Whitewash: the story of a weed killer, cancer, and the corruption of science by Carey Gillam
I already knew Monsanto was the devil, but if you want even more confirmation and the facts to back it up this is the book for you. Gillam was an agricultural journalist who when she started was impressed with Monsanto staff and used Roundup liberally herself at home. But soon she started seeing a darker side and started digging into claims that Roundup is not as safe as Monsanto claimed and in fact was unbelievably dangerous and carcinogenic. In Whitewash she mainly covers how Monsanto has routinely paid scientists or writers to paint their products in a good light - even when reputable science disputes those claims. Gillam also delves into how corrupt the EPA, USDA, and other government entities are that are supposed to be watchdogs for the public - these agencies are routinely filled with former and current chemical company executives who are obviously not looking out for public interest, but for their own pockets. While often infuriating to read, this book just further proves that money rules the world. Monsanto doesn't care if their product destroys the world because they are raking in the money and paying off or suing anyone who gets in their way. Hopefully as more and more books like this come out people will start to realize chemicals are NOT the path to quality, healthy food and enough people will demand change in these supposedly protecting government agencies.
Lots of great quotes in this book:
"U.S. farmers alone applied more than 276 million pounds [of glyphosate] in 2014, compared with 40 million pounds in 1995, according to published research, and use globally has more than doubled in just the past ten years. Around the globe, glyphosate is now registered for use in 130 countries and is manufactured by dozens of producers following Monsanto's lead. It is considered the most heavily used agricultural chemical in history." (p. 4)
"Both the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) annually test thousands of food products for hundreds of different types of pesticide residues, but both routinely have refused to test for glyphosate. It's also notable that as the USDA and FDA have been declining to test for glyphosate residues over the past twenty years, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which regulates pesticides, has been approving industry requests for higher and higher allowable levels of glyphosate residues in food." (p. 5)
"Don Huber, professor emeritus of plant pathology at Purdue University, believes that glyphosate may be even more toxic than DDT. 'Future historians may well look back on our time and write about us...how willing we were to sacrifice our children and jeopardize future generations based on false promises and flawed science just to benefit the bottom line of a commercial enterprise..." (p. 20)
"...Henry Rowlands, who launched the Detox Project in California to test food and bodily fluids for glyphosate residues...Rowlands said he found quickly that glyphosate is such a hot-button issue that even trying to find independent laboratories to run tests is a challenge. All but two of the American labs he sought out to help launch large-scale testing declined. More than 350 turned him down...'I'm certain it was political,' Rowlands told me in a call from Bulgaria. 'All of these labs tset for big food producers. They aren't going to risk their bottom line looking for something food companies don't want people to find. It's really sad. They're not protecting public health.'" (p. 62)
"In fact, roughly 85 percent of more than 10,000 food samples tested by the USDA in 2015 carried pesticide residues. Most of those foods were fruits and vegetables, both fresh and processed - food consumers generally consider healthy...even residues of chemicals long banned in the United States were found as recently as 2015, including residues of DDT or its metabolites found in spinach and potatoes." (p. 69)
"Monsanto Company, Dow Agrosciences, DuPont, Syngenta, and others snapped up leases for large swaths of property [in Hawaii] over the past several decades and have transformed areas known for sugar and pineapple production into experimental field sites. By 2014, the chemical companies controlled more than 13,500 acres on the island of Kauai alone. Across the state, including on the islands of Maui, Molokai, and Oahu, the companies occupied about 25,000 of the states's 280,000 acres of agricultural land." (p. 135)
"One analysis of government pesticide databases and data from the Hawaii Department of Agriculture released in 2014 showed that the agrochemical industry was applying pesticides at higher rates on Kauai than the application rates on most U.S. farms. That report described the west side of Kauai as 'one of the most toxic chemical environments in all of American agriculture.'" (p. 139)
[Due to so much interest in GMOs and corruption government officials are now using fake email accounts to avoid having to turn over damning evidence in litigation or Freedom of Information Act requests]
"Still, an investigation by the Associated Press found that many government officials use these secret e-mail accounts in ways that complicate an agency's legal responsibilities to find and turn over e-mails in response to congressional or internal investigations, civil lawsuits, or public records requests." (p. 230)
"'Innovation does not happen without the courage to question the current paradigm,' said Jonathan Lundgren, the former USDA scientist who left the agency when he felt his scientific findings were being sacrificed for political purposes. 'If we do not change our behavior, then humans are in trouble. We know what needs to be done to solve these problems that our planet and species are facing. What is lacking is the courage to implement the needed changes.' Let's find that courage." (p. 248) [The last paragraph of the book perfectly sums up what needs to be done.]
Lots of great quotes in this book:
"U.S. farmers alone applied more than 276 million pounds [of glyphosate] in 2014, compared with 40 million pounds in 1995, according to published research, and use globally has more than doubled in just the past ten years. Around the globe, glyphosate is now registered for use in 130 countries and is manufactured by dozens of producers following Monsanto's lead. It is considered the most heavily used agricultural chemical in history." (p. 4)
"Both the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) annually test thousands of food products for hundreds of different types of pesticide residues, but both routinely have refused to test for glyphosate. It's also notable that as the USDA and FDA have been declining to test for glyphosate residues over the past twenty years, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which regulates pesticides, has been approving industry requests for higher and higher allowable levels of glyphosate residues in food." (p. 5)
"Don Huber, professor emeritus of plant pathology at Purdue University, believes that glyphosate may be even more toxic than DDT. 'Future historians may well look back on our time and write about us...how willing we were to sacrifice our children and jeopardize future generations based on false promises and flawed science just to benefit the bottom line of a commercial enterprise..." (p. 20)
"...Henry Rowlands, who launched the Detox Project in California to test food and bodily fluids for glyphosate residues...Rowlands said he found quickly that glyphosate is such a hot-button issue that even trying to find independent laboratories to run tests is a challenge. All but two of the American labs he sought out to help launch large-scale testing declined. More than 350 turned him down...'I'm certain it was political,' Rowlands told me in a call from Bulgaria. 'All of these labs tset for big food producers. They aren't going to risk their bottom line looking for something food companies don't want people to find. It's really sad. They're not protecting public health.'" (p. 62)
"In fact, roughly 85 percent of more than 10,000 food samples tested by the USDA in 2015 carried pesticide residues. Most of those foods were fruits and vegetables, both fresh and processed - food consumers generally consider healthy...even residues of chemicals long banned in the United States were found as recently as 2015, including residues of DDT or its metabolites found in spinach and potatoes." (p. 69)
"Monsanto Company, Dow Agrosciences, DuPont, Syngenta, and others snapped up leases for large swaths of property [in Hawaii] over the past several decades and have transformed areas known for sugar and pineapple production into experimental field sites. By 2014, the chemical companies controlled more than 13,500 acres on the island of Kauai alone. Across the state, including on the islands of Maui, Molokai, and Oahu, the companies occupied about 25,000 of the states's 280,000 acres of agricultural land." (p. 135)
"One analysis of government pesticide databases and data from the Hawaii Department of Agriculture released in 2014 showed that the agrochemical industry was applying pesticides at higher rates on Kauai than the application rates on most U.S. farms. That report described the west side of Kauai as 'one of the most toxic chemical environments in all of American agriculture.'" (p. 139)
[Due to so much interest in GMOs and corruption government officials are now using fake email accounts to avoid having to turn over damning evidence in litigation or Freedom of Information Act requests]
"Still, an investigation by the Associated Press found that many government officials use these secret e-mail accounts in ways that complicate an agency's legal responsibilities to find and turn over e-mails in response to congressional or internal investigations, civil lawsuits, or public records requests." (p. 230)
"'Innovation does not happen without the courage to question the current paradigm,' said Jonathan Lundgren, the former USDA scientist who left the agency when he felt his scientific findings were being sacrificed for political purposes. 'If we do not change our behavior, then humans are in trouble. We know what needs to be done to solve these problems that our planet and species are facing. What is lacking is the courage to implement the needed changes.' Let's find that courage." (p. 248) [The last paragraph of the book perfectly sums up what needs to be done.]
Butter: a rich history by Elaine Khosrova
This was an interesting and quick read all about the history of butter. It covers how butter has been made historically all over the world and also to some current, artisan butter makers out there now. She also covers the role of women in butter making, butter tools & techniques, and how butter was demonized by some scientists as the reason for rising heart disease (spoiler - they were wrong). Khosrova really does a very thorough job of covering every aspect of butter. The second part of the book is tons of recipes involving butter - including how to make your own butter. Overall, definitely an interesting look at a commonplace, yet vital cooking ingredient.
A quote I liked:
"Eventually, the new momentum in dairy science coupled with old-world chauvinism would eradicate women's authority and place in the dairy world. But it happened incrementally, as each new technical innovation erased a portion of traditional butter making." (p. ??? somewhere in chapter 4 my ebook page numbers were not showing correctly)
A quote I liked:
"Eventually, the new momentum in dairy science coupled with old-world chauvinism would eradicate women's authority and place in the dairy world. But it happened incrementally, as each new technical innovation erased a portion of traditional butter making." (p. ??? somewhere in chapter 4 my ebook page numbers were not showing correctly)
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (Community Read - Books & Banter and Evening Edition book clubs)
Starr Carter already feels pulled between two worlds - her world at home in Garden Heights, the poor black neighborhood where she lives, and Williamson, the predominately white prep school she and her brothers attend. At home she can't act too "Williamson" and at school she can't act too "Garden Heights" and to make things even harder she is dating a white guy named Chris. One night she goes to a party in Garden City and accepts a ride home from her childhood friend Kahlil. On the way home they are pulled over and the officer makes Kahlil get out of the car, then when Kahlil opens the car door to check on Starr the officer shoots him in the back. Starr is the only witness, but is terrified of getting involved in the case. The media quickly makes Kahlil out to be a gang member and drug dealer and the police don't seem interested in Starr's account of that night, but the community want answers and want someone to pay for Kahlil's death. As Starr grieves for Kahlil, she also struggles with how to fight for him and whether or not she should get involved in the protests that often turn into riots. As her community protests for Kahlil they must also find a way to come together for everyone's benefit. A very timely novel that addresses some hard issues like race, community, oppression, and police-involved shootings.
A quote I liked:
"...Sometimes you can do everything right and things will still go wrong. The key is to never stop doing right." (p. 154)
A quote I liked:
"...Sometimes you can do everything right and things will still go wrong. The key is to never stop doing right." (p. 154)
Saving Tarboo Creek: one family's quest to heal the land by Scott Freeman
In 2004 Scott Freeman and his wife Susan (granddaughter of conservationist Aldo Leopold) bought 17 acres on Washington's Olympic Peninsula. Their land straddles Tarboo Creek, a 7.5 mile stream that had been degraded from channeling and clearcutting, but used to be a salmon run. They decide to restore their section of Tarboo Creek to its former salmon run glory. The book is half about their work restoring their portion of Tarboo Creek and half about conservation in general and why it's important work for everyone. It was a little more academic than I was expecting, but the parts about how they restored the creek and the land around it was really interesting. Freeman gives a few tips in the last chapter about how to live a more natural life - be engaged, be simple, be real, and be present. Advice that everyone could use in today's fast-paced, automated world. A quick read about an important topic.
Some quotes I liked:
"We find it repugnant when people exploit or abuse others for personal gain - we call them cheats, tyrants, scoundrels, or villains; we describe them as despicable, evil, vile, wicked or manipulative. Leopold said we should feel the same way about people who exploit or abuse land. If someone we meet is broken or damaged, we reach out to help them. If land is broken or damaged, we reach out to help it - by planting trees and native wildflowers." (p. 35)
"Based on more than a hundred years of data like these, the claim that hatcheries can make up for habitat loss is false. Knowing what we know now, hearing someone advocate for hatcheries is like listening to a doctor advise a patient that it's okay to eat junk food, abuse alcohol, sit all day, and chain smoke because we have state-of-the-art emergency rooms and ICUs that can solve any health problems that might result. But the jobs and sport fisheries supported by hatcheries have created a vested interest group that fights any attempt to close them...David Montgomery recognized the root of the problem: the success of hatcheries has always been measured in numbers of fry released, not the health of the populations they are supposed to be supplementing...If the money spent on hatcheries over the past 130 years had been spent on habitat protection and restoration instead, the situation would be far different today." (p. 80-1)
Some quotes I liked:
"We find it repugnant when people exploit or abuse others for personal gain - we call them cheats, tyrants, scoundrels, or villains; we describe them as despicable, evil, vile, wicked or manipulative. Leopold said we should feel the same way about people who exploit or abuse land. If someone we meet is broken or damaged, we reach out to help them. If land is broken or damaged, we reach out to help it - by planting trees and native wildflowers." (p. 35)
"Based on more than a hundred years of data like these, the claim that hatcheries can make up for habitat loss is false. Knowing what we know now, hearing someone advocate for hatcheries is like listening to a doctor advise a patient that it's okay to eat junk food, abuse alcohol, sit all day, and chain smoke because we have state-of-the-art emergency rooms and ICUs that can solve any health problems that might result. But the jobs and sport fisheries supported by hatcheries have created a vested interest group that fights any attempt to close them...David Montgomery recognized the root of the problem: the success of hatcheries has always been measured in numbers of fry released, not the health of the populations they are supposed to be supplementing...If the money spent on hatcheries over the past 130 years had been spent on habitat protection and restoration instead, the situation would be far different today." (p. 80-1)
Pure: inside the Evangelical movement that shamed a generation of young women and how I broke free by Linda Kay Klein
Some quotes I liked:
"To summarize, first, the researchers are finding that purity teachings do not meaningfully delay sex. Second, they are finding that they do increase shame, especially among females. And third, they report that this increased shame is leading to higher levels of sexual anxiety, lower levels of sexual pleasure, and the feeling among those experiencing shame that they are stuck feeling this way forever. Oh, and it doesn't get better with time...it gets worse! Yep. Sounds about right." (p. 28)
"Reading these verses as an adult [Romans 14 verses about being a 'stumbling block'] I cannot help but shake my head - the whole time my childhood friends and I were being told that we were the stumbling blocks, our accusers were, even then, placing the real stumbling blocks before us: purity-based shaming and judgmentalism that pushed many of us right out of church...These stumbling blocks are: 1) the accusation that if purity culture doesn't work for you, it's you (not its teachings) that are the problem; 2) the requirement that all girls and women must perform a stereotypical gender role to be acceptable; 3) the expectation that all unmarried girls and women must maintain a sexless body, mind, and heart to be 'pure'; and 4) the systematic mishandling of sexual abuse cases and survivors." (p. 30)
"The cornerstone of the purity myth is the expectation that girls and women, in particular, will be utterly and absolutely nonsexual until the day they marry a man, at which point they will naturally and easily become his sexual satisfier, ensuring the couple will have children and never divorce: one man, one woman, in marriage, forever." (p. 77)
"By this I mean both that the purity movement classifies sexual violence by systematically silencing and hiding it, and that if and when it is exposed, the purity movement then misclassifies sexual violence as 'sex' rather than 'violence'...Equating survivors' actions, such as drinking in Laura's case, and perpetrators' actions, such as assault, is called sin-leveling, and is often categorized as a form of spiritual abuse." (p. 91)
"And after graduating from school, I had four or five avenues that I thought about as a vocation for myself, but I was just really looking for guidance from God: 'Where would you want me to be, God?' 'What if God was asking you the same question?' I asked. 'What if he was waiting for you to tell him what you wanted?' Katie laughed under her breath. 'It's funny because it really never occurred to me that maybe he was letting me choose. It never even occurred to me that he would be saying, 'And here's your life; do what you want.'"(p. 131)
"I have heard the tiger/lamb language many times since. Interviewees share about it being said from pulpits, in Bible studies, and in Christian counseling sessions. Somehow, purity culture has turned a pornographic fantasy about a virgin turned vamp into 'morality,' so that now both a woman's nonsexuality before marriage and her hypersexuality after marriage are required for her to be considered good." (p. 139)
"'I can't tell you what my daughters were taught in youth group,' Solange continued, picking her glass back up off the table. 'But I can tell you some of the results I saw: I saw them embarrassed about their feminine selves; I saw them more self-conscious about how they dressed and how they looked. They were just - I don't know. There was an underpinning of shame. When I read the Bible I see God's powerful love for women. I do not see in the Bible God treating women as second-class citizens, as little girls who aren't quite grown-up and will never be." (p. 153-4)
"Egalitarian women began organizing in the 1970s. In the eighties and nineties, complementarians fought back. Hard. Christian colleges that had embraced egalitarian thinking in the previous decades, for example, now fought to prove their commitment to complementarianism as demonstrated in their hiring practices, course offerings, and assignments. One of my interviewees even recalls having to write a college paper title 'Why Feminism is Wrong.' Tensions were particularly strong at Southern Seminary, the Southern Baptist Convention's flagship seminary. In the early to mid-1990s, the school made so-called women's issues a litmus test for whether or not a faculty member was conservative enough to teach there, its president calling them 'clear dividers in our time.'...Faculty hired before the new litmus test was put into place were now required to articulate a complementarian perspective if they wanted to keep their jobs...The seminary lost about a third of its faculty and half of its student body to the subsequent firings." (p. 162)
"I cannot help but wonder if, while some men worry that they are monsters because of this gender-based messaging, others may feel their monstrous behavior is justified because of it. When boys are repeatedly taught that they cannot control their sexual impulses and that it is a girl's responsibility to protect her own purity, how logical it must seem for perpetrators attempting to justify their actions to come to the conclusion that if a woman dresses or acts a certain way she is 'asking for it,' making rape at least partly (if not totally) her fault?" (p. 235-6)
Women Rowing North: navigating life's currants and flourishing as we age by Mary Pipher
Some quotes I liked:
"As with Reviving Ophelia, this book explores a specific life stage from a feminist perspective, revealing the reality of women's lives as opposed to the dominant cultural stories about us. We are much more complicated, intense, and fascinating than most of America's stories suggest. Our culture presents us with a misogynistic version of who we older women are. We confront both ageism and gender-specific challenges. As we age, our bodies, our sexuality, and our minds are devalued...Contrary to cultural stereotypes, many older women are deeply happy. A 2014 Brookings Institute study on happiness and age found that people are least happy in their twenties, thirties, and early forties, and steadily gain an appreciation for life as they age. Indeed, most women become increasingly happy after age fifty-five, with their peak of happiness toward the very end of life." (p. 4)
"This may be the most important thing - that we learn to grant ourselves mercy. That we forgive ourselves, that we accept our pain, mistakes, and vulnerability, and somehow manage to love ourselves and our own lives. Most of us do make progress in this area; all of us can make more. And it is only when we grant ourselves mercy that we can extend this mercy to others." (p. 158)
Eager: the surprising, secret life of beavers and why they matter by Ben Goldfarb
I always thought beavers were fascinating animals, but as Ben Goldfarb's book shows they are not only interesting, but necessary to our ecosystems. Beavers are "keystone animals" that "supports an entire ecosystem...pull the keystone out, and the arch - or the ecosystem - collapses." (p. 55-6) Over and over Goldfarb shows examples of how when beavers are over-trapped or exterminated the ecosystem collapses with devastating consequences, but the good news is that by bringing beavers back into areas they can actually heal the land. What's so sad in reading this book is how over and over humans have just destroyed our land for a quick gain, never thinking of how this will impact the future. It's also frustrating to see over and over how we humans think we can change nature to suit our desires, never thinking nature knows best and if we work WITH nature instead of against it things are better for everyone - humans and animals alike. Thankfully beavers are still around and can still help heal the land - if people are willing to work with them instead of trying to force nature to work around what we want. A wonderfully well-written book about a fascinating animal that can truly heal much of the damage humans have done to our land.
Some quotes I liked:
"The weight of the [beaver] pond presses water deep into the ground, recharging aquifers for use by downstream farms and ranches. Sediment and pollutants filter out in the slackwaters, cleansing flows. Flood dissipate in the ponds; wildfires hiss out in wet meadows. Wetlands capture and store spring rain and snowmelt, releasing water in delayed pulses that sustain crops through the dry summer. A report released by a consulting firm in 2011 estimated that restoring beavers to a single river basin, Utah's Escalante, would provide tens of millions of dollars in benefits each year. Although you can argue with the wisdom of slapping a dollar value on nature, there's no denying that these are some seriously important critters." (p. 7)
"We are not accustomed to discussing the fur trade in the same breath as those earth-changing industries [like mining], but perhaps we should. The disappearance of beavers dried up wetlands and meadows, hastened erosion, altered the course of countless streams, and imperiled water-loving fish, fowl, and amphibians - an aquatic Dust Bowl...'[Beavers'] systematic and widespread removal,' wrote Sharon Brown and Suzanne Fouty in 2011, 'represents the first large-scale Euro-American alteration of watersheds.' If trapping out beavers ranked among humanity's earliest crimes against nature, bringing them back is a way to pay reparations. Beavers, the animal that doubles as an ecosystem, are ecological and hydrological Swiss Army knives, capable, in the right circumstances, of tackling just about any landscape-scale problem you might confront. Trying to mitigate floods or improve water quality? There's a beaver for that. Hoping to capture more water for agriculture in the face of climate change? Add a beaver. Concerned about sedimentation, salmon populations, wildfire? Take two families of beavers and check back in a year. If that all sounds hyperbolic to you, well, I'm going to spend this book trying to change your mind." (p. 9-10)
"'From here in the twenty-first century, we can look back and see that people then really did have a much more sophisticated understanding of their ecology than we recognize today,' LaPier said. Western scientists may have taken centuries to come around to the notion that beavers create life, but to the Blackfeet and other tribes the animal's vitality was always self-evident." (p. 47)
"In some ways beavers are akin to fire, a maligned and misunderstood disruption that society has quelled for decades, with disastrous ecological side effects. Brainwashed by Smokey Bear's hardline anti-wildfire agenda, only recently have we woken to the importance of allowing the woods to burn...In 2001 the ecologist Mark Harmon coined the word morticulture to connote the importance of snags, logs, and other forms of woody detritus long ignored by foresters. Beavers are adroit morticulturalists: One Finland-based study found that beavers created as much deadwood as windstorms and wildfires. Destruction is the preface to renewal; a force of death also breaths life." (p. 58-9)
"Our grandiose sense of self-worth - our human supremacy, as Derrick Jensen has put it - guides our every interaction with other species, from the livestock we raise for slaughter to the wild carnivores whose populations we fanatically control. To work with beavers is to recognize the limits of our own divinely bestowed domination, to acknowledge that the best thing we can do for many landscapes is to turn their salvation over to a mammal whose ecological vision diverges wildly from our own. Homo sapien's defining trait is our hubris; ceding our authority to beavers is an act of profound humility. Let the rodent do the work." (p. 243 - last few sentences of the book)
Some quotes I liked:
"The weight of the [beaver] pond presses water deep into the ground, recharging aquifers for use by downstream farms and ranches. Sediment and pollutants filter out in the slackwaters, cleansing flows. Flood dissipate in the ponds; wildfires hiss out in wet meadows. Wetlands capture and store spring rain and snowmelt, releasing water in delayed pulses that sustain crops through the dry summer. A report released by a consulting firm in 2011 estimated that restoring beavers to a single river basin, Utah's Escalante, would provide tens of millions of dollars in benefits each year. Although you can argue with the wisdom of slapping a dollar value on nature, there's no denying that these are some seriously important critters." (p. 7)
"We are not accustomed to discussing the fur trade in the same breath as those earth-changing industries [like mining], but perhaps we should. The disappearance of beavers dried up wetlands and meadows, hastened erosion, altered the course of countless streams, and imperiled water-loving fish, fowl, and amphibians - an aquatic Dust Bowl...'[Beavers'] systematic and widespread removal,' wrote Sharon Brown and Suzanne Fouty in 2011, 'represents the first large-scale Euro-American alteration of watersheds.' If trapping out beavers ranked among humanity's earliest crimes against nature, bringing them back is a way to pay reparations. Beavers, the animal that doubles as an ecosystem, are ecological and hydrological Swiss Army knives, capable, in the right circumstances, of tackling just about any landscape-scale problem you might confront. Trying to mitigate floods or improve water quality? There's a beaver for that. Hoping to capture more water for agriculture in the face of climate change? Add a beaver. Concerned about sedimentation, salmon populations, wildfire? Take two families of beavers and check back in a year. If that all sounds hyperbolic to you, well, I'm going to spend this book trying to change your mind." (p. 9-10)
"'From here in the twenty-first century, we can look back and see that people then really did have a much more sophisticated understanding of their ecology than we recognize today,' LaPier said. Western scientists may have taken centuries to come around to the notion that beavers create life, but to the Blackfeet and other tribes the animal's vitality was always self-evident." (p. 47)
"In some ways beavers are akin to fire, a maligned and misunderstood disruption that society has quelled for decades, with disastrous ecological side effects. Brainwashed by Smokey Bear's hardline anti-wildfire agenda, only recently have we woken to the importance of allowing the woods to burn...In 2001 the ecologist Mark Harmon coined the word morticulture to connote the importance of snags, logs, and other forms of woody detritus long ignored by foresters. Beavers are adroit morticulturalists: One Finland-based study found that beavers created as much deadwood as windstorms and wildfires. Destruction is the preface to renewal; a force of death also breaths life." (p. 58-9)
"Our grandiose sense of self-worth - our human supremacy, as Derrick Jensen has put it - guides our every interaction with other species, from the livestock we raise for slaughter to the wild carnivores whose populations we fanatically control. To work with beavers is to recognize the limits of our own divinely bestowed domination, to acknowledge that the best thing we can do for many landscapes is to turn their salvation over to a mammal whose ecological vision diverges wildly from our own. Homo sapien's defining trait is our hubris; ceding our authority to beavers is an act of profound humility. Let the rodent do the work." (p. 243 - last few sentences of the book)
Big Love: the power of living with a wide-open heart by Scott Stabile
Some quotes I liked:
"Healing isn't possible within denial and fear. It's only possible within openness and honesty, within our willingness to look at the truth of our reality, past and present, and to accept it for what it is without letting it define who we are right now. We are not our struggles, or our heartbreak...But, ultimately, who we are is who we decide to be, because of and despite everything we've been through." (p. 22-3)
"Change will always be scary. Fearlessness will always be a myth. We can be afraid and still make courageous choices. Courage doesn't even exist without an element of fear. It's action with fear that makes a choice brave." (p. 119)
[On not wanting children] "I can't begin to imagine what women who don't want children have to endure. I've felt like a monster because I've never wanted children, or worse, because I'm not even a fan of them. But I've never had my purpose for living questioned simply because I chose not to procreate...We're not all put on earth to parent children. Indeed, we're not even all put on earth to enjoy them very much. There's no shame in either of those things." (p. 195)
Simple Matters: living with less and ending up with more by Erin Boyle
There were mixed reviews on this one and some of the main complaints were that the author seems to be pushing for everyone to make their own cleaners and lotions. I felt like this was more of a manual on how to have a more simple life overall and how the author interprets that for her own life. Nowhere did I read anything that felt like this is how you MUST do things to be a good human being. She does talk about her own journey of simplicity and getting away from chemicals by making some of her own body lotions and cleaning products, but I felt like she wrote in a very non-judgmental way. There were a few things I couldn't relate to - only having one perfect throw blanket - nope. Only having one or two things on huge bare walls - again, not for me. A desk with only a computer and keyboard on it - again, no - where are your files, bills, stamps, etc. she never discusses that when talking about her desk. This is more of a simplifying manual for aspiring minimalists. I am NOT a minimalist and don't aspire to be, but I did like some of what she talked about in this book. Trying to make your home inspire you with beautiful things (regardless of how many things) instead of a bunch of cheap crap is fair and something I can definitely get behind. I did like this one, but Slow: simple living for a frantic world by Brooke McAlary definitely spoke to me more.
