Turns out that the organic movement might be a smaller, less important factor than it appears.  Check out this interesting item over at Sustainablog for the background.

As a sometimes-publisher, it was an education to see how complicated  it is to create an ebook from hard copy . Turns out to be a lot harder than it should be, but that’s only because I wanted to do everything myself.

Oh, yes — My son Jackson designed the cover. Great job.  You can order the book here.

Here’s the email:

Dear Professor Hager,

I am writing from FiveBooks at TheBrowser.com. Each day on FiveBooks, we feature an interview with an expert — a scholar, artist, politician, journalist, or other eminent figure — who recommends and discusses the five best books in his or her field. I thought you might be interested to know that  Dr Rajiv Shah has recommended your book, The Alchemy of Air, as one of five must read books on Breakthroughs in Development. Here is the link:
http://thebrowser.com/interviews/rajiv-shah-on-breakthroughs-development

The newest UN report is out -- and the news is pretty good

There’s always plenty of bad news to worry about. All you have to do is read the front page of your local paper or listen to a few excruciating minutes of the daily digest of disaster we call television news to fall into a sort of black funk about the fate of the world.

So keep this in mind:  Life is  getting dramatically better for a lot of people.

Check out this new report from the UN, which concludes that “The past 20 years have seen substantial progress in many aspects of human development. Most people today are healthier, live longer, are more educated and have more access to goods and services. Even in countries facing adverse economic conditions, people’s health and education have greatly improved. And there has been progress not only in improving health and education and raising income, but also in expanding people’s power to select leaders, influence public decisions and share knowledge.”

Of course it’s not all good news. There remain the underlying giant issues of climate change, pollution, income inequality, hunger, and on and on and on.  I would never argue that the world is in great shape, or that humans are perfect, or that there aren’t great problems to solve.

On the other hand, it’s easy to overdo the pessimism.  I know many people who — fed on a daily diet of cringe-inducing news — fall into a sort of despair for the human race, who come to believe that humans are dooming themselves.

We are not. Millions of us are, slowly and haltingly, working to make the world better. And much of the good we try to do is working.

Great challenges lie ahead of us. I hope we face them with determination, brains, common sense and — yes, I’ll say it — optimism.

[Thanks to Andy Revkin of DotEarth for pointing toward this rare piece of positive news]