Environment and Nature Books

I really liked this book. It's hard to find a good children's book with an entertaining story, educational value, and a message. Katie truly has a gift for writing. She doesn't let her wings shrink (read the story to find out what that means).

Katie Beck's parable of faith, hope, and tradgedy is a wonderful story for all ages. Her illustrations are remarkably well done for someone so young. The story of Moki is both educational and inspirational. I recommend this book for every young person.

Miss Beck has done a supurb job of weaving a story of the Moas into a parable that teaches us all to look into ourselves for strength, purpose, and the consequences of our choices. It is a book for young and adult to savor for its simplistic beauty. The illustrations reflect the grace and triumph of the author/illustrator. A must have book for my teaching and for sharing with family. I hope this young author shares more of her wisdom and talent with the world!

I liked the Moas for its gentle, understated uniqueness. With superb pencil illustrations and compelling, easily understood text, " The Moas" tells the story of Moki, a young Moa who must teach himself to fly or perish. Far from the ordinary, a picture book for adults as well as children, its thought provoking messages are clear. Believe in yourself. Have courage to stand alone. Exercise gifts and abilities before they are lost. Avoid excesses. Have hope. Never give up. The importance of species preservation and information about Maori culture and history are interwoven into the story skillfully. As a teacher and parent I will use this book year after year

He always had that special talent of being able to see things in in a way that not everyone could-but somehow he would make you see it and appreciate it. "The world is round and the place which may seem like the end is only the beginning."I.Bakerpriest So many words,so much to do,so little done,such things to be." A.L. Tennyson "A longing fulfilled is sweet to the soul." Proverbs 13:19 CONGRATULATIONS!!! Love,mom

It takes a lot of guts to put forth the effort to compile a book. It takes even more to put the work to task and self-publish. It's all on your back at that point, the success or failure. And you really have to believe in the promise of your work to hedge one over the other.

Luckily for Mr. Taylor, NMAZCA shows extraordinary promise. It's a strinking assemblage of 36 photos that point the reader toward the atmosphere and experience of place and the frame of mind. Some photodocumentations by other artists successfully acheive for us a sense of location or allow us to make an inventory of items in that location, but Mr. Taylor sets his sights on acheiving photographic poetry and acheives it in stunning hues. Which makes this book even more remarkable: it's a self-published work of full-color photography, and the works are remarkably well-rendered in lush tones.

Ultimately, I think NMAZCA points us to, and asks us to evaluate, something about each of us as island selves. But that's just me. It's a work of exceptional breadth and flow - one image informing and presupposing the next - but also one of great intimacy. The viewer is asked to involve him/herself with, to come to an understanding of, ripples in the desert sand, the ragged lilt of a twisting root, the shadowy creases of rocks and feathery plateaus of their attached lichens, the subtle topographies the sun traces as it arcs its paths through our skies.

Think of each photograph as little haikus. And buy this cool, courageous book.

nmazca's pages offer unusual,vivid photographs of the western United States. They please the eye, and the "Ideas" narrative at the back of this book allows the reader to understand Damon Taylor's unique talent for capturing such beauty with his camera. This little collection leaves one wishing for more pages to turn.

Well, I gotta tell you I haven't actually seen the book per se but yes, I have seen the work of Damon Taylor and must say that wow he has some cool pictures. I have seen many of these in the past...actually, I always dig through them when he shows them to me and I never see really cute and adorable pictures of me, y'know the lighting would be too low or my Mel Brooks side would show instead of my Mel Gibson side so I kinda lose interest...but wow he has had lovely pictures from the glorious southwest that he showed me at the time he took them so yeah, they are great and the book, if it contains pictures like those, well all you rock fans, this really would ROCK YOUR WORLD! Tell all your friends!

Written by an MD Nurture Nature Nurture Health is what I hoped: A book that outlines the toxins contributing to all sorts of health problems and practical tips on how to minimize them, how to detoxify, and how to boost the immune system.The section on what you can do and the resources are amazing.I will use this book forever!

This book is a true blessing for the planet and those of us who live on it. A guide on the link between our lifestyle and diseases of the earth and ourselves.1 in 3 Americans will develop cancer, 17% of US children have either a learning, emotional, or developmental disorder, and 1 in 7 womwen develop breast cancer today when in 1969 it was 1 in 22. If you want to know the TRUTH and what you can do--read this book!

I purchased this book after seeing the author on Fox and Friends. It definitely opened my eyes to the types of chemicals and toxins that are in our environment that ultimately end up in our bodies. As a nursing mother of a 5 month old I was pleased to learn steps I can take to keep our home and myself less toxic with the ultimate goal of keeping my baby healthy for years to come.

The book does seem to be repetitive at times and can be a bit daunting only due to the large chemical words constantly used- but how can you get around that. I was hoping there would be more info on how to detoxify our bodies besides eating vegetables and fruits washed down with some green tea. It does have a great reference section. With this book and a website - the green guide- I learned about in the book, I have already started making changes around our house. Just today I was looking at the ingredients in my son's sunscreen and found that it has chemicals that has shown to affect the development of the brain and reproductive organs in laboratory rats! Needless to say I found a much safer sunscreen. I also found that my shampoo and conditioner has one of the "7 Ugly Ingredients to Avoid in Personal Care Products"

Overall it is very educational, eye opening, and if you are looking to improve your health I highly recommend this book.

Dr. Gaynor's newest book takes up where Dr. Gaynor's Cancer Prevention Program left off. I was amazed at the science showing not only how toxins are found in places I'd never have guessed(eg.some lipsticks have lead) but that safe alternatives exist for all of them.The roster of famous MDs who endorsed the book reads like a Whose Who--Dr Mehmet Oz(You- The Owner's Manuel), Dr Michael Osborne(President of Strang Cancer Prevention Center),Dr Mimi Guarnieri(Scripps Institute),Dr William Rhea( environmental medicine specialist).That's good enough for me.

This book provides an incredible example of an agency failing to follow its own mandate as well as ignoring the will of the public. For several decades, the National Park Service (NPS) not only allowed, but encouraged, loggers to cut down old-growth forest inside Olympic National Park. It also fought to reduce the boundaries of that park to increase the amount of timber available to the local logging industry. Even when found out, important people in the NPS remained determined to cut down the old-growth timber in the park wherever it thought local sawmills would benefit, and on any land that the NPS didn't want in the first place.

When I had first heard this story, it was presented as a couple of loose cannons getting away with tree murder. However, Lien's book provides so many smoking guns - - or should I say, "smoking chainsaws" - - that there is an obvious policy problem here.

Lien's ultimate explanation of this history remains somewhat unsatisfactory to me. He argues that the NPS has a weak management culture and unclear mandate (both true) and that it is also eager to compromise with anyone who makes demands on it - - including loggers looking for old-growth timber. I'm not sure that wimpy acquiescence is the dominant NPS norm, since it does resist certain types of demands, such as those of horse outfitters, hunters, and in some parks, mountaineers. The case of hunters is particularly interesting, since elk hunting in Yellowstone and Rocky Mountain, bison hunting in Yellowstone, and deer hunting in many eastern battlefield parks would solve a number of other policy problems, and there *is* public demand for such hunting. So, the NPS doesn't simply acquiesce to everybody, and that part of Lien's argument can't be right.

Lien grounds this story in a brief history of the U.S. Forest Service and the NPS, and how Pinchot's "conservation" eventually alienated preservationists such as John Muir and public opinion more generally. These chapters provide, at best, an unconventional history of the USFS and NPS in the Progressive era. I think Lien overstates the preservationist element of public opinion, and is too eager to see preservationism even among the elites of the Theodore Roosevelt era.

Criticisms aside, this is one of the most remarkable national park histories out there.

A rare and wonderful animal(not extinct after all), that holds secrets to cures, anti-venoms and facts behind unsolved mysteries has reappeared! Not long ago I encountered and purchased "Olympic Battleground" at a rare book store. It was out of print. No longer. It took but the first few pages to have me swallowing bile and bouncing hard objects off walls. So inflaming was the tale that it awakened an activism in me I had not felt since the Viet Nam War days. I sought out and interviewed the author who assured me that it had taken almost thirty years to write. Battleground is destined to become the definitive source in four areas: 1) It is a complete history of Olympic National Park(and indeed the founding of all National Parks),beginning in 1895 and now updated to today. Sound dull? Uh uh, not with the kind of intrigue, fraud, scheming and plotting that underlay the movements to keep the old growth timber OUT of the Park, ventures often aided and abetted by the very public servants whose jobs were to PROTECT it. It should be mentioned that the entire book is documented with painstaking primary sources. What happened and how it happened is inarguable; the barrels are smoking. WE BEEN ROBBED! Yo, to the tune of billions and billions of dollars of assets. 2) There is a treatise here of decades of activism. But for the lifelong battling of a core of three people;fighting against power and unrelenting greed, this book convinces us that there would not be one tree left standing. It is the definitive tale, the tangible proof of just how mighty is 'the power of the pen'. No advocate person or group should have a bookshelf without this book on it. 3) Were there any congressional investigative committees with the bajoongas to take on the timber companies,local politicians and even the Park Service itself, Mr. Lein's book would be the place to start. Inditements lie there in wait! 4) Fail not to hear the warning: ye who would protect and preserve our national Parks, wilderness areas, monuments and wildlife reserves. Pass over this book at peril to their future existence. Beware by learning how boundaries shift in the night and legal wording gets shuffled and forests vanish with the turn of a phrase and promise . The very words are in place in even the newest documents of our "roadless areas" and "forest reserves". For anyone with 'green' agendas, in fact, any kind of activist intentions, this book is an absolute must.

I read this book shortly after spending several months on Washington's Olympic Peninsula and hiking in the Olympic Mountains of Olympic National Park in 1993. I own the first edition when it was published by Sierra Club Books. In my opinion Olympic Battleground is one of the most important works relative to the environemntal movement, on par with "Silent Spring" and "A Sand County Almanac," though it is relatively unknown.

Lien tells the story of the Olympic Peninsula and how it was systematically logged by people of European descent in the late 19th century, through the creation of ONP in 1937, and the management of ONP through the 1950s (when Lien was there as a seasonal ranger) and beyond. Tells the story of how one overzealous development minded ONP manager named Fred Overly enthusiastically allowed LOGGING in the park. And not just salvaging downed trees off trails and roads, but systematically cutting the largest old-growth Douglas-fir trees that could be found! Later talking to a ranger at ONP, I learned that Overly also coached the supervisor of Mount Rainier National Park on how to get the cut out of that park as well. There is correspondance on record of this happening.

Olympic Battleground demonstrates that we can never be complacent, that the only way we will be able to preserve our most significant natural areas is through eternal vigilance. Lien's book recounts that during WW II, "patriotic" timber barons attempted to log ONP to "aid the war effort." Thankfully that initiative was thwarted. Olympic Batleground should be read by everyone interested in preserving National Park land, National Forest land, federal Wilderness Areas, etc. We should know our history.

Mr. Lien's book is one of the most thoroughly researched works on the state of national parks in America. His experience working at Olympic National Park, and serving as a sort of intern with Mrs. Edge gives us a rare insight into many of the personalities that shaped - and continue to influence - the fate of OLYM. Mr. Lien's documentation is highly impressive. However, I'm concerned that his passion for the park - and his apparently wholesale mistrust of the National Park Service - has lead to some critical mistakes.
For example, Stephen Mather was chosen "on the personal whim" of Secretary Franklin Lane. Lane knew more about Mather than Lien claims. Mather should hardly be remembered as "Saint Stephen" as so many in the NPS are anxious to do, but to dismiss him as someone chosen so cavalierly as Lien suggests is a dangerous underestimation of the man.
Second, it is unfair of Lien to put former NPS Director Newton Drury in essentially the same category as Fred Overly. Drury's tenure was that of a caretaker, and though his legislative skills were nil and his administrative abilities only slightly better, his focus and his integrity are things for which we should all be grateful. Drury was an outsider and he fought the good ol' boys: Overly, Albright and Wirth, to bring some measure of scientific integrity and conservation ethic to a deeply troubled park service.
Lien's breadth of scholarship is impressive. Unfortunately, his passion - while inspiring and insightful at times - has clouded his interpretation of early NPS history, and of the role of Newton Drury, a devoted, if sometimes uninspiring, conservationist.

A study in the perserverance and dedication of a group of people to bring the wolf back to its own enviroment in the wildernesses of Yellowstone Montanna. Full of information this book will elate you as well as sadden you, but the winner here of course is the wolf who once more runs free on his land.

Jim Brandenberg always brings the wolf into our homes vividly and with great skill through his photographs, and in this book, these exquisite photos are paired up with the informative writing of Stephen Swinburne. Swinburne covers an excellent range of topics in this short (but highly-informative) book, including the history of the wolf's extermination in this country, early conservationists, wolf behavior and social structure, myth-busting, the Yellowstone project, and the wolf's future prospects.

He brings in quotes and information from Leopold, Mech, Bangs, Askins, and many other notable figures in the wolf conservation movement to give correct facts and information. I wouldn't call this a book for younger children; it's written at perhaps a teenager's level, and younger children might find the statistics and assorted other information boring. However, Swinburne does cover the bittersweet story of wolves Numbers Nine and Ten, which personalizes the struggles wolves today face.

Swinburne manages to succinctly cover most of the important issues in this relatively brief book (about a half hour's read, perhaps 45 minutes,) and it's a great way to educate yourself or someone else on the basics of wolf conservation. Highly-recommended!

I just took a look at this book and was so impressed. The subject is fascinating, of course, but I'm especially taken with the clear, cogent writing, the terrific quotes, and the truly remarkable photographs. I definitely recommend this for any kid (or adult, for that matter) with an interest in wildlife.

My 7 year old and I read this book together recently and I think that I learned as much as she did.

I knew about reintroduction of wild wolves into Yellowstone but this book told the whole story. Get ready to be impressed with personal sagas of determination and bravery on the part of people who care about wild things.

In 1973, while on a field trip in Jasper Park, Alberta, I saw two wild wolves (a white and a black) bounding and romping in the snow. I will never forget the wildness of that sight. This book is richly illustrated with photographs of wolves that give you a glimpse of that wildness.

Get this book and read it with a child to share what Rachel Carson called that "sense of wonder" that children have. Be prepared to explain why we systematically exterminated the wolf from its range throughout the United States and why we paid people to kill wolf puppies.

This book is a moving, thoughtful lesson in ecology for children of all ages.

This is my absolute favorite children's book. My twins are 22years old and of all their books this is the one they remember. The illustrations are beautiful!! I have purchased this book for many friends children and the reaction is the same.beautiful

What a beautiful, rich book! I can't believe I've never seen this book before a friend passed it along. Besides magnetizing illustrations, the whole story concept of the cycle of life is sensitive and calming. I as an adult find myself reading and pouring over it again and again. My 4 year old liked it at age 4 and now loves it more than ever. I also like that it was originally written and published in the "Soviet Union" so the perspective is a little different than the usual American fare.

This book was read read to me throughout my childhood, so i am saddened to see such a short synopsis. Granted that is the essence of the story, but what is most important about it, is the sense of interconnectedness in nature that Nathalia illustrates. Many different organisms live in a less glamorous way and often go underappreciated in environmental texts. It's about time that bugs and worms had their say, too. I thoroughly recommend it.

What a beautiful, rich book! I can't believe I've never seen this book before a friend passed it along. Besides magnetizing illustrations, the whole story concept of the cycle of life is sensitive and calming. I as an adult find myself reading and pouring over it again and again. My 4 year old liked it at age 4 and now loves it more than ever. I also like that it was originally written and published in the "Soviet Union" so the perspective is a little different than the usual American fare.

"Our World: Our Future" is a must read for anyone interested in peace and survival of our race. In spite of our affluence and scientific excellence, over half of our race live in poverty and subhuman condition, but none of our scholars ever addressed this most important human problem in any of the books available in the world today. Dr. Anil K. Sarkar, a medical specialist was born in utmost poverty in East Bengal 76 years ago and could see the East and the West, poverty and affluence and the realities of the unkind world in a way never posible for anybody born in
affluence and in the West. To know how our race progressed from the Stone to the Computer Age and how our religious fanatics and the selfish military industrial complex are about to destroy our world, and also to know how easy it is to bring peace and survive, this is the only complete but comprehensive book one has to read.

No one seems to want to address the inhuman indifference we exhibit towards poverty, disease, homelessness, and the lack of hope among us. Dr. Sarkar has courageously taken up this task, and explores the dark side of human existence in his work, Our World Our Future.

Half of the inhabitants of this small planet live in abject poverty while the other half lives in affluence and wealth. If all of the human beings on this planet do not get the basics they need to survive, there will be unrest and friction. We seem more focused on destroying life on this planet as we know it, and accumulating ungodly amounts of wealth in the process.

Dr. Sarkar examines this problem and warns of the impending danger to the human race if we do not correct our callous indifference to our fellow man. We must develop an attitude of caring for every one and reject the way we currently treat the poor and less fortunate. And we must do so quickly. Our World Our Future is a must read: it is an urgent call that we must listen to or perish from the face of this planet. The book is chilling and thought provoking; it defies time, geography and race. It is a sobering look at the dark side of human nature.

Despite this perspective, Dr. Sarkar offers concrete solutions and hope for mankind. I share in this hope, and encourage you to read this work and do the same.

A nation cannot stand half slave and half free, Lincoln proclaimed to a nation on the brink of a national bloodbath. Can the world of today survive half enslaved by the scourge of poverty and half affluently flaunting its wealth?
Comes now OUR WORLD, OUR FUTURE, a unique and fearlessly subjective history of the world by an author who rose out of the depths of low-caste impoverishment in India and Pakistan. Dr. Anil K. Sarkar became a physician as well as a self-educated polymath who has spent a lengthy lifetime in pursuit of knowledge in all disciplines.
Clearly his summa is not meant to be a scholarly exercise for academics, a dispassionate display of historical erudition, but rather an outspoken and populist bias in favor of the oppressed peoples of developing and Third World countries. Such a view demands a wrenching shift in international strategies by both the United Nations and the major powers of the globe. The alternative: endless terrorism, wars, famine, and disease rooted in poverty and its spawn: overpopulation and environmental decimation that is destined one day to shut the door on a prosperous and peaceful planet.
Out of an insatiable thirst for learning in all areas of human endeavors, astronomy, physics, geology, paleontology, archeology, anthropology, religion, political science, and economics, Dr. Sarkar has fashioned not just a richly factual tapestry of our planetary and human evolution but an incisive social critique of past events, especially of the last century, that have shaped our present and threaten to shatter our future.
In looking back, the author has boldly laid bared the foibles, follies, hubris and horrors of the power elite of history, including the religious manipulators and mullahs no less than the political machiavels and megalomaniacs.
Despair and despondency, however, are not the sum of his panoramic study of 15 billion cosmic years in the evolution of a rational animal, Homo Sapiens. Only a lover's quarrel with our imperfect past could drive such a voracious curiosity in search of a remedial wisdom to our global problems. Plus a desperate hope and dogged faith that our collective sanity and humanity can prevail over the darker dimentions of our nature.
OUR WORLD, OUR FUTURE is an awesome achievement, an illuminating and inspiring labor of love painstakingly built from a life of hardship, struggle, deep thought, and a passion to communicate a prescription of salvation for an ailing world, an alternative to apocalypse, an option for a nobler, more peaceful and harmonious home for the entire human family.

A Reviewer's Comments on Anil Sarkar's, Our World: Our Future
Bloomington, Indiana: 1st Book
Library, 2002
ISBN:0-759-66980-5

FOR AMAZON COM

Dr. Anil Kumar Sarkar, a retired physician, is an Indian immigrant who was motivated by global social inequalities to write this book. He critically viewed "the affluence of the West," and asks a profound question, "Why, in spite of all our prosperity and technological excellence, are the majority of our fellow human beings malnourished and without the basic needs for life or human dignity?" As a social activist, Dr. Sarkar has personally experimented with social development demonstration projects on rural development in his native village in India with some success, and draws on this experience in writing this book.

This book is a comprehensive history of the world civilization designed primarily for the general public rather than for scholars of world history or political science. It is written in a style designed not to focus on historical chronologies, but on the social dimensions of historical events. The author's analyses thus are that of a social critic, rather than as a scholar of history, and that is precisely where the value of the book lies. Towards the later pages of the book, Dr. Sarkar has specific public policy recommendations for the policy makers of developing countries and for affluent western nations. In sum, he recommends changes in domestic and foreign policies of nations, and the strengthening of the global governance system while keeping in mind the need for serving the entire mankind without becoming unnecessarily Utopian in his work.

This book is primarily aimed at general readers who will enjoy reading this book by Dr. Sarkar. He has offered clear and enlightened descriptions on complex social and historical issues and events, which will be appreciated by general readers.

Dr. Sarkar's book also represents a new type of American ethnic literature, specifically, Indian immigrant literature. There is already a large body of literary writings by the Indian immigrants in the USA who constitute about slightly over 2 million people according to the 2000 census. But Dr. Sarkar's book stands out as the first or only such book on the social history of mankind. American public libraries that stock fictions and novels by the Indian immigrants to enrich their holdings with ethnic literature should seriously consider adding this work to their collection. This reviewer is of the opinion that that this highly readable book should find a place among the American tapestry of ethnic writers. American public and university libraries are a rich gold mine of South Asian American writings would be remiss if they fail to acquire this book by a physician from India, now an American citizen by choice.

Prof. Manindra Mohapatra
Director, Center for Governmental Services
INDIANA STATE UNIVERSITY

This was the first of Gerald Durrell's (yes, he's the kid brother of novelist Lawrence--who appears in several of his other works, such as My Family and Other Animals and Birds, Beasts, and Relatives) long string of animal books that I ever encountered, and over the next 30-odd years my mother and I literally read our copy to pieces. Durrell was the youngest collector ever commissioned when he set off for the British Cameroons in search, chiefly, of the less spectacular examples of African fauna. With a mixture of near-lyricism, earthiness, and the kind of humor that will have you gasping for breath, he describes the people he met (primarily native villagers), the creatures he caught (and how he did it), and the land it all took place in. Even at this early date, long before his famous Jersey Island zoo was more than a faint gleam in his eye, his deep love of nature shines out on every page, and he's an author every animal fan should know. (Don't miss the tale of his next expedition, The Bafut Beagles, which is equally as good.)

This book is about a business that, for the most part, no longer exists - the business of collecting animals for display in zoos. Wildlife conservation has changed a lot since then so the kind of expedition that Gerald Durrell and his companion, John, undertook in 1953, described in this book, just could not happen now.

Gerald describes how he and John spent several months in Cameroon collecting a variety of animals, birds and reptiles and some of the adventures they had, including the triumphs and disappointments. He acknowledges right at the beginning that the expedition may seem more exciting than it really was, because all the boring aspects have been omitted. Even so, there were enough exciting moments to fill this book.

He describes some of the local people, who he mostly got on well with - but of course he did have some problems and we are told about these. He describes some of the creatures he collected, and the disappointment when some died or escaped.

My favorite (both at school and now) was a chimpanzee that had already been domesticated. Gerald was asked to look after him before he could be shipped to London. This was no ordinary chimpanzee, as he not only enjoyed smoking cigarettes but was able to light his own using either matches or lighter, and also displayed other characteristics more normally associated with people than with chimpanzees. Always remember that this was 1953.

This is a highly entertaining book, which I first read at school, where it was compulsory reading - and it was the only such book that I enjoyed. I still enjoyed it when I read it again recently, after discovering (to my surprise) that it is still available in the UK.

Durrell's descriptions are so enthralling, I actually read the entire book in one night. If you like books about animals, such as the All Creatures series, you must read this book. I first read this book when I was 10, and this was probably the first adult book I read. The way Durrell describes the catching of animals and the way he captures each character's essence is incredible. You will fall in love with this book. I strongly recommend it.

Gerald Durrell spent most of his life collecting interesting animal specimens and Durrell is an interesting human specimen himself. His well chronicled life (mostly chronicled by Durrell) begins with the hilarious, and very succesfull, "My family and Other Animals". It is ably followed up with the equally hilarious "Birds, Beasts and Relatives". Both books are full of tales from the Durrell family's years on the Greek Island of Corfu, pre WWII. Little Gerry dives right into the flora and fauna of the island, including its human fauna. I own very few nonfiction books with such a plethora of memorable characters. Now, of course, we get to the volume in question. It is plenty good, and worth multiple readings over years, as is "A Zoo In My Luggage" and several other books detailing trips to collect animals. A word of warning, don't go nuts and buy all the zillion Durrell titles. Some of them are out of print for a reason and were most likely dashed off by Durrell to finance a collecting trip or two. If you read a sampling of Amazon.com reviews you will sniff these out and avoid wasting you hard earned lucre. And please, get "My Familiy and Other Animals and "Birds, Beasts and Relatives" right now, if you dont have them already.

This is the only book I know of which provides theoretical framework for sustainable development using integrated management of economic, ecological, and social systems. The theoretical frame work is based on hierarchy and complexity theories.

You do not want to miss reading and owning it. It belongs in the library of all future oriented executives, economists, ecologists, sociologists, business planners, and policy makers.

A very interesting read. A well developed theoretical framework for examining contempory 'sustainability' issues (social, physical, cultural and so on). Interesting case studies used.

I weighed into this book on the basis of an article I read about Panarchy. Some of the text is too technical for me (all the chapters are written by academics) so I confess that I skipped some parts. Nonetheless for anyone who is trying to grasp how change happens in our world, this is an outstanding source for understanding the complexities and inter-relatedness of everything.

On balance, Resilience and the Behavior of Large-Scale Systems (Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE) Series) is the better book but this one is the thicker heavier more math-laden pretender--the problem is they have their own citation cabal, and while the bibliography is much broader and deeper than the above recommended book, there are too many gaps and an excessive reliance on obscure formulas that I have learned over time tend to be smoke for "I don't really know but if I did, this is the formula.

Also published in 2002, also with 20 contributors, this book lost me on the math. As someone who watched political science self-destruct in the 1970's when "comparative statistics" replaced field work, foreign language competency, and actual historical and cultural understanding, and a real-world intelligence professional, I'd listen to these folks, but I would never, ever let them actually manage the totality.

The book is the outcome of a three year effort, the Resilience Network as they called themselves, and there are some definite gems in this book, but it is a rough beginning. Among other things, it tries to model simplicity instead of complexity, and continue to miss the important of true cost transparency as the product and service end-user point of sale level, and real-time science that cannot be manipulated by any one country or organization (Exxon did NOT make $40 billion in profit this year--that is a fraction of the externalized costs, roughly $12 against the future for every $3 paid at the pump--that level of public intelligence in the public interest in missing from this book).

Page 7, "Observation: In every example of crisis and regional development we have studied, both the natural system and the economic components can be explained by a small set of variables and critical processes." This rang all of my alarm bells. If I did not have total respect for what the authors and funders are trying to do, that sentence alone would have put this book firmly into my idiocy pile.

I just do not see in this book the kind of understanding of the ten high-level threats to humanity interaction with one another, such as can be seen free online or bought via Amazon, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility--Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, nor do these distinguished practitioners of their own little "club" see the strategic coherence of identifying ten core policies from Agriculture to Water that must be harmonized at every budget level, nor the irrelevance of anything we do unless we can persuade the ten demographic challengers with an EarthGame online that delivers real-time science and near-real-time cost-benefit analysis.

I find several of the authors to be a bit too cavalier in their dismissal of the contributions of economists, ecologists, and others.

Theories of change and next cycles are useful. Concepts of cascading change and collapsing panarchies are good. Log number of people in Figure 4.1 is very good.

In discussing adaptive response to change these learned scholars appear to have no clue of what is possible in delivering neighborhood level granularity of data for online social deliberation and models for gaming. There are early light references to deliberative democracy, but right now these folks have models in search of data in search of players. I did like the discussion of the larger model for levels of discourse, but WikiCalc and EarthGame are a decade ahead of this book's contents (which I hasten to add, was started in 1998 and published in 2002).

Table 11-1 on page 310 was so useful I list its row descriptors here, Factors and Adaptation and Possible Effect on Resilience (the latter not replicated here.

Factors:
Biota
Diversity-spacial
Diversity-production strategies
Energy sources
External resources
Mental models
Population structure
Savings
Scale
Technology

This is no where near the 10-12-8 model at Earth Intelligence Network, but I see real value here, and the need for a cross-fertilization. The fatal flaw in this book is that they confuse the failure of expertise with the failure of democracy--if we can achieve electoral reform and eliminate the corruption inherent in most governments, and certainly that of the US government which is broken and "running on empty" while every incumbent sells their constituents out to their party or special interests, it would be possible to connect data, change detection, alternative scenario depiction, and deliberative democracy at the zip code level.

Gilberto Gallopin, Planning for Resilience, is alone worth the price of the book, in combination with above and the closing summary, which is also a real value. My final note: too much gobbly-gook (to which I would add, "and no clue how intelligence-policy-budget connections are made and broken.

The key to eradicating the ten high level threats to humanity, among which environmental degradation is number three after poverty and infectious disease, is not better science--it is better democracy, participatory democracy, combined with moral capitalism. Below are a few titles to help make this point.

These 20 contributors are all part of a future solution, but they cannot be allowed to drive the bus.

See also (apart from my many lists):
Running On Empty: How The Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It
Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders into Insiders
Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency
The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism
Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage
The Philosophy of Sustainable Design
The New Craft of Intelligence: Personal, Public, & Political--Citizen's Action Handbook for Fighting Terrorism, Genocide, Disease, Toxic Bombs, & Corruption
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

Cavier is the choice of the rich. It is merely the sturgeon's eggs. Sturgeon populations have declined 70% in the last twenty years because of the gluttony of obese, wealthy connoiseurs of fish. It is now becoming a most-endured species.

Harvard grad Richard Carey informs us of the people both profiting from the cavier producing business and shows a high-stakes cocktail of business, crime, diplomacy, technology an dthe problems of conservation. As the public appetites gorw and more people now can afford this staple to their diets which was once a luxury, it soon may become extinct.

Fish has always been my favorite food since the days of cowboys movies around Market Square and the lunch at a diner, always fish. Being a Southerner, I love to eat catfish and hush puppies. Having no way to get to the specialty fish places in East Tennessee, I have to depend on Captain D's and Long John Silver's. Usually I go to the nearest, CD, but today I rode a long bus ride to rach LJS , and it was worth it. CD may produce a larger fish sandwich, but LJS tastes better.

Sturgeon was plentiful in the waters around the Persian Empire 250 million years ago. Today it has declined drastically in the Caspian Sea where it had survived against all odds. The large salaries of 2005 enable more gluttons to afford something which sells for $100 an ounce. It corresponds with sex appeal among the high and mighty.

The sturgean has seen more years when it first spawns than many fish see in a lifetime. In East Tennessee, the carp are enormous, and people don't have the rich tasts -- though you may find it at some of the gatherings of the social groups at KMA.

This was the pap of life, the milk of wonder as the food of the gods. They spawn only in rivers of a world without sin. Soon they will all die out, becaues some people don't practice restraint in their culinary desires. And there is no place on this earth without sin, and the presumptuous who think they know it all. Even though they certainly do not!

Mr. Carey paints an interesting and informative portrait of the rich, sordid world of caviar production and of the sturgeon itself.

You don't have to be a lover of caviar to enjoy this book, but if you are it makes you more appreciative of the noble egg. I recommend the book highly and suggest Robbing the Bees as an additional title to check into if you like this one!

In THE PHILOSOPHER FISH, Richard Adams Carey has written an epic chronicle of the sturgeon--a fish species rapidly approaching extinction wherever it swims--as well as of its precious product, caviar. Selling for as much as one hundred dollars an ounce, caviar has become an icon of status and success, and as such, it has led to the inevitable decline of that curious and prehistoric fish: the sturgeon.

Carey exams both the fish as a species as well as the industry that seeks to exploit it. The fascinating and ancient phylogeny of the sturgeon notwithstanding, this fish is clearly in trouble. In the last two decades, sturgeon populations have shrunk to less than one third of what they were. Much of U.S. trade in caviar, as elsewhere, is illegal, but up until now, those who are working to save the sturgeon are largely ineffective. As in the drug trade, the potential rewards to be reaped by the caviar industry have led to energetic smuggling operations, the mislabeling of sturgeon species on caviar tins, as well as other shenanigans. Among the many storylines covered in THE PHILOSOPHER FISH, Carey follows the efforts of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to stymie the illegal trade in caviar, though as a result of 9/11, their resources have largely been diverted elsewhere.

Carey also follows several of the sturgeons' champions in this world as they seek to improve the fish's plight. There is some slight hope in the efforts of those that hatchery-spawn sturgeon species for aquacultural purposes and possibly for future restocking projects. In his search for every sturgeon-related experience he could find, Carey even ice-fishes for sturgeon in Lake Winnebago, one of the few places in the world where this can be done (strict quotas make the season as short as only 2 days a year), but he clearly feels conflicted about it (he didn't catch anything). He drinks vodka along the shores of the Volga River as he observes the trade, both legal and illegal, of the world's most famous caviar locales.

THE PHILOSOPHER FISH takes the reader around the world, from Sacramento to the shores of the Caspian Sea. Many of the stories involve intrigue and espionage of the highest order. Others are humorous or bitter-sweet. Still others offer hope. All are intensely interesting. I enjoy reading books that tell me more than I ever wanted to know about one circumscribed subject. THE PHILOSOPHER FISH is such a book, and I give it my highest recommendation.

Jeremy W. Forstadt

The sturgeon has been associated with the luxury food caviar since the days of the Persian Empire, with both wealth and sex appeal associated to its ingestion over the centuries - but today it's a fast-vanishing fish, threatening to take with it the people who depend on it for a living. Sturgeon natural history is examined by Carey, who journeys around the world to uncover its habits, habitat, and those profiting from it. Anticipate more than a natural history alone though: international politics, economics, and world diplomacy are all deftly examined with the sturgeon at the heart of all issues.