Book Description
The Elusive Eden charts the historical development of California, beginning with the evolution of the landscape and climate and the arrival of the first inhabitants, the Indians, through social, political, and environmental controversies of the present and the future. The book portrays a land of remarkable richness and complexity, settled by waves of people from diverse cultures. The text is organized chronologically into 10 parts, each developing a major theme or issue for a particular period in California's history. The first chapter of each part is a narrative that spotlights and dramatizes the personal responses of significant individuals at critical moments of historical change. The authors stress issues of current importance such as: ethnic groups, women, environmental history and social and cultural history.
Customer Reviews:
Great Book!.......2007-03-22
I used this book so much in my California and Politics class. It is very descriptive and helpful. The headings make it easy to study, and know exactly what you are reading about. There are lots of interesting pictures, as well as political cartoons. It was a very helpful book in understanding the diverse and colorful history of California. Read it and check it out for yourself.
History of California.......2000-08-08
I had to use this book for a class I took at the University of California, Santa Barbara (History 177 -- Summer 1999). I thought the book was great in certain areas (prehistoric times, geography, and the native peoples), but deficient in others (water development, railroads, Bear Flag Revolt, gold rush, automobile). Also, California's history is much too complicated to be crammed into this book -- the author should have divided it up regionally, or on a time line to allow himself to get more in depth with this material. Otherwise, if you are interested in a good, yet incomplete overview of the history of the Golden State, read this book!
Elusive Eden Captured.......2000-02-15
History can be exciting, especially when the high points are rendered with such immediacy and clarity. California is both a microcosm and macrocaosm of American History. Richard Rice makes this connection resonant from the original Sutter's Mill gold rush to the current Silicon Valley "gold rush". The themes that define California are U.S. history writ large. Rice lets the reader appreciate California from a variety of personal perspectives: Henry Dana's in "Two Years Before The Mast", Leland Stanford and the other "robber barrons", Hiram Johnson and the reformers, into world war two and the Nisei internees, down through Reagan and the Brown family, and into current times. The history of water rights, which was the basis of the movie Chinatown, becomes a compelling and more accurate story here. The lucid prose is admirably supported by evocative photography. Discover California as it really was and is.
Book Description
In this powerful book, a renowned environmental leader warns that despite all the international negotiations of the past two decades, efforts to protect Earth’s environment are not succeeding. He explains why this is so and presents eight specific steps that governments and citizens can take to achieve a sustainable future. For this new paperback edition the author has added an Afterword that brings the narrative up to date.
Customer Reviews:
environmental crisis?.......2007-01-15
That there is a global environmental crisis is indisputable, and the first part of the book gives much relevant statistics: the rates of desertification, deforestation, the collapse of fisheries, ozone depletion, the melting of glaciers due to global warming that threatens the freshwater supply of many countries etc. Its causes are also obvious: too many people who enjoy (or want to) too high a standard of living, a unit of which takes too much input from the biosphere and generates too much waste. The first factor can be reduced by a pandemic such as AIDS or by coercive government policies such as those of China (and India during the 1970s State of Emergency) or by the emancipation of women (which is why the birth rates in Western Europe, Russia and among white people in the USA are below the replacement rate). The second factor can be reduced by an economic depression such as the 1930s depression in the United States and Europe and the 1990s depression in Russia and Ukraine, or a less drastic economic decline. The third factor and the ways of responding to it is the most complicated one, and the fact that this book does not address its complexity adequately makes it far less than what it could be.
I wonder why Speth is claiming that poverty is a cause of environmental degradation. When a Congolese man cuts down trees in the rainforest for firewood and kills forest animals for protein, he is of course destroying the environment. If he were given a kilowatt-hour equivalent amount of natural gas and a calorie-equivalent weight of broiler chickens, the environmental degradation caused by extracting this gas and raising these chickens would be much less - however, he would be just as poor as before. If he were given as much energy and protein as an average American consumes per a given time period, he would no longer be poor, but I suspect that the environmental degradation caused by his consumption would be greater than when he was chopping down the rainforest. You can fight against poverty, or you can fight for the environment; both are worthy goals, but they can come into conflict. There is a reason Kenya's president-for-life ordered all ivory poachers shot on sight. In the United States, a dollar-per-gallon increase of the gasoline tax would do wonders for reducing the consumption of gasoline, but guess whom it would hurt more - the rich or the poor?
Speth is proud of having contributed to stopping the breeder reactor program in the United States in the 1970s as a young lawyer. As they stand now, breeder reactors are far more dangerous than light-water reactors, and the electricity from power plants built around them is estimated to be several times more expensive than electricity from ordinary nuclear power plants. If a concentrated research effort (using real reactors, the construction of which Speth did so much to derail) could address the first shortcoming adequately, and concern about global warming could force the public to accept the latter, wouldn't the world be a better place despite people like Speth? Moreover, breeder reactors can be run in such a mode that they do not breed plutonium, but on the contrary, burn it up: about a thousand tons of plutonium has accumulated worldwide from a half-century of operating light-water plants; wouldn't the world sleep better knowing that it will be burned up and will never fall into terrorists' hands? The fact that Speth mentions weapons-grade plutonium and breeder reactors in the same paragraph proves that he doesn't know what he is talking about. Speth quotes the well-known charlatan Amory Lovins on several environmental-technological issues. No, Virginia, "tripled-to-quintupled efficiency cars" are impossible to make at reasonable production costs; in order for the United States to consume less gasoline, people need to drive less, and consume fewer goods, and/or consume proportionately more locally-made goods (so truckers would drive less).
In any case, it is obvious that the Earth's environment is in a poor shape as we speak, and it would be in a far worse shape in 2050 (I will be 77 if I am still alive then, and my daughter will turn 46) if nothing is done - in fact, if nothing drastic is done. Not reducing the consumption of natural resources (of oil, in particular) and invading countries sitting on top of these resources on false pretexts in order to install client governments there is even worse than doing nothing.
Serious threat to profits! Sure pal, anything you say........2006-09-17
A gripping book. Yes..ANOTHER global warming book..but it does link habitat loss, ocean health and sustainability all together similar to Paul and Ann Ehrlich's "One With Nineveh". Comprehensive. My favorite type of "global catastrophe" book. This author is extremely knowledgeable (he should be being a Yale Dean, I would hope so). He is hoping to reach younger people, like myself, but I don't think this is quite the book to accomplish this. It is a little dense and packs a huge intellectual punch in almost every paragraph. I had to often stop and digest the rich text. I loved it but I don't know how we're going to reach young people on these types of issues. The resources at the end of the book for concerned citizens is excellent. The author's experience observing global treaties on these issues is sobering and excellent. Everyone in the world should read this book. But..they won't. It amazes me that our best minds of today are incredibly concerned for us and our planet's future. I find this extrordinary. But the adverage Joe hasn't got the foggiest clue. We're probably doomed. Why did this civilazation fall? Because we were just too stupid and arrogant to listen to the best minds of our time.
A Book to Share.......2006-04-24
I agree with every good thing said about this book in the eight Amazon readers' reviews below. I have read a great many of the books about our planetary crisis over the years. In terms of impact per page, I think this is the best yet. In just a bit over 200 pages it portrays the threats, the driving forces that underlie them, the transitions needed in our society if we are to overcome them, and a great variety of approaches to producing those transitions. It is compellingly urgent and at the same time pragmatically hopeful.
I'm going to buy multiple copies and send them to friends and relations who need to read it!
Excellent .......2006-03-07
This is an outstanding volume. Informative and well written, it stands alone but also goes especially well with volumes that offer more detail on the nitty gritty of global environemntal politics, such as those by Chasek, Downie or DeSombre.
Understand the facts and change apathy into action..........2005-12-15
At little more than 200 pages (of primary text), this important book is hardly a boring textbook. In a concise manner, it explains what exactly is going on in the world today. I love the author's ability to define complex environmental trends and organize them into useful lists (10 Negative Environmental Trends, 8 Ways to Change). He takes the vagary out of the science that often indimates us from truly grasping environmental issues. Warning: now that you understand, you will feel forced to act.
One of the author's recommendations is for environmental education to increase, so the gap between environmental science and the average person will close. Read this book and the gap will lessen for you. Futhermore is his collection of resources for those inclined to take action (websites, books, etc.). I found these resources an excellent start for all, from housewives to students to policy makers.
Book Description
This manifesto summarizes the disparate critical practices that constitute "ecocriticism. " Lawrence Buell, one of the world 's leading theorists in ecocriticism, traces the ecocritical movement back to its roots in the 1970s, through its coalescence into a recognizable entity in the early 1990s, to its diversification and proliferation today. He shows how, from an initial focus on such genres as nature writing and nature poetry, ecocriticism has come to take all of literary history and discourse as its arena; and he addresses questions currently facing the discipline, such as: Why has the interest in environmental literary and cultural studies so quickly increased? Can the nature-preservation emphasis of first-wave ecocriticism be reconciled with second-wave concerns with issues of environmental justice? What is the meaning of "place " in a globalizing world? And how do aesthetic, ethical, and political concerns interact and collide in ecocritical work? Finally, Buell looks to the future of ecocriticism, predicting that discourses of the environment will become a permanent part of literary and cultural studies.
Customer Reviews:
A positive-themed manifesto of means to balance differing agendas into a more unified, and therefore stronger movement.......2006-02-06
The Future Of Environmental Criticism: Environmental Crisis And Literary Imagination is a scholarly summary of the distinct critical practices that constitute "ecocriticism" today. Written by one of the world's leading theorists, who traces the ecocritical movement to its roots in the 1970's and its coalescence in the 1990's, The Future Of Environmental Criticism Asks such bold questions as: Why has interest in environmental literary and cultural studies risen so rapidly in recent times? Can the emphasis upon preserving nature of earlier ecocriticism be successfully reconciled with later ecocritical issues of environmental justice? The Future Of Environmental Criticism draws from past and present reality to predict the directions in which future ecocritical movements will flow, and offers a positive-themed manifesto of means to balance differing agendas into a more unified, and therefore stronger movement.
Book Description
Drawing a completely new road map toward a sustainable future, Jack M. Hollander contends that our most critical environmental problem is global poverty. His balanced, authoritative, and lucid book challenges widely held beliefs that economic development and affluence pose a major threat to the world's environment and resources. Pointing to the great strides that have been made toward improving and protecting the environment in the affluent democracies, Hollander makes the case that the essential prerequisite for sustainability is a global transition from poverty to affluence, coupled with a transition to freedom and democracy.
The Real Environmental Crisis takes a close look at the major environment and resource issues--population growth; climate change; agriculture and food supply; our fisheries, forests, and fossil fuels; water and air quality; and solar and nuclear power. In each case, Hollander finds compelling evidence that economic development and technological advances can relieve such problems as food shortages, deforestation, air pollution, and land degradation, and provide clean water, adequate energy supplies, and improved public health. The book also tackles issues such as global warming, genetically modified foods, automobile and transportation technologies, and the highly significant Endangered Species Act, which Hollander asserts never would have been legislated in a poor country whose citizens struggle just to survive.
Hollander asks us to look beyond the media's doomsday rhetoric about the state of the environment, for much of it is simply not true, and to commit much more of our resources where they will do the most good--to lifting the world's population out of poverty.
Download Description
Drawing a completely new road map toward a sustainable future, Jack M. Hollander contends that our most critical environmental problem is global poverty. His balanced, authoritative, and lucid book challenges widely held beliefs that economic development and affluence pose a major threat to the world's environment and resources. Pointing to the great strides that have been made toward improving and protecting the environment in the affluent democracies, Hollander makes the case that the essential prerequisite for sustainability is a global transition from poverty to affluence, coupled with a transition to freedom and democracy. The Real Environmental Crisis takes a close look at the major environment and resource issues--population growth; climate change; agriculture and food supply; our fisheries, forests, and fossil fuels; water and air quality; and solar and nuclear power. In each case, Hollander finds compelling evidence that economic development and technological advances can relieve such problems as food shortages, deforestation, air pollution, and land degradation, and provide clean water, adequate energy supplies, and improved public health. The book also tackles issues such as global warming, genetically modified foods, automobile and transportation technologies, and the highly significant Endangered Species Act, which Hollander asserts never would have been legislated in a poor country whose citizens struggle just to survive. Hollander asks us to look beyond the media's doomsday rhetoric about the state of the environment, for much of it is simply not true, and to commit much more of our resources where they will do the most good--to lifting the world's population out of poverty.
Customer Reviews:
Optimistic but one-sided reframe of planet's plight.......2007-06-23
Rich western nations have done a lot to preserve natural habitats and clean up their air and water. People in poor countries are too busy surviving to worry about the environment, and even if they did, lack the resources to make a difference. This book takes these observations as the basis for a broader hypothesis - the answer to our global environmental crisis lies in the fostering of global affluence. As people get richer the problems of the environment will on the whole sort themselves out. For instance only in the affluent nations have we seen the brakes go on the exponential rise in human populations. The book could also be taken as an antidote to the pessimism that surrounds aspects of the environmental movement. Hollander is relentlessly optimistic. He downplays many of the things that environmentalists worry about like peak oil, the dangers of GM food (a force for good), global warming (current changes may not be secondary to human industrial activity) and over-population (we can feed 10billion with better yields and better distribution).
The problem with Hollander's thesis is that in its optimism it leaves a lot of important considerations unexplored. The word affluence is used throughout but never clearly defined or unpacked. For instance historically the affluence of some tends to depend on the poverty of others. We can't all be affluent - even in the US 15% of its citizens live in "official" poverty. Also though affluence tends to improve local environments it can have the opposite effect at distant out-of-sight locations. Though rainforests get chopped by desperate subsistence farmers they get even more chopped by big firms growing feed crops to raise beef for sale in affluent nations. The polluting industrialists of China are making goods for markets in affluent countries. Hollander concludes "The world's fossil fuel supplies are plentiful. They will neither run out nor become scarce in the foreseeable future". While this may be true for coal it is not true of oil (Hollander doesn't mention important evidence like the artifical hike in purported reserves by OPEC nations in the 1980s) - yet oil is the central commodity underpinning the author's version of Western affluence (including cheap transportation and abundant food).
It is good to be reminded of the environmental dangers of poverty but Hollander is at his best explaining the investments that countries like the US have made in preserving their forests (healthier now than anytime in the last 100 years) and wildlife (implementing the Endangered Species Act has cost billions). The author seems to have quite narrow vision despite his global agenda - I imagine him as happily affluent in a beautiful retirement house in the hills of northern California. But the book feels overly devoted to this ideal with statements such as "earth is not short of cropland - it short of affluence". Only on the topic of road congestion does a sense of pessimism creep in - even hydrogen-powered cars take up space. The book contains surprisingly little direct argumentation around poverty and focuses more on reframes of standard western environmental anxieties such as the role of nuclear, water security and depletion of fish stocks.
It is hard to get excited about affluence, abundance yes, but not affluence. And we need abundance of many things, not only material things, some of which are found in equal or greater abundance amongst the poor.
Very well researched and supported arguments on the subject........2006-08-10
This short book covers a huge amount of ground. In each chapter, the author focuses on a single issue that other authors covered with entire books. If you want to find out more about the oil crisis, global warming, the future of alternative energy, the sustainability of water resources it is all in here.
In each case, the author adopts a most informative approach. He shares with you the data, the scientific foundation, and the environmental outlook. As you read through these chapters, you'll find out we are not likely to run out of oil in the near future. This is because of the combination of increasing energy efficiency and improving technology that renders more geological terrain accessible for oil exploration. Similarly, nuclear energy and alternative energy have still a long way to go to become viable substitute for fossil fuel.
His chapter on global warming is excellent. I have studied several books and analyzed data on this subject. And, the author in just little over 20 pages covered this complex topic extremely well. His conclusion is far less dramatic than the media's. Most of global warming is due to natural long term climate oscillation. The rise in anthropogenic CO2 is unlikely to destabilize our climate. A potential rise of a couple of degrees is unlikely to hurt our ecosystems. Global warming has not been associated with a more volatile climate including rising occurrence of extreme events (tornadoes, hurricanes, etc...). Climate models, so far, are extremely poor predictors of climate parameters be it precipitation or temperature.
The author makes an interesting case that environment deterioration is associated with poverty. Some reviewers of this book argue the opposite, that environment deterioration is caused by the more affluent societies who exploit resources without enough environmental concern. They further argue that as the billions of Indians and Chinese individuals become more affluent, they will in turn exploit the environment to its detriment. The author's argument is founded on his three stages of development. The first one is associated with third world countries relying mainly on wood burning for fuel. The second one is industrialization associated with pollution and little environmental concern. The third one is advanced technology associated with the information age, greater energy efficiency, greater environmental protection that comes with affluence. He makes the case that third world countries have the opportunity to leapfrog the second stage (polluting industrialization) and reach out to the third stage (information technology).
Overall, I found this book easy to read, very informative, and interesting. Environmental activists who may disagree with him will have to accept that his opinions are well founded. Each of his arguments are well supported by references to peer reviewed scientific papers.
The Economic Foundations of Environmental Integrity.......2004-03-03
As I have pointed out in my reviews of this important book (in ENVIRONMENT magazine and in POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT REVIEW), Hollander provides badly-needed balance and perspective to contentious issues of environmental quality and resource adequacy -- issues that, all too often, are drowned out in a swirl of dogmatic and ideological rhetoric and posturing, to which neither the political left or right are immune. The author addresses topics critical to a sorting out of the many strands entering into the environment-resources-economic growth debate: population, agriculture, air quality, energy, transportation, among others. Although the author believes that environmental progress and threats to resource abundance aren't nearly as dire as sometimes depicted, there are indisputably major challenges to be confronted. But improved management, emerging technologies, market incentives, and reforms in governance (especially in developing countries, where many environmental and resource dilemmas will manifest themselves in the years to come) can all contribute to a more reassuring future.
No book can escape some critical dissent. While I agree that rising income typically gives rise, in turn, to a demand for enhanced environmental amenities, it can also make the solution of some problems -- say, traffic congestion -- less tractable. And my "precautionary" instincts would probably have me move more aggressively on dealing with the possibility of climatic disruption than Hollander. Overall, however, this book -- judiciously melding natural and social science, and eloquently written, to boot -- is one I can unhesitatingly recommend.
Joel Darmstadter
Economist
Resources for the Future
Washington DC
Dangerous.......2004-01-13
Despite some very important and true points, The Real Environmental Crisis has the potential to be a dangerous book.
The volume's central argument -- that the environment can be improved by eliminating or reducing poverty -- does at least in part stand to reason. Several important environment-related issues (e.g., water and air quality, deforestation, and over population) clearly improve in countries as they become wealthier. And while I'm not sure I agree with author Jack Hollander's claim that fighting poverty may be the single most important environmental step available to us, it is certainly among the most important steps.
But the idea that poverty is responsible for all of our environmental ills is a simple-minded and counter-productive argument. If that were so, how does one explain that 80 percent of the world's greenhouse gasses (which most scientists link to global warming) are produced by only 25 wealthy and industrialized countries? How many developing countries have had nuclear reactor accidents? Why are cancer rates higher in wealthy nations? What percentage of the world's bunker fuels (toxic transport-related pollution, mostly from jet airplanes) is released by groups based in Africa, Latin America, or unindustrialized Asia?
Even taking all of that into account, the scale is tilted even more toward the environmental culpability of wealthy nations than is apparent. Witness the biggest environmental disasters of the last generation: Shell in Nigeria, Dow Chemical in India, and Texaco in Ecuador, to name three. They all took place in the developing world, true, but only with the money, technology, and personnel paid for by companies from wealthy countries.
The most damning evidence against Mr. Hollander's thesis may be related to climate change. It is accurate to say that the developing world burns unfiltered fossil fuels, which, gram for gram, release more CO2 into the atmosphere than natural gas, refined petroleum, or even coal. But how many small fires designed to keep a family warm during a cold desert night are needed to balance out the smelters and factories of Pittsburgh, Manchester, or Turin? Yes, the third world is still using polluting leaded gasoline that most wealthy countries outlawed a decade ago, but does anyone think that all the old cars on the streets of Havana or Nairobi can produce the same pollution in a week that a single hour of traffic on the highways of Los Angeles or Hong Kong releases into the atmosphere?
Of course, poverty issues must be addressed, but addressing them will not produce an environmental panacea. In fact, it would likely do the opposite: the quickest route to wealth for most poor countries is a rapid industrialization, simply because that takes advantage of cheap labor and it sidesteps the need for a widely educated workforce. But that route usually involves the purchase of outdated equipment, the use of cheep (and usually polluting) fuel sources. And third-world governments bent on industrialization rarely have a desire to pass and enforce environmental rules.
There are important areas where eliminating poverty would help the environment: wealthier farmers are more likely to rotate crops to assure the long-term viability of the land (and give less reason for deforestation) and less likely to pollute the water supply with harmful fertilizers. Population growth rates are lower in rich countries because children cease being an economic asset (free labor) and start to become an economic cost (another person to feed and clothe). And of course there is the incontrovertible injustice of those of us in wealthy countries doing nothing while millions around the world are at risk of starvation.
But framing this in an environmental context is just wrong. Not only is it inaccurate, but it can also be spun into a dangerous diverting tactic, an excuse for rich countries to do nothing about their own environmental sins and instead point a gnarled finger at the Third World and claim those countries must act first.
A Lucid, Educated and Focused Book.......2003-08-22
Jack Hollander has managed to write a book that is not only informative but also speaks to the general public. In an age where environmentalism has turned into either an intellectual debate (nobody can understand it) or a political agenda (nobody cares to understand it), Hollander has brushed aside the traditional jargon and the conventional perspective to find the underlying problem that plagues our planet and its environment. Writing with ease on all environmental subjects, from global warming to fossil fuels to agriculture, Hollander provides a solid and strong argument that poverty is the world's worst environmental problem. The text is lucid and reads like a novel, as it was intended to appeal to intellectuals and laymen alike. Yet the author goes well beyond rhetoric--he backs his arguments up with accurate data and appropriate evidence from reliable sources. Hollander doesn't just provide optimism for the future; he lays down a framework on which that optimism is based. For the avid environmentalist, this book should be read if only to get a different perspective based not on rhetoric, but on hard facts. For the layman, like me, this book will clarify the environmental debate that has been making headline news since the 70's and will continue well into the future.
Book Description
In Boiling Point, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ross Gelbspan argues that, unchecked, climate change will swamp every other issue facing us today. Indeed, what began as an initial response of many institutions-denial and delay-has now grown into a crime against humanity. Gelbspan's previous book, The Heat Is On, exposed the financing of climate-change skeptics by the oil and coal companies. In Boiling Point, he reveals exactly how the fossil fuel industry is directing the Bush administration's energy and climate policies -payback for helping Bush get elected. Even more surprisingly, Gelbspan points a finger at both the media and environmental activists for unwittingly worsening the crisis. Finally, he offers a concrete plan for averting a full-blown climate catastrophe.
According to Gelbspan, a proper approach to climate change could solve many other problems in our social, political, and economic lives. It would dramatically reduce our reliance on oil, and with it our exposure to instability in the Middle East. It would create millions of jobs and raise living standards in poor countries whose populations are affected by climate-driven disease epidemics and whose borders are overrun by environmental refugees. It would also expand the global economy and lead to a far wealthier and more peaceful world. A passionate call-to-arms and a thoughtful roadmap for change, Boiling Point reveals what's at stake for our fragile planet
Customer Reviews:
Enviro-skeptics are barbarians at the gate!.......2006-10-24
Better than your usual global warming book..and there a lot of good ones..(this is one of my favorite genres so to speak). Yes..this is a little more interesting. While it speaks about the science, there is more needed analysis of the "debate" and politics of this pressing and vast subject as well a very much needed scathing indictment of the American press' approach to the subject. The author offers some breathtaking solutions to this problem that could really make for a great new world. If only. If only. I'll mail a copy to the next president. Now..if only someone would write a whole book about how science is too dangerous (biotechnology excepted of course) for America as it threatens to make Americans think and challenge the status quo. Espcially at this point in our history. The Vatican once had America's attitude about science.
The Cusp of a Change.......2006-02-12
Gelbspan argues convincingly that we are all aparticipants in our environmental well-being and that the changes wrought are just beginning to be felt. Climate change, he asserts, has come from our relentless production of greenhouse gases and it seems the weight of scientific opinion is lining up behind him.
The effcts are multi-dimensional including changes in weather patterns with resultant decrements in crop production and distressing increments in disease distribution as insect vectors find the warmer climate more to their liking.
His logic is, unfortunately, hard to refute, his prose easily comprehended and his tone earnest, if alarmist. This book should be read by everybody in congress.
Hot stuff!.......2006-02-06
Gelbspan is angry. His wrath is prominent on nearly every page of this stimulating work. He's irate because he's convinced climate change looms as a threat to our planet. Certain that today's nearly runaway "global warming" is at least accelerated by our society, if not basically initiated by our industrialised lifestyle, he vigorously censures the perpetrators. Living in the USA, and aware of how much his nation contributes to the worsening condition of our biosphere, he addresses his treatise directly at his fellow countrymen. Resource and energy industries have combined to blind North Americans to the results of their high profit commercial ventures. "Wake up!", Gelbspan admonishes. "You've been led into a bad situation! Fix it!"
The author's unsparing in his condemnation of lax standards and half-hearted solutions. No segment of contemporary US society, whether energy producer, consumer, politician is exempted from condemnation. Even environmental activists don't escape his lash. His primary target is the fossil fuel and coal industries. With their long-standing role as the foundation of US economic growth, they've grown nearly omnipotent. That power has been applied to guiding political figures in their development, or dearth, of policies regarding environmental issues. As the planet's largest producer of polluting agents, Gelbspan wants the US to start countering the prowess of industrial lobbyists in his nation. The time for action is overdue. And the solutions are available to be implemented. The first step is for the current adminstration to recognise that climate change is happening and much of it is human-induced. The time for obfuscation and delaying tactics is past.
Knowing how difficult it is for most citizens to cut through the propaganda they've been inundated with, Gelbspan provides a wealth of references to studies justifying his ire. The mass of evidence should convince the "enviro-sceptics" dominating the Bush administration and guiding journalists. Gelbspan recognises the "equal time" philosophy dominating most issues in the US, but charges that "equal time" is a fallacy when "the other side" is producing false or misleading information. Publishing "selective results" is anathema to any researcher worth the name, but it's rich fare for subservient politicians and lobbyists.
The solutions are available, says Gelbspan. He lists and examines several proposed plans of action. Most are found wanting for a variety of reasons. He's clear in why he considers them inadequate, noting that most are good, but cannot provide effective action in the needed time span or geographic scope required. The US may be the planet's worse polluter, but the problem is global, not confined by two oceans, a river and the "world's longest undefended border". His endorsement goes to The World Energy Modernization Plan put together in 1998 by a consortium of executives and experts in various fields. "The World" aspect in the group's title represents the need to gain firm support from many nations to implement the plan. The Montreal Protocol of 1987 diminishing atmospheric flourocarbons is an example the Plan could follow. It drastically reduced a serious threat to the upper atmosphere without impinging on the chemical's manufacturers to continue profitable operation. Where changing to new, safer chemicals worked there, changing to carbon-free energy can have the same effect now. To find out how it works, read Gelbspan's case and proposed solution. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
Important Topic, but Boring and Lacking Credibility!.......2006-01-10
"It is an excruciating experience to watch the planet fall apart piece by piece in the face of persistent and pathological denial." So begins "Boiling Point," a book filled with early symptoms of earth's warming - melting icecaps and glaciers, species moving northward, increasing temperatures, storms, and the severity of those storms. Gelbspan then goes on to place the blame for the U.S. not taking positive corrective action on oil and coal company lobbying, a weak press, and morally corrupt politicians. (President Bush is not the only politician to disappoint Gelbspan - President Putin also rejected the Kyoto treaty, though Gelbspan missed the most obvious reason - warming would benefit Russian agriculture.)
Clearly global warming is a very important topic, as is declining sources of carbon-based fuels. The "good news" is that both issues can be addressed through the same actions, and there are many very good books out there on the coming energy shortage. The "bad news" is that "Boiling Point" is boring and way too long, and that Gelbspan lacks the credibility that a respected scientist would have on this topic.
Re: Boiling Point.......2006-01-08
It's always good to come across some whole truth on this topic, considering how much misinformation and half-truth we see on the web and even in the media. Many people are quick to accept, without further research, things like petitions on climate change, claims that the Arctic (or the globe) is actually cooling, or that we shouldn't be concerned because climate change has happened in the past (which ignores the nature of the current trend - something unseen since a highly volcanic prehistory). Books like this, along with sites like GlobalWarmingTruth.org and RealClimate.org, provide the "rest of the story" and help people understand they're being bamboozled.
Although the book is a little strong on rhetoric in places, I like it's discussion of potential solutions, and the way it encourages people to consider the source of contrarian claims. If it's not firmly rooted in peer-reviewed science, get out the salt.
Book Description
In the Guadalupe Dunes, 170 miles north of Los Angeles and 250 miles south of San Francisco, an oil spill persisted unattended for 38 years. Over the period 1990-1996, the national press devoted 504 stories to the Exxon Valdez accident and a mere nine to the Guadalupe spill--even though the latter is most likely the nation's largest recorded oil spill. Although it was known to oil workers in the field where it originated, to visiting regulators, and to locals who frequented the beach, the Guadalupe spill became troubling only when those involved could no longer view the sight and smell of petroleum as normal. This book recounts how this change in perception finally took place after nearly four decades and what form the response took.
Taking a sociological perspective, Thomas Beamish examines the organizational culture of the Unocal Corporation (whose oil fields produced the leakage), the interorganizational response of regulatory agencies, and local interpretations of the event. He applies notions of social organization, social stability, and social inertia to the kind of environmental degradation represented by the Guadalupe spill. More important, he uses the Guadalupe Dunes case as the basis for a broader study of environmental "blind spots." He argues that many of our most pressing pollution problems go unacknowledged because they do not cause large-scale social disruption or dramatic visible destruction of the sort that triggers responses. Finally, he develops a model of social accommodation that helps explain why human systems seem inclined to do nothing as trouble mounts.
Book Description
Countering the current view of many environmental activists that sovereign nations cannot provide effective environmental governance, The State and the Global Ecological Crisis offers analyses and case studies that explore the prospects for "reinstating the state" as a facilitator of progressive environmental change rather than a contributor to environmental destruction. The authors recognize that, despite the new pressures of global economic competition and rapid technological change, the state remains the preeminent institution with the capacity and authority to secure environmental protection. The book explores the possibilities for the "greening" of the state, domestically and internationally, looking at states both as individual governments and in multilateral or regional regimes. It examines cases in North America, Europe, Australia, and the Philippines and analyzes the broader theoretical implications.
The first part of the book focuses on domestic environmental governance, with both single and comparative case studies that range from the potential emergence of an "ecological state" paralleling the development of the welfare state to the theory and practice of environmental justice in the United States. The book's second part addresses the role of the state in transnational environmental governance and looks at topics including environmental rights in the European Union, hybrid forms of governance involving both state and nonstate actors, and an alternative foundation for global environmental governance. Each chapter not only offers a critical analysis of current developments but also identifies new initiatives and opportunities that may accelerate environmental progress.
Average customer rating:
- Well-Presented Material
- Truths, lies, and myths surrounding a range of water issues
- For water ignorants
- Most amazing book series ever by a business person
|
Troubled Water: Saints, Sinners, Truth And Lies About The Global Water Crisis
Anita Roddick ,
Brooke Shelby Biggs ,
Robert F., Jr. Kennedy ,
Vandana Shiva ,
Maude Barlow , and
Tony Clarke
Manufacturer: Chelsea Green Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 General
| Popular Economics
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Social Services & Welfare
| Poverty
| Current Events
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Social Policy
| Government
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Politics
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Conservation
| Environment
| Outdoors & Nature
| Subjects
| Books
Water Supply
| Environment
| Outdoors & Nature
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Natural Resources
| Nature & Ecology
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
Water Supply & Land Use
| Nature & Ecology
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
Similar Items:
-
Take It Personally: How to Make Conscious Choices to Change the World
-
Fifty-Two Simple Ways to Make a Difference
-
Breakfast Epiphanies: Finding Wonder in the Everyday
-
God in the Alley: Being and Seeing Jesus in a Broken World
-
The Hospital by the River: A Story of Hope
ASIN: 095439593X |
Book Description
Around the world, one billion people lack access to clean water. Droughts, floods, and waterborne diseases kill tens, perhaps hundreds, of millions of people (mostly children) every year. And huge multinational corporations see a profit opportunity unparalleled even by oil or gold. From Bolivia to Britain, water supplies are being privatized and sold for profit, cutting millions off from the single most crucial human need. Meanwhile, consumers in industrialized countries such as Italy, Britain, Australia, and the United States eagerly drink millions of liters of bottled water every day--some of which is less pure than the stuff flowing from their taps at home--at a cost of about one thousand times what tap water costs. In America, beef-flavored bottled water for dogs is sold; in Nigeria, you can buy a bottle of water guaranteed to make men more virile. Why are the politics of water so skewed, and whatÂ's being done about it? This book explores the problems and the solutions, and provides resources for ordinary readers to get involved.
Customer Reviews:
Well-Presented Material.......2006-02-21
I found this book to be a very compelling source of information about our Global water crisis. It presented information in formats that are very clear and to the point. It illustrates quite well the tug-of-war going on today between corporations that sell bottled water and/or soft drinks and the people of countries who desperately need that water at low prices. This book defines water's critical role in the network of the earth's resources and how clean water should be the right of all human beings, not a commodity purchased by corporations and sold at huge profits. A must read!
Truths, lies, and myths surrounding a range of water issues.......2005-02-10
Anita Roddick is both an entrepreneur and an activist and in Troubled Water: Saints, Sinners, Truth And Lies About The Global Water Crisis, informatively surveys the issues involved in worldwide potable water availability, from the politics of water distribution and water quality to global warming and bottled water myths. Essays from Greenpeace, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and others, outline truths, lies, and myths surrounding a range of world water issues.
For water ignorants.......2004-10-15
This book could well be termed Water 101, but if you have been interested in water for more than a day, it is likely you already know more than what is inside. Besides, the information is poorly displayed in my opinion.
Most amazing book series ever by a business person.......2004-10-01
Troubled Water is part of an amazing library of books Anita Roddick, global entrepreneur and founder of Body Shop, has spent much of the last 3 years authoring and is publishing simultaneously.
Troubled Water is likely to have extraordinary consequences for global corporations in the water and soft drinks industries. For years, this sector has been asked by poor countries to collaborate responsibly and not to try to take over water in countries where cumulatively a billion people already have no fresh water access. As the author of World Class Brands 15 years ago, and a marketer ashamed to agree with most of Naomi Klein's charges of how much badwill global marketing has needlessly compounded over the last decade and a half, it will need a heroic and deeply human response from the likes of Coca-Cola if it is to remain in top 10 global branding lists 5 years out.
It is fitting that within days of the publication of Troubled Water, the president of the World Bank has declared a war on global poverty. Over in Britain, from where I submit this review, you can be assured that Water will be the main activist theme aligning 20000 concerned people converging for the European Social Forum (October 2004), and celebrating the Brazilian led launch of the International Free Water Academy. It is time the people of the world took back the branding of the humanity of water, and 2005 is a year jammed full of large scale change networking events, each of which will pay special tribute to water as a symbol of human freedom. Troubled Water is a book of our times, the start of an activepeace movement as well as with your and my god's blessings a whirlwind contributor to James Wolfesohn's war on poverty. It would be fitting to pay tribute to his and Anita's common sense of humanity and water with the way the World Bank declares our future's interdependence at every locality of the globe:
"The big issue of our time is global security. At present, we view it mostly through the lens of Baghdad or Beslan. While we certainly have to deal with these and other immediate concerns, by far, the greatest potential source of instability on our planet today is poverty, and the hopelessness and despair that it brings to so many in our world. Sixty years ago, the world recognized the need to bring hope to the millions of people left in shattered nations after World War II, and the World Bank was created to help them rebuild their lives. Its mission today remains as critical as it was then, if not more so. It is in all our best interests to help countries that struggle with crushing poverty to take basic steps, such as getting boys and girls into school; preventing diseases like H.I.V./AIDS, malaria and diarrhea; protecting our forests and oceans; and removing obstacles to trade so that poor farmers can get their products to market. Helping poor countries develop in this way is not merely the right thing to do ( though, of course, it is): investing in development is the safe thing to do. My generation did not grow up thinking this way. We thought there were two worlds - the haves and the have-nots - and that they were, for the most part, quite separate. That was wrong then. It is even more wrong now. The wall that many of us imagined as separating the rich countries from the poor countries came down on Sept. 11, 2001. We are linked now in so many ways: by economics and trade, migration, environment, disease, drugs and conflict. In our world of six billion people, one billion have 80 percent of the world's GDP, while the other five billion have the remaining 20 percent. Nearly half this world lives on less than $2 per day. One billion people have no access to clean water; over 100 million children never get the chance to go to school...
Book Description
From Apocalypse to Way of Life is the most stirring, comprehensive account of the environmental crisis since Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. In vivid prose, Frederick Buell illustrates the growing complexity of our ecological catastrophe as well as the suffocating political and cultural forces that blunt our response to it.
In some quarters, the prophecies of doom have produced a Chicken Little syndrome: If the sky has not yet fallen, why should we believe it will? Buell counters with the hard facts about contemporary threats to human health--deforestation freshwater depletion, ocean pollution, biodiversity loss, synthetic hormones--while tracing the expressions of environmental apocalypse in popular culture.
With passion and eloquence, From Apocalypse to Way of Life shows us the crisis that is staring us in the face, and explains why we can no longer see it.
Customer Reviews:
Simply Excellent.......2003-11-12
Well-written, intelligent, daunting. One of the best environmental books I've read in a few years, and I teach, write, edit, and review in this field.
A Superb Overview of How We've Messed Up the Environment.......2003-04-01
I know of no better book about the environmental crises in the US today than this one. It is full of ideas and information but is also full of feeling and is a great read! The book also tells the often sad and outrageous story of environmental politics from the conservative "revolution" to the present and explores many of the very bizarre ways in which we Americans have attempted culturally to adapt to living with and in environmental crisis. I highly recommmend it.
Diane Dudzinski
Illuminating.......2003-03-27
From Apocalypse to Way of Life gives a riveting account of environmental crisis in all its many forms--as a catastrophe in progress in nature, as a threat to human health, and as a dysfunctional aspect of society. It deals with trashed ecosystems, chemical and other pollution, the extinction of species, the risks of new technologies, scary human health problems, and the environmental effects of global inequities. It gives an often amusing (sometimes hilarious) and sobering account of the various attempts to convince us that environmental crisis does not exist (or more blatantly, that it is actually good for us) that have entered American politics and culture over the last three decades.
"Environmental Crisis: The Big View".......2003-03-27
Buell's book on environmental crisis is that rare breed of serious book. It's really important, and it's also thoroughly readable and entertaining. Every major aspect of environmental crisis is discussed, and how the crisis has played out in American politics and culture is also fully presented. It's a must read for anyone who wants to really try to imagine the next hundred years.
Books:
- The Global Class War: How America's Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future - and What It Will Take to Win It Back
- The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming (and Environmentalism)
- The Prophet's Dictionary: The Ultimate Guide to Supernatural Wisdom
- The Rebirth of Nature: The Greening of Science and God
- The Road to Disunion: Volume I: Secessionists at Bay, 1776-1854 (Road to Disunion Vol. 1)
- The Slumber of Christianity : Awakening a Passion for Heaven on Earth
- The South Beach Diet Quick and Easy Cookbook: 200 Delicious Recipes Ready in 30 Minutes or Less
- There Are Men Too Gentle to Live Among Wolves
- This Moment on Earth: Today's New Environmentalists and Their Vision for the Future
- This Moment on Earth: Today's New Environmentalists and Their Vision for the Future
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- The Luciano Story
- Redeeming Love
- Point Clear: A Novel
- Portrait of a Priestess: Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece
- Save The Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need
- Polarized Light, Second Edition, Revised and Expanded
- Sleeping Beauty II: Grief, Bereavement in Memorial Photography American and European Traditions
- Benchmarking the Performance of Workers' Compensation Systems: Compscope Multistate Comparisons : Cs
- Look Back to Get Ahead: Life Lessons from History's Heroes
- A Revolutionary Rogue: Henry Marten and the English Republic
The Human Tradition in California (Human Tradition in America)
Thrown Among Strangers: The Making of Mexican Culture in Frontier California
Fool's Paradise: A Carey McWilliams Reader (California Legacy Book) (California Legacy Book)
The Octopus: A Story of California (Twentieth Century Classics)
In Dubious Battle (Penguin Classics)
