By Carina Butterworth
August 2, 2021
The book reference:
David, L. & Reismann, H. (2021) Imagine It! A Handbook for a Happier Planet. Indigo Press, Ontario, Canada.
I like to read different kinds of books when I have time. Sometimes, I enjoy the odd non-fiction book to learn new perspectives and gain some random knowledge. Sometimes, I have a bone to pick with those books. I picked up Imagine It! A Handbook for a Happier Planet thinking that there might be some good information in it about social justice and climate justice. From the front of the book, the quote “An excellent how-to guide [and] a great read for everyone from the socially conscious family to the most ardent climate activist” (Former Vice President Al Gore) had me excited that there would be lots of good ideas for me to try. I can usually overlook some things that I disagree with in a book, but this one started me off on the wrong foot. I was determined to write something about this book after the first page (maybe not the first page – the preface was for the most part fine).
The Authors
Looking at the authors of the book, one is the CEO of Indigo – a book company. Awesome. Someone really rich who knows how to sell books. I won’t say that that is necessarily a bad thing, but her experience leans to her perspective of wealthy environmentalism and makes it difficult for the average person to even remotely attempt what she is doing. I guarantee that perhaps she practices some environmentalism in her life, but the accumulation of wealth is not an environmentally friendly approach to start. To do everything in her book that she so claims to do would be impossible with a busy CEO schedule. I’m not a CEO, but I work hard and have a lot on the go. I know I couldn’t do everything in the book. She also has no science background or data analyst background.
The second author supposedly owns an organic hobby farm while being a film producer. She’s been involved in producing An Inconvenient Truth, which means she has some good information, but is still not a scientist or a data analyst. Their lack of expertise in science and data tells me that there are warning signs to begin with. But why not try reading the book to see if they surprise me.
(To provide context, my Master’s degree and first PhD looked at climate change, so I feel that I have some expertise to talk about this – more than they do.)
The Referencing
Ok, let’s go back to page 1. There is a great big statement that goes across two pages that claims “There is now more carbon dioxide in the air than at any time in the last three million years, which is to say, in human history.” That’s it on the page. Where did they get this information? I know for a fact that they did not generate that knowledge themselves, so why is it not referenced? This completely ruins the integrity of the book without proper referencing. The CEO of a book company should know better than this. The ENTIRE book has zero citations and proper scientific references. I don’t expect to see a scientific paper published for the general public, but at bare minimum, refer to who has developed that knowledge.
As an example, at the beginning of each chapter there is a “Fact” page. There are “facts” stated that give numbers and modelling interpretations, but no references from where they came from. Again, complete lack of integrity of this book.
They claim that if you want to learn more, to check out the webpages they list. Why don’t they say “visit a library and ask the librarian to help you find the research on the topic of interest”? This teaches people that they need to go to the correct places for their facts. I love Greenpeace, but their data on their website is often misconstrued and used/communicated inappropriately. They can’t be a reliable source of data.
Supposed “Facts”
A lot of the facts are actually alarmist with no scientific evidence that I can find in the science databases. For example, one misconstrued “fact” is the ingestion of microplastics a week. Sure, according to Cox, et al. [1], humans consume anywhere between 203 to 312 microplastic particles a day. But what does that mean? Actually, the highest consumption comes from the air. Does that mean we need to stop breathing to protect ourselves? Seriously. What a ridiculous mis-construed “fact”. If they wanted to state that, they could have mentioned that bottled water has approximately 94.37 MPs/L versus tap water that has 4.23 MPs/L [1]. That has a better chance of making an impact to those of us who know how to read research papers. A broad brush like a general statement with no research citation resembles bullsh*t to me. And that is just one…
Another “fact” in a chapter that really bothered me was “conventional food production” being responsible for one-quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. First of all, where did they get this data? Secondly, define “conventional”. It can mean “following traditional forms” (Oxford Dictionary, 2021). If that is the case, traditional farming can go back before machines. The use of words is important here.
Oh, and don’t get me started on the “chemical” issue. Again, claiming that an apple is sprayed with 30 different chemicals means what? For example, water consists of two chemical elements: hydrogen and oxygen. Using rain water, without any air pollution contains sodium, potassium, magnesium, calcium, chloride, bicarbonate, and sulfate. Is that what they are referring to? Or, what if they use eucalyptus oil as a “chemical free pesticide”? It is called a monoterenoid and is a bicyclic ether as a liquid. Does that scare you yet? They obviously have no idea what it means to be “chemical free”, because it’s impossible.
Oh, and then the suggestion of not eating foods if you can’t pronounce the ingredients. What does that do to people who have limited literacy? Or, what about other cultures foods? How racist is it to say “if you don’t know what it is, don’t eat it”? What if I want to try Viennoiserie, but I don’t know what it is and can’t pronounce it. Or a dish with nsima? With the rule they provide, if I don’t understand that it is from a different culture, I’d label it as “bad food”. Is this really what their purpose is?
Another issue that I have is the condemnation of farmers in this. I have family that are industrial farmers. Stuff like condemning them for raising beef on pasture is not going to get them on board the environmentalism movement. Organic certification is next to impossible to get when you own several sections of land for crop farming. There is the possibility of choosing to buy your vegetables and meat at a local farmers market, but that is difficult at times. I live in Canada. We have less than 90 days of growing season for food, unless you have a heated greenhouse. Without the use of many freezers in the home (which are an energy consumer), it is challenging to grow foods in a greenhouse when you need to heat it with a fossil fuel. THERE ARE NO OTHER OPTIONS other than shipping in food. But this book does not provide any perspective on that. Canadians are terrible people because it gets cold here. (Please hear my sarcasm).
The Issue
I think this book is a great example of poor communication. It is not aimed at trying to teach people facts and not aimed at trying to get more people on board; it is aimed at alarmist work with a complete lack of integrity. There needs to be appropriate context backed up with the actual research with the phrasing being educational. This is completely missed and almost made me angry at these people for trying to sabotage the environmentalist movement. I don’t blame people for rebelling after reading a book like this because it is meant to divide the population and control the “Karen’s” that have already drank the extremist koolaid. (By the way, they talk about how bad paper is for the environment, yet, the CEO owns a bookstore and printed the book on paper that shows no certification of being on recycled paper.)
The Good
Well, honestly, the listed suggestions were interesting and the products listed are a great start. That was really what I was looking for in the book, but the issues overshadowed these benefits.
Quick Conclusion
I could rant on and on, disproving pretty much every fact in the book because of the lack of context it provides with real research. If I were to, I’d have a whole new PhD thesis at the end. But I figure this gives you some insight into what to look for when you read these books.
Reference
[1] K. D. Cox, G. A. Covernton, H. L. Davies, J. F. Dower, F. Juanes, and S. E. Dudas, "Human Consumption of Microplastics," Environmental Science & Technology, vol. 53, no. 12, pp. 7068-7074, 2019/06/18 2019, doi: 10.1021/acs.est.9b01517.