Sea of grass

In this invigorating environmental history, journalists Hage and Marcotty investigate the subjugation of the American prairie. In impressively researched detail, they document the spread of agricultural development westward, paying special attention to technological achievements that wrought devastation on one of the most significant temperate grasslands in the world. The invention of tile drainage fills a surprisingly riveting few pages on a topic of immense importance few readers will know about. Suffice it to say, it transformed crucial wetlands into farmlands. While nodding to the violent and disastrous disregard for nature and Native Americans in the past, the authors focus on today's villains, who are operating on an industrial scale, manipulating state and federal regulations to reap financial windfalls while wreaking havoc on the landscape. Hage and Marcotty include stories of those living and working on the tallgrass prairie in ways that protect it, but the ecosystem is in great peril, with grasslands vanishing faster than the Amazon rainforest. This commanding, long-overdue exposé is a significant contribution to environmental literature.

"Converting the grasslands to an industrial model of agriculture left us with environmental problems as big as the landscape itself," according to this scintillating study. Journalists Hage (No Retreat, No Surrender) and Marcotty explain that on Midwestern farms, excess nitrogen from industrial fertilizers filters into the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico, where it supercharges algae blooms that deplete oxygen in the water to levels so low that marine life can't survive. Contending that pesticides have wreaked havoc on the heartland's insect population, the authors describe how targeted pests evolve to resist the toxins while honeybees are unintentionally killed off in droves, destabilizing ecosystems that rely on the pollinators. Human development of the prairie poses underappreciated climate risks, Hage and Marcotty argue, noting that because grass takes carbon from the air and stores it in its roots, plowing Midwestern grasslands releases more than 14 million tons of carbon annually. Hage and Marcotty excel at elucidating the complex workings of prairie ecosystems, and they provide cogent explanations of how to undo the damage of industrial agriculture by, for instance, preserving next to crop fields uncultivated "buffer strips" that would absorb fertilizer and pesticide runoff. This troubling wake-up call will galvanize readers. Photos. Agent: Jennifer Carlson, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner. (May)

A sweeping history of the American prairie, "a region we have exploited almost to death." Not many people take their vacations on the American plains, an area definitively dismissed as "the flyover zone." Yet, as Minneapolis journalists Hage and Marcotty write, "the North American prairie is nonetheless one of the richest ecosystems on Earth," along with its "siblings" in Central Asia, South America, and southern Africa. For all that importance--just one of the three main divisions of the prairie harbors 1,600 species of grass and flowers--much of the prairie is gone; a scant 1%, the authors write, exists in the eastern tallgrass prairie that once extended from Illinois to eastern Kansas. Whereas past civilizations collapsed after unknowingly exhausting their farmlands, the authors write meaningfully, we do so fully aware of that damage. This is all the more so in an era of rapid climate change, for the hidden underground world of the prairie and the root systems of its vegetation serve as "one of the world's last great buffers" against it, with grasses sequestering carbon dioxide deep beneath the surface. Row crops such as corn and soybeans, conversely, store that carbon dioxide far closer to the surface, releasing it in plowing--and in any event, growing those crops requires vast quantities of fossil fuels, some in the form of synthetic fertilizers that poison watercourses and have destroyed much of the sea life in the Gulf of Mexico. To battle the negative effects of pollution, climate change, and industrial agriculture, Hage and Marcotty argue for restoring large sections of grassland to their original state and, even more politically sensitive, eliminating the federal subsidy for corn ethanol. They also propose a different crop regime that would increase ground cover, preserve the soil, and--importantly--allow farmers to make a profit at the same time. A welcome addition to the literature of America's grasslands, which need all the champions they can get. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.