Thomas F. Pawlick

Almost daily scientists are sounding dire warnings about the effects of climate change. Our young will bear an unprecedented burden. They are eager to discover what can be done, as time slips away. But few of them – or us – are aware that global warming is but one facet of a looming planetary catastrophe. Most of the natural and social systems humans depend on for survival are also in various stages of collapse. Each failure will impact the other systems, including climate, in a series of feedback loops that can unleash a virtual tsunami of destruction, and do so far sooner than climate scientists, looking only at their own discipline, predict. The corona virus pandemic has shown how unprepared we are. Multiply its effects times 10, times 50, to get an idea of what's coming. We have entered what scientists term a "critical state," at the brink of an unstable precipice. The smallest push or pull, from any direction, could suddenly topple us. Despite the global scale of the emergency, its root causes are predominantly human and surprisingly simple. With courage to act, we can slow the devastating cascade and, perhaps, even reverse some of the worst impacts.

Rural life in North America has changed dramatically since the days of the family farm, when people worked the same land for generations, let their cows graze in pastures and their chickens scratch in dirt, and sold their produce locally. The few remaining small farmers now struggle to survive, strangled by debt and a rash of complex regulations designed to drive them out of business. In their place are corporate-backed factory farms with little understanding of, or sympathy for, rural life. But the corporate and political interests determined to make this life extinct are meeting with fierce resistance. In this passionate and persuasive book, writer and farmer Thomas Pawlick uses his own rural community as a microcosm for the battle between industrial agriculture and local farming -- a clash whose outcome will determine the future of rural life in North America -- and also the quality and sustainability of our food, water, soil, and air.

The Baringo Kid is an eyewitness account of daily life among an expatriate development aid community in East Africa during the end of the Cold War. Based on the author's personal experience while working with several aid organizations, including the United Nations, it turns a lens on the lives of Africans, ordinary and extraordinary, and often unabashedly mercenary non-African expats with whom they for years shared a relationship of mutual aid and exploitation.