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Sick Planet: Corporate Food and Medicine
Neoliberals often point to improvements in public health and nutrition as examples of globalisation's success, but this book argues that the corporate food and medicine industries are destroying environments and ruining living conditions across the world.
Scientist Stan Cox expertly draws out the strong link between Western big business and environmental destruction. This is a shocking account of the huge damage that drug manufacturers and large food corporations are inflicting on the health of people and crops worldwide. Companies discussed include Wal-Mart, GlaxoSmithKline, Tyson Foods and Monsanto. On issues ranging from the poisoning of water supplies in South Asia to natural gas depletion and how it threatens global food supplies, Cox shows how the demand for profits is always put above the public interest.
While individual efforts to "shop for a better world" and conserve energy are laudable, Cox explains that they need to be accompanied by an economic system that is grounded in ecological sustainability if we are to find a cure for our Sick Planet.
Scientist Stan Cox expertly draws out the strong link between Western big business and environmental destruction. This is a shocking account of the huge damage that drug manufacturers and large food corporations are inflicting on the health of people and crops worldwide. Companies discussed include Wal-Mart, GlaxoSmithKline, Tyson Foods and Monsanto. On issues ranging from the poisoning of water supplies in South Asia to natural gas depletion and how it threatens global food supplies, Cox shows how the demand for profits is always put above the public interest.
While individual efforts to "shop for a better world" and conserve energy are laudable, Cox explains that they need to be accompanied by an economic system that is grounded in ecological sustainability if we are to find a cure for our Sick Planet.
224 pages, Paperback
First published March 11, 2008
About the author
Stan Cox
13 books21 followersStan Cox is author of Losing Our Cool: Uncomfortable Truths About Our Air-Conditioned World (The New Press, 2010) and Sick Planet (Pluto Press, 2008).
His op-ed columns have appeared in the Denver Post, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Kansas City Star, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, San Jose Mercury-News, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Hartford Courant, Providence Journal, Wilmington News Journal, Burlington Free Press, and the Progressive Populist. In addition, they have been in scores of smaller papers in 26 states.
Since 2003, he has written regularly for AlterNet.org and CounterPunch.org. Many of those articles have been reprinted by papers such as the Chicago Sun-Times, the Hartford Courant, Los Angeles Alternative, Fort Worth Weekly, Illinois Times, Albany, NY Metroland, and other papers. They have also been published by the journal Capitalism Nature Socialism, the Green journal Synthesis/Regeneration, the Indian national publications The Hindu and The Week, and the expatriate monthly Inside Mexico.
He contributed a chapter (and photos of his front yard) to Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Yard (Metropolis Books, 2008 and 2010)
His op-ed columns have appeared in the Denver Post, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Kansas City Star, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, San Jose Mercury-News, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Hartford Courant, Providence Journal, Wilmington News Journal, Burlington Free Press, and the Progressive Populist. In addition, they have been in scores of smaller papers in 26 states.
Since 2003, he has written regularly for AlterNet.org and CounterPunch.org. Many of those articles have been reprinted by papers such as the Chicago Sun-Times, the Hartford Courant, Los Angeles Alternative, Fort Worth Weekly, Illinois Times, Albany, NY Metroland, and other papers. They have also been published by the journal Capitalism Nature Socialism, the Green journal Synthesis/Regeneration, the Indian national publications The Hindu and The Week, and the expatriate monthly Inside Mexico.
He contributed a chapter (and photos of his front yard) to Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Yard (Metropolis Books, 2008 and 2010)
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
September 4, 2008
favorite chapter: "Agroterrorists can take a vacation",
"take a few common agroterror scenarios: terrorists might contaminate the food supply with biological agents; they could poison rural water supplies or release toxic clouds; they might breed bacteria resistant to most antibiotics; they'll release genetically engineered organisms; or-the all-purpose threat-they want to take away your freedom! As we will see, agrocapitalism has beaten agroterrorism to the punch in every one of these threats, and more.
Regarding C02 emissions, remember that argument that Kyoto doesn't require enough of the developing nations as far as doing their share of reducing emissions vs what is required of the developed countries? The author provides the interesting fact that it is foreign capital that "accelerates the rate of growth of C02 emissions in less developed countries", with two-thirds of that investment being in "dirtier activities" like fuels, chemicals, cement and metals.
Thus, the American Enterprise- or Competitive Enterprise Institute flacks who were so ubiqitous on radio and TV discussions of global warming around the world disparaging Kyoto for its emphasis on reducing the already massive emissions by the western industrialized vs how little was required of countries like India and China knew they were peddling BS, yet those they were debating did not seem to know this fact.
Also great is his dismantling of the facade of Whole Foods and their ilk. Incisive looks at the elitism of big time corporate organic and the nonsense they peddle is also good stuff.
Read through this kind of stuff to be informed of the falacies, fantasies and general BS of our system of food and drugs so that you are properly ready for the final chapter where Stan Cox makes it clear that real solutions to this mess are way beyond what our "mainstream" enviro-"thinkers" like Jared Diamond can fathom. To hint at what I mean here's a line from that last chapter, "In the ecosocialists {which would not of course include Diamond} view, capitalism is working about as well as any pyramid scheme does before it goes bust". Current mainstream thinking will not solve our rapidly accumulating problems.
Very readable, excellently and informatively footnoted with a suggested reading list.
"take a few common agroterror scenarios: terrorists might contaminate the food supply with biological agents; they could poison rural water supplies or release toxic clouds; they might breed bacteria resistant to most antibiotics; they'll release genetically engineered organisms; or-the all-purpose threat-they want to take away your freedom! As we will see, agrocapitalism has beaten agroterrorism to the punch in every one of these threats, and more.
Regarding C02 emissions, remember that argument that Kyoto doesn't require enough of the developing nations as far as doing their share of reducing emissions vs what is required of the developed countries? The author provides the interesting fact that it is foreign capital that "accelerates the rate of growth of C02 emissions in less developed countries", with two-thirds of that investment being in "dirtier activities" like fuels, chemicals, cement and metals.
Thus, the American Enterprise- or Competitive Enterprise Institute flacks who were so ubiqitous on radio and TV discussions of global warming around the world disparaging Kyoto for its emphasis on reducing the already massive emissions by the western industrialized vs how little was required of countries like India and China knew they were peddling BS, yet those they were debating did not seem to know this fact.
Also great is his dismantling of the facade of Whole Foods and their ilk. Incisive looks at the elitism of big time corporate organic and the nonsense they peddle is also good stuff.
Read through this kind of stuff to be informed of the falacies, fantasies and general BS of our system of food and drugs so that you are properly ready for the final chapter where Stan Cox makes it clear that real solutions to this mess are way beyond what our "mainstream" enviro-"thinkers" like Jared Diamond can fathom. To hint at what I mean here's a line from that last chapter, "In the ecosocialists {which would not of course include Diamond} view, capitalism is working about as well as any pyramid scheme does before it goes bust". Current mainstream thinking will not solve our rapidly accumulating problems.
Very readable, excellently and informatively footnoted with a suggested reading list.
July 23, 2008
Very strong stuff, much needed in this age of feel-good greenwashing and corporate-friendly new ageism.
Cox is not only a very good writer but has strong science chops and never resorts to radical cheerleading rhetoric. Instead he builds his structural critique of global capitalism's destruction of the Earth's ecosystems with great research and carefully footnoted data.
The book employs interviews Cox did with people dealing with waste from Big Pharma chemical plants in India, industrial agricultural workers in the heartland of the U.S. and other losers in the globalization sweepstakes. Anyone reading Bill McKibben and Michael Pollan should also read this book.
Good review from Guerrilla Network News:
http://www.gnn.tv/print/3583/Down_Wit...
Cox is not only a very good writer but has strong science chops and never resorts to radical cheerleading rhetoric. Instead he builds his structural critique of global capitalism's destruction of the Earth's ecosystems with great research and carefully footnoted data.
The book employs interviews Cox did with people dealing with waste from Big Pharma chemical plants in India, industrial agricultural workers in the heartland of the U.S. and other losers in the globalization sweepstakes. Anyone reading Bill McKibben and Michael Pollan should also read this book.
Good review from Guerrilla Network News:
http://www.gnn.tv/print/3583/Down_Wit...
June 25, 2022
Stan Cox discusses how our current health care system and our industrial agriculture is making both us and our planet sick.
I agree with him about his critque but not his solutions are not clear to me, he seems to suggest degrowth and consuming less and no mention of nuclear power. I gave this book 3 stars because I have read more detailed critque in other books and better solutions.
For further reading on solutions:
Leigh philips Austerity Ecology & the Collapse-Porn Addicts: A Defence Of Growth, Progress, Industry And Stuff
After Fukushima: What We Now Know: A History of Nuclear Power and Radiation by Andrew Daniels
Books that offer more critque of food & agriculture & environment
Big farms make big flu and Dead Epidemiologists by Rob Wallace
The Biofuel deception: Going hungry on the green carbon diet by okbazghi yohannes
Let them eat junk by Robert Albritton How capitalism creates hunger and obesity.
Green gone wrong by Heather Rogers
I agree with him about his critque but not his solutions are not clear to me, he seems to suggest degrowth and consuming less and no mention of nuclear power. I gave this book 3 stars because I have read more detailed critque in other books and better solutions.
For further reading on solutions:
Leigh philips Austerity Ecology & the Collapse-Porn Addicts: A Defence Of Growth, Progress, Industry And Stuff
After Fukushima: What We Now Know: A History of Nuclear Power and Radiation by Andrew Daniels
Books that offer more critque of food & agriculture & environment
Big farms make big flu and Dead Epidemiologists by Rob Wallace
The Biofuel deception: Going hungry on the green carbon diet by okbazghi yohannes
Let them eat junk by Robert Albritton How capitalism creates hunger and obesity.
Green gone wrong by Heather Rogers
April 6, 2009
The basis of this book is based upon the public health and nutrition improvements needed in our society. This books talks about how some food and medicine industries destroy the environment and ruins the living conditions. There is definitely a difference between the westernization industry. It goes in depth on the hunger for natural gas and an insider in the world inside our kitchen. I feel that this book does not really talk much about genetically modified food, but it is a great source if anyone is planning on doing a research paper on the problems our environment has which causes many to become sick.
August 6, 2015
It makes you think about the total price of pretty much everything. Not just the number on the label at the store that you pay at the counter. Somebody might have paid some for the it with his/her health, home, wellbeing etc. Makes you want to be a better customer.
November 13, 2018
This is unreal, I mean shocking as all hell. But it should really come as no surprise to folks. Where do you think food comes from & how many corporations do you think own our food supply? This is like for real scary stuff. How do you think this all happens? Well, it's because the money drives everything & the pharma giants have so much of it they don't know what to do w/ it. Why is this intertwined w/ food you ask, well this book will tell you the journey of this & how we all got suckered by it. The poor small farmers that are a dying industry have but no choice but to give in to mega-corps like Monsanto & they are simply awful, like so bad it will make you cringe. These corporate giants are slowly killing us & nobody is really paying attention to it & that's a shame. Trying to go up against them is not easy but it has been done. What they have done not just to people but the land & animals is something that will make you sick to your stomach. So yeah you should really learn about this issue & how the past several decades have changed the way we eat because of how food is being processed & not necessarily for the better.
June 28, 2021
Fantastic all around!
August 8, 2008
I can recommend this book without reservation (wink wink)
October 10, 2016
Good Book that concern about pollution not caused by human, but also effect it on human.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews