Environment and Nature Books

Such an inspiring book! McDonough and Braungart offer much more than just passion for creating a green world--they tell us how to do it. Through their experience innovating new systems with companies like Ford, Herman Miller, DuPont, and many more, they bring serious intelligence to a movement that often feels like another fad. Current enthusiasm aside, Green is here to stay, and we need to start understanding the things we talk about.

Put on your creativity hat and prepare to be dazzled.

The book was delivered in good condition and in a timely fashion. I am very pleased with your services.

this was a fascinating book with a great amount of real life examples and how their theories actually apply to real life and how their design plan of "upcycling" (opposed to recycling) is actually do-able. Even this book is made of materials that fit into their design plans. I've read some books that have great ideas but no way of implementing them, the two authors are already succeeded. it is well written and a good read.

This was an interesting book to read and an important one. Is has not used paper as its format. It offers a slightly different take on the ecology problems. It focuses on creating products that are designed at the onset to be environmentally sound and completely recyclable. It is well written, easy to read and offers a bit of hope. Although at times I felt it was perhaps a bit idealistic, since completing it I have read about 2-3 businesses that have been started using these principles. Numi tea one.

This was a great introduction to so many key, elementary principles in sustainable thinking/living/product design. I learned a lot! I hope enough people are informed and inspired by it to create the kind of real change that is being discussed in this book in terms of truly ecological product designs in everyday things (e.g., cars, homes, and other "products" that incorporate biomimicry, etc).

These comments are for the Freddie Jones reading of Hound for Penguin Audiobooks. It's abridged -- the packaging doesn't make this clear; it's in fine print on the back. However -- it's a very good abridgement; unless you know the story practically line by line, the cuts are very unobtrusive. My advice is have a copy of the print version, and listen to this one in the car or at bedtime, knowing it isn't complete. Freddie Jones gives it a very good reading, absolutely drenched in Victorian gothic atmosphere. I would recommend it.

The baskervilles has an interesting history and when Sir Charles Baskerville the 1 of the last living or was 1 of the last living decendents of the Baskervilles is found dead on the grounds of Baskerville Hall The legend of the hellhound hounts the moor is the hellhound real well that is what the greates detective in the world Mr. Sherlock Holmes wants to find out but he Mr.Holmes has to find the legend hellhound before the legend or hellhound finds him.

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson discuss what can be deduced from a walking stick left behind by a visitor. When the visitor returns he tells of the old legend about the hound of the Baskerville family, and how Sir Charles Baskerville died recently. Dr. James Mortimer found the footprints of a gigantic hound twenty yards from the body! There have been sightings of a huge hound on the moors at night. A new heir, Sir Henry Baskerville, arrives from Canada to take over the Baskerville property; he is the last of the line. Will he meet the same evil fate? Holmes makes an appointment to meet Sir Henry the next day. Holmes peers over the Ordnance map of that area. Has any crime been committed (Chapter 3)? Sir Henry tells of a warning letter sent to his hotel; who knew he was there? Why would anyone steal just one of his new boots? Would anyone follow Sir Henry? Dr. Watson will accompany Sir Henry back to Baskerville Hall; there is less danger in a small village than in London. Dr. Watson must keep his revolver near and never relax his precautions (Chapter 6).

The moor country is described as wild and sparsely settled. Dr. Watson reports his observations of the people who meet with Sir Henry. Watson sees the dangers of the great Grimpen Mire when a pony is caught in a bog and killed. There are stone huts from prehistoric man. Watson meets Stapleton the naturalist and then his beautiful sister (who tells him to go back to London). Stapleton had once been a schoolmaster (Chapter 7). Watson sends letters to Holmes in London (Chapter 8). Mr. Frankland has a passion for litigation. He also observes the country with a telescope on his roof. Why was Stapleton so angry (Chapter 9)? What was the secret of the Barrymores? Watson meets Laura Lyons and hears her secret story (Chapter 11). What did she hold back? Mr. Frankland observed the stone huts. Then Watson hears a terrible scream from the moor (Chapter 12). Holmes has the solution to a cold-blooded murder, but lacked definitive proof. Holmes studied the portrait of the wicked Sir Hugo. Then plans are made for the night's activities. Will an unexpected fog create a complication? Holmes, Watson, and Lestrade rescue Sir Henry from a murderous fate. The villain escaped to a hiding place on the moor, but justice wasn't cheated. Chapter 15 ties up the loose ends.

This may be the most popular of Doyle's four Holmes novels. It does not involve a religion, a company town, or imperial looting. Did Doyle implicitly criticize a hereditary aristocracy that passed down evils to each generation? The character traits of the villain seem like those in true crime stories. Inheritance through murder has inspired other stories ("The List of Adrian Messenger"). There is one flaw in this story. How could the purchase of food for a giant hound be kept secret? Sherlock Holmes could question the grocers and butchers in the area to find the owner of that giant hound.

"The Hound of the Baskervilles," originally published in 1902, is an engrossing "who-dun-it" murder mystery, featuring observant detective Sherlock Holmes and his comparatively humble partner Dr. Watson at their best. Labelled "a classic among classics" by mystery aficionados, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's masterfully written tale poses the problem--who killed Sir Charles Baskerville?--and offers well-placed clues en route to uncovering the resolution. Set a few hours by train from London on the eerie Devonshire moor, where commoners affirm occasional sightings of a huge black hound-shaped beast, the story offers a suspenseful blend of science and the supernatural, with infallible Holmesian logic predictably winning out by story's end.

My only reservation about the book is that it is perhaps a little too formulaic in composition. Among the murder suspects are many: the butler Barrymore and his wife, the neighboring Dr. Mortimer, the argumentative lawyer Frankland with his telescope, the energetic butterfly catcher Stapleton and his sister, the typist Laura Lyons in the adjacent village, the escaped convict Selden, a mysterious black-bearded man seen in London, and, of course, the elusive hound who murmurs and roars on the moor. Watson's thorough narration and detailed letters to Holmes carefully lead us step-by-step through many of the possibilities; however, in my opinion, the overall plotline is more methodical and prematurely revealing than it needs to be. Already by two-thirds of the way through the story, when Holmes, who is supposed to be in London, surprisingly appears on the moor as "the man on the tor," we learn who the murderer must be, and the remaining one-third of the book is devoted to detective-style collection of evidence and explanation and recap of the mystery. That's fine as a study for detectives-in-training, but might the book have had a chance of rising higher as a great work of literature if the author had put more effort into concealing Holmes' conclusion until later in the story, thereby creating a more sustained degree of suspense and intrigue?

For the benefit of anyone who has not yet read the book, I do not want to give too much away, but as a hint in solving the murder mystery I will say that it helps to "follow the money" as you read. After childless Sir Charles, who had made his fortune in overseas speculation, mysteriously dies, next-of-kin nephew Sir Henry returns to England to take control of the estate. Assuming there is some financial motivation for the crime, as there usually is, who among the suspects, especially in light of their past circumstances and misfortune, could profit most from seeing both Charles and Henry dead? Clue: no, the butler didn't do it!

The setting is the star of Arthur Conan Doyle's atmospheric "The Hound of the Baskervilles," his most popular Sherlock Holmes story. With its barren fog-shrouded wastes, Neolithic ruins, and the treacherous Grimpen Mire, the bleak moor Doyle describes in such delicious detail is the ideal background for a creepy Gothic mystery. Does a cursed hellhound stalk the last heir to the Baskerville fortune? Only Sherlock Holmes can answer that, but for a good portion of the novel Watson is left to investigate on his own. The absence of the hyper-rational detective allows the supernatural mystique of this puzzle develop without distraction before the master detective steps in to dispel the mystery. This is an uncommonly fun read.

An early environmentalist even before the term came into use. Ranks up there with Sand County Almanac and Silent Spring. A must read for those who care about the environment. Abbey predicted some of the water problems that now face the southwest.

This is my favorite book. I consider Abbey to be a hippie environmentalist--a sort of modern day Thoreau. The book will suck you in and you'll be wishing you could run off to Moab and have a beer with Abbey.

This is "classic Abbey" and his best work. What else can be said? This book should be on everyone's reading list whether you agree with Abbey on everything or not. I loved it. You will especially enjoy it if you have an affinity for deserts, the southwest, or Moab country.

Edward Abbey's book rings true and honest in ways that most books today can not match. He drives the wooden stake into the plastic heart of modern day America and yet you feel this author's big soul and the desert he loves with the passion some have only for religion or lust. It's my favorite book I have read the past year except for one other: Walking the Trail, One Man's Journey Along the Cherokee Trail of Tears, by Jerry Ellis. It's about his 900 mile walk along the Cherokee Trail of Tears and it's a rare mixture of nature writing, spiritual adventure and social commentary that grabs your heart and soul and pulls you by the hair across 8 states as he sleeps in woods and fields along the way and inspires almost everyone he meets to tell him their deepest secrets. Both books are MUST reads for people who love the earth and live itself as if they were going out of style. They are classics and will stand the test of Time.

Stumbled onto this in my late teens in the early 80s and never looked back. Abbey's extreme love of nature and his well-defended loathing of what we've done to our natural world add up to a real eye-opener for those, like me at 18, who haven't thought much about how great this place must have been before we got here.
Abbey's love of solitude and comfort in being in the middle of "nowhere" inspired me to seek out remote places and my life has been all the better for it. His irascible attitude towards government also strikes a strong chord, but the main joys here lie in Ed's awe and wonder at the magnificence of the canyons and mesas he happily lives with before the bulldozers and mindless tourists inevitably arrive. The bits about people driving in for a few minutes and then leaving after taking pictures are truly classic; Ed can be one of the most hilariously dry nature writers when the mood is upon him.
I've since read most all of Abbey but still think DS is his masterpiece.
This book should be in EVERY high school English curriculum.

Cod is an engaging history of the fish that changed the world. As an eye opening adventure, cod takes the reader from low impact commercial fishing of ancient Europe to the destructive power of modern fisheries. Mark Kurlansky shows his creativity and skill as he brings to focus the plight of cod. The author further illustrates the ability of super consumers to deplete a previously perceived inexhaustible cod population. In this biography is shown the effect cod fishing has had on individual lives, nations and the world. The book keeps the reader thirsting for more. The main weakness of this book would be the abrupt ending to the enchanting tale. Cod is for historians and scientists alike. Fishermen and those that enjoy sea food will appreciate this book. Cod is a book that should be read and reread by everyone as a reminder of mankind's dependence upon and responsibility to conserve earth's diminishing supply of natural resources.

Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World is a fascinating picture of the influence that cod have had on civilization and that civilization has had on cod. From the beginnings with Basque fishermen producing salt cod, through the Cod Wars between England and Iceland, and including the moratorium on cod fishing off of Canada this excellent novel gives a historically accurate look at the world market, politics, and conservation efforts. The fact that overfishing has destroyed what once seemed a limitless resource is an abrupt awakening to irresponsible human behaviors and their true effects on nature and on the future. Kurlansky expertly gives a historically, environmentally, biologically, economically, and politically correct, yet easy to read, account of the history of cod fishing. This is an excellent book for anyone interested in any of the aforementioned fields, particularly those with an interest in conservation. I highly recommend this book for the enjoyable and educational experience it provides.

Mark Kurlansky has created a truly enjoyable, historical narrative of a fish that has influenced many aspects of world history. Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World, is a book that any food connoisseur, history buff, fisherman, or someone simply interested in fish, will appreciate.

The book's main strength is the integration of facets of history to support the idea of cod's impact on the world. Within are discussed the influences of cod on wars, discovery, settlement, technology, gastronomy, and the effects of the dwindling cod stock.

The tragic story epitomized by cod is masterfully told by Kurlansky. Until recently, the mindset of society made it impossible to fathom that such a prolific organism could ever be depleted. The book exposes a poignant message about the increasing problem of overexploitation of resources, which I believe was the author's inspiration.

The only weakness of Cod is that there is so much history included in this relatively small book that it is somewhat overwhelming. Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book and have recommended it to others. After digesting Cod, one realizes that the codfish not only influenced diets and economies, but helped steer the course of world history.

Kurlansky takes the reader on a voyage from the beginning of the cod fishing industry through its almost complete collapse due to overfishing. He explores the effect of the industry on colonization of the New World, the Revolutionary War, slavery and more. This book was written first to show the important place cod has in the history of the world and second to warn of what can happen to natural resources if they are limitlessly exploited. This book was well written and easy to read, it was almost like reading a novel. Kurlansky added interest by including six hundred years of cod recipes, putting one at the beginning of every chapter and a section at the end of the book. A main strength of the book was that it covered a significant amount of history in very few pages. The only weakness of the book was that there were no endnotes or footnotes which left me unable to easily find the origin or support of information presented. My overall evaluation of this book is that is was very informative while still being enjoyable to read. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in natural history, ecology, fish, or conservation.

An interesting perspective on not just the poor cod but of all of the great creatures in the sea on which humankind has feasted over the centuries.

Carl Hiaasen has done it again! After writing "HOOT," Hiaasen has managed to think up another great book about kids saving the environment.
Kids will be interested to read this book because it is narrated from a child's point-of-view. Unlike reality, it is the adults who get in trouble and the kids have to get them out of it. Each chapter ends with a cliffhanger, so don't think reading this book sporadically. Adults will like "Flush" because it deals with the corruption of society. PLEASE READ CARL HIAASEN'S MASTERPIECE OF SUSPENSE.

Carl Hiaasen did a great job including every thing a good book should have; mystery, tense moments, and tons more!!! When Noahs dad sinks a boat because he supects the owner of illegal dumping and then gets put in jail he leaves Noah to find out if the owner of the Coral Queen (the boat his dad sunk) is really illegally dumping. It's a dangerous job, one of the owners "body gaurds/goons" is supected to have murdered someone.

Noah Underwood isn't all that happy that he has to visit his dad in the local jail. His mom is even more angry about it. But when Paine Underwood gets in his head that something isn't right, he can't be stopped. So when the operator of a local casino boat pumps in all of his toilet waste into the ocean, Paine thought the only logical thing to do was sink the boat. Unfortunately for him, the local authorities disagreed. So while he sits in jail, Noah and his sister, Abbie, set out to find a way to prove that their dad was correct about the toxic dumping and see if they can find a way to protect the local waterways.

Hiaasen's story is clever and has great easy to love characters. This book for younger readers has the same tone and humor as do his adult books. And it is so well written that adults will enjoy the story as well. It is a shorter, less involved book than his others, but Hiaasen doesn't "dumb down" anything for his younger readers. The plot is still rich and exciting and full of savory personalities. A real winner!

Your life is a roller coaster. Your dad's in jail for trying to sink the Coral Queen, a casino boat whose owner he alleges is flushing raw sewage into the ocean. Your mom's about ready to divorce your dad and move away. What are you going to do?

Well, main character Noah decides to avenge his father's imprisonment by proving the owner of the casino boat, Dusty Muleman, is guilty of pollution. Noah and his sister, Abbey, with help from drunken Lice Peeking and Dusty's ex-girlfriend Shelley begin gathering evidence to prove Muleman's guilt. Along the way, Noah gets beaten up by Jasper Muleman, Lice disappears and the kids meet their long lost grandfather. Finally, Shelley helps the kids pour dye into the Coral Queen's holding tanks, proving to the Coast Guard that Dusty Muleman is polluting.

If you like a funny, fast-paced book with quirky but lovable characters--you'll love this one! I highly recommend it.

My brother-in-law turned me on to Carl's books. He writes about South Florida and character's that fit in with the myriad personalities in our wonderful Florida.

If you want to read some non-fiction books that make you laugh, then this is one you will like. They're hard to put down!

I've bought 3 from this seller, they sent notifications and shipped very quickly.

This book should be compulsory reading for every corporate board of directors and all CEOs

Tim Flannery, well-known for his writing on the unique ecology of Australia, turns his attention to the pressing issue of global warming with "The Weather Makers". As the disappearance of the southern winter rain belt hit home in 2006, Flannery deservedly won an Australian of the Year award for exposing the continent's shameful record on greenhouse gas emissions.

"The Weather Makers" begins in a quite slow fashion with a look at past climate changes and how they have occurred. Flannery, in a very scientific manner, gives a very detailed account of how the Earth's climate evolved, and how scientists gradually found out the role of carbon dioxide in making the Earth habitable by increasing temperatures. He looks at these things in quite revealing detail and the goes on a journey through geological and human history to illustrate how humanity developed in an era dominated by long periods of very cold weather in which most of the unusually fertile land of Europe, North America and New Zealand was covered by glaciers. Flannery then looks, in very close detail, at how coal and oil were formed and shows, in remarkably simple and legible language, how fossil fuels form and explains why they are so rare in comparison with the present demadn for them. He also shows, in quite simple language, how they burn and why they vary so much in their usefulness as fuels.

It is the last half or so of "The Weather Makers" that is really revealing and something that must be read by global warming sceptics and especially by those who are in doubt or overtly nervous about action. Flannery shows, contrary to popular belief, that climate moves as carbon dioxide increases from one metastable state to another, and that the changes - like the 40 percent drop in Melbourne rainfall in October 1996 - are quite abrupt and, as we are seeing in Australia today - extremely liable to be disastrous. his illustration of the declines in rainfall over southwestern Australia are especially noteworthy. Flannery also does a marvellous job of showing how species, especially in tropical mountains that are effectively cool "islands", global warming has already driven extremely old species like the golden toad to extinction through chaning the level of the cloud layer. The very fact that such species have become extinct should, of itself, be enough to quash notions - still popular amongst the most fertile sections of modern humanity - that global wamring is not real.

Flannery also writes an excellent section titled "The Great Stumpy Reef" about threats to the Great Barrier Reef from global warming and coral bleaching.

The last part of the book, which looks at the Kyoto Protocol, is however clearly the weakest part of the book. Whilst I do not question Flannery's point that there are a large number of vested interests controlling politics in Australia and the US that prevent public ratification of the Kyoto Protocol regardless of its ineffectiveness, I am still critical of Flannery for his failure to recognise that - contrary to conventional wisdom - Australia and the Republican states of the US do not belong to the same culture as the rest of the West. Rather, they retain a value system that disappeared from Europe a hundred years ago and from Blue America, Canada and New Zealand in the 1960s and 1970s. I myself have no doubts that Australia would not refuse to take the most radicla action on greenhouse emissions like eliminating car travel and coal power were it not for a rapidly growing and socially ultraconservative bloc of voters become the dominant force in its politics. Flannery, in contrast, never looks at public opinion in Australia beyond the stereotyped liberal view that the public is less conservative than government.

The rise of parties like One Nation and Family First in Australia, and the number of conservative, climate-sceptic sites on the web form the US, should be proof that public opinion is actually more conservative than Flannery would like to believe. He also does not consider the serious question of what an increasing ultraconservative Australian public will think when rainfall declines in Melbourne and Perth become even worse than they have already.

He also does not look at whether international bodies' failure the greater ecological vulnerability of Australia (which he ought more than anyone to have known about) idea of assuming equal reductions for all countries as the right way to reduce emissions radically wrong. I myself believe Australia should have been internationally targetted long before any efforts at dealing with any other nation's emissions were even considered.

Nonetheless, for all Flannery's failures on the cultural front, "The Weather Makers" is still a most impressive read packed with infomration to arm yourself against the climate change sceptics and to harden your views if you are in doubt.

A few weeks ago, while visiting South Australia's Yorke Peninsula (the place where European settlers have cut the native mulga forest to plant wheat and barley... and later discovered that it does not always rain enough to grow wheat and barley), I stopped by a local public library looking for an interesting Australia book. As my luck had it, I picked two, from the same shelf: Tim Flannery's "The Weather Makers", and Tim Low's "Feral Future: The Untold Story of Australia's Exotic Invaders". It turned out that these two books - both well written, well informed, and covering environmental subject of concerns to Australians as well as people worldwide - complement each other in some ways that neither author may have planned.

The heart of Flannery's book is a martyrology of species that have already gone extinct due to the climate change now in progress, or those likely to do so as the climate change (warming, reduction in precipitation, fog, or cloud cover) continues. As a biologist closely working with many rare and endangered species, and, on occasion, having a chance to discover a tree kangaroo species just to see it become extinct within a few years, Dr. Flannery no doubt is in a very good position to appreciate the danger brought by climate change to many plant and animal species, as well as the tragedy of their loss to the mankind.

As Tim Flannery's accessible and well-presented analysis of many extinction (or threatened extinction) cases shows, the extinct or doomed species are mostly those that are already on their last legs, due to the natural or human-induced causes. Some of them have lost most of their habitat during the last ice age, others during the warming that followed the ice age; some were extirpated from many areas when the Aborigines came to Australia with the spear and the firestick, others were helped to their grave by Anglo-Australians' bulldozers and ploughshares. As Flannery correctly emphasizes, it is the reduction and segmentation of suitable habitats that makes many plant and animal species especially vulnerable to climate change, as, with the wheat fields and housing estates in the way, they can't easily "move" from the northern to southern parts of their geographic province anymore.

Although that's probably not Flannery's conclusion, it seems to me that in many cases the impending loss of these species, while tragic for the world's genetic diversity, and for those small areas where these species do find the refuge now, their extinction won't affect the ecosystems as they currently exist throughout most of the world: there, these threatened species have already disappeared.

As the global temperature inexorably rises, what is coming to replace the doomed species and the ecosystems that they form? As Flannery suggest, many areas of the world are on the way to simplification or "uniformization" of sorts: the reindeer's and lemming's tundra may be replaced by the expansion of the moose's and squirrel's taiga forest; the polar bear's ice-covered Arctic ocean - with a seasonally ice free cold sea (similar to today's Bering Sea perhaps?); Amazonian rainforest, with a savanna of sorts. And to get a better idea of who *is* likely to survive in the new hotter world, Tim Low's "Feral Future" makes a good companion reader. It is all about creatures whose habitat, instead of shrinking (often, due to human activity), expands (often, not without human help). Widely adaptable, these species are likely to survive in the changing world, and likely even to benefit from the change sometimes, replacing the species that are losing ground. Forests of lantana and mimosa instead of the native species; rats and racoons instead of tree cangaroos; starlings and mynas instead of the native birds... this is what we are likely to see more and more, with or without climate change.

Read the two books together and think of what the future may hold. It may not be all that unpleasant - if, after some millenia, the climate stabilizes again, the now-worldwide starlings or racoons may undergo a new wave of speciation, developing new narrow-ecologic-niche species, replacing those that are disappearing now. It's probably not the first time this happens, on the geological scale: there must have been other global extinction events, followed by the appearance of new narrow-niche species, descending from the adaptable wide-nice survivors.

But in the present day, perhaps though the conservation biologists could pressure governments into funding captive breeding programs, to save some of the particularly threatened species for later reintroduction in the suitable environments - wherever those may be. Maybe we should be prepared to grow a new Great Barrier Reef around Tasmania, too :-)

This was a wonderful read for me during a week I spend in the woods on retreat. Although not as "spiritual" as I would have expected, it still resonated with so much of my being in the wilderness. Contrary to Dr. May, I have spend numberous years with such times. I just thoroughly enjoyed his writing style, his honesty and humor, and the awareness that this was his last book before his death. I cried at the end of it!

The Weather Makers is a great over-all, general look at global warming and climate change. Easily 5 stars, the highest rating, for its reasoned, common-sense guide to a complex subject, which largely avoids partisan politics and alarmist reactions. Of more than 30 books I've read on the subject, this is in the top three, the other two being "With Speed and Violence - Why Scientists Fear Tipping Points in Climate Change" by Fred Pearce; and "Hell and High Water - Global Warming, the Solution and the Politics, and What We Should Do" by Joseph Romm.

I keep this book at my house for ongoing story telling. A little too adult for my 7 yr. old grand daughter. So my hope is that over the years we both will appriciate this book. I have a fairy garden/door to go with the book. We have lots of fun with the both of them.

The book is beautiful, full of details, it's an invitation for dreaming.
My child was astonished about the book and all the litttle things that has inside. Good recomendation for girls.

It is a really nice book, for fans of all things fairy! The notes and scrapbook-like features such as photos, letters, and pull-out surprises make it a fun experience.

I bought this for my 7 year old daughter and she loves it. She pores over it and loves the extra details tucked in it. The only caution that I would add is that the handwriting is old-fashioned and in cursive and is therefore somewhat difficult for new readers to read but she sure loves trying.

I purchased Fairyopolis: A Flower Fairies Journal for a young-adult artist friend who always has been inspired by fairies. She adored the book and refers to it while coming up with new and innovative designs.

This is a beautiful volume, colorful and nicely designed.

I read Paul Hawken's book "The Ecology of Commerce" first. It was so good I decided to read this one too. It's just as good.

The name of the book describes what it is about very well. In a sense capitalism is unnatural because it is unsustainable. In contrast Natural Capitalism is when business interests work in concert with social interests and natural systems so that all three sustain each other.

Natural Capitalism is easy to read and is essentially optimistic. It discusses broad strategies for sustainability as it relates to the activities of businesses and their products and services. It also gives many examples of how these strategies can be implemented so we can see Natural Capitalism in action.

By and large this book is even more relevant now as when it was first published in 1999. I applaud the writers for saying some tough things that need to be said and for showing real, proven solutions instead of just talking about problems and theories. Very refreshing!

Although one might not completely agree with all of the ideas and concepts discussed in the book, it is a wonderful read for those who are both environmentally conscious and business world-savvy. As a treehugging bean-counter, I absolutely enjoyed "Natural Capitalism".

This book is required reading for people who want to reduce the amount of waste they generate and learn to be better consumers.

This is more than one book's worth of information. Years of research and innovation are woven together tightly and the result is an extremely informative book that is also a page turner.

The book includes enough technical detail to be of use to current experts in the field and the writing makes the data accessible to the newbie as well.

This would be a particularly good read for anyone in business who's looking to improve the bottom line while simultanteously lessoning the negative impact of operations on the planet. The authors show clearly how businesses can reduce costs by implementing eco-friendly practices.

Whew! Adam Smith, move over. NATURAL CAPITALISM is the bible which ought to unite environmentalists, socialists and free-market capitalists in a meaningful shift to sustainable systems. It offers a breathtaking overview of the technological and methodological fixes now available -- and in the authors' view, imminent -- together with ways to get there from here. (This one actually left me feeling cautiously optimistic.) The suggestion is that we should eliminate the filters in the smokestacks by installing better filters in our heads - working smarter, solving whole systems instead of piecemealing our way into the future. Separate chapters deal with automobiles, farming, heavy industry, construction, water pollution, climate change, markets and labor, but the overview is consistent: saving our planetary environment and continuing improvement in human well being do not require contradictory plans. Natural Capitalism provides the key. Eliminating waste, for example, satisfies both environmental and business goals. Using more labor and less material provides jobs and conserves resources. (The authors point out that the "labor-saving" goal of the first industrial revolution occured in a time of labor shortages and resource abundance, a situation which has now reversed.) To offer but one small example of the new thinking explored here: downstream solutions are often best. When an office decides to print all documents on two sides of each page instead of one, the apparent saving amounts to 50 percent of the original paper use. In fact, only 1/3 of the tree fiber harvested in the forest reaches our desks - the rest is wasted due to inefficiency in the pipeline. So a pound of paper saved in the office amounts to 3 pounds of pulp in the forest. Similar or greater savings accrue in every delivery system. It takes 100 units of energy to deliver 10 units of water energy at your tap. So 10 gallons conserved at home actually saves 100 gallons at the well-head. The information and ideas presented in NATURAL CAPITALISM are too sweeping to easily discuss in a short review. Amory Lovins was one of the seminal thinkers who launched my greening 30 years ago, when I joined the anti-nuclear movement and decoupled from the grid. His pithy, "Making electricity with atomic energy is like cutting butter with a chain saw," was "one of those songs that you think you forgot, but is one of those songs you cannot." He and Hunter, his wife and co-CEO of the Rocky Mountain Institute, have championed green engineering for years - including developing and patenting a schema for a hyper car and placing it in the public domain so that any manufacturer can use the plan. (They confidently predict it is THE car of the future.) Paul Hawken is a long-time developer of green businesses, president of the American Natural Step, and previously author of THE ECOLOGY OF COMMERCE (HarperBusiness, 1992), a narrower discussion of the ideas in this tome.

I whole-heartedly recommend this important book. Richard Louv's book sparked a movement that had been simmering under the surface for some time -- with the rapid growth of technology in recent years, our children are spending less and less time outside.

I work with Green Hour, a campaign of the National Wildlife Federation, that aims to inspire parents to encourage their kids to turn off the computer, IPod and TV and GET OUTSIDE! Check out www.greenhour.org to find the tools you need as a parent to help fight nature deficit disorder.

Childhood obesity, ADHD, and basic developmental problems have been associated to this broken link with the outdoors.

The new edition is great -- there are ideas in the back for getting kids outdoors...

Anne Keisman
Green Hour

Louv claims that children spend less and less time outdoors because of parental fears, electronic toys and a variety of other reasons. He explains what the implications are for children and adults: attention problems, disconnectedness with the world, lower productivity. Louv makes the case for why and how parents, teachers and others should help children connect with nature. I really liked the book overall, although I felt like some of the chapters could have been more concise. The second addition has an appendix with a concise practical list of things parents can do.

From the first chapter, this book has had a tangible impact on my life. I grew up in a rural area but now live in NYC and had sensed, but did not fully realize how important being in nature is for my physical, spiritual and mental health. This book has re-opened my senses to the truth that I am a part of nature and even though I live in a city, I have the obligation to care for the nature around me. I also work with children and am newly inspired to incorporate nature into all aspects of education.

The only critique I have is that at times it feels like Louv is repetitive, and the directives about what can be done are sometimes broad, but the overall effect has been to inspire me to get out and DO something about the problem.

My wife and I played in the woods; we taught our kids to play in the woods; one is an environmental educator; one is an environmental biologist.

Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods
This book makes a convincing case that many of our children are suffering from a deficit of nature in their lives. He connects this nature deficit to a variety of modern plagues, including attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, stress, depression, anxiety disorders, and childhood obesity. The evidence tends to be more anecdotal than systematic or experimental, but the cumulation of such evidence becomes persuasive.

He attributes this deficit to many causes, including a loss of public spaces, the testing climate in public schools reducing recesses, the growth of organized youth activities at the expense of just messing around in vacant lots, parents' fears for safety, fears of litigation making cities reduce parks and playgrounds, electronic games and television, and various other ills. The causal links here are even more speculative but again, the story coheres well from an accumulation of circumstantial evidence.

Louv's solutions seem to address symptoms, not underlying causes. Many are wishful thinking - - with so many social and economic pressures taking our kids away from nature, we need a significant restructuring to get them back. I'm not sure how to do this, but this important book certainly does a good job raising the issues.

I got this book as a gift and was non-plussed. A whole book about people climbing trees? But once I started I couldn't put it down. Terrific writing, great characters and a really compelling story to tell. It was almost enough to make me want to go climb a tree myself. The only complaint I have is that I would have loved to see a few more sketches, or a few pictures, or something to really make plain just how large the trees are for those of us who can't just head off to California to see for ourselves.

This is a fabulous account of the search for the tallest trees and the resulting studies of the canopy ecosystems. This may sound dry but it is so beautifully written that it is a book you cannot stop reading.

This book approaches the fate of Earth's disappearing giant forests from two angles - describing the poorly understood ecosystems in the canopies of giant tress, and covering the recreational and scientific climbers who have first explored these unknown realms. In a forest of redwoods, or other types of very tall trees, the uppermost branches weave together to form not just a shady canopy but also a complete off-the-ground ecosystem, and these unique natural wonders are under threat from logging and climate change and may disappear before they are even explored. A small clique of extreme tree climbers has mastered the art of climbing into these canopy ecosystems, assisted by enthusiasts searching systematically for the world's tallest unheralded trees, particularly in the shrinking redwood forests of Northern California and Oregon.

Preston includes a lot of fascinating coverage of these wondrous and previously unknown canopy ecosystems, which can only be reached via quite dangerous extreme climbing techniques. But the book is held back from greatness by Preston's attempts to add drama by diving in to the private lives of these groundbreaking (treebreaking?) climbers and enthusiasts. Excellent descriptions of natural discovery are constantly interrupted by detours into love lives and dubious personal biographies. I'm not sure why it matters that one of the young explorers was a knife salesman in college, and the personal travails of these folks are hardly unique just because they're now in a unique profession. Preston's attempted "nonfiction narrative" (in the words of the jacket blurb) is unfocused and makes a sizable portion of the book very tiresome. Fortunately, the rest of the book will resonate strongly with adventurous readers looking for the thrill of discovery, as there really are still worlds up there that have not been explored by humans. [~doomsdayer520~]

My book club read this book based upon a suggestion from someone who had heard about it but not read it. While the subject was fascinating, and the book began somewhat promisingly, by the time I reached the halfway mark I knew that I couldn't finish it. This so-called narrative non-fiction was nearly impossible to follow as Preston jumped from one unappealing person to the next without tying together an apparent story line. But, worst of all, the writing wasn't very good. Interestingly enough, the book club critique was unilaterally poor, and most members, like me, chose not to finish it. When one member mentioned that her 7th grader had read the book as part of the school curriculum, it made sense, because the writing style made the book more appropriate for Middle School readers than adults.

This should have been a fascinating book, but it's frustrating and laughable. A competent writing/editing team - combined with a photographer instead of a B&W illustrator - would have made all the difference. Skip it.