Environment and Nature Books

I am a CASA (court appointed special advocate) and just came from a lecture by Dr. Ira Chasnoff. He is completely convincing and wonderfully qualified on this subject.

He has run fascinating experiments and seems to have opened a completely new area of diagnosis for problem children. By running a diagnostic and treatment center for problem children, he can offer courses for people who deal with problem children or who are interested in starting a community program to deal with the growing problem. You might check into this...

But, after diagnosis, what can be done to help the child? Dr. Chasnoff describes treatment and can prove its effectiveness. Elsewhere, these children are usually drugged and often over-drugged, but without solving their behavioral problems. He has designed a series of solutions to help the child cope with actual structural brain dificiencies (caused by pre-natal drug use).

Of course, he has found that pre-natal drug use (including alcohol) affect behavior -- but, oddly, he has found that mothers who use drugs AFTER birth continue to affect the child's IQ! Thus treating the child without treating the mother can be futile (probably a reason why Head Start's good results do not last -- the parents must be treated too).

Highly recommended. It may save a life. If you have a problem child, consider getting diagnosis and treatment with Dr. Chasnoff. Get involved with bringing this new information into use within your community!

This book is an introduction to the ecology of Vermont. Johnson, the state naturalist, visited every corner of the state in compiling this concise guide. The book is divided into several sections, covering geology and prehistory, mountains and forests, waters and wetlands, and open land. In his descriptions of the separate environment types, Johnson details some of the common trees, plants, reptiles, birds, and mammals that are characteristically found there. Appendices include an annotated list of places to visit, a list of conservation organizations, references, and common and scientific names of plants of animals mentioned in the text. The book is illustrated with black-and-white photographs.

The text is quite informative and clearly written. Whether you are looking for wild places to visit, or want to learn more about your favorite parks or scenic spots, this book is a great place to start and would make a fine reference for anyone interested in the nature of Vermont.

NATURE'S ARMY is a tremendously engaging history of the 19th century United States Army. The book depicts the Army's main activity as "nation building," a concept somewhat discredited in the 2000 presidential election. The local example of "nation building" found its most lasting impact in the protection the Army gave to the newly-developing national park system. In particular, Harvey Meyerson focuses on California's Yosemite Park, set aside in 1890 as a national park. But, any visitor to Yellowstone in Wyoming can still see the Army's presence where the National Park Service maintains many of the original fort facilities at the Park's north entrance headquarters. Meyerson's excellent book should be read by anyone interested in western American history, military history in general, and the development of the American national park system. Highly recommended by this reviewer. Just a thoroughly engaging book.

A text that reads like a novel. It flows, with gripping information and substance on every page. Well presented. I recommend this book highly to anyone who is interested in the American environment.

Let's face it, picking up most environmental books, with their relentless message of doom and gloom, seems to require a talent for masochism or depression. And it's only gotten worse: in the 1970s environmentalists worried about polluted rivers or violated public lands, but now its planetary disasters like global warming, resource depletion, or mass extincitons; and the human race hasn't been showing much talent at facing these realities. How refreshing, then, to come upon a book that inspires environmental hope. The concept of environmental restoration, the idea that humans can nurse damaged landscapes back into health, has been quietly gathering momentum for years, and this book finally brings its thinking and its leaders and its dramas into full view. Peter Friederici is uniquely placed to write this story, since he has been involved in two of the leading restoration efforts in America, the efforts to restore prairies in Illinois and ponderosa pine forests in the Southwest. In addition to these places this book offers an even greater variety of landscapes, from an Hawaiian island long used for military target practice to a Bermuda invaded by luxury developments to ghost chestnut forests in Virginia to a flooded canyon in the Southwest. That such a variety of landscapes can be addressed by the same concept of restoration is a testimony to its value. Friederici also comes up with an amazing cast of characters who are involved in restoration efforts, people deeply in love with their land, dreamers enough to take on a major challenge yet practical enough to maneuver through complicated politicial realities. Restoration involves some philosophical challenges to our usual sense of nature, including challenges to environmentalists. Here in northern Arizona environmentalists will walk through a grotesquely unnatural forest, the product of a century of logging and fire suppression, a forest almost groomed to produce catastrophic fires, and yet they will feel a naive, book-induced sense of oneness with primordial nature and will oppose any interventions in the forest. Environmental restoration includes the paradox that the only way to return the land to pre-pioneer "naturalness" is through further human intervention. Thus restoration efforts have been opposed both by developers and by environmentalists. The political complexities faced by restoration efforts are also explored in this book. But amid all the complexities, Friederici maintains a poetic feel for the land and offers graceful philosophical musings on the place of humans in nature.

This book is designed for seasoned NEPA practioners as well as for beginners and students who seek mastery of the NEPA process. NEPA can best be mastered by organizing all of its requirements and guidance in a systematic way around key topics, and illustrating with examples. Essential guidance for each topic is scattered in different parts of the Act, Regulations and related sources. NEPA Effectivness collects all this under one of ten major headings: PURPOSES, DOCUMENTS, ANALYSIS, COVERAGE, EFFECTIVENESS, INVOLVEMENT,APPLICATION, DECISIONS, AGENCIES, and PROCEDURES. Having practiced NEPA for over twenty years, my experience has enabled me to produce a book that is truly useful to the practitioner.

At the beginning, Tyler and Dana have a problem. There is a big oil spill in Badger Bay (an inlet of the Atlantic). Then Aunt Lissa and Uncle Joe try to have a boom sent to Parson's Point but it can't get there in time. Animals are drenched in oil, seals die, birds die, and fish die all because of the oil spill. Tyler, Dana, Uncle Joe, Aunt Lissa, Charlie and Carter Mote, and even mean old Mr. Mote (who hates project Neptune) team up to save the animals. Aunt Lissa and Uncle Joe rescue sea animals for a living (that's project Neptune) Mr. Mote is a commercial fisherman. So while they're getting animals to the rescue building, the oil spill is getting spread around in the bay and endangering the Atlantic wildlife. Finally, Mr. Mote gets the boom and brings it to the oil spill on his boat, the Bonnie Jean, and saves the day! After they were done cleaning gulls, seals and more cleaning, they rested in the 200 year old lighthouse that Aunt Lissa and Uncle Joe bought 13 years ago when they started project Neptune. THE END P.S. There was nothing I didn't like about this book!

From Planeta Journal - This anthology gathers 16 of editor David Rothenberg's favorite essays from the first 10 issues of the journal I never heard of. The book format suits the subject well. The New Earth Reader marks an effort to reconcile the human and natural worlds. The highlights of this collection are Rothenberg's interview with the translator of the Chief Seattle Speech and one of the best essays about the US-Mexico border, "Tune Country" by Charles Bowden.

Daniel Fiorino is a highly respected expert on public administration, who has focused especially on regulatory reform. Fiorino may have the the wettest finger in the air of any major expert writer on regulatory policy. He should, because he has for some time headed a program at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that evaluates regulatory policy and effectiveness. Consequently, he probably has as much in-depth knowledge of how our system has been working since the middle 1980s as any person in America.

After briefly reviewing regulatory history, evaluating needs for change, and a large number of "Reinvention" experiments in the Clinton Administration, Fiorino points out that the basic assumption of the 1970s environmental laws that continue to form the bedrock of the U.S. system are based on the assumption that environmental protection and business was a zero sum game. In other words, there had to be a top down system of tough laws and compliance requirements or powerful economic forces would always prevail over environmental protection.

Recent European experience has shown that this assumption is not necessarily valid. Moreover leading nations in the European Union, like the Netherlands, have not only gone past us in many respects in enviromental performance (including dealing with global environmental change) but have done so while achieving strong performance in industrial sectors.

In the last two of seven chapters, Fiorino reviews "what has worked and what has not worked", for example, voluntary programs can't just be add ons to the core system, but must be integral parts or they have little chance of success.

It's remarkable and infrequent that a person with responsibilities within our federal regulatory bodies is willing to put themselves out on a limb and discuss issues so candidly. Not surprisingly, the Fiorino book is being adopted by a number of university departments for their courses in U.S. environmental policy.

The last

This is a terrific book. It takes on many sacred cows in the conservation movement including the myth of "wilderness", the dreadfully sloppy use of the the word "nature" and the often misguided attempts of well-meaning conservationists. It's largely based on Australian examples, but there would be lessons here for al continents. We can't wind back the clock: if we are to move to some sort of balance with other life forms we have to come to grips with the fact that they don't see the world through our mental prisms. For example, sewage treatment farms are very rich environments for birds; rubbish tips full of old corrugated iron and junk are havens for reptiles and controlled grazing by sheep and cattle can actually preserve more biodiversity than "native" kangaroos!