Book picks similar to
Fake Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom by Patrick Moore
non-fiction
science
politics
climate
Spy the Lie: Three Former CIA Officers Reveal Their Secrets to Uncloaking Deception
Philip Houston - 2012
Be it hiring a new employee, investing in a financial interest, speaking with your child about drugs, confronting your significant other about suspected infidelity, or even dating someone new, having the ability to unmask a lie can have far-reaching and even life-altering consequences.As former CIA officers, Philip Houston, Michael Floyd, and Susan Carnicero are among the world’s best at recognizing deceptive behavior. Spy the Lie chronicles the captivating story of how they used a methodology Houston developed to detect deception in the counterterrorism and criminal investigation realms, and shows how these techniques can be applied in our daily lives.Through fascinating anecdotes from their intelligence careers, the authors teach listeners how to recognize deceptive behaviors, both verbal and nonverbal, that we all tend to display when we respond to questions untruthfully. For the first time, they share with the general public their methodology and their secrets to the art of asking questions that elicit the truth.Spy the Lie is a game-changer. You may never experience another book that has a more dramatic impact on your career, your relationships, or your future.©2012 Philip Houston, Susan Carnicero, Don Tennant, Michael Floyd (P)2012 Macmillan
The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten: 100 Experiments for the Armchair Philosopher
Julian Baggini - 2005
Taking examples from sources as diverse as Plato and Steven Spielberg, author Julian Baggini presents abstract philosophical issues in concrete terms, suggesting possible solutions while encouraging readers to draw their own conclusions: Lively, clever, and thought-provoking, The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten is a portable feast for the mind that is sure to satisfy any intellectual appetite.
More from Less: The Surprising Story of How We Learned to Prosper Using Fewer Resources—and What Happens Next
Andrew McAfee - 2019
Throughout history, the only way for humanity to grow was by degrading the Earth: chopping down forests, fouling the air and water, and endlessly digging out resources. Since the first Earth Day in 1970, the reigning argument has been that taking better care of the planet means radically changing course: reducing our consumption, tightening our belts, learning to share and reuse, restraining growth. Is that argument correct? Absolutely not. In More from Less, McAfee argues that to solve our ecological problems we don’t need to make radical changes. Instead, we need to do more of what we’re already doing: growing technologically sophisticated market-based economies around the world. How can he possibly make this claim? Because of the evidence. America—a large, high-tech country that accounts for about 25% of the global economy—is now generally using less of most resources year after year, even as its economy and population continue to grow. What’s more, the US is polluting the air and water less, emitting fewer greenhouse gases, and replenishing endangered animal populations. And, as McAfee shows, America is not alone. Other countries are also transforming themselves in fundamental ways. What has made this turnabout possible? One thing, primarily: the collaboration between technology and capitalism, although good governance and public awareness have also been critical. McAfee does warn of issues that haven’t been solved, like global warming, overfishing, and communities left behind as capitalism and tech progress race forward. But overall, More from Less is a revelatory, paradigm-shifting account of how we’ve stumbled into an unexpectedly better balance with nature—one that holds out the promise of more abundant and greener centuries ahead.
The Long Descent: A User's Guide to the End of the Industrial Age
John Michael Greer - 2008
Greer fans will recognize many of the book's passages from previous essays, but will be delighted to see them fleshed out here with additional examples and analysis.The Long Descent is one of the most highly anticipated peak oil books of the year, and it lives up to every ounce of hype. Greer is a captivating, brilliantly inventive writer with a deep knowledge of history, an impressive amount of mechanical savvy, a flair for storytelling and a gift for drawing art analogies. His new book presents an astonishing view of our society's past, present and future trajectory--one that is unmatched in its breadth and depth. Reviewed by Frank KaminskiWired.com— The Long Descent is a welcome antidote to the armageddonism that often accompanies peak oil discussions. "The decline of a civilization is rarely anything like so sudden for those who live through it" writes Greer, encouragingly; it's "a much slower and more complex transformation than the sudden catastrophes imagined by many soical critics today."The changes that will follow the decline of world petroleum production are likely to be sweeping and global, Greer concludes, but from the perspective of those who live through them these changes are much more likely to take gradual and local forms. Reviewed by Bruce SterlingAmericans are expressing deep concern about US dependence on petroleum, rising energy prices, and the threat of climate change. Unlike the energy crisis of the 1970s, however, there is a lurking fear that now the times are different and the crisis may not easily be resolved.The Long Descent examines the basis of such fear through three core themes:• Industrial society is following the same well-worn path that has led other civilizations into decline, a path involving a much slower and more complex transformation than the sudden catastrophes imagined by so many social critics today.• The roots of the crisis lie in the cultural stories that shape the way we understand the world. Since problems cannot be solved with the same thinking that created them, these ways of thinking need to be replaced with others better suited to the needs of our time.• It is too late for massive programs for top-down change; the change must come from individuals.Hope exists in actions that range from taking up a handicraft or adopting an “obsolete” technology, through planting an organic vegetable garden, taking charge of your own health care or spirituality, and building community.Focusing eloquently on constructive adaptation to massive change, this book will have wide appeal.John Michael Greer is a certified Master Conserver, organic gardener, and scholar of ecological history. The current Grand Archdruid of the Ancient Order of Druids in America (AODA), his widely-cited blog, The Archdruid Report (thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com) deals with peak oil, among other issues. He lives in Ashland, Oregon.
The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change (The Politically Incorrect Guides)
Marc Morano - 2018
More regulation. Higher costs. Make no mistake: those are the surefire consequences of the modern global warming campaign waged by political and cultural elites, who have long ago abandoned fact-based science for dramatic fearmongering in order to push increased central planning. The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change gives a voice -- backed by statistics, real-life stories, and incontrovertible evidence -- to the millions of "deplorable" Americans skeptical about the multibillion dollar "climate change" complex, whose claims have time and time again been proven wrong.
Feral: Rewilding the Land, the Sea and Human Life
George Monbiot - 2013
Making use of remarkable scientific discoveries that transform our understanding of how natural systems work, George Monbiot explores a new, positive environmentalism that shows how damaged ecosystems on land and at sea can be restored, and how this restoration can revitalize and enrich our lives. Challenging what he calls his “ecological boredom,” Monbiot weaves together a beautiful and riveting tale of wild places, wildlife, and wild people. Roaming the hills of Britain and the forests of Europe, kayaking off the coast of Wales with dolphins and seabirds, he seeks out the places that still possess something of the untamed spirit he would like to resurrect.He meets people trying to restore lost forests and bring back missing species—such as wolves, lynx, wolverines, wild boar, and gray whales—and explores astonishing evidence that certain species, not just humans, have the power to shape the physical landscape. This process of rewilding, Monbiot argues, offers an alternative to a silent spring: the chance of a raucous summer in which ecological processes resume and humans draw closer to the natural world.
How to Give Up Plastic: A Guide to Changing the World, One Plastic Bottle at a Time
Will McCallum - 2018
Tips on giving up plastic include:· Washing your clothes within a wash bag to catch plastic microfibers (the cause of 30% of plastic pollution in the ocean)· Replacing your regular shampoo with bar shampoo· How to lobby your supermarket to remove unnecessary packaging · How to throw a plastic-free birthday party· How to convince others to join you in giving up plasticPlastic is not going away without a fight. We need a movement made up of billions of individual acts, bringing people together from all backgrounds and all cultures, the ripples of which will be felt from the smallest village to the tallest skyscrapers. This is a call to arms - to join forces across the world and to end our dependence on plastic.#BreakFreeFromPlastic
Plastic is not going away without a fight. We need a movement made up of billions of individual acts, bringing people together from all backgrounds and all cultures, the ripples of which will be felt from the smallest village to the tallest skyscrapers.
'Plastic waste is one of the greatest environmental challenges facing the world' Theresa May'As Head of Oceans at Greenpeace, Will is on the front line of humanity's global fight against plastic. This timely book not only explains how we got into this mess, but most importantly offers an optimistic and proactive approach as to how we can get out of it'. - Richard Walker, Managing Director at Iceland
COVID-19 and the Global Predators: We are the Prey
Peter R. Breggin - 2021
It discloses for the first time the actual blueprint and master plan that that was ten years in the making by global predators before the pandemic: a plan to reorganize the world in the name of public health. Billionaires, government agencies, giant funds, and major industries collaborated years ahead of time to lay the groundwork for what would become Operation Warp Speed and the Great Reset in 2020. All this is disclosed, individuals and groups are named, and their plans for the future are documented. The book concludes with chapters on what America and the world must do in the coming weeks and months to save humanity's freedoms.Many top medical and public health experts treating and examining COVID 19 agree this is the most comprehensive book about who and what is behind the draconian measures that are crushing individual freedoms and many of the societies and economies of the Western World including the United States, Canada, Great Britain, and Australia.Three of these medical doctors have confirmed this in their introductions to the book: physicians Peter McCullough MD MPH, Vladimir "Zev" Zelenko MD and Elizabeth Lee Vliet MD. They are echoed by endorsements from Robert F Kennedy Jr. and Paul Alexander PhD.This book thoroughly documents solid answers to these tragic questions about the global predators who are reaping enormous benefits from COVID-19 suffering including wealth, power and the destruction of America as an opposition to globalism.Who are the "they"-these Global Predators? What are their motives and their plans for us? How can we defend against them?Why did they:■ Plan Warp Speed for a SARS-CoV pandemic years before it came?■ Distribute mRNA and DNA vaccines that killed lab animals and now humans?■ Collaborate with the Chinese making pandemic viruses & bioweapons?■ Hide the origin of SARS-CoV-2 in the Wuhan Institute?■ Let China spread the virus around the world on passenger planes?■ Give so much power to Dr. Anthony Fauci?Why do they continue to:■ Prohibit cheap, available, safe and effective COVID-19 treatments?■ Impose draconian closures on our society and economy?■ Disproportionately harm or destroy small businesses and churches?■ Make us wear masks and distance ourselves from each other?■ Exaggerate the death rate from COVID-19 to frighten us?■ Hide the high and growing vaccine death rate from all of us?■ Make experimental "vaccines" that turn our bodies against ourselves?Dr. Breggin is a physician with 70+ scientific articles and 20+ medical texts and popular books. He is among the world's most experienced medical experts in landmark legal cases in psychiatry and neurosurgery, and now in COVID-19. The Breggins' bestsellers include Talking Back to Prozac and Toxic Psychiatry. Their research led the United States to cancel the deadly Chinese collaboration.Breggin is an intrepid scholar and is assiduous and methodological as he assembles all the pieces to the puzzle. His research, carried out with his wife Ginger, is impeccable, and his incisive approach sears the neck of those whose aim it is to wield power, control, and instill fear among the world's wealthiest nations.
Now I Know: The Revealing Stories Behind the World's Most Interesting Facts
Dan Lewis - 2013
had a plan to invade Canada? And what actually happened to the flags left on the moon?Even if you think you have a handle on all things trivia, you're guaranteed a big surprise with Now I Know. From uncovering what happens to lost luggage to New York City's plan to crack down on crime by banning pinball, this book will challenge your knowledge of the fascinating stories behind the world's greatest facts.Covering 100 outrageous topics, Now I Know is the ultimate challenge for any know-it-all who thinks they have nothing left to learn.
Lukewarming: The New Climate Science that Changes Everything
Patrick J. Michaels - 2015
The consequences of this gathering may be enormous. In this new ebook, experts Patrick J. Michaels and Paul C. Knappenberger assess the issues sure to drive the debate before, during, and after the Paris meeting.
Junkyard Planet: Travels in the Billion-Dollar Trash Trade
Adam Minter - 2013
In Junkyard Planet, Adam Minter—veteran journalist and son of an American junkyard owner—travels deeply into a vast, often hidden, multibillion-dollar industry that’s transforming our economy and environment.Minter takes us from back-alley Chinese computer recycling operations to high-tech facilities capable of processing a jumbo jet’s worth of recyclable trash every day. Along the way, we meet an unforgettable cast of characters who've figured out how to build fortunes from what we throw away: Leonard Fritz, a young boy "grubbing" in Detroit's city dumps in the 1930s; Johnson Zeng, a former plastics engineer roaming America in search of scrap; and Homer Lai, an unassuming barber turned scrap titan in Qingyuan, China. Junkyard Planet reveals how “going green” usually means making money—and why that’s often the most sustainable choice, even when the recycling methods aren’t pretty.With unmatched access to and insight on the junk trade, and the explanatory gifts and an eye for detail worthy of a John McPhee or William Langewiesche, Minter traces the export of America’s recyclables and the massive profits that China and other rising nations earn from it. What emerges is an engaging, colorful, and sometimes troubling tale of consumption, innovation, and the ascent of a developing world that recognizes value where Americans don’t. Junkyard Planet reveals that we might need to learn a smarter way to take out the trash.
The Zero-Waste Lifestyle: Live Well by Throwing Away Less
Amy Bowden - 2012
The average American tosses out nearly 2,000 pounds of garbage every year that piles up in landfills and threatens our air and water quality. You do your part to reduce, reuse, and recycle, but is it enough? In The Zero-Waste Lifestyle, Amy Korst shows you how to lead a healthier, happier, and more sustainable life by generating less garbage. Drawing from lessons she learned during a yearlong experiment in zero-waste living, Amy outlines hundreds of easy ideas—from the simple to the radical—for consuming and throwing away less, with low-impact tips on the best ways to:• Buy eggs from a local farm instead of the grocery store• Start a worm bin for composting• Grow your own loofah sponges and mix up eco-friendly cleaning solutions• Purchase gently used items and donate them when you’re finished• Shop the bulk aisle and keep reusable bags in your purse or car• Bring your own containers for take-out or restaurant leftovers By eliminating unnecessary items in every aspect of your life, these meaningful and achievable strategies will help you save time and money, support local businesses, decrease litter, reduce your toxic exposure, eat well, become more self-sufficient, and preserve the planet for future generations.
Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things
William McDonough - 2002
But as architect William McDonough and chemist Michael Braungart point out in this provocative, visionary book, such an approach only perpetuates the one-way, "cradle to grave" manufacturing model, dating to the Industrial Revolution, that creates such fantastic amounts of waste and pollution in the first place. Why not challenge the belief that human industry must damage the natural world? In fact, why not take nature itself as our model for making things? A tree produces thousands of blossoms in order to create another tree, yet we consider its abundance not wasteful but safe, beautiful, and highly effective.Waste equals food. Guided by this principle, McDonough and Braungart explain how products can be designed from the outset so that, after their useful lives, they will provide nourishment for something new. They can be conceived as "biological nutrients" that will easily reenter the water or soil without depositing synthetic materials and toxins. Or they can be "technical nutrients" that will continually circulate as pure and valuable materials within closed-loop industrial cycles, rather than being "recycled" -- really, downcycled -- into low-grade materials and uses. Drawing on their experience in (re)designing everything from carpeting to corporate campuses, McDonough and Braungart make an exciting and viable case for putting eco-effectiveness into practice, and show how anyone involved with making anything can begin to do as well.
Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal
Mark Bittman - 2021
But behind it all, there is an even more fundamental driver: Food.In Animal, Vegetable, Junk, trusted food authority Mark Bittman offers a panoramic view of how the frenzy for food has driven human history to some of its most catastrophic moments, from slavery and colonialism to famine and genocide—and to our current moment, wherein Big Food exacerbates climate change, plunders our planet, and sickens its people. Even still, Bittman refuses to concede that the battle is lost, pointing to activists, workers, and governments around the world who are choosing well-being over corporate greed and gluttony, and fighting to free society from Big Food’s grip.Sweeping, impassioned, and ultimately full of hope, Animal, Vegetable, Junk reveals not only how food has shaped our past, but also how we can transform it to reclaim our future.
Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All
Michael Shellenberger - 2020
He helped save the world’s last unprotected redwoods. He co-created the predecessor to today’s Green New Deal. And he led a successful effort by climate scientists and activists to keep nuclear plants operating, preventing a spike of emissions.But in 2019, as some claimed “billions of people are going to die,” contributing to rising anxiety, including among adolescents, Shellenberger decided that, as a lifelong environmental activist, leading energy expert, and father of a teenage daughter, he needed to speak out to separate science from fiction.Despite decades of news media attention, many remain ignorant of basic facts. Carbon emissions peaked and have been declining in most developed nations for over a decade. Deaths from extreme weather, even in poor nations, declined 80 percent over the last four decades. And the risk of Earth warming to very high temperatures is increasingly unlikely thanks to slowing population growth and abundant natural gas.Curiously, the people who are the most alarmist about the problems also tend to oppose the obvious solutions.What’s really behind the rise of apocalyptic environmentalism? There are powerful financial interests. There are desires for status and power. But most of all there is a desire among supposedly secular people for transcendence. This spiritual impulse can be natural and healthy. But in preaching fear without love, and guilt without redemption, the new religion is failing to satisfy our deepest psychological and existential needs.