Zodiac - Neal Stephenson

Finished reading Stephenson's (1988) Zodiac this weekend. It was weird, to say the least, and definitely seemed less mature than other works of his that I've read (not surprising, it's his 2nd book, written before Snow Crash). It's the tale of S.T., a nonviolent ecoterrorist who brings polluting companies to justice by zipping around on his Zodiac (high-powered motored raft) plugging up waste pipes in the Boston Harbor and exposing the offenders to media ridicule. A quick and easy read, not one I'd necessarily recommend.

Book Challenge 2014 stats: 15/65 (23%), 11 books behind schedule. (Although I've now read 2 more books thus far in 2014 than I did in all of 2013!)

Stephenson's Novels

• The Big U (1984)
• Zodiac (1988)
• Snow Crash (1992)
• Interface (1994) 
• The Diamond Age: or A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer (1995)
• The Cobweb (1996) 
• Cryptonomicon (1999)
• The Baroque Cycle
• Quicksilver (2003), volume I
• The Confusion (2004), volume II
• The System of the World (2004), volume III
• Anathem (2008)
• The Mongoliad (2010–2012)
• Reamde + Colin's review (2011)

Ernest Callenbach’s Ecotopia

A recent choice for my book club was Ecotopia. Written in 1975, Ecotopia depicts a vision of the United States in 1999, in which the Pacific Northwest has seceded from the union and been completely isolated from America for the past two decades. The motivation behind this split, led by the women-directed Survivalist Party, was the desire to entirely reform society on egalitarian and ecological grounds – achieving equality for all people, eliminating cars and other pollutants through strict regulation, and creating a “stable state,” sustainable society, which emphasizes recycling and a return to nature. In the (optimistically brief) period since its inception, the nation has largely achieved these goals, unbeknownst to America, which has continued on its wasteful decent into widespread pollution and overpopulation – alas, much like the America we know today.

The story of Ecotopia is from the perspective of William Weston, a journalist who becomes the first American emissary to visit the new country since its founding. Weston is a hard-nosed reporter, and the novel is divided into personal reflections written in his diary and his largely fact-based articles, which he posts back to America to be published. Fairly predictably, Weston’s initial prejudices are softened by the month+ he spends in the new country, and we see him open up to the nation’s “strange” and “barbaric” practices and “surprisingly” brilliant inventions.

Although at times a little heavy-handed, pat, and unrealistically utopian, I found the novel to be very well-imagined and articulated, and the tone believable. Moreover, I was happy to realize that Callenbach’s vision has in some ways been realized – Seattle recently instituted a ban on plastic bags, and all homes and apartments (and most businesses) are equipped with bins to divide “garbage” into recycling, compost, and (thus much reduced) waste. (Although I was horrified to see how inconsistently this is practiced in Ohio!)

It was depressing to finish the novel and remember that I cannot emigrate to Ecotopia, but even so I would definitely recommend this book.

Paul Gilding - The Great Disruption

There is a war coming.

In this book, Gilding tries to articulate a way out of the mess we're in - he says, in essence, "if we're going to solve these problems, here's what it will look like."  He argues that the coming crisis will initiate a response from the first world directly analogous to that of the second world war, in which enormous swaths of first world economy were nationalized and repurposed to the war effort.  It is this wartime economy, with an emphasis on efficiency and frugality, that will allow us to orchestrate a crisis management response to the collapse that we are now far too late to head off with more gradual efforts.

While much of the material covered in the book is not new to me, Gilding's experience as first an environmental activist with Greenpeace, and later as a environmental consultant who has worked with people like the CEO of DuPont, provides a perspective that is more of an insider's view.

I think the most important point that I drew from this book was his argument that we cannot fight a war on two fronts.  The first front is the radical and transformative restructuring of our political and economic systems that will allow the creation of a sustainable and steady-state (as opposed to growth-focused) economy.  The second is the direct response to the chaos and violence that will make the conflict of the twentieth century look like a gentlemanly session of fisticuffs.  Since the vested interests of the current establishment will, like any hegemony, fight to protect its power, we need to find a way to in the short term harness the old capitalist system to fight the Carbon War, in a concerted effort that will in turn bring about the systemic transformation that we need so desperately.

While I don't know if I share Gilding's optimism, his analogy to the war-time effort of WWII is thought provoking (he notes that military spending went from 3 percent of GDP at the beginning of the war to 39 percent at the end, in a time when the GDP as a whole increased by 75 percent.)  If we can accomplish something similar, along with a total paradigm shift in the consciousness of the first world which will divert our collective activity away from mindless consumption, there may still be hope.

SCAT

In the days leading out of the Ohio JO Champs, I have read SCAT by Carl Hiaasen. I found this to be a very good book and had the urge to flatly refuse putting it down to do jobs. The narration (Third person) switches around between characters which helps drive the book forward and keeps you reading. SCAT is the third novel in a series of books set in Florida about preserving wildlife. This book deals with a mix of plots and goals including: Returning a baby panther to its mother, successfully and secretly drilling oil on state property, learning to live left handed, finding a missing teacher, and escaping from jail when framed. There is so much going on that this becomes a very interesting and worthwhile read. I highly recommend it.