Environment and Nature Books

This book is great for younger kids to learn all about the marine life in the oceans of Hawaii. Great large color pictures!

We received "Sand to Sea" as a gift when our children were toddlers. From the earliest age they loved the photos. As they got older they asked us to read the text as well. The book begins on the shore, moves to the tide-pools, out to the coral reefs and beyond into the ocean, introducing animals from each habitat. The text is basic but well-written and we enjoyed learning the Hawaiian names of many creatures, including the 12-syllable name for one fish! There are extraordinary color photos on each page. My boys especially loved the photos showing children snorkeling among reef-fish and exploring the marine world. "Sand to Sea" is an excellent introduction to Pacific marine life and we highly recommend it for children, ages 2-10.

This book excels at laying out the thousands of inter-related details that go into large dams: their geographic countenance, their economic costs and impact, the public health aspects and more. It makes links between facts that give valuable insight into the global dam market.

Sobering at times, this book also showcases many successes which give hope for a thirsty Earth.

It is a common argument that large dam construction opponents are radical, and are not thinking the "facts" through logically. It is a common argument that these so-called radicals are unconcerned with the greatest common good, and are concentrating on a few tribals and farmers who happened to have their lives destroyed for the sake of benefiting thousands of other lives. Sadly, a majority of people have no idea what the "huge fuss" is concerning large dams. "Why the huge fuss," they ask, "over a few farmers?" These questions are asked by many citizens of the international community. If large dams are helping a developing country move forward in a modern world, why not build more? All over the world, large dams are in the spotlight of international development -- and they haven't arrived there without reason.

A large majority of people movements, protests, and literature that has been written on large dams is seemingly radical. The alleged radical nature of people against large dams prevents the general public from taking the issue seriously. It is also true that many protestors all over the world today do a lot of screaming and shouting about a lot of issues without a rational basis of their own, regardless over whether or not the issue is a significant one. The important thing to remember in spite of this, is that there is a logical bases for arguments against the construction large dams, and McCully does an excellent job of constructing and expressing these arguments.

This book brilliantly highlights the politics behind large dam construction, focusing primarily on the environmental issues surrounding large dam construction, but also brings to light some of the key issues involving the displacement of people. Unfortunately, I do not feel that McCully gives enough attention to alternatives to large dam construction. Overall, however, this book is well worth the read, and serves as an excellent introduction to the topic.

I'm more of a technical reader that needs very definite explanations and whys. Great book. I read the whole book in 1 sitting. Too bad it had to end so soon. The laminated pictures are cool too.

Very informative book about soft corals, but it could have been a lot better: it speaks too vague about corals, it talks about the families and class of soft corals. I've learned some things with this book ( why soft corals uses iodine, etc ) .. Its a shame that it doesnt go more deeper and more informative: it could select the most representative corals from each family and make a quick guide ( light, position, etc etc ). It does contain a LOT of pictures, all of them in excelent quality. Too bad the book its so small ( 64 pages ... :( ), but you cant ask much more for a 10$ book. I'd recommend it to the begginner / intermediate reefer, no information for a advanced one ( a part from listing all the classes and taxonomy of soft corals ).

Add this book to your order if you make a big order and would like to read something in the bus :)

Roger Gottlieb has written an incredibly powerful book that reconciles the seemingly incompatible realms of politics and spirituality. Written with great lucidity and admirable intellectual honesty, this book is essential reading for those of us disillusioned by the sordid events surrounding the 2000 Selection of a President. Among other things, Gottlieb shows how honest anger is a powerful spiritual asset, something which enables us to steer a course between violent rage and impotent resignation when confronted with outrageous injustice. Both religious people and political activists could learn a great deal from this magnificent work. Gottlieb provides the intellectual and moral framework that will enable all persons of good will to join hands and work for the common good of our fragile planet and its inhabitants. Please read this work. It could quite possibly change your life!

Gottlieb does a fine job in this work of mixing environmentalism and spirituality, from several different religious perspectives. The author makes clear his Marxist leanings, but these do not seem to overly impact his work, which does a fine job analyzing the woes of our planet and how one can view them from religious viewpoints. He seems to take a slightly moral relativist viewpoint in assigning all religions equal weight, but this is also a positive in that it shows the support for the planet from numerous perspectives. A fine mix of anecdotes and statistics, science and faith, I recommend this book to anyone, regardless of their stance along the political spectrum.

While i found the middle of the book somewhat slow (he used too much detail to reinforce his main points), the ending chapters are great. He makes a convincing case for local control over the range by people with a vested interest in the land, and against large scale technocratic solutions.

Karl Hess earned his college degrees, including a Ph.D., in ecology, economics and history. He worked in North Africa on a range rehabilitation project for two years, then spent 5 years working for the New Mexico Department of Agriculture. He also taught graduate courses in public land policy at New Mexico State University. He brings learning, experience, and expertise to the subject of the western range and its management. But more importantly, he brings a deep respect for the men and women who settled the West, and for their descendants who are now being squeezed out of their heritage by their own government. The issues of western range management are complex; Karl Hess explains how rangelands have been mismanaged in the past, and how they are being mismanaged today by those charged with restoring them to a healthy condition, specifically the BLM and the U.S. Forest Service. Visions Upon the Land traces the history of the arid West -- that part of the country west of the 100th meridian -- from the Civil War through the rapid expansion of the 1870's and 1880's, and up to the reforms of the 1930's, particularly the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934. Left to themselves, cattlemen take good care of rangelands, Hess believes. Common sense tells them not to overgraze. There are numerous examples of ranchers' wise stewardship of the land, including the large ranches in Pahrump Valley before WWII. However, two things happened that the cattlemen could not control. One was the introduction of sheep onto the common range, the other was the arrival of settlers under the Homestead Act. Severe overgrazing was the tragic result of too many people and too many animals on too little land. The Taylor Grazing Act was not a universal remedy, but it reversed the trend of overgrazing by issuing grazing permits and leases to stockmen throughout the West. One government report stated that for the period from 1936 to 1966 "the amount of range considered to be in poor or bad condition was estimated to have declined from 58% to 33% in 1966. At the same time, the amount of fair condition range increased from 26% to 49%." Then, the 1970's brought an era of unbridled growth in government. The BLM underwent bureaucracy building that increased its budget many times over. The Bureau became insulated from responsibility for its actions, and took on an attitude of hostility toward ranchers and other "encroachers" on public lands. Hess charactarizes that attitude: "Humans are intruders to be feared, regulated, and held at bay for the sake of preserving the naturalness that remains." So what does the future hold for the western range? Karl Hess sees a continuation of the bureaucratic dictatorship the BLM holds over the land. Nonetheless, Visions Upon the Land argues for a solution that is based on the ultimate American ideal -- democracy. Hess wants to give private citizens property rights in the vast BLM administered lands. Give ordinary people an incentive to preserve the health of the land they inhabit. Allow many visions in on the decision process. The solutions Karl Hess proposes in Visions Upon the Land may seem unworkable, even farfetched. But he is the first scholar to think through the incredibly complex problems of the western range, and his theories should not be dismissed out of hand. The job of restoring democracy to the West is great, but the task begins with ideas, ideas that need to be debated and refined. Only then can action be taken.

World War I was just the beginning of an ongoing cultural and scientific process in which chemical based weapons were created and marketed for use against human and insect enemies. Russell reminds us that the cultural, institutional, and political evolution of twentieth century science and warfare in the United States began not with the J. Robert Oppenheimer and the physicists of Los Alamos but with chemists like James B. Conant and his colleagues at Harvard and American University, emergent corporations like Dupont and the Hooker Company, and government agencies such as the Department of Agriculture and the United States Chemical Warfare Service. With an eye for detail and a witty and readable narrative style, the author assembles scientific papers, declassified governmental and military planning documents, trade journals, and propaganda and advertising literature to reshape our understanding not only of the role of chemistry in warfare, but more importantly the reflexive nature of our understanding and relation to both technology and nature during times of peace.

In War and Nature Edmund Russell, Associate Professor of Technology, Culture, and Communication at the University of Virginia, cleverly traces the interaction between chemical warfare and pest control from World War I to the Vietnam War. His central thesis is that war and control of nature have coevolved: "the control of nature expanded the scale of war, and war expanded the scale on which people controlled nature" (p. 2). Following up on his dissertation (University of Michigan, 1993), which won the Rachel Carson Prize from the American Society for Environmental History, Russell culled a wide variety of recently declassified U.S. government documents, business publications, and contemporary books and articles. Russell finds that World Wars I and II and the Cold War forged close ties between military and scientific institutions, and efforts to maintain such links became hallmarks of the post-World War II era. Scientifically and technologically, pest control and chemical warfare each created knowledge and tools that reinforced the other (p. 4) For example, on the eve of World War I, there were few U.S. chemical companies. They manufactured primarily low-profit bulk chemicals. In contrast, Germany had the best chemical factories and schools and had the largest output of sophisticated products. Eight German companies made up almost 80 percent of the world's dyes (p. 18). However, the increased use of mustard and chlorine gas in the war boosted the demand by European allies for these chemicals from the United States. The "Chemical Warfare Service" was created within the U.S. Army to employ civilian chemists to conduct research on war gases. This research also stimulated the invention of new insecticides to deal with such menaces as the boll weevil (attacking cotton crops), house fly (spreading typhus), the San Jose scale (damaging fruit trees), and mosquitoes (spreading malaria).
The use of chemicals in warfare is not new. Interestingly, Russell points out that the first recorded use of poison gas was in 428 BC, when Spartans besieging Plataea attempted to kill its defenders by burning wood soaked in pitch and sulfur under city walls (p. 4). However, chemical warfare increased throughout the twentieth century. According to Russell, at least 90,000 people were killed in World War I by gas, and estimated 350,000 were killed by gas in World War II, not including all the victims in Hitler's gas chambers. Even these figures seem low. Russell skillfully shows through cartoons how federal entomologists and chemists used insects in their propaganda as metaphors for human enemies. One cartoon depicts a conversation between two worms, one of them exclaiming: "What! Me sabotage that guy's victory garden? What do you take me for-a Jap? (p. 100)."
The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 sought to exclude gas from warfare and define the rights of combatants. Public outrage at the use of chemicals as weapons of war continued to mount. After World War II, the Chemical Warfare Service and other chemical companies lobbied Congress vigorously, stressing the need to develop war gases as insecticides, for which increased funding was required. Noted chemists testified before Congress, claiming also that chemical and biological warfare was "more humane" than conventional warfare. According to Russell, who interviewed several of these chemists, Chief Chemical Officer William Creasy inanely argued in 1958 that 25,000 American casualties on Iwo Jima could have been avoided had the U.S. military employed chemical weapons (p. 208). Miracle "psychochemicals" were promoted, such as LSD-25 that could temporarily incapacitate troops but not permanently harm them. Russell cites a US Army propaganda film produced in 1958 in which a cat chased and caught a mouse, inhaled an unnamed gas, and then cowered from another mouse (p. 208). This publicity campaign persuaded Pentagon authorities to increase the U.S. Army's budget to $80,000,000 for chemical research.
Research to fight insects increased simultaneously with the development of chemicals to fight humans. As thousands of families moved to the suburbs in the 1950s, gardening became a popular hobby and stimulated the desire for pest control. Pesticide manufacturers such as Du Pont and Dow increased their marketing to this group of consumers, while federal crop dusting programs using DDT were initiated.
Russell shows how Rachel Carson's publication of Silent Spring in 1962 galvanized the American environmental movement, leading eventually to the ban on DDT in 1972. This immediate bestseller detailed the noxious effects of DDT on plants and animals and characterized pest control as a self-defeating form of warfare (p. 229).
Reading this book, one is struck by the immense irony of the twentieth century and the causal interaction of peace and war. Never before have so many human lives been saved (thanks to pesticides killing disease-carrying insects and increasing crop yields) and so many destroyed (mostly due to incendiaries, but also chemical weapons). Americans got better at saving lives partly because they got better at taking them, and vice versa. While War and Nature is almost too dazzling in its rich detail and sometimes a bit careless in its logic (e.g. implying that human beings should not be considered part of nature), the book breaks new ground in its connection of two traditionally disparate fields of inquiry, environmental and military history. It should be required reading in college courses in both security studies and environmental science.---Johanna Granville, Ph.D. (Stanford University)

the greatest pictures I've ever seen! Clear and easy to see pictures!

I was looking for a book with general information about white-tailed deer behavior to cite in a research paper. I checked out several different books on white-tailed deer but found this one to be the most helpful. While not targeted to scientists, this book does provide some useful technical information. There is a very short (~1 page) bibliography included in the book, but the author does not cite his references in the text.

The book talks about the different subspecies of Odocoileus virginianus and where they are located, and throughout the book the author describes "normal" behaviors or traits of the entire species but also mentions subspecies that notably differ from the norm. It covers body structure & growth (post-birth), including a brief discussion on mouth morphology and the digestive tract; eating behavior & nutritional requirements; social behavior, including body gestures/postures and their significance; and seasonal behavior, such as antler growth & development and "yarding" during the winter. I felt confident citing this book for general statements about deer in the introduction of my research paper.

For non-researchers, this book would be helpful to wildlife enthusiasts or hunters looking for more content than just pretty pictures and descriptions about how deer are cute. Pictures are for illustrative purposes, so don't expect 2-page spreads of 12-point bucks standing against a setting sun. Hiller doesn't dumb down his topic, and this book is mostly text (rather than pictures), but it's readable and provides information that anyone interested in hunting and/or admiring deer would find useful.

If you have been following Eric Freyfogle's work, then you should probably get this book. It builds on his ongoing conversation about "land health" and our own responsibility. But it is not nearly as finely crafted as some of his earlier work--particularly "The Land We Share". Get that book first if you haven't read Freyfogle yet. In this book, Freyfogle continues to build on Leopold and Berry in searching for a coherent story for conservation and land health. Two weak chapters in my opinion mar this otherwise fine work. Chapter 2 is a critique of what Freyfogle calls the "tend the garden" mentality, which he appears to link to the "wise-use" and property rights movements. There are some merits to his arguments, but he takes it a bit too far. Leopold's work very much recognized the critical and unavoidable role of humans for building healthy land. See "Gardeners of Eden", by Dan Dagget, for what I would consider a Leopoldian use of the garden metaphor about using nature to heal the earth. Freyfogle's other mistep is an attack on the concept of sustainability. He considers the idea to be too broad to be useful, and too amenable to being corrupted by a "whatever works" kind of ethic. At one point he even criticizes the powerful "triple bottom line" of economy, ecology, and community. What could be closer to a real land health ethic than integration of those three areas?
These two digressions aside, the book is a stimulating read, and if you are part of this conversation or are following it, then you need to read this book. I don't think it is quite the full expression of the land ethic, but it moves us in that direction.
A section of "Conservations Central Readings" at the end is almost worth the price of the book (well--maybe the price when it comes out in paperback, anyway!).

This book takes us to the fundamentals of conservation and what we need to get good land use that promotes healthy lands and people. Freyfogle tells us that conservation needs an overall goal, it needs new ideas of private property, it needs new mechanisms for making collective decisions. Those are the top three tasks he outlines. And, he argues persuasively, it will take changes at the level of cultural attitudes and values to bring them about. Without fulfilling these three top tasks, society will not be able to solve environmental and land use problems, including agricultural desertification, suburban sprawl, biodiversity loss, air and water pollution and lots of other conservation challenges. This book is a must read for anyone calling himself or herself a conservationist or who is interested in learning more about becoming one. It points the way to the opening of a new chapter in American land use and a new more positive vision for conservation. And it's nicely written to boot.

Whether you are interested in John Muir specifically or just want to read about an interesting life, this book is an excellent place to start.

John Muir had an incredible and important life, and it is told here succinctly in his own words, excerpted to emphasize the profound. It is a glimpse into a lifestyle 99.9% of us will never know, yet it is truly important to our times. His love of nature, adventure and exploration is a reminder of why we need to experience more than our 9 to 5 workdays and why we need to apply ourselves to the protection of the Earth.

Muir was a gentle but strong man, a genius with simple needs, solitary yet influential. This book is a terrific way to look into his life and his time and to gain some inspiration into our lives and our times.

I am often asked for a recommendation of what among Muir's writings, or writings about him, one should first read. After spending more than 30 years appreciating both his writings and most of the books about Muir that have been published during that time, and after ten years editing the John Muir Exhibit online, I can only turn to the same book that originally enthalled me with John Muir: The Wilderness World of John Muir, edited by Edwin Way Teale.

This book was edited by someone who was himself an able naturalist and nature-writer, and therefore someone who could understand Muir in a way that most academics, whether professors of literature or historians, cannot. Edwin Way Teale (1899-1980), has been ranked as a nature writer with been ranked with Henry David Thoreau, John Burroughs, as well as John Muir himself. His honors include being elected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, receiving the John Burroughs Award in 1943, and the Pulitzer Prize in 1966. He was the author of 32 books. Teale's sympathy for Muir's message is shown in the book's Dedication page, which is "Dedicated to The Sierra Club, The Wilderness Society, The National Parks Association, and all those who are fighting the good fight to preserve what John Muir sought to save."

This book serves as both an anthology of the very best of Muir's writings, and also a biography, compellingly provided by Teale.

The biographical value of this work is often under-stated, even by the publisher. The book is typically viewed as an anthology, and indeed it is, primarily; but it also contains a wealth of biographical information, far more than the typical anthology.

Teale commences his book on John Muir with an authoritative 10-page Introduction, that not merely identifies the key events in Muir's life, but provides an assessment and perspective of how Muir stacks up with other nature writers. He provides facts you won't find elsewhere: "While visiting friends, Muir sometimes would talk four hours at breakfast." Teale, writing in 1954, was able to talk with several people who knew Muir personally. He noted that everyone he talked to had a different view of which phase of natural history held first importance in Muir's mind. Some thought it was trees; another thought it was geology, another plants. Teale points out the fourth view, probably the nearest right of all: "... the whole interrelationships of life, the complete rounded picture of the mountain world. Today, Muir probably would be called an ecologist." Teale 's assessment of Muir as an "ecologist" pre-dates the "ecology movement" of the 1970s by at least 15 years. Teale admirably tells of the scope of the places, glaciers, plants, and animals named after him, and Muir's contributions to science and conservation. Although public appreciation for Muir has grown dramatically since Teale's book was first published in 1954, The Wilderness World of John Muir still provides the best introduction to Muir's life and writings.

Following the admirable Introduction, each of the 51 excerpts from Muir's writings commences with a preface by Teale, of up to a page in length, presenting in chronological order the story of Muir's life, and putting each of Muir's writings into context.

Although serving as a biography, the Wilderness World is, in fact, primarily a superb anthology. Rather than simply re-printing the full text of such of Muir's works as The Story of My Boyhood and Youth, A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf, My First Summer in the Sierra, Travels in Alaska, Our National Parks , and the Journals, Teale provides short snippets from the best of Muir's writings, arranged into seven broad categories:

I. Memories of Youth - reprints Muir's writings about his boyhood in Scotland, life on the Wisconsin Farm, seeing immense flocks Passenger Pigeons, nearly dying of choke-damp while digging a well, his inventions, and his enrollment at the University of Wisconsin.

II. University of The Wilderness - Excerpts from A Thousand Mile Walk, including people by the way, camping among the tombs of Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah, Georgia, and Muir's visit to Cuba and New York.

III. The Range of Light - Muir's adventures in the Sierra, including his first glimpse from Pacheco Pass and crossing the bee pastures of the Central Valley, his first visits to the High Sierra, climbing on the brink of Yosemite Falls above the Valley, tributes to wildlife including bears and grasshoppers, and his telepathic experience sensing the presence of his former University Professor Butler in the Valley.

IV. The Valley - Muir's glorious tributes to Yosemite Valley's waterfalls, the water ouzel, the earthquake, and Ralph Waldo Emerson's visit.

V. Forests of the West - Including Muir's adventure high atop a Douglas fir during a wind-storm, and writings about Silver Pine, the Douglas Squirrel, Sequoia, Nevada Nut Pines, and Muir's clarion call to protect the forests, "Any Fool Can Destroy a Tree."

VI. Glacier Pioneer - Muir's discovery of the Sierra glaciers, his climb of Mount Ritter, his perilous night on Mount Shasta, and his travels in Alaska, including his discovery of Glacier Bay and his adventure with Stickeen.

VII. The Philosophy of John Muir - excerpts from many scattered sources focusing on Muir's views on mankind's relationship to Nature. For many, this is the favorite part of the book, the part one returns to again and again for inspiration.

Despite this, the book does have some failings. The book belies the importance of Muir's family and friends, which becomes so evident upon reading his extensive correspondence. Nor does the book do more than barely mention some important places in Muir's life, such as his global travels to such places as the glacial mountains of Europe, the forests of Siberia, the Himalayas and forests of India, Australian and New Zealand forests, and, the fulfillment of his life-long dream, his last trip to see the forests of South America and Africa. The book emphasizes Muir's appreciative writings about Nature, and only briefly mentions the conservation battles which consumed so much of his life, including his long campaign to protect Hetch Hetchy. To obtain a whole picture of Muir, the reader will need to also read another work about Muir's conservation campaigns, such as Roderick Nash's chapter on "John Muir: Publicizer" in Wilderness and the American Mind, Stephen Fox's John Muir and His Legacy: The American Conservation Movement, or John Muir and the Sierra Club: The Battle for Yosemite by Holway R. Jones.

Since the book was originally published in 1954, it is not informed by some of the more recent research resulting from Muir's unpublished journals and correspondence, published in the John Muir Papers in 1980. Given the popularity of this book, fifty years after its first publication, the publishers should consider a second edition, again using a nature writer rather than a literary critic or historian to update the book.

Overall, in this book Muir comes alive, as someone who can can at once write inspiringly and poetically about trees, storms, mountains, glaciers, and forests, but yet also show the attention to detail of an analytical scientist. Muir is revealed as adventurer, a lover of nature, a person who can still excite the imagination of readers. As Teale concludes, "Rich in time, rich in enjoyment, rich in appreciation, rich in enthusiasm, rich in understanding, rich in expression, rich in friends, rich in knowledge, John muir lived a full and rounded life, a life unique in many ways, admirable in many ways, valuable in many ways.... In his writings and in his conservation achievements, Muir seems especially present in a world that is better because he lived here."

August, 2004

Covers the main environmental issues facing us today in an easy to read style free of technical jargon. Although it covers many different topics, it is still able to include some great, detailed examples.

Well researched and thought out analysis of the major survival issues facing humans, and the planet in general. Also discusses possibilities for preventing, or at least alleviating, these problems - some points for hope. Reading this will make you reconsider your actions and behaviour in how you impact the rest of the world.