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Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change

by: Elizabeth Kolbert

Review by Rosemarie Stupel - Environmental Defense Public service director
Based on her eye-opening series in The New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert's book on climate change brings the science to life. In lucid prose, she describes how global warming threatens the traditional way of life in a small Alaskan village, forcing its residents to relocate.
She vividly distills the stories of scientists who have unraveled the meaning of ice core samples, the evolving timing of mosquito larvae hatching and the shifting ranges of butterflies in England. Drawing disturbing analogies between today's crisis and the fall of ancient Babylon, Kolbert challenges us with the enormity of what will be required to avert global warming's most dangerous consequences.

Amazon Price: $10.17 (as of 11/09/2009)

The Weather Makers : How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth

by: Tim Flannery

The Weather Makers, a parable about who controls the weather, develops along three major narrative lines. It begins with the story of Gaia, a synonym for Earth used to convey its interconnected biological, atmospheric, oceanic and geological systems. The second story line explains how humanity and our profligate fossil fuel use have usurped Gaia's rightful, weather-making role.
Here, author Tim Flannery, an extraordinary scientist and engaging writer, details our growing understanding of great climatic shifts over the past 65 million years. He explodes arguments that past climate change has yet to be explicated and that we are therefore helpless to recognize people's role in current changes. The third story line presents two contrasting futures. In one, Earth's climate passes a tipping point that leads to disastrous consequences. In the alternate, optimistic future humanity frees itself of fossil fuels and Gaia again assumes control of Earth's climate. Though his discussion here gets a little muddled, such minor flaws do not detract from the book's tour de force.

Amazon Price: (as of 11/09/2009)

Carbon War: Global Warming and the End of the Oil Era

by: Jeremy Leggett

Review from Publishers Weekly
While explaining the science behind global warming in a manner easily accessible to the nonspecialist, Leggett originally a petroleum geologist, then a Greenpeace director and now a solar energy entrepreneur takes us on a whirlwind eight-year personal journey through the world's climate negotiations. From the first major meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1990 through the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 to the historic Kyoto Climate Summit in 1997, Leggett provides an insider's perspective on the negotiations and many of the key players. As compelling as a good thriller, the book deftly describes the machinations of what Leggett calls "the carbon club" or "the foot soldiers for the fossil-fuel industries." Working behind the scenes, these lobbyists have been successful in stalling and diluting every agreement reached to date. All the while, as Leggett explains, the world warms and climatic disasters increase. Most readers will find it impossible to doubt the reality of global warming and its likely consequences after reading Leggett's account of the past decade. The book's only fault is that since its warmly received publication two years ago in Great Britain, nothing more than a short epilogue written in February 2000 has been added to update readers.

Amazon Price: $22.58 (as of 11/09/2009)

High Tide: The Truth About Our Climate Crisis

by: Mark Lynas

Review by Erik D. Curren
Mark Lynas traveled around the world to find tangible symptoms of global warming. He found them indeed, and some of them are truly heartbreaking. From the Pacific islanders who are preparing to abandon their island home, to the Alaskans in crazy, tilting houses over a foundation of melting permafrost, to the author's own flooding England, the stories hit home. It's hard to deny global warming after this.
Review from Publishers Weekly
Deeply disturbed by unprecedented rain and catastrophic flooding in his native England, journalist Lynas set out on a three-year journey to bear witness to global climate change. Traveling to Alaska to see vanishing tundra, to the growing deserts of Inner Mongolia, to a tiny Pacific island nation facing devastation from rising ocean levels and finally to disappearing glaciers in Peru, Lynas vividly describes the physical and human toll our fossil fuel%uFFFD%u20AC"based culture takes on the planet. Not a scientist himself, Lynas bolsters his case with abundant footnoted scientific references. This is both personal journey and fierce polemic. Much of his political argument and ire is directed squarely at the U.S. In Lynas's view, the U.S., through its domestic and foreign policy, has undermined the valiant efforts of a coalition of developed and developing countries to control and even reduce the emission of greenhouse gases.

Amazon Price: $11.90 (as of 11/09/2009)

Red Sky at Morning: America and the Crisis of the Global Environment, Second Edition (Yale Nota Bene)

by: Professor James Gustave Speth

Review from The New Yorker
In the past two decades, the world's population has grown by thirty-five per cent, energy use by forty per cent, and automobile production by forty-five per cent. The level of carbon dioxide in the air is the highest it has been in nearly half a million years-and CO2 emissions are projected to climb sixty per cent by 2025. Laying out the grim facts, Speth, who was an adviser to Presidents Carter and Clinton, and is the dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, sounds almost nostalgic for the days when the environmental crisis was all about aerosol sprays, factory smokestacks, and PCBs in the riverbed. Today, as he stresses, the crisis is global. But, rather than wait for grand international treaties, Speth thinks that individuals, N.G.O.s, corporations, and other groups ought to start their own initiatives to protect the environment and prevent an irreversible shift in climate. Forty years after "Silent Spring," we may be facing a long, hot summer.

Amazon Price: $10.88 (as of 11/09/2009)

Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy

by: Jr., Robert F. Kennedy

Review by Ellen Thierry on Amazon
RFK writes a persuasive book about the appalling environmental record of the Bush Administration. He does a good job of convincing the reader that he is an environmental advocate first, a Democrat second. He thinks environmentalism should be a nonpartisan issue, and he supports either party's good-faith attempts to improve the environment. I don't know how ANYBODY, a Republican or Democrat, could have access to this information and still support the President. I assume most Republicans simply don't know all this. As demonstrated by this book, the environment alone-leaving aside Iraq and the economy-was reason enough not to vote for Bush. Too bad enough people didn't read it.
Of note: RFK's Afterword in the paperback edition. He debunks the values divide as explanation for Bush's victory and instead reminds us of the PIPA poll that demonstrated just how misinformed Bush voters were. If you're not going to buy the book, at least stand in the bookstore and read his Afterword. If you're a Bush supporter, you might be surprised at the statistics on the "values" record of red vs. blue states.
Review by Tom Lauer on Amazon
I keep buying this book and handing it out to friends. The first couple of chapters start out slow but then it becomes gripping and totally compelling. He speaks to many seemingly disparate concerns like stars in a galaxy and draws a line through them and shows you that they are truly all part of a single constellation. You come to understand the forces of evil that are lined up against patriotic Americans, and other concerned earth dwellers. From the Coors connection to the devastation of the Superfund you will start to understand how well thought out the attack against our values and resources are. This is an amazing book and very readable. This should be required reading for every 8th, 10th, and 12th grade reader and everyone of voting age.

Amazon Price: $11.72 (as of 11/09/2009)

An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It

by: Al Gore

Review by Mark Brownstein - Environmental Defense Managing director of Business Partnerships, Climate and Air
An Inconvenient Truth is really two books in one. The first is a compelling compendium of pictures and text laying out the science and consequences of climate change. The second, interspersed through the first, is a set of personal essays by Al Gore connecting the climate change issue to the arc of his life.
Through these vignettes, the former vice president illustrates how he came to discover what is important and true, offering his life as a parable to awaken our conscience. Gore makes a complicated and critical issue entertaining and easy to understand, but his real objective is to call you to action.

Amazon Price: $16.29 (as of 11/09/2009)

Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things

by: William McDonough, Michael Braungart

Review by Andy Darrell, Environmental Defense Living Cities program director
Architect Bill McDonough teams up with chemist Michael Braungart to create a blueprint for eliminating waste in all aspects of design, from the industrial scale to consumer products. The book's ideas are best expressed in its real-world examples, which show how public and private sector leaders can help their bottom line, the natural world and their communities. Simple choices like the synthetic "paper" on which the book is published demonstrate that taking care of the environment makes economic and practical sense. This approach works if it is built in up front -- and if designers are given the freedom to innovate. While the book is a great read for all environmentalists, I recommend it especially to municipal leaders, architects and corporate leaders.

Amazon Price: $18.15 (as of 11/09/2009)

Design on the Edge: The Making of a High-Performance Building

by: David W. Orr

David Orr describes the often difficult process to get the Environmental Studies building built at Oberlin - convincing faculty, finding resources, involving students in the design, and learning new ways to make a building sustainable. After this building, the College built a couple of buildings that did not learn from his experience, but with pressure from among others, a group called the "EnviroAlums" started by Carl McDaniel, whos book is listed below, the College now has a policy that all future buildings will be built to LEED standards. The first to be built will be a new building for the Jazz Department of the Conservatory of Music.

Amazon Price: $35.00 (as of 11/09/2009)

The Nature of Design: Ecology, Culture, and Human Intention

by: David W. Orr

Amazon Price: $17.00 (as of 11/09/2009)

The Last Refuge: Patriotism, Politics, and the Environment in an Age of Terror

by: David W. Orr

Amazon Price: $25.67 (as of 11/09/2009)

Wisdom for a Livable Planet: The Visionary Work of Terri Swearingen, Dave Foreman, Wes Jackson, Helena Norberg-Hodge, Werner Fornos, Herman Daly, Stephen Schneider, and David Orr

by: Carl N. McDaniel

Carl McDaniel is a fellow alumni from Oberlin who teaches at RTI. He has gathered stories in this book about people who have made a difference for the environment, including David Orr and Bill McDonough.

Amazon Price: $14.00 (as of 11/09/2009)

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

by: Michael Pollan

Review by Ashley Rood - Environmental Defense Program assistant, Ecosystems
"What am I eating? And where in the world did it come from?" These questions instigated Michael Pollan's new book, Omnivore's Dilemma. Taking a naturalist's point of view, Pollan follows the journey of four meals from farm to table: the corn-addicted path of McDonald's take-out, a home-cooked dinner of Whole Foods organics, dining off the grid with a sustainably grown supper and a modern hunter-gatherer's feast. Weaving together literature, science, and some serious hands-on investigation, this book illustrates not only the pleasures of eating the food you know but the serious environmental and health consequences of the way we eat.

Amazon Price: $16.98 (as of 11/09/2009)

Eat Here: Homegrown Pleasures in a Global Supermarket

by: Brian Halweil

Review by Renate Haeckler "Organic Gardener"
This book is very well done. He not only describes the problems in the American food system, but does a fantastic job of describing international problems, something that is lacking in many books published in the US. The writing is easy to understand even though it broaches some complicated issues. If there were any weaknesses, I think it's that he doesn't cover the nutritional losses of old food enough.

Amazon Price: $11.16 (as of 11/09/2009)

Heal the Ocean: Solutions for Saving Our Seas

by: Rod Fujita

Review by Leslie Valentine, Environmental Defense staff writer
A must-read for anyone who visits a beach, lives near a coast or loves the ocean (and who doesn't?). A marine ecologist at Environmental Defense, Rod Fujita unravels the mystery of the sea, revealing its web of life and how we humans are woven into it -- and have shaped it, for better and worse. At the heart of this beautifully-written book lies Fujita's belief in the ocean's resiliency and unwavering faith that we can turn the tide against ocean decline. He shapes the complex science of ocean ecosystems into a tale as mesmerizing as the ocean itself.

Amazon Price: (as of 11/09/2009)

The Founding Fish

by: John McPhee

Review by Dr. Jake Kritzer, Environmental Defense Puleston fellow
Here's a fun fish fact: Like salmon, many fish migrate annually from the open ocean into waterways along the Atlantic coast. Pulitzer-prize winner John McPhee takes us on the journey of the world's largest herring species, the American shad. There is more to a seemingly simple fish than meets the eye. McPhee tracks its life cycle, acquaints us with the fly-fishermen and ichthyologists who know it intimately, and explains how over-fishing and dams threaten the fish. Casting us back in time, McPhee visits Thomas Jefferson fishing for shad in Virginia, and conjectures that the fish might have helped Washington's army survive the treacherous Valley Forge winter. McPhee lets the fish's story make its own case for conservation in this engaging book.

Amazon Price: $16.50 (as of 11/09/2009)