Red Sky at Morning: America and the Crisis of the Global Environment, second edition (Yale Nota Bene)
by James Gustave Speth
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Book Summary Information
Author: James Gustave SpethEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2005-03-11
ISBN: 0300107765
Number of pages: 352
Publisher: Yale University Press
Book Reviews of Red Sky at Morning: America and the Crisis of the Global Environment, second edition (Yale Nota Bene)
Book Review: environmental crisis?
Summary: 3 Stars
That there is a global environmental crisis is indisputable, and the first part of the book gives much relevant statistics: the rates of desertification, deforestation, the collapse of fisheries, ozone depletion, the melting of glaciers due to global warming that threatens the freshwater supply of many countries etc. Its causes are also obvious: too many people who enjoy (or want to) too high a standard of living, a unit of which takes too much input from the biosphere and generates too much waste. The first factor can be reduced by a pandemic such as AIDS or by coercive government policies such as those of China (and India during the 1970s State of Emergency) or by the emancipation of women (which is why the birth rates in Western Europe, Russia and among white people in the USA are below the replacement rate). The second factor can be reduced by an economic depression such as the 1930s depression in the United States and Europe and the 1990s depression in Russia and Ukraine, or a less drastic economic decline. The third factor and the ways of responding to it is the most complicated one, and the fact that this book does not address its complexity adequately makes it far less than what it could be.
I wonder why Speth is claiming that poverty is a cause of environmental degradation. When a Congolese man cuts down trees in the rainforest for firewood and kills forest animals for protein, he is of course destroying the environment. If he were given a kilowatt-hour equivalent amount of natural gas and a calorie-equivalent weight of broiler chickens, the environmental degradation caused by extracting this gas and raising these chickens would be much less - however, he would be just as poor as before. If he were given as much energy and protein as an average American consumes per a given time period, he would no longer be poor, but I suspect that the environmental degradation caused by his consumption would be greater than when he was chopping down the rainforest. You can fight against poverty, or you can fight for the environment; both are worthy goals, but they can come into conflict. There is a reason Kenya's president-for-life ordered all ivory poachers shot on sight. In the United States, a dollar-per-gallon increase of the gasoline tax would do wonders for reducing the consumption of gasoline, but guess whom it would hurt more - the rich or the poor?
Speth is proud of having contributed to stopping the breeder reactor program in the United States in the 1970s as a young lawyer. As they stand now, breeder reactors are far more dangerous than light-water reactors, and the electricity from power plants built around them is estimated to be several times more expensive than electricity from ordinary nuclear power plants. If a concentrated research effort (using real reactors, the construction of which Speth did so much to derail) could address the first shortcoming adequately, and concern about global warming could force the public to accept the latter, wouldn't the world be a better place despite people like Speth? Moreover, breeder reactors can be run in such a mode that they do not breed plutonium, but on the contrary, burn it up: about a thousand tons of plutonium has accumulated worldwide from a half-century of operating light-water plants; wouldn't the world sleep better knowing that it will be burned up and will never fall into terrorists' hands? The fact that Speth mentions weapons-grade plutonium and breeder reactors in the same paragraph proves that he doesn't know what he is talking about. Speth quotes the well-known charlatan Amory Lovins on several environmental-technological issues. No, Virginia, "tripled-to-quintupled efficiency cars" are impossible to make at reasonable production costs; in order for the United States to consume less gasoline, people need to drive less, and consume fewer goods, and/or consume proportionately more locally-made goods (so truckers would drive less).
In any case, it is obvious that the Earth's environment is in a poor shape as we speak, and it would be in a far worse shape in 2050 (I will be 77 if I am still alive then, and my daughter will turn 46) if nothing is done - in fact, if nothing drastic is done. Not reducing the consumption of natural resources (of oil, in particular) and invading countries sitting on top of these resources on false pretexts in order to install client governments there is even worse than doing nothing.
Summary of Red Sky at Morning: America and the Crisis of the Global Environment, second edition (Yale Nota Bene)
In this powerful book, a renowned environmental leader warns that despite all the international negotiations of the past two decades, efforts to protect Earth?s environment are not succeeding. He explains why this is so and presents eight specific steps that governments and citizens can take to achieve a sustainable future. For this new paperback edition the author has added an Afterword that brings the narrative up to date.General Books
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