Customer Reviews

Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do about It

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Many of you thinking about buying this are expecting somethng similar to the "Diet for a Small Planet", which is, in part, a cookbook for vegans and vegetarians. There are no recipes in this book.

What this is, is a very well done discussion of green farming, agribusiness, and what to do to eat greener. There are several chapters discussing the greenwashing of agribusiness, and how marketing makes us think that products are "green" which inherently are not. It's fascinating reading.

Specifically, there has been an enormous amount of discussion in the popular press in recent years about how agribusiness-grown foods are better for the planet because they're more efficiently grown--which isn't true; the numbers that have been manufactured to make agribusiness look good don't take into account the sheer volume of fossil fuels required to transport food.

There are also some interesting discussions about how to get sustainable beef: the author talks about carbon sinks in grassland; some ecologists have noted that large swaths of grassland hold even more carbon than forests. If we could just keep cows out of feedlots, then it would be a lot more o.k. to eat beef.

Then, the author goes off on a "green farming" tangent that is a little hard to stomach because her ideas about real farming aren't realistic; the author goes into a long discussion of green farming and rhapsodizes at great length about "growing what would grow there naturally."

No offense, but you know what grows in much of the breadbasket of the United States (California and Texas) without huge amounts of transported water? Nothing.

Despite some of the unrealistic ideas, there are some neat ideas in the chapters on green farming.

The author tells you what to actually eat near the end of the book. It's the usual, "Food, mostly plants." to quote Pollan, and preferably local.

This is very well thought-out, analytically sound, reference for anyone interested in farming or ranching in a sustainable way. It's much better logically than much of what gets published in the popular press.

Who would like this: ecologists, farmers, ranchers, owners of small family farms, people involved in urban planning, and anyone who wants a more in-depth discussion of green farming techniques.

Who wouldn't like this: PETA apologists, and vegan evangelists. She has some negative things to say about them.

This book brings out the important point that agriculture, not transportation, is the sector that makes the largest impact on global climate change. Lappe is a journalist with a lifelong interest in sustainable food (her mother wrote the classic "Diet for a Small Planet"). In this book, she discusses the various ways that our eating choices affect climate change. She explains how the practices of industrial food producers add to greenhouse gases, from fossil use to produce nitrogen fertilizers, to increased methane production from livestock waste, to clearing rainforests for crop and livestock production. She notes in particular how increased meat consumption worldwide has been responsible for more land clearance for feed production, increased production of nitrogen fertilizers to grow the feed, and increased methane release from animal waste. The book is divided into 4 sections: Crisis, Spin, Hope, and Action; the final section includes specific suggestions for how individual consumers can reduce their share of the impact food production makes on climate change. Sources are documented with endnotes. The book also includes a selected biography and a list of learning resources for further information.

The book caught my attention in the first chapter, where Lappe introduces the idea that current agricultural practices pose a serious threat to the climate. I was quite interested in learning more about the issues. Lappe does an admirable job of explaining why methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and how agriculture, especially industrial agriculture, promotes the production and release of methane. Lappe is clearly quite impassioned by the topic of climate change and environmentalism. Perhaps because of this, she occasionally strays off topic, tackling broader issues of greenwashing and climate change, rather than maintaining her focus strictly on food and agriculture. She also comes down heavy on all aspects of industrial agriculture, arguing that their attempts to capture methane for energy production or create biofuels from animal waste are greenwashing. Certainly, growing animals for the creation of biofuels would be ridiculously inefficient as a means of producing energy, but tapping some of their wastes for energy production, if the waste is being produced anyway, seems preferable to other ways of dealing with the waste, which result in more emissions. Overall, I found the book quite informative about this important topic, but not entirely focused.

If you are already aware of the relationship between climate change and the food we eat, this book might not serve as a real eye-opener. However, if you're just becoming aware of this relationship, I would recommend this book wholeheartedly. It's packed with information including things we can do to live and eat more responsibly, and it's easy to read.

Obviously, you may not agree with everything the author says, but it's hard to dispute that there are some big problems out there that should be addressed.

We need to start "voting with our dollars" at the supermarket. If we keep buying meat, veggies, etc. that were grown irresponsibly, the big corporations will keep delivering them to our grocery store shelves. All of our little changes can add up to something big if we just make an effort.

This book has no shortage of criticism. As a liberal, I'm constantly amazed how extreme some other liberals can be. Ms. Lappe spares not one negative adjective to describe everything big and corporate. Her message in the book, that we must eat in tune with nature, is nearly lost among the vitriol she spills for large farming operations. For example, she rails against the environmentally detrimental aspects of large feedlots (CAFOs), but has no suggestions to improve them short of eliminating them altogether. In one section she belittles the efforts of CAFOs to develop biogas digesters, a technology that generates power from all that waste and provides clean fertilizer for crops. This is an excellent move in the right direction, but Ms. Lappe's politics call for nothing short of total elimination. She is a city girl, and doesn't realize that the city is nothing more than a CAFO for humans, with the exact same environmental results.

Though the book is aimed at emissions, she fails to distance herself from traditional issues such as poverty and humane treatment of animals - items irrelevant to climate change. Like so many environmentalists, she gets lost in the hopeless web of farmers markets, the myriad uses of fuel in the growing process, and veganism. You may come out of this book more confused than when you went in.

Her solutions usually sound the same note - drop it in favor of something else. Stop eating meat (not going to happen). Stop using oil (not gonna happen soon). Stop monoculture (needs to happen, but won't happen overnight). She fails to describe any stopgap mechanisms, transitionary technologies, or any other description of how to get from here to there. She ignores completely financial considerations, legacy issues, regulatory issues, etc. The one exception is her coverage of intercropping and sustainable farming.

This book is the work of an idealist who sees something wrong and is concerned. She's shouting "fire", but she hasn't pointed the way toward the exit.

If, dear reader, you know nothing about the state of our food and agriculture crisis in the face of climate change, this is a good place to start. If you've already watched King Corn or Food Inc., skip it.

Thanks to the efforts of Al Gore, most people are aware of their carbon footprint and ways that they can reduce the size of their footprint. But how many of us know that we also have a "foodprint"? Anna Lappé introduces us to this important concept in her book, "Diet for a Hot Planet".

Thanks to the factory farming of crops and animals, the very food we eat is contributing to the problem of global warming. The production of chemical fertilizers and pesticides fill the air with greenhouse gases. The resulting degradation of topsoil from the use of chemical fertilizers not only decreases the soil's ability to store carbon, but also releases the carbon formerly stored in soils into the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide.

And then there is livestock. Livestock which is fed the majority of the corn and soy beans raised in a miasma of chemicals. Livestock which produces waste in such quantity that it has to be stored in manure lagoons which leach into the soil and foul the groundwater, or flooded out in storms, pollute the surrounding countryside.

The most frightening statistic in the book is that ruminants (livestock that eats grass such as cows) produce 27% of methane emitted globally. Methane is a more dangerous greenhouse gas than the carbon dioxide that we are all so fixated on. Factory farming of livestock produces more greenhouse gases than all of the cars, trucks, buses, trains and planes together in the entire world.

Having made her argument about the deadly cost to the environment of factory farms, Ms Lappé offers a solution. She introduces us to New Forest Farm, an organic farm that practices mixed agriculture where diverse crops are grown together in the same fields as opposed to the monoculture favored by factory farms. Mixed agriculture keeps the soil and the farmer's pocketbook healthy. If one crop fails or underproduces, other crops grown in the same fields continue to produce both a harvest and an income stream, while enriching and replenishing the soil.

This is the one part of the book that I found disappointing. Ms. Lappé gives the impression that the concept of mixed agriculture is a new and extraordinary idea. It is, in fact, a very ancient idea. Native Americans practiced this kind of agriculture for thousands of years before their way of life was wiped out by Europeans. Think "Three Sisters" (corn, squash and beans) in North America. In Central America, it is known as "milpa" and still practiced in some areas. Farmers plant a dozen different crops together in the same fields. Some milpa fields have stayed fertile for over four thousand years.

Ms. Lappé then addresses the argument that organic farming is not as productive as factory farming. She rightly points out that organic farming is more productive. Then she goes on to discuss the dangers of genetically modified plants. I was impressed by her calm, matter of fact tone on this hot button topic. So many authors, both for and against GMOs (genetically modified organisms), tend to get a little shrill when discussing their views.

The last part of her book is the most valuable. She gives her readers, no matter where they live in the USA, the resources and tools they need to reduce the size of their own and their communities' "foodprint". She impressed me once more with the realistic solutions she offers and the level of detail, depending on how involved people would like to be in the process. Books on climate change tend to either offer sweeping generalizations or solutions that are too impractical for the typical man (or woman) on the street.

I had just finished reading Michael Pollan's "In Defense of Food", which lead me to this book. Both bring you to the same conclusion - that the current state of mega-corporations controlling our food supply is bad policy for our short and long-term health, and potentially the viability of our planet. Most people are unaware of the havoc that our quest for cheap and easy food has created; obesity and other health issues, and ultimately global warming. Anna Lappe does a good job of laying out the facts, and potential solutions to the problem. The book is very well-organized and a quick read, though not as dramatic as Pollan's work.

I'm interested in learning as much as I can about anthropogenic influences on our climate (but I'm also aware of the difficulties in understanding the complex science; see What's the Worst That Could Happen?: A Rational Response to the Climate Change Debate). I've read a number of pieces about the influence of our food production systems and our dietary choices on greenhouse gas production. Sickness causing a great deal of waste. Shipping foods all around the planet is oftentimes energy intensive. And meat production... don't get me started, because I don't have to. Author Anna Lappe does it for me in her book, Diet For A Small Planet.

Lappe's bottom line? Support locally-produced agriculture. Avoid factory-produced meats. What else does she say?

- "... livestock production alone is responsible for as much as 18 percent of the global warming effect." "This figure includes almost one tenth of carbon emissions, more than one third of methane, and roughly two thirds of nitrous oxide."

- Prepare to face those who intentionally mean to confuse you. "'Doubt is our product,' wrote the [tobacco] executives. 'It is the best means of competing with the 'body of fact' that exists in the mind of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy.'" Lappe discusses the same strategy happening with diet-based concerns and claims. She also discusses the "playbook" of the marketing gurus:

1. Advertise the 'new you' [the "I am reborn or reformed" strategy]
2. Spin the story [you're not really involved in the bad stuff, and you are actually full of the "right stuff"]
3. Deploy front groups and fig leaves [know who to hide behind]
4. Exaggerate your transformation [why, that 15% post-consumer content of the napkins is the answer to our prayers!]
5. Be your own police [works so, so well, with ground beef!]
6. Reward yourself [give each other "environmentalist of the decade" awards]

And then there are Lappe's "Seven principles of a climate-friendly diet":

1. Reach for real food
2. Put plants on your plate
3. Don't panic, go organic.
4. Lean toward local.
5. Finish your peas... the ice caps are melting.
6. Send packaging packing.
7. DIY food.

You can see the similarities to Michael Pollan's "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants" suggestion in In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto.

One error I found was Lappe promoting barn owls for rodent control on farms. I'm all for championing and encouraging owls, but there are NO studies that find that the placement of barn owl boxes actually decrease rodent populations. There are just too many mice and rats, and if the number of rats and mice is lower than another area within an owl's home range, the owl goes where the food is. We should promote owls as part of a stewardship ethos, not for rodent control.

THis should be a good and readable book for book clubs. However, I fear that it will be read by those who care, and ignored by all others. What is the INCENTIVE to change one's diet? Unsustainable food is cheap food. Unsustainable food is food that is available tear-round. Unsustainable food is rich in meat, the centerpiece of the American diet (and a centerpiece that is increasing in China as well). Even the health rewards of a primarily plant-based diet are not enough to shift the pendulum.

I await the answer.

The way I see it, it doesn't really matter if you believe in Global Warming or not. The bottom line is that it's our responsibility to educate ourselves about our actions & what effects that have on our world. "Do no harm" should be everyone's motto. That said, if you are a believer in Global Warming you will be nodding your head in agreement to most everything in this book. If you think it's a bunch of nonsense, you probably will believe she is another environmental wack or whatever. I am asking you non believers to remove the climate crisis view & just view it as this is what WE are doing to our HOME. I can only hope that then it will cause a dawning within you to at least start making smarter choices.
The author makes sure to provide references to back up the information she provides. She also provides information about resources we can explore to further educate ourselves & "take action".
I agree with most of her views & already practice a whole heck of a lot of them. No, I'm not patting myself on the back. It is hard & a lot of people treat me like I've lost my mind. I cannot give up & will do my best to show through action how easy it can be to live lighter.
The author encourages the reader to eat local, eat organic, support local farms. Now this doesn't mean the local Tyson chicken factory! But the local family farmer where you can shake their hand, see their birds/produce/honey. Are they using pesticides? Some are practicing Organic, but are not certified. Some farmers are beyond organic. She encourages us to grow our own food (novel idea hu?), cook for ourselves (now she's getting really crazy!), start a compost pile (really it just doesn't make sense to put twigs out for pick up & throw banana peels in the garbage & then go buy bags of potting/top/garden soil now does it?).
So please, read this book. Do not be fooled by the giant chemical companies. Chemicals are NOT our friends. Unless you want to buddy up to cancer, autism, allergies, digestive disorders....

Thank you for writing this book. It gives me hope! We make over 200 food choices a day, and if at least one more choice per day favored sustainability and climate-friendly food practices, we could reduce the rate of environmental destruction. Lappe distinctively points out the pro-industrial food argument that we could not feed the planet using organic and sustainable agriculture. She then proceeds to cite the facts: Not only can organic, sustainable farming adequately feed us, but it can promote economic self-sufficiency among the poorer communities who can really tap into their natural resources. She makes the case to work with the environment, using science to bolster the natural producing capacity of the land. In our current environment, science is used to manipulate the natural cycle of the land through bio-tech crops, GMOs, pesticides, herbicides, and more. Sure, this method produces a heck of a lot of calories for humans, but somehow, the poor communities are still poor and most critically, still hungry. The ROI from smartly switching to organic, sustainable farming globally is tremendous. The downfall? A few corporate bigwigs lose their jobs. Oh, and our immediate gratification for five varieties of chips ahoy is squashed... Read this book. You decide.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I'm a fan of research papers, and the sheer volume of research that went into writing this book makes it impressive to me. What's even more impressive, though, are the concise and easy to read conclusions that Anna Lappé draws from her research. She clearly shows the connection between climate change and our food system with realism and hope.

The ideas she presents about sustainable eating--from food's origin to its ending--are not radical. Anna draws upon practices that are already in place and flourishing both in the United States and around the globe. What speaks to me most is the need for diversity. Ecosystems thrive efficiently because there are many components working together: farming is the same. There is no need for CAFOS (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) to provide adequately for our food needs, and we don't need to sign off meat (unless we want to). The last 100 pages discuss ways to find and support delicious food that can help rather than harm our surroundings. There are so many websites and other resources that it's difficult to summarize. So, read this book and then interact. You won't be disappointed.