Calculating Political Risk by Catherine Althaus. Earthscan. 2009. 304 pages. Paperback. $48.95.
From containing food-borne epidemics to preventing terrorist attacks, public officials have to continuously make decisions that involve high levels of risk. But what exactly is risk? How does it manifest itself? What makes a given action too risky? Public-administration consultant Althaus explores these and related questions, bringing together perspective from medicine, finance, philosophy, mathematics, and other fields to flesh out a scholarly understanding of political risk, the calculation thereof, and what it means to actual political practice, which requires the frequent making of decisions that literally involve life and death. Australia’s regional infrastructure-development plans, Britain’s response to the mad-cow epidemic, and the U.S. government’s counterterrorism policies in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks are cases in point, from which she pinpoints lessons to learn.
Counterknowledge: How We Surrendered to Conspiracy Theories, Quack Medicine, Bogus Science, and Fake History by Damian Thompson. W.W. Norton & Company. 2008. 162 pages. $21.95.
Demonstrably false beliefs are in high demand nowadays, notes sociologist Thompson. Officials in the United States and Britain endorse teaching creationist explanations for the origin of life on earth in public schools, while publishing houses circulate new “nonfiction” books that allege U.S. government complicity in the 9/11 attacks, claim that a Chinese fleet circumnavigated the globe 70 years before Columbus crossed the Atlantic, and warn parents that having their children vaccinated for measles might make them autistic.
Mainstream media are no help. They promulgate such theories to fan discussions, drive audience traffic, and sell copy. And tens of millions of educated adults believe them. Thompson asks what has happened to scientific proof and historical fact; a generation of adults seems to be losing faith in both while they let themselves be deluded by “counterknowledge,” or beliefs that contradict clear evidence. At a time when our methods for ascertaining fact are more sophisticated than ever, our interest in the facts seems to be waning.
Thompson analyzes the psychology that underlies this—why people create counterknowledge, why others hunger for it—and he speculates on how it will affect society overall. Vast political and socioeconomic disaster is inevitable, he says, if we do not come to our senses.
Future Scenarios: How Communities Can Adapt to Peak Oil and Climate Change by David Holmgren. Chelsea Green Publishing. 2009. 126 pages. Paperback. $12.
We need to find new ways of living in the face of climate change and global oil peak, says sustainability-innovator Holmgren. He envisions four future scenarios: techno-explosion, in which large new energy sources allow us to keep expanding our wealth; techno-stability, in which steady consumption and new renewable energies allow us to maintain current standards of living; energy descent, in which declining energy availability triggers declining economic activity, population, and urbanization; and collapse, in which human systems across the globe fail.
Large new energy sources are unlikely, according to Holmgren: We best learn to live with less. He advocates permaculture living—maximizing communities’ self-sufficiency via localized food, renewable energy, community-based economies, and bioregional political structures. Argentina, Cuba, and New Zealand have already adopted some permaculture practices in the wake of rising energy and food prices.
(Note: Holmgren is co-originator, with Bill Mollison, of the permaculture concept following their joint publication in 1978 of their book Permaculture One. He has also written Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainaiblity and developed three properties whose designs incorporate permaculture principles.)
Hacking the Earth: Understanding the Consequences of Geoengineering by Jamais Cascio. Self-published, www.lulu.com. 2009. 160 pages. $12.95.
The greenhouse gases currently in the earth’s atmosphere are not going away—unless we apply some special tools to remove them, says environmental futurist Cascio. In this self-published collection of essays, he explores the prospects for geoengineering, or using human-made structures to undo climate change: pumping seawater into clouds to increase their reflectivity of incoming sunlight; growing genetically engineered plants that will absorb carbon dioxide at faster-than-average rates; building mirrors in space to block some of the sun’s rays; dumping iron into the ocean to stimulate growth of carbon-dioxide-consuming plankton; and more.
None of these will be easy to deploy. And all carry risks—they might trigger new changes in the earth’s atmosphere or ocean currents; they might benefit some parts of the earth while scarcely helping, or even harming, other parts; and disagreements over their developments and deployment might spark heated political tensions, or even wars. It’s the future we know versus the alternative future we don’t know. Both are scary, and both and will require us to make hard decisions.
Mom-in-Chief: How Wisdom from the Workplace Can Save Your Family from Chaos by Jamie Woolf. Jossey-Bass. 2009. 262 pages. $22.95.
The skills that working mothers learn at the office can help them create happier family lives at home, says leadership consultant—and proud parent—Woolf. Drawing from her own experiences, she elaborates some readily transferable “best practices” that foster communication, teamwork, and morale in employees and children alike. Her anecdotes and tips aim to help readers discover their personal leadership styles and maximize them to nurture healthy family cultures, manage crises, delegate effectively with their spouses, and motivate their children to discover and unleash their potential strengths.
One Square Inch of Silence: One Man’s Journey for Natural Silence in a Noisy World by Gordon Hempton and John Grossmann. Free Press. 2009. 356 pages. $26. Includes compact disc.
Natural silence is harder to find, according to ecologist Hempton and freelance-writer Grossmann. In Hempton’s expedition across the continental United States, he recorded the sounds of nature—the vibrations of butterfly wings, the sifting of breeze through pine branches, the crash-boom of waterfalls, the howls of wolves, and all those other sounds that existed eons before the first human beings. To hear these sounds uninterrupted, however, is increasingly difficult nowadays. The authors note that even in the most “remote” natural parks, one may hear human-caused noise: a chainsaw here, a jet plane there, highway traffic, helicopters, trains, and more.
Hempton’s journey is retraced with vivid descriptions of wilderness through which he hiked and the local humans he met and conversed with along the way. They express the hope that the reader, too, will rediscover how to listen to the land and thus reconnect with it. This will only happen when we can experience natural silence, the “meeting place” between us and our environment. An enclosed compact disc features Hempton’s sound recordings and illustrations of poignant natural scenes.
Political Economy in a Globalized World by Joergen Oerstroem Moeller. World Scientific. 2009. 442 pages. $48.
Our world’s global economy is a fragile system, as the widespread damage of the recent financial crisis demonstrated, says economist—and World Future Society Global Advisory Council member—Moeller. He advises taking careful note of the system’s strengths and weaknesses, because it will undergo even greater strains later this century: climate change, demographic changes, shifting balances of geopolitical power, rising nationalism, the continuing menaces of extremism and terrorism, and new scarcities of needed resources in every economy worldwide. The global economy is our best hope of worldwide prosperity, but we must modernize it in order to meet all these new challenges.
Moeller describes the future trends, and the ways we can expect the world’s financial system to evolve in light of them. Global economics could be a bigger factor than domestic policy in most countries’ domestic prosperity, since all citizens are vulnerable to events beyond their national borders. We have an opportunity to act now and identify the right policies. If we take it, we will have the brightest prospects of reducing or eliminating the negative impacts on our societies, and promoting human rights and opportunities.
The Shut-Down Learner: Helping Your Academically Discouraged Child by Richard Selznick. Sentient. 2009. 160 pages. $15.95.
Children with diagnoses of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, dyslexia, and other “learning disabilities” need much more than clinical tests and medications; they need understanding and support, says school-psychologist Selznick. The typical classroom setting just isn’t designed for the way they think: Most of these children excel in creative tasks that demand strong visual skills or spatial thinking, but they struggle—and often fail—at following standard instruction in reading, math, and writing. Their difficulties leave them feeling anxious, depressed, and resentful. Their self-esteem suffers, and their relationships with their parents become strained.
Well-meaning parents may expect counseling and medication regimens to “fix” them. Selznick cautions against this. Medical treatments are often necessary, he says, but parents also need to explore the underlying factors that may be worsening their children’s conditions. Selzick helps parents identify the factors, and offers concrete approaches that can help resolve them.
Social Capital: Reaching Out, Reaching In by Viva Ona Bartkus and James H. Davis. Edward Elgar. 2009. 369 pages. $150.
“Social capital,” the resources that individuals and groups accrue from building and maintaining personal relationships, is a highly discussed—and controversial—subject of study, according to management professors Bartkus and Davis. Each one of us can enrich our lives, make it through tough times, and discover new personal or professional opportunities by way of the relationships we share with friends, family, co-workers, and colleagues.
Larger groups benefit, too, since their members’ mutual relationships foster information flow, raise awareness of common problems, and identify and sanction unacceptable behavior. But there can be too much of a good thing: A community that is excessively close-knit can become insular, discriminatory, and prejudiced against those on the outside.
Recent research is making many fascinating new revelations about human community behavior, challenging many long-cherished assumptions, such as classical economics’ belief that humans are individualistic and self-interested. Bartkus and Davis share innovative discoveries by leading economists, political analysts, and sociologists on the nature and value of social capital: what social capital is, how we measure it, how we create and maintain it, and where it stands in our society today.
The Virtue of Wealth: Creating Life Success the Zenvesting Way by Paul H. Sutherland. Spirituality & Health Books. 2009. 193 pages. Paperback. $16.95.
Living in accordance with our unique values and dreams is not easy, but it is the only way to true happiness and true wealth, says investment-manager Sutherland. He leads readers through the processes of creating road maps for lives of healthy relationships with money, possessions, and, most importantly, other people. Balance, anticipation of life’s up and downs, substitution of personal responsibility for victim mentality, and awareness of one’s own place in the grand scheme of human existence are his core tenets. Applying those tenets, you will learn how to successfully save for retirement, plan for a more fulfilling future, and raise your kids to spend money wisely, engage in household chores, share with others, and deeply value their educations.
The Wall Street Journal Guide to the End of Wall Street As We Know It: What You Need to Know About the Greatest Financial Crisis of Our Time—And How to Survive It by Dave Kansas. Collins Business. 2009. 199 pages. Paperback. $15.99.
Radical changes are under way in the world’s financial systems in the wake of the subprime-mortgage implosion, credit crunch, and market meltdown, according to financial-writer Kansas. He clues consumers in to what the crises mean to them, and what they need to do to weather the storm. His text traces the unwise investment decisions and spending excesses that led to today’s situation, and he compares it with prior economic downturns, such the stock-market depreciation of 2000.
Taking stock of the current morass, he notes what the current events mean for the global economy. It will recover, he says, but it will be of a markedly different form: fewer Wall Street firms, more global players, and the disappearance of many small- to medium-size banks. He notes further what the current events mean for individual investors: He describes the changes in the housing market; clarifies the new rules of funds protection, identifying which investments are protected and which are not; suggests ways to pay down debt; and shows how you can determine the safety of your assets.
Wetware: A Computer in Every Living Cell by Dennis Bray. Yale University Press. 2009. 258 pages. $28.
Robots made from biological materials aren’t found only in sci-fi movies, says biologist Bray. Our bodies, and the bodies of every other living thing on earth, contain billions of them. Those robots are our cells, and their moment-to-moment function is nothing less than living computation: Each cell consists of organic circuits performing logical operations, albeit with unique properties that human-made computers cannot yet match, and protein complexes that switch genes on and off just to execute microchip-like “programs of development.” We owe everything to these computational capacities. They are the source of cells’ ability (and ours) to become aware, to adapt, and to be intelligent.
What’s Next: Dispatches on the Future of Science edited by Max Brockman. Vintage Books. 2009. 237 pages. Paperback. $18.95.
Literary-agent Brockman gives a sneak peek of the next generation of scientific discovery with a compilation of essays by 18 of today’s most promising young scientists. Essays weigh in on some of the most perplexing questions in astrophysics, neuroscience, paleoanthropology, and a cross-section other research fields.
The authors detail new revelations about childhood and adolescent brain development; reexaminations of the role of culture in the way individuals think; and critical speculation on the universe’s mysterious stores of “dark energy” and “dark matter,” among more subjects. Other essays speculate on future trends, such as the ethical frameworks that we might put in place to govern genetic engineering, and the prospect that climate change may spark massive migrations of human communities from warmer regions to the Northern Hemisphere. In all, authors challenge long-standing notions and elucidate intriguing new ones.
Winning the Global Talent Showdown: How Businesses and Communities Can Partner to Rebuild the Jobs Pipeline by Edward E. Gordon. Berrett-Koehler Publishers Inc. 2009. 246 pages. $27.95.
The “cyber-mental” age is coming, and the world’s work forces are not ready for it, says management-consultant Gordon. A fundamental shift is under way in the global economy, he says, from industries that require basic skills to those that require higher skills. He argues that national school systems, designed in the nineteenth century, are behind the curve. They are not cultivating in their students the technical, communications, and thinking skills that this new economy demands.
The sad consequence is that, while the world’s young-adult population is larger than ever, the population of young adults with critically needed technical skills remains small. They miss opportunities, workforces shrink, and community infrastructures everywhere fall under strain.
We need to reinvent the systems, Gordon says. He praises some efforts now under way: programs that find employment for low-income youth, new mothers, people with disabilities, and former prisoners; career academies that combine traditional liberal arts with intensive study of mathematics, science, and technology; partnerships between local businesses, governments, and NGOs to develop local talent; and workplaces that increasingly embrace employee training and lifelong learning.