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Review of ‘They Poisoned The World: Life and Death in the Age of Forever Chemicals’ by Mariah Blake
Blake’s book is a detailed, comprehensive, chronological investigation into how synthetic PFAS chemicals polluted and contaminated town after town in America. It focuses on the dogged and determined individuals, who fought against chemical companies which delayed, obfuscated and denied the extent of their PFAS pollution.
Most of the narratives come from individuals concerned about the impact on their family and looking for ways to limit and reduce exposure to harmful chemicals.
‘How can they protect their families and communities from an insidious group of chemicals that permeates the bodies of all living beings from the moment of conception until death?’
‘They Poisoned The World’ charts the struggles, especially of the Hickey family, and repeatedly makes the point that responsibility and accountability for truth, information and protection should come from the chemical industry, and should not rely on individuals researching information to better protect themselves from dangerous forever chemicals which have been ‘grandfathered’ into legislation.
Blake notes that, ‘We live in a synthetic world. Our homes and workplaces are brimming with man-made materials. Our bodies are saturated with their chemical residue.’ PFAS chemicals have now been found to pollute on a global scale- from the oceans to the Arctic to Mount Everest. ‘They also pollute the bodies of virtually every person on the planet. Once inside us, they stay there like a ticking time bomb of disease.’
3M, Chemours, DuPont, and more, all come under the spotlight in this vital exposé- one which details the long history of the development and profits of these chemical companies, from the early 20th century, through the arms development of World War 2, through to the domestic sphere of the 1950s and 1960s which followed. ‘The push by companies like 3M to turn wartime innovations into peacetime profits would transform American life.’ All too often, the chemical giants became the main employer in US towns, causing whistleblowers and local impacted people to come under incredible pressure to tow the line and not to cause waves. Thankfully, in recent decades, these companies have now become infamous and synonymous with corporate malpractice and betrayal. More attention and more truth-telling has appeared through the efforts of campaigners and litigators. Public awareness has exploded with the likes of films like ‘Dark Waters’, ‘Erin Brockovich’, and others which highlight real life cases of pollution by chemical companies, as well as their efforts to hide the truth.
This isn’t a text then just about the struggles of towns and families in the US to force litigation to bring these companies in check. Blake’s book is the roadmap for countries which are behind on chemical regulation to understand the delaying tactics used by chemical companies when finally it is their turn to be ‘exposed’. Blake argues that companies rely on the delayed action from the public, as the public find it challenging and difficult to accept that a stalwart of a community could equally be responsible for polluting a town.
‘All too often, we respond to grave environmental threats with a kind of collective paralysis.’ Her argument is that speaking out and building local communities to safeguard and protect families becomes a duty for us all, even if it takes years and decades.
‘It is up to us to protect ourselves and make a safer future for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren, who will reap the consequences of the choices we make now.’ Now that we know that those who were charged with providing safe products and a safe environment, actively betrayed that trust, while making huge profits, means that that trust has been broken forever.
Blake outlines the many ‘household names’ like Teflon, Gore-Tex, ScotchGard and Tefal, which brought their chemicals into our homes. As an aside,it is interesting to note that on Tefal’s website in 2025, it states directly, ‘Tefal was one of the first manufacturers to eliminate PFOA from its non-stick coatings over a decade ago.’ It does not have the same transparency over its actions and behaviours over its 60 years history. ‘The synthetics revolution also brought thousands of new chemicals into American homes.’ Blake notes how profits became the focus over consumer safety by DuPont. ‘Teflon…would become revolutionary both for DuPont, which parlayed it into a billion-dollar-a-year business.’
Just like Big Tobacco, the chemical industry knew of the dangers of their products, but did little to safeguard and protect the public. ‘Up until this point, [1958] DuPont had avoided marketing Teflon for use in home kitchen products because of toxicity concerns.’
Parkersburg, West Virginia
Perhaps the most well-known toxicity story that emerges focuses on the Tennant family and their litigation against DuPont in the late 1990s, through the lawyer Rob Bilott. Following a court order, DuPont turned thousands of documents over to Bilott, who painstakingly went through them all.
‘Gradually, the entire horrifying story came into focus: DuPont and 3M had been studying the chemical [PFOA] for decades. They knew that it was toxic and that it was polluting drinking water and human blood thousands of miles away from its factories, but they had concealed most of these findings. The papers also showed that DuPont had used the landfill near the Tennants’ farm as part of an increasingly elaborate cover-up.’
‘They Poisoned The World’ also details how the chemical industry began to respond to the emerging litigation by their own PR machine, by holding ‘information sessions’, and by lobbying hard in congressional races and political action committees to limit chemical regulation and to attempt to obtain gag orders against Bilott. At the same time, they began to court public opinion by admitting that PFOA was present but that the levels were ‘safe’. ‘In late October 2000, a letter written largely by DuPont officials went out on Lubeck Public Service District letterhead. It informed residents that there was a chemical called C8, or PFOA, in the water, but claimed the levels were safe to drink.’
Flint, Michigan
The other famous case of the contamination crisis in Flint, Michigan is also addressed in Blake’s book. It is noted that President Obama in 2015 declared a state of emergency, but Obama also famously lost the trust of the public by failing to drink water supplied to him from Flint at a public meeting. Once public trust is lost, it never comes back. ‘All their lives, they had trusted that there were systems in place to protect them, and now that trust had been shattered.’
In 2016, the EPA finally unveiled new “lifetime health advisories” for PFOA and PFOS combined. ‘Suddenly, more than five million Americans in nineteen states and several U.S. territories were informed that their drinking water contained unsafe levels of these chemicals.’ In order to be better informed of the possible health impacts, many Americans began voluntary blood tests in order to find out the levels in their blood. Blood levels then began to appear on protest signs as public anger began to mount against the chemical companies.
The dangers of GenX
What campaigners constantly fight against is the seeming inability to regulate forever chemicals. By the time litigation reaches court, the chemical company has already stopped using that specific chemical and replaced it with shorter chain chemicals, like GenX, which means that the whole process of linking health impacts to exposure to the new chemical needs to start again.
‘In early June 2017, a North Carolina paper broke the news that more than two hundred thousand people downstream of the Chemours plant were drinking water heavily polluted with GenX.’
Campaigners need to have stamina and be aware that legal action against chemical companies can take years, by which time, those suffering health impacts often will have passed away and will never have their ‘day in court’. For the Hickey family, which is the thread in Blake’s book, their story began in 2010 and ‘finished’ in 2021- four years before the publication of this book. The impact on campaigners can be huge- from social ostracisation to personal and family pressures, to economic concerns. These all play into the hands of the chemical companies.
The first step to limit the level of chemical pollution and contamination is to ‘turn off the tap’, and ban the production and sale of PFAS products. Following that, extensive remediation is necessary, while the dangers of simple disposal are well known.
‘In 2023, the European Commission introduced a wholesale ban on the production and sale of PFAS and products containing them, the most sweeping chemical regulation in the bloc’s history….
Moreover, the methods used to clean up PFAS pollution often end up returning the chemicals to the environment instead. The landfills where we bury forever-chemical waste, for instance, simply belch them back into the air.’
We are discovering more and more previously unknown PFAS, and lesser studied ones are now ‘breaking through’ into public awareness. The extent of TFA pollution is incredibly shocking, continues today, and ‘may only be the tip of the iceberg.’
‘They Poisoned The World’ is then a breathtaking account, sadly both literally and figuratively. It offers hope though, that the long battle against those companies and bodies which pollute us, can be won. Now we know the industry’s playbook, we can be better informed when these strategies are used, as more PFAS pollution hotspots appear in communities around the globe.
“It shows just how much individual people and communities standing up and speaking out can do and the dramatic change they can put in motion,” he said. “It took us way too long to get here, but it’s happening.”
-Rob Bilott
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Review of ‘Love, Anger & Betrayal’ by Jonathon Porritt
Just Stop Oil.
Now pause and consider the emotional response you just had to those words.
Was it pride? Frustration? Anger? Apathy? From where did those emotions arise? How did you form that opinion, and has a dominant narrative shaped your response to this group of activists? Jonathon Porritt gathers together testimonies, contributions and profiles from 26 young climate activists and co-authors, to present an alternative reading of much needed climate activism.
Porritt notes, ‘The principal purpose in writing this book is to allow readers to find out a whole lot more about who these campaigners are, their hopes and fears and why they have chosen to live in ‘civil disobedience’. And why all of this is so directly relevant to all of us.’ He urges a wider view of climate protest, one which allows for climate messaging to be heard, instead of being shut down as recent UK judges have tried to do. Silencing the motivation behind non-violent, or peaceful direct action potentially leads to a worrying precedent, one, which to date, UK juries have not been led by. ‘As well as providing a more balanced view of what Just Stop Oil was, and particularly its young activists are, trying to achieve.’
He argues that their impact and profile have been hugely significant and follows the actions of powerful resistance groups of the past. ‘Few, if any, campaigning organisations have achieved such a high profile in such a short period of time.’ From 2022 until 2025, their many high profile actions of civil resistance have caused mainstream environmentalists, as well as the media and the general public, to focus more on their actions, rather than their motivations. ‘Just Stop Oil ‘burst on the scene in a blaze of orange’ back in March 2022. Three years on, it announced that it would be bringing to a close all its campaigning activities within the month. During that time, 3,500 Just Stop Oil Supporters were arrested with around 180 instances of people sentenced or held on remand.’
Their actions are meant to be disruptive. They are meant to polarise.
‘[Just Stop Oil] organises disruptive actions specifically designed to polarise opinion, and to encourage the ‘still undecided’ to decide which side they are on.’
It is noticeable that the media have highlighted and made more prominent actions by Just Stop Oil over their 3 year campaign- focusing on those which are the most disruptive, as well as those which are symbolic. It may be that Just Stop Oil is just the last incarnation of climate protestors from Extinction Rebellion to Insulate Britain, to Just Stop Oil. As the job remains unfinished, there is still a space for a radical movement to challenge those in power. “As the climate movement’s Radical Flank, Just Stop Oil was not there to be liked either. And its activists asked the same questions of the mainstream environment movement: What has your sympathy for the cause achieved in practice?”
It remains true that how a group or an individual presents their direct action impacts how the message is ‘heard’. Far too often we have heard, ‘I agree with them, but I don’t agree with what they are doing.’ Leading to the interesting question, of what action would the public prefer to see which matches the urgency of the climate crisis. A stereotypically British response of a stern letter? Furthermore, for some reason, the public chose who to accept and listen to, even though science methods and findings are the same. David Attenborough, yes. Greta Thunberg, no. Climate Scientists, no. 20 year old activists, no. Though there is no difference between where Attenborough has gathered his information and where other climate scientists and environmentalists have gathered theirs. In acknowledging this, Porritt continues to ask, ‘Why are most politicians still so indifferent to scientists’ warnings about the climate crisis?
There is also a real contradiction in the narrative and perception of the need for climate justice and needed climate action. From polls and surveys, Just Stop Oil is viewed negatively, though at the same time, the public, across countries, are worried about climate change and its effects and the lack of climate action from governments. The last YouGov survey on Just Stop Oil in 2023, noted that 66% of respondents had an unfavourable view of the group. Towards the end of 2024, a YouGov survey across European countries found that well over 60% of respondents were worried about climate change and its effects. At the same time, over 70% of respondents accepted that the world’s climate is changing as a result of human activity.
Radical resistance has a long history
Repeated links and comparisons are drawn throughout the text between the activists of Just Stop Oil and the powerful voices of the past who fought for change, from the Suffragettes, the Freedom Riders, the Civil Rights Movement, Gandhi’s protests against the British. Porritt is careful to limit the comparisons though, acknowledging the awful violence committed by the state to those who dared to challenge the status quo and raise their voices. From the horrific violence of Birmingham, Alabama, and too many towns and cities in America, to the sexual and physical violence against the Suffragettes, the ‘Radical Flank’ of resistance movements has always faced persecution.
What is happening to the right to protest in the UK?
Porritt details and explores the ‘manifestly excessive’ prison sentences meted out to Just Stop Oil activists, using the example of Roger Hallam’s 5 year sentence for planning a direct action, suggesting that they too are a persecuted movement. ‘Lady Justice Carr described the five-year sentence for Roger Hallam as ‘manifestly excessive’, reducing it to four years.’
‘The right to peaceful protest remains a basic human right, but you sure as hell wouldn’t know that here in the UK any longer.’
What will happen to those who have been arrested for holding ‘Palestine Action’ signs and for those showing support for the state of Palestine, once the UK acknowledges the genocide committed there and acknowledges the state of Palestine? Will their arrests be erased? What will happen to climate activists when the reasons for their actions become manifestly obvious?
Porritt argues that the UK state is using its given power to oppress any challenge to its lack of climate action. He quotes John Locke’s famous saying from 1689: ‘wherever law ends, tyranny begins’. But what if the laws by which you as a citizen are bound are themselves tyrannous? In other words, using power or authority in a cruel and oppressive way. That is exactly what is happening here in the UK today.’ Porritt uses the example of a police raid on a Quaker House to highlight the direction of police action and asks in whose interest this is in. In the past week alone, 4 Just Stop Oil supporters were given conditional discharges for marching in the road- or for ‘interfering with key national infrastructure’- a law solely created to target Just Stop Oil activists. Take a moment there. The UK Government took legal action in order to ensure that peaceful direct action would be criminalised. Of course, a simple internet search would reveal many other protests which have marched on ‘national infrastructure’ without any lengthy prison sentences following- so what is it about Just Stop Oil which the UK Government objects to?
Porritt eviscerates the UK Government by pouring scorn on plans that we can come back from a climate ‘overshoot’ through direct air capture schemes, or recarbonising the soil. He is scathing of the current UK Prime Minister’s climate credentials. ‘Keir Starmer himself does not have a climate-friendly bone in his body. He’s been forthright about his contempt for Just Stop Oil. He quotes Starmer’s speech in 2024, where he said, ‘I will not sacrifice Great British industry to the drum-banging, finger-wagging Net Zero extremists.’ He continues in a blunt manner, ‘The harsh truth is that politicians are making a catastrophically bad job of addressing this challenge.’ He concludes that there will be a time of climate reckoning, as the scientific methods make this clearer and that those who delay the necessary climate action need to be accountable.
“I cannot find it in my heart to rationalise the vast majority of politicians’ indifference and inertia, let alone to forgive it.”
Porritt then quotes George Monbiot who asks why there is a fervent drive to silence and imprison climate activists for speaking out, while ignoring the real guilty parties. “‘Why do the mass killers of the fossil fuel industry walk free while the heroes trying to stop them are imprisoned?…Why, when we know so much, do we permit a handful of billionaires to propel us towards predictable catastrophe?’” To support this argument, Porritt draws attention to the direct support for fossil fuels which is still ongoing around the world. “The US Federal Government in 2022 stumped up an extraordinary $757 billion in direct and indirect support for fossil fuels. How can one interpret this as anything other than a conspiracy against the American people by their own Government?”
There is a moral reckoning, as well as a legal and political reckoning to the climate crisis. Porritt returns to the tradition of peaceful resistance from the past to make the point that simply waiting to be given justice has never been successful, as those with power will cling tenaciously and desperately to any vestige of control. It does make one think more of post-apartheid South Africa with this reasoning, that a political present is not always ‘just’.
“When Martin Luther King said that the ‘arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice’, he sure as hell didn’t mean that justice will simply arrive, so sit back and wait for the happy outcome! Such justice is never freely given by those who have power; it is only ever won.”
Porritt rings out the clear warning that narrowing the right to protest and the right of freedom of expression will inevitably lead to more protestors heading to prison for ‘crimes’ which are questionable. “As the climate crisis worsens, repressions of resistance will increase, and the bar for going to prison will get lower and lower as the government continues to try and deter us from taking further effective non-violent action.” It is curious to note that the far right in UK politics argue that the freedom of expression of the far right is being restricted, but these are also the ones most opposed to Just Stop Oil. There is never any challenge to Just Stop Oil’s freedom of expression being infringed by the state from these groups and indeed the right wing media in the UK- clearly climate action and climate protest is so beyond the pale, despite millions demonstrating around the world in 2019 in the biggest climate protests in history.
Who are the real ‘dangerous radicals’?
“We are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster. This is a global emergency beyond any doubt. Much of the very fabric of life on Earth is imperilled.”
Porritt concludes by successfully arguing that climate change is not an environmental issue, nor that it should be labelled ‘an issue’ at all.
“Climate change is not, and has never has been, ‘an environmental issue’. It is not, and never has been, ‘an issue’ of any kind. It is an unfolding physical and geopolitical reality that is already affecting the lives of the vast majority of human beings, and will, in the not too distant future, become the single most significant influence determining the future of our entire species.”
António Guterres, the Secretary-General of the UN, makes it clear where he sees dangerous radicalism. ‘Climate activists are sometimes depicted as dangerous radicals. But the truly dangerous radicals are the countries that are increasing the production of fossil fuels. Investing in new fossil fuel infrastructure is moral and economic madness.’
Guterres is always stark in his analysis and never shies away from telling climate truths. It is this point where Porritt chooses to conclude this intergenerational, challenging read. An argument which draws together all the threads of the 26 climate activists, focusing on the starkness of the climate action that is drastically required.
‘We have a choice. Collective action or collective suicide. It is in our hands.’
-António Guterres
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Review of ‘No Straight Road Takes You There’ by Rebecca Solnit
‘With courage nothing is impossible.’ Sir William Hillary, founder of the RNLI.
These words of Hillary matched the theme of Solnit’s ‘No Straight Road Takes You There’ so aptly that they seemed like the epigraph. In both cases, saving lives at sea and climate activism, the work of volunteers is vital. Those people who understand that something must be done and who don’t wait for Superman to turn up to alter lives positively. People who understand that the right thing to do is still the right thing to do, even in the face of difficulty and challenge. The metaphorical storms of fossil fuel deniers and delayers meet the physical storms of oceans and seas and remind us that we can still steer to safety. As Solnit states, “In embracing the truth that, although we may not know how and why something might matter when we do it, may nevertheless matter immensely.”
This structured ‘meander’ through past essays by Solnit reinforces that activism and community building makes a difference. A difference perhaps not realised until years have passed. After all, as Tolkien writes, ‘Not all those who wander are lost,’ and the unconventional path of bravery and long-termism outlined in this text might create new paths and futures that are, as yet, undreamed.
Travelling to the New World
There is no doubt that when Solnit wields words that they have power. She is a visionary storyteller, who understands that we are on a journey to a new time and a new place, one which will require the power and magic of stories to bind us in unity of purpose..
“We are leaving behind our old familiar world whose stability we can remember as a great kindness and entering into a rough new set of circumstances. Like refugees leaving a place, we are leaving a time. What should we carry with us?… We will need stories more than ever.”
Recognising and identifying this new world requires not forgetting the past, but accepting that it is us, now, who have been brought to this time and place to be the guides for those who will follow. “We must have landmarks and dreams ahead of us to orient ourselves, to remember that it has been different and could be different. We must have a vision of what our toil is for and how we will know when we get there.” As a species, we have been bound by stories, by great stories and tales, which have helped us understand our world and our place within it. “We were guided by stories, the old ones passed on, the new ones we made like rafts in a flood, the ones we told like water to pour on fire. Stories arose from this time, of this time, who did what was needed and those who stood in the way, and those who changed minds with their stories, of those new stories in which we saw a new heaven, a new Earth and a new humanity.”
Action is shaped by vision
Solnit argues convincingly that actions and words can bring about change, which can sometimes build under the surface until the moment comes and that nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come. “In embracing the truth that, although we may not know how and why something might matter when we do it, may nevertheless matter immensely.” She follows this concept of actions making a difference, by stating, “But even when the rock’s on the bottom of the pool, the ripples are still spreading.” Leaving the reader to wonder whether a new world can be brought into being simply by using the words to imagine that hopeful state. “Once you create a new idea of what is possible and acceptable, the seeds are planted.” Solnit quotes Joe Lamb, who reframed the ‘those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it’ aphorism and instead draws hope and courage from the many successes of the past and that the unforeseen happens more regularly than history notes. “We need to remember that we can learn from and repeat the successes of our past.” The tipping point of actions, words and community building may be closer than we think and all that is needed to activate this seed of an idea is to provide it with supportive water and care. What then blooms, could be transformative.
Solnit repeatedly reminds us that a new story of climate activism is possible and that a drip of water can eventually wear down a stone. In an up-to-date example, the International Court of Justice has recently ruled that countries must prevent harm to the climate system and that failing to do so could result in their having to pay compensation and make other forms of restitution. In a landmark case, brought about after years of campaigning from a group of Pacific Island law students, climate justice and a legal precedent for the future has now been created by an international court. The UN Secretary- General António Guterres said “This is a victory for our planet, for climate justice, and for the power of young people to make a difference.’
‘With courage nothing is impossible.’
A new evolution and a new story has been created by threatened islanders who understood that there would be no straight and easy path to their outcome, but that they had to make a path for others to follow. Solnit quotes Antonio Machado’s words:“Walker, there is no path; the path is made by walking.” For so many of our destinations, no straight road takes us there. The route is over mountains or through forests and beyond what we know.”
No Fate, but what we make
Solnit openly acknowledges that there are forces that try to obscure and obstruct the new possible stories of optimism. “Despairs’ cheerleaders offer the same message that institutions all around us do: that we are powerless, that power resides in the few, at the center, at the top. Part of resistance must consist of refusing to believe them, and that can be reinforced by better versions of history and theories of change.” She argues that despair’s message relies on trying to force the belief that the future is preordained and that we have no escape. Instead she argues, “If we can recognize that we don’t know what will happen, that the future does not yet exist but it is being made in the present, then we can be moved to participate in making that future.” Or in a more film-friendly manner- ‘No fate but what we make.’
What a powerful story- that we are the agents of the future. That we can decide ‘what to do with the time that is given us.’ That we can be the best of all ancestors. We are trying to be good ancestors, to make a world in which the land that, in the past, fed many species, including ours, will feed them in the future.
There is a risk to hope, in that it challenges those who wish for the story to be unchanged. Without speaking out and fighting for change, those with power will continue to silence those voices whom they deem as lesser. A democracy of voices is what can be brought into being.
“To hope is to risk. It’s to take a chance on losing. It’s also to take a chance on winning, and you can’t win if you don’t try.”
Changing the Climate Story
Perhaps new climate stories are being told if we have eyes to see. Walt Disney’s ‘Moana’ does not at first sight seem a strong contender as being a climate story, but when we have an island under attack, with crops failing and fish disappearing and our heroine being told repeatedly not to sail beyond the reef and change the story, but to accept what is happening- all at once the climate bells start to ring. By choosing to listen to her ancestors, in the guise of her grandmother and visions, Moana leaves this narrative of isolation behind and remembers the power of ‘We were voyagers’ and that seeking a new world and a new story is an option for us all.
Solnit also argues that “We are hemmed in by stories that prevent us from seeing, or believing in, or acting on the possibilities for change.” But that to become true agents of the future we need to inspire and create new traditions. “In order to do what the climate crisis demands of us, we have to find stories of a livable future, stories of popular power, stories that motivate people to do what it takes to make the world we need.”
Everything we can save is worth saving
Solnit concludes by reminding us that vested interests want us to be silent and to accept their story. “They want you to feel powerless and to surrender and to let them trample everything and you are not going to let them. You are not giving up, and neither am I. The fact that we cannot save everything does not mean that we cannot save anything and everything we can save is worth saving.”
I may be forgiven for returning to Tolkien once again by quoting this in full.
“It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going, because they were holding on to something. That there is some good in this world, and it’s worth fighting for.”
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Review of ‘Total Garbage- How We Can Fix Our Waste and Heal the World’, Edward Humes
‘You will swallow 285 pieces of plastic today. You will do it again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.’
‘Total Garbage’ by Edward Humes opens with shocking facts about the level of plastic pollution that we have in our world today. He helpfully visualises the extent of the plastic that we are ingesting and says, ‘Think of it as pulling a credit card out of your wallet, chewing it and swallowing it. All of it. Up to once a week, every week. Forever.’ An image and action that we would not do willingly and yet, we are now aware of the levels of plastic pollution and waste, but are we doing enough to reduce this impact?
This is a thorough and extensive text that goes some way to help make the invisible, visible. Sometimes it can be hard to notice the everyday items that are wasteful and this, Humes argues, is a created phenomenon.. A lack of awareness, at times a wilful blindness over personal convenience, or has it been a carefully crafted advertising narrative that is built upon the extension of the continued capitalist practice of waste? ‘Wastefulness is driven by choice, habit and marketing, rather than by necessity, inevitability, and economic sense. We are neither helpless nor hopeless to act.’
The amount of waste that has become integral to our lives is chronicled in a variety of societal areas, from energy consumption, to plastic pollution, to transport, to house design to indoor cooking methods. Time and time again, Humes challenges us to start at the end of the process rather than the start and ask ourselves, if we knew fully about the dangers of a behaviour, would we be willing to undertake that risk?
Our disposable age
Humes uses the phrase and label, ‘Our disposable age’. A phrase that ‘says it all: the branding of waste not as a problem but as a way of life’. The use of single use plastic is seized upon by Humes as his opening example of how pervasive waste is in our world. He acknowledges that, ‘Unlike metal, wood, clay, and glass, plastic does not occur in nature. It is a 100 percent human-made thing,’ He then outlines the level of excessive use of plastic and the amount that could be recycled, were it not for deliberate ‘consumer confusion’ from a range of ‘recyclable’ labels. ‘And we Americans use about 54 billion disposable “paper” cups a year’. Our consumer choices continue in our homes and in the amount of ‘single use’ plastic containers that lurk in bathrooms and kitchens from shampoos, hand washes, conditioners, toothpastes, mouthwashes, dishwasher detergents and cleaning products. As a public, we can see these objects, but their true impact appears invisible.We are urged by Humes to think about what happens to a container once the contents have been used and how energy efficient this action might be.
‘Thinking about what will happen to a product or package at the end of its useful life before you buy is key.’
We might happily ‘recycle’, feeling a sense of righteousness and high morality at doing so, but ignoring all the other aspects of the waste hierarchy and just focusing on the end action, will never help solve the underlying issue. Trying to reduce waste from the Great Garbage Patch for example, is an effective action in itself, but it would be better to ensure that the waste and plastic doesn’t arrive there in the first place.
Producer responsibility
Humes makes the powerful argument that businesses and companies should shoulder the responsibility for their product and increase the energy usage of their product. ‘Businesses must accept responsibility not only for the creation of their disposable plastic products but for their death as well’. He terms this ‘extended producer responsibility’ and argues that this could be a shift to turbocharge the narrative of waste. Many international companies simply aren’t there yet. By 2030, Coca-Cola’s plastic waste alone in the oceans is expected to reach 602m kilograms. There are many fears over human health risks posed by the spread of microplastic pollution and marine life doesn’t stand a chance against this level of waste being dumped unceremoniously out at sea. Coca-Cola also has reduced its recycled packaging targets from 50% down to only 35-40% by 2035, continuing its pollution over the next decade.
Industry has long tried to shift the responsibility and accountability for waste onto the end consumer rather than business. The ‘Crying Indian’ advertising campaign, carefully omitting any brand packaging, with its slogan, ‘People start pollution, people can stop it’ became the ‘single most effective piece of greenwashing in history’ according to Humes, and helped create a narrative and ideology of burden shifting.
‘Taxpayers were to blame for the problem, and that individual action, not producer responsibility laws, provided the only solution.’
Lifestyle ‘choices’
Humes then begins to examine in depth a range of other so-called lifestyle ‘choices’ and argues that with government intervention and a top down approach, the burden of reducing waste would not land with the individual and therefore meaningful change could happen.
He details the level of energy waste in housing designs and identifies ‘Passive Houses’ as being more efficient- ‘A Passive House uses up to 90 percent less energy than a conventional home for heating and cooling, and 70 percent less energy overall.’
This, therefore, raises the question- if this type of house design is both economically and energy efficient, why isn’t every new home a ‘Passive House’?
Humes tries to challenge us to disentangle ourselves from the emotional bonds of two more wasteful areas- that of car usage and that of indoor gas stove cooking. For both these two emotional issues, Humes argues that our relationships are artificial ones, which have been carefully curated by the automobile industry and the food industry to give us ‘freedom’ and therefore, we emotionally respond when this is challenged. ‘We need to rethink what a car is and what we should pay for it. And we don’t need to wait for car companies to tell us what we need or want. We can tell them.’
Statistical information is given about the amount of road traffic deaths and the economic burden of owning and using a car. ‘The economic costs of vehicle air pollution in America, both toxic and heat-trapping, are estimated to be $180 billion a year.
Humes acknowledges that ‘cars are inescapable’ to the American identity, but points out that this wasn’t always the case, but has simply become the accepted ‘norm’.
‘But we’ve made them too central to our lives. Cars aren’t freedom. They aren’t irreplaceable. They are way too expensive. They are tools- just like bikes are tools.’ Having a rethink about how much you use your car, what your average journey is and more importantly why your city hasn’t been designed around sustainable, energy efficient transport options, leads to the conclusion, that it is in someone’s interest for as many people as possible to drive energy inefficient cars, which cause significant road traffic deaths globally. There are examples given in ‘Total Garbage’ of towns and cities, primarily in the USA, which have undergone a transport revolution and have made the sustainable switch successfully. Why can’t this be rolled out and who is fighting against this roll out?
With indoor gas stoves, Humes directs the reader to think about the premise in reverse. Would you willingly have in your family home a product which could increase the risk of your family developing health issues? ‘Besides the heat-trapping pollutants methane and carbon dioxide, stoves emit poisonous carbon monoxide, particulate pollution, asthma-triggering nitrogen oxides and the carcinogens formaldehyde and benzene.’ Humes continues to support his argument rationally by drawing on research, ‘Children living in a home with a gas stove have a 42 percent greater risk of developing asthma symptoms, according to a groundbreaking study in 2013.’ Cooking with induction stoves is proposed by Humes and food experts in the book as a way of reducing energy, household costs and also reducing health impacts. Breaking formed habits which can be dangerous for us, just seems sensible in the long term. ‘For better and sometimes for worse, we have a long history of replacing billion-dollar industries and entire ways of life with astonishing speed when it suits us.’
How to bring about change
Throughout ‘Total Garbage’, Humes gives multiple examples of how consumers and individuals can take action in their daily lives and feel empowered, whether this is with the clothes they wear and use, or their relationship to food and food waste. The aim is not to try and change everything at once and feel overwhelmed by the amount of either physical waste, economic waste, or energy waste that is your figure now.
Understanding that this has been brought about by a system that has encouraged you to have a ‘disposable’ lifestyle and planned obsolescence especially in tech gadgets, doesn’t benefit the world, but the companies’ profit margins, can help you mobilise communities to be less wasteful. Neighbourhood garbage cleans of local parks, trash collections, planting community fruit and vegetable allotments can all encourage others to feel that change is possible. A bottom up approach can drive change from councils, cities and governments. ‘Change comes in two ways. It can be driven from the top down…Polluters should pay, not taxpayers is the theme here…Fortunately, change is also driven from the ground up, home by home, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, and community by community.’
Deciding how to act and where to act, as well as the motivation to act can seem overwhelming. Compare this to going to the gym, or starting a new diet and you can see that old habits can be powerful. We have a choice- to allow our societies to be wasteful, or to understand that through action, we can be the ones who turn up, who inspire and motivate others, who change the narrative to a new story- it does not have to be this way. Our future does not have to be like our past, We are the agents of the future. We can choose to be better ancestors.
‘Putting a stop to our wasteful ways will not immediately undo the damage our waste has already done- the plastic ocean, the toxic chemicals, the climate-disrupting pollutants. That will take generations, and those in the future will not thank us for taking so long to act.’
‘Those who say it can’t be done are usually interrupted by others doing it’
– James Baldwin
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Review of ‘Climate Capitalism: Winning the Global Race to Zero Emissions’ by Akshat Rathi
‘It’s now cheaper to save the world than destroy it.’
Rathi’s ‘Climate Capitalism’ starts with a stark economic argument, one which might resonate with economists, company directors and policy makers, but misses the mark somewhat with the public.
The book charts so-called ‘unlikely heroes’ who have had long-term visions and through timing, solutions and being the right person at the right time, have started shaping the solutions to help some companies on the path to net zero. It is difficult and challenging to read a book which urges us to break the narrative that capitalism and capitalists are ‘bad’, especially when Rathi himself is clear from the outset, ‘There is no denying that unfettered capitalism has contributed to warming the planet.’
However, he does not advocate an overthrowal of this capitalist system, instead arguing that transformation from within the system will lead in a timely fashion to emissions falling. ‘Climate Capitalism is about how we tackle climate change within the world’s dominant economic system and ensure that the wheels of progress don’t come to a halt, or, worse, go into reverse.’
He correctly praises individuals, sectors, countries and organisations who have ‘seen the writing on the wall’ and which have implemented systematic change, but then also notes and acknowledges that many companies still engage fully with ‘greenwashing’ practices, which eventually lead to their shareholders attempting to influence the direction of the company. ‘Greenwashing is rife in the corporate world, and companies rarely live up to those promises.’ But are we left with a satisfactory argument and resolution? Those named and praised in the book- those pushing innovation, still end up with their companies profiting- and their time scale is in decades. They have a long-term vision, but can they scale this up in the short term? Rathi argues that ‘Getting to zero emissions on a deadline will mean changing everything.’ At the same time, he appears to contradict himself by saying, ‘How far we push them is up to those in power. If they don’t act, then it’s unlikely the vast majority of people will sit still and suffer the consequences.’
He appears to leave change to those ‘in power’, arguing correctly that organisations are made up of people who can determine the direction of the future, but the stakes of a stable climate seem to be too high to be left to a few. Without serious and significant consequences for those countries and organisations who don’t follow the ‘nudge’ of good climate behaviour, there seems to be little incentive for them to act.
Simply exchanging the evil, old capitalists of the 20th century, for the transformed, new capitalists of the 21st century, hoping that they will be our economic saviours, is an argument that fails to be persuasive.
Overall, this book didn’t quite connect.
Yes, it identifies sectors, countries and organisations that have shown promise and holds them up to be praised. Yet, this seems an empty gesture while global emissions continue to rise and extreme weather events happen on a daily basis around the world. It seems empty and nowhere near the scale urgently needed to argue, ‘We can still be profitable and ‘green’’. It spends a chapter praising the ‘poster child of the energy transition’- Ørsted- but acknowledges that we don’t have the luxury of time anymore, leaving readers confused as to the overall point of this chapter. It is not enough to praise a company for a change over decades and then conclude by saying, ‘But we don’t have this time anymore!’ ‘And it happened, not over years, but decades. That’s not the kind of luxury available under tighter climate deadlines.’
‘Climate Capitalism’ has been touted as the book to transform the market place and with language like ‘entrepreneurs’, ‘venture capitalists’, ‘investors’, ‘financiers’, and ‘opportunities’ it seems to have a clear target demographic, for rational, logical, efficient investors who are looking to fund new technology to reduce emissions, within the capitalist system. New technologies such as direct air capture plants and carbon capture and storage technologies are floated as being within grasp, but then the book weakens its own argument by acknowledging that ‘CCS hasn’t been able to shake off its link to the fossil fuel industry and attempts by these powerful companies to sow doubt about climate science.’
The external levers suggested in the book such as rampant customer demand for greener products and carbon taxes also have not fully materialised as market changing. The book describes the ‘Unexpectedly fast decline in the cost of solar power, of about 90% between 2009 and 2019.’ It focuses on India and the Pavagada Solar Park, but does not fully make the links as to why solar panels have not changed the fossil fuel marketplace, despite their low price.
This book raised more questions than it answered unfortunately. Can we really trust economists to save our way of life and lives around the world? When capitalism has brought us to this point, why do they then deserve such trust, when they have exploited that trust for decades? It appears to also ignore populist political parties and individuals with large and proven links to the fossil fuel industry, which repeatedly delay climate action and pathways to reduce emissions. A clear example would be Reform UK, a newly formed right-wing party in the UK, who recently stated, ‘We at Reform serve notice to wind and solar developers and investors Invest at your own political peril’.
What is needed to win the global net zero race?
Perhaps ultimately, it’s the focus on people and their drive and determination to change the world in ‘Climate Capitalism’, where hope and optimism can be found.
Multiple levers all pulled at the same time will help the global race for zero emissions. Can capitalism help? Yes. But an energy transition suggests just that- a transition. Exclusively using the same models of the past and having economic growth as the sole goal, will not bring about the sustainable energy transition that the world needs.
‘It’s no longer climate against capitalism; it’s clear that increasingly the champions of capitalism want climate to be a problem that capitalism can solve rather than worsen.’
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Review of ‘Confronting Climate Coloniality: Decolonizing Pathways for Climate Justice’ edited by Farhana Sultana
In the 2025 documentary “Ocean with David Attenborough”, industrialised modern fishing trawlers were described as ‘modern colonialism at sea’. A stark phrase which highlights the argument central to ‘Confronting Climate Coloniality’- that a colonial mindset is still at the heart of over-exploitation, resource stripping and profit building. The documentary stated, “Few wealthy nations are starving local communities of the food they have relied on for millennia. Modern colonialism at sea.” Confronting this colonialism by acknowledging, exposing, defying, challenging, transforming and replacing this narrative will help us grapple with the most critical issue of our time. Colonialism exists and attempts to deny its power and be wilfully blind to the imbalanced power dynamics thereof leads to climate injustice. Or as Farhana Sultana summarises, ‘…colonialism still haunts the past, present and future through climate coloniality in multiple ways.’
In the text, Sultana powerfully argues that, ‘Climate lays bare the colonialism and imperialism of not only the past, but an ongoing coloniality that governs and structures lives, institutions, laws and policies, which are so-constitutive of processes of capitalism, imperialism, international development, and geopolitics.’ She exposes a ‘culture’ of hyperconsumption and land control from dominant parties, whether countries or organisations have severe consequences for local peoples and biodiversity. ‘Extraction and exploitation leave behind place-specific pollution, devastation, and loss, much of which is irrevocably irretrievable or recoverable.’
The Fossil Fuel Empire
Different contributors to the chapters then develop this initial argument and frame climate coloniality as resistance to the fossil fuel empire and its impact. Joshua Long argues that, The coloniality of power runs through the history of the climate crisis. It is arguable, its most dominant throughline.’ He explores the term ‘climate apartheid’ within the context of this ‘coloniality of power’. Bernardo Jurema and Elias Kȍnig explore how states continue to exert and maintain ‘control’ by creating and fortifying their monopolies of fossil fuel infrastructures and profits, ‘Imperialism has made quite a comeback.’ They argue that blocking challengers to their markets has allowed states and organisations to prosper in this colonialism space. ‘Intervention can serve both to secure access to fossil fuels and supply routes, but also to destroy/ block challengers to existing monopolies.’ Jurema and Kȍnig do note however, that historically imperialist states are often successfully challenged and imagine a future where this legacy is left in ruins and a cooperative future is built. ‘This tradition carries the hope that the ruins of fossil empire will one day be inhabited by relationships of solidarity, care and repair- a future worth fighting for.’
The shapeshifter of ‘colonialism’
As noted by Andrew Curley, colonialism remains a shapeshifter and no more in the guise of cooperation and negotiation- at the expense of Indigenous communities.Jamie Haverkamp warns about the scarcely hidden colonialist ‘knowledge extraction’ from Indigenous peoples.
‘Recommendations to “share” Indigenous knowledge and technologies with high adaptation potential and mitigation co-benefits are put to Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform (LCIPP) from various state-and expert-led bodies within the UNFCCC.’ This point is echoed by Andrew Kalani Carlson, when he argues that,
‘When climate change mitigation strategies replicate and perpetuate coloniality, they are ultimately counter-productive and ineffective.’ Decolonizing for climate justice then, does not just mean inviting Indigenous peoples and threatened communities ‘to the table’- a table already skewed and imbalanced with fossil fuel interests- but instead to systematically redefine the parameters of the injustices. As Sultana argues, ‘It is not just about having a seat at the table, but determining what the table is.’
Who controls the land?
Throughout the text, the implicit and core question of land ownership and control repeats strongly. How one party creates a narrative that an area of land or space is worthless or empty, so that they can exploit it for their own purposes. This form of capitalist imperialism is thoroughly discussed by Danielle Zoe Rivera and Eliza Breder when they explore the impact of Elon Musk’s SpaceX facility in the Rio Grande Valley, raising vital questions about land use, land control and who has the financial power to gain the stronghold. They argue that the false and misleading narratives of terra nullius– ‘nobody’s land’- as a means of appropriating land, ignore sites which are central to the sacred sites of Indigenous communities. ‘An empty space narrative both on earth and in outer space enables climate coloniality through extractivism.’ Rivera and Breder conclude, ‘Claims of empty-ness or no one-ness should be met with a default of skepticism. These narratives evoke the classic colonial mindset of terra nullius, which has been used for centuries as a tool of dispossession and environmental degradation.’ They continue, ‘No land is “empty”, it is embedded with histories, culture and stories creating places that cannot be found elsewhere. Protecting these spaces from pollution and land control simultaneously protects them from erasure.’
Therefore, the ‘Gulf of Mexico’ cannot simply be renamed the ‘Gulf of America’ because President Trump demands this to be the case. And yet, online maps were changed to this new nomenclature, erasing and eradicating the previous title. Is this how simple it is to erase an established claim, simply on the basis of a capitalist, exploitative narrative?
Resistance is not futile
How we break, resist, or confront this capitalist colonialism relies on decolonizing societal structures and our mindsets. Sultana argues, ‘Ultimately, there is no single blueprint for decolonizing climate, as decolonization is a process and not an event…This is because hyperconsumption and land control have severe consequences for local peoples, biodiversity and ecosystems.’ Manisha Anantharaman asks us, especially those of us in the Global North, to be ‘comfortable with the uncomfortable’, by bearing witness and to acknowledge the past. ‘Decolonizing means acknowledging history, bearing witness and from this place of unrelenting discomfort, attempting to configure pathways to remove colonial and imperial powers in all their forms.’
The climate crisis is here. Methods of mitigating the suffering and reducing harm will not ultimately be successful if they rely on the colonial methods that have led us to this point. A new, ethical, just and inclusive narrative is needed now to help build the future that allows for climate justice.
‘Climate change is no longer a distant threat; it’s a harsh reality inflicting untold suffering across the globe.’
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Review of ‘How Not to Die (Too Soon) by Devi Sridhar
Professor Devi Sridhar comprehensively exposes the ‘lie’ of individualism within the global health crises and challenges us to switch to a narrative of more government accountability for the policy decisions which affect us all. She argues that where you live matters to your life expectancy and that the expected behaviours, driven by government action and inaction within that context, can shape not just your life, but the quality of that life. ‘We know from scientific studies and decades of public health research not only how to increase life expectancy but also how to maintain quality of life.’
Sridhar uses the age of 100 as the collective target for lifespan and explores reasons why this is both attainable and unattainable around the world. She comprehensively chronicles nine of the most important risk factors which impact our ability to live longer lives and challenges us to recognise the bad actors, companies and individuals, which stand in our way. ‘We have been focusing on the wrong thing: namely, we have been focusing on ourselves. This means looking at government policies that promote long lives…nine of the most important risk factors affecting healthy life expectancy in all countries: physical activity, diet, smoking, mental health, gun violence, safe roads and transport, clean water, clean air and access to quality health care.’
Why can’t we all live to be 100 years old?
Again and again Sridhar makes the point that the steps needed to enact these policies for longer living are well known and that it is societal accountability that lies at the crux of the problem. ‘We know how to prevent millions of unnecessary early deaths around the world, both in developing countries and closer to home.’ If we know how to prevent millions of early deaths around the world, the implicit question becomes why have those lives been targeted as being expendable and who has made that choice that some- in most cases, the wealthiest- lives are more valuable and need more protection than others. It would have been too easy for this book to turn into a polemical rant about obstructive capitalists intent on growth over human suffering, but Sridhar side-steps this effectively and instead presents examples where countries and communities have successfully changed, adapted and evolved, to better protect all its citizens. Her goal is clear, ‘My aim with this book is to show you that we know what works in solving the major health challenges.’
‘This is a book about how to live longer’
Sridhar also makes it emphatically clear that, ‘This is not a book about how to die. This is a book about how to live longer.’ There is a strong focus on family and the power of human relationships which echoes through the book, aspects of life which can enhance our human experience. She quotes her ‘Nani’, recently celebrating her ninetieth birthday, whose mindset was ‘it’s not about how to die. It’s about how to live.’ That treasuring the accidents of our lives is important, as ‘life is special because it is finite.’ Therefore, a longer life span is possible, is attainable and should be a birthright of all. Sridhar reminds us that in the mid 19th century, a life expectancy of 40 was not seen as being ‘mid-life’ or ‘middle-aged’. She celebrates how far we have come since then and questions why an extension of a healthy life should not be the new expectation. ‘In 1841, life expectancy at birth was roughly forty years old…Back then, forty wasn’t mid-life: it was life.’
Of course, the nine risk factors which Sridhar explores in the text, were not so prevalent in the mid-nineteenth century, although avoiding cholera outbreaks through drinking unsafe water, which the UK identified through the efforts of John Snow, is still a lived experience for millions around the world today.
Transforming the health expectations
Of the many global examples which are used by Sridhar, the Netherlands is highlighted as an example where ‘it wasn’t always like this’, but rather where the cities were designed and structured to ensure that health was a priority. Therefore, if examples exist, it becomes logical to understand that they can be replicated in other cities and countries. Paris, in France, also aimed to put the health of citizens as an integral part of daily life through its creation of ‘Fifteen- Minute Cities’- whereby ‘a city should be designed so that most of people’s daily errands, work, education and life can be carried out within fifteen minutes (by foot or bicycle) from their home.’ Nothing inherently unusual or controversial there, when building a healthier future was the goal. ‘The way to shift physical activity at a population level, as shown by Amsterdam and Paris, is to build it into daily life so that it becomes practical, invisible, free (or cheap) and social.’
Unfortunately, in recent years, populists have gained traction by referring to these cities as places where you only have ‘15 minutes of freedom’ and that these health measures are ‘Stalinist-style.’ In this, Sridhar identifies some of the obstacles and challenges faced by countries which try and build long term healthier communities for their citizens; that these are delayed by political interests and vested interests, which look to protect their profits and cause division.
Early deaths globally could be prevented through effective change and adaptation to more physically active lifestyles. ‘The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 4 to 5 million deaths per year could be averted if the global population were more physically active.’
Sridhar makes the convincing argument that, ‘Just telling people to move doesn’t work if they can’t implement this advice within their daily life and routine.’
Government inaction rather than individual lack of discipline
Changing daily routines such as diet, as well as exercise, should be led by government policy and action, argues the author, where she acknowledges the complexities of relationships with food and the financial implications of eating healthily, but summarises how governments should behave. ‘Make it easier to eat well and harder to eat badly.’ She follows this by emphasising that markers of ill-health indicate where governments have failed. ‘Similarly, a population being overweight is a sign of government inaction, rather than an individual lack of discipline.’
Several examples are highlighted where government regulation and action have led to increased health outcomes for citizens. Sridhar evaluates the positive impacts of the UK government’s measures regarding behaviours around smoking, and how quickly attitudes and the culture around smoking changed, when the government intervened to safeguard the public. ‘First, make it harder to smoke through taxation, minimum purchase age, bans on ‘kiddy packs’, and ensuring cigarettes aren’t visible in shops. Second, reduce the ability of people to be able to smoke in social or work settings. Third, counter the marketing and advertising of tobacco companies which are selling a dangerous product that literally kills.’ With increased health outcomes, this also lessens the strain on access to health services, which is also explored fully by Sridhar, who suggests that these health issues should all be seen as intertwined and connected, rather than discrete issues in their own right. However, she also makes the repeated point that, ‘Regulation only works if it’s enforced.’
Gun control and regulation
Shifting focus to America, Sridhar again highlights how the interests of a few can drive government policy, so that citizens there do not have the same chance of a healthier, longer- life span. She focuses on ‘freedom’ making the clear point that freedom of children to be safe appears to be of less national importance than the freedom of people to have firearms. ‘The gun lobby is a small minority who resist any change because it impinges on their profits.’ She compares school shootings in the USA, with the school shooting in Dunblane, Scotland and draws attention to a powerful group who can bring about change- the parents of dead children. For people to have the equal chance to enjoy longer life, gun control is a successful government measure and demonstrably works. ‘Gun control worked in Britain. As the Gun Control Network says, it ‘proved that good governments acting in the interests of the many, not the few, can overcome the rich and powerful gun lobby.’ She questions why the government does not intervene to protect its people-’If we know what works, why isn’t it being done?’ and notes bluntly that, ‘Getting shot at school is one of the most likely ways for a child to die in America.’ Cutting through the complex ideology and associated cultural identity that is linked with owning a firearm, Sridhar returns clearly to her underlying argument- ‘How Not To Die (Too Soon) in America, answered in part by strict gun control laws.
Access to equality
Sridhar then turns her focus on the inconsistency around the world where access to clean water, clean air and medical care is often problematic. She draws attention to the statistic that, ‘In 2023, the UN estimated that 2.2. billion people did not have access to safe drinking water.’ Over a quarter of the world’s population could not access safe drinking water in 2023- but this is only the beginning. ‘By 2025, the UN predicts two thirds of all people on the planet will live in water-stressed areas. There’s no ambiguity with water compared to other goods: humans, animals and plants cannot live without water. Find fresh water, or die.’
When there are concerns over the safety of drinking water, then this is when private companies swoop in with bottled water- making a profit out of the situation, rather than seeking to remedy a basic human need. When faced with statistics about access to safe drinking water, sometimes readers in Western Europe can feel that they are exempt from these concerns- but, as the recent ongoing sewage concerns and poor health of waterways in the UK demonstrates, having access to clean water affects developed countries as well. Schools have even closed in the US over water issues.
When we have a limited resource, which is necessary for life, then conflicts can begin over ownership of that resource. Sridhar again challenges us to imagine this scenario where a resource is privately owned and monopolised, as well as the extreme situation. ‘Can you imagine a world in which there is no fresh water?’
We are victims of circumstance in terms of geography and economic systems. Some of us can move to avoid the worst impacts and thus experience longer healthier life-spans, but this is not an option available to all. Although some risk factors are within our control, Sridhar turns to the most obvious one which is not in our control, whether we live in Switzerland, India, South Africa or the UK- the quality of our air and the impact of air pollution. ‘Dr Maria Neira of the WHO said, “The problem is that when you’re a citizen, you can’t choose the air you’re breathing. You breathe whatever is available.”’ The need to have clean air to help people enjoy healthier lives didn’t used to be a political football or a partisan issue. It has been viewed as a UK-wide public health issue, until recently, when populists used clean air as ‘anti-car’, once again prioritising the capitalist profits of industries over the health of the population. ‘The backlash against clean air measures is baffling: we all live longer with cleaner air, and the issues should have widespread appeal.’
Being happy with living
‘How Not To Die (Too Soon)’ outlines a blueprint then- a hopeful pathway to a healthier world. A pathway which identifies and challenges why the needs of the many don’t outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. As demonstrated time and time again in the book, countries around the world have identified the risk factors for their own people and have then enacted long-term solutions which change the attitudes and behaviours permanently for the good. Governments can be powerful instruments of good, which leave no one behind. ‘That’s the politics of hope: we must imagine a healthier world and take the public policy steps towards it.’All that remains is to change the political will and to make health a priority, in order to improve life for all within a society.
After all, ‘Life isn’t about not dying too soon. It’s about enjoying and being happy with living.’
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Review of ‘Is A River Alive?’ by Robert Macfarlane
Rivers are an integral part of the human story. They hold cultural, spiritual, political, geographical significance, as well as holding an intrinsic value of their own. Or, as Macfarlane phrases it, ‘Our fate flows with that of rivers, and always has.’
Macfarlane frames this book through the personal experiences of journeying in and around rivers in Ecuador, India and Canada. He does this to allow the readers to explore the narrative between humans and rivers and to hopefully create a new story which allows protection and love, in multiple forms, for the rivers of the future. There is a thorough immersion into cloud-forests, mycology, waterfalls, paddling through rapids, and forging lasting relationships with water-defenders.
The title of the book has been formed as a question, rather than a declarative sentence to begin to form a community of those who can tell the new stories of rivers. Whether these be those who can make the legal arguments to create legal identities for rivers through the ‘Rights of Nature’ movement, or those who work as river guardians against extractivist developers around the world, we all have a part to play to ensure that the intergenerational value of rivers and life continues. Macfarlane refers to these actors as the ‘ghosts, monsters and angels’ of a watershed.
It is no accident then that the book closes where it begins, with generations of a family cherishing and valuing a river, standing alongside the ghosts of the past and the future. Macfarlane asks the question of what he would say to his descendants, in the hope that he has done enough to be a good ancestor. ‘What would I tell them? That the river is time, and we are always within it, even when we’re standing dry-footed on the bank, watching the current past.’
Language plays its part in creating narratives, but the grammatical and lexical limits can create challenges. Macfarlane notes this when he comments, ‘I wonder how on earth to write about the anima of this place; what language might meet its aboundingly relational being; could convey this emerald pluriverse…’ Rivers are sadly still referred to as objects, with ‘which’ being used, rather than a subject ‘you’. Changing the language changes the relationships in thought and connection.
As Macfarlane journeys in India and Chennai especially, the lament goes up that ‘Cities grow along riversides’, writes Yuvan [Aves], then slowly forget their ecological, hydrological genesis.’ The human sprawl, impact, and exploitation puts a strain on healthy rivers. ‘Humans have lived and died by the rivers of south-east India for 1.5 million years.’ The ghosts of the past, their legacy and view of their river home still has an impact today. He notes the damage and abuse of the water systems of the region, bluntly stating, ‘Chennai’s rivers have been poisoned.’ He notes the ‘Mass fish die-offs in 2014 and 2017’, but acknowledged that, ‘This systematic abuse of water is a relatively recent development in the region.’
When rivers die, marine life, insect life and then bird life plummets with the loss. ‘When a river is dying, life in its aura dies too.’
This destruction of a river system can also be seen in Macfarlane’s story-telling from Canada, where construction of multi-dam complexes challenged the river and the community.
‘From 2009 onwards, Innu communities and others in the region watched the slow death of the Romaine and its catchment.’ Bringing the modern legal frameworks to support religious and cultural beliefs and narratives around rivers is happening around the world. ‘For Innu communities,’ wrote Uapukan Mestokosho, a young Innu woman who became closely involved with the defence of the Mutehekau Shipu, ‘rivers are considered the veins of the territory…more than waterways or resources, they are living beings with their own spirit and agency- and they deserve respect.’
Towards the end of the text, Macfarlane explores the questions we may have for ‘the river’. In this framing, there is a quasi-religious expression, but also a sense of asking a question of our ‘elders’, to learn more about our collective past and future. In this, Macfarlane charts how he has become ‘rivered’- an appropriate verb for an awakening- a ‘baptism’- a physical understanding and connection with rivers. ‘Perhaps the body knows what the mind cannot. Days on the water have produced in me the intensifying feeling of somehow growing together with the river: not thinking with it, but being thought by it. …’Rivers are running through me, I think; I’ve been flowed through and onwards.’
Most of us will not be as lucky as Macfarlane to be immersed in these river-journeys around the world, however rivers can still speak to us, if we choose to listen. ‘What is the river saying?’ echoes as a question throughout the book. It may be that we are in a position where we can answer the question ‘Is A River Alive?’- it may be that our relationship with our rivers and watersheds hasn’t built up to that point yet. Asking the question is the useful first step.
Learning and becoming familiar with our local rivers is key- knowing where we are in a river landscape and how these flow and build and join along their routes is an enriching and powerful story. It is sad that we can navigate the country through the artificial routes of roads and motorways, naming them as we go, but are lost in a country river-scape.
What will we say when we reach that final ford? How will we pay the ferryman to cross the River Styx? Will we say, ‘The river has run on and I didn’t notice.’ Or shall we join him gladly for one last river-journey together?
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Review of ‘Poisoning The Well: How Forever Chemicals Contaminated America’ by Sharon Udasin and Rachel Frazin
Poisoning The Well is a critical exposé of the pervasive plague of PFAS chemicals and the inability of the US Government to effectively regulate against a raft of toxic chemicals. The publication timing of this book comes when the Trump Presidency in early 2025 moves to reverse state bans on toxic forever chemicals and instead change the way the EPA carries out chemical risk evaluations, with the increased risk to consumers.
This book then should serve as a reference book for the UK and other countries around the world, as it highlights delaying practices from chemical companies and the tactical ‘spin-off’ strategies used by them, to avoid full responsibility, accountability and liability. It is a harrowing read, as we can see how close we are to an environmental disaster and we can also see the lack of action from our government to intervene. Time and again in the book, we see striking similarities between actions from chemical companies abroad and a lack of oversight in our own country. We must learn from the hard lessons of the USA.
As the UK and Western Europe seem to be playing catch up with PFAS chemical regulation, Poisoning The Well identifies the new ultra-short-chain subtypes, such as PFMOAA and PFPrA, promoted by chemical companies, and powerfully argues that research into their impacts needs to be a priority. As noted in the text, ‘In the endless world of emerging PFAS, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the ultra-short-chain subtypes are a troubling new facet of the forever chemical problem.’
Individuals and communities are trying desperately to manage with the active chemical pollution sites which have destroyed lives, but need concerted action, remediation and justice for the widespread chemical pollution of the environment.
“All this time, it’s been in the water, it’s gotten into the food chain. We’re eating it. It’s in plastics. We are sleeping in it. It’s in everything we touch.” – Erin Brockovich
Udasin and Frazin offer an extensive and detailed history of the actions of companies like 3M, DuPont and Chemours and note that the dangers of PFAS have been known on an industry wide level for decades. The similarities between these chemical giants and the actions of Big Tobacco are implicitly alluded to in the text. What makes this text even more shocking is that it does not simply relate industry behaviours from the 1960s and 1970s, but describes legal cases that have been brought in just the last few years as well. ‘In October 2021, the City of Decatur, along with Morgan County and Decatur Utilities, settled with 3M for nearly $100million.’ All too often though, we note that these chemical settlements can often come with a caveat that ‘the agreement is “no admission of wrongdoing or liability.” Therefore, do financial settlements go far enough?
Awakening the public conscience is always difficult, but the film ‘Dark Waters’, about the lawyer Rob Bilott’s efforts to make the chemical company DuPont responsible for its actions, certainly seems to have struck a chord around the world and has acted as a legal precedent in this litigation field.
A lack of regulatory oversight
The authors also argue that a lack of effective regulatory oversight has allowed chemical companies to pollute in an unimpeded manner, with the dangers of self-reporting and under-reporting being rife. ‘In November 2017, it came to light that 3M had alerted the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM) that it had been underreporting its discharge of PFAS into the Tennessee River- for three years and by a factor of a thousand.’ The links between the lack of regulation in North America and the lack of regulation over the private water companies in the UK, which have been pumping sewage into rivers for years, are made sadly all too clear for a UK audience.
The dangers of sludge spreading and the unknown contents of these bio-solids should also be a lesson to be learned, with toxic contamination rife, with enforcement non-existent. The activist George Monbiot writes of sewage sludge being sold to farmers in the UK with levels of forever PFAS chemicals up to 135 times higher than those considered safe by scientists. This level of contamination and pollution is happening on our watch and so far, is being met with silence. Those who should have been enforcing regulatory standards have been either toothless or complicit. ‘In short, federal oversight has hardly been a panacea for dangerous chemicals. The long-standing struggle between regulators and industry begs the question- Who wields the real power over Americans’ exposure to these toxic substances?’
Switching off these ‘pollution taps’ is only the first step. Combatting the legacy contamination will take both years and levels of financial aid which are eye-watering. A financial responsibility, which chemical companies who have profited from these pollutants, appear unwilling to bear. It becomes then a state lottery as to the levels of protection against PFAS, as Udasin and Frazin note that while some states take preventative action against the toxic chemical pollution, others wait for the health impacts to hit the population. Action is then clearly possible, if the political will is there.
‘Maine became the first state to require that sludge be tested for PFAS and then to ban the materials’s spread.
As of mid-2024, Maine was the only state to have prohibited the presence of PFAS in sludge entirely, although at least sixteen other states were either implementing or considering solutions to this problem.’
Communities count the cost
Understanding that PFAS pollution is a country wide issue for the US is made abundantly clear in Poisoning The Well, as examples are cited from Maine, West Virginia, Alabama, Tennessee, Colorado, Ohio, Delaware, North Carolina and Michigan. In all these states, the authors describe local impacts: from schools being built on landfill sites; fights to ensure that safe drinking water is provided in schools; to neighbours watching their communities being torn apart with cancers and other illnesses, which could have been prevented. Communities with strong military links have also found to be heavily exposed to forever chemicals. The history of ‘aqueous film-forming foam’ of AFFF on US military bases is forensically examined in the book, with the argument being made that the US Navy knew from the late 1970s that AFFF had toxic effects. ‘But the military, like industry, already had some indication of AFFF’s toxic effects decades before such knowledge became public knowledge.’ In terms of PFAS clean up of military sites, the legacy contamination continues, ‘By the end of 2023, the Defense Department had assessed more than 700 bases and found that 574 of them needed remediation.’
Despite this, it will be difficult for military personnel to prove the causal link between their poor health and exposure to toxic chemicals in all cases, and sadly this will be seized on lawyers for chemical companies, both in the US and in the UK, where they will argue that because PFAS is so pervasive, that identifying one source of exposure is too difficult. The playbook of Big Tobacco will be used once again by those looking to escape blame. How military personnel and veterans can be treated this way by an organisation meant to look after them is truly a shocking revelation. To be left to face their health battles alone is a betrayal of their service.
‘Someone’s got to be responsible’
Poisoning The Well is unashamedly a human story. It is not a detached, impartial overview of chemical contamination. Instead, it focuses on individuals and communities. Communities that could be us. That might still be us. The book celebrates those who have fought to raise awareness in their towns and communities, at great personal cost to themselves. Because it was the right thing to do.
Regardless of where we now live, environmental pollution is becoming a dominant issue. Very rarely is contamination accidental. The authors tell moving story after moving story of people whose lives have been turned inside out, owing simply to the geography of where they were born, grew up, went to school, or went to work. Places that they thought were safe. Places that ought to have been safe.
Domestic products were sold to people in huge numbers when health effects were known, argues the book. Now, we have a situation where the ‘sheer number of different compounds out there’ and their individual, as well as cumulative impacts on humans, has created a global contamination crisis. PFAS pollution could be the biggest environmental disaster facing us. But it is not too late to stop the ticking time-bomb of harm.
Someone is responsible for the contamination.
But all of us are responsible for speaking out about PFAS pollution where we can. We, too, have a responsibility to demand action and justice from those who have contaminated our towns, homes and families. Slowly- all too slowly- the eyes of everyday people are being opened to the dangers of PFAS forever chemicals.
If other countries do not learn the brutal and harsh lessons from the USA, and instead pander to mendacious chemical companies for financial gain, then they will be complicit to the toxic poisoning of millions.
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Review of ‘A Climate of Truth: Why We Need It And How to Get It’ by Mike Berners- Lee
Mike Berners-Lee’s fresh new book challenges us all that we deserve more on climate communication, that we should expect more and finally, that we have the agency to demand more on climate communication. He calls for a new high standard of honesty and truth to reset the moral balance and reminds us that the standard we walk past is the standard we accept. When we choose to support media which lies and distorts. When we choose not to hold politicians to account for their self-serving behaviours and when we support businesses for our own convenience when we are aware of their links to fossil fuel companies.
This text A Climate of Truth follows Berners-Lee’s other famous books, There Is No Planet B and How Bad Are Bananas?, therefore we expect the same rigorous standards and evidence and in this, we are not disappointed. Berners-Lee cautions us that, ‘If humanity is to thrive in the decades ahead, the most critical step is to raise standards of honesty in our politics, our media and our businesses.’
He calls for an interruption to the failed system which has led us to this point and describes an emerging polycrisis of interconnected factors, which requires a new system of political cooperation and functionality to manage and adapt to these new threats. ‘This book is about the fact that humanity is accelerating into a deadly Polycrisis… yet in spite of this, our response continues to be hopelessly inadequate.’
He argues that the challenge facing us requires us to face the habit that has brought us here and then to break this habit, so that socio-economic trends do not continue to rise unabated. He argues, ‘The climate and ecological emergencies we face must transcend party politics and in the end will require a huge evolution of how political systems function and how all parties conduct themselves.’
Growth begets growth
Berners-Lee outlines the seven ‘outer layers’ of the polycrisis- ranging from components such as climate, energy, population, food, biodiversity, pollution and disease. He carefully unpacks each of these in turn and asks the question as to why we aren’t solving some of the technologically solvable problems. He does not present technology to be the silver bullet, but instead warns us about the dangers of ‘techno-optimism, that ‘tech-centricity assumes and hopes that our climate problems are only skin-deep and that our fundamental approach to business, technology, politics and society can remain in place.’
Instead he urges that there should be an interruption to the current systems. ‘You have to interrupt the carbon curve at the global system level.’ He notes that global emissions are still rising even after 28 COPS and that demand-reduction could be a critical pathway. He observes that even the strong pledges and commitments on plastic reduction have not made a dent in this rapacious business model. What we have been doing, has not worked.
‘The world now uses around 500 million tonnes of plastic per year, of which just 6% is from recycled materials and the rest is virgin, made almost entirely from fossil fuels.
Berners-Lee makes no excuse that multiple levers have to be pulled on simultaneously to achieve the necessary dramatic actions that we need, but that the most important lever is to create a culture of truth. ‘Demand reduction is the most critical and under-discussed component of the drive to leave fossil fuels in the ground. The fossil fuel companies hate the idea of using less energy, and they work hard to protect us from understanding the clear-cut need to do so.’
We must consume less and be more.
A Climate of Truth strongly advocates for a circular economy, rather than a consumer driven, capitalist based model. ‘We have developed societies based on consumerism rather than citizenship; we think more in terms of what we can have than in terms of what we can contribute.’ Berners-Lee stresses that we should remember that it is industry which have created these narratives in order to develop and preserve their own financial survival. ‘The fossil fuel industry makes more money the more coal, oil and gas we burn.’
In truth, there are few surprises in this book for an audience who are well versed in the duplicity of the fossil-fuel industry and its shills. Shill who constantly deter and delay the necessary climate action that will keep the level of suffering to a minimum by 2100.
‘In a survey of 380 climate scientist lead authors of IPCC reports since 2018, only 6% think the climate will stay below 1.5℃ compared with 42% who think we will go beyond 3℃.’ To note the countless extreme weather events which are observed in a 1.2℃ world, it is almost impossible to imagine what a possible 3℃ world might look like.
The choice is radical change or untold suffering and death.
The book then investigates the middle layers of the polycrisis before moving onto the core of the issue. Although a lot of ground is covered by Berners-Lee, the book is wrapped around the central pillar that we have to learn from what hasn’t worked and that a deference to the capitalist ideologies and acceptance of untruthful words and behaviours is a choice that we can choose to break. We choose to believe in and accept untruthful politicians. We choose to support dishonest, environmental harm causing companies. We choose to accept corporate dishonesty and media monopolies as the norm. But it doesn’t have to be this way, urges Berners-Lee.
We are urged as individuals, communities and countries to insist on a better narrative- a narrative of Truth. To demand this narrative of Truth.
And this is where our voice can be strong.
‘To start making headway on all these issues and more, a climate of truth across politics, media and business is what we most need. And the wonderful news is that we can get it if we really want it. We just have to not put up with anything less.’
Berners-Lee closes his text with a powerful call to realistic hope. He reminds us that sometimes we can be in the middle of a movement and not see it for what it is- a social tipping point, a collective moment of truth.
Social tipping points can happen fast. We might be on the cusp of one right now. We might not need an unimaginably traumatic event to shake us into action.
We can each be a meaningful part of the change, and that is enough.
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Climate Thoughts with Brian 