Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis

This unforgettable book presents a no-nonsense analysis of the results of mechanization and industrialization on people, plants, and the soil, resulting in a three-pronged crisis threatening the survival of humanity. In four beautifully succinct chapters, Shiva describes how these challenges are not only intertwined but are the result of the same inaccurate business assumptions. Woven into each chapter, Vandana Shiva provides threads suggesting a plan for an extreme lifestyle "makeover" for humanity, one which will address all three challenges simultaneously, yet which would probably be unacceptable to most people in the Global North.This book is a "wake-up call" to humanity! Vandana Shiva begins by describing three emergencies, life-threatening crises that humanity faces today. We all know about peak oil and climate change, as they are regularly covered by the media. The third emergency is food insecurity, which Shiva describes as interconnected and intertwined with the other two crises. Shiva describes a food crisis as caused by "the combined impacts of the industrialization and globalization of agriculture" . Stepping back through history, Vandana Shiva reminds us that industrialization and later globalization of manufacturing - which were only possible with cheap and plentiful fossil fuels - have triggered climate change and peak oil. But what was the mindset that launched mechanization and later globalization? It is here that Shiva really takes off, explaining how the term "development" is used in biology versus economics, and how development serves to oppress people and degrade the earth's natural infrastructure today.Woven throughout these chapters are hints to Shiva's preferred solution. Replace cap-and-trade with a carbon tax and limit the amounts of pollution allowed. Replace cars with camels, cows, donkeys, horses, oxen, and buffalo. The animals provide draft energy, plus food and fertilizer, and jobs for blacksmiths, leather artisans, and veterinarians. Shiva is dead serious that cars should be replaced with draft animals. She's simply amazing!Read the book for more about her solutions. Shiva is brilliant, simply brilliant!Shiva concludes with a passionate treatise on the power of personal - and societal - transformation, called shakti, "the primordial power of creation, the self-organizing, self-generative, self-renewing creative force of the universe in the feminine form". The author urges us to "become active agents of transformation by recognizing that we have the capacity, the energy, and the creativity to make the change". She closes with these words, which moved me to tears, "We can either keep sleepwalking to extinction or wake up to the potential of the planet and ourselves".In short, this is the best book I've read on global climate change.

Although this is a flawed book and I don’t agree with all the methods the author posits for solving climate change (we can’t go back to using horses, camels, and other beasts of burden in America, not to mention the ethical issues that it would bring), it opened my eyes to the problems I didn’t know existed. I don’t buy soy products now for example. I simply didn’t know the harm it was causing. There’s a few things like that in here where I may not agree with the solution but definitely see a problem I was blind to before. Such a great introductory book to the problems of climate change and humanitarian issues.

In her latest book, Vandana Shiva, a leading opponent of water privatization and biotechnology, takes on the energy and transportation sectors, exposing how the oil industry is causing climate chaos and food insecurity. She also condemns industrial biofuels like ethanol and biodiesel, arguing that the mass production of genetically engineered monoculture crops like corn and soy is robbing the poor of land and food. Furthermore, tropical rainforests which are crucial carbon sinks are being bulldozed to plant soy and palm plantations, killing these delicate ecosystems along with the indigenous peoples that inhabit them. While trading in one's automobile for an oxcart, donkey, or bicycle may seem like a bizarre idea to most middle-class white folks in the global north, such sustainable alternatives are the norm for millions of people in Latin America, Asia, and Africa and should be embraced by everyone concerned about climate stability. I, personally, found Vandana Shiva's childhood recollections of riding an elephant to school totally delightful! Given the frightening reality of peak oil, global warming, and the worldwide agrarian crisis, this is an extremely important and thought-provoking book. Please read it and do what you can to support decentralized, small-scale, biodiverse, local, organic food systems and sustainable, carbon-neutral transportation alternatives!

Wow I really loved this book. Such an important insightful look at industrialization and some emerging alternatives. I loved learning more about soil, India, philosophies, and concept that are shaping a better world.

Vandana Shiva makes solid use of the 144 pages of her latest book: Soil Not Oil. Though Climate science is not her primary field of study, she does make great insights into the ways that instruments like carbon taxes are being used to benefit industry and those that own them rather than the planet and those that inhabit it. Her perspective (being from India) is always intriguing and is definitely contrary to the North American mainstream. Her insights into the plight of poor, who happen to make up the vast majority of the planet are well constructed and executed. A must read if you are at all socially conscious.

I had to purchase this book for a class of mine. I was a little skeptical about reading it and thought it would be completely off the rockers, but it was in fact opposite of everything that I thought. It was an amazing book. It really gave you insight on a lot of issues in the world when it came to water and how major companies had the rights to water. I'd definitely recommend this book for people to read.

You need to read this book to understand how seeds are so important to be protected and how the work of vandana shiva is so crucial this days.

I love her writing, but there are not too many new ideas here that I have not read from her before. For the uninitiated, a good read.

love it