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Works by Giles Slade

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Didn't finish. Was too anecdotal for my tastes.
 
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tldegray | 2 other reviews | Sep 21, 2018 |
I am entirely in sympathy with Mr. Slade's basic point that the increasing warming of the earth is most likely a result of human activity and that such warming will cause more and more disruption of life as we have known it in America and around the world. Further I agree with him that the disruptions may well come more quickly and with much more force than expected--that there is the real possibility of some sort of cascading environmental collapse that will greatly reduce human populations in a great many places.

At the same time, Mr. Slade makes an egregious error. He says repeatedly that 80% (page 71), almost the entire (p.72), or 70% (p.142) of the U. S. corn and soybean crops were lost to drought in 2012. This is preposterous. In fact, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture,the corn crop of 10.78 billion bushels was down 24% over initial forecasts made just after a very favorable planting season, and down 11% from the previous year. Soybean production was down 3% compared to 2011. The author is a Canadian who has spent long years in Los Angeles and has no real concept of how important the American corn and soybean crops (most to which are grown in the Midwest) are for feeding this and other continents. So he does not understand what such a crop failure as he thinks took place would have done to the North American economy by the time he wrote this book.

And if he and his publisher can be so wrong on a matter of such importance, how is the reader to trust the other points he makes in this scary, perhaps too scary, book?
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Illiniguy71 | 2 other reviews | Jan 2, 2017 |
We’ll have to go

American Exodus: Climate Change and the Coming Fight for Survival by Giles Slade (New Society Publishers, $19.95).

Slade is a Canadian writer who’s often written about technological and consumer issues. Here, he tackles a simple fact: The growing consequences of climate change will have many Americans migrating—at least internally, though he also suggests that some will want to head for Canada.

In fact, Slade points out that the migration surrounding the Dust Bowl—which sent hundreds of thousands of families from Oklahoma, Texas, and other Great Plains states on the road to California—was in fact the result of climate change. He further argues that at least some of the current migration from Mexico is a result of climate change (though it’s easier to argue that it’s bad economic policy and narcoterrorism).

He is, in fact, right. People will have to leave Florida over the coming decades, and many other seaside areas as well. The American Southwest already has far more people living in it than the land can support, as does Southern California—and that’s in a good year. If climate change means more drought for the Golden State, then we’ll need to relocate an awful lot of us.

This is a good introduction to the looming crisis for a general reader, but it’s very anecdotal and basic for those of us who have been following the intersection of human culture and our changed and changing climate.

(Published on Lit/Rant on 2/13/2014: http://litrant.tumblr.com/post/76519616484/well-have-to-go-american-exodus-clima...
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KelMunger | 2 other reviews | Mar 10, 2014 |
If you're interested in technological obsolescence, I recommend reading the introduction, first chapter, and last chapter of this book. The chapters in between are well-researched, in-depth essays - essentially case studies - presented chronologically. The writing is clear, and though the book was published in 2006 the problem still looms.

Most engineers in the nineteenth century designed and built their products to last. (31)

"Where man can find no answer, he will find fear." -Norman Cousins, 1945 (144)

Planned obsolescence....psychological obsolescence...grew out of "the desire to own something a little newer, a little better, a little sooner than necessary." -Brooks Stevens (153)

"Our whole economy is based on planned obsolescence....We make good products, we induce people to buy them, and then next year we deliberately introduce something that will make those products old fashioned, out of date, obsolete. We do that for the soundest reason: to make money." -Brooks Stevens (153)

"The product with the longest life period is not automatically the most economical. Value is a product of time and utility....Is a product that has served a short, useful life at a satisfactory cost necessarily wasteful?....There is not a product on the market today that could not be improved by using...more expensive materials. Every design is a compromise..." -Ernest Cunningham, 1959 (168)

[Moore's Law] Every year, smaller and smaller electronic devices became available for less and less cost, and these devices became at least twice as capacious and twice as fast as their immediate predecessor, effectively quadrupling the value of each generation of chip. (196-197)

These apps [WordStar, VisiCalc, dBASE] empowered new users while rendering old skill sets - minute ledger work, the ability to type quickly and flawlessly - completely obsolete. (208)

Electronic components have extremely short lives. [Cell phones and TVs] are creating unmanageable mounds of electronic waste each time they are thrown away. All of the discarded components in this growing mountain of e-waste contain high levels of permanent biological toxins (PBTs)...(261)

Because the toxins contained in most electronics are indestructible, the EU has banned their use by manufacturers and consumers. This ban is proving to be an effective encouragement to the development of alternative, non-toxic materials for electronic manufacture...Although some legislation now exists at the state level, there is no uniformity, no consistency, and no funding for electronic waste disposal programs throughout the United States.
The increasingly short life span of high-volume electronic goods, along with miniaturization, is what causes the e-waste problem. This lack of durability, in turn, grows from a unique combination of psychological and technological obsolescence. (262)

It makes no sense to call a discarded but working phone obsolete when the same make and model is still available for purchase and continues to provide excellent service to its owners. (264)

"...the increasingly rapid evolution of technology has effectively rendered everything 'disposable.'" (265)

...modern consumers tend to value whatever is new and original over what is old, traditional, durable, or used. (265)

Colin Campbell on the mystery of modern consumption: "an activity which involves an apparently endless pursuit of wants, the most characteristic feature of modern consumption being this insatiability." (265)

"Americans are poorly equipped to recognize, let alone ponder or address, the challenges technology poses....Although our use of technology is increasing...there is no sign of an improvement in our ability." -Committee on Technological Literacy's 2002 report (280)

Very soon, the sheer volume of e-waste will compel America to adopt design strategies that include not just planned obsolescence but planned disassembly and reuse as part of the product life cycle. This is the industrial challenge of the new century. (281)
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JennyArch | 6 other reviews | May 9, 2013 |

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