What we think about when we try not to think about Global Warming
By Per Espen Stoknes
322 pages

“The metaphor is so obvious. Easter Island is isolated in the Pacific Ocean. Once the island got into trouble, there was no way they could get free. There was no other people from whom they could get help. In the same way that we on Planet Earth, if we ruin our own [world], we won’t be able to get help.” Jared Diamond

We’ve known about the way the climate goes for many decades now. The first time anyone proposed that our dependence on fossil fuels would increase the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere was more than 100 years ago. Charles David Keeling made the first measurements that confirmed this idea in the 1950s. And since the 80s, 90s, and 2000s the data kept coming in. There is now no doubt that the climate on planet Earth is heating up due to increased levels of CO2. There is also no doubt that we are responsible for this. But here comes the conundrum. Why is it so hard for us to accept this, and change our behavior on a personal, local and global level? This exact question is the main focus of this book. It is not so much about the climate science itself, but how to communicate the science in the most effective way.

How does our psychology react when faced with uncomfortable facts? How can we use what we know about about the human nature to overcome the mental barriers that stop us from fully commit us to the big change we have to go through.

Per Espen Stoknes, is a psychologist and economist, and he has done research on environmental strategies and future scenarios. 

In this book he identifies five obstacles in our minds that gets in the way of accepting the conclusions of todays climate science.  Stoknes follows with suggested solutions to the same obstacles. 
A lot of communication about the predicament of climate change focuses on melting polar caps and pictures of polar bears on smaller and smaller pieces of ice. This creates distance to the whole idea and doesn’t really convey why this is important. Why should we care about something happening far far away? focusing on ppm CO2 in the atmosphere it doesn’t really help people understand what the problem is. We don’t have an intuitive understanding of something like that. The problems needs to be identified as local and described in a way that is relevant to people. And the obstacles needs to be framed just like that. Like obstacles that are solvable. Stoknes also mentions that because our minds are more geared towards avoiding bad outcomes than seeking out positive one,  we should always present three positive opportunities for each threat we mention. 
Such as in the way Arnold Schwarzeneggger does here. 

If climate change is framed as the end of the world it will only create apathy and that will prevent proper action. And the longer we wait the more likely a catastrophic scenario is. The solutions needs to be social meaning we need to nudge people in to making better decisions. One suggestion I found really good was to exploit our social need to compete with each other. Why not show the average energy consumption in a given area on the electricity bill? That would create an incentive to save more energy.

Stoknes does have a very valid point that when it comes down to choosing between scientific truth and our tribal identity the science looses every time. You see it in the denial of evolution in religious groups and you can definitely see it on the right-left axis when it comes to climate change. The author has a couple of good suggestions on how to solve this. Convince someone in the “denial tribe” to accept the evidence and to be a role model for the rest. Because internal adjustment is always easier than accepting something an outsider tells you. This is good sound advice. He also has a somewhat interesting suggestion. By “depoliticising” topics we are also less likely to fall into the tribal trap in the first place. This sounds all good, but how the heck do you actually do it in practice?

There are three parts to the book. Thinking, Doing and Being. I found the first two the most interesting and relevant. The last one was a bit too hippie for me. But then again maybe it brushed up against one of my own mental barriers? Who knows.. 

Communicating the science

How we communicate science is extremely important. Especially in an age where people still choose “alternative medicine” and to listen to deranged actors talk about vaccines instead of listening to proper medical advice. The tools in this book should be more utilized when it comes to all kinds of science. People are people and it is too easy to call someone stupid for not making what is considered the right choice. Our evolved minds are less than fully rational and we are limited in all kinds of ways. We are prone to magical thinking, easily scared and we are more concerned with social retributions from “our tribe” than what might be right. But in the long run we can still move society towards a better future. So long as we make sure that we have the proper institutions and networks in place. The scientific method is one of those and the best method we have that can produce relatively reliable information. When reading this book and the psychological barriers in our minds it reminded me of smokers or people that are overweight and how they always seem to be able to defend their situation. 
I think it is important to remember that it is not obvious when we ourselves are stuck in a barrier somewhere. We should therefore be sympathetic to those who are. For my own sake I’ve drastically cut down on meat consumption, I take the train instead of flying when I can,  and I am also about to get rid of the fossil driven car. Might get an electric car in the long run. We’ll see. I’ve also decided to vote in Sweden as a swedish citizen for the last time. Will apply for norwegian citizenship after the swedish election. Because I am tired of not being able to let my vote nudge our society towards a more ecofriendly future.

Conclusion

This is an important book that everyone should read. It is fairly short and it is an easy read. I think I read it in about a week. Even though I (think I)  already know  a lot about the topic I learned alot. It made me even more acutely aware of the predicament we are in. But at the same time humanity has faced huge problems and solved them before. famines, diseases, hole in the ozone layer, acidic rain, etc. I think we will be able to pull our collective heads out of our own asses and deal with this problem too. Lets face it. We have to! I might be clinging to a thin straw here, but I prefer to stay positive. 

“Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.” Carl Sagan

Rating 6/6
478 books left!

If you want a 15 min summary of the book by the author himself you can watch his TED Talk here

#climatechange #perespenstoknes #psychology #cognitivedissonance 

Who is the typical lone wolf mass murderer/terrorist, what do they have in common, and what drives them to commit these violent acts? This book tries to answer this question by looking into ideology, mental illness, conspiracy theories, social failures, and failures with attracting women. If you would like a deeper understanding of who these people are this book will give you something to think about. 

Angry White Men by Audhild Skoglund. 
Published by Humanist Forlag in 2013. 185 pages.

The book is a study of several known mass killers and explores the factors and reason behind. It´s largely based on an FBI report by Kathleen Puckett, where she studied 10 lone wolf killers. The book also discusses five attackers in depth. The Unabomber, Timothy McVeigh, Anders Behring Breivik, and also two Swedish killers. It turns out that several of known mass murderers and/or terrorists are narcissistic and carry a rage against some form of external enemy, they have paranoia and therefore are not seldom attracted to conspiracy theories. According to the FBI-report a majority of them have tried to connect with extremist groups, but have failed. A lot of them have also failed with women. Both of these facts are often attributed to the general problem they have with forming social bonds. What comes first of ideology or mental issues is difficult to answer. Neither education or socio-economic background seem to be a common denominator.  Some came from failed homes, whereas others had normal upbringing. The majority of the perpetrators have an intelligence of above average. 

The author does mention that right-wing white supremacy groups often have some form of antifeminist attitude. And in that there is a cultural connection. The cultural connection is also important when considering anger against the government, conspiracy theories, racism etc. Most of the lone wolf killers seem to have had problems relating to people in general and especially to women. Many of them carried a resentment, loathing or even hatred towards women. This factor seem to be quite common among most of these types of killers. The last few years this toxic masculinity has been discussed further. I would love to hear what Audhild Skoglund thinks of this debate. She has a small chapter on it, but I’m sure she could elaborate this subject more today. 

The cultural connection to white power groups as well as toxic masculinity is a real scary part. Because it implies that we all are part of our culture and therefore have some form of responsibility in how we shape it. There are lots of people here in Norway who hate immigrants and the politicians from the workers party. The lone wolf that committed the atrocities in Oslo and on Utøya on 22th of july in 2011 is not so lonely after all. 

«Det var vår kultur som gjorde at han ikke følte seg alene da han satte avgårde med en gigantisk bombe og flere skytevåpen for å eliminere forrædere av klasse A, B og C.»
Translates as: “It was our culture that made him feel not alone when he set off with a huge bomb and several guns to eliminate traitors of class A, B, and C.”

The reasons why men much more often become lone wolf attackers than women do is also discussed to some extent. Some of the reasons are that men in general are more violent, men often externalises their anger whereas women focuses more inward, several of the mental issues like paranoia and narcisism is more common among men, and lastly there is also the practical reason that many more men have experience and training with weapons. 

All in all I guess the book paints a nuyanced picture of the angry white men that commit massmurder.

The literature list at the end of the book is extensive. Might pick up a few of the books there. But I must say that seing the manifests of Ted Kazcinski and Anders Behring Breivik as well as their names are a bit weird. I understand why they are there since the author has drawn her material from them, but still. Imagine that these madmen are cited authors…

I would not call this a fun book, but definitely a good read. As the more perceptive of you have noticed, I read the book in Norwegian. The Norwegian crowd can order the book from any of the online book stores we have here.
Why not order it directly from the publisher?

 I have no idea if it is available in English, but if you are interested in reading related literature all you need to do is a quick search on Amazon. 

Rating 4/6
479 books left!

#SinteHviteMenn #AngryWhiteMen #AudhildSkoglund #lonewolf #massmurderers #terrorism #bookreview #bokanmeldelse #mementomori

The Sixth Extinction: An Unatural History
by Elizabeth Kolbert

A dramatic history about what will be our longest lasting legacy. long after every single building has been leveled to the ground. Namely the largest mass extinction event in 65 million years. Pulitzer prize winner of 2015. 

“If there is danger in the human trajectory, it is not so much in the survival of our own species as in thefulfillment of the ultimate irony of organic evolution: that in the instant of achieving self-understanding through the mind of man, life has doomed its most beautiful creations.” ― Edward O. Wilson

Right after I finished this book the last male of the species northern white rhino died. There are only two females left. About 150 years ago there was at least a million animals roaming the plains of Africa. Now it is just another species we´ve doomed to extinction. 

The title of the book refers to the first five major extinctions recorded in the world. The last being the extinction of most of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. This book is both a love story to the wonders of the natural world, and it is also a tragedy. Because we are destroying habitats, making species go extinct left, right and center, wreaking havoc with the climate and in general behaves just like the worst invasive species the planet has ever seen. Kolbert takes us through different species around the world and shows us the trouble they, and we, are in. 

The author also shows us how the idea of extinction developed at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century. Just around the time when Darwin was being born. Before that time most people thought that the world was created by God a few thousand years ago. The world was as it had always been. But people started to find fossils. And they didn´t always resemble known creatures. Sometimes they were of completely different build and size. I really liked this chapter because it shows how evidence slowly but surely made people change their mind. The scientific method slowly grew out of discussions and arguments like these. And paved the way for Darwins studies and later theory of evolution. Another interesting thing to note here is that even as the evidence of several mass extinctions was building up, several of the leading scientists of the day kept refusing to follow the evidence. The mass extinctions led up to the formation of the concept of transmutation of species. Which was an early attempt at explaining that species are not fixed but goes through continual change.  Jean Baptiste Lamarck was the man behind this idea, but was opposed by anatomist Georges Cuvier and geologist Charles Lyell (Which in turn highly influenced Charles Darwin). Interestingly Cuvier came around to the idea of mass extinction, but refused to accept the idea of what we today call evolution. 

“We need not marvel at extinction; if we must marvel, let it be at our own presumption in imagining for a moment that we understand the many complex contingencies on which the existence of each species depends.” 

 – Charles Darwin in the Origin of Species 

Kolbert paints a rather personal picture taking us readers from researcher to researcher around the planet. She goes deep into caves in the US and tells the story of how several species of bats are wiped of the planet, she dives on the Great Barrier Reef together with scientists studying coral bleaching and she visits one of the few remaining individuals of the Sumatran rhino. 
 

A new concept for me was the idea of New Pangea. Pangea was a huge supercontinent that existed from about 330 mia (million years ago) to about 175 mia. The continents cracked up and has been a drift ever since. This creates and closes barriers, which in turn is a crucial part of evolution. All species has a certain amount of variation within their gene pool. These variations will continue to intermix and spread until a barrier is introduced. This could be a mountain range, a strait, a river, a desert, or a large body of water such as an ocean. But now we humans bring species all over the place. We cross all borders and introduce countless species to places they would never have reached by themselves. Some biologists call this New-Pangea. We basically recreate a virtual supercontinent again. This will obviously increase competition between species and will drive hoards of them extinct. This we can already see happening in Australia, islands in all the worlds oceans, and on mainland continents too. Some calculations show that this will reduce the number of species by a great deal. We can expect the number of mammals to be reduced to one third of today, and birds will be reduced by about 50%. To put it blunty… Go for a walk and imagining killing half the birds you see, and two thirds of all mammals. 

There is a fair chance we helped both the Neanderthals and the Denisovans go the way of the Dodo, and the rest of the great apes are next in line. 
“with the exception of humans, all the great apes today are facing oblivion.” 

The term Anthropocene is introduced as a term describing the time period where we humans are affecting the entire planet. Throughout the book the author show us how we humans are making thousands of species, if not more, extinct. And the pace seem to be increasing to such a level that we are well into the sixth mass extinction since life first appeared about 3,8 billion years ago. Not bad for an achievement! Some people like to mark the start of the industrial revolution as the beginning of this mass extinction. 

At the end of the last ice age, much of the world was inhabited by huge animals. We´re talking about wooly rhinos, mammoths, aurochs, mastodonts, beavers the size of bears, sabertooth cats and you name it. The disappearance of this megafauna strangley coincides with human migration. Both in America, Australia, pacific islands, Madagaskar, New Zealand etc. The list goes on. There used to be thousands of endemic species on Hawaii, but the majority of them are now either completely gone or close to it. So.. It seems like we´ve basically eaten our way through the world. The last male northern white rhino was simply yet another large animal we´ve done away with. 

“Though it might be nice to imagine there once was a time when man lived in harmony with nature, it´s not clear that he ever really did.”
– Elizabeth Kolbert

This is a beautifully written book which actually put a real downer on my mood. And for several days at that. It makes you think what we are doing to the planet. And unfortunately it does seem to get a lot worse before it possibly can improve. It the book overly pessimistic? Not really. I´d say it is probably quite realistic. It even answers the question whether life of Earth will recover. Which it surely will. It will only take a couple of million years to do it. 
And who knows what kind of species that inhabit the planet then. Perhaps some large rodents with opposable thumbs, clothes and an enlarged brain will find some strange bones in the ground.  

“Look at this! It seems like this planet was dominated by one large bipedal ape about three million years ago. weird…”
 

 

Rating 6/6
480 books left!

#TheSixthExtinction #ElizabethKolbert #Extinction #Climatechange #mementomori #Bookreport #bokanmeldelse #

Destination Mars – The Story of Our Quest to Conquer the Red Planet
by Andrew May

In this book we are taken from the craze at the end of the 1800s to WWII and to the space exploration of the last sixty years or so. It is a short and exciting story which we will hear much more about in the years to come. 

“There is every reason to think that in the coming years Mars and its mysteries will become increasingly familiar to the inhabitants of the Planet Earth.”
– Carl Sagan

The first Mars craze started at the end of the 1800s when italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli published drawings of canals. This halfway mistranslation  led to some really good scifi stories like The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells. Which, according to Wikipedia, later inspired Robert H Goddard to come up with several crucial inventions for space exploration. 

Turns out that Wernher Von Braun, one of the scientists that built the German V2-rockets, was recruited by the US after WWII. He helped develop the Saturn V which was the largest rockets the world has ever seen. They carried the Apollo-missions into space and therefore helped se man on the moon.
Who says a killing each other with massive weapons isn’t good for anything?

Not long ago Elon Musk and his company SpaceX sent a Tesla and a spacesuit up into space. It was an amazing achievement. It was not so much sending vehicles into space, NASA (and others) have been doing that for more than half a century. The accomplishment was doing this with reusable rockets. Until now space flight has been rather wasteful and discarding the rockets every time something has been launched. Either by burning them as they reenter the atmosphere or by simply dumping them in the sea. 

One of the latest fictional stories about Mars exploration to make it big was The Martian written by Andy Weir. It was made into a blockbuster movie starring Matt Damon. yup, the guy who always needs to get rescued. If you liked the film you will definetely love the book. I am pretty sure that stories like that will inspire the kids today to become tomorrows space explorers. Heck… even I became a member of the local astronomy club because of The Martian.  

If you want to know more about the history of space exploration or about the plans to send humans to Mars this is a good book to start with. I knew about a few of the landers and vehicles on Mars, but there had been many many more missions to Mars than I was aware of. Wikipedia has a list of about 50 missions! Not all of them gets covered in the book, but many of them do. 

For those of you who wants to dive into the fictional stories about Mars there is quite the collection here.

EDIT: Just the other day Vladimir Putin announced that Russia will put people on Mars by 2019. Mind you this was just a few days before the Russian election, which Mr Putin won by a landslide. If they make it they will be there years before both NASA and SpaceX. We sure live in exciting times!
 

“Mars is there. Waiting to be reached.”  
– Buzz Aldrin

Rating: 4/6
481 books left!

#DestinationMars #AndrewMay #bookreview #mementomori #spaceexploration #SpaceX #ElonMusk

 

 

Charles Darwin and his work is celebrated every year on his birthday, february 12th. Reading his iconic book has been long overdue. Here’s my take on The Origin of Species. 

“He must  be a dull man who can examine the exquisite structures of a comb, so beautifully adapted to its end, without enthusiastic admiration.”
 Charles Darwin commenting on the cell-making instincts of the Hive-Bee.

Last year I read The Voyage of the Beagle, Charles Darwins travel journal from his trip around the globe. I wrote a review and I can wholeheartedly reccommend the book.  The collections he made during the trip, the following studies, and numerous experiments that led him to formulate his famous theory. Not to mention all the correspondance he did with the many experts in various fields. Whenever the term “evolution” is mentioned, it is very easy to picture Charles Darwin being the lone genius figuring things out. After all.. in textbooks his picture his usually right there. But in reality this was far from the truth as there was lots of people influencing Darwins thoughts, work and ultimately the reason that the book got published at all. Darwin was probably still a genius though. Just not a lone genius. 

The book is organized as follows. First there are a few chapters where he discusses how animals and plants varies under domestication and in the wild under nature. He then continues in discussing the struggle for existence between individuals and between species. How that inevitably leads to the survival of the better adapted, or survival of the fittest as the more famous expression puts it. There are a few chapters on difficulties and objections to the theory, the geological record, geographical dispersal of species, hybridism between species, instincts and the book is neatly summed up in the last chapter. 

Most chapters has a little overview in the beginning of the following content, as well as a nice summery at the end of the chapter. So you’d think this is pretty easy read. But no it sure isn’t. Some parts are beautifully written where as other parts are more on the difficult side. Long sentences and complicated grammar makes it to be a much more difficult book than it could have been. But then again it was written almost 160 years ago and languages do change. You might even say they evolve. (pun intended). Darwin was also in a rush because other naturalists were stumbling around with very similar thoughts. Alfred Russel Wallace being the most famous of them. His letter to Darwin actually prompted him to write the book to begin with. Originally Darwin intended to write a much larger and more extensive book with all kinds of evidence, experiments, and detailed notes. But he was forced to write quickly. Which he constantly laments and almost apolagizes for. So I guess that could also make the text more difficult to read. Either way I kind of got around this by listening to the audio book during my commute to work. And then reading the carbon copy before going to bed. The audio book was in english and I mainly read a version in norwegian, but I also flipped through the 150th year anniversary edition in english. Some times I was ahead with audio and other times I was reading ahead. either way it was like deja vu the entire book.

Darwin spends alot of time in the book discussing how skilled breeders are able to change the domestic pidgeon. I’m sure that these examples worked alot better in the Victorian era when this was a very popular hobby. But now this is not very relevant any more. I wonder what species he might have chosen instead if he wrote the book today. 

So what is this evolution business anyway? Well.. Charles Darwin summed it up in the subtitle for his book. The full title of the book is “The Origin of Species by means of natural selection of the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life.” See what I mean by long and complicated sentences?

It basically means that all organisms tries to increase in number, but as the resources are limited, this results in competition.  There are slight variations between individuals which gives them slightly different rates of success in this competition. The most successful will propegate and will leave more decendants than the less successful. I think you can boil down the evolutionary principle down to this. 

Or as he puts it himself: 
“As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form.”

What really hit me while reading this was Darwins keen sense of observation, his ingenuity and his ability to reason. In the chapter about the geographical dispersal of species he discusses how different animals, plants and birds might spread from a continent to distant islands. It is quite obvious that winds might blow birds to distant islands, but he also discusses how these birds might bring seeds with them. Darwin actually tests how the feet of ducks might carry mud, and therefore also seeds, or how long lots of different seeds are able to survive immersion in salt water as well as in the gut of birds and find that alot of seeds germinate after weeks. He calculates the distance traveled by sea currents in the same amount of days and is therefore able to claim with confidence that almost any island can be populated from distant continents. 

During his travels the young Charles Darwin found fossilized sea shells high up in the Andes and he also experienced a major earthquake. 
” A bad earthquake at once destroys our oldest associations: the earth, the very emblem of solidity, has moved beneath our feet like a thin crust over a fluid; – one second of time has created in the mind a strange idea of insecurity, which hours of reflection would not have produced. “
He wrote extensively about the formation of coral reefs and islands, as well as vulcanic islands. This led him to claim that the earths crust had oscillated up and down many times in geological periods. This would explain how the marine fossils were located high up in mountain ranges. It seems like Darwin were only a tiny bit away from realizing that the surface of our planet is divided into large tectonic plates. He even mentions that the he doesn’t believe that the continents had once been attached to each other due to lack of evidence.

Imagine Darwin getting his hands on dated rock samples from increasing distances from the mid-Atlantic ridge as well as detailed charts of the sea bottom. I think he would be absolutely deligthed!

Would I reccomend this book?
It depends I guess.

If you’ve already read a few books about evolution you won’t find anything new in Origin of Species. But you will find lots of interesting little stories, experiments and thoughts by Mr Darwin himself. And that I can definetely recommend! The last chapter of the book sums up the entire book. So if you’re not inclined to read the entire thing you should at least read that. The article on Wikipedia is a great place to learn more about the book.

If you really want to dive in and get your hands on Darwins letters, publications etc. you should check out Darwin Online

“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.” 

If you want to learn about evolution in general you are probably better off reading a few books by Richard Dawkins. Especially The Selfish Gene or Greatest Show on Earth.

For the Norwegian crowd I can definetely recommend Darwins teori or Evolusjon by Erik Tunstad. Both are great! 

Why should you learn about evolution?

The theory of Evolution connects us to every other living being and proves that we are all related. Just like earthworms, emus and elephants we have evolved into what we are today. Evolution punches a big hole in the belief that humans are separate from nature. There is very little about our nature that does not find its counterpart in other animals. Albeit sometimes in simpler form.
According to the primatologist Frans De Waal whenever we try to specify something that humans are special, after a few years it is discovered in other parts of the animal kingdom. Whether it is the use of tools, use of language, walking on two legs, waging war, and even altruism has its animal counterpart. 

Evolution also punches a big hole in our tendency for essentialism. Meaning our inclination to think that species are fixed enteties in time and space. Biology is a messy field and variety in all kinds of expression is to be expected. It should not come as a surprise that sex, gender and our sexuality is complex. Homosexual behaviour is as natural as anything and has been documented in hundreds of species.

Proper knowledge about evolutionary biology should demolish the human tendency for homophobic attitudes, for racism, gender inequality etc. 

By learning and understanding evolution you will understand how and why almost all fruit and vegetables we eat today didn’t exist in the past, You will understand why we cannot cure the influenza once and for all, why antibiotics work and why resistance to them is a very real danger. we might actually loose that incredible tool in a short time.

“Evolution is the single best idea anyone has ever had” in the words of the contemporary philosopher Daniel Dennett. 

Rating: 6/6

#CharlesDarwin #OriginOfSpecies #Evolution #mementomori #BookReview #bokanmeldelse #DarwinDay

482 books left!

We are already done with the first month of the year and it is time to write about my reading goals.  As well as a few lines about my relationship to audio, ebooks and paper books.

My goal for 2017 was to read at least one book per month, and as early as in june I realized that it would be easy to accomplish that. When the end of december had come and gone I had published 15 reviews and had read quite a few books more than that. 

Several of the books I read last year was first found on Storytel, which basically is an app for audio books here in Norway. You pay a monthly fee and then you listen to as many books as you want. I ride my bicycle for about one hour every day to and from work, so I have plenty of time for radio, podcasts and the already mentioned audio books. And Storytel was the introduction to several of the books I read last year. A couple of the books I listened to was so interesting that I bought them in paper too. I do the same with ebooks books. Some of the books I read or listen to are of such quality that I want them to be a part of my library. 

The different formats have their advantages and their disadvantes for sure. You can listen to your audio books every where you go, but at the same time it is difficult to stay focused. The instinct to avoid large moving objects gets priority over whatever I’m listening to. At least then I’m on my bike and the large approaching object is a bus. ebooks books are great because you can search them quickly, and they don’t take up any space. But then again it difficult to borrow a ebook book from a friend. Bringing it to the beach or the bath tub can quickly become quite expensive. The paper book will never run out of battery, and it is easy to mark it, fold the corners of interesting parts and lend them to friends (the entire book, and not just the folded pages dummy). But then again searching through a paper book for a specific sentence is slow and tedious work. 

I consume books of all formats and I am usually reading at least a couple of books at the same time. Some books I read in bed, other while I’m on the bus and others I listen to whenever I can fit it into my day. But the really good ones I usually buy in several formats. I get all the advantages listed above and I can ignore the downsides. The one thing I miss so far is a link between audio and ebooks. Just as I can read a book on my iPhone, pick up my iPad and continue where I left off. I wish I could do the same when I’m crossing from audio to ebook. 

The children books of old had it all figured out. They were read aloud to you and you were told when to turn the page. Just what I need as an adult too! 

My interest in ancient history, the Middle East, and mythology led me to The Epic of Gilgamesh. I think I’ve heard it mentioned several times in podcasts about history. And then this fall I found it on Storytel, so I thought it was about time to learn more about it.
This poem is regarded as the first great work of literature according to Wikipedia. It is an old sumerian poem and tells the story of Gilgamesh who is king of the city of Uruk. He and his buddy Enkidu fights enemies and after Enkidu is killed, Gilgamesh avenges him. This epic adventure also tells of a huge flood that covered the earth. There are several similarities with the flood story in the Bible. I borrowed this book at the local library and the copy I read even had a line by line comparison. This flood story have probably influenced the authors of the Bible when they compiled their stories. Very interesting read for sure. The Epic of Gilgamesh would be great for a movie for children or even a blockbuster action movie. And its not too long either. 

I am now working my way through the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. I concider it to be one of the most important books of all time. Because it shows the relationships between all living organisms, including us humans. And therefore I’ve got several paper copies of it, I’ve bought it in my Kindle app, and I’m also listening to it. Expect a review coming this way very soon. 

While writing this entry I came across this collection of websites where you can download audio books. 
Knock yourself out! 

Oh yeah.. my reading goals for 2018? Well… Since I managed 15 published reviews in 2017, I will raise that to 20 reviews! 

 

#EpicofGilgamesh #audiobooks #bookreviews #digitalbooks #kindle #paperbooks #mementomori

483 books left!

 

Khirbet Khizah was published right after the war of 1948-49. It is about a group of soldiers who are sent out on a clean-up operation towards the end of the war. And as long as we wage war and kill each other it will keep its relevance.

“we could also see how something was happening in the heart of the boy, something that, when he grew up, could only become a viper inside him, the same thing that was now the weeping of a helpless child.”

The book starts out with a handful of young soldiers who are sent to a Palestinian village. They either don’t know the specifics of their mission, or they are simply reluctant to talk about it. We get to know the soldiers a little bit. They are all very young. and just like typical young men they seem carefree, crack jokes and talk about girls. After waiting close to this village they go in and herd the inhabitants away to “their side” of the newly agreed border. They are collected on board trucks and driven away.Tensions run high and it seems like people might get killed at any moment. 

Towards the end of the book the narrator, an unamed soldier, sees the irony of it all. They are Jews, a people who had been exciled for millenia, and now they are forcing other people into excile.

“This was exile. This was what exile looked like.”

Even though he sees the wrong in this he doesn’t intervene. The soldiers justify their actions by talking about how much better they will use the natural recources. And for a moment they seem to see how bad this is, but then they revert to their banter and starts to talk about supper. The soldiers are not portrayed as evil by nature at all. They seem to be rather normal young men. They seem more to be cold and hard towards the Palestinians due to circumstance. Which is a point I think is important to remember. most evil deeds are committed by quite normal people in abnormal situations.  

The novella is short with less than 100 pages. I think I read it in two-three hours. It is well worth the read. 

Rating: 4/6

#KhirbetKhizah #SYizhar #IsraelPalestine 

484 books left!

The year of 2017 is approaching its (somewhat arbitrary) end, and it is time to evaluate it. My general reading goal is about one book per month. And in that regard I have had a great year because I’ve read at least double that. I published 15 reviews, and in hindsight I see it is a mixture of . personal stories, fiction, biographies and non fiction. I even managed to read a really good self help book, not to mention a few books on science.
2017 certainly was a good year!

Some of the books have been read in english and some in norwegian, which in turn has lead me to write my reviews in the same language. mostly anyway. I cannot seem to make up my mind on whether I should write this blog in norwegian or english. If you as a reader have an opinion I would be glad to hear it. Here is a recap of the books I wrote reviews of and a sentence or two about them. If I can I’d like to learn something from everything I read. 

Tilbake til virkeligheten, by Kim Westerberg
The title means “back to reality”, and this is the personal story of the author how he got involved in drugs, and how he quit them. Literally how he found his way back to reality again. I think it is a very powerful story of how easy it can be for someone to fall victim to substance abuse. It is extremely easy to end up there, after only a few wrong turns. The way out can turn out to be very much harder. 

En av oss, by Åsne Seierstad
This is the extremely uncomfortable story of how Anders Behring Breivik ended up being the worst mass murderer in Norway since WWII. possibly the worst one in recorded history. I’ve read several of Åsne Seierstads books and she is a superb story teller. You actually feel sympathetic towards ABB. The author portrays him as a human being who had a very unfortunate upbringing. It does not excuse any part of his gruesome deeds, far from it. But the book shows how a young man radicalized himself through the internet. The process and his example is very relevant with as the world struggles how to deal with the problem of islamist radicalization. 

De ukjente krigerne – norwegians in WWI
Even though Norway was neutral during WWI, several thousands norwegians took part on all sides and in lots of different ways. They were soldies, sailors, nurses, dealt with logistics etc. This book is an anthology of collected stories of those norwegians. They wrote letters to their loved ones and there are other documents that help tell their story. WWI ended several empires, changed the entire map of Europe and the Middle East. This book and other stories from WWI has made me want to read more about the Ottoman empire, The Sykes-Picot agreement and other relevant topics. I feel these stories are important to understand why there still is plenty of trouble in the Middle East. 

Animal Farm, by George Orwell
Now this is a classic I just had to read. My good friend Vegard actually read and published his own review of the book. Which in turn inspired me to do the same. Since this book is a warning about the totalitarian regime of communism I figured it was a good addition to the general topic of WWI and violence. 

Voyage of the Beagle, by Charles Darwin
Most people have heard about the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, and I do recommend people to read it. It is still a great read even after more than 150 years since it was published. It shows what a thorough scientist Charles Darwin really was. But.. and there is always a but…. the book is abit tedious. If you are not particularly interested in biology I would instead reccommend this book. Charles Darwin kept a diary for his circumnavigation of the globe. And it truly is a fascinating read. It contains crazy adventures such as dangerous storms on the high seas, guerilla war in Argentina and even earthquakes. The diary is also a cultural gem and Darwin is the archtypical upper-class Victorian gentleman. He gets into arguments with captain Fitzroy about slavery, and the descriptions of the south american Gaucho (a kind of cowboy) or the natives in Tierra del Fuego are quite interesting. 

The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
To my knowledge no other book captures the Roaring Twenties quite like The Great Gatsby. It inspired me to see the film with Leonardo de Caprio. The book was alright I guess, but I am not going to read it again. To put it that way. 

Syria, en stor krig i en liten verden, by Cecilie Hellestveit
This thorough book about the conflict in Syria taught me a couple of things. The conflict in the Middle East is alot more complex than many of our understandings are. The imperial power of the US is not to blame, and neither is the religion of islam. In isolation that is. Those two factors are clearly involved but they do not describe the problems to the relevant level at all. The rivalry between Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey was something I was not very aware of. I knew there was a division between sunni and shia but not much more than that. Another important thing about the conflicts in the Middle East in general and in Syria in particular is that the news in our media is very simplistic. I think ISIS (or daesh or whatever you want to call them) has been somewhat of a “blessing” for our media. Because they make it easy to tell the story about religious extremism. The focus on ISIS does however cloud all the other factions, guerillas, and divisions in the area. clans, religions, tribes, kurds, arabs etc. I for one would like to see more books like this one with both depth and thorough analysis. I can highly reccommend it!

Churchill, by Paul Johnson
If you are the slightest interested in the history of the first part of the 20th century you cannot escape Churchill. And there are lots and lots of books, documentaries, films etc about this important politician. I picked up this short book and really liked it. Its a must read!

Den fordømte friheten, by Kaja Melson
The damned freedom would be the english title of this book. It is one of the best self help books I’ve read. And I have read quite a few. This is one of the best ones because it teaches you not to bother so much with “success” or “how to make it”, “be the best you can be” or what ever is the current slogan. Relax and remember that most of us will be average and that is completely fine.  It is a book I reccomend highly

Ready player one, by Ernest Cline
This is a really good scifi about the not so distant future. In a world where the internet have molded together with reality and more and more people are choosing fantasy over reality. Which in no way is very different from our world of today. It is a fascinating read and I am really looking forward to the movie. I believe Spielberg directed it. 

Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad
The colonial plundering of Africa was horrible, and the story of Leopold II abuse of the Congo can definitely match Hitler, Pol Pot or Stalin in the amount of human suffering he caused. It is about the plundering of the Congo as well as the thin line between civilized man and our inner monsters. It is a good read, there are also good films to watch. 

Israel – bak muren av myter og propaganda, by Peder Morten Lysestøl
This was a historic break down of the story behind Israel. It was en enlightning read for sure. Again the topic of collapsing empires after WWI came up. The Sykes-Picot agreement, and the Balfore declaration was also central. I would like to read more books about Israel and how they fit into the bigger picture. I guess this one was an alright way into the subject.

Seven brief lessons of physics, by Carlo Rovelli
This is a book that really makes you think. What does our reality really consist of? What is time? This book, together with A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking, can give you a head ache for sure. I guess my major take away from these books on physics is that reality is not very much like our perceptions of it. Our senses have evolved to solve problems relevant to creatures of our size. Which means that anything smaller than a grain of sand or larger than not-so-many kilometers is beyond our normal comprehension. The same goes for time scales shorter than a second or larger than a few decades. 

Karbon – en uautorisert biografi, by Dag O. Hessen
Now this one was a really interesting and good book. Dag O. Hessen is a professor of Biology from Oslo University and he has recently become one of my favorite authors. I have been to one of his lectures once and also heard him on the radio and in different interviews. He has a very soothing and recognizable voice. Somewhat like Morgan Freeman or Richard Attenborough. So whenever I read his books I also have his voice in my head. The book is all about Carbon and how important it is for all living organisms. Again a simplified topic from the media, the climate crisis, gets nuyanced and expanded. And it also hammers in the message that we are truly in deep sh*t if we don’t fix it. The current refugee “problem” will be a gentle breeze compared to the coming storm to put it that way.

Ikke en flue fortred, by Slavenka Drakulic
How can people in was commit such heinous crimes as they do in civil wars? Whether it is the holocaust, mass murder of muslims in the Balkans, Yezidies in Syria or hutus in Rwanda it seems like mass murder, torture and horrible behaviour in general is the norm when war is concerned. This author followed several of the trials after the war in Yugoslavia. She describes the people on trial and in doing that she follows the tradition of Hanna Arendt. Drakulic shows how even mass murderers are humans, and not so very different from the rest of us. My lesson from this book, as well as the books about ABB (you know the mass murderer from Utøya), WWI, Syria etc is that most people are able to commit the most heinous acts if they are put in the right situation. or wrong I should say. It is definitely worth remembering. 

All in all I read lots of good books in 2017. Lets hope I can keep the trend going for the coming year as well. Hopefully I will continue to learn more about all kinds of interesting topics. I have lots of books lined up already! 

#aYearinReview #bookreport #mementomori #2017 #2018 #happynewyear #godtnyttår

Ikke en flue fortred av Slavenka Drakulic.
Utgitt på Humanist forlag i 2005.

Det går kort tid mellom hver gang en hører om massakrer, overgrep, voldtekter og tortur i forbindelse med konfliktområder. Holocaust, de utallige kommunistiske utryddelser i Sovjetunionen, Cambodia og Kina, massakrene i Indonesia på 60-tallet, folkemordet i Rwanda i 1994, massakren i Screbenica samme år, og nå senest folkemordet på Rohingyaene i Burma. Det finnes også mange mange flere massakrer som er blitt glemt. 

Til sammen i disse konfliktene over er mange millioner mennesker blitt drept. Hvem har drept dem? Hvem er disse krigsforbryterne? Er de vanlige mennesker, som deg og meg, eller er de monstre?

Denne boken forsøker å gi et innblikk i nettopp dette spørsmålet. Forfatteren Slavenka Drakulic er fra  Kroatia og har skrevet flere bøker om borgerkrigen i tidligere Jugoslavia. Der ble omtrent 200 000 mennesker drept og flere millioner drevet på flukt. Den mest kjente massakren er drapene på omtrent 8000 muslimske gutter og menn i byen Screbenica. Forfatteren var til stede under krigsforbryterdomstolen i Haag der litt under 100 mennesker sto tiltalt. Hun har tidligere hatt offerperspektiv i sine bøker, men denne gangen har hun skrevet bok om overgriperne. Hvert kapitel er viet til noen av menneskene involvert i rettsakene. Noen ganger som vitner, andre ganger som tiltalte. Først tegnes et menneskelig bilde av vedkommende, før hun går nærmere inn på hva de gjorde og hva de ble dømt for. Hun skriver i innledningen at det ble begått grusomheter på alle sider i borgerkrigen, og at hennes utvalg ikke er representativt på noe som helst vis. Det kommer også helt klart frem i boken at det er mange mordere, voldtektsmenn og andre overgripere som aldri er blitt tiltalt. I boken får vi beskrivelser av blant annet Slobodan Milosevic, hans kone, Radovan Karadcic, Ratko Mladic, en soldat som deltok i massakren ved Srebenica, myrdede vitner og mange andre. Da boken ble skrevet var både Radovan Karadcic og Ratko Mladic fortsatt på frifot. Men de er blitt arrestert og fremstilt for domstolen helt nylig. Karadcic fikk sin dom i 2016, men den er anket og således ikke avsluttet. 

I kapitel etter kapitel får vi fortalt om grusomheter som massevoldtekter, massakren i Screbenica , drap av vitner, brenning av små barn i stekeovner osv. Helt grusomme forferdelige handlinger. Som står i sterk kontrast til de sivile beskrivelsene av gjerningsmennene. Der fremstår de som helt vanlige og normale mennesker. 

Siste kapitel er helt klart det beste. Der reflekterer forfatteren rundt hvem som utfører overgrep. Er de «monstre» eller er det som hvem som helst? Våre instinkter forteller oss at det må være monstre som begår slike handlinger. For de er jo i hvert fall ikke som oss! Og vi er i alle fall ikke som dem!

Men, fortsetter Drakulic, dersom slike handlinger krever monster, må det finnes uhorvelig mange blant oss. Rett og slett pga de enorme tallene i nesten enhver av de større massedrapene vi kjenner til. Etter hvert som forfatteren kom nærmere innpå flere av morderne eller voldtektsmennene innser hun at de fleste av dem er temmelig vanlige. Flere har ingen historie med overgrep verken før eller etter krigen. De har familier, barn, interesser osv. 

«Hva om de er vanlige folk, akkurat som oss, som befant seg i helt spesielle situasjoner og tok moralsk gale avgjørelser? Hva forteller det om oss selv?»

Dette er også helt i tråd med hva mange andre har kommet frem til. Rettsakene etter andre verdenskrig viste det samme, og forfattere som Hanna Arendt har skrevet mye om det. Tittelen på boka, Ikke en flue fortred, er nettopp fra Hannah Arendts bok Essays in Understanding (1930-1954). Tittelen er en beskrivelse av en tysk fangevokter i en konsentrasjonsleir under krigen. På jobb myrder han fanger med kaldt blod, mens hjemme er han en kjærlig far som ikke vil gjøre en flue fortred. 

Det som skal til for at vanlige folk skal kunne begå grusomheter er spesielle omstendigheter, samt en grundig dehumanisering av ofrene. Vi må ikke lenger se på dem som likeverdige mennesker for å kunne myrde dem. Dette skjønte styresmaktene både i Rwanda, Nazi-Tyskland og i Jugoslavia. Og i alle andre konflikter. I lang tid før startskuddet (bokstavelig talt) iverksettes, skapes det avstand ved at ofrene distanseres, de merkes, de omtales som djevler, onde, dumme, stygge, de nektes alminnelige tjenester, bosteder osv. De må bygges opp som hatobjekt, og de må ribbes for individuelle karaktertrekk. Noe så enkelt som at en sluttet å håndhilse på muslimer i det tidligere Jugoslavia blir trukket frem som et av de mange små skrittene på veien. Når de ikke lenger anses som ordentlige mennesker er veien til overgrep og drap straks mye kortere. Det kan virke som dette er vanskelig å få til, men historien viser at det skjer altfor lett altfor fort. 

«Ondskap som oppstår av vanlig tenkning og blir begått av vanlige mennesker er normen, ikke unntaket.» – Ervin Staub

Drakulic avslutter boken med å reflektere litt rundt det ansvaret befolkningen som helhet har. De fleste tilpasset seg en tilværelse av statlig propaganda, frykt og likgyldighet. Hun sier det faktisk så sterkt at alle har vi et direkte ansvar.
«Men vender du ansiktet vekk, eller tier stille overfor urettferdighet og forbrytelser, er det det samme som å støtte en politikk som har død og ødeleggelse som mål. Det betyr ingenting om støtten er frivillig eller ikke. Resultatet er det samme. I løpet av fem års krig var altfor mange mennesker direkte involvert i den etniske rensingen til at de i fullt alvor kan hevde at de ikke visste. De visste, og de deltok, eller så brydde de seg ikke.»

Det avsluttende spørsmålet i boka er hvordan en selv ville ha oppført seg om en havnet i situasjon som krigsforbryterne.  «Hva ville jeg gjort i deres situasjon? Den ubehagelige sannheten er at det ikke finnes noe tydelig svar.»  Når så mange mennesker i så mange konflikter deltar i krigsforbrytelser over hele verden er det ikke godt å si hvordan en selv ville ha reagert i lignende omstendigheter.
Det er ganske fælt å ta inn over seg.

Rating 5/6
Anbefaler helt klart denne boken til alle som vil vite mer om vår evne til grusomheter. 

OPPDATERING: Ratko Mladic ble i dag 22. november 2017 dømt til livstid for krigsforbrytelser, folkemord og forbrytelser mot menneskeheten. Han ble dømt i 10 av 11 tiltalepunkter! 

For at en ikke skal miste helt troen på det gode i mennesker vil jeg også anbefale boken The Better Angels of our Nature 
#Ikkeenfluefortred #SlavenkaDrakulic #folkemord 

485 bøker igjen!

Kjemi og det periodiske systemet er noe de fleste ikke har et så inngående forhold til. Noe naturfag og kjemi har en i skolen, men utover det virker det ikke veldig relevant i hverdagen. Dag O. Hessen, professor i biologi ved Oslo Universitet, gjør i denne boken karbonet og dets mange og uoversiktlige kretsløp spennende og svært aktuelt. Han gir oss også flere smarte klimaråd i slutten av boken. 
 

“Evig liv vil alltid være en utopi, men som deltager i karbonkretsløpet har vi alle en aksje i evigheten.” 

Boken begynner med noen historier til forfatterens eget detektivarbeid etter et tjerns bidrag i karbonsyklusen. Vi får vite en god del om både fotosyntese, celleånding, karbonlager og mange andre grunnleggende tema fra naturfag og kjemi. Hele tiden fortelles det med god innlevelse og sjarm. Det krydres med anekdoter og små historier. Særlig interessant er kanskje hans observasjon om kjemifagets begynnelse. Som regel i vitenskapshistorie forbindes enkelte hendelser og oppdagelser til enkeltpersoner. Hessens gjennomgang av oppdagelsen av Karbon, CO2 og de mange forbindelsene viser at det sjeldent er så enkelt i den virkelige verden.

“Det er forbausende ofte slik at hjulet eller kruttet finnes opp på nytt, og i alle fall var det slik den gang vitenskapelige nyvinninger ikke kunne søkes opp og lastes ned med et par tastetrykk.” 

Vi får en kjapp innføring i C14-metoden, som går ut på å måle mengden med radioaktivt karbon og på den måten si noe om når organismen døde, og på den måten knytter han atomfysikken til biologien. Vi får også lære at første gangen det ble oppdaget at vårt karbonkretsløp er i skikkelig ubalanse var allerede i 1957! Det er i skrivende stund 60 år siden, og vi har fortsatt ikke klart å kontrollere våre klimautslipp. 

Boka avslutter med en real kalddusj om klimakrisen vi opplever nå. Myndighetenes og oljebransjens påstand om at “ren norsk olje og gass” blir behørig avlivet som behagelig selvbedrag. Han gjør et godt argument med at vi bør bruke nettopp oljefondet til å omstille samfunnet av flere årsaker. Det er ikke bare økologisk sunt og økonomisk. Men også moralsk vil det være det rette å gjøre. Oljefondet er jo til for Norge i det langsiktige perspektivet. Det har fått sin verdi gjennom uttak fra karbonbanken, “der kontoen er bygget opp over noen hundre millioner år.” 

Argumentet koker ned til følgende. Klimaet er i endring som følge av store utslipp av CO2 (og andre drivhusgasser), og dette må vi gjøre noe med. Vi kan enten iverksette noen ubehagelige endringer nå, eller så vil det tvinge seg frem noen katastrofale endringer om litt lengre tid. Akkurat som Jared Diamond kom frem til i boken Kollaps. I fjor skrev jeg en kort anmeldelse av den boken

Boken er full med referanser til forskning, artikler, og bøker. Notene på slutten av boken inneholder en lang liste over hvor man kan lese mer om temaene i boken. “How Bad are bananas” av Mike Berner-Lee får et eget underkapitel. Den boken omhandler hvor store CO2-utslipp vi har fra vårt hverdagskonsum. Hessen anbefaler boken og kommer med en anbefaling om hvordan vi kan redusere vårt eget karbon-fotavtrykk. De viktigste tingene vi kan gjøre for å minimere CO2-utslipp er få færre barn, kutte ut så mange flyreiser som mulig, kutte så mye bilkjøring som mulig (både fossilbiler og elektrisk) og ikke minst kutte ned på kjøtt. Hva kjøttproduksjon angår så utgjør ikke transporten så mye av det totale utslippet. Det spiller med andre ord liten rolle om kjøttet kommer fra pampasen i Argentina eller en gård utenfor Porgrunn. Det er produksjon av storfe i seg selv som slipper ut så mye CO2. Merker jeg får mindre og mindre lyst til å spise kjøtt fremover. Det sitter langt inne å si det høyt. 

Noe jeg ble litt overrasket over var at grønnsaker dyrket i norske drivhus kan ha skikkelig høyt CO2-utslipp. Rett og slett pga ressursbruken som kreves. Vinterdyrkede cherrytomater bør en rett og slett holde seg unna da de kan ha opp mot 50 kg CO2 pr kilo tomater! Som referanse har biff omtrent 2 kg CO2 pr kilo biff. Hvor store utslipp forskjellige varer og (u)vaner har er komplisert. Derfor foreslår Hessen også at alle mennesker i Norge burde få en egen personlig CO2-kalkulator der en selv kan følge med på sitt eget forbruk. Å leve bærekraftig må også gjøres til noe kult og fremtidsrettet, slik Tesla gjør. Og dermed noe man har lyst til å være en del av. 

Klimarådene Hessen kommer med støtter påstandene Gunnar Tjomlid kom med i Debatten 21.09.2017 fullt ut. Sortering av avfall blir ikke en gang nevnt. 

Forfatteren avslutter boka med å konkludere med at vi klarer å gjenkjenne problemet og årsaken bak klimakrisen men vi klarer foreløpig ikke la den langsiktige rasjonaliteten overstyre den kortsiktige. Jeg som leser merker at jeg lengter etter noen trøstende ord, men dette kan Hessen ikke komme med.

“Allikevel vil jeg ikke avrunde med at det går sikkert bra til slutt, for det vet vi ganske enkelt ikke.”

Dette er en av sikkert mange bøker en skulle ønske de blå-blå og deres velgere leste før valget. Får håpe de gjør det før det setter i gang med oljeboringen nordpå. 

Karbon – en uautorisert biografi er en veldig bra bok. Den er nokså lettlest og det merkes at Dag O. Hessen er flink til å kommunisere fagstoff til oss vanlige dødelige. Ikke rart han av mange anses for å være vår riksbiolog. Av og til er han nesten poetisk i sine beskrivelser. 

Om sin egen død sier han “…Det vil derimot være en hyggelig tanke at jeg skal virvles videre gjennom historien, litt i trær, litt i hav, litt i kommende generasjoner på vei fra evighet til evighet.”

#mementomori #Karbon #DagOHessen #Klimakrisen #CO2 

rating: 6/6
486 books left!