Elevate Difference

Reviews of Chelsea Green Publishing

Meat: A Benign Extravagance

Simon Fairlie’s contribution to the debate over how food choices influence the ecological and socioeconomic health of our communities, collected as sixteen chapters in Meat: A Benign Extravagance, probably will, as the foreword predicts, impact the future of sustainable agriculture. The scope of the project is grand, and Fairlie presents what appears to be both thorough research and sound reasoning regarding several interrelated issues. His readable, likeable style, and mostly objective tone, have led reviewers to interpret his findings in contradictory ways (i.e., we should cut back on meat/we should eat meat), which actually may be a testament to the book’s value.

Marijuana is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink?

Cutting to the chase: The three authors of Marijuana is Safer—all active politically in pro-marijuana organizations—argue in favour of a regulated system for the distribution and sale of marijuana in America to allow its responsible use by adults. The evidence they accumulate to support their position is based on health, logic, science, and money. A couple of chapters sum up the history of how, after U.S.

Future Scenarios: How Communities Can Adapt to Peak Oil and Climate Change

David Holmgren, one of the founders of the permaculture concept, turns his attention to forecasting the results of changes to energy and climate in Future Scenarios: How Communities Can Adapt to Peak Oil and Climate Change. The first half of the book provides an overview of the history of energy, energy futures, and the relationships between climate change and peak oil.

The Flower Farmer: An Organic Grower's Guide to Raising and Selling Cut Flowers

As far as dream jobs go, being an organic flower farmer ranks right up there with travel writer, cake baker, and rock star. As Lynn Byczynski thoroughly explains in The Flower Farmer, growing organic flowers for profit is a completely reasonable and realistic career choice that anyone can accomplish. Byczynski, who has been growing flowers commercially for 20 years, takes the reader step-by-step through the beginner stages of flower farming.

Pearls, Politics, and Power: How Women Can Win and Lead

With the 2008 election, we saw the first woman candidate who could win, but why did it take this long? Too few women have run for office in both the state and federal level. Madeleine M.

An Unreasonable Woman: A True Story of Shrimpers Politicos Polluters and The Fight For Seadrift, Texas

Diane Wilson may hail from Texas, but An Unreasonable Woman, which takes the reader from the Gulf Coast to Taiwan and back, is no tall tale. In 1989, Wilson, a shrimper and mother of five, read a newspaper article reporting that her native Calhoun County (pop. 15,000) was the most polluted county in the nation. When she started inquiring about the chemicals being dumped into her beloved San Antonio Bay, getting the cold shoulder from government officials and the polluters only made Wilson more determined.

Luminous Fish: Tales of Science and Love

This novel by celebrated biologist and writer Lynn Margulis purports to trace the personal lives of scientists. It focuses on four individuals: Howard, a pre-med student at the University of Chicago; Raoul, a French atmospheric chemist; Georges, a New Jersey native and probability expert; and René, the only major female character, at one point involved with Howard and later with Raoul.

Mission Rejected: U.S. Soldiers Who Say No to Iraq

Mission Rejected explores the lives and motivations behind soldiers who have refused to serve in Iraq—either by finding a way out before their tours began or by returning home, devastated by what they saw in the desert and finding ways not to return when called.
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