What had other civilizations done to their soils? According to Lowdermilk’s later recollection, the idea began when a “thoughtful member” of the House Appropriations Committee asked Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace whether the Department had ever studied lands that had been cultivated for two thousand years or more. Wallace answered that it had not. WhateverContinue reading “Tracing Land Use Across Ancient Boundaries, Part III: Send Lowdermilk”
Category Archives: Books and Authors
What made you change your mind?
I’ve been pondering this lately, what makes you change your mind? Is it data? A well told story? Did you research and test hypotheses or something else? What eventually got you to accept that a view you held was not right? A paper published in Science called When contact changes minds: An experiment on transmissionContinue reading “What made you change your mind?”
Q & A with Maureen Ogle, Author of “In Meat We Trust”
I have the perfect gift for the foodie in your life: “In Meat We Trust: An Unexpected History of Carnivore America,” written by Maureen Ogle, it traces the origins of our food system and its meat-centric bias. “The moment European settlers arrived in North America,” Ogle says, “they began transforming the land into a meat-eater’sContinue reading “Q & A with Maureen Ogle, Author of “In Meat We Trust””
Book Review: The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves
Let me recommend a startling book to you, because whether you read a book a week or you haven’t picked one up since you discovered the wonders of the internet, this one deserves your attention. The book is The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves (438 pages) written by Matt Ridley and published by HarperCollins ($26.99).Continue reading “Book Review: The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves”
TED Talk: Matt Ridley – “When ideas have sex”
I recently finished Matt Ridley’s book, The Rational Optimist. As I wrote here, ‘Molly Ivins said, “It’s hard to argue against cynics–they always sound smarter than optimists because they have so much evidence on their side,” but she never met Matt Ridley, the Rational Optimist. He has evidence that says we need to keep goingContinue reading “TED Talk: Matt Ridley – “When ideas have sex””
The Emperor’s New Power Grid
If you have not yet read Robert Bryce‘s excellent books, Power Hungry and Gusher of Lies, you must. He takes down the fallacies of “energy independence” and “renewable energy” with physics and simple math.
1.4 earths: sustainability and overshoot, or 6 earths and the moon for dessert
I like to think of myself as a good person of the Boy Scout variety–trustworthy, brave, kind, helpful, etc.–except without the homophobia. You probably like to think the same (of yourself, not me). Well, according to the Global Footprint Network’s “Footprint Calculator” it would take six earths if all 6.7 billion of us lived aContinue reading “1.4 earths: sustainability and overshoot, or 6 earths and the moon for dessert”
Matt Ridley – A Rational Optimist
Last April I posted about how the earth had improved since the first Earth Day. At the end of the post is a poll about whether, after reading the post, the reader was optimistic, pessimistic, or ambivalent about the future. Overwhelmingly, people were (and apparently, are) pessimistic about the future of the earth. Matt Ridley,Continue reading “Matt Ridley – A Rational Optimist”
Collective intelligence
I rather like knowing that I have it better than Louis XIV.
Remember Molly
My goodness, has Molly Ivins really been gone for two years? She knew stuff: “I realize this is not breaking news, but we are looking at something exceptional in political history with this race. . . . The Internet is breaking open old power structures and set ways of doing things. Most campaign consultants haveContinue reading “Remember Molly”