Miller, an award-winning journalist, examines how attempts to control natural disasters such as flooding, droughts, cyclone, etc., fail, have unintended consequences, or both, and searches for better solutions to climate change. The book is divided into three parts focused on natural disasters in a specific region—northeastern Japan, southwest Bangladesh, and central Arizona—and the efforts to mitigate future damage and deaths. Miller also discusses the failure of these efforts, such as seawall breaches. He examines unintended consequences, such as increased building in flood-prone areas due to overconfidence in mitigation projects. Each part includes a simple map of the region and a black-and-white photo of an engineering project intended to ease natural disasters. Readers need no technical or scientific background, making this book accessible to a general audience, while the citations could prove useful to students or scientists. Summing Up: Recommended. All readership levels.

--J. B. Napp, University of Toledo

John B. Napp

University of Toledo

Stephen Robert Miller issues an appeal for realistic, long-term responses to climate change in Over the Seawall, a book that examines failed attempts to control nature.

Often, the expensive, complicated engineering projects that are designed to counteract natural calamities fail. Here, three such cases are described in detail: seawalls erected to shield Japanese cities from tsunamis; embankments built along river deltas to prevent periodic flooding in Bangladesh; and canals constructed to channel water toward residents in the Arizona desert. Because of the mistaken belief that expensive fortifications enable unaltered growth, hundreds of millions of dollars were invested in these projects; countless corporations and investors profited. And, in all three cases, the "fix" fell apart.

In Japan, during the catastrophic 2011 tsunami, 130-foot waves overwhelmed "protective" seawalls. Thousands perished, including those who trusted the technology to save them. Miller notes that taller, stronger seawalls have been constructed since then—but that they are also inadequate. And in Arizona, the high-priced infrastructure that channels water from the Colorado River is but a temporary way to address water shortages, Miller says, even as it allows for astronomical growth in Phoenix and elsewhere. As droughts stretch on and the water table collapses, though, such projects just postpone the inevitable.

Speaking against short-term thinking, poor policy decisions, and the illusion of abundance, the book includes moving portraits of the local people who are most affected when fortifications fail. For instance, in Bangladesh, crumbling embankments, built in the 1960s when ruling nations wanted to "squeeze" as much productivity as possible out of the land, now impede the country's agriculture; impoverished farmers struggle because of them.

Over the Seawall is a challenging, persuasive text that uses examples of infrastructure failures to urge people to adapt to a natural world that they cannot control.

Journalist Miller's unsettling debut investigates three initiatives intended to protect humans from the ravages of nature that did "more harm than good." According to Miller, Japan's seawalls provided residents with a false sense of security before the devastating 2011 tsunami, with many choosing not to evacuate under the assumption that they would be protected. Nonetheless, the government's response was to build bigger, stronger walls, despite lingering questions about their effectiveness. Examining how the Bangladeshi government has promoted shrimp farming in rice paddies overrun by saltwater as a way to adapt to rising sea levels, Miller warns that the shrimp industry's expansion has destroyed the viability of cropland around the brackish shrimp ponds and "poisoned shallow wells that supplied village drinking water." The author profiles individuals affected by the failed projects, describing how third-generation Arizona farmer Jace Miller's father joined with other farmers in the 1970s to partially fund a canal redirecting water from the Colorado River to their fields, only for drought to cut off their supply and leave Jace saddled with his father's debt from paying for the canal. Miller, by his own admission, "shies from championing solutions," but the picture that emerges from his thorough reporting illuminates the hidden dangers in apparently easy solutions to climate problems. The result is a thought-provoking exploration of the "unintended consequences" of climate policy. (Oct.)