Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do about It Review

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(More customer reviews)Many of you thinking about buying this are expecting somethng similar to the "Diet for a Small Planet", which is, in part, a cookbook for vegans and vegetarians. There are no recipes in this book.
What this is, is a very well done discussion of green farming, agribusiness, and what to do to eat greener. There are several chapters discussing the greenwashing of agribusiness, and how marketing makes us think that products are "green" which inherently are not. It's fascinating reading.
Specifically, there has been an enormous amount of discussion in the popular press in recent years about how agribusiness-grown foods are better for the planet because they're more efficiently grown--which isn't true; the numbers that have been manufactured to make agribusiness look good don't take into account the sheer volume of fossil fuels required to transport food.
There are also some interesting discussions about how to get sustainable beef: the author talks about carbon sinks in grassland; some ecologists have noted that large swaths of grassland hold even more carbon than forests. If we could just keep cows out of feedlots, then it would be a lot more o.k. to eat beef.
Then, the author goes off on a "green farming" tangent that is a little hard to stomach because her ideas about real farming aren't realistic; the author goes into a long discussion of green farming and rhapsodizes at great length about "growing what would grow there naturally."
No offense, but you know what grows in much of the breadbasket of the United States (California and Texas) without huge amounts of transported water? Nothing.
Despite some of the unrealistic ideas, there are some neat ideas in the chapters on green farming.
The author tells you what to actually eat near the end of the book. It's the usual, "Food, mostly plants." to quote Pollan, and preferably local.
This is very well thought-out, analytically sound, reference for anyone interested in farming or ranching in a sustainable way. It's much better logically than much of what gets published in the popular press.
Who would like this: ecologists, farmers, ranchers, owners of small family farms, people involved in urban planning, and anyone who wants a more in-depth discussion of green farming techniques.
Who wouldn't like this: PETA apologists, and vegan evangelists. She has some negative things to say about them.

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