Plan B 3.0 by Lester R Brown

A friend recently recommended Lester R. Brown's Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization. Brown is the author of more than 40 books -- including Outgrowing The Earth, Eco-Economy: Building an Economy for the Earth, Beyond Malthus: Nineteen Dimensions of the Population Challenge, and The Earth from the Air -- and is a well known environmentalist thinker. Click here to read his biography.

I haven't read it but my understanding is that this is the third edition of Brown's classic Plan B: Rescuing a Planet under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble. My friend says "the first half tells how we got in this situation and the second half has solutions; It gives you hope and makes you realize it is possible to solve the environmental problems if we realize the need and get busy."

Sounds interesting and since I've cut back on my book budget I'm happy to hear that while it's available for sale in hardcover and paperback it is also available as a free PDF format book on the Earth Policy Institute website here.

Click here to view the table of contents and download the entire book or specific chapters in PDF format (and the data from various chapters are also available in excel spreadsheet format).

Economist - Running dry

I'm a little behind on my subscription to the Economist.

Okay, I'm a lot behind.

Months behind.

But I'm going to catch up, starting with the August 23, 2008 issue. From this issue, I just finished the Business section including "Running dry."

As I've mentioned before, I've been seriously concerned about the world's water supply since 2003 when I read Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World’s Water by Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke. And having grown up on an island, water conservation and water rights have always been important to me.

My interest has been slowly increasing over the years and it seems like the issue of water is becoming a hotter and hotter subject with each month.

This article just reminded me that I've got to make it a priority to read Marc Reisner’s Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water (click here to read my posts related to this book) and Ken Midkiff's Not a Drop to Drink: America’s Water Crisis (and What You Can Do).

I hope the situation does not get as desperate as some experts foresee.

Got to run to the library!

NYTimes.com - Bottlemania by Elizabeth Royte

Yesterday I read Michiko Kakutani's "Distilled From Water, Designer or Tap: High Anxiety," yet another New York Times review of Bottlemania (this one published July 18, 2008) -- last month I read and wrote about Lisa Margonelli’s “Tapped Out,” a review of Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It (by Elizabeth Royte) published June 15, 2008 in the New York Times.

It's interesting to compare these two review published by the same newspaper.

Whereas Margonelli's review focuses on the role of marketing in American's newfound love for bottled water, Kakutani's review concentrates on overall water quality and water rights in both the United States and abroad.

Either way, having read Kakutani's review I'm more likely to pick up a copy of Bottlemania.

An Ocean of Air: Why the Wind Blows and Other Mysteries of the Atmosphere by Gabrielle Walker

In March, I read Gabrielle Walker's fantastic book about the atmosphere, An Ocean of Air: Why the Wind Blows and Other Mysteries of the Atmosphere, which I'd heard about in William Grimes's review published in the New York Times in August 2007.

Since there have been many tornadoes in the news lately, I have frequently found myself thinking about this fascinating and informative book.

Walker -- author of Snowball Earth: The Story of a Maverick Scientist and His Theory of the Global Catastrophe That Spawned Life As We Know It (2004) and co-author of The Hot Topic: What We Can Do About Global Warming (2008) -- earned a Ph.D. in chemistry from Cambridge and it shows in the scientific knowledge she conveys to readers through her lyrical, witty, and easy-going prose.

Written for the average reader without much science knowledge, Walker captivates readers with surprising facts -- did you know that the air filling Carnegie Hall weighs seventy thousand pounds -- and easy to understand details of scientific theories (and the people who discovered them) with cheerful storytelling.

The reviews quotes printed on the back cover say it all:

"Who knew air could be so interesting? Like the scientific mavericks she profiles, Gabrielle Walker had the freshness of vision to realize that within its presumed-nothingness lay the most fascinating, profound revelations about life on earth. This is science writing at its best: clear, witty, relevant, unbelievably interesting, and just plain great."

-Mary Roach, author of Stiff

"An Ocean of Air is a fascinating book. The subject is hot, the science is cool, and Gabrielle Walker''s style is lighter than air. Warmly recommended."

-Jonathan Weiner, author of The Beak of the Finch

"I never knew air could be so interesting."

-Bill Bryson, author of A Short History of Nearly Everything

An Ocean of Air starts with the nail biting story of "the man who fell to Earth and lived": Captain Joseph W. Kittinger, a test pilot for the U.S. Air Force, who in 1960 rode a helium balloon into space and jumped 103,000 feet (almost 20 miles in four and half minutes) to earth wearing an early version of a spacesuit and a parachute.

I particularly enjoyed learning about William Ferrel -- a largely self-taught West Virginia farm boy, who helped explain the movement and direction of air -- and Charles Kettering -- the DuPont scientist whose well-intentioned creation of freon and chlorofluorocarbons were later found to be creating holes in the ozone layer -- and Oliver Heaviside -- the eccentric, self-taught scientist who discovered that an electrical layer in the sky (now called the Heaviside Layer) is responsible for transmitting radio signals across Earth.

Click here to read an excerpt or listen to an interview with Walker about this delightful popular science book.

Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water by Marc Reisner

A friend just recommended that I read Marc Reisner's Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water (click here to read the author's obituary as printed in the New York Times).

I'm not a water-rights activist or anything like that but I did enjoy Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World’s Water by Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke and am concerned about the future of our water supply.

First published in 1986, Cadillac Desert was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist and in 1999 it was placed sixty-first on the Modern Library list of the most notable nonfiction English books of the twentieth century.

Mark Reisner is also a co-author of Overtapped Oasis: Reform or Revolution for Western Water.

Anyway, I tried to put it on hold at my local library (since I try to borrow books and read them before purchasing) but they don't carry it.

Has anyone read Cadillac Desert?

I found the Table of Contents online:

Introduction: A Semidesert with a Desert Heart
Chapter One: A Country of Illusion
Chapter Two: The Red Queen
Chapter Three: First Causes
Chapter Four: An American Nile (I)
Chapter Five: The Go-Go Years
Chapter Six: Rivals in Crime
Chapter Seven: Dominy
Chapter Eight: An American Nile (II)
Chapter Nine: The Peanut Farmer and the Pork Barrel
Chapter Ten: Chinatown
Chapter Eleven: Those Who Refuse to Learn...
Chapter Twelve: Things Fall Apart
Epilogue: A Civilization, If You Can Keep It
Afterword to the Revised Edition
Acknowledgments
Notes and Bibliography
Index

But I'm looking to hear a few more good things before I go out and purchase this book.

Earth Day Books

I don't consider myself an environmentalist.

But I do love being outdoors, particularly being in the ocean so in honor of Earth Day (April 22) and Earth Week, here are the eco-themed books I recommend:

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond - Jared Diamond is a professor of geography and physiology at University of California, Los Angeles and the writer of Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies.

Diamond lists eight factors which, based on his analysis, have historically contributed to the collapse of past societies: 1. Deforestation and habitat destruction; 2. Soil problems (erosion, salinization, and soil fertility losses); 3. Water management problems; 4. Overhunting; 5. Overfishing; 6. Effects of introduced species on native species; 7. Human population growth, and; 8. Increased per-capita impact of people.

He further isolates four new factors that may contribute to the weakening and collapse of present and future societies: 1. Human-caused climate change; 2. Buildup of toxic chemicals in the environment; 3. Energy shortages, and; 4. Full human utilization of the Earth’s photosynthetic capacity.

Some of the collapsed societies Diamond discusses are Easter Island, Anasazis (Southwestern US), and Maya (Central America). He also compares modern day Haiti to the Dominican Republic, which share the same island but have vastly different economies.

Click here to read the first chapter on washingtonpost.com.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy - Yes McCarthy is the author of No Country For Old Men. I promise this book isn't nearly as violent as that book/movie. The Road was deservedly awarded the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was also a selection of Oprah's Book Club. The NYTimes Book Review writes a good summary of this book.

I really liked the Road -- I couldn't put it down and read it in one sitting -- though it's one of those books that I won't re-read it (I frequently re-read my favorite books, but this one is just too sad).

I don't like to read or watch a lot of violence so I found some of the scenes a bit nauseating. However, McCarthy seems purposeful in writing the scenes of violence so you don't feel like he's just trying to shock you just for the sake of sensationalism.

The conclusion was reassuring with it's idea that mankind could not only survive nuclear destruction but do so without every person resorting to looking out just for themselves (as most of the folks the father and son encountered on the Road seemed to). It seems to be part of the moral of the story; not just that nuclear war cannot be an option but also that we need to work together towards a better future.

Click here to read an excerpt on the Random House website.

Happy Earth Day!