Vince Beiser
Vince Beiser is an award-winning journalist based in Los Angeles. His first book, "The World in a Grain: The Story of Sand and How It Transformed Civilization" was a finalist for a PEN/E.O. Wilson Award and a California Book Award. “Stunning,” says NPR; “impassioned and alarming,” says the Washington Post. Vince has reported from over 100 countries, states, provinces, emirates, kingdoms, occupied territories, liberated areas, no man’s lands and disaster zones. He has exposed conditions in California’s harshest prisons, trained with troops bound for Iraq, ridden with the first responders to disasters in Haiti and Nepal and hunted down other stories from around the world for publications including Wired, The Atlantic, Harper’s,The Guardian, Mother Jones, Playboy, Rolling Stone, The Wall Street Journal Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times. Vince has also been a correspondent for the Emmy-winning news show SoCal Connected. Vince’s work has been honored by Investigative Reporters and Editors, the Society of Professional Journalists, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the Columbia, Medill and Missouri Graduate Schools of Journalism, the National Mental Health Association, the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies and many other institutions. He has twice been part of a team that won the National Magazine Award for General Excellence, the magazine industry’s highest honor. He is also a grantee of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
3 Books Written
The World in a Grain: The Story of Sand and How It Transformed Civilization
by Vince Beiser
Rating: 4.1 ⭐
• 2 recommendations ❤️
The gripping story of the most important overlooked commodity in the world--sand--and the crucial role it plays in our lives.Except for water and air, sand is the natural resource that we consume more than any other--more than oil, more than natural gas. Every concrete building and paved road on Earth, every computer screen and silicon chip, exists because of sand. From Egypt's pyramids to the Hubble telescope, from the world's tallest skyscraper to the sidewalk below it, from Chartres' stained-glass windows to Chihuly sculptures to your iPhone, sand shelters us, empowers us, engages us, and inspires us. It's the ingredient that makes possible our cities, our science, our lives--and our future.And we're running out of it.The World in a Grain is the compelling true story of the hugely important and diminishing natural resource that grows more important every day, and some of the people who use it, sell it, recycle it, and destroy it. It's also a provocative examination of the serious human and environmental costs surrounding sand and the profound global significance, which has received little public attention. Award-winning journalist Vince Beiser delves deep into this world, explaining why sand is so crucial to modern life. Along the way, readers encounter sand pirates, become aware of child sand miners, and learn that not all sand is created Some of the easiest sand to get to is the least useful. The result is an entertaining and eye-opening work, one that is both unexpected and involving, full of fascinating detail and populated by surprising people.
The powerful ways the metals we need to fuel technology and energy are spawning environmental havoc, political upheaval, and rising violence — and how we can do better.An Australian millionaire’s plan to mine the ocean floor. Nigerian garbage pickers risking their lives to salvage e-waste. A Bill Gates-backed entrepreneur harnessing AI to find metals in the Arctic.These people and millions more are part of the intensifying competition to find and extract the minerals essential for two crucial technologies: the internet and renewable energy. In Power Metal, Vince Beiser explores the Achilles’ heel of “green power” and digital technology – that manufacturing computers, cell phones, electric cars, and other technologies demand skyrocketing amounts of lithium, copper, cobalt, and other materials. Around the world, businesses and governments are scrambling for new places and new ways to get those metals, at enormous cost to people and the planet.Beiser crisscrossed the world to talk to the people involved and report on the damage this race is inflicting, the ways it could get worse, and how we can minimize the damage. Power Metal is a compelling glimpse into this disturbing yet potentially promising new world.
Nel nostro mondo, dominato ormai di fatto dalle infinite applicazioni della tecnologia, l’estrazione dei metalli essenziali alla produzione degli strumenti tecnologici sta causando drammatici effetti secondari, come deforestazione, inquinamento e conflitti globali, e mette in seria discussione l’idea che l’energia pulita sia realmente e del tutto “pulita”.Vince Beiser mostra il tallone d’Achille della nostra vita, sempre più veloce, brillante e per produrre computer, telefoni cellulari, auto elettriche e un’infinità di altri oggetti quotidiani intelligenti sono necessarie quantità vertiginose di litio, rame, cobalto e numerose altre materie prime critiche.L’era digitale in cui viviamo esige dalla natura un tributo quotidiano e gravoso. Il crescente fabbisogno di terre rare e minerali strategici ha portato le nazioni e le grandi aziende private a cercare nuove fonti in tutto il dal deserto del Cile alle miniere sottomarine, la corsa alle risorse sta trasformando l’economia globale e alimentando inesorabilmente i conflitti geopolitici.Ma non tutto è perduto, certo, e Vince Beiser mostra anche l’impetuoso sviluppo di nuove pratiche per recuperare e riutilizzare i materiali già impiegati per la produzione. Le attività di riciclo, pur importantissime e sempre più cospicue, non soddisfano la crescente domanda di metalli critici e servono nuove strategie, sottolinea qui Beiser, per ridurre il consumo e migliorare l’efficienza nell’uso delle risorse.Questo libro davvero sorprendente ci sfida a fare i conti con le conseguenze indesiderate delle nostre scelte di consumatori e cittadini, rendendolo una lettura obbligata per chiunque abbia a cuore il futuro del nostro pianeta.