The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability
by James Gustave Speth
from Yale University Press
How serious are the threats to our environment? Here is one measure of the problem: if we continue to do exactly what we are doing, with no growth in the human population or the world economy, the world in the latter part of this century will be unfit to live in. Of course human activities are not holding at current levels—they are accelerating, dramatically—and so, too, is the pace of climate disruption, biotic impoverishment, and toxification. In this book Gus Speth, author of Red Sky at Morning and a widely respected environmentalist, begins with the observation that the environmental community has grown in strength and sophistication, but the environment has continued to decline, to the point that we are now at the edge of catastrophe.
Speth contends that this situation is a severe indictment of the economic and political system we call modern capitalism. Our vital task is now to change the operating instructions for today’s destructive world economy before it is too late. The book is about how to do that.
The author of Red Sky at Morning would be the first to agree that we are in deep environmental trouble, but he offers hope that there is still time to avert global catastrophe. Gus Speth explores a wide variety of promising and even radical ideas for transforming modern capitalism so as to protect and restore the natural world.
Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy
by Michael T. Klare
from Metropolitan Books
Surveying the energy-driven dynamic that is reconfiguring the international landscape, Michael Klare, the preeminent expert on resource geopolitics, forecasts a future of surprising new alliances and explosive danger. World leaders are now facing the stark recognition that all materials vital for the functioning of modern industrial societies (not just oil and natural gas but uranium, coal, copper, and others) are finite and being depleted at an ever-accelerating rate. As a result, governments rather than corporations are increasingly spearheading the pursuit of resources. In a radically altered world— where Russia is transformed from battered Cold War loser to arrogant broker of Eurasian energy, and the United States is forced to compete with the emerging “Chindia” juggernaut—the only route to survival on a shrinking planet, Klare shows, lies through international cooperation.
Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century
by Alex Steffen
from Abrams
This team of top-notch writers, brought together by Worldchanging.com founder Alex Steffen, includes Cameron Sinclair, founder of Architecture for Humanity, Geekcore founder Ethan Zuckerman, and sustainable food expert Anne Lappé, among many others.
Each chapter offers practical answers to important questions, such as: Why does buying locally produced food make sense? What steps can we take to influence our workplace toward sustainability? How can we travel, live, work, and learn in world-changing ways? How, in short, can we participate in building a better future locally and globally?
Worldchanging proves that a life that is sustainably prosperous, thoughtful and democratic, dynamic and peaceful, is not just possible, it’s here.
When the Rivers Run Dry: Water--The Defining Crisis of the Twenty-first Century
by Fred Pearce
from Beacon Press
In this groundbreaking book, veteran science correspondent Fred Pearce travels to more than thirty countries to examine the current state of crucial water sources. Deftly weaving together the complicated scientific, economic, and historic dimensions of the world water crisis, he provides our most complete portrait yet of this growing danger and its ramifications for us all.
"A strong—and scary—case that a worldwide water shortage is the most fearful looming environmental crisis. With a drumbeat of facts both horrific (thousands of wells in India and Bangladesh are poisoned by fluoride and arsenic) and fascinating (it takes 20 tons of water to make one pound of coffee), the former New Scientist news editor documents a 'kind of cataclysm' already affecting many of the world's great rivers."
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
"Oil we can replace. Water we can't—which is why this book is both so ominous and so important."
—Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature
"An enriching and farsighted work."
—Jai Singh, San Francisco Chronicle
"Pearce cogently presents the alarming ways in which this ecological emergency is affecting population centers, human health, food production, wildlife habitats, and species viability. Having crisscrossed the globe to research the economic, scientific, cultural, and political causes and ramifications of this under publicized tragedy, Pearce's powerful imagery, penetrating analyses, and passionate advocacy make this required reading for environmental proponents and civic leaders everywhere."
—Booklist
"If you want to quickly get up to date on climate change and its consequences, I recommend With Speed and Violence: Why Scientists Fear Tipping Points in Climate Change. If you can read only one book on climate change, this is it."
—Lester Brown, president, Earth Policy Institute
". . . perhaps it is time for you to spend some time with Fred Pearce and his wonderful When the Rivers Run Dry."
—Daily Kos, July Review
Fred Pearce has been writing about water issues for over twenty years. A former news editor at New Scientist and currently its environment and development consultant, he has also written for Audubon, Popular Science, Time, the Boston Globe, and Natural History. His books include With Speed and Violence, Turning Up the Heat, and Deep Jungle.
Why I Came West: A Memoir
by Rick Bass
from Houghton Mifflin
A passionate memoir about the great divides in Rick Bass's beloved Yaak Valley, the West as a whole, and himself.
A poignant look at the thirty-year journey of one of our country's great naturalist writers,Why I Came West explores how Rick Bass fell in love with the mystique of the West: as a dramatic landscape, as an idea, and as a way of life. Bass grew up in the suburban sprawl of Houston, and after attending college in Utah he spent eight years working in Mississippi as a geologist, until one day he packed up and headed west in search of something visceral, true, and real. He found it in the remote Yaak Valley of northwestern Montana, a unique place, neither national park nor government- sanctioned wilderness, where despite extensive logging not a single species has gone extinct since the last Ice Age.
Bass has lived in "the Yaak" ever since and in a series of moving chapters describes his own transformation into the writer, hunter, and environmental activist that he is today. He profiles how the rugged, wild landscape smoothed out his own rough edges; attempts to define the appeal of the West that so transfixed him as a boy, a place of mountains and outlaws and continual rebirth, just beyond whatever was near it; and he describes his role as a reluctant environmental activist—sometimes at odds with his own neighbors—unable and unwilling to stand idly by and watch this treasured place disappear.
Nature-Speak: Signs, Omens and Messages in Nature
by Ted Andrews
from Dragonhawk Publishing
Power to the People: How the Coming Energy Revolution Will Transform an Industry, Change Our Lives, and Maybe Even Save the Planet
by Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran
from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
The Revenge of Gaia: Earth's Climate Crisis & The Fate of Humanity
by James Lovelock
from Basic Books
Desert Solitaire
by Edward Abbey
from Ballantine Books
With language as colorful as a Canyonlands sunset and a perspective as pointed as a prickly pear, Cactus Ed captures the heat, mystery, and surprising bounty of desert life. Desert Solitaire is a meditation on the stark landscapes of the red-rock West, a passionate vote for wilderness, and a howling lament for the commercialization of the American outback.
"A passionately felt, deeply poetic book. It has philosophy. It has humor. It has its share of nerve-tingling adventures...set down in a lean, racing prose, in a close-knit style of power and beauty."
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOKREVIEW
Edward Abbey lived for three seasons in the desert at Moab, Utah, and what he discovered about the land before him, the world around him, and the heart that beat within, is a fascinating, sometimes raucous, always personal account of a place that has already disappeared, but is worth remembering and living through again and again.
Hubbert's Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage
by Kenneth S. Deffeyes
from Princeton University Press
Geophysicist M. King Hubbert predicted in 1956 that U.S. oil production would reach its highest level in the early 1970s. Though roundly criticized by oil experts and economists, Hubbert's prediction came true in 1970.
In this revised and updated edition reflecting the latest information on the world supply of oil, Kenneth Deffeyes uses Hubbert's methods to find that world oil production will peak in this decade--and there isn't anything we can do to stop it. While long-term solutions exist in the form of conservation and alternative energy sources, they probably cannot--and almost certainly will not--be enacted in time to evade a short-term catastrophe.
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