Showing posts with label endangered species. Show all posts
Showing posts with label endangered species. Show all posts

Chasing Chiles: Hot Spots Along the Pepper Trail Review

Chasing Chiles: Hot Spots Along the Pepper Trail
Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)
Are you looking to buy Chasing Chiles: Hot Spots Along the Pepper Trail? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Chasing Chiles: Hot Spots Along the Pepper Trail. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Chasing Chiles: Hot Spots Along the Pepper Trail ReviewThe book Chasing Chiles, Hot Spots Along the Pepper Trail is not merely a tome dedicated to exploring climate change and it's impacts on agriculture, though it does this well, it is a celebration of life. By focusing in on the stories of one food, chile peppers, the three authors were able to dig deeply into the complex ways in which all food touches our lives, providing readers (well this reader at least) with enough sustenance to care deeply about the fate of chiles specifically and food, land, and culture, in general through learning about the fragility and import of biodiversity in our food system. I find myself left with not just a taste for more chile peppers, but with a sense of concern, and conversely, a hope for their future.
Written by three active figures in the good food movement--chef and Slow Food USA board member Kurt Michael Friese; author, conservationist, ethnobotanist, father of Renewing America's Food Traditions Alliance, and local food hero Gary Paul Nabhan, and my friend and fellow Slow Food Biodiversity committee member the agroecologist Kraig Kraft--this work brings together the insights of their varied expertise to explore the vast ramifications of climate change on food.
The three gastronauts take us from Sonora and its Chiltepines, to Florida and its Datils, to the Yucatan and its Habaneros, to the Gulf Coast and its Tabascos, to New Mexico and its diverse Native Chiles, to Maryland and the history of Fish peppers, and to Wisconsin and Southern Illinois and Beaver Dams, telling the stories of peppers and the amazing people dedicated to keeping them available. They weave in language, history, music, art, politics, tragedies, and recipes along the way.
Threats to biodiversity are in the multitude. Loss of small farms, farmers, and farmland, environmental degradation, industrialization of agriculture and our food system, and the decreasing understanding humans have of how land, food, culture, and health are tied together have been major players in loss of biodiversity for decades, but climate change may be throwing a whole host of new threats into play. In Chasing Chiles we learn about how temperature changes, floods, drought, storm damage, pestilence from shifting weather patterns seem to be increasing perils. While each locale will respond differently to climate change, Friese, Nahban, and Kraft remind us that to create resilience in our food system (i.e. to ensure food remains available to make it onto our plates) we must increase biodiversity among all food crops to provide a buffer. As all locales will respond differently to shifting weather patterns, so too will each varietal respond differently to these shifts.
I would be remiss in not mentioning certain personal and professional affinities for this subject matter. For I found it deeply gratifying to experience the synchronicity of burning my tongue on a soup flavored with Chiltepines found on a recent trip to Tucson and visit to Native Seeds as I sat down to begin reading and then to finish the book as I awaited the appearance of dozens of Beaver Dam pepper seedling I started to grow out here in the state they've been home to for nearly a hundred years. And as a dietitian, I must note the clear connection between biodiversity and health: as we've moved away from diverse diets towards increasingly refined, industrialized, mono-crop diets our health has suffered. By restoring biodiversity to our gardens, fields, and wild places we can restore our health. This book ends hopefully with some meaningful principles to eat and grow food to counter climate change.
Chasing Chiles is one hot, wild ride. And one worth taking.
[...]Chasing Chiles: Hot Spots Along the Pepper Trail Overview

Want to learn more information about Chasing Chiles: Hot Spots Along the Pepper Trail?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now
Read More...

The Future of Life Review

The Future of Life
Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)
Are you looking to buy The Future of Life? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on The Future of Life. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

The Future of Life ReviewEdward Wilson is America's, if not the world's, leading naturalist. Years of field work are applied in The Future of Life in a global tour of the world's natural resources. How are they used? What has been lost? What remains and is it sustainable with present rates of use?With broad vision, Wilson stresses our need to understand fully the biodiversity of our planet. Most importantly, that knowledge must include a realistic view of human impact on those resources. While many works of this genre sound tocsins of despair with little to offer in countering the threat of the "outbreak" of humanity on our planet, Wilson proposes a variety of realistic scenarios that may save our world and our own species. Survival will be obtained from a sound knowledge base, and the foundation for that insight starts here.
Wilson begins with an open letter to the patron saint of environment defenders, Henry David Thoreau. He offers a comparative view of today's Walden Pond with that of Thoreau's day. Wilson will use such comparisons for the remainder of the book. The issue is clear: humanity has done grave damage to its home over the millennia. The growth of human population, but more importantly, the usurpation of the biosphere for limited human purposes, threatens a world losing its ability to cope with the intrusion. Can this planet, with human help, be restored to biodiversity levels that will ensure its ongoing capacity to provide for us?
Wilson's writing skills readily match his talents as a researcher. Presenting sweeping ideas with an economy of words, he avoids vague assertions or the need for the reader to fill in information. With each stop of our global voyage in his company, he provides detailed information describing examples of human "erasure of entire ecosystems." At this pace, he informs us, we will soon require four more planets of our resource levels to sustain humanity's intended growth. In the classic tradition, he introduces a protagonist for continued economic growth debating an environmental defender. Both views can be accommodated, he assures us, but only if a population limiting bottleneck is achieved. What level of humanity can the planet endure? The numbers frighten, but the resolution, Wilson stresses, isn't inevitable.
Diversity, he argues, is the key. Even our agricultural crops can benefit. A mere hundred species are the foundation of our food supply, of which but twenty carry the load. Wilson counters this precarious situation by urging investigation of ten thousand species that could be utilized. Further, and this point will give many readers qualms, Wilson urges genetic engineering to apply desired traits between crop species. He urges these strong measures as a means of reducing the clearing of habitats to enlarge farming acreage. In conclusion, he stresses the application of ethical values in considering the environment. Each of us must make ourselves aware of our impact on our nest. If you are to survive, it may well rely on whether you read and act on the ideas in this book. Although other works on this topic are available, Wilson's stands above the others for clarity, scope and suggestions for survival. Are you, he asks, willing to add one penny to the cost of a cup of coffee to retain the world's natural reserves? It's the question confronting us all.The Future of Life Overview

Want to learn more information about The Future of Life?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now
Read More...