Book Reviews

Paul Hawken’s latest book, Blessed Unrest

Reviewed by Brian Sharkey

Environmental movements in America are often seen as favoring nature over people, but for many around the world, social justice and the environment are inextricable. Paul Hawken’s Blessed Unrest argues that both causes are about something greater than oneself. Whether a mother fights a mining company over contaminated drinking water or a filmmaker documents the social upheaval caused by the construction of dams, these people embody justice, both social and environmental and they embody the future of this planet and its inhabitants.

Blessed Unrest is the story of the people and organizations that defend the voiceless of the world, whether it is the landless in Brazil, Arctic polar bears, or a pristine river valley in China. Hawken argues that these people comprise the largest movement in the history of mankind, a movement without a leader, without an ideology, and without a name. The movement is inchoate and diffuse, as well, attributes which impart a resiliency to the movement that will allow it to succeed where others have not.

When looked at in fragments, as the media so often does, the movement can appear misguided or even silly, addressing issues that seem irrelevant or fringe. Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote of the media’s coverage of the Women’s Suffrage movement, “All the journalists, from Maine to Texas, seemed to strive with each other to see which could make our movement seem the most ridiculous.” Over the nearly 100 years since the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified, those attitudes have changed. And so will attitudes regarding today’s environmental and social justice movement, as soon as it ceases to be balkanized and is understood as humanity’s response to global injustice, as soon as its whole is recognized as greater than its parts.

Replete with chronicles of success in the face in insurmountable odds, Blessed Unrest is uplifting, yet forthright. Hawken lays bare what is at stake and the interests and institutions that stand in the way of a planet unified around peace and equality, a planet we can be proud to pass on to our children. In the words of Hawken, “I didn’t plan on it; optimism found me.” Let’s hope it finds us all.

Why the Wind Blows by Matthys Levy Reviewed by Allison A. Bailes III, PhD Matthys Levy has written an interesting little book about the effects of the sun’s radiation on the Earth. Don’t be fooled by the title into thinking it’s merely about wind, however. Yes, Levy covers the origin of wind, the various wind patterns on the planet, hurricanes and tornadoes, but he also describes the various forms of precipitation, glaciers and sea ice, floods, ocean currents and climate change.

The author does an admirable job of explaining the science behind the phenomena, yet he doesn’t get bogged down with overly technical accounts.

This book is written to be accessible to those readers who have an interest in science, whether or not they’ve had much formal education in the field.

One of the book’s greatest assets is the well-balanced mix of technical information (e.g., Hadley cells, the Beaufort scale) with historical accounts of human interactions with weather. Because the oceans play such a large role in both human history and the Earth’s weather, Levy recounts many tales of our seafaring forebears, from the Chinese inventor of the magnetic compass to Magellan’s circumnavigation of the globe to the voyage of the Titanic.

The final chapter of the book is a tidy summary of climate change. The author discusses the science as we understand it currently, the effect of humans, some of the potential changes we may see in the future and what options we have available to us to mitigate the effects of all the carbon we’ve been pumping into the atmosphere.

The main weakness of the book—and it’s a minor one—is that it’s illustrated only with black and white line drawings. Overall, though, it’s a well written and entertaining guide to the planet on which we live.