Sea of Grass: The Conquest, Ruin, and Redemption of Nature on the American Prairie
Dave Hage and Josephine Marcotty. Random House, $32 (384p) ISBN 978-0-593-44740-6
“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)
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Reviewed on: 02/11/2025
Genre: Nonfiction