very same companies have given us planned obsolescence, devices that cannot be easily repaired, and relentless marketing to push consumers into upgrading to the latest model. That negates much of your efficiency gains. And what of all the new wants and needs that capitalism has created? Another point: McAfee seems little concerned with the non-renewable nature of many resources – known reserves have increased because we are looking harder. “Earth is finite […] but also very, very big […] The image of a thinly supplied Spaceship Earth […] is deeply misleading” (p.120-121). Putting aside for a moment the question of whether this justifies ever-more intrusive extraction techniques such as mountain-top removal and deep-sea mining, there is no mention here of the hard limit imposed by Energy Returned on Energy Invested, a concept discussed in Ugo Bardi’s Extracted. Not all of a resource can be economically exploited. McAfee will likely reply that this holds until innovation overcomes this – we have underestimated its power before. And although Earth Day features here, there is no mention of the concept of humanity’s ecological footprint and Earth Overshoot Day (which has been criticised, but if anything is an underestimate), or the framework of planetary boundaries developed by Johan Rockström and colleagues. It seems unlikely that a former Harvard professor is not aware of these factors.

“Dematerialization is worth pursuing, but I am not convinced it is a panacea – [our impact] is a complex problem for which there is no single silver bullet.”

Third and final point: although McAfee’s argument seems logical, I am concerned it is too little, too late. To understand this, let’s return to the IPAT equation (Impact = Population × Affluence × Technology). McAfee’s book revolves around reducing Technology. Population is still increasing but a plateau is in sight. As mentioned in my review of Empty Planet, I do think current numbers already have an outsized environmental impact, so the questions posed in Should We Control World Population? remain on the table for me. That leaves Affluence, which is increasing rapidly globally. Eileen Crist’s call in Abundant Earth for scaling down and pulling back seems apt here. Given the above, you would need manifold efficiency gains from dematerialization just to keep Impact constant, let alone decrease it. More caution, as expressed by Vaclav Smil in Making the Modern World, seems warranted. Dematerialization is worth pursuing, but I am not convinced it is a panacea – Impact is a complex problem for which there is no silver bullet.

Overall then, More from Less highlights an interesting phenomenon and I found quite a few things in McAfee’s outlook to agree with. However, some curious omissions make me question how much of a saviour dematerialization really is.

Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however.

McAfee’s More from Less paperback, hardback, ebook, audiobook or audio CD

Other recommended books mentioned in this review:

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

These three tasks, so says nature writer Robert Macfarlane, signify our relationship with the world beneath our feet, both across time and across cultures. Underland is his lyrical exploration of underground spaces where people have sought shelter from warfare or hidden valuable treasures, are extracting minerals in mines or knowledge in research facilities, or are looking to dispose of waste. It is one of two big books published only five months apart on the subterranean realm, the other being Will Hunt’s Underground: A Human History of the Worlds Beneath Our Feet which I will be reviewing next. But first, Underland.

“Underland: A Deep Time Journey“, written by Robert Macfarlane, published in Europe by Hamish Hamilton in May 2019 (hardback, 496 pages)

For those who don’t know him, Macfarlane has been writing about “the relationship between landscape and the human heart”, bagging several literary prizes along the way. For him, Underland is a conclusion to a personal story-arc of exploration that started up high with his fascination with mountains (see Mountains Of The Mind: A History Of A Fascination) and descended from there (see his books The Wild Places, The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot, and Holloway). The book is based on more than a decade of exploration, usually in the company of experienced locals.

Think underground, and you will likely think caves, and there is plenty of caving here. Macfarlane takes the reader into the underground river Timavo in Italy, a starless river that speleologists have been exploring and mapping for decades. He is guided into the karst landscapes of the Slovenian highlands that hide a chilling legacy of ethnic cleansing dating to the second World War, when corpses were dumped down sinkholes by the thousands. He explores cave chambers in Norway’s Lofoten archipelago, whose cave paintings make it the Lascaux of the high North. And he traverses, and descends into, glaciers in Greenland. But he also ponders realms not accessible to us, such as the “wood wide web”, the symbiosis between tree roots and soil fungi. This might allow trees to exchange information with each other, even crossing species boundaries. The idea of this “underground social network” has been popularised by Peter Wohlleben in The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate – Discoveries from a Secret World.

“He joins urban explorers […] in Paris and London who roam […] under these cities, “shadow twins to the upper world””

But equally fascinating are the human subterranean landscapes he enters: prehistoric barrows (cemeteries) in Somerset, and a modern rock-salt mine in Yorkshire where excavated chambers double up as laboratories for physicists probing the universe for dark matter. He joins urban explorers, so-called cataphiles, in Paris and London who roam the crypts, catacombs, wells, bunkers, tunnels, and drains under these cities, “shadow twins to the upper world” (see e.g. Global Undergrounds: Exploring Cities Within or Subterranean London: Cracking the Capital). And he gets a tour around the subterranean waste facility in Olkiluoto in south-west Finland, currently under construction, which will store highly radioactive spent uranium fuel rods for 100,000 years. A feat which brings with it a whole new suite of considerations – how do you warn the species of the future to stay away?

What make these 400+ pages of caving, crawling, and occasional claustrophobia such a joy to read are Macfarlane’s evocative descriptions. Here is a word-smith at work, who can go from profound (“To these subatomic particles, we are the ghosts and ours the shadow-world, made at most of a diaphanous webwork”) to funny (“If you wish to listen for sounds so faint they may not exist at all, you can’t have someone playing the drums in your ear”) with but a flourish of his pen. The things he has seen have etched themselves into his memory, and he is intent on burning them into the memory of his readers in turn. From the majestic and rarely witnessed calving of a Greenland glacier (“a blue cathedral of ice, complete with towers and buttresses, all of them joined together into a single unnatural side-ways collapsing edifice”), to the surreal dumping ground in mid-Wales where locals have been pushing car wrecks down an abandoned mine shaft (“The result was an avalanche of vehicles […] a slewing slope of wrecks”). There are some truly memorable passages in this book.

Two themes run through this book, one already hinted at in the book’s subtitle. The first is that of Deep Time; the vast stretches of time in which geologists think when describing the evolution of our planet (see e.g. The Planet in a Pebble: A Journey into Earth’s Deep History). “Ice breathes. Rock has tides. Mountains ebb and flow. Stone pulses. We live on a restless Earth”, writes Macfarlane. Whether it is caves that have been hollowed out by the lapping of the sea over milennia, or the palaeoclimatological archive that we are retrieving from glacial ice cores (see The Two-Mile Time Machine: Ice Cores, Abrupt Climate Change and Our Future), going underground brings into focus the steady grind of our planet. Although a human lifespan pales into insignificance, Macfarlane resists apathy. Much like Bjornerud (see my review of Timefulness: How Thinking Like a Geologist Can Help Save the World), Macfarlane hopes that “deep time awareness might help us see ourselves as a part of a web of gift, inheritance and legacy stretching over millions of years”.

“[…] going underground brings into focus the steady grind of our planet.”

Tying in with this is the theme of the Anthropocene, the newly proposed geological epoch based on the detritus that humanity is leaving in the rock record (see my review of The Anthropocene as a Geological Time Unit). Like others before him, such as Alan Weisman in The World Without Us or Jan Zalasiewicz in The Earth After Us: What Legacy Will Humans Leave in the Rocks?, Macfarlane asks what legacy we are leaving behind. Nuclear waste is obviously one of the longest-lasting, but there are other revelations in this book. I was, perhaps naively, shocked to read of the mining company that simply abandons worn-out excavators, which cost £3.2 million, underground.

Each chapter opens with a black-and-white photo or illustration. I woul have loved to see more images, perhaps a colour plate section, as there are some striking photos included in this BBC interview. A book of this calibre leans on poetic language to a certain degree, but nowhere did I find Macfarlane self-indulgent or flowery. On the contrary, the book provides its own beautiful raison d’être during an interview with plant scientist Merlin Sheldrake. Macfarlane ponders how to make sense of the implications of the symbiotic interaction between fungi and trees: “Perhaps we need an entirely new language system to talk about fungi… We need to speak in spores.” To which Sheldrake enthusiastically replies: “That’s exactly what we need to be doing – and that’s your job […] the job of writers and artists and poets and all the rest of you”. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

So, how does Macfarlane’s Underland compare to Hunt’s Underground? It feels Macfarlane casts his mind outwards more, pondering deep time and the Anthropocene, while Hunt turns his gaze inwards, probing the more human side: religion, spirituality, and neurobiology. Macfarlane, as a nature writer, is more poetic in his writing, though Hunt, using a different tone, is an equally masterful storyteller. Underland is carefully annotated and referenced, but barely illustrated – Underground is the reverse. And even though both writers end up exploring under Paris and both touch on topics of biology and archaeology, it is striking how little they overlap. Clearly, the world under our feet is so vast there is space for more than one book. Why pick one? I heartily recommend them both!

Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however.

Underland paperback, hardback, ebook, audiobook or audio CD

Other recommended books mentioned in this review:

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

“Energy: A Human History“, written by Richard Rhodes, published by Simon & Schuster in June 2018 (hardback, 465 pages)

Starting in Tudor-era England that was running low on wood, Rhodes gives a detailed history of the discovery and use of coal. This, in turn, required new inventions once surface deposits started to run out, leading to stationary steam engines to pump water out of mine shafts, leading in turn to mobile steam engines that gave us trains to haul first freight and later people. This first section is rich in historical detail, revealing the many hurdles that needed to be cleared before steam power and steam engines became reliable enough to be adopted widely.

A second section looks at energy generation to provide lighting, covering natural gas (long ignored or seen as a fairly useless novelty), a brief history of industrial whaling, the drilling for oil, and the discovery of electricity. Rhodes explores the first experiments in hydropower at Niagara Falls in 1895 and gives a brief nod to horse power before the invention of combustion engines paved the way for cars. There are interesting period illustrations included here, though the quality and resolution of some of the source material are very poor, resulting in pixelated pictures and visual artefacts that obscure details.

These first two sections are undoubtedly the strongest in the book. Rhodes excels at telling the human stories of the forgotten inventors who revolutionised the world, such as the Englishman Richard Trevithick who started tinkering with high-pressure steam in an era when metalworking skills could not yet produce boilers capable of withstanding the pressure. Or the Scotsman Archibald Cochrane who discovered the inflammable nature of coal gas, but dismissed it as a curiosity. Or the exchanges between the Italians Luigi Galvani and Alessandro Volta about the nature of electricity in living and non-living matter, which led to the invention of batteries (see also The Ambiguous Frog: The Galvani-Volta Controversy on Animal Electricity and Shocking Frogs: Galvani, Volta, and the Electric Origins of Neuroscience). Equally interesting were contemporary conundrums such as the question whether engines with metal wheels on metal rails would simply slip and spin in place or actually be able to haul loads. Rhodes gently reminds us that the story of technological progress is rarely straightforward and linear as witnessed by the many different designs for steam engines and later combustion engines that existed side by side for a while.

“Rhodes gently reminds us that the story of technological progress is rarely straightforward and linear”

Given the large range of topics, many subjects are understandably not treated in-depth or exhaustively. I’m not too familiar with the literature on the history of, say, the discovery of electricity, but topics such as industrial whaling and the overlooked role of horses have been the subject of book-length treatments elsewhere (see Whales, Whaling, and Ocean Ecosystems and A Savage History: Whaling in the Pacific and Southern Oceans; and The Horse in the City: Living Machines in the Nineteenth Century, Horses at Work: Harnessing Power in Industrial America, and Farewell to the Horse: The Final Century of Our Relationship).

Even so, in the final third of the book it feels as if Rhodes runs out of steam. He gives a brief history of the first steps towards nuclear energy, but only pays lip service to wind and solar energy in the final chapter. Similarly, what happened to energy production in the decades since the 1950s as the world population ballooned is barely spoken of – to the point that there is little overlap with Pirani’s recent book Burning Up: A Global History of Fossil Fuel Consumption (the two complement each other nicely as a consequence).

More pronounced in this last part is his pro-nuclear energy stance. I will happily agree with Rhodes on the disconnect between perceived and actual risk of nuclear power generation, as well as its potential to deliver clean(er) energy than fossil fuels. Simultaneously, Rhodes is irked by the opposition to nuclear energy by the environmental movement, which he considers contradictory (understandably so, in my opinion – see also my review of The Irresponsible Pursuit of Paradise). But he somehow manages to tie this into a larger critique (which I am less sympathetic to) of what he sees as the antihumanist ideology of neo-Malthusians such as the Club of Rome and their concerns about human overpopulation. He infers that this ideology has shaped the opposition to nuclear energy. Although I will acknowledge the misanthropic streak running through much of contemporary environmental thought, in my opinion that does not mean we can discount their concerns regarding overpopulation out of hand.

All this distracts a bit from what is otherwise a gracefully written book that provides an interesting overview of the sometimes circuitous routes by which human ingenuity has effected breakthroughs in energy production. Especially its coverage of earlier time periods – when discussing steam technology, coal, gas, and oil – is fascinating. Does Energy: A Human History qualify as the definitive big history on the topic? I would be very interested in seeing how it compares to Vaclav Smil’s recent Energy and Civilization: A History. Until I have had a chance to read that, I dare not quite make that bold a statement yet.

Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however.

Energy paperback, hardback, ebook, audiobook or audio CD

Other recommended books mentioned in this review:

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

“Burning Up: A Global History of Fossil Fuel Consumption“, written by Simon Pirani, published by Pluto Press in August 2018 (paperback, 255 pages)

Okay, that is not quite what Pirani says. In his own words: “fossil fuels are consumed through technological, social, and economic systems”. Coming to this topic as a biologist with little background in economics, this mantra, repeated throughout the book, was one that needed some unpacking.

Burning Up is divided into three main parts. The first four chapters provide context, giving a brief history of fossil fuel use before 1950, how fossil fuel is turned into energy (electricity or refined fuel), and how its use has changed over time in different countries and in different industries from the 1950s onwards. It is these last seven decades that are the focus of this book, as this is a period when population and consumption ballooned (see my review of The Great Acceleration: An Environmental History of the Anthropocene Since 1945).

These chapters already reveal many trends and facts I was not familiar with. Such as America’s trendsetting role in road building and private car ownership, ahead of the rest of the world. With it came the ugly invention of planned obsolescence, the purposeful decision to design products that break prematurely, locking consumers into a cycle of buying more stuff (see also Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America). Or the incredible amounts of energy that are lost when fossil fuels are transformed into electricity and transported through power lines (one figure quoted on page 26 puts the global (!) loss in 2000 at a mind-boggling 63%, leaving only 37% available to industry and consumers). Or the staggering amounts of energy used by industry for the production of steel, aluminium, and concrete (the last one was already highlighted in The World in a Grain: The Story of Sand and How It Transformed Civilization for its huge demand for sand). Or the design choices made by architects and engineers how, for example, public buildings and houses should be heated. Or how urban planning decisions, the resulting urban sprawl, and the lack of investment in public transport created a dependency on cars. Or the heavy electricity toll exacted by the data centres powering the internet and other modern communication technologies.

I could go on, as Burning Up offers many more insightful examples. But they all highlight areas where the average consumer has little knowledge of the inefficient use of resources and the egregious waste of energy, let alone has leverage to bring about change (though I would argue that consuming less can address some of these).

“With private car ownership […] came the ugly invention of planned obsolescence”

The second and largest part of the book is a detailed chronology of fossil fuel use from the 1950s onwards, taking the reader through the post-war boom, the oil crises of the 1970s, the economic recessions of the 1980s and the continued rise in use during the 1990s and 2000s. This is interrupted by a section on electrification (i.e. the development of electric grids) in several countries around the world. The later chapters also address the inability of governments to address climate change by limiting fossil fuel use. The third part reflects on the assumptions that Pirani has made (you could almost start the book by reading this chapter after the introduction), and his suggestions on what is needed for society to move away from its dependence on fossil fuels.

The chronology of part 2 reveals many fascinating trends that support Pirani’s contention that population growth does not correspond directly to fossil fuel use. Economic growth, and with it a higher standard of living, are perhaps a more influential part of the equation where fossil fuel use is concerned. Though, I would argue, the fact that we now have such a large population is what makes this increased affluence so impactful.

Equally, the victory of neoliberalism – the political reforms that favour free-market capitalism and, in the UK, have given us the (cough) “wonders” of privatised public transport and the likes – has had a huge impact. Profit motive and economic growth remain the guiding principles for companies and governments alike. Vested company interests often oppose technological developments that could make for efficiency gains and reductions in fossil fuel use (the example of engineers indicating that cars could be ten times more efficient is but one of many). Governments similarly have continued to subsidise fossil fuels for decades and have been guilty of creative bookkeeping with emission targets and carbon credits once negotiations to curb climate change got going. Especially with China now the world’s largest producer of globally exported consumer goods, a new round of finger-pointing has started over who should be responsible for the ensuing environmental effects of consuming the vast amounts of energy required to make all this stuff.

“Governments have been guilty of creative bookkeeping with emission targets and carbon credits once negotiations to curb climate change got going.”

I admit that I did not find Burning Up an easy read. For a large part that will be my lack of background knowledge in economics and international politics, so I found some of the subject matter a bit obtuse and dry. But that does not take away that Pirani convincingly shows that fossil fuel use is indeed also determined by economic, social, and technological factors, and not just by population growth and individual consumption.

What it especially clarifies, I think, are the historical patterns that have resulted in our societies functioning the way they do (the economic factor); in people’s expectations of what makes a good life, and the energy-guzzling stuff they need to make it happen – from cars to household electronics to air-conditioning (the social factor); and in our existing infrastructure, such as power stations and electric grids, and the choices made when designing consumer products (the technological factor).

Burning Up is a deeply researched book of vast scope that provides a rich context to the basic notion of “climate change happened because we burned fossil fuels”. Though the subject matter might make your head spin in places, Pirani does a great job of putting the mind-bogglingly large numbers involved in context. If there are any doubters left who think that we could not possibly influence something as large as our planet through our actions, feel free to pummel them over the head with this book.

Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however.

Burning Up paperback or hardback

Other recommended books mentioned in this review:

“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.

“Vogt […] saw doom and gloom in our future [while] Borlaug […] was a fierce believer in the power of science and technology to make a difference”

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 […] what of overpopulation?”

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.

“There is a third […] more misanthropic and nihilistic view […] common amongst biologists”

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:

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________