Influential books

[cedric]

OK which books have you found influential or worthy of promoting on environmental / energy issues?

[Glorfindel]

1. I'm showing my age here, but the works of Rachel Carson

"Silent Spring" and "The Sea around Us" really made me wake up to the fact that nature and wilderness are not the enemy or things to be "tamed," but essential and vital to human life.

[cedric]

2. Although I've only recently read it

A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold was impressive

[bananas]

4. I was going to ask "then or now" in response to the OP

[skooooo]

3. My 4th grade math book...

(This was back in the mid-70s.) The Houghton Mifflin (probably) publishers had a math book that gave facts about what would happen in 30 years if we didn't cut down our oil consumption and other abuses of nature.

It was shocking to read these little factoids as a kid, but I remember thinking, "Well since they are publishing this, they are aware of the problem, and will change things so that the environment doesn't wear out."

Now I realize, few people gave a crap about it all. They should have listened to Jimmy Carter.

[canoeist52]

5. "Collapse!" by Jared M. Diamond

[cedric]

6. I've purchased Collapsed

but other than glancing through it not got round to reading it yet.

[NNadir]

16. That is, without question, the best environmental book I have ever read.

It lays it out, in uncertain terms, that ignorance kills.

Since reading Collapse I am reminded of the Greenland Norse - who refused to eat Salmon because they regarded it as toxic and so starved to death - whenever I think of dumb ass anti-nukes.

[GliderGuider]

7. My reading list contains 30, but here are my top 6

From http://www.paulchefurka.ca/Reading%20List.html :

• Overshoot by William Catton - The quintessential introduction to ecology and how humanity is a part of it.
• The Party's Over by Richard Heinberg - An excellent, accessible introduction to Peak Oil.
• Hell and High Water by Joseph Romm - What's global warming you ask? Grab hold of something solid, and let Mr. Romm tell you what it's really all about.
• The Long Emergency by James Kunstler - A passionate polemic by a man who has had a glimpse into our future.
• The Spirit in the Gene by Reg Morrison - Journey into our genes to discover why we act the way we do.
• Blessed Unrest by Paul Hawken - One of the few rays of real hope piercing our current gloom.

I'd add two videos:

Dr. Albert Bartlett's virtuoso lecture on exponential growth and Dr. Jeremy Jackson's jeremiad on the state of the world's oceans.

[Bigmack]

8. Thanks for the bibliography -

Have read half of them, will check out the other three, tho I do have to say that, having tried letter writing, picketing, marching, life-style changes, etc. etc. etc, burying one's head in the sand is sorely tempting..... Ms. Bigmack

[cedric]

9. I tried that

but once you know the problem it just keeps on creeping into your soul.

[YankeyMCC]

10. "Omnivore's Dilema" by Pollan

and "Collapse" by Diamond would be a couple of top picks.

I would also include: "Changes in the Land" William Cronon it really isn't about the current crisis or pollution/global warming but it provides an excellent picture of how humans relate and affect the ecology they live in and I think that's an important foundation.

[pscot]

11. Silent Spring was the first

The monkey wrench Gang, Edward abbey
Population Bomb, the Ehrlichs
Overshoot, Wm Catton
The sheep Look Up, John Brunner
With Speed and Violence, Fred Pearce

The Second Coming, by W.B.Yeats While having nothing to do with environmental issues, it evokes the nameless dread associated with the movement of malevolent forces beyond our control. It's been running through my mind lately.

........

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
........
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

[diane in sf]

12. Some of my faves from my thesis...

Andreas, Joel. Addicted to War: Why the U.S. Can't Kick Militarism. Oakland, CA: AK
Press, 2002.
-This has a lot of explanation of the economic reasons why we are doing so much less than we can environmentally and social justice wise.

Ausubel, Kenny. Restoring the Earth: Visionary Solutions from the Bioneers. Tiburon,
California: HJ Kramer, 1997.

Benyus, Janine M. Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. New York: Perennial,
Harper Collins, 2002.
-A wonderful book with many examples of people using nature's organizing principles to do all sorts of things better from farming to fasteners.

Brown, Lester. Eco-Economy: Building and Economy for the Earth. W.W. Norton & Co.
2001.
-He's updated this book since.

Capra, Fritjof. The Hidden Connections: Integrating the Biological, Cognitive, and Social
Dimensions of Life into a Science of Sustainability, New York: Doubleday, 2002.
-The introduction to this book is really the best part--Capra talks about his realization of the consiousness and aliveness of the universe versus his older, more Newtonian view of it as physical stuff acted upon by external forces.

Fuller, R. Buckminster. Utopia or Oblivion: The Prospects for Humanity. New York:
Bantam Books, 1969.
-One of the first to write about how there was enough for everyone on earth to live comfortably and sustainably if resources were used well and equitably.

Hawken, Paul and Amory and Hunter Lovins, Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next
Industrial Revolution. New York: Little, Brown, 1999.
-Favorite parts were the descriptions of present day accounting methods as autistic in not valuing natural resources, examples of the possibilities of much more efficient use of energy and materials leading to better standards of living, more profitability, more sustainability.

Lerner, Steve. Eco-Pioneers: Practical Visionaries Solving Today’s Environmental Problems.
U.S.A.: MIT Press, 1998.
-Great examples of people and their new processes.

Pollan, Michael. The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s Eye View of the World. New York:
Random House, 2001.

Ray, Paul H. and Sherry Ruth Anderson. The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million
People Are Changing the World. New York: Harmony Books, 2000.

Smith, Jeffrey M. Seeds of Deception: Exposing Industry and Government Lies About the
Safety of the Genetically Engineered Foods you're Eating. Fairfield, IA, Yes! Books,
2003.

[tom_paine]

13. "Nature's End" by Streiber and Kunetka

It is speculative fiction, set in 2025 but written in 1986.

When I first read it many years ago, I thought it was enlightening and entretaining, as well, but I wasa skeptical about the year 2025 as having seen the beginning of the most severely damaging environmental changes.

Now, of course, it just looks like these guys did their research and effectively extrapolated. It is not 100% prophetic, but 50% of the stuff is eerie.

[phantom power]

14. Investigations, by Stuart Kauffman

[izquierdista]

15. "Direct use of the sun's energy"

By Farrington Daniels. He was a professor of chemistry at M.I.T. and wrote this in the '50s or '60s long before the first energy crisis. It may be a little intense for those without a science or engineering background, but it is still accessible with a little effort. It was written long before the days of inexpensive photovoltaic panels, so it has more of a thermodynamic focus (pun intended), discussing how solar energy can be actively collected in a variety of ingenious methods.