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A review by tardigradest
Desert by Anonymous
2.0
though some of the sections of this book were good and useful, I had to put it down after some of the sections (specifically those on food and conservation) had a lot of misinformation and were borderline ecofascist. specifically, the author takes a Malthusian lens to food production and claims we have an overpopulation problem now that will get any worse if we give up industrial ag.
1) we dont have a food production problem, we have a food distribution problem. we grow plenty of food to feed 10 billion people, it's just caught up in biofuels and overproduced in some regions so as to undermine farming in others
2) we can produce enough food for 10 billion people with no extra land cleared and *better nutritional results* with agroecological methods instead of industrial ag.
3) for someone citing famine theory, they dont seem to really understand famine theory.
it's clear the author had no understanding of what they were talking about here, and as this is a central point of the work, it's hard to trust that they know what they're talking about on things I'm not able to judge based on my background knowledge.
while some sections I got to were definitely worth reading (esp the first), it's a shame that I've seen this uncritically passed around some leftist circles, probably by those who simply didnt know better. I guess my takeaway is read critically, and dont assume this author really knows what they're talking about.
1) we dont have a food production problem, we have a food distribution problem. we grow plenty of food to feed 10 billion people, it's just caught up in biofuels and overproduced in some regions so as to undermine farming in others
2) we can produce enough food for 10 billion people with no extra land cleared and *better nutritional results* with agroecological methods instead of industrial ag.
3) for someone citing famine theory, they dont seem to really understand famine theory.
it's clear the author had no understanding of what they were talking about here, and as this is a central point of the work, it's hard to trust that they know what they're talking about on things I'm not able to judge based on my background knowledge.
while some sections I got to were definitely worth reading (esp the first), it's a shame that I've seen this uncritically passed around some leftist circles, probably by those who simply didnt know better. I guess my takeaway is read critically, and dont assume this author really knows what they're talking about.