David Owen (3)Rezensionen

Wow what an amazing book.
If you live in the western United States this should be required reading.
Most of what people think and believe about water and it’s use in the west is wrong.
I love this book because the author didn’t just fill it with facts and lead the reader to incorrect conclusions as often happens, just to justify an agenda by the author.
In Where The Water Goes, the author traces the Colorado river from high atop the continental divide all the way to Mexico. Each chapter is dedicated to different sections of the river what other rivers feed into it and how the water is used.
The book tries to explain as clearly as possible
How water rights in the west are completely different than anywhere else.
The Law of The River what it is and what it means.
The Colorado River Compact, the upper and lower basins and states and what they are entitled to.
Where Mexico fits in.
How most of the water used in the Colorado front range originated in the other side of the continental divide and how it gets there.
One of the things I liked best is how the author broke down how there are no easy answers, to even what appear to be simple straight forward situations and questions.
This is a truly fascinating book!

This book club choice was much more wide ranging than I expected and very interesting. I wish I had read the section on hearing aids when I was trying to get my Mom to try hearings aids and she complained that they were way too expensive. As usual, she was completely right! This was a really comprehensive look at the causes of hearing loss and wide variety of ways it is "treated" and so many other angles on hearing loss that I had only marginally considered. It was also well-written and engaging and had a nice balance of personal stories and research. I learned alot and enjoyed learning it!

Badly dated. Logical argument is somewhat fascinating.

I listened to this on audiobook. It was genuinely interesting to hear about the way the river is used, especially since I get my water from it. I just wish the author would have resisted the urge to push an agenda and become politically partisan. It is clear that water problems will have to be solved with bipartisan cooperation and the book would have been better had the author given detailed descriptions of the problems and discussed the various proposed solutions and their issues, but not been so blatantly obvious about his political opinions, since that made me less open to his ideas.

Yes, once in a while I do read non-fiction. In this case, it's all about hearing. The causes of hearing loss, some helps for hearing loss, the ways people cope, the medical research, and so forth. All things hearing. It's a fairly extensive coverage of the topic of hearing.

The one big problem, I think is that there are no damn pictures! So we get extensive attempts to tell us in words about the physiological structures that enable us to hear, and the ways people try to mitigate hearing loss, both by gadgets, like hearing aids (what I'm doing), and by surgical means, like cochlear implants.

Well, ya know? A couple of pictures would really, really have helped me better to envision what's going on. Yes, I can Google it all, but why read the book then? I'm a bit disappointed in it all. Hence, I took a half * off the score because of the lack of pictures.

I knew this book was going to be different when the author started out by saying he has recently flown from New York to Sydney to deliver a twenty minute speech on global warming. He took his golf clubs too so environmentalists need not fret.

I dipped in and out of this book. I found a lot of information that was helpful to understanding hearing loss I learned a lot about genetic vs acquired hearing loss, the new technology that exists, the research that may lead to more solutions and the business models that keep hearing aids expensive. The book was mostly narrative, but included a laymen's explanation of the science as well.

Fantástico libro que nos cuenta, entre otras muchas cosas, cómo un padre decidió montar un "banco de papá" para incentivar el ahorro y la responsabilidad financiera de sus hijos. Así, al principio con papeles y luego completamente informatizado en un Excel, el autror creó cuentas para los hijos quye les rendían un 5% mensual. Sí, quién lo pillara, en efecto. Los hijos podían elegir qué hacer con la paga: gastársela, ingresarla en el banco o una combinación de ambas. A lo largo de varios años (hasta que los hijos llegan a la universidad) el autor nos cuenta llas ventajas que le vio al métoido y los ajustes que hubo que ir haciendo por el camino.

Pero este libro trata de muchas cosas más. Con muy buen criterio, en mi opinión, el autor nos habla de la paga semanal, de las tareas domésticas, de si deben tener un trabajo a tiempo parcial los niños para pagarse "sus cosas", de quién debe compara y elegir la ropa...

Y no acaba ahí. Años después de iniciar el Bank of Dad, el autor puso en marcha la Bolsa de Papá, en la que las acciones del mercado financiero cotizaban igual que en tiempo real pero con valores divididos por cien. Una acción de Micrososft de 95$ se podía comprar en la Bolsa de Papá por 95 centavos de dólar. Así los niños podr´ia empezar a observar la mecánica del mercado de valores (y bonos) si n necesidad de sufrir quebrantos en caso de que alguna de las empresas en las que invertían se fuera al garete.

El autror, tras dedicar las primeras cien páginas del libro a la parte relacionada con el banco, divaga un poco y nos habla de muchas cosas mas, todas ellas interesantes. Una lectura entretenida y de la que estoy sacando muchas ideas.

A very good overview of the history, science, and treatment of hearing-related issues. The focus isn’t as narrow as the title suggests – it includes a fascinating amount of information about Deaf culture, including the American Sign Language / assistive devices debate, and it dishes the dirt on the hearing aid industry as well. This is a must read for anyone considering treatment options for hearing loss and for those looking to protect the hearing they already have.

This was a terrific book. I'm not sure how interesting it would be to a fully hearing person, but it was amazing to me as a hearing-impaired individual. Because it was recently published, it contained very relevant information for me.

Not all of what I read was making me very happy, though. In fact, I was fuming after I read the way that the hearing aid industry is ripping off people for the costs of hearing aids. I learned a lot more about alternatives to hearing aids, a product that my husband had been pushing me to try. Now those less expensive, self-programmable alternatives don't seem quite as strange. In fact, there is one product I'd really like to try. Maybe one day I'll have the chance.

I liked learning about the difference in the way hearing aids and cochlear implants work. Since I know personally about hearing aids, I think now I more fully understand what the sensation of a cochlear implant must be like. The experience sounds (no pun intended) quite different.

I was happily encouraged by the section about hearing research. I think I more fully understand what my hearing loss is really about (loss of connection to the auditory nerve rather than loss of hair cells). I was also intrigued by the discovery that loud noises which seem temporarily resolved after the fact then later in life can be the cause of hearing decline. I'm sorry that I was of the generation who paid no attention to hearing protection so now I'm suffering because of it. I liked the very last chapter about hearing protection and am glad to report that my grandchildren know exactly when it's time to don those sound-decreasing ear muffs.

This book was comprehensive, easy-to-read, and very informative. I recommend it mostly to those who are either hearing impaired or who interact with others who are hearing impaired.

This is an excellent, well-rounded examination of hearing: how it works, what happens when it doesn’t, and the devices that can help people hear better. It also covers sign language, the deaf/Deaf community, and the struggle to bring affordable hearing aids to people who want them. This is one of those books that is exactly the right length and covers the topic in sufficient breadth to make you informed, but not overwhelmed. It’s written with sensitivity and warmth, and I would highly recommend it to pretty much everyone. You may not know someone with hearing loss, but someday that someone might be you, so it’s worth reading more about it.

Hearing gets no respect. We can imagine blindness by closing our eyes, but there’s no way to shut down our ears. And because they seem to bounce back after every abuse, from stereo speakers and earbuds to circular saws to motorcycles to rock concerts, we think we dodged a bullet and that we can take it.

But David Owen says that is not true. In Volume Control, he visits the experts, sees the experiments and the measurements, and shows that every incident causes irreversible damage. It often only starts to appear later, but plenty of people become hard of hearing in their prime years, with the prospect of a largely silent future. And every incident from fireworks to gunshots to power tools and kitchen appliances has the potential to plant permanent damage in our ears.

Unless they also develop tinnitus (he says it’s pronounced like tin-itis, with accents on the first two syllables). This constant hissing or ringing in the ears, 24/7, merits two chapters in the book. For one thing, it is far more common than we think. It can be so annoying it drives people to suicide. He makes it clear there is no cure, no specific ways to cause its onset, and usually leads to other hearing problems. Early diagnosis is too late. And it continues even when you’re totally deaf. Avoidance means avoiding shocks to your hearing, next to impossible in our world.

The whole book is rather downbeat this way. Damage is not repairable. Even with cochlear implants, hearing can only be restored to a low level. Our whole civilization operates not just on fossil fuels, but on loud noise. Meanwhile, our ears have evolved to pick out tiny noises in otherwise total silence. The coming together of those two states can only lead to permanent damage in hearing.

Our solutions range from nothing to pathetic. Owen points out that while glasses actually build up vision back to the perfect range, we have nothing to restore the quality of hearing. The result is while people have no problem employing glasses and changing them often, hearing aids are typically put off for a decade of annoying everyone else with “What?” and “Huh?” People who plunk for them often put them in a drawer after the first use, where they sit for years. Where glasses are stylish and become people’s signature identifier, hearing aids are pure stigma. So we hide them, if not in a drawer, at least behind the ear.

Hearing aids are a scam, as we all know, and which Owen confirms in no uncertain terms. They cost less than $100 to make, but we get charged $6000 for a pair. And all they are are miniaturized loudspeakers and tiny microphones. Manufacturers have lobbied states successfully, so that in most jurisdictions, customers cannot order or even adjust them themselves. Only a professional, licensed audiologist can turn up the volume. More reason not to go that route.

And because they don’t have a workaround for the loss of range we made the appointment for in the first place, all they can do is boost the volume to exploit the range we still have left. They do not restore the higher tones most people lose first, so everything remains distorted and difficult. They sound tinny and in general, worse than a lousy cellphone connection.

Instead, like most hi tech, all kinds of add-ons (bloatware) are offered, including a choice of constant sounds to cover the tinnitus, to even a personal alarm-clock only the wearer will hear. There are lots of color choices to complement glasses or clothing too, but nothing to restore hearing.

The book is quite comprehensive, delving into the differences of the deaf at birth from those who lose hearing early and those who lose it over a lifetime. He examines the history of sign language, and goes over the arguments of ASL vs vocal training. The conclusion is both are legitimate, full-featured languages and deserve the same respect.

One thing missing, and I can’t believe this myself, is that no one is using noise cancelling headphones to eliminate the single tone of tinnitus. Owen knows his is about 6000 Hertz, or cycles per second, but he doesn’t pursue Bose, which makes top of the line noise cancelling equipment, to program a unit with the inverse of 6000 Hz, which should, in theory, silence it. If that is a foolish notion, he should at least explain why, because noise cancelling headphones now offer masking noises to hide tinnitus, rather than zero them out. That is correct: noise cancelling headphones now offer additional noise to muffle noise. How wrong is that?

On the hearing aid front, there is modest hope, at least financially. Bose, which rates a lot of coverage in Volume Control, even to a profile of the founder, now sells a hearing aid it cannot by law call a hearing aid. It does of course perform exactly as a high-end hearing aid, with all the same components, but don’t call it a hearing aid. It’s a Hearphone. You wear it around your neck, and plug earbuds into it and your ears. It is rechargeable, stylish and carries no stigma because it looks like a music appliance. It has all kinds of adjustments for noisy restaurants, quiet rooms, traffic, cinemas, airplanes, loud conversation and on and on. And no audiologist is required to change the settings. You can do it on a phone app. Best of all — $500 to find out if it works for you. Beats the hell out of $6000.

There is an even greater important revelation in Volume Control, concerning the tiny hairs in our ears. Damage to them has long been blamed for increasing deafness and loss of range, as well as tinnitus. But we’ve been looking in the wrong place all this time, simply because the light was better under this lamppost. The real culprit apparently lies farther inside our skulls, where the synapses that transfer sounds to the neurons of our brains have shrunk back, no longer making the connection. It seems that when we apply too much noise, synapses disconnect rather than annoy our brains with painful, endless, not to mention useless sounds. Just like how we ignore a constant droning sound so we don’t even notice it, the brain physically disengages from harmful sound. This has big implications for actually restoring quality hearing, but it will take years to figure out.

Owen weaves his usual easy to read and digest text, filled with stories of people he knows, and in this case his own hearing issues. It is a fast and pleasant read, but most of all it is a critically important read. Volume Control offers really valuable information. Everyone needs to act on this information right away, from using earplugs, to turning down the volume, to educating children. The harm is gigantic. As Owen explains in comparing loss of sight and hearing, it is far more difficult to sit among friends and family and be unable to hear their stories, laugh at their jokes and (not) respond with your own, than to be blind but still participate in human social activity. The subtleties and cues from our irreparable hearing are taken for granted, and you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.

David Wineberg

Very interesting look at what activities are truly "green". David Owen enlightened readers in The Green Metropolis about urban living. The Conundrum goes further to look at supposed environmental projects which exacerbate global warming. Owen writes about about vast and complex obstacles to halt climate change in a way that is easy to understand. He challenges readers to rethink their notion of "being green". He calls for hard sacrifices, which are the only way to make any significant difference to global warming.

rabck from MyssCyn in tag game; the story of the invention of a copy machine. Amazing how the inventor dreamed it up, then all the years of engineers tinkering to get the concept to work, and then having issues mass producing it. And the company became....Xerox. Book now going to Dad and then Sue.

A balanced and informative look at one of the most economically and ecologically critical rivers in the Western world. I'm not an engineer, hydrologist, or anyone of that sort, but Kohn managed to make infrastructure wildly interesting. An important, timely, scary, and surprisingly entertaining book about a complicated topic that impacts all of us in one way or another. I'd highly recommend it for everyone who drinks water, but especially to those living west of the Mississippi or those involved in water/property law, land development, agriculture, environmental nonprofits, and/or federal reclamation budgets and policy in the nation's capital.½

Since I’m a resident of Tucson, this was more 'Where the Water Comes From' for me, at least through to the chapter about the Central Arizona Project, the canal that brings water from the Colorado to just south of here. And up to that point, it was fascinating, especially because of the history and anecdotes the author included in this overview of the Colorado River Basin. I have to admit it was dry reading after that until the last chapter, ‘What is to be Done?’, which points out the complexity of managing this very vital resource. 3 1/2 stars.½

An interesting look at water issues, particularly as they relate to the Colorado River and the Southwest US. Most of the book feels like more of a travelogue than an in-depth look at the environment, science, or cultural history. And all those elements are combined with Owen's travels and stories of the people he met or places he saw while researching the book, although it sometimes felt a little tedious to me. The strongest part is probably the final chapter, "What is to be done?", where he looks at the various issues, such as the mind-boggling "Over-Allocation" of actual water, "Desalination," "Agriculture," etc. And I especially appreciated that Owen isn't blind to the many sides to every story or argument. He is especially good at pointing out the flaws in many seemingly simple and common-sense arguments, as well as illustrating the complexity of every idea or solution. Maybe not as focused on the river itself as I'd have liked it to be, but an interesting book nonetheless. (And I REALLY LOVE the cover, which reminded me of the Road Runner and Wiley Coyote cartoons that were my favorite as a child.)

Where The Water Goes is ostensibly a driving tour of the Colorado River, from its tributary headwaters to Baja in Mexico where it is supposed to end. Owen drives and describes the scenery and the various characters he meets (sometimes with his family), and fills in the history and significance of the location. But where it gets really interesting is in the legislatures and the courts, where the water has a completely different status.

There is real water and there is paper water. There are negotiated agreements and there is The Law Of The River, which seems to be whatever the legislator or lawyer talking wants it to be. And you don’t want to bring The Law Of The River to court. The book is most informative when paper water properties rear their heads. It’s not logical, intuitive, direct, simple, or efficient. And no one dares tamper with it lest the whole house of cards come tumbling down.

In Arizona, new developments can be built and sold without service or access to water. Owners have to go pick it up and bring it back as needed. In Colorado, the water that runs off your roof is not yours and you have no right to retain it. At the state level, there is a race to consume the allocation, lest it be reduced and grabbed by another state. And by the time the river gets to Mexico, there is literally nothing left. In the mean time, agriculture still flood-irrigates, and cities keep expanding. Deserts don’t mean no one can live or farm; they just have to divert more water. Incredibly, the locals argue about exporting agricultural products as if they were exporting the water in them. It’s all very Alice in Wonderland.

The whole arrangement was originally built on faulty data; the river system cannot produce what it says on paper. The big reservoirs are so low they constantly need to retain all the water they can, leaving little or nothing trickling down the system. Canals and other diversions pervert nature. Dams cause more problems than they solve. Worst of all is the first come first served arrangement, whereby those who have the oldest permits get all the water they’re allowed before newer participants can take any. In perpetuity. This is how the West was built.

None of this is news and Owen cites numerous predecessors in trying to explain it (but not rationalize it. No one can do that). Owen ends by making recommendations he knows full well no one will ever consider. It’s a remarkable trip.

David Wineberg

David makes apoint in the first chapter about the unintended consequences of advances in technology toward efficiency and innovation on overall increased energy usage. He then makes this point over again and again using different examples of the same concept. Basically his premise that if we each used less energy and lived in compact environments it would help. Even more so if we were all living like cave men or were dead we would use less energy. So what. The author explains that he is affluent and is a heavy energy user. None of his limited suggestion on solutions to the problem are practical. I find this book disappointing.

I knew I would enjoy this book because I already believe that urban living is more sustainable and energy efficient. But, I found it REALLY annoying to be told that by someone who lives in a suburban / rural area and drives places that are a mile away.

David Owen attacks conventional "green" thinking with this rather bleak account of the challenges facing us in the battle against climate change. I liked that it exposes locavores and prius drivers for the superficial efforts that they are, they look nice, make you feel good, and give you cause to brag, but they miss the point. To Owen, increase efficiency is a dead end, applied to current models it seems an easy way to cut energy use, but really it encourages consumption, which is the greater evil after all. This is where it gets ugly. With no good answer to our energy problems in sight, and even when we do reduce dependence on fossil fuels, the biggest problem remains, energy consumption. To cut back on that would involve radical changes, not just to our daily behavior, but to the nature of ou society. Our economy is based on growth, but in order to stop climate change we need to shrink. Perhaps just as daunting is getting our environmentalists to actually agree (is the risk of nuclear energy worth getting off of fossil fuels? should we build giant wind turbines in nantucket? Should we continue to destroy hydroelectric dams to restore the natural habitat of the river?) The book is enlightening but as the title implies, it offers more problems than answers. To put it another way, it does have answers, but they are the problems themselves. It seems it would be easier to get a camel through the eye of a needle than to get a rich society to instill a truly green initiative.

A very nice book - recommended for all parents with younger kids. Some great ideas about teaching your kids the rudiments of finance and the markets, and also some wise comments about the importance of reading to your children.

Owen makes a very compelling case for cities as the most environmentally friendly places to live and work due to the efficiencies of living closer, sharing resources, and reducing travel with New York City as the key example. I'm already sold on the idea but he piles on the evidence for his theory in a way that I hope convinces other people who have the ingrained idea of cities as dirty places. He also takes on the pastoral vision of many environmental movements and "LEED brain" where new construction is rewarded for fancy add-ons that are not good for the environment especially when compared to simple renovations of existing buildings. I'm less sold on his opposition to things like the locavore movement which is as much built on nutrition and local sustainability as environmentalism. He's also opposed to vertical agriculture because he thinks it would interfere with the connectivity of cities, but I think they'd fit in perfectly replacing underused light industrial and warehouse districts that already exist in cities like New York. I'm also not sold on his cop-out argument for continuing to live in a drafty farmhouse in suburban Connecticut where he believes if he moved to New York someone less environmentally aware would occupy his current house. Nits picked, I still think this book is a great argument for an idea whose time has come.
Favorite Passages:

"Jefferson…embodied the ethos of suburbia. Indeed, he could be considered the prototype of the modern American suburbanite, since for most of his life he lived far outside the central city in a house that was much too big, and he was deeply enamored of high-tech gadgetry and of buying on impulse and on credit, and he embraced a self-perpetuating cycle of conspicuous consumption and recreational self-improvement. The standard object of the modern American dream, the single-family home surrounded by grass, is a mini-Monticello" (p. 25)

Making automobiles more fuel-efficient isn’t necessarily a bad idea, but it won’t solve the world’s energy and environmental dilemmas. The real problem with cars is not that they don’t get enough miles to the gallon; it’s that they make it too easy for people to spread out, encouraging forms of development that are inherently wasteful and damaging. Most so-called environmental initiatives concerning automobiles are actually counterproductive, because their effect is to make driving less expensive (by reducing the need for fuel) and to make car travel more agreeable (by eliminating congestion). In terms of both energy conservation and environmental protection, we need to make driving costlier and less pleasant. This is true for cars powered by recycled cooking oil and those powered by gasoline. In terms of the automobile’s true environmental impact, fuel gauges are less important than odometers. In the long run, miles matter more than miles per gallon.

The near certainty is that, for many years to come, what the market will replace oil with is not something better (such as nuclear fusion, which, at the very least, is decades or generations away) but something considerably worse (such as low-grade coal, China’s main fuel, which makes oil’s carbon footprint and pollution profile look demure), and that ordinary market forces, rather than leading us inexorably toward a golden future, will most likely entice us to compound our growing troubles by prompting us to invest heavily in the energy equivalents of patent medicines (such as shale oil and ethanol). Sometimes, the invisible hand goes for the throat.

A concise narrative on the environment and why many of our " going green" practices are misguided. A history of our dependence on fossil fuels and what has to happen for real and actual sustainability based on global economic realities. There is a wonderful chapter on several innovative technologies being worked on by some of the smartest people, but this is tempered by the very harsh reality of their near insurmountable costs. The real path to sustainability is the herculean task of everyone reducing consumption, right now. A must read.

One of the big insights that I got from this book is that most North American "environmentalism" is really a kind of pastoral fantasy, an obsession with nature somehow pure and untouched, man living in the woods in splendid isolation. This leads to absurd contradictions like supposed "environmentalists" who are opposed to wind generators because they spoil the view, or who live in large, energy-intensive, long-car-commute houses in the middle of nowhere.

The author's screed against some of the absurd aspects of LEED is also excellent.

Overall his argument is that the most energy-efficient approach is to build aspects of energy saving into people's lives, through tower buildings that expose little surface area, and dense neighbourhoods that support walking, cycling and transit.

There is a bit of a contradiction as the author writes in praise of this lifestyle while living in a big house far from a city, and his justification that "if I didn't live here, someone else would" is rather weak and self-serving.

Overall I liked the book because of its insight about how much North American "environmentalism" is about escaping to the wilderness and using fancy technology, rather than building energy savings into our lives.

SIDEBAR:
Interesting that three authors - Kunstler, Gehl, and Owen - all take on the problems of car-centric design and the resulting suburbs, but come to different conclusion on the ideal built form. Kunstler celebrates the New England small town as the ideal form, Gehl the European city centre with its six-storey buildings, and Owen Manhattan's towers. I find Gehl's and Owen's conclusions much more compelling. In fairness, Kunstler is making an argument not just about urban planning but about a post-oil civilization. I still think cities will survive better than small towns.