Wednesday, July 23, 2025

Book Review: The Omnivore's Deception

Image: the cover of the book is a red background with a large chef's knife pointing diagonally up through the center. In black at the top is "The Omnivore's deception." Below that to the right in white is "what we get wrong about meat, animals, and ourselves." Across the bottom in black is the author's name "John Sanbonmatsu."

I went into John Sanbonmatsu's new book The Omnivore's Deception: What We Get Wrong About, Meat, Animals, and Ourselves a little nervous. I had seen Sanbonmatsu talk and enjoyed it, but had only read one essay in the past. It was so jargony and academic that I feared that this book might be, too. Luckily, it is readable, though heavy in subject matter as is to be expected. Sanbonmatsu is passionate about these topics, the experiences and worth of animals including humans, and in conveying important information. I have some concerns with how he went about it at times which I will discuss, but overall found this book to be an important addition to the collective liberation canon. I will note that I no longer read or watch most graphic cruelty descriptions or footage (I have witnessed enough for many lifetimes.) There is not a torturous amount in this book, but I did skip paragraphs here and there that I thus cannot comment on as they are the only things I did not read.

Before reading this book, I knew quite a bit of the long dark shadow of Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma. Many people who have ever been involved in the monumental task of trying to get people to have respect for farmed animals know of the damage that Pollan's feel good copout of a book caused. It gave people who thought they might care about other animals and climate change a way to think that they could change next to nothing and somehow end up helping animals and the planet by harming and killing them the nice way. On top of the widespread negative cultural effects it had, it's also full of absolute bullsh*t. It has been a long time since then, and a book confronting all of this has been long overdue. 

It has been so long that I didn't realize just what I was getting into. Even in hindsight, I did not recall quite how diabolical Pollan's words were, how absolutely cruel his assessments. I did not know that his book is infuriatingly still considered mandatory reading for some courses as some sort of guideline for how to (use liberal capitalism to cause immense suffering and climate destruction for taste.) The cultural lore around Pollan's book made it stick even in my 19 year vegan mind as less horrifying than it was. Sanbonmatsu delves deep into the depths of the text, highlighting just how dangerous the "humane" slaughter movement has been. He shows quite clearly how neoliberal "welfarist" consumerism reduces other animals to the status of products, just like other forms of exploitation towards them. In a way, it becomes more frightening than the callous cruelty in undercover footage that may have gotten some people to pay attention to what happens to other animals before their body parts are packaged. It has taught these people that that cruelty is not cruelty at all. In fact, you should feel good about it. Messages like Pollan's went as far as to pretend people were doing animals a favor by sending them to slaughterhouses. I could go on and on, as you may guess this lit a fire inside me a bit, but I want to focus on this book rather than just one of its many subjects.

Sanbonmatsu uses Pollan's book as an anchor for a far larger scope and discussion of our relationships to harm of other animals. I appreciate that he was clear and direct in his language, calling a spade a spade, rather than allowing industry terms to proliferate. He does well to show how offensive and ridiculous many "humane" slaughter proponents are, using their own words and materials to do so. He shows how the drive for localvoreism caused hippie granola types to embrace the far right and move away from leftist consideration for both humans and other animals (if they were ever on the left, some hippies never were.) He discusses the "femivore" trend wherein women take up harming animals in the many ways men have more traditionally done so (hunting, slaughter, etc) and treat this turn towards patriarchy- complete with their own versions of machismo- as a form of womens liberation. 

Sanbonmatsu discusses connections with various oppressions such as the abuse of slaughterhouse workers forced to do the most dangerous and traumatic tasks of killing animals for those who shield their eyes. He does a decent take down of utilitarianist ableism of philosophers like Peter Singer, which he discovered after initially being inspired by Singer's ethical arguments for other (nondisabled) animals. This was also something I was aware of and had read about before, but somehow, perhaps by grace of the universe, I had not heard of Singer's "Should the Baby Die?" until this. It's even more appalling than I had realized. I am grateful that I could not locate more than citations of posts tearing down the piece during a quick search, so hopefully it will die and no one else will have to read it. Sanbonmatsu also discusses ecofascism and the words of Holocaust survivors explaining their thoughts about the mistreatment of other animals. This was unfortunately one of the few times his mention of the Holocaust felt appropriate. The leads to my criticisms.

I am not someone who thinks one should never discuss intertwined oppression between humans and other animals. I believe all of these things are complex and interconnected in many ways. Many writers and organizers have done far better jobs than I can in a small space here, so I added a few recommendations at the end of this review. It took me a long time to flesh out the ways to discuss collective liberation that is inclusive of nonhuman animals that did not misrepresent or cheapen the struggles of any of the groups involved. It is not easy and I still make mistakes. I do think that Sanbonmatsu makes some mistakes in this book in this regard.

He frequently discusses (US chattel) slavery, Naziism and the (Shoah) Holocaust, and makes some other statements that made me cringe a bit. My issue is not that humans and other animals should never be discussed together. In fact, I and people of many marginalized groups discuss how we are intertwined in solidarity with other animals facing oppression. My problem is when people make direct comparisons that are not apt. For instance, discussion of the atrocities of animal agribusiness alongside genocide, with semi direct comparisons, cheapens and erases BOTH struggles. We are not trying to wipe out farmed animals (I know genocide is far more than that but for brevity's sake...) It's the opposite, they make up most of the birds and mammals on the entire planet because of what we have done to them. That is completely different from genocide. I suppose hunters and ranchers' attempts to wipe out predator species could have some connection, but still has its own horrors. Both are horrifying in unique ways. 

All of these forces do involve the animalization/objectification/pest-ification of others (discussed in better detail in other books at the end) that can be a unifying factor, but that was not the author's focus. We can discuss how the roots of oppression, hierarchy, capitalism, fascism, and so on are the connecting threads between these things without making these sort of comparisons. I do not think Sanbonmatsu actually means to be making 1:1 pairings. But, the way things are written, it reads like he does. I think he needed a bit more practice and feedback regarding the minefield that these discussions occupy before spending so much of the book doing so.

My other issue is the pop psychology sections of the book wherein Sanbonmatsu compares our relationships to other animals with psychopathy and sociopathy. These sections show that he is a philosophy professor, not a psychology one. Much of the info is inaccurate in the same ways journalists writing about science and health can be. Much of it is irrelevant. It is much more apt to discuss industrialized humans in relation to other animals from a sociological/group dynamics perspective. People are not showing traits of individual sociopathy any more than anyone else (as we all have traits of most mental illness in lesser amounts.) People behave these ways because it's what everyone is doing, it's cultural, normative, and accepted, etc. That fits far better into the central thesis regarding Pollan strengthening these dynamics with horrific results. I would also be remiss if I did not mention that Sanbonmatsu discusses his outdoor cats without realization of both the threat this caused to them and how that impacts other animal populations in the area, particularly birds and rodents. A short anecdote, so this is my short response.

Part of why these flaws really get to me is that I believe that they could stop some people from finishing the book. Many people don't finish most books that they start as it is. Sanbonmatsu's book absolutely shines in the end. This is where we get into his academic field of philosophy. The discussions of  personhood and consciousness are by far some of the best I have ever read. These are topics that have been written about and discussed for centuries so that is saying a lot. I put so many flags in that section that I eventually marked the entire chapters. I hope that anyone who may find themselves put off by some of the flaws with this book will simply skip over those parts rather than put the book down entirely. There are some really important thoughts in here that I hope reach a wider audience.

This was also posted to my goodreads and storygraph.

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*Note: initially thought Sanbonmatsu was joining VINE book club this month, so I put this off. But, it is actually going to be at the end of August. I will update after that if anything seems important to add.
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Books that explore collective liberation including other than human animals (I am sure I am forgetting some):

Beasts of Burden
 and Disabled Ecologies by Sunaura Taylor

Oxen at the Intersection and Birds Eye Views by pattrice jones

Feminism in the Wild
 Ambika Kamath and Malina Packer

Transfarmation
 Leah Garces
Aphroism  by Aph and Syl Ko
Meet the Neighbors Brandon Keim

Fear of the Animal Planet
  by Jason Hribal

Veganism in an Oppressive World
  Vegan of Color Community

When Animals Speak
  and Animal Languages by Eve Meijer


Fat Gay Vegan
  Sean O'Callaghan

There are a bunch more on  my to-read list , but I did not list them since I have not read them yet or just forgot to. Many of them came highly recommended, particularly works by Lori Gruen and Claire Jean Kim. 

Tuesday, July 22, 2025

Book Review: Feminism in the Wild

 

Image: The cover of the book is divided in half with white below and above a landscape of  three lionesses and two cubs on a hill with a cloudy sky behind them. Across the top is the quote "Anyone who's curious about animal behavior should read this book." -Ed Yong, author of An Immense World and I Contain Multitudes. In large white letters across the center is "feminism." In black below that is "in the wild". In smaller blue letters is "how human biases shape our understanding of animal behavior." Below that in black is Ambika Kamath and Melina Packer.

Feminism in the Wild is the type of science book I feel like I've been waiting for for a long time. I often run into science texts that don't take bias and social justice or cultural influences into account at all. On the other hand, I'll sometimes find books that do tackle those things and try to connect them with science that don't do very well in grasping the science side. There have been some books that have bridged this gap, but Ambika Kamath and Melina Packer's book one of the best ones in my opinion.

As I expected, one of the authors' focus is on how humans' interpretation of research resumes is highly informed by bias, patriarchal norms, cisgender heterosexual dominance, and other cultural limitations. For instance, the existence homosexuality in many species has been known for a very long time, but scientists jumped through hoops to find other reasons why the animals were acting the way they were. Some scientists still try to deny that homosexual behavior exists in other animals despite it being extensively documented and tons of species. The idea of sex as a simplistic binary is another realm in which scientific results have been ignored to fit into dominant narratives. 

At the same time the authors are clear that they want to avoid placing any sort of strict binarist explanations on to the worlds of other animals. This means neither projecting a patriarchal capitalist hellscape sort of evolutionary hierarchy on to them, nor treating them as if they live in some feminist utopia full of magical fairy creatures. I am an avid birder and in viewing thousands (millions?) of birds from hundreds of species, I can say that there is great variance both within and across species in terms of culture, communication, behavior, sexuality, and so on. I have seen touching affection and cooperation as well as aggression almost too hard to watch. Much like many encounters I've had with humans.

Kamath and Packer also focus on positional knowledge and the importance of cooperation throughout the natural world. Despite some scientists' claims that nature is a world full of competition and conflict, the authors, like many who have come before them, demonstrate that cooperation is often far more common and is not the aberration it's often made it to be. Individualist self-interest is not what is driving everything, even if colonialist scientists did their best to try to fit their findings into that narrative.

Another standout section is where they talk about evolution. One of my biggest pet peeves of something like 90% of science books I read that discuss evolution is that they treat every trait as if it is advantageous. They jump through thousands of hoops trying to find a reason that every single thing another animal does is due to evolutionary fitness and reproduction. Kamath and Packer rightly criticize the optimalist way of viewing things. They acknowledge the reality that evolution is a bunch of random shit happening and proliferating over millions of years. There are advantageous traits that end up being passed on through reproduction and attraction, sure, but latched on to those are plenty of other things that range from nonsensical to weakening to a hell of a good time regardless of the cost. There are always going to be things that all species have and do that are not in line with reproduction and survival of the fittest at every second of their complex lives. 

The authors also take the evolutionary discussion a step further, seeing it through a queer and feminist lens. I had not thought about it exactly that way before, but it makes a lot of sense. Some of the biggest objections to lgbtq and feminist causes from social darwinists is that they aren't in line with perceived hierarchy, evolution, or other animal behavior (all of which they are also usually wrong about.) But, they don't have to be because that's not how animals work. We are all in amalgamation of many things and some of those are indeed very linked to survival. There are also endless non-adaptive explanations. Reducing our lives and that of other animals to a simple race for procreation and survival is frankly very silly. It's not true and it's the opposite of how we know evolution to act.

The only criticisms I have of this book are that they regularly use the term "differently abled" instead of disabled (or people/animals with disabilities which would have been ok.) I have no idea why they did this given how clear and expansive their knowledge of anti-oppression frameworks is as "differently ables" has been fairly well discussed as an insulting. It was created by a person without any disabilities and treats disability as a dirty word instead of a basic reality. The other problem I had was a section where they discuss domestic chickens in very archaic language that was completely out of place in the book- including how they discuss domestic and lab animals in general. Claiming a genetic researcher "solved" the welfare problem (of forcing tons of birds into a cage the size of a shoe box to live out their miserable horrific lives- as is the case of most farmed birds) by selectively breeding for less reactivity to crowded atrocious conditions was insulting. This was brief, and felt like it came from an entirely different book. It was later followed by extensive discussion about the lives and experiences of animals in more considerate and accurate terms, so I'm not sure what happened there. 

This leads me to what is one of the most refreshing parts about this book. At the end of the book they actually confront the issue with researching other animals who do not consent to our intervention. They do not conveniently avoid the oppressive and consent violating nature that is the laboratory animal research industry. They do not avoid discussing research of animals outside of captivity and how we need to consider their consent as well. They dwell in the contradiction that is both reporting results of nonconsensual research and having a discussion about if that research should occur. It is written respectfully and carefully, I am sure as not to scare away their colleagues who have been taught their entire education to immediately reject such concerns. The authors acknowledge that there may be times that we need to forgo knowing something in order to respect the animals we are studying. They acknowledge the truth that we can and should find new methods of study.

This is a brave and refreshing take for science writers as even some of the more considerate science texts, which acknowledged the cruelty in some experiments or who highlight the individual desires and experiences of other animals, will not go as far as to say maybe these experiments shouldn't happen in the first place. There is an ignorant knee-jerk reaction to any criticism by many animal researchers and their kin who claim that there is no other way to do things (or worse, simply demean their subjects as objects or unworthy- like us enough to extrapolate data from, but not like us enough that they suffer and deserve consideration.) Yet, many human research endeavors are now seen as atrocities and we have found new ways to study our own species. There have also been miniscule changes in laws around the use of a (minority) of animals wherein certain methods are not longer permitted. There are plenty of brilliant minds in these fields with the ingenuity and creativity needed to find new ways of knowing. I appreciate that Kamath and Packer acknowledge the archaic nature of a lot of this research and encourage science to move forward.

I want to note that, since I focused on the general arguments of the book rather than the specifics, there are a lot of data in the text. The authors give evidence from many studies of many species to support their points. This is not a detached theoretical exercise. This was a refreshing book to read and I hope the authors continue to write in ways that are able to convey scientific realities and how they intertwine with our and others' lived experience.

This was also posted to my goodreads and storygraph.

Monday, July 21, 2025

Book Review: What's Real About Race

Image: The cover of the book is a black background with a multicolored striped double helix illustration going down the center. In large white letters across the top is Rina Bliss, Below that, "What's real about race," and below that, "untangling science, genetics, and society."

I picked up Rina Bliss' What's Real About Race because I have frequently found myself very confused about what race actually is, when it makes sense to call attention to it being made up as a means to control and oppress, when there are real measurable differences in health supposedly genetics based on race, and when race is a culturally existing phenomenon deeply affecting the lives of everyone in different ways. I really enjoyed this book because it does what many authors struggle to do- offers a summary of science, social justice, history, and other elements written in a way that many people outside academia are able to understand.

Bliss is a researcher in sociology and genetic science and seeks to dispel myths around the use of racial categories as distinct genetic groups while also confronting the reality that race is very much at a systemic and personal level. This shows in the ways she navigates across different modalities while conveying information to the reader that weaves them together.

I consider myself fairly well read at this point on ideas about race as a social construct. I am less familiar with how race exists in the genetic realm and it appears that I am not alone in that. Even social justice focused doctors and scientists seem to be consistently confused or knowingly convey inaccurate information in the ways they summarize their findings. The reasons for these mistakes made by scientists and medical professionals have such a wide range that it is odd how they often come to the same place of treating racial categories as clearly delineated, homogenous groups with simplistic origins and similar genomes. For some, it is straight up racism and eugenics. For others, it is habitual use of outdated and disproven classification systems that are sometimes required by certain journals and platforms. For corporations, like geneology DNA labs, it's a capitalist venture, becoming ever more destructive as these companies grow. For others still, it is to seek liberation and appropriate care and attention for oppressed and marginalized racial groups. 

What Bliss shows is that even the most social justice minded scientist, including BIPOC ones, can suffer from implicit bias or from improperly categorizing the spectrum of humanity into distinct genetic categories that do not exist. She also offers solutions to these modalities and approaches, directed both towards scientists and medical professionals as well as the reader. She expresses the importance of being able to interpret the way journalists also fall into these traps when reporting on research or demographic disparities in media. 

Bliss' ability to navigate all of these elements is a strength that makes this book live up to the title. Is Race real? Yes and no. Here and there. Relevant in many situations and irrelevant in others. All of this packed into a small volume that is readable for the masses makes this a really strong book that is not quite like other things I have read.

This was also posted to my goodreads and storygraph.

Sunday, June 22, 2025

Book Review: The Secret Perfume of Birds

Image: The cover of the book is a powder blue background with two hoopoes- birds with long curved bills, rufous bodies, and black and white wings and crests- in the upper left and lower right. In the center in large black print is "the secret perfume of birds." Below that in smaller print is "uncovering the science of avian scent" and below that "danielle whittaker."

I was excited when I first discovered Danielle Whittakers book on avian scent-  The Secret Perfume of Birds - in part because I was struck by how little I knew about the subject. There are many myths, old and new, surrounding birds ability, or inability, to smell. This book not only taught me a lot about this subject, but also helped me understand some things about myself and other humans. This book is well written, albeit in conflicting styles at times. It also functions in part as a memoir of an unintentional scientist. Whitaker had an unusual path to becoming a researcher, which adds an interesting element of storytelling. It also shows how people with diverse educational backgrounds often find important ways to collaborate with researchers from other fields. At times I felt like the switch between memoir and harder science made the book geared towards conflicting audiences. Sometimes this served the text, but others it did not.

One of the things that struck me early on about this book, that made me quite excited, was the author's discussion of social issues and how they pertain to sciences and the history of research on birds. In many texts, we learn information about great ornithologist of the past such as John James Audubon. Times have been changing, and some Audubon Societies have voted to shift their names to something other than a man who enslaved people and shot birds that are portrayed in his famous artwork in order to pose the dead bodies. It was interesting to see a text not only mentioned Audubon's history, but also call attention to one of the times that he really messed up in both his research methods and his conclusions. Due to his extremely faulty studies of turkey vultures (and through ineptitude mislabeled black vultures,) a myth was spread that birds do not have a keen sense of smell in his publication of his results. We now know the turkey vultures can smell carrion from miles away- they are one of the few species of birds whose evidence for keen sense of smell is widely accepted. Other ornithologists called him out on this. The issues remained. 

When discussing the exclusion and oppression of women in sciences, the author draws the conclusion that the reason that smell was not given as much attention in ornithology and other research is that women like her were the ones studying it. I think this is a bit more complicated as she discusses men rebutting claims that birds could not smell early on. She bases much of this on personal (accurate, believable) experiences being shut down by men regarding her hypotheses and findings. It is also worth noting that the biggest beneficiaries of things like affirmative action are white women, but race is not discussed much until the end. She also discusses the myth that birds cannot smell you (being the reason that returning nestlings is ok.) While well intentioned, it is not true, and luckily many warnings have been updated to say returning baby birds to the nest even if they do smell like you isn't a problem. In my experience, most people working in in bird and other animal rescue are women. So it seems the proliferation of the myths came for many sources. None of this is to say that we should not be aware of these biases as it is well known that women are over represented in many fields that involve the care of and understanding of other animals

Another reason why the myth of birds having an inability to smell proliferated was due to incorrect hypotheses about brain size.  You may have heard the phrase bird brain used to describe someone negatively. The reality is that while birds have smaller brains, the neurons within are much more densely packed. This is why we find out through research, and to be quite honest through observation of anyone with an open mind, that birds are able to think, feel, have culture, individual differences, and so on. We also learned through research like that of the authors that birds have keen senses of smell that are important in many aspects of their lives. Through her own and others research, the author has found evidence that smell influences birds' social lives, mate choices, health and well-being, traits of offspring, and even the proliferation of a healthy microbiome. I will not go into too much detail of these because I want to focus a little bit more on how science was written about in this book.

I did not have the same reaction that some other readers had to the science reporting in this book. There is more nuance to it for me. I believe that the biggest error is that this book seems to be written for the layman at times and at others is geared toward people with science and statistical backgrounds. As a result, when the author reports an observation and then refers to that observation as not being "statistically significant," folks with a science/statistics background know that this means that that result could be caused by chance (or human error/bias.) We know that this is something that needs to be studied further or something that may not exist at all as a result. People without any science or statistics background may read these passages and take away from them that the result was proof of a behavior. Whittaker choosing to mix many of her statistically significant results with other observations that may be caused by pure chance or coincidence can be seen as irresponsible with a mixed audience.

On the other hand, there is a large issue in science publication wherein only certain results that support certain hypotheses end up being published. However, it is very important for us to also publish when studies do not support the hypothesis, but these papers aren't as sexy and as a result, are not found in journals nearly as much. With this reality in mind, I found the author's humility regarding what she found in many of her studies to be refreshing. She discusses the results in a rather young field and admits when her team made mistakes, didn't find what they were looking for, or where the methodology even if it does provide a cause and effect result, may not tell the whole picture. The last point is extremely important and something that I find highly frustrating in a lot of science reporting on other animals. I thought the author did a good job of this provided that the reader understands what some of the terminology is ahead of time.

The ethics reporting in this book started off strong but ended up mixed or disappointing at times. While she did highlight some of the problems with researchers like Audubon and mentioned that some studies with birds are cruel, she goes on to discuss many of these things later to support her points. She does so not only without criticism, but with faulty euphemisms to turn off the reader's (and I assume her own) empathy and cognitive dissonance. I would honestly rather someone report on horrific abuse of animals in sciences without comment, than to do so in a way that falsely placates the warranted worries of the reader. I also found some of her descriptions of her own actions with birds to go against her assertion that research causes stress that must be accounted for and reduced as much as possible. None of this is unusual for science writing, but I expected better from an author claiming to go against the grain in terms of oppression in science. We need to accept that the idea of "no difference that humans chose to see" does not mean suffering did not occur. I believe anyone who's had brain surgery or injury can explain pretty definitively that is it is not like getting a paper cut yet it is always treated that way and text like these, and those are people who can actually grasp what has happened and why.

I believe her reporting regarding evolutionary advantages to certain aspects of avian scent to be frustrating at times. This is another thing that is very common in science texts and I don't really understand why. Perhaps it is the need to be able to streamline things into a simple conclusion, or just seeing what we want to see. We know from the entire study of evolution that traits existing currently in any living creature are not all entirely advantageous. We know the evolution is something that takes place over an extremely long amount of time with traits appearing randomly and some proliferating through selective breeding. However, since you cannot isolate or remove one aspect of anyone, other traits will proliferate with those some of them being advantageous in others being not at all- sickle cell anemia being protective of malaria infection for instance. There are also tons of individual differences especially psychologically. Whitaker goes out of her way a lot to talk about why every single thing birds do is due to evolutionary breeding advantages. Maybe birds sometimes just like having sex. Maybe some birds that are paired for the season, or especially for life, don't mind raising the young that is genetically sired by another bird because they like their partner. Or maybe they're just used to that partner and the comfort of staying there outweighs the need to genetically pass on information. Think about how many things humans do that are not evolutionarily advantageous. Other animals like humans are messy in this arena. I don't think we really need it as much time spent on evolutionary reasoning for results as they are interesting enough on their own.

The large section at the end of the book on microbiomes is where I learned the most. There was so much interesting information in there that I'd never heard before and the sections which included human information ended up making things more personal. I have hyperosmia. My sense of smell being so strong and my reactions to scents both ruin my life at times. Post-covid-19-lockdown era (covid is not over,) we know that many human beings have also experienced changes in both the scents they emit and what they can/not smell. I never realized how much physical distancing would have to do with that though until reading this book. Discussions on the combination of microbiomes through affection and socialization being important was extremely interesting. To folks wno commonly DNF books, even if you're familiar with things in the first chunks of the book I really recommend reading through the last part.

I realize that my review appears highly critical, but this is not because I did not enjoy nor get a lot out of this book. On the contrary, I learned a great number of things and this vastly expanded my understanding of birds. I now find myself thinking about avian scent research when I'm out birding, adding an entirely new aspect to the way I understand these birds' interactions and lives in general. I chose to focus critically on the writing based in part on how other reviewers discussed this book. All of this is to say that I recommend reading this book even with these criticisms in mind. Going into it already knowing to look out for some of these things enriched my experience and allowed me to focus on the things that I really wanted to learn. I would definitely read more by this author and I look forward to hearing about new advances in research on avian olfaction. 

This was also posted to my storygraph and goodreads.

Monday, June 16, 2025

Book Review: Red Flag Warning

Image: the cover of the book is an overexposed low contrast image of flames in colors of white and red. Across the top and black is Red Flag Warning. Below that in white is mutual aid and survival in California's fire country. Below that in Black smaller letters is edited by Dani Burlison and Margaret Elysia, introduction by Manjula Martin.

Red Flag Warning, edited by Dani Burlison and Margaret Elysia, is necessary reading in current times. This collection of essays covers a lot of ground for such a small amount of pages. I found all of the entries to be very well written and edited. The use of space in this book is quite efficient and appreciated. 

Equal parts affecting and pragmatic, RFW manages to capture the horrors and desperation of wildfire while also understanding it as an inevitable and sometimes useful part of the landscape. I am in my 40s now and grew up in SoCal until I was about 9 years old. I remember back then the droughts, fires, and heat waves. Over these few decades since, it is frankly terrifying to see how much ecological disaster and collapse has accelerated. Now I watch the destruction from afar, gaining glimpses but no longer experiencing it the same way. The entries in this book bring the issue more front and center and grounded me more in the dire situations now plaguing fire prone areas. 

The way some of the authors capture the experience of terror and loss has left me thinking about them for days. The book can be difficult at times for this reason, but not without purpose. We also learn the many ways that communities came together to solve problems that the state would not solve. We learn about love, resilience, and cooperation even when that alone at times is not enough to save us.

There are multiple entries discussing indigenous knowledge about controlled burning and other methods of living alongside fire. I liked that it did mention that all humans cause disruptions of the ecosystem, which burning can be part of in a negative way. The reason this stood out to me was that some writing about (and even by) indigenous people can be tokenizing- treating all indigenous folks as a single homogenous tribe of mythical entities living in pristine wilderness. We can acknowledge that humans have had diverse and disruptive effects on other species and environments in every location that we have traveled to. We can acknowledge that colonialism exponentially exacerbated these effects. We can note what we have learned over time and we can also take wisdom from the past. There were effective methods of preventing fire via controlled burning and combining that with the new limitations caused by the population levels and ecological collapse of today provides accessible solutions. Indigenous people have been instrumental in finding ways to preserve their own land and communities - both environmentally and culturally. They have also taught other people throughout the area how to preserve the wisdom of the past and apply it to the future. They do so with generosity and solidarity, despite so many being descendents of colonizers who led us to the catastrophic present in fire country.

The book also focuses on the myriad of people often left out of discussions around wildfire. Many of the stories we see on the news are about wealthy celebrities who have lost their third home in some affluent area of California. Many of the people most affected by wildfire are those of smaller rural low-income communities, indigenous people living on reservations, immigrants-especially undocumented folks, and people of other marginalized communities. There is also an entry on the fire fighters who are also prisoners, putting their lives on the line to protect these communities, only to find themselves unable to find employment when they are out due to unjust restrictions. 

I like that they included an essay on the financial effects of fire. I didn't realize until I was reading it that we often don't have this sort of economic viewpoint in many leftist or mutual aid based texts because we understandably don't want to center capitalism. It was enlightening seeing someone sort out some of the statistics to create a wider view of the effects of disaster. For instance, I had never realized that state of emergency designations are often based on economic loss and other numbers, not relative to population. This means that smaller communities, even if the fires are far more dangerous and devastating in that location, will often not be labeled as in a state of emergency because there are not enough people there to meet some sort of criteria. This happens on top of the other oppressions facing these communities.

The only criticism I really have about this text is how discussions of other animals were treated. Some of the most horrific stories I've heard about these fires are of farmed animals who were left trapped, unable to escape, as the flames engulfed them alive or of already threatened wild animals being surrounded. The only real reference is to domesticated animals are as "livestock" and there are few things more capitalist than designating others as property. Other animals are unable to offer their stories and this book so they rely on us to have to tell them for them. Near the end there is mention of one community who offers a place for some people to take their animals. However the rescue networks for animals, both domesticated and through wildlife rehabilitation, are really important parts of this puzzle that I would have liked to be better represented and discussed. Mentioning animals as an afterthought without truly immersing them and discussion shows a lack of scope in terms of understanding some of the greatest contributors to climate change and those who are most affected by it outside of humans. 

This was also posted to my goodreads and storygraph