Summary From Amazon: "In Cows Save the Planet, journalist Judith D. Schwartz looks at soil as a crucible for our many overlapping environmental, economic, and social crises. Schwartz reveals that for many of these problems—climate change, desertification, biodiversity loss, droughts, floods, wildfires, rural poverty, malnutrition, and obesity—there are positive, alternative scenarios to the degradation and devastation we face. In each case, our ability to turn these crises into opportunities depends on how we treat the soil."
I was expecting a book about raising and managing cows in a holistic way. I was pleasantly suprised that this is a book that gives the reader an overview of many environmental problems and how permaculturalists are solving them. Her main focus is soil and carbon. A very interesting book and one that folks should buy for their friends and neighbors to give them an introduction of what permaculture is.
I give this book 9 out of 10 acorns. The writing style did not appeal to me, else I would give it 10. I agree with Miles, the book provides "an overview of many environmental problems and how permaculturalists are solving them. Her main focus is soil and carbon."
When I read the book, I was not particularly interested in Permaculture. I did not notice that the author identified any permaculturists, else it might have raised my interest in permaculture.
What I like about the book is how well the author describes the connection between soil carbon, soil health, and the major climatological issues of our time. Drought/flood cycles and such. I bought several copies and gave them out to be read and passed along to others. I think the book should be required reading. That our climatological problems can be solved effectively and quickly is a hopeful message. We need hope and inspriation, and this book provides success stories of practitioners across North America.
i was asked to give acorns to this book. this is hard for me. it is hard because i begin to think of the subject matter and could someone else have made it easier to digest, brought it together in a better way. I suspect that someone else could have done it more perfectly, whatever that means. the real questilon though is were it done more perfectly would it have led to my trying to do that on my own.. i would say that the way she has done it has left me a lot of room to figure it out for myself which is very important to me and i would think to most people reading about these issues. so from that point i would give 10 of 10 acorns for this book.
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Think globally and act locally. How do we expand our horizons enough to think globally.
This is a review of Cows Save the Planet, and Other Improbable Ways of Restoring Soil to Heal the Earth.
There is another subtitle: Unmaking the Deserts, Rethinking Climate Change, Bringing Back Diversity, and Restoring Nutrients to Our Food.
I am 72 years old and probably should be ashamed to admit that finding this book was a grand surprise for me. I did not know that there are books where someone has waded through scientific material, farmer material, doctor or health material (whatever) and given an overview of a topic. Maybe that is what textbooks are supposed to be but they are dry and boring. I was delighted to find this book which is a tour through man made planetary and human disequilibrium, call it what you like, climate change, desertification, drought.
She surrounds “meaty subjects” with a context such as having breakfast in a beautiful spot on the African savanna. I loved the whole book. She describes a lot of the pieces of what are causing disruptions of our ecosystems and what can rebalance them. Water cycles are divided into the small water cycle, what happens at the local land level and the large water cycle, moving the water from the sea to the land and back again to the sea. She describes holistic management developed by Allan Savory and how and why it is restoring severely degenerated land, all over the world. I am a vegetarian and I highly value what these practices are doing for our world. I do not agree that working with animals is the only way to restore our ecosystems, as I am demonstrating a system I learned about in India to do this very thing.
She describes the connection between degenerated land, degenerated water cycles and increasing air temperatures. She describes why growing our food without enough microbes is compromising our health and causing us to over rely on medicine. She even has a section about economics. And so much more. I cannot recommend this book highly enough if you have any holes in your global thinking, as I did, that you would like to complete.
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