This exciting third book from David Bristow covers everything environmental in South Africa that you always wanted to know about. Subjects including pesticides, poaching, petrol, plastics, population, pollination, pollution, pods, politics, pharmaceuticals, people, prophets, power and poop.

Find out what industrially manufactured foods and large-scale farming are doing to us; how state capture has derailed our civil service and triggered sewerage spills, oil slicks and air pollution; who benefits most from health supplements; and what are the real costs of generating power and what works best – coal, nuclear, fracking, solar or wind.

You will also read about the good deeds of our eco heroes: those who bring water and hope to stricken towns; who farm regeneratively and sell us wholesome foods; who clean up other people’s messes; as well as individual superheroes who nurture their own back gardens. This book celebrates some of them.

Written in the same engaging style as his previous two books in the series Stories from the Veld (The Game Ranger, the Knife, the Lion and the Sheep and Of Hominins, Hunter-Gatherers and Heroes), this book is a journey into unravelling the environmental landscape of South Africa. And then comes the hardest questions: are you going to contribute to a green future or a brown past?