Book Description

Marine Tourism examines tourism in coastal and marine environments. Mark Orams provides an overview of the history, development and growth of marine tourism and describes the characteristics of marine tourists' and the "vendors" of these tourist activities. Marine Tourism includes case studies of specific types of tourism including: the cruise ship industry, whale and dolphin watching, yachting and the America's Cup, and maritime museums and festivals in locales including the Florida Keys and Hawaii, the Caribbean, NewZealand, and Australia's Great Barrier Reef. The book also examines tourism impacts on marine ecosystems and coastal communities and explores management techniques aimed at reducing negative impacts and maximizing the benefits of marine tourism. ... Read more

Book Description

Environmental and Natural Resource Economics balances coverage of traditional topics with a global perspective on current ecological issues such as population growth, global climate change, endangered species, and the relationship between trade and the environment. Numerous examples, graphs, key terms, and end-of-chapter questions help students review and assimilate core concepts.

Book Description

Ecological economics is a way of rethinking the relationship between humans and the environment and working out the implications of how we manage our lives and the planet. An Introduction to Ecological Economics offers a starting point forundergraduate and graduate students and environmental professionals interested in this transdisciplinary field. Beginning in Section 1 with a description of some current problems in society and their underlying causes, Section 2 then takes a historical perspective to explain how world views regarding economics and ecology have evolved. Section 3 presents the fundamental principles of ecological economics, and Part 4 outlines and discusses a set of policies for creating a sustainable society as well as instruments that could be used to implement those policies. A conclusions section summarizes the main points of the book and proposes prospects for the future. Let An Introduction to Ecological Economics introduce youto important issues affecting our ecology, our economy, our world. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

too simplistic for the well-informed
This book is quite literally an "introduction," in the sense of discussing the environment and the deficiencies of neoclassical economics as if the reader had not a clue that multinational corporations (and the powerful governments that aid them) are destroying the capacity of the biosphere to support life, including human life. The text is simple and easy to understand since the writing is at the level of that of the World Book Encyclopedia, with some of the same excessive optimism and a general failure to examine the effects of the law of compound interest and other increasing exponential functions in any mathematically useful way. The bibliography at the back of the book goes on for several pages, but cites dozens and dozens of titles by the same five people who group-authored this book. The citations in the text are usually to entire books, and not to specific passages (except in the case of periodical ariticles), making specific assertions difficult to verify. Obviously intended as a freshman or sophomore college text, it is overpriced and underuseful.

Far more helpful than this vacuous tome is the Worldwatch Institute series "State of the World," issued every year on selected topics edited by Lester R. Brown, with a variety of individually written well-footnoted articles, each on a specific aspect of development and its effects on the environment and people all over the earth. These volumes will remain useful for years to come, and you can get three of the latest books in the series for less than the cost of "An Introduction to Ecological Economics," which you won't want to keep after reading anyway.

An anticipated merge of economics with the environment
Ecological economics is concerned with extending and integrating the study and management of "nature's household" (ecology) and "humankind's household" (economics). Resistance to this new perspective may come from academia as well as industry and governments. On page 10: "Today's market price to polluters for using atmospheric sink capacity for carbon dioxide disposal is zero, although the real opportunity cost may turn out to be astronomical. Economists are almost unanimous in persisting in externalizing the costs of CO2 emissions, even though by 1993 more than 180 nations had signed a treaty to internalize such costs." It would be difficult to praise this book too highly. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

Caring for the world.
Wendell Berry is a Kentucky farmer--a "country person" (p. 46), and a former English professor. He is also among my favorite poets. I arrived at this collection of six inspired essays through Berry's poetry. He is no ordinary country farmer, and this is no ordinary book of essays.

These are not easy essays. They often raise more questions than answers. But reading them is rewarding. Poet Ezra Pound wrote, "Learn of the green world what can be thy place." For Berry, "thy place" means "good stewardship" (p. 57), which is the theme of his book. He insightfully examines farm reform, food quality, nature conservation, caring for local communities, and finding redemption in "a fallen world" (p. 102) that is controlled by "distant," "supranational" corporations. "I am a Luddite," Berry proudly proclaims, "not 'against technology' so much as I am for community" (p. 90). For Berry, "human beings, let alone human societies, cannot live indefinitely by poison and fire" (p. 47).

Berry begins his book with a memorable quotation from R. S. Thomas: "What to do? Stay green/ Never mind the machine,/ Whose fuel is human souls,/ Live large, man, and dream small." He ends his book with, for me, the two most memorable essays in the collection: "The Conservation of Nature and the Preservation of Humanity" and "Health is Membership."

With a "turn of the crank," Berry hopes to bring his reader to a starting place to care for the world. But the point of the plucked chicken on the book's cover eludes me still.

G. Merritt

Toccata and Fugue in D minor
Toccata and Fugue in D Minor

Another Turn of the Crank by Wendell Berry should *not* be the first Berry book one reads.

Wendell Berry seems to attract two kinds of readers. One group of readers consists of the fanatical true-believers. They eagerly snap up every word he writes. One suspects that their objectivity has been washed away by their enthusiasm.

The second group of readers are those who have just stumbled across some portion of Berry's work in the course of their meandering. They have yet to form an opinion. This review is written for the second group.

Wendell Berry, as an essayist, has the ability to slice through the passivity that cocoons the modern reader. His essays challenge them to exercise their mind and to examine their value system. Berry is not an easy read, he does not mollycoddle the reader with short simple sentences. The complex sentence structure is not the result of whim or laziness. Rather, it is core to Berry's mode of writing. The image that springs to mind the exercise in logic that requires the student to sort through a box of marbles with a balance-beam scale to find the marble(s) that are different. Expect to work when you read a Wendell Berry essay.

Another Turn of the Crank, specifically, is a depressing book. Berry writes in the Foreword "The proper role of government is to protect its citizens and its communities against conquest - against economic conquest just as much as conquest by overt violence." The majority of the remaining 100 pages are devoted to showing how the government failed (short synopsis: Policy supports industrial farming/forestry. Industrial farming is a commodity-extraction process. Commodity extraction does not create much wealth but is efficient for *concentrating* wealth. Wealth concentration is a zero-sum game. Weath is concentrated at the expense of others. Consequently, industrial farming causes widespread impoverishment.) and why the government failed (short synopsis: Farmers are no longer electorially significant but the cash contributions of industrial farming are.) to fill their proper role. The book projects the anguish one would expect of a general who learned that the diplomats traded away the battlefield his troops bought with blood.

Another Turn of the Crank should not be the first Wendell Berry book that they read because of it's one-dimensionality. New readers of Berry will be better served to start with The Gift of Good Land, or What are People For? These collections of essays are Wendell Berry samplers. They give the reader a much better feel for the range of Wendell Berry's ability to savor the human condition and his ability to project that experience through the written word.

A Beautiful Collection
Once again, Berry has produced a work worth reading over and over again. By far one of his best collections of essays, I found myself warmed and heartened by his words and was impressed by how well he expresses the compatibility of good human work with nature, as they are often seen as opposing forces. He shows us how the best of our cultural traditions can bring a better life to all of us. His writings simply get better and better. If you've never read anything by Berry before, this could be a great one to start with. I also highly recommend another book of his, The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture. I will treasure this book for years to come.

As lucid as it gets.
Wendell Berry patiently keeps showing us how to regain the sanity and goodness that life once held. Here are six essays: Farming and the Global Economy; Conserving Community; Conserving Forest Communities; Private Property and the Common Wealth; The Conservation of Nature and the Preservation of Humanity; Health is Membership. In Conserving Community, Berry lists 17 specific guidelines for regaining our lives by rebuilding our communities. They alone are worth far more than the price of the book--if we use them. Berry keeps turning the crank; we need to start the engine.

A must read!
As a long-time fan of Wendell Berry, I was expecting a something thought provoking. I underestimated him. In this collection of essays Berry has gone beyond his usual high standard to write something utterly transcendent. I place it squarly in the same league as Abbey's "Desert Solitaire" and Walker's "Winter Wheat" for beauty of prose, story-telling and quality of instruction. The essays are thoughtful, spiritual and finally, telling - about where we are, and where we could be. After enjoying Berry for years, this one caused me to send him a thank you note for writing it. This one is a keeper ... Read more

Book Description

Resource Economics is a text for students with a background in calculus, intermediate microeconomics, and a familiarity with the spreadsheet software Excel. The book covers basic concepts, shows how to set up spreadsheets to solve dynamic allocation problems, and presents economic models for fisheries, forestry, nonrenewable resources, stock pollutants, option value, and sustainable development. Within the text, numerical examples are posed and solved using Excel's Solver. Through these examples and additional exercises at the end of each chapter, students can make dynamic models operational, develop their economic intuition, and learn how to set up spreadsheets for the simulation of optimization of resource and environmental systems. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Resource Economics a Great Book
When you read resource economic books the first problem you face is that the auther uses his or her own special experiance and builds the entire book based on this experiance, however Doctor Conrad uses plenty of real time cases to elastrate and point out his different objectives. ... Read more

Book Description

Can we prevent the destruction of the world's tropical forests? In the fire-scarred hills of Costa Rica, award-winning science writer William Allen found a remarkable answer: we can not only prevent their destruction--we can bring them back to their former glory. In Green Phoenix, Allen tells the gripping story of a large group of Costa Rican and American scientists and volunteers who set out to save the tropical forests in the northwestern section of the country. It was an area badly damaged by the fires of ranchers and small farmers; in many places a few strands of forest strung across a charred landscape. Despite the widely held belief that tropical forests, once lost, are lost forever, the team led by the dynamic Daniel Janzen from the University of Pennsylvania moved relentlessly ahead, taking a broad array of political, ecological, and social steps necessary for restoration. They began with 39 square miles and, by 2000, they had stitched together and revived some 463 square miles of land and another 290 of marine area. Today this region is known as the Guanacaste Conservation Area, a fabulously rich landscape of dry forest, cloud forest, and rain forest that gives life to some 235,000 species of plants and animals. It may be the greatest environmental success of our time, a prime example of how extensive devastation can be halted and reversed. This is an inspiring story, and in recounting it, Allen writes with vivid power. He creates lasting images of pristine beaches and dense forest and captures the heroics and skill of the scientific teams, especially the larger-than-life personality of the maverick ecologist Daniel Janzen. It is a book everyone concerned about the environment will want to own. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Deforestation? How about rainforest restoration!?!
How often have you've heard the tales of gloom and doom regarding the deforestation of the tropics? Undoubtedly, the numbers are grim and the outlook for many forests is not good. This is why this story, wonderfully told by William Allen, a science writer at the ST. LOUIS DISPATCH, is particularly refreshing and guardedly optimistic.

Allen craftily weaves anecdote with history, real people with events to present a story that tells how a relatively small park in NW Costa Rica (Guanacaste National Park) developed into the Guanacaste Conservation Area, some 10 times larger than its original size. But the story is not limited to the success in creating a larger park. Rather, the author depicts the efforts of a determined group of Costa Rican and foreign scientists (led by Daniel Janzen) as they attempt to reverse the effects of deforestation and actually bring a substantial area back to some semblance of its original state.

The story delves quite a bit into Janzen's personality and raises the issue of a foreigner's role in a project such as this. Would it succeed without him? Just what would it take to restore non-virgin forest? Is this an idea that might work elsewhere? Just a few of the intriguing questions dealt with in this book.

I particularly enjoyed the beginning of each chapter, where the author introduces an anecdote upon which the rest of chapter usually builds. The anecdotal information is highly entertaining of itself, and when used as metafor, it is easier to remember the larger points made.

If you're into eco-whatever, this is great stuff...

paul e. ... Read more

Book Description

This edition has been revised and expanded to reflect recent and varied developments in the highly specialized field of gemology. Among these are: gemstone synthesis; imitation gems; the alteration of gems to improve, add, remove or otherwise change their color, phenomena or clarity; the importance and widespread uses of the microscope to reflect the aforementioned developments; and a number of new gem minerals or new forms of previously described minerals recently discovered or actively marketed for the first time. The chapter on Descriptive Gemology has been divided into two groups: important gemstones (those gem materials most widely used in jewelry and ornamental objects) and less important gemstones (those less commonly encountered). ... Read more

Reviews (1)

An excellent reference source
This book is an excellent source of information for people interested in the field of gemmology. I have found that the contents covers a wide range of topics and presented in an easily understood format. It is a concise and well-illustrated book which makes it ideal as a reference book ... Read more

Reviews (7)

A must have book!
This book is wonderful. I paid full price for it and would gladly do so again in order to give it as a gift to others. I highly recomend it.

Fresh and Fun
I haven't met many people who can point out at least ten different plants in the average yard and can tell you how to cook them. Mr. Henderson does an outstanding job of identifying wild, and not-so-wild, edibles common to almost every neighborhood. His recipes are easy to follow and delicious.

Even if you are not planning to run right out to the nearest shrub and harvest its leaves for dinner, I recommend this book. Mr. Henderson's prose is worth reading, whatever the content. His witty, humorous style enlivens a book full of excellent information.

Don't Know What to Do With That Weed? Eat It!
The Neighborhood Forager is a very informative and enjoyable book. It not only tells about the plants in our backyards and by-ways but gives historical information, recipes, warnings and dyer's tips.

Mr. Henderson writes with humor and personal anecdotes which makes the book a good read even if you're not into foraging.

Amazing!
I was amazed at all the information this book gave me. I have learned so many things, to see all the bounty we can have in our own backyard! Practical and easy to read. I recommend this book to all nature and food lovers.

Don't Know What To Do With That Weed? Eat It!
This book is highly informative about plants growing in our yards and the countryside around us. Mr. Henderson writes with humor but is still serious about his subject. The book is a good read even if you're not interested in foraging. It includes bits of history about foodstuffs as well as carefully documented warnings about eating strange things.

I found the recipes enticing and the information on dyes an extra plus. ... Read more

Book Description

Modern look at the thermodynamics of hydrocarbon reservoirs

This brilliant, original work offers novel formulations of thermodynamic principles for hydrocarbon reservoirs. The book is packed with valuable step-by-step derivations for retrograde phenomena in capillaries, diffusion and convection, stability and criticality in mixtures, precipitation from complex mixtures, and numerous examples that show in detail how to calculate and apply concepts using the most contemporary techniques.

The book is not only a valuable reference for petroleum and chemical engineers, but can be used by engineers and scientists in different disciplines. ... Read more

Book Description

Modern geochemistry aims to provide an accurate description of geological processes, and a set of models and quantitative rules that help predict the evolution of geological systems. This work is an introduction to the mathematical methods of geochemical modeling, largely based on examples presented with full solutions. It shows how geochemical problems, dealing with mass balance, equilibrium, fractionation and dynamics and transport in the igneous, sedimentary and oceanic environments, can be reformulated in terms of equations. Its practical approach then leads to simple but efficient methods of solution. This book should help the motivated reader to overcome the formal difficulties of geochemical modeling, and bring state-of-the-art methods within reach of advanced students in geochemistry and geophysics, as well as in physics and chemistry. ... Read more

Book Description

By way of a detailed case study based on 10 years of research on the dynamics of forest use, degradation, and loss in northeast Luzon, Philippines, this survey offers a compelling look at the long history of national, regional, and local outsiders gaining access to the natural resources and lands of one of the world's last large forest frontiers. Following an interdisciplinary approach that balances systematic survey data with qualitative, almost anecdotal, reporting of conversations between key actors, the text places the degradation and loss of forest cover in this area between 1950 and 1990 in the sociopolitical context of logging, forest migration, and changes in upland agriculture. ... Read more

Book Description

The unique approach to ecological restoration described in this book will appeal to anyone interested in improving the ecological conditions, biological diversity, or productivity of damaged wildlands. Using sound ecological principles, the author describes how these ecosystems are stabilized and directed toward realistic management objectives using natural recovery processes rather than expensive subsidies. An initial emphasis on repairing water and nutrient cycles, and increasing energy capture, will initiate and direct positive feedback repair systems that drive continuing autogenic recovery. This strategy is most appropriate where landuse goals call for low-input, sustainable vegetation managed for biological diversity, livestock production, timber production, wildlife habitat, watershed management, or ecosystem services. No other book provides such a comprehensive strategy for the ecological restoration of any wildland ecosystem, making this an invaluable resource for professionals working in the fields of ecological restoration, conservation biology and rangeland management. ... Read more

Book Description

Most scientists and researchers working in tropical areas are convinced that parks and protected areas are the only real hope for saving land and biodiversity in those regions. Rather than giving up on parks that are foundering, ways must be found to strengthen them, and Making Parks Work offers a vital contribution to that effort. Focusing on the "good news" - success stories from the front lines and what lessons can be taken from those stories - the book gathers experiences and information from thirty leading conservationists into a guidebook of principles for effective management of protected areas. The book:

• offers a general overview of the status of protected areas worldwide
• presents case studies from Africa, Latin America, and Asia written by field researchers with long experience working in those areas
• analyzes a variety of problems that parks face and suggests policies and practices for coping with those problems
• explores the broad philosophical questions of conservation and how protected areas can - and must - resist the mounting pressures of an overcrowded world

Contributors include Mario Boza, Katrina Brandon, K. Ullas Karanth, Randall Kramer, Jeff Langholz, John F. Oates, Carlos A. Peres, Herman Rijksen, Nick Salafsky, Thomas T. Struhsaker, Patricia C. Wright, and others. ... Read more

Book Description

Multilateral development banks (MDBs) are increasingly expected to address environmental issues in their economic development lending. Yet the banks have been accused of failing to implement their own environmental policies, thereby contributing to environmental degradation in borrowing countries. In this book Tamar Gutner analyzes the environmental policies of three MDBs: the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the European Investment Bank. She compares their performance in Central and Eastern Europe, where the need for economic and environmental reform has been particularly urgent, and where these MDBs are among the largest donors.

Gutner finds many obstacles to efforts to "green" the three banks, most notably a mismatch between the environmental mandates and existing patterns of institutional design and incentives. The depth and scope of the banks green activities reflect the degree of shareholder commitment to environmental issues and how demand-driven the MDB is designed to be. Surprisingly, the World Bank, the most scrutinized and criticized of the three MDBs, has been rather more responsive than its counterparts to its environmental mandate in the region.

The discussion is framed by larger explorations of the behavior of international organizations and the sources of their innovation and inertia in addressing new policy issues. Gutner demonstrates the need to examine the impact of different stages of the policy process on new mandates and to incorporate both political and institutional variables when developing theories about the behavior of international institutions. ... Read more

Book Description

Drilling: The Manual of Methods, Applications, and Management is all about drilling and its related geology, machinery, methods, applications, management, safety issues, and more.Of all the technologies employed by hydrologists, environmental engineers, and scientists interested in subsurface conditions, drilling is one of the most frequently used but most poorly understood. Now, for the first time, this industry-tested manual, developed by one of the world's leading authorities on drilling technology, is available to a world-wide audience. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

The Best Drilling Book to Date
If you are looking for a good book on environmental, geotechnical or hydrogeology drilling this is the BOOK it is set up so even a driller can understand basic concepts and gives engineers a good idea about drilling practices and concepts.

A very comprehensive and complete book about drilling
Im a driller in Mexico, I have found this book very useful, it covers a lot of topics, It is very well explained and very detailed in any subject, from measures to drilling techniques as well as machinery and tools and geology for drillers.

The only poor topic I found on the book, is about pneumatic/hammer drilling altough the topic is covered it is very poor in information about the technique.

How ever in general its a very good and complete book as I said, and its a must in every driller bookshelf ... Read more

Book Description

Like many of us, Mark Hertsgaard has long worried about the declining health of our environment. But in 1991, he decided to act on his concern and investigate the escalating crisis for himself. Traveling on his own dime, he embarked on an odyssey lasting most of the decade and spanning nineteen countries. Now, in Earth Odyssey, he reports on our environmental predicament through the eyes of the people who live it.

From the gilded boardrooms of Paris to the traffic-clogged streets of Bangkok, we travel from the deep human past to our still unfolding future. Much of the story revolves around people like Zhenbing, Hertsgaard's charismatic interpreter in China, whose desire to escape poverty leaves him indifferent to his country's horrific air and water pollution. We also meet Garang, a proud Dinka tribesman whose response to Sudan's famine shows the difficulty of building an environmentally sustainable future without bridging the gap between rich and poor. Drawing on interviews with Václav Havel, Al Gore, Jacques Cousteau, and numerous other prominent figures, Hertsgaard offers fresh insight into such complex issues as humanity's growing addiction to the automobile, the insidious spread of nuclear technology, and the inevitable tension between unfettered capitalism and the health of the biosphere.

Earth Odyssey is a vivid, passionate narrative about one man's journey around the world in search of the answer to the most important question of our time: Is the future of the human species at risk? Combining first-rate reportage with irresistible storytelling, Mark Hertsgaard has written an essential--and ultimately hopeful--book about the uncertain fate of humankind. ... Read more

Reviews (23)

Wonderfully enlightening...
As an environmental earth science major at the Johns Hopkins University, I found this book absolutely fascinating. It was written with compassion, fairness, and excellent prose. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the environment, or just curious about what may await us in the twenty-first century.

I already knew many of the facts and the science behind global warming and other environmental problems, but I've never been exposed to the human side of things. Mark Hertsgaard shows us what it's like to breathe the polluted air of Bangkok, live with the Dinka tribe in Sudan, or attend an Earth Summit meeting where world leaders talk and talk but nothing gets accomplished.

I've never traveled outside of the U.S. and will probably never experience what the author experienced... so I'm grateful that he wrote this book. It has reinforced my decision to join the ranks of scientists and writers who are trying to communicate the dangers of our present way of life to the general public. As many people have said before, environmental disasters will affect everyone, rich and poor alike, so we must all work together to save ourselves from the greatest enemy we will ever face- the greed and selfishness within ourselves.

Well written account of ecological perils we face
Mark Hertsgaard presents an unbiased unsentimental firsthand account of the environmental problems the human race faces. He identifies the pattern of overconsumption in developed countries and the economic disparity among nations and people as the biggest cause and deterrant to a better environmental future. We will have to ensure that every human being is clothed and fed before we can expect them to be concerned about the environment. Perhaps at the end of the book, he sounds too hopeful about the fate of human beings - but quoting Vaclav Havel, as the author did - hope forces me to do something to make them [the better possibilities] happen.

Our environmental crisis
Investigative reporter Mark Hertsgaard spent six years traveling around the world, gathering material for this book. This is not strictly a scientific treatise (although he conducted extensive research into his topics). Rather, he reports through the eyes of the people who live in the environmentally damaged places he visited. The theme of the book is how technology has both benefitted and harmed the planet and its inhabitants, and how greed continues to threaten our existence. His accounts of wanton destruction of nature in the 19th century make the reader gasp with dismay over the short-sightedness of our predecessors: the damming of a mighty river and its magnificent waterfall; the murder of the largest, oldest sequoia on earth. (Two of the examples which brought me to tears.) The horror is: the destruction, the contamination, and waste are still happening. And not only at the hands of totalitarian regimes or ignorant third-world peasants, but due to the callousness of greedy American corporations and government lobbies. The conclusions of Chapter Three, "The Irrisistable Automobile", will come as no surprise to most American readers, although the images of the perpetually gridlocked traffic-jams of fume-choked Asian cities astonished even this rider of Southern California freeways. Statistics of the predicted explosion in automobile sales world wide are especially ominous. This book was published in 1999 and exposes the hypocrisy of the Clinton administration in paying lip service to environmental issues while simultaneously caving to the demands of the powerful fossil fuel lobby. If Chapter Three is gloomy, Chapter Four, "To the Nuclear Lighthouse", is utterly terrifying. The account of Hertsgaard's visits to the most blighted areas of the former USSR is preceeded by a dismal, just recently uncensored history of the Soviets' worst nuclear disasters. While everyone knows about Chernobyl, few people knew about the radiating of the Siberian region of Chelyabinsk. Few, that is, other than the hapless residents who've been suffering its effects for years. With the aid of his translator, Russian author and photographer Vlad Tamarov, Hertsgaard conducted a relentless expose' of the deliberate coverups of "incidents" at nuke plants and shipping lanes, which irreversibly poisoned crops, fisheries, and even the water table. Even more worrisome than the damage already done are Hertsgaard's reports of poorly inventoried and practically unguarded nuclear stockpiles in volatile republics such as Kazakhstan. The American reader who attributes Soviet environmental crimes to Communist cruelty is in for an ugly shock -- Hertsgaard then documents identical coverups by our own government, of similar "incidents" on our own soil! From Russia, the author journeyed to China and Africa to report on overpopulation and its adverse effects on nature, health, and standards of living. The bleak narrative ends on a hopeful note: "Sustainable Development and the Triumph of Capitalism". Since the publication of "Earth Odyssey", the Bush administration has all but declared war on the environment, so even that fleeting hope now appears elusive.

A Long Night's Journey Into Day
Having just read Mark Hertsgaard's THE EAGLE'S SHADOW I moved on to his much longer and earlier book EARTH ODYSSEY. Though not intending to read all of this important information in one sitting, I found this book so well written as well as informative that it became a page turner that happily usurped an entire evening. Try to bed down after reviewing the state of the world's environmental crises! Yet in the darkness, having finished the book, there was time to reflect on just how important it is to get this information to the entire public. Not just the active Environmentalists, those who know intuitively the dangers we have bred and are still breeding, but the Everyman out there - all of us who glibly fill our multiple cars with gasoline, clog the freeways, allow the government to ignore Global Warming, remain uninformed about the terrifying diasters associated with the world's nuclear energy programs.

Hertsgaard is a fine journalist and as such he traveled the globe from 1991 - 1997 observing, breathing the noxious air in China, the extreme poverty in Africa, the filth in Russia, India, among the Third World countries, and reporting the complacency echoing in groups who live in this deteriorating world and do very little about taking action to guard our planet's future. Currently the media (such as it is) is alerting us to the presence of an Asteroid a mile wide apparently headed for the earth from outer space. That incident, devastating though it would be, is only a possibility. The more pertinent devastation ( our clamouring for "the better life" through industry and its concomitant wasting of our natural resources by knowingly turning them into poisonous by-products ) seems to go unnoticed. Hertsgaard intermixes reportage with very readable converstaions with people around the world and the result is a book that feels as though it unites all of us, even though that core of unity may be a shared terror.

Had we more writers like Mark Hertsgaard who are brave enough and concerned as deeply about 'Whither mankind' perhaps our newspapers and magazines and television/radio news shows would feel compelled to report the important issues before us today rather than search for the latest movie star wedding or sex scandal or whatever sells commercial space. Take this journey with Hertsgaard and wake up to a morning of commitment to the guardianship of our fellowmen.

Honest and real
It was hard to put this book down. I love the way Hertsgaard went to the common people and asked them what they thought about the environment in many different places. His records of traveling through China were at once eye opening and haunting. It is very scary to realize what is happening over there. I recommend this book to everyone who cares about the future of this planet. ... Read more

Book Description

The Klamath Basin is a land of teeming wildlife, expansive marshes, blue-ribbon trout streams, tremendous stretches of forests, and large ranches in southern Oregon and northern California. Known to waterfowl,songbirds, andshorebirds, the Klamath Basin's marshlands are a mecca forbirds along thePacific Flyway. This gorgeously illustrated book is a paean tothe beauty ofthe Klamath Basin and at the same time a sophisticatedenvironmental case studyof an endangered region whose story parallels thatof watershed developmentthroughout the west.

A collaboration between two photographers and a writer,Balancing Watertells the story in words and pictures of the complexrelationship betweenthe human and natural history of this region. Spectacularimages by TupperAnsel Blake depict resident species of the area, migratorybirds, and dramaticlandscapes. Madeleine Graham Blake hascontributed portraits of localresidents, while archival photographs documentthe history of the area.

William Kittredge's essay on the conjunction of conflicting interestsinthis wildlands paradise is by turns lyrically personal and brimmingwithhistorical and scientific facts. He traces the water flowing throughtheKlamath Basin, the human history of the watershed, and theland-use conflictsthat all touch on the availability of water. Ranchers, loggers,town settlers,Native Americans, tourists, and environmentalists are allrepresented in thenarrative, and their diverse perspectives form acomplicated web like that ofthe interactions among organisms in the ecosystem.

Kittredge finds hope in the endangered Klamath Basin, bothin successfulrestoration projects recently begun there, and in thecommunity involvement hesees as necessary for watershed restoration andbiodiversity preservation.Emphasizing that we must take care of both humaneconomies and the naturalenvironment, he shows how the two areultimately interconnected. The KlamathBasin can be a model for watershedrestoration elsewhere in the west, as wesearch for creative ways of solvingour intertwined ecological and socialproblems. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Camera and Pen Weave a Story for Stewardship
Five stars... without a doubt! Blake, Blake, and Kitteridge craft a compelling case for stewardship of the ecosystems we inhabit. The story is grounded in the Klamath Basin of Southern Oregon where a complex dance of men and nature is being played out. Historically, the federal government in the form of the Bureau of Reclamation identified the water rich basin as a region to promote for farming. No surprise that today the area is largely given over to farming and ranching. Prior communities consisted of local Native Americans who for the last hundred years or so have been driven out of the basin either by our military or our legal system. And last, but not the least in importance, the bio-diversity that suffers at the hands of lost habit, chemicals used for pesticides, and misguided management by public institutions.

Farmers, the indigenous Klamath people, migrating birds and native fish, all have their claims to the basin. From recalling the basin from his early childhood to driving the dirt roads to meet the 3rd generation farmers and ranchers, William Kitteridge's writing is exceptional at putting real faces and names to this place.

The story is made sublime with some of the most outstanding western wildlife photography you are likely to find. The photographs represent the sacredness of a place that serves as a stop for millions of migrating birds that no words can begin to portray.

A tragic postscript to the publishing of this book was a fish kill of some 30 thousand salmon on their way up the Klamath River to their spawning beds. Its been concluded that in stream flows got drawn down to the point where the migrating salmon stacked up in swallow and warm pools which ultimately depleted the water of oxygen. Only recently have federal wildlife managers admitted that diversion of water to farmers in the basin caused the massive fish kill in the Klamath.

Balancing Water:Restoring the Klamath Basin
Excellent narrative that provides the historic context for what is emerging as one of the most difficult and contentious fights between economic and enviromental interests anywhere in the US. The photography is outstanding and Kittredge's discussion of the people and the issues in this beautiful area provide concise insight for anyone interested in understanding the tragedy of US government policies on the management of the land, the people, the fish, and the birds of the Klamath Lake basin. Strongly recommend!!!

Outstanding - wonderfully written - world class photography
This book is an epiphany. Kittredge is the best essayist writing about the American west living today, and the photographs are almost perfect. This book will introduce readers to an area that has remained mostly obscure, an area where huge environmental dramas have long since began, and are still being played out. Many sympathies are presented in this book; lots of heros, too. An amazing read. ... Read more

Book Description

Taking us from the imperial courts of ancient China to a squalid mine in Burma today, THE STONE OF HEAVEN-now in paperback-reveals for the first time the bizarre true story of Imperial Green Jade, one of the rarest stones in the world, more precious than diamonds, coveted for its life-extending powers and its aphrodisiac properties as well as for its astonishing beauty-a stone that has shaped the destiny of nations and changed the lives of all who have worn it. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

An excellent and thorough read
Levy and Scott-Clark are excellent story tellers, and do they ever have a story to tell. Tracing the history of imperial green jade, or jadeite, they begin in the late 18th century with Chinese emperor Qianlong and 400 rivetting pages later end in present day Myanmar. Along the way the reader is exposed to the unrestrained profligacy of the Chinese emperors and the equally unrestrained ignorance and arrogance of the British colonialists. There is scheming and plots within plots as players in the Chinese dynasties kill their own progeny to ensure a malleable emperor will succeed. The plundering by the British of the old Imperial summer palace is shocking, and the primitive warfare of the Kachin in Burma is horrifying. Levy and Scott-Clark's descriptions put the reader right into the midst of the action: the writing is so effective that you can feel the clinging humidity of the Burmese jungle as 19th century British explorers plod along in search for the mines from whence the jadeite is extracted.

Also of tremendous interest were the passages about the Dowager Empress Cixi. If all you know about the last emperor Pu Yi is from the wonderful movie "The Last Emperor," this book will help round out some of the events and issues driving the Pu Yi story along that were alluded to in the movie. Besides, the movie's only allusion to Cixi is in the very beginning when the toddler Pu Yi is brought to the Forbidden City. Levy and Scott-Clark reveal to the reader from where Cixi came and how her desire for the jadeite was often at the core of her political machinations.

And then there are the final chapters that reveal a scenario so horrifying, so shocking that even the surrealistic visions of Francis Ford Coppola in "Apocolypse Now" cannot compare.

This is definitely the best book I've read so far this year, and probably the best book I've read in the past five years. After reading this book you will not be able to look at another piece of jadeite, no matter how beautiful, and not whince because now you know the stone's infamous history. ... Read more

Book Description

This book is a classic celebration of winter in a remote Montana valley. ... Read more

Reviews (27)

Winter--more than Firewood!
Call of the Wild Book Review-Winter: Notes from Montana by Rick Bass

Cheryl Rife

Rick Bass's book Winter is a journal about his experiences in the remote Yaak Valley, one of the last valleys in the Montana wilderness without electricity. In his writing, Bass describes his life and experiences during his first winter in this northwest corner of Montana bordering Idaho and Canada. With careful detail and descript feeling, he explains how he and his friend Elizabeth Hughes find themselves in the solitude of the wilderness. From the beginning one experiences the joy and luck both Bass and Hughes feel in being able to "caretake" a property in an isolated lodge-linked to civilization by a dirt road and two-way radio.

Unlike a story that might be dramatic in its detail of such an adventure, Winter is a slow-moving, simple description of the daily activities that consume the thirty or so people that live in the Yaak Valley. Bass, intent on spending his time writing, recognizes that his ability to survive the winter here will be what allows him to be accepted by the valley people. He describes the life of solitude and nature that surrounds him in easy, straightforward detail-from the animals in the forest to the people at the Dirty Shame tavern.

One of the things I enjoyed most about the book is the way Bass allows you as a reader to get to know the people he encounters. The men and women he describes show real personalities; they are not worried about acceptance or impressions. Likewise the relationships he forms seem uncomplicated and connected on a very basic level-sharing and understanding their need to be together as well as their need to be completely alone.

One of my particular favorites was Breitenstein, a crusty character that Bass holds in high esteem. He describes his ranch "an oasis of control, of order, in the wilderness." A relationship develops between the two men as each learns to respect the other. Bass definitely learned many lessons on survival in the Yaak Valley from Breitenstein. Also as I read, I did find myself thinking about Hughes. One criticism I have is that I would have liked Bass to write more about her. The only time he really went into much detail was when she caught her robe on fire as she stood too close to the fire!

Throughout his journal, Bass shares his necessary obsession with cutting firewood for the winter. While this is certainly important to survival over the winter, there are times in reading when I was tired of more talk of chain saws and woodcutting and hauling! In retrospect however, I think this obsessive accounting is reflective of the power of a survival instinct that is reborn for Bass. Truly there are few experiences in our modern world that link hard physical work so directly to one's survival. The intensity of that feeling is felt throughout in the whole "mood" of the book. There isn't a need to spin elaborate tales but rather to understand the "life" in each day.

As Bass accounts his day to day activities one becomes enticed by the slow moving, spiritual-ness of the simple pleasures he experiences-from watching snow fall to following the path of an elk with his snowshoes. It is obvious that Bass is in a remote place that suits him completely (even though there are several time that he mentions the need to be connected to others and does travel to be with family and friends.) On October 27 he writes: "I'm falling away from the human race. I don't mean to sound churlish-but I'm liking it (p.73)."

In much of the first part of the book, Bass accounts the anticipation of winter and the arrival of snow. At first I found myself wondering-what is going to happen when the snow falls! Once the snow arrived though I got the impression that it was the final "approval" that Bass has needed to commit to winter in the Yaak Valley. In continuing through the daily entries I realized the snow had an important impact on him. On November 24 Bass writes: "In cities I feel weak and wasted away, but out in the field, in snow, I am like an animal-not in control of my emotions, my happiness and furies, but in charge of loving the snow, standing with my arms spread out, as if calling it down...I am never going to grow old. The more that comes down, the richer I am (p. 90)." There are several times throughout the book that Bass gives the impression he would like winter to go on and on!

Winter is truly a call to look at "solitude" and "time" in our life. We can learn from Bass's account-lessons that calm the soul-lessons that take us to a new level of discovery about ourselves...and yet a level that we know well if we allow ourselves to experience it. Its simplicity is powerful and comforting.

Winter is a book I will read and reread.

Cleanse Yourself in Winter
Rick Bass is one of my favorite writers and in my opinion deserves much more attention.

This book is a memoir of his first years in Yaak, Montana with his wife Elizabeth. They move from the city to a small cabin in the Montana wilderness. It is a beautifully written tribute to a world no longer in demand where the sound of silence feels too loud. Bass finds out just how little he actually knows, a marvelous experience in humility, once he encounters the harshness of winter. He writes about snow being strong and silent in the same breath. He discovers a new life where he only needs bare essentials to survive and soon finds that all other existence seems superficial. He writes in a style like no other man I have ever read almost poetic but not overdone, and like Walden, he suggests that tremendous value exists in the wilderness away from a roaring crowd.

If you love nature and the idea of healing such as that found in solitude this book is for you. Bass writes so wonderfully that your senses are taken along with him on his various wilderness excursions for life's rations. My favorite passage is on page 81, on which he describes a lone male moose, "He broke into the smoothest of gallops, a lazy, long legged floating. His wide antlers could have held a tea service without spilling a drop, so smooth and level was his gait." How many men do you know who would think of a tea service and not a loaded gun upon seeing a magnificent male moose? This is where I find Rick Bass so appealing; in all his male machismo he finds the subtle intricacies of art in nature and has the ability to describe it all magically.

A Moron In Nature
Everything you need to know about this book can be summed up in the following: This writer, a supposed environmentalist from Texas, who spends most of the book complaining about loss of forest and pollution, nevertheless spends most of his winter cutting wood with a chainsaw so that he can heat his greenhouse until it's sweating hot -- like the land he left to come up north -- and exercise while he stares out at the snow.

This is a textbook of how to be both smug and oblivious, how NOT to approach nature. I wonder whether he even realizes how stupid, self-righteous, and hypocritical he sounds in this.

Images Linger
I'm not a fan of memoir so first off, this isn't. "Winter" focuses on one season in the real life of the writer as he struggles with home life in rural Montana. Compact and clear, the stories Bass tells leave images that linger in my mind even years after I first read the book.

A nice diversion if you're stuck in a hot climate and want a quick escape, if you're stuck in the city and want a view of the American West, or if you're just looking for a well-written glimpse at life.

Short Book
Summary: Chops wood. Sharpens saw. Chops more wood. I was hoping to learn about Montana winters. ... Read more