Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It
- Oct 30, 2010
- 1 min read
★★★☆☆
I should be rating this book higher, and if I were coming from a different perspective, I very like would. Diet for a Hot Planet is a solid, if somewhat repetitive, primer on what's wrong with our 21st-century food production system vis-à-vis climate change and what responsible people can do (and are doing) about it. There's also plenty—though maybe not enough—about the usual suspects' (Monsanto, Syngenta, Tyson, Cargill, ADM, etc.) efforts to preserve the status quo. But this is a book with a distinctly positive point of view, so it's light on condemnation, accusation, and scare tactics and high on positive case studies, talking points, and resources for turning knowledge into action. As a nineteen-year vegan, third-year home gardener, and all-around locavore, however, I found the anecdotes interesting and hopeful, but neither new nor surprising. Likewise, the information on agri-business, that was neither novel nor nearly damning enough. Finally, while the resources are for everyone, they're really designed for people who haven't already been living an environmentally food-conscious life for nearly twenty years. But if you're interested in taking the next—and arguably biggest and most beneficial—step in helping to battle climate change, this book is definitely for you.
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