Andrew BlackwellCritiques

Very entertaining. A humorous writer. I would have liked a bit more wrapping up of his thoughts on the entire project, a bringing it home more. Interesting choices of places to tour. Well written.

This book was funny yet informative. I learned how we cannot just look at populated places the way we are used to. There is more to the picture.

Well written and entertaining, the author takes the reader with him to some of the largest wastelands in the world. The first chapter is the focus on Chernobyl. Finding a guide to take him to the center of the disaster, the reader cannot help but be upset by the lack of common sense of the engineers who were to blame for this largest radioactive disaster.

Using a sense of humor, what could be pedantic is rendered as fact in a realistic, but not over dramatic style.

And other adventures in the world's most polluted places

The author visits places of notorious environmental damage: Chernobyl, the oil sands pits of Canada, the refineries of Texas, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the coal mines of China, the shrinking Amazon rainforest, and the feces-filled rivers of India. There is a surprising (and somewhat refreshing) lack of judgement here. The author does not suggest we eliminate our dependence on fossil fuels or get rid of plastic or stop growing soybeans in South America. I was particularly struck by the commentary on national parks and our tendency to think of pristine nature as not including humans, as if we're somehow not part of nature. I came away with a lot of things to think about, a lot of them uncomfortable, without feeling like the author was trying to make me feel bad. On the contrary, he was just showing me these places I will likely never visit - that almost no one visits as a tourist (except Chernobyl, but their tourism boom happened after the publication of this book) - and increasing my awareness about the diversity of the world. It's easy to (willingly) forget about the dirty places if you only visit the clean ones. Definitely recommended.

kinda weird to say that I enjoyed this book, but I did! Blackwell's perspective on polluted places is thought provoking and I found it interesting to learn a bit more about these places. Curious about what Blackwell is doing now, but I couldn't find much info!

Visit Sunny Chernobyl: And Other Adventures in the World's Most Polluted Places by Andrew Blackwell is one of the most unlikely travelogues I've ever read. Blackwell visits, as a tourist, seven of the most polluted places on the Earth. He notes, "Tell folks that you’re making a grand tour of polluted places, and they tend to get excited. A surprising number of people say they want to come along, and, although this turns out to be mostly talk, it’s gratifying to know the market is there. (Page 73)"
"The reason I find myself beating the same thematic horse on every continent isn’t that the polluted places of the world aren’t polluted. It’s that I love them. I love the ruined places for all the ways they aren’t ruined. Does somebody live there? Does somebody work there? Does somebody miss it when they leave? Those places are still just places.... I love the ruined places. And sure, I love the pure ones, too. But I hate the idea that there’s any difference. And I wish more people thought gross was beautiful. Because if it isn’t, then I’m not sure why we should care about a world with so much grossness in it." Page 226 Indeed.

This account of his excursions is not written specifically as a guide to traveling to these polluted places, but rather it is Blackwell ruminating and sharing his thoughts as he gives you the highlights of his adventures. While this sounds grim, Blackwell is actually quite entertaining rather than a grim harbinger of all of humanities mistakes. As he travels he also points out the dualism in our thoughts and actions. "This artificial division between natural and unnatural pervades our understanding of the world. Industrialists may hope to dominate nature, and environmentalists to protect it—but both camps depend on the same dualism, on a conception of nature as something to which humanity has no fundamental link, and in which we have no inherent place. And it’s a harmful dualism, even if it takes the form of veneration. It keeps us from embracing a robust, engaged environmentalism that is based on something more than gauzy, prelapsarian yearnings. (Page 172)"

"We’re just so entranced by the concept of nature-as-purity that we won’t face facts. Our environment is not on the brink of something. It is over the brink—over several brinks—and has been for some time. It was more than twenty years ago that Bill McKibben pointed out the simple fact that there is no longer any nook or cranny of the globe untouched by human effects. It’s time to stop pretending otherwise, to stop pretending that we haven’t already entered the Anthropocene, a new geological age marked by massive species loss (already achieved) and climate change (in progress).... The task now, perhaps, is not to preserve the fantasy of a separate and pure nature, but to see how thoroughly we are part of the new nature that still lives. Only then can we preserve it, and us. (Page 173)"

Contents:
Author's note
Prologue
One. Visit Sunny Chernobyl: Day Trips Through a Radioactive Wonderland
Two. The Great Black North: Oil Sands Mining in Northern Alberta
Three. Refineryville: Port Arthur, Texas, and the Invention of Oil
Four. The Eighth Continent: Sailing the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
Five. Soymagedon: Deforestation in the Amazon
Six. In Search of Sad Coal Man: E-Waste, coal, and other Treasures of China
Seven. The Gods of Sewage: Downstream on India's Most Polluted River
Acknowledgements
Index
Full review at:
http://shetreadssoftly.blogspot.com/2013/11/visit-sunny-chernobyl.html

This book was a fascinating and engrossing read. It changed the way I think about the world. I highly recommend it.

Exactly how much unexamined privilege does it take to write a book such as this? A white guy from the US goes and voyeuristically tours some of the world's most polluted places, sort of brushing over the fact that for some (generally economically disadvantaged and exploited) people, pollution and its inevitable hazards is their lived reality.

I also could have lived without the liberal sprinkling of ablist language. Absolutely offensive and added nothing to his story.½

Most stories and books dealing with the environment are written by loony lefty's who would seem to be happy if we Immediately banned everything and walked everywhere all in the name of the planet. The author of this book is funny, intelligent, and thought provoking. The environmental movement would sound far more intelligent and rational if more of them were like this author. The stories are all funny and yet they will make you realize that some things can be done to help the environment without pretending we can go back to living like during the Stone Age. This was a very enjoyable book!

A fascinating, witty travelogue that is equal parts fun and disturbing.

Disappointing before finishing. My first unhappiness is not the author's fault. Picked it up because of Project Kaisei, only to find out the voyage exemplified everything Republicans fear about disorganized hippies. Was so hoping to read something definitive about the Garbage Patch and the Kaisei muffed the data by wandering through the ocean sporadically checking for plastic...

There's just too much Me Me Me in this travelogue. I did not really wish to know about the author's pain over the woman who broke up with him. If I wanted to share your pain I would be reading memoirs.

Oil Sands mining in Alberta, Port Arthur refineries and Texas oil. Horrific to think about living there.

The sewage rivers of India: now that's scary to a Westerner. I did like learning the term "ghat," which is stairs leading down to the river, because locals interact with the river way a lot compared to Americans: for worship, bathing, cremation and drinking water too. Aren't you glad to read that entrepreneurs are thinking about clean drinking water for the teeming masses?

Why did I remember Port Arthur? That's the crappy town Janis Joplin escaped from before she became a bluesy singing star in the heady days of the Haight Ashbury hippie scene.

Will probably finish the book when I get a minute.

How does this sound for a vacation: A fun-filled trip to Chernobyl, the site of one of the world's worst nuclear accidents? Or how about a boat cruise down the Yamuna River, India's most polluted river? Don't leave out possible trips to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch or a visit to the site of the most devastating deforestation in the rainforest near the Amazon?

To Andrew Blackwell, these sounded like delightful trips. He traveled to all of these and more spots noted for being on lists for the World's Most Polluted Places and wrote about them in the book. Blackwell actually seemed to relish visiting these places and his enthusiasm for these trips echoes throughout the book.

Not really where I'd like to spend ten days of R&R, I think. Though I will say Blackwell never had to worry about standing in long lines or trying to find an available hotel room.