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Plunderers of the Earth: the Erosion of Civilization, the Mad Crusade to Control the Climate, and the Untold Story of Soil and CO2.
In Plunderers of the Earth, Julius Ruechel tells the tale of how complex political and ecological systems unravel — often in tandem — whenever a society embraces centralized decision-making, empowers a masterful administrative state, and thereby creates perverse incentives that gradually hollow out once-thriving civilizations. But because these processes work on a different timescale from the speed at which impatient humans live their lives, few can see the slow but relentless forces eroding the foundations of civilization, and fewer still recognize the implications.
No academic discipline is a better example of the corrupting influence of politics than the field of climate science. The crusade against carbon dioxide that has emerged from the toxic marriage between science, politics, and corporate interests not only serves as the “noble lie” upon which to build a new global social order — and to grease the wheels of a wholly artificial $5 trillion (and growing) “green” global economy — but in an echo of the destructive forces set in motion in the lead-up to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s by another now-discredited climate theory (“the rain follows the plow”), today’s erroneous climate theory is once again preventing us from recognizing an altogether different and very real ecological story unfolding right beneath our feet that has gone largely unnoticed even as our misguided climate policies accelerate that ecological crisis and block its solutions.
No academic discipline is a better example of the corrupting influence of politics than the field of climate science. The crusade against carbon dioxide that has emerged from the toxic marriage between science, politics, and corporate interests not only serves as the “noble lie” upon which to build a new global social order — and to grease the wheels of a wholly artificial $5 trillion (and growing) “green” global economy — but in an echo of the destructive forces set in motion in the lead-up to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s by another now-discredited climate theory (“the rain follows the plow”), today’s erroneous climate theory is once again preventing us from recognizing an altogether different and very real ecological story unfolding right beneath our feet that has gone largely unnoticed even as our misguided climate policies accelerate that ecological crisis and block its solutions.
849 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 14, 2024
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November 23, 2025
Plunderers of the Earth: the Erosion of Civilization, the Mad Crusade to Control the Climate, and the
Untold Stories of Soil and CO2. Julius Ruechel 2024 Julius Ruechel ISBN 9798335219761
It took the better part of a #2 pencil along with a sheet of stickers to flag the many constructs of stark wisdom in this book; all of which included meticulous graphs, photographs, and citations. While only part way through the book I contacted Sally about doing a review.
Years ago my life journey included being “taken” by Al Gore’s book. (Please don’t cancel me!) Then,
doubts kept surfacing. Dr. Cowan encourages us to learn through what we see and feel vs. experts.
Through WAPF, I found that Alan Savory’s information on desertification gave me the ‘tangible’ Dr.
Cowan refers to. Desertification is something I can see and feel here in the Midwest!
Soil health books galore have mesmerized me. But Ruechel’s has topped them all in information-rich-nuggets. The author has my deep gratitude for exorcising any traces of “climate narrative” still wasting space in my head! Email discussion with the author indicated that he has been a Weston A. Price Foundation follower for years.
Ruechel posits that, yes, the fact that carbon dioxide (CO2) is increasing should be a concern to us. But not for the reason the “climate experts” and the media portray. It is not rising because of cow farts. (Livestock numbers are at an all-time low.) It is not high from fossil fuel use, or even the travel that you have been made to feel guilty about. Carbon dioxide increases in the ‘atmosphere when carbon is released from volcanoes, oceans, biomass decaying or oxidizing, and from MISMANAGED SOIL The soil itself, tilled with a diesel tractor, emits far more carbon from being tilled than the tractor emits while doing the tilling!
The book is written in a “who-donnit” format that kept me turning the 683 pages! This one is so rich is solid factual evidence that will lend it to future reference that I am unwilling to share it. After underlining and flagging, I wrote 12 pages of notes for easier referencing. (I will gladly share those notes with those of you who read the book.) I wish it were a required textbook for high school.
Just recently Earth.com had a headline about CO2 being a higher level now than it has been in 800,000 years! OK. They got my attention. Maybe it is. But does that mean it is dangerously high? Carbon dioxide is plant food, so how much CO2 is too much for plants? Ruechel provides evidence that about 1300 ppm is ideal for plants. How high is CO2 in our atmosphere now? Less than 500 ppm. How much CO2 will be enough to wipe humans off the earth? About 4000 ppm according to Ruechel.
As an “apolitical” reader of this book, the author propelled me directly into the foray of politics and dirt. Politics is dirty, but politics, property rights, and prosperity are all mired in soil mismanagement. It sounds too simple, but the truth is simple. It all starts with the denigration of the soil. And the solution is not to mar our landscape with turbines, or any of the other bloated, bureaucratic boondoggles wasting fiscal resources and continuing to plunder. We need to care for our soil.
Ruechel concludes with three case studies on soil management and economic/political mayhem: The
unraveling of Sahel, Australia on fire, and Haiti’s long descent into hell. All three arrows clearly point to soil denigration as the underlying culprit.. Then, chillingly, concludes with the “Water Wars” strangling the livestock industry in British Columbia.
Definitely two thumbs up!
(Printed in the Wise Traditions quarterly journal, August 25, 2025)
Untold Stories of Soil and CO2. Julius Ruechel 2024 Julius Ruechel ISBN 9798335219761
It took the better part of a #2 pencil along with a sheet of stickers to flag the many constructs of stark wisdom in this book; all of which included meticulous graphs, photographs, and citations. While only part way through the book I contacted Sally about doing a review.
Years ago my life journey included being “taken” by Al Gore’s book. (Please don’t cancel me!) Then,
doubts kept surfacing. Dr. Cowan encourages us to learn through what we see and feel vs. experts.
Through WAPF, I found that Alan Savory’s information on desertification gave me the ‘tangible’ Dr.
Cowan refers to. Desertification is something I can see and feel here in the Midwest!
Soil health books galore have mesmerized me. But Ruechel’s has topped them all in information-rich-nuggets. The author has my deep gratitude for exorcising any traces of “climate narrative” still wasting space in my head! Email discussion with the author indicated that he has been a Weston A. Price Foundation follower for years.
Ruechel posits that, yes, the fact that carbon dioxide (CO2) is increasing should be a concern to us. But not for the reason the “climate experts” and the media portray. It is not rising because of cow farts. (Livestock numbers are at an all-time low.) It is not high from fossil fuel use, or even the travel that you have been made to feel guilty about. Carbon dioxide increases in the ‘atmosphere when carbon is released from volcanoes, oceans, biomass decaying or oxidizing, and from MISMANAGED SOIL The soil itself, tilled with a diesel tractor, emits far more carbon from being tilled than the tractor emits while doing the tilling!
The book is written in a “who-donnit” format that kept me turning the 683 pages! This one is so rich is solid factual evidence that will lend it to future reference that I am unwilling to share it. After underlining and flagging, I wrote 12 pages of notes for easier referencing. (I will gladly share those notes with those of you who read the book.) I wish it were a required textbook for high school.
Just recently Earth.com had a headline about CO2 being a higher level now than it has been in 800,000 years! OK. They got my attention. Maybe it is. But does that mean it is dangerously high? Carbon dioxide is plant food, so how much CO2 is too much for plants? Ruechel provides evidence that about 1300 ppm is ideal for plants. How high is CO2 in our atmosphere now? Less than 500 ppm. How much CO2 will be enough to wipe humans off the earth? About 4000 ppm according to Ruechel.
As an “apolitical” reader of this book, the author propelled me directly into the foray of politics and dirt. Politics is dirty, but politics, property rights, and prosperity are all mired in soil mismanagement. It sounds too simple, but the truth is simple. It all starts with the denigration of the soil. And the solution is not to mar our landscape with turbines, or any of the other bloated, bureaucratic boondoggles wasting fiscal resources and continuing to plunder. We need to care for our soil.
Ruechel concludes with three case studies on soil management and economic/political mayhem: The
unraveling of Sahel, Australia on fire, and Haiti’s long descent into hell. All three arrows clearly point to soil denigration as the underlying culprit.. Then, chillingly, concludes with the “Water Wars” strangling the livestock industry in British Columbia.
Definitely two thumbs up!
(Printed in the Wise Traditions quarterly journal, August 25, 2025)
Displaying 1 of 1 review