Furthermore: Where the Headlines Take You

Here Comes the Sun...

A solar storm is causing beautiful sky shows the world over and similar activity could wreak havoc as the magnitude of solar activity ramps up in years to come. Though the sun gives life it seems that it is more than capable of taking life as well. In fact, as scientists explore and document our existence we find danger lurking everywhere. Particle accelerators could end the universe in an instant. The city of Berkeley has regulated nanomaterials for fear of the special properties that these building blocks, too small to be seen, have by virtue of their miniscule scale. And it is not just the unseen aspects of nature that we have to be concerned about, here in the PacNW we just acknowledged the 30 year anniversary of the eruption on Mt. St. Helens. Truly, danger is around every corner.

But surely it's not all that bad. We live in a safe world, right? Not according to Robert Brockway, the author of Everything is Going to Kill Everybody: The Terrifyingly Real Ways the World Wants You Dead. Brockway will bring your anxieties to a fever pitch with tales of experiments in green energy that could consume the earth in a massive fireball or robots like EATR, an autonomous device that fuels its prowling by "eating" biomass that it encounters in its travels. It has been said that the horrific and the ridiculous are joined at the hip and Everything is Going to Kill Everybody provides comic evidence to that effect. The casual style Brockway writes in makes this a quick and engaging read and he can be excused for not delving deeply into details from such examples as the company that wanted to harvest the energy from contained tornadoes or the Soviet soldier who saved us from a thermonuclear war by ignoring his superiors. After all, when it comes to death most of us appreciate a light touch.

Yes, the Sun is going to have some big flare ups over the next few years that could disable much of the technology that we rely on. Then there is inescapable fact that it will some day expand, cook and engulf the earth. But how do we make the most of our relationship with this great giver of life in the meantime? Claudio Vita-Finzi's The Sun: A User's Manual describes, in humbling detail, the best and the worst aspects of our nearest star. The same charged particles that, ejected from the Sun in excess, disrupt our communication satellites also shield us from harmful cosmic rays. The Sun is is our primary source of energy and will almost certainly outlast our species but it is carcinogenic. It is tempting to call these paradoxes but Vini-Finzi's expansive text makes it clear that the Sun's nature (like much of the phenomena that we both rely on and cower in fear of) is not dual. It is only the limited bandwidth of our experience of reality that makes it seem so.

And so what if the Sun could wipe out life as we know it, who needs iPhones and air traffic control anyway. Authors Rex Ewing and Doug Pratt take a fearless and practical approach to life under the Sun. Got Sun? Go Solar: Harness Nature's Free Energy to Heat and Power Your Grid-Tied Home gives entertaining and detailed advice for working with solar power both in the civil world (permits, paperwork and contracting insights) and in the potentially post-apocalyptic world (living off the grid). Chapters on wind and geothermal energy have been added since the 2005 edition making Got Sun an even more complete guide to moving forward into an uncertain future.

A final thought- someday the Sun will cook us but until then you might try using the Sun to cook! Solar cookery is a fun way to expand your picnic options. Lighten your load by leaving the camp stove at home on those backpacking excursions this Summer.

A Gut Check You Can Take to the Bank

Last week the New York Times reported on an unusual medical case involving a husband/wife transplant. The uncommon aspect of this transplant procedure was not the relationship between the donor and recipient. What was striking about this operation was the material being donated, bacteria from the husband gastrointestinal tract. The patient had lost 60 pounds in eight months due to constant and debilitating diarrhea. By delivering a serum made out of her husband's stool and saline solution, the attending doctor was able to alleviate this life threatening condition, literally, overnight. It turns out that the flora of the wife's gut had been colonized by microbes outside the typical spectrum of those that are useful and productive within the human body. Bacteria from her husband's body were able to flourish and provide the necessary digestive assistance allowing her to make a full and speedy recovery.

Though written with children in mind, Poop Happened: A History From the Bottom Up is a resource of great fecundity. The bacteriotherapy described above (also referred to as a fecal transplant) is a relatively novel application for excrement, especially when compared to the history detailed in Poop Happened. Sarah Albee's work underscores the historical methods used to deal with all matters excremental and does not shy away from details. From knights in armor to astronauts, everyone has to go sooner or later. But how? Poop Happened takes a peek at the particulars of evacuation but also addresses the larger issues of public health related to effective waste treatment and what can happen when that treatment is unavailable or just plain hasn't been invented yet!

Anne Maczulak's The Five Second Rule and Other Myths About Germs: What Everyone Should Know About Bacteria, Viruses, Mold and Mildew acknowledges that many of our most strongly held beliefs about microbes are unduly biased. The bathroom is not the dirtiest room in your house and only a small percentage of the micro-organisms in our surroundings could be considered pathogens. For the most part we live in harmony with, and require the assistance of, the wee beasties in our environment. Maczulak's writing style is direct and informative and she provides plenty of examples to illustrate her overarching themes. The Five Second Rule reads a bit like a text book which lends its directives a certain gravity. Helpful sidebars distill in the most important information into an easy to reference format.

Just what would our world be like without microbes? Is such a thing desirable, or even possible? Idan Ben-Barak would answer those last to questions with a resounding, "No." Without micro-organisms we would perish in days if not hours. So why are people so fixated on eliminating these unseen life forms? Ben-Barak's The Invisible Kingdom: From the Tips of Our Fingers to the Tops of Our Trash, Inside the Curious World of Microbes takes a magnifying glass to the many issues that inform our gut reactions to bacteria, fungi and viruses. His conclusion is that they are not only essential and inextricably interwoven into our environment, they may just be a source of salvation. Microbes could be the key to eliminating radioactive waste and may provide a delivery device for helpful medicines. In short, we may do better to increase rather than decrease our reliance on the invisible creatures with which we share our world.

How's the Air Up There?

In recent days the completion of the world's tallest building was announced and 6'8" Brittney Griner became the second woman to dunk more than once in a single NCAA basketball game prompting the question, "How's the air up there?" In the case of the newly minted Burj Dubai (which reaches 2,717 ft in to the sky) the air at the top is a full 8 degrees cooler than at the bottom. This necessitates a complex series of airlocks through out the building to dampen the possibility of sudden shifts in air pressure causing structural damage to the superskyscraper. For Griner the question would be the sort of playful comment that is a bit of a back-handed compliment but make no mistake, her arrival in the WNBA will have serious implications. She has serious talent to go with her height. But really, how is the air up there?

Gabrielle Walker's An Ocean of Air: Why the Wind Blows and Other Mysteries of the Atmosphere provides a variety of insights about the air around us. From Colonel Joseph Kittinger's record setting skydive from an altitude of 102,800 feet (in 1960!) to the recent scientific supposition that precipitation is seeded by unseen and omnipresent atmospheric bacteria, An Ocean of Air weaves an amazing tale from historical and scientific elements. Walker's text alternates between the fascinating stories of those who have studied the air around us and the implications of their findings. An Ocean of Air's quick pace and engaging articulation of complex scientific concepts makes for a great contrast to the ephemeral and essential nature of its subject. As the author suggests in finalizing her description of Kittinger's death defying fall to earth, "We don't just live in the air. We live because of it."

Kittinger's awe inspiring military mission was scientific in purpose but shared a passion for adventure with the subjects of Michael Abrams' Birdmen, Batmen and Skyflyers: Wingsuits and the Pioneers Who Flew Them, Fell in Them, and Perfected Them. Here Abrams reveals the history of the questionable and highly hazardous pursuit of flight using wingsuits. Many of the stories included here end poorly for the participants; broken bones and death are fairly predictable outcomes. Still, Birdmen, Batmen and Skyflyers captures a sort of lunatic mania that is inspiring. From that most famous of men to theorize about (and perhaps attempt) winged flight, Leonardo da Vinci, through the golden era of wingsuits and into today's scientific advances, which allow for accomplishments such as Felix Baumgartner's crossing of the English Channel in a wingsuit, Birdmen, Batmen and Skyflyers contains some truly batty tales!

Gasp! The Swift and Terrible Beauty of Air personalizes the gases around us and waxes philosophical on how our human experience is necessarily and inextricably immersed in the nature of air. Beginning with an infant's first breath Joe Sherman plots a course through the history of air that touches such seemingly unrelated topics as; the evolutionary source of fear in humans, the return of life to Krakatau, how and why mammals returned to the sea as whales, why you should never get between a hippo and the water, the physiology of hearing and the etymology of the Arabic word for absurd. Those topics are discussed over the course of just three pages and all within the context of  how air defines and informs our human existence. Yes, Gasp! is dense, it may even leave you breathless, but Sherman's writing is more inspirational than existential so it's well worth diving in!

A Shanty for the Salish Sea

Bellingham biologist Bert Webber is closing in on accomplishing his goal of unifying Puget Sound, the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Strait of Georgia under the name he first coined in 1988, The Salish Sea. On October 30th the Washington State Board of Geographic Names voted 5-1 to adopt the new name and similar committees at other levels of government are expected to follow in coming weeks. Webber's interest in suggesting this new umbrella term is to acknowledge, and promote understanding of, the ecological interconnectedness of these bodies of water. That it has taken twenty years from Webber's first push to place the Salish Sea on maps for this to occur might mislead one to believe that the geographical lexicon is nearly static. In fact, we are encompassed by constant, subtle changes in geography.

Cartography itself embodies a certain paradox. Even the perfect map is by definition an abstraction and as our understanding of the world changes and increases so must our maps morph and reflect these improved, or simply different, forms of comprehension. As the companion publication to the Field Museum of Chicago's "once-in-a-lifetime exhibition" Maps: Finding Our Place in the World is an amazing compendium of maps developed by a vast cross section of our world's cultures. Edited by James Akerman, Maps explores how mapping has changed over time in many ways. From the technological perspective, Maps contains examples from the most rudimentary (but aesthetically stunning) maps of ancient mariners to modern maps of the ocean floor created using advanced sonar techniques. More impressively, Maps provides a context for understanding maps as the product of historical and cultural circumstances. The maps shared here, as a near universal form of communication, express an inspiring variety of data and desires. From maps that illustrate the spread of disease to those that show our position relative to heaven or explore Middle Earth, the images here say as much about how we want others to see the world as how the world might actually be.

Adding the Salish Sea to our maps may seem a small way to express a vague, shared appreciation of our region's waterways but a look below the surface of the ocean reveals that this other world truly deserves our attention. The Blue Planet, as adapted by Andrew Byatt, lets readers follow along with the truly stunning images from the documentary series by the same name (available on DVD in four parts: 1 2 3 4). It's fair to say that most people would not consider these works to be of tremendous scientific value. Instead, their function is to inspire and the breath taking visuals associated with this series succeed wildly in that regard. If ever one needed to find inspiration to cherish and protect the Earth's oceans from excessive human impact these works would be an entirely appropriate place begin that search.

Wish to delve a little deeper into the question of just what life below the waves is like? The World Ocean Census (as compiled by Darlene Crist) may well provide the answers you seek. However, one of this census's great strengths is that it embraces the mystery of the Ocean. Water covers 71% of the surface of our planet and a vast portion of this area remains unexplored. Even in more approachable areas there is much to be learned. Scientists say that as little as 10% of life in coral reefs has yet to be identified. Still, the life forms detailed and pictured in these pages are striking and serve as a potent reminder that the expression of our understanding about the world we live in has real consequences, even for those for those life forms that we have not yet encountered and who may inhabit the familiar waterways or our own region. These life forms may yet find a place in the feedback loop comprised of what we understand, the understanding we project and what we hope to understand.

Grow Your Food, Know Your Food!

My colleague Emily-Jane found this great blog post about the Obamas starting a vegetable garden at the White House. I was so excited to hear about this, as I've been doing a lot of research lately on similar topics for the St. Johns Farmers' Market. I have to say, I've become a bit obsessed with the idea of growing your own food, supporting small farms and buying locally. The library has a bounty of how-to books on growing vegetables, preparing these delicious wonders, and preserving them for later. We also have books on starting your own farm, raising chickens in your backyard, and other ways to support yourself and your local economy. It's been really hard for me to choose just a few for this post, but here we go.

So now that the Obamas are doing it, maybe vegetable gardening will become all the rage. You want to try your hand in it? Let us give you some help. We have many books on vegetable gardening - from raised beds, to your own small farm. We even have some specific to growing vegetables in the Pacific Northwest. Steve Solomon provides one of the seminal works on growing vegetables in our wet, beautiful Cascade Region in his book, Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades. Though some of his ideas may be considered controversial, this book is unquestionably thorough in its discussion of the unique conditions we find in our region, such as "no sun in the winter, no rain in the summer and nutrients washed out of the soil by a thousand years of endless rain." This book was first published in 1980, and he updates it every few years. We carry the most recent 2007 edition as well as the 2000 edition (which has fewer holds on it). This is a very popular book!

While Solomon believes you need lots of space to do it right, many of us do not have acreage in which to plant rows of crops. But never fear, according to R.J. Ruppenthal in Fresh Food From Small Spaces, almost no space is too small or too dark to raise food! This is an entertaining and practical guide to growing productive vegetable gardens in small spaces including balconies, windowsills and counter tops. It even includes information on raising chickens and beekeeping within the city.

So now that you have your garden planted, with the promise of fresh produce to come, it's time to start thinking about how to prepare delicious meals from your bounty! I wanted something that emphasized using seasonal, local products and I ended up going with chefs Vitaly and Kimberly Paley's Paley's Place Cookbook: Recipes and Stories from the Pacific Northwest. This beautifully photographed cookbook uses locally found ingredients in its recipes, but the meals are influenced by many different cultures. And just as appealing as the scrumptious meals you will create, are his stories of local "farmers, fishers, and foragers" who supply Paley with ingredients and inspiration. We live in a beautiful and fertile region and this book really brings that home in pictures and words.

The New York Times mentioned that Mrs. Obama hoped their new garden would help "educate children about healthful, locally grown fruit and vegetables at a time when obesity and diabetes have become a national concern." Add to that people being hit hard by the economic downturn, worry over large-scale salmonella scares, and our planet's environmental future, and you find more and more folks trying to make good choices for themselves, their families and their communities. I like to think the Pacific Northwest is a leader in the green movement, including sustainable food and farming.  The documentary Good food, produced and directed by Melissa Young and Mark Dworkin, talks about the growing number of small farms in our area, as well as the co-ops, grocery outlets and consumers that support them.

The timing is perfect, go forth, get your hands dirty and reap the benefits of your harvest! Be sure to check out the library's guide to Farmers' Markets for even more fresh, local produce options. Eat well!

Walking at Home and in History

When people start talking about taking radical steps to reduce their personal carbon emissions, or to change their transportation habits to help the environment, it seems like usually they're talking about switching driving for biking. But what about the most environmentally low-impact transportation method of all, walking? Well, a recent article at the Sightline Institute's blog The Daily Score, there's a fascinating article which talks about two recent academic studies exploring the impact walking more can have on carbon dioxide emissions, our national dependence on foreign oil, and of course, our own bodies – as well as another study that looks at how city streetscapes and urban layout affect our ability and interest in walking for transportation. Pretty heady stuff!

Like many of you, dear readers, I live in Portland, where the city has an entire office devoted to facilitating a wide array of transportation options, including walking. They're serious about this – they promote walking for pleasure, but also for more mundane tasks like going to the grocery store and commuting to work. So maybe the Portland area is ahead of the curve when it comes to walking more. But I think you'll find that there's lots of fascinating reading on the topic of walking, even to those of us who are already avid promoters of walking as a part of everyday life. Here are a few suggestions:

First off, let's consider how walking has affected people and communities throughout history. Rebecca Solnit's eloquent Wanderlust: A History of Walking. Solnit considers different kinds of walking-related activities that people engage in (e.g., political marches, religious pilgrimages, and backcountry hikes), and examines depictions and uses of walking in literature, science, and the arts. All in all, the book is a fascinating exploration of why we walk, and how walking has shaped human cultures.

Portland has many hills, and if you're up for it, they make great places to walk. Laura O. Foster's Portland Hill Walks: Twenty Explorations in Parks and Neighborhoods makes a great guide. When I took the Alameda Ridge Loop walk with a friend we were blown away by how many nearly-invisible public stairways we got to walk up and down – seriously, we would never have noticed many of them without Foster's instructions! She provides a fascinating array of neighborhood historical information for each of her recommended walks, as well as practical tips like the location of bathrooms, drinking fountains, and restaurants likely to provide a good lunch. If you like Foster's style, you might want to check out her more recent effort, too: Portland City Walks: Twenty Explorations In and Around Town. Or, you could look at one of the dozen or so other guidebooks of walks around Portland.

Like its title indicates, Car Sick: Solutions for Our Car-addicted Culture is an instruction book for how to reduce traffic congestion, the stress of commuting by car, and air and water pollution by decreasing usage of private cars for transport. Author Lynn Sloman devotes a chapter to "Soft solutions to de-motorize the rush hour" (pages 61-75), which includes creative ideas like the "walking bus" – a group of kids walking to school together, with a pull-trolley to carry their backpacks. The book is more than just practical ideas, though – it's full of success stories from cities around the world meant to inspire individuals and neighborhoods to take baby steps to reduce their car use.

Cars. . . And the Trouble With Them

Cars.  Boy do we Americans love them! Personally, I'm not a big fan of driving. To me, being stuck in traffic is like taking crazy pills and parallel parking makes me break out in a sweat.  But on long stretches of road, say out in Eastern Oregon - with the wind in my hair and my favorite tunes on the radio - well there is definitely an appeal.  But like many things that give us that warm fuzzy feeling, driving isn't very good for us or our planet.  And though folks have been telling us for decades that our addiction to cars and oil would be our undoing, the love affair was too strong.  Now we are starting to get it, and because of this, an entire industry is hurting big time.  In July 2008, Automotive News reported that sales for the first half of 2008 were the worst the U.S. auto industry had seen since 1993.  Sales totaled $7,414,295, down 10.1 percent from 2007.* So, the big tree (Ford, GM and Chrysler) went to Washington asking for help back in November and again on Tuesday, this time offering to sell their corporate jets and take a pay cut from what was millions in 2007 to just $1 a year, if Congress was willing to help out.  How will this all play out?  Will U.S. automakers start to make the fuel-efficient cars we need?  What happens when the oil runs out?  We've got years of these issues ahead of us, and I can't help but wonder what kind of vehicles our children's children will be driving someday.

But in the meantime, there is a lot of great work out there on the auto industry, the environment, and the future of cars.  One excellent example is the book Zoom, written by Iain Carson and Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran.  Carson and Vaitheeswaran are both correspondents for The Economist, and they have written this surprisingly enjoyable and ultimately timely book arguing for U.S. energy independence by weaning cars off oil.  Their book is far from the doom and gloom outlook we've been hearing about from the auto industry, instead it's very optimistic about the future of cars.  In fact, they contend it isn't the cars at all that are at fault, it's the oil that's the problem and more drilling is not the answer.  And with the great minds out there in the world, they believe there are many viable, earth-friendly solutions available for our crazy, car-loving culture!

In Auto Mania, Tom McCarthy discusses the history of the automotive industry and specifically the connection between the car, the consumer, and the environment.  McCarthy's book is well researched (with 65 pages of notes!) and looks deep into the seedy underbelly of the auto industry.  He goes into detail about the automobiles immense draw on the earth's natural resources, including the ill-effects on air and water, not to mention the junkyards.  He also talks about the reasons behind the industry's resistance to change and basically about what got us into this mess!  Plus, it's got some fun pictures and photographs.

And there is a fascinating (and honestly, pretty upsetting) documentary titled Who Killed the Electric Car? written and directed by Chris Paine.  To get you interested, here is the tagline from the film, "In 1996, electric cars began to appear on roads all over California. They were quiet and fast, produced no exhaust and ran without gasoline...........Ten years later, these cars were destroyed."  Interested?  Definitely check it out.  Though prepare yourself, I found myself getting pretty angry!

*Article found in the library's ABI/INFORM Trade & Industry database available from anywhere with a valid Multnomah County Library card.  You can read the entire article by clicking here - from outside the library, you will need your library card number and PIN.