Book Recommendations

See also Film and Writing, which are pieces chosen for literary merit. As well as Literature, Art and the Environment, as well as Graphic Novels.

Note: these are not part of Core course, just books that will be of interest to anyone concerned with the environment.

Lists/Sites

Take Your Climate Activism to the Next Level With January’s New Environmental Books 1/20. Climate and endangered species.

Utner Reader Bookshelf 3/19.

Plenary book recommendations: Dr. S Moser, in her talk on climate change, said if you read only one book, it should be Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth about Climate Change by Clive Hamilton (excerpt), (short video) and a (longer video). She says the book is both depressing and refreshing in its honesty about what's to come. For a more hopeful view (and how to fight) she recommends Blessed Unrest by Paul Hawken a (review/summary) (see also eco-heroes). Her third recommendation is Moral Ground a short(video).

New Books

We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast 2019 by Jonathan Safran Foer audio interview.

The Green New Deal: Why the Fossil Fuel Civilization Will Collapse by 2028, and the Bold Economic Plan to Save Life on Earth Jeremy Rifkin audio interview 9/19.

The End of Ice book Audio interview also (video interview), , 1/19 non-linear cascade effects.

The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming by David Wallace-Wells, (video), (original article) 3/19.

NEW BOOK ON THE CLIMATE CRISIS MAKES THE PERSUASIVE CASE THAT WE’RE NOT DOOMED Drawdown, a new compendium of climate-stabilization tools and solutions edited by the versatile Paul Hawken, has an impressive subtitle: “The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming.” http://www.drawdown.org/ 4/17.

graphic novel: French cartoonist Philippe Squarzoni has taken up the huge task of trying to convey the complex science of climate science and the global emergency that it implies in the form of his autobiographical/documentary graphic novel titled ‘Climate Changed’.

The Dreamt Land: Chasing Water and Dust Across California by Mark Arax, audio interview 6/19 see also CA Water history.

Beyond Crabgrass: A Look At America's 'Radical Suburbs' 4/19 see Urban Planning.

EcoWatch New Year's List includes books on Buddhism and Islam, and regenerative farming. The Snow Leopard Project and Other Adventures in Warzone Conservation by Alex Dehgan — A stunning true story about efforts to protect these endangered cats and other rare species while also helping to defend the human culture around them — and strengthening the bond between people and nature in the process.

New Books 12/18. includes Sea Otters: A History by Richard Ravalli — Cute, beloved and once exploited for their fur, sea otters have now become an icon of conservation. How they once came close to, and then bounced back from, extinction is a five-centuries-long tale of international intrigue, trade, conservation and ecotourism. also: The Fall of the Wild: Extinction, De-Extinction and the Ethics of Conservation by Ben A. Minteer — How far should we go to prevent extinction? Minteer examines some tough ethical questions in this short book of essays. As well as The Environment: A History of the Idea by Paul Warde, Libby Robin and Sverker Sörlin — World War II was an age of terrible environmental destruction. The years immediately following, the authors argue, brought about an awakening of the concept of "the environment" in people, along with an understanding that we need to address the modern-day emergencies of biodiversity loss, pollution, resource extraction and climate change.

The Revolution Where You Live by Sarah van Gelder Co-founder of Yes! Magazine, journalist Sarah van Gelder suspected that there were solutions, and she went looking for them, not in the centers of power, where people are richly rewarded for their allegiance to the status quo, but off the beaten track, in rural communities, small towns, and neglected urban neighborhoods. Join her as she meets the quirky and the committed, the local heroes and the healers who, under the mass media's radar, are getting stuff done. video interview, longer talk, other videos. see Activism.

The End of Ice book Audio interview 1/19 non-linear cascade effect. see more climate books).

What lies beneath: To manage toxic contamination in cities, study their industrial histories: a new book, “Sites Unseen,” sets out to discover how many such former sites exist and why, over time, they simultaneously seem to proliferate and disappear from view. 12/18 see Chemicals.

The Poisoned City video talk BookTV talked to journalist Anna Clark about the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. interview 11/18 see Environmental Justice and Water.

Beach Reads and Big Ideas: The 15 Best New Eco-Books for July 2108 previous picks.

We’re Doomed. Now What? addresses the crisis that is our time through a series of brilliant, moving, and original essays on climate change, war, literature, and loss, from one of the most provocative and iconoclastic minds of his generation. Whether writing about sailing through the melting Arctic, preparing for Houston’s next big storm, watching Star Wars, or going back to the streets of Baghdad he once patrolled as a soldier, Roy Scranton handles his subjects with the same electric, philosophical, demotic touch that he brought to his groundbreaking New York Times essay, “Learning How to Die in the Anthropocene.” audio interview 7/18.

The Hour of Land: Terry Tempest Williams on the Responsibility of Awe and the Wilderness as an Antidote to the War Within Ourselves Popova's Brainpickings overview. Terry Tempest Williams "Clan of the One-Breasted Women" Her new book is Finding Beauty see info on her, her new book and audio interview and another 09 audio interview.

The California Field Atlas , artist-adventurer Obi Kaufmann blends science and art to illuminate the multifaceted array of living, connected systems like no book has done before...road trip companion and love letter to a place.(see aslo rewilding); audio interview 5/18.

New Books update May 2018 example: A Thirsty Land: The Making of an American Water Crisis by Seamus McGraw—Using Texas as a case study, McGraw's book proves that the United States simply isn't ready for the next big drought or flood. This is a problem that's been brewing for a long time, and climate change is about to make it worse.

14 New Books About Lions, Climate Change, Green Living and Indigenous Rights Older books 3/18.

The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate ―Discoveries from a Secret World by Peter Wohlleben and Jane Billinghurst. The science of how trees survive and thrive reminds of the need to protect our forests. see Forests.

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen This novel about about a struggling marriage contains a subplot about the environmental impacts of mountain-top removal mining.

Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood: Did the destruction of the natural environment lead to the post-apocalyptic world in this tale?

Paul Hawken's new book: Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming (2017) *** He is a brilliant and eloquent systems thinker.

Seeds of Resistance: The Fight to Save Our Food Supply audio interview 12/17. Shapiro has done important work on chemicals and GMO's. see Food Scarcity.

Jeff Goodell, author of The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World audio interview 11/17. see Sea Level Rise.

Ecowatch recommends i cludes Bonfire, by Ritter, best known for her role as superhero-turned-PI Jessica Jones, brings us her first novel starring a similarly hard-hitting female protagonist: an environmental lawyer returning to her small, rural home town and getting into a conflict with the corrupt, polluting company. 11/17.

The Madhouse Effect by Michael Mann : The award-winning climate scientist Michael E. Mann and the Pulitzer Prize–winning political cartoonist Tom Toles have witnessed the manipulation of the media by business and political interests and the unconscionable play to partisanship on issues that affect the well-being of billions. The lessons they have learned have been invaluable, inspiring this brilliant, colorful escape hatch from the madhouse of the climate wars.(video talk). See Global Warming. 1/17.

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert, (video interview), [audio interview). *** 2/14.

Naomi Klein’s new book, This Changes Everything, excerpt, reviewed by Sandra Steingraber. (by Kolbert), Colbert interview; extensive interview(2 parts) 9/14.

Tim Wu talked about his book The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads, in which he examines the history of advertising and how marketers are vying for attention over a variety of mediums from billboards to social media.(video). see Public Relations.

Peter Dreier is a professor of politics and chair of the Urban & Environmental Policy Department at Occidental College. His most recent book is The 100 Greatest Americans of the 20th Century: A Social Justice Hall of Fame (Nation Books). see Eco-heroes.

The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate—Discoveries from a Secret World by Peter Wohlleben (Author), Tim Flannery (Foreword).

Of Orcas and Men: What Killer Whales Can Teach Us' (The Overlook Press, June 2015) by David Neiwert, interview UpFront KPFA 7:00am March 9, 2016 Facebk. see Marine Mammals.

What We're Fighting for Now Is Each Other: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Climate Justice by Wen Stephenson features eco-warrior Tim DeChristopher. LOE.org interview 11/28/15. See Global Warming.

Lester Brown: The Great Energy Transition to Solar and Wind Is Underway 4/15.

Unnatural Selection: HOW WE ARE CHANGING LIFE, GENE BY GENE by Emily Monosson (Island Press). Modern society relies on discovering and manufacturing ever more chemicals, most of which are never thoroughly tested for toxicity, let alone their ability to influence evolution. Monosson argues that as we embrace chemicals, we change the circumstances under which natural selection operates and create instead “unnatural selection.” By studying examples from cancer cells to bed bugs, she shows how evolution is happening faster than we realize and explores why that matters. see Chemicals 10/14.

Steven Pinker’s “Better Angels of Our Nature” , (review) excerpt. Culture of Empathy site. TEDtalk. see Altruism

Andy Dyer, professor of biology at the University of South Carolina, author of Chasing the Red Queen: The Evolutionary Race Between Agricultural Pests and Poisons [abstract) published by Slug led Island Press. Audio interview 2/15.

Judith Rodin, author of The Resilience Dividend[: Being Strong in a World Where Things Go Wrong, video 2014. See also Systems Thinking.

Connecting to Change the World: HARNESSING THE POWER OF NETWORKS FOR SOCIAL IMPACT by Peter Plastrik, Madeleine Taylor, and John Cleveland (published by Island Press, go Slugs). 2014. see Entrepreneurship and Networks.

Resilience Thinking, by scientist Brian Walker and science writer David Salt, presents an accessible introduction to the emerging paradigm of resilience. The book arose out of appeals from colleagues in science and industry for a plainly written account of what resilience is all about and how a resilience approach differs from current practices. Rather than complicated theory, the book offers a conceptual overview along with five case studies of resilience thinking in the real world. See also Systems Thinking and Sustainability.

UCSC alum Annabel Hertz's Seeing Green is described as a “timely, energetic and witty” story of a young woman on a mission to puncture the stasis of US environmental policy (Book Review, Huffington Post, 04/04/2012), Seeing Green pays homage to the DC scene, international---and office---politics, and idealism. The novel also explores the rocky and rewarding terrain of family and personal relationships from the perspective of a multicultural protagonist in “a felicitously fast-moving, tightly organized narrative.”

Ellen Griffith Spears'Baptized in PCBs: Race, Pollution, and Justice in an All-American Town see Chemicals and Environmental Justice 9/14.

Black, White, and Green is one of the first books to carefully theorize the green economy, to examine the racial dynamics of food politics, and to approach issues of food access from an environmental-justice perspective. See also Urban Agriculture.

Trees in Paradise: A California History By Jared Farmer review audio interview.

Alan Wesiman, author of THE WORLD WITHOUT US, has a new one, Countdown, asks four key questions: most important questions on Earth-and also the hardest: How many humans can the planet hold without capsizing? How robust must the Earth's ecosystem be to assure our continued existence? Can we know which other species are essential to our survival? And, how might we actually arrive at a stable, optimum population, and design an economy to allow genuine prosperity without endless growth? review; audio interview LOE.org. See also Population page.

Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org. (see Eco-heroes) has a new book Oil and Honey:the Education of a Unlikely Activist excerpt on bees, drawing on Honeybee Democracy, NPR story audio, excerpt, video talk by author. More on bees.

Ecoliterate: How Educators Are Cultivating Emotional, Social, and Ecological Intelligence offers inspiring stories, practical guidance, and an exciting new model of education that builds — in vitally important ways — on the success of social and emotional learning by addressing today’s most important ecological issues. Daniel Goleman.

Brian Fagan, author, The Attacking Ocean: The Past, Present and Future of Rising Sea Levels. Daily Show.

Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism by Elizabeth Becker addresses environmental and economic aspects of the #2 industry in world (literally, in terms of ocean dumping).

Tim Flannery article/review of Stung! on jellyfish blooms.

David Robinson Simon, Meatonomics: How the Rigged Economics of Meat and Dairy Make You Consume Too Much – and How to Eat Better, Live Longer, and Spend Smarter - See more at: link

Why Renegade Naturalist Doug Peacock's New Book About the Pleistocene Is a Must Read for Surviving Today.

Andrew Guzman, Professor, UC Berkeley Law School Overheated: The Human Cost of Climate Change, an 2/13 interview (audio).

Foodopoly by Wenonah Hauter, organic farm owner and executive director of Food & Water Watch(SF internships), argues that agribusinesses, such as ConAgra, Kraft, and Tyson, have hurt small farmers, marginalized the health of crops, and limited consumer choices. The author presents her thoughts on how America's agricultural system should be reformed (video).

The American Way of Eating: Undercover at Walmart, Applebee’s, Farm Fields and the Dinner Table by Tracie McMillan (she spoke at UCSC). Tracie McMillan's book has made headlines recently after a surprise attack by Rush Limbaugh. After going undercover to labor in the fields of industrial farms, stock groceries at Walmart, and work in the kitchen at Applebee's, McMillan—named "a voice the food world needs" by the New York Times—has some eye-opening tales to tell about the inner workings of the corporate food system.

Global Insanity: How Homo sapiens Lost Touch with Reality while Transforming the World by James A Coffmanand Donald C Mikulecky. See also Systems Thinking.

Michael Moss, investigative reporter with The New York Times and author of the new book, Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us. His cover story, "The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food," led last weekend’s Times Sunday magazine. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 2010 for his investigation into the dangers of contaminated meat. video interview.

Pandora's Lunchbox: How Processed Food Took Over the American Meal Opening Pandora’s Lunchbox: Processed foods are even scarier than you thought 2/13. Book. video interviewsearch book.

The Big Thaw: Travels in the Melting North (eBook)

Book of the Year: Clean Break, the Story of Germany's Energy Transformation -- and What Americans Can Learn From It. Germany's plan is not infallible, of course, nor is it alone in its goal to operate on 80 percent renewable power by 2050 -- Scotland recently announced its intention to become 100 percent renewable by 2020. download ebook.

City planner Jeff Speck has found the panacea for our ailing cities, something that could make even Detroit come to life again: walking. His new book, Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time. video. He was co-author of Suburban Nation 2000.

Black Tide: the Devastating Impact of the Gulf Oil Spill audio interviews. Antonia Juhasz is an oil and energy analyst and author and journalist. She's the editor of free alternative annual reports for Chevron and the author of three books on the oil industry.

But Will the Planet Notice?: How Smart Economics can save the World by Gernot Wagner EDF holds that how smart economic policies can do much more than so many of the “green” behavioral modifications, lifestyle changes, that are so often championed by environmentalists. audio interview.

Reckless: The Political Assault on the American Environment by Bob Deans, NRDC, fwd by Robert Redford. Since regaining control of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010, the GOP majority has waged the single greatest legislative assault in history against the foundational environmental protections we all depend on to protect our environment and health. During 2011 alone, the House majority voted nearly 200 times to block,delay or weaken the common sense safeguards that defend our water, wildlife, air and lands, and the onslaught has continued into 2012. video.

Barbara Kingsolver is one of a handful of novelists with a science background, and she puts it to use in her new novel Flight Behavior. Kingsolver discusses the book and why she chose to look at the the issue of climate change in a fictional work set in rural Tennessee. (audio interview) see also text and audio interview andexcerpt. (Also nonfiction: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver, about being a locavore.)

The Man Who Planted Trees, by Jim Robbins, an environmental science journalist for the New York Times article Tree archive.

Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal by Tristram Stuart TEDtalk video.

Gus Speth, elder environmental statesman, author of the acclaimed books Red Sky at Morning (2003) and The Bridge at the Edge of the World (2008), has grown ever more convinced that our politics and our economy are so corrupted, and the environmental movement so inadequate, that we can no longer hope to address the climate crisis, or our deep social ills, by working strictly within the system. The only remaining option, he argues in his forceful new book, America the Possible: Manifesto for a New Economy overview, (interview) 4/12 video. Article overview. 11/12 Bay Area talk (video). See also Economics Page.

The Great Disruption: Why the Climate Crisis Will Bring On the End of Shopping and the Birth of a New World by Paul Gilding.

Dreaming the Future: Reimagining Civilization… by Kenny Ausubel, David W. Orr (overview)

The Republic of Nature: An Environmental History of the United States by Mark Fiege, with a foreword by William Cronon, University of Washington Press, 584 pp. Fiege surveys "the ways that material nature shaped the American republic and in turn shaped the natural world in whose midst it conceived its founding principles, created its institutions, and secured its territories. The environmental approach he adopts, which focuses on physical matter, geography, and human labor, could be applied, with equally good results, to other societies, nations, or empires, yet Fiege wants to claim that there is something quite specific in its history that makes America “the” republic of nature. (video overview)

Prof. Michael Mann’s new book, “The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars,” S&E Stacks QC903 .M36 2012 is part of a series of attempts to answer the question of why global warming has become a political flash point. Mann has devised an analogy “the Serengeti strategy,” he and others have become targets because their findings challenge the entrenched fossil-fuel industries. review, audio interview, student interview (text), video interview. Overview TEDtalk by Michael Mann. 12/11

In Trash Backwards, journalist David Naylor spotlights intriguing ways entrepreneurs are reducing our trash burden. He travels to major US cities including Los Angeles, Charleston, Seattle, Milwaukee, and Atlanta to meet creative thinkers who put a fresh perspective on the saying 'one man's trash is another's treasure.'

Michael Lemonick's Global Weirdness: Severe Storms, Deadly Heat Waves, Relentless Drought, Rising Seas, and the Weather of the Future (audio interview and excerpt).

Psychological Effects of exposure to nature explored in Last Child in the Woods.

Joan Root was killed by poachers. Decades before wildlife films such as March of the Penguins, Joan and Alan Root pioneered filming animal migrations without interference from human actors. Wildflower: An Extraordinary Life and Untimely Death in Africa by Mark Seal.

Green Illusions: The Dirty Secrets of Clean Energy and the Future of Environmentalism (review).

New books on climate change from Island Press: Heatstroke: Nature in an Age of Global Warmingby Anthony D. Barnosky. Climate Savvy: Adapting Conservation and Resource Management to a Changing World Climate Savvyby Lara J. Hansen and Jennifer R. Hoffman. Climate and Conservation: Landscape and Seascape Science, Planning, and Action Climate and Conservation, Edited by Jodi A. Hilty, Charles C. Chester, and Molly S. Cross.

Locavore's Dilemma.

On Earth Day, 2011 Global Exchange (go Slugs!) released Rights of Nature: Making a Case for the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth, begins to reveal the path of a movement that is driving the cultural and legal shift that is necessary to transform our human relationship with nature away from being property-based and towards a rights-based model of balance. The book gathers the unique wisdom of indigenous cultures, scientists, environmental activists, lawyers, and small farmers in order to make a case for how and why humans must work to change our current structures of law to recognize that nature has inherent rights.

Aaron Bobrow-Strain, White Bread: A Social History of the Store-Bought Loaf Beacon Press, 2012.

Florence Williams is author of the new book Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History, important because they concentrate and pass on toxins. audio interview and text interview 6/12.

Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations by David R Montgomery (book trailer) professor of geomorphology, University of Washington discusses the problem of global soil degradation and soil erosion and why it is one of the most significant environmental crises that face our species and planet for the next 400 years to come. another talk.

Marlene Zuk, the author of Sex on Six Legs: Lessons on Life, Love and Language from the Insect World and many other books writes beautifully in the LA Times of the alates, winged ants that fly from their colonies in groups so large they interrupt big human human sporting events to find the torrid romance that will perpetuate their genes, but which ultimately ends in doom for many. The fate of romantic failure and even doom, Zuk says, is something non-humans face all the time, the “millions of ants, millions of robin’s eggs, millions of flower seeds,” that never reach their goal is something we seldom even consider. Personally it reminds us a bit of Daytona Beach at Spring Break: torrents of hopeful youth migrating to meet and mate, not all of whom can possibly be successful. 5/12

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed traces the personal crisis the author endured after the death of her mother and a painful divorce, which prompted her ambition to undertake a dangerous 1,100-mile solo hike that both drove her to rock bottom and helped her to heal. (Author audio interview). 3/12 TEDx talk video.

Breaking Through Concrete: Building an Urban Farm Revival, includes a visit to Santa Cruz Homeless Garden project.

Joel Salatin’s latest book, Folks, This Ain’t Normal. His Polyface farm is featured in Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma.

The Conundrum by David Owen is a book about some of the unintended consequences of the way we approach sustainability and environmentalism. video overview. Grist review has some concerns.

A new book published by the UCSC Library’s Regional History Project offers a sparkling window into the 40-year history of how UC Santa Cruz--and California’s Central Coast—became leaders in the organic farming and sustainable agriculture movement. Archive.

Let Them Eat Shrimp: The Tragic Disappearance of the Rainforests of the Sea, Kennedy Warne (published by Island Press, a Slug) excerpt. audio interview.

In his new book Greedy Bastards, Dylan Ratigan explains how "vampire industries" like oil and coal have forged "an unholy alliance with government based not just on the money that they contribute to political campaigns and spend on lobbying, but on their ability to hypnotize us with false prices."

Timothy Morton, The Ecological Thought, Harvard U. Press, 2010 audio interview.

Majka Burhardt, Coffee Story: Ethiopia

American Wasteland: How America Throws Away Nearly Half of Its Food (and What We Can Do about It) by Jonathan Bloom.

The Food Wars by Walden Bello traces the evolution of the crisis, examining its eruption in Mexico, Africa, the Philippines and China, speaking out against the obscene imbalance in the most basic commodities between northern and southern hemispheres.

Lives Per Gallon: The True Cost of Our Oil Addiction by Terry Tamminen (CA EPA head under Gov. Schw.) Link audio interview. "We all thought we knew the costs of oil addiction—power to terrorists and tyrants, and global climate change. But Tamminens book demonstrates that we dont know the half of it. Gasoline is a deadly carcinogen like tobacco. The health, environmental, and climatic impact of our oil dependency, he shows, is catastrophic. And the economic cost of subsidizing the oil industry is bankrupting. But Tamminen does more than point to the problems. He lays out step-by-step solutions to ending our oil addiction." 2006

Catherine Tumber's excellent new book, Small, Gritty, and Green: The Promise of America's Smaller Industrial Cities in a Low-Carbon World, finds potential in many busted and booming-again cities in the Northeast and Midwest. These places, she writes, are both big enough and small enough to manage a coming societal transition, in which people may have to live on constrained oil supplies and rely more on local networks for food and other goods. link.

In Christine Shearer's new book Kivalina: A Climate Change Story, global warming moves off the pages of science and into the lives of everyday people. Jammed into a narrow island on the northwest coast of Alaska, the town of Kivalina is home to 400 souls, with evidence of occupation extending back over a millennium. Due to the melting of sea ice, the island now gets a regular beating from ocean storms and is rapidly disappearing. The logical solution of relocating to the mainland is estimated to cost more than the town can afford, and despite warnings in 2004 and 2009 [PDFs] by the U.S. Government Accountability Office that Kivalina, like 30 other coastal communities in Alaska, faces serious danger, there's still no viable plan that residents can count on.

The Beekeeper's Lament Hannah Nordhaus' lyrical, haunting book about the complicated lives and deaths of America's honeybees review.

The Global Warming Reader, edited by Bill McKibben, pulls together seminal texts of the climate change debate with the goal of creating a complete picture. Selections range from a 19th-century treatise to images from Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, and include a few unexpected gems like Senate floor statements from climate change denier James Inhofe (R-Okla.).

Orion Magazine picks include About a Mountain on nuclear storage, Tiger: A True story of Vengeance and Survival and Deep Blue Home about oceans.

Juliet Eilperin's brand new book Demon Fish: Travels Through the Hidden World of Sharks (audio interview and excerpt) says that in reality, it's the sharks that should be afraid of human predators.

Tim Flannery's Here on Earth is his first major book since The Weather Makers. In it, he takes a big-picture look at where we are as a species, and what we need to do in order to survive into the future. Flannery draws on Darwin, Wallace and Lovelock to discuss evolution, co-evolution and the issue of sustainability, in the broadest sense. And, as he tells the National Press Club, it's ultimately a message of hope. (video)4/11. A related talk at LongNow, "Wallace Beats Darwin".

Green Book Festival 2011 winners include Twelve by Twelve and Burning Rivers.

Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth Excerpt by Mark Hertsgaard. Radio interview 3/11. Here's an hour-long talk. Mark spoke here at College 8 for a number of years when his Earth Odyssey was required reading.

Hertsgaard recommends Cracking the Carbon Code: The Key to Sustainable Profits in the New Economy by Terry Tamminen, who was former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s top environmental adviser, instrumental to the many important steps Governor Schwarzenegger took to fight climate change.

David Victor's new book, Global Warming Gridlock: Creating More Effective Strategies for Saving the Planet. (review/response)

Deep Green Resistance outlines strategies for a militant "whatever it takes" approach to halting ecocide. By Lierre Keith and Aric McBay audio interview on Terra Verde. Perhaps related Green Illusions which "pioneers a critique of alternative energy from an environmental perspective, arguing concerned citizens should instead focus on walkable communities, improved consumption, governance, and most notably, women’s rights."

Letters to a Young Activist "Be original. See what happens." So Todd Gitlin advises the young mind burning to take action to right the wrongs of the world but also looking for bearings, understanding, direction, and practical examples. Gitlin looks back at his eventful life, recalling his experience as president of the formidable Students for a Democratic Society in the '60s, contemplating the spirit of activism, and arriving at some principles of action.

Green is the New Red:An Insider's Account of a Social Movement Under Siege by Will Potter. Animal rights activists are prosecuted as terrorists.

The Empowerment Manual by Starhawk. Practical advice and exercises to build non-hierarchical organizations.

Force of Nature: The Unlikely Story of Wal-Mart's Green Revolution. also by Edward Humes Eco Barons: The New Heroes of Environmental Activism.

"The Coming Famine: The Global Food Crisis and What We Can Do To Avoid It," by Julian Cribb. NYT review.

Moby Duck (short article/audio) and longer interview with text excerpt. In 1992, a cargo ship container tumbled into the North Pacific, dumping 28,000 rubber ducks and other bath toys that were headed from China to the U.S. Currents took them, and news reports said some may have eventually reached Maine and other shores on the Atlantic. Thirteen years later, journalist Donovan Hohn undertook a mission: He wanted to track the movements of the wayward ducks, from the comfort of his own living room. It didn't work out that way, as you can tell from the complete title: Moby-Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea and of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalists and Fools, Including the Author, Who Went in Search of Them.

American Wasteland: How America Throws Away Nearly Half of Its Food (and What We Can Do About It)by Jonathan Bloom.

James Howard Kunstler has done several interesting TEDtalks (video). He wrote The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century. A World Made by Hand is his novel of America's post-oil future. recent interview 3/11

Two new books build on many of the ideas in documentary on globalization The Economics of Happiness. First, The Post Carbon Reader: Managing the 21st Century's Sustainability Crisis looks at the convergence of population, water, energy, food and climate threats. All That We Share: A Field Guide to the Commons shows how communities are reclaiming shared spaces and resources to better the economy and the environment.

In his new book, World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse, Earth Policy Institute's Lester Brown looks at the state of the world's resources ( a "food bubble"), warning that the outlook does not look good when it comes to feeding the world's population.

In Sacrifice Zones, Steve Lerner tells the stories of twelve communities, from Brooklyn to Pensacola, that rose up to fight the industries and military bases causing disproportionately high levels of chemical pollution. Lerner is the author of Eco-Pioneers: Practical Visionaries Solving Today's Environmental Problems 1998) and Diamond: A Struggle for Environmental Justice in Louisiana's Chemical Corridor (2005), both published by the MIT Press. video

David Suzuki has a new book (audio interview) "a, brief, astonishingly readable and uplifting book called The Legacy: An Elder's Vision for our Sustainable Future."

American-style consumer capitalism is simply unsustainable, warns former White House adviser James Gustave Speth in his new book, The Bridge at the Edge of the World. (video interview at UC Berzerkely) (another video on economy vs ecology). A co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council, Speth has been an environmentalist for more than three decades. Speth is dean and professor in the practice of environmental policy at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. audio interview

Doubt is Their Product: How Industry's Assault on Science Threatens Your Health 2008 Oxford by David Michaels.

Drowning in Oil: BP & the Reckless Pursuit of Profit by Loren C. Steffy

Peak Everything

The Dirty Life: On Farming, Food, and Love Kimball chucked life as a Manhattan journalist to start a cooperative farm in upstate New York with a self-taught New Paltz farmer she had interviewed for a story and later married. The Harvard-educated author, in her 30s, and Mark, also college educated and resolved to "live outside of the river of consumption," eventually found an arable 500-acre farm on Lake Champlain, first to lease then to buy. In this poignant, candid chronicle by season, Kimball writes how she and Mark infused new life into Essex Farm, and lost their hearts to it.

Prescription for the Planet: The Painless Remedy for Our Energy & Environmental Crises by Tom Blees, provides a roadmap to the post-scarcity era.

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen (Guardian review) was a Grist Book Club selection, and he participated in a video interview More. He visited UCSC in 2007 Link.

Farm City is about urban gardening in Oakland.

Running Out of Water: The Looming Crisis and Solutions to Conserve Our Most Precious Resource by Peter Rogers, Susan Leal, and Congressman Edward Markey

One With Nineveh: Politics, Consumption, and the Human Future Paul R. Ehrlich, Anne H. Ehrlich

Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things -- Professor Gail Steketee, Professor Randy Frost

The Coke Machine is "A disturbing portrait drawn from an award-winning journalist's in-depth research, is the first comprehensive probe of the company....COKE is a registered trademark of The Coca-Cola Company. This book is not authorized by or endorsed by The Coca-Cola Company. video review

Uprisings for the Earth: Reconnecting Culture with Nature

John Adams is a longtime member of Natural Resources Defense Council and the co-author of "A Force for Nature: The Story of NRDC and the Fight to Save our Planet." text and audio interview

In Green Gone Wrong "environmental writer Heather Rogers blasts through the marketing buzz of big corporations and asks a simple question: Do today’s much-touted "green" products—carbon offsets, organic food, biofuels, and eco-friendly cars and homes—really work? Implicit in efforts to go green is the promise that global warming can be stopped by swapping out dirty goods for "clean" ones. But can earth-friendly products really save the planet? This far-reaching, riveting narrative explores how the most readily available solutions to environmental crisis may be disastrously off the mark." Grist link/review

Bill McKibben's first book, The End of Nature was one of the earliest to introduce global warming into popular culture. His latest book is Eaarth: Making a Life on a Hot New Planet Review and excerpt

The New Frugality by Chris Farrell, argues "sustainable lifestyle isn't just one that's good for the planet — it's one that is based around core values and one that sustains your bank balance as well."

The Climate War by Eric Pooley, deputy editor of Bloomberg Businessweek, profiles heavyweights in this saga -- including two members of the Nicholas Institute Board of Advisers, EDF President Fred Krupp, and Duke Energy Chairman and CEO Jim Rogers, among other leaders in the now years-long campaign to bring climate policy to Washington. FAQ, also Ch 1, NYT review and Grist review audio interview 30 min. another interview by Climate Desk.

Peter Gleick, a freshwater expert, is the author of Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water link to book and npr audio interview. Here's another interview 6/10, with an industry representative. The book is published by an UC alum who runs Island Press, which offers videochats with author. KQED interview.

Also from Island Press, John Terborgh and James Estes (Go Slugs!) explore importance of predators in Trophic Cascades: Predators, Prey, and the Changing Dynamics of Nature. They explain how top predators play an essential role in maintaining ecosystem well-being, and how this natural regulatory system is often drastically disrupted by human interventions-when wolves and cougars are removed, for example, populations of deer and beaver become destructive. Author and conservation biologist Cristina Eisenberg offers her perspective in The Wolf's Tooth, sharing accounts from her fieldwork to bring to life the relationships among keystone predators, trophic cascades, and biodiversity.

Sound is the subject of three new books Zero Decibels 30 min interview. also The Unwanted Sound of Everything We Want by Garret Keizer, and In Pursuit of Silence.

Infrastructure in the United States is under-funded and woefully outdated. NPR's Living on Earth’s Steve Curwood hears two different views on how to reform our ailing grid. Nick Rosen, author of “Off the Grid,” suggests decentralizing utilities, while Scott Huler, who wrote “On the Grid,” wants to stay plugged in and work to improve the system. audio and text

The Rebirth of Environmentalism: Grassroots Activism from the Spotted Owl to the Polar Bear -- Douglas Bevington

In the Empire of Ice: Encounters in a Changing Landscape by Gretel Ehrlich. "In this gripping circumnavigation of the Arctic Circle, Gretel Ehrlich paints a vivid portrait of the indigenous cultures that inhabit the starkly beautiful boreal landscape surrounding the Arctic Ocean..."More

Three new novels feature climate change, Mark Nykanen’s Primitive and Far North by Marcel Theroux (as does an older one, Friend of the Earth by TC Boyle Link. Ian McEwan's new comic novel, Solar

Not So New

Utne Reader lists of 150 works (including film and music)that fire the imagination Part 1 and Part 2has quite a few influential green thinkers.

Adams, Douglas. Best known for the amazing Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, he also wrote Last Chance to See about endangered animals. Intro Ch. 1 password required. Author reading about Komodo dragon encounter. Warning, some animals were harmed in the production of this book ;) NEW! at UC talk based on Last Chance experiences. The BBC has done a new series in which Stephen Frye retraces the original journey. Here are some of the original radio dispatches.Douglas Abrams, Eye of the Whale an eco-thriller video interview. [audio interviews] “A new novel, “The Eye of the Whale,” tells the story of a marine biologist who studies the songs of humpback whales. Her research leads to a breakthrough discovery of how pollution is harming them and humans. While the story is fiction, the science is not.

Soul of a Citizen by Paul Loeb tells many stories of activism. The first excerpt here is on the powerful journey of evangelical global climate change activist Rich Cizik. The second is on Gandhi, King and the traps of the perfect standard. The third is how a self-described party girl became a global warming activist. See also his anthology The Impossible Will Take a While. Audio and video interviews (Realplayer) Here's a sort of Overview.

The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis By Jeremy Rifkin. Intro/ Excerpt Video overview TEDtalk

Steward Brand, the center hub of the human network, has a new book, Whole Earth Discipline. He's putting the whole book online for free, with annotations and a reading list link. He makes some stands that are heretical to mainstream greens (pro-nuke and GMO). Those who heard Fred Turner's plenary talk last year will have some sense of how important Brand has been and continues to be.

Reviews of The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning by James Lovelock, video of talk. 9/10 [1]. radio interview In Search of Gaia by John Gribbin and Mary Gribbin The Medea Hypothesis: Is Life on Earth Ultimately Self-Destructive? by Peter Ward.

Starved for Science: how biotechnology is being kept out of Africa By Robert L. Paarlberg Review

Starbucked: A Double Tall Tale of Caffeine, Commerce, and Culture by Taylor Clark

Coal River by Michael Shnayerson

The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America by Timothy Egan

Atomic Americaby Todd Tucker. On January 3, 1961, nuclear reactor SL-1 exploded in rural Idaho, spreading radioactive contamination over thousands of acres and killing three men: John Byrnes, Richard McKinley, and Richard Legg. The Army blamed "human error" and a sordid love triangle. Though it has been overshadowed by the accident at Three Mile Island, SL-1 is the only fatal nuclear reactor incident in American history, and it holds serious lessons for a nation poised to embrace nuclear energy once again.

Unquenchable: America's Water Crisis and What To Do About It by Robert Glennon

Summer Books

Grist Magazine's 15 picks

Lonely Planet Code Green Experiences

The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey

Diary of an Eco-Outlaw is by and An Unreasonable Womanis about Diane Wilson, a fourth-generation fisherwoman, leads a one-woman crusade against Dow and other petrochemical plants, which create 17% of America’s pollution from her Texas town of 1,352. These factories have turned Seadrift from a traditional fishing port into a massive chemical cocktail that poisons the surrounding air, earth and waters, sardonically dubbed Texas Gold, video excerpt. From Texas to Wall Street to the front lawn of former Union Carbide CEO Warren Anderson's multi-million dollar mansion on Long Island -- all the while chased by Texas Rangers charged with bringing her to justice -- Diane pursues a reckless industry with a soft drawl, dogged determination and her own special brand of Southern bad-ass fisherwoman humor. In the 16 years since she began her fight, Diane has received death threats and suffered intimidation tactics; shots were fired at her house from a helicopter and her dog was poisoned.Democracy Now interview

Zodiac by Neal Stephenson (Author of Snow Crash etc). Set in Boston, hero Sangamon Taylor (S. T.) ironically describes his hilarious exploits in the first person, sometimes resorting to profanity. S. T. is a modern superhero, a self-proclaimed Toxic Spiderman. With stealth, spunk, and the backing of GEE (a non-profit environmental group) as his weapons, S. T. chases down the bad guys with James Bond-like Zen.

Other Books

Al Gore's new book Our Choices

In Soul and Soil, Alastair McIntosh tells how he helped the beleaguered residents of the Isle of Eigg to become the first Scottish community ever to clear their laird (the landed proprietor) from his own estate. He recounts how plans to turn a majestic Hebridean mountain into a super-quarry were overturned after he persuaded a Native American warrior chief to testify at a government inquiry. Weaving together theology, mythology, economics, ecology, history, poetics, and politics, this is an extraordinary case study of a radical new philosophy of community, spirit, and place. Alastair McIntosh is a Scottish academic and activist. A fellow of the Centre for Human Ecology, he lectures worldwide on new economics, community, and nonviolent strategies.

Greasy Rider: Two Dudes, One Fast Food Fueled Car, and a Cross-Country Search for a Greener Future "Is it possible to drive coast-to-coast without stopping at a single gas pump? Journalist Greg Melville is determined to try. With his college buddy Iggy riding shotgun, he sets out on an enlightening road trip. The quest: to be the first people to drive cross-country in a french-fry car."CNN video interview

Hot, Flat, and Crowded. Thomas L. Freidman, author of The Lexus and the Olive Tree, and The World Is Flat, explains how America can lead the green revolution in the 21st century (audio and video too). Interview based on his new book Hot, Flat and Crowded excerpt/intro 09/08

Elizabeth Royte's new book Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It (includes audio interview). Another interview, text. (See also our own former Provost Szasz's book Excerpt. Her previous book Garbage Land is a good read.

The World Without Us by Alan Weisman. google book, grew out of two questions, he said. One was, "How can I write a best-seller about the environment?" The answer to that was the second question: "How would the rest of nature behave without the constant pressure we put on it?" Longnow.org talk

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, by Michael Pollan (Penguin Press, 2006). Our meal choices matter—a trip through America's food chain. First chapter free online.

Ten Ways to Change the World in Your Twenties We need someone to write a review of this book.

Great Jobs for Environmental Studies Majors - by Julie DeGalan link

Outside Magazine's picks

Bill McKibben's recent review in the NY Times recommends The End of Oil link and others

Mark Hertsgaard's Picks:

1. Earth Under Fire, by Gary Braasch (University of California Press), is the best book on global warming I’ve read this year. Braasch is an intrepid and accomplished photographer who has spent years traveling to all parts of the world to document, in stunning images and well-researched accompanying text, how global warming is changing our planet NOW. Even global warming experts can learn from this book, but it’s perfect for newcomers to the topic too. Plus, it looks great on a coffee table.

2. Fight Global Warming Now, by Bill McKibben and the Step It Up Team, (Holt), is the essential handbook for the essential task now facing us: taking organized political action to achieve major cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. As Bill points out in the book, many people know global warming must be fought, but they don’t know what to do or how to go about it. This book tells you, in very accessible, non-intimidating and even, dare I say, fun ways. Go get ‘em!

3. Exposed, by Mark Schapiro (Chelsea Green) is an environmental scoop that sends a message not only to American consumers but businesses: U.S. law allows all kinds of nasty toxic chemicals in the most common daily products (toys, cosmetics, etc.) that are banned in Europe; and because Europe is taking the environmental high road, it is gaining, not losing, global market share. (Disclosure: I offered a blurb to this book but, dammit, receive no royalties.)

4. The Informant, by Kurt Eichenwald (Broadway Books) is the true but almost unbelievable inside story of the rampant price-fixing and other ... conduct undertaken by Archer Daniels Midland, the agri-business giant .... Told by a New York Times reporter who clearly had amazing access to all parties involved.... A great read, too.

5. A Long Way Down, by Nick Hornsby (Penguin) is well-timed for the holiday season. The opening chapter, set on New Year’s Eve, portrays four very different individuals who find themselves, to their collective surprise, atop the same London rooftop with the same purpose in mind: jumping off and ending it all. Somehow, Hornsby manages to turn this into a brilliant, insightful, hilarious but never easy or sentimental meditation on what makes all of us tick, and how to keep going despite the despair that occasionally tempts each of us.

Send your suggestions to mailto:pmmckerc@ucsc.edu