Resource reviews
BOOK REVIEW
Sunlight and Seaweed: An argument for how to feed, power and clean up the world
Author: Tim Flannery Publisher: The Text Publishing Company, Melbourne, Australia (2017).
Reviewed by Dr Elaine Horne, Education Consultant
Professor Tim Flannery is an eminent scientist, passionate environmentalist and former Australian of the Year with a track record as an excellent communicator in books, TV shows and other media. death before reproductive age. Based In his latest book, Sunlight and Seaweed, on this information, Flannery argues that Flannery succeeds, again, in explaining increasing women’s economic status significant current environmental problems and fertility control in those countries with exceptional clarity. He also proposes with high population growth would solutions. Two of the problems he have a major impact on limiting global addresses in the book are the rapid growth population growth. In this interesting and in human population and anthropogenic- informative chapter, Flannery provides induced climate change. These important data and discussion regarding peak world topics for general adult readers would population and its reduction. be also appropriate for current Year 6–10 In his discussion of the problem of human science, senior school biology and senior consumption, Flannery considers the size school earth and environmental science of humans’ ecological footprint. If 1.0 courses. represents humans using the maximum In his introduction, Flannery presents the amount of resources that our planet can three objectives of feeding, powering sustain, then our current footprint is 1.5, and cleaning up the world. He raises which is 50% more than is sustainable. areas of concern for the Earth, including: Half of this footprint is our demand for excess carbon in the atmosphere, excess energy, which also results in unsustainable pollutants, overconsumption of the Earth’s emissions of greenhouse gases. Other resources and increasing population. major environmental stressors are the After discussing the challenges of unsustainable extraction of freshwater increasing population and its impact as indicated by the reduction of aquatic on the environment, Flannery provides vertebrate species’ populations by 50% in some optimism in his discussion of “The just 40 years, and rainforest reduction as Population Bomb”. He gives a clear indicated by the estimated extinction of framework using the total human fertility 50,000 species of plants and animals per rate (TFR) and the average number of year. children that women bear during their Flannery has some good news on clean lifetimes. The TFR has reduced from energy technology in response to the 4.95 in 1950 to 2.36 in 2010, although problems created by excess atmospheric there is considerable variation in this carbon production, with recent reductions between different regions of the world. in fossil fuel subsidies and movements by Surprisingly, the TFR to replace a couple governments towards the use of renewable is 2.33 rather than 2, as a result of female technologies. For example, 100% of
Volume 64 | Number 1 | March 2018 55 recent energy generation infrastructure in Australia has been renewable. After a comparison of alternative energies, Flannery explains the technology Concentrated Solar Thermal (CST), which he considers to be the most likely contribution to achieving sustainable human energy needs. This technology has the advantage of non-battery storage of energy as well as providing clean drinking water and soil remediation. Flannery puts a very compelling and comprehensive case that needs to be read to be fully appreciated. On the topics of farming and feeding the world, Flannery gives several sustainable examples. One is the large-scale use of CST technology and seawater to produce greenhouse tomatoes in South Australia. Another is sustainable aquaculture using kelp and high-value shellfish currently occurring in the USA. The kelp, which de-acidifies the seawater by removing carbon dioxide, grows more than 30 times faster than land plants and could provide feedstock for agriculture. He discusses the suggestion that farmed seaweed could also produce bio-digested methane for burning instead of natural gas. Flannery also outlines a range of related ideas such as: the use of the biological-desert surfaces of deep oceans, tethered floating frameworks for permaculture arrays, and passive cleaning of the enormous North Pacific garbage patch gyre. In his final chapter, Flannery gives his vision of the world in 2050. He uses ideas in the book to provide a vision of a fundamentally better future, that is, if we embrace these and other innovative and practical solutions. The book is at the same time stimulating and easy to read, which makes it a pleasurable experience. Tim Flannery uses good science and examples of innovative technologies to address the major challenges of our current generation. His approach and tone are optimistic and focussed on hopeful solutions as well as providing clear explanations. The book would be a great addition to a school science reading list and is highly Copyright: joebelanger / 123RF Stock Photo recommended.
56 teachingscience