Soil Not Oil

Climate change will dramatically alter how we live and is already affecting the lives of the world's most vulnerable people.

In Soil Not Oil, bestselling author Vandana Shiva connects the food crisis, peak oil, and climate change to show that a world beyond a dependence on fossil fuel and globalization is both possible and necessary. Bold and visionary, Shiva reveals how three crises are inherently linked and that any attempt to solve one without addressing the others will get us nowhere.

Condemning industrial agriculture and industrial biofuels as recipes for ecological and economic disaster, Shiva’s champion is the small, independent farm. What we need most in a time of changing climates and millions hungry, she argues, are sustainable, biologically diverse farms that are more resistant to disease, drought, and flood. Calling for a return to local economies and small-scale food production Shiva outlines our remaining options: a market-centred short-term escape for the privileged, which will deepen the crisis for the poor and marginalized, or a people-centred fossil-fuel-free future, which will offer a decent living for all.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Triple Crisis, Triple Opportunity
1. Politics of Climate Change
2. Sacred Cow vs. Sacred Car
3. Food For People or For Cars
4. Soil Not Oil
Conclusion: Unleashing Shakti: Our Power to Transform
Notes
Index
About the Author

About the Author:

Vandana Shiva is is a world renowned environmental activist and author. Her many books include: 'Staying Alive'; 'Ecofeminism' and 'Protect or Plunder' and she has authored over 300 journal and scientific papers. Shiva has served as an adviser to governments in India and abroad as well as non governmental organisations, including the Women's Environment & Development Organization and the Third World Network. She is one of the leaders of the International Forum on Globalization and in 1993, and the recipient of numerous awards, including the Alternative Nobel Peace Prize (1993). Before becoming an activist, Shiva was one of India ’s leading physicists. She holds a master’s degree in the philosophy of science and a Ph.D. in particle physics.