We are the Weather by Jonathan Safran Foer

Undoubtedly, you have seen much coverage about Greta Thunberg and the millions participating in the climate change protests (here are images from those events in publications as diverse as The Guardian and Teen Vogue). There’s been increased coverage on various aspects such as some concerning statistics and charts and the UN Climate Action Summit 2019, too.

Another way to gather more knowledgeable related to this topic is to read the newly published WE ARE THE WEATHER by Jonathan Safran Foer.  Building on his earlier best-selling work, Eating Animals, Foer now shares essays related to how “Saving the Planet begins at Breakfast.”  He divides the short pieces into five sections, and early on he writes about WWII when “ordinary people joined together to support the greater cause” and encourages his readers to take action beyond recycling and changing their driving habits. Overall, his message deals with the ability of individuals to reduce their carbon footprint by eating less meat, but it is often a rambling musing about the situation. As Foer himself writes, “this is a book about the impacts of animal agriculture on the environment. Yet I have managed to conceal that for the previous sixty-three pages.” However, his book will be worth a look from those who are exploring impactful personal action in the face of government apathy. There is no index to help researchers, but the text does include an appendix, notes and an extensive bibliography; WE ARE THE WEATHER received a starred review from Publishers Weekly.  

Foer’s new book is published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, a division of Macmillan – the publisher who recently announced a policy intent on limiting library access to eBooks.  If you are interested in learning more about Macmillan’s restrictions and public libraries’ efforts to provide #eBooksForAll, check out the American Library Association website. The public petition there already has over 34,000 signatures.

The Way We Eat Now by Bee Wilson

THE WAY WE EAT NOW by Bee Wilson contains an analysis of “how the food revolution has transformed our lives, our bodies and our world.” Wilson, a food historian and Wall Street Journal commentator who lives in England, notes the trends towards globalization and more variety in what we eat as well as a move towards diets that are simultaneously both more and less healthy.

For example, I found her comments about looking at what we drink and the calories associated with that to be very interesting. She cites research that says, "we have reached a state where many people – adults and children alike – can no longer recognize a simple thirst for water, because they have become so accustomed to liquids tasting of something else."  There are no recipes in this somewhat academic work, but numerous charts (decreasing cooking oil prices, increasing consumption of processed potatoes, etc.) and numerous detailed statistics (e.g., changes in rye bread consumption in the Czech Republic and its impact on diet) are included.

Given students’ interest in nutrition, diet and health, this will be a useful text to supplement their research (perhaps involving related works by Perlmutter, Pollan, Schlosser, and Taubes), particularly for Junior Theme. THE WAY WE EAT NOW received a starred review from Booklist and contains a sixteen-page bibliography, extensive notes and a helpful index.