Global Environmental Issues

* denotes recommended book

 

Book Review List

 

* Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

Tim Flannery, The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life

* Grist Magazine, Wake Up and Smell the Planet: the Non-pompous, Non-Preachy Guide to Greening your Day

* Paul Hawken, Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in History is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beauty in the World

* Paul Hawken, The Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainability

* Fred Krupp, Earth: The Sequel: The Race to Reinvent Energy and Stop Global Warming

* Elizabeth Kolbert, Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change

Fred Pearce, With Speed and Violence: Why Scientists Fear Tipping Points in Climate Change

Fred Pearce, When the Rivers Run Dry--The Defining Crisis of the 21st Century

* William McDonough, Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way we Make Things

Bill McKibben, Fight Global Warming Now

* Bill McKibben, The End of Nature

Bill McKibben, Maybe One: A Personal and Environmental Argument for Single Child Families

* Thomas Homer-Dixon, The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and Renewal of Civilization

Thomas Homer-Dixon, Environment, Scarcity, and Violence

* Michael Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

* E.O. Wilson, The Future of Life

William McNeill, Plagues and Peoples

Laurie Garrett, Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health

Thom Hartman, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight: The Fate of the World

James Lovelock, The Revenge of Gaia

Vandana Shiva, Tomorrow’s Biodiversity

* Vandana Shiva, Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply

Vandana Shiva, Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge

* Vandana Shiva, Water Wars:  Privatization, Pollution and Profit

John Robbins (2001), The Food Revolution: How Your Diet Can Help Save your Life & Our World

* Frances Moore Lappe & Anna Lappe, Hope's Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet

Erik Marcus (2000), Vegan: The New Ethics of Eating

Ronald Bailey, Liberation Biology: The Scientific and Moral Case for the Biotech Revolution

* Jeffery Sachs, Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet

* Peter Huber, Hard Green: Saving the Environment from the Environmentalists--A Conservative Manifesto

Lester Brown, Outgrowing the Earth

Lester Brown, Eco-Economy: Building an Economy for the Earth

* Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

* Bjorn Lomborg, Cool It! The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming

* Bjorn Lomborg, The Skeptical Environmentalist

* Patrick Michaels, Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and Media

* George Monbiot, Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning

* Joseph Romm, Hell and High Water: The Global Warming Solution

* Gwyneth Cravens, Power to Save the World: The Truth about Nuclear Energy

Jim Motavalli, Feeling the Heat: Dispatches from the Frontlines of Climate Change

Andres Edwards, The Sustainability Revolution: Portrait Of A Paradigm Shift

* Winona LaDuke, All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life

James Speth, Red Sky at Morning: America and the Crisis of the Global Environment

Herman Daly, Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sustainable Development

* Claire Hope Cummings, Uncertain Peril: Genetic Engineering & the Future of Seeds

* Richard Manning (2005), Against the Grain: How Agriculture has Hijacked Civilization

William Ruddiman, Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum: How Humans Took Control of Climate

Eugene Linden, The Winds of Change: Climate, Weather, and the Destruction of Civilizations

John Cox, Climate Crash: Abrupt Climate Change and What It Means for Our Future

* Daniel Esty (et al), Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value and Build Competitive Advantage

Kai Ericson, A New Species of Trouble

Sarah Taylor, Green Sisters: A Spiritual Ecology

Roseanne Murphy, Martyr of the Amazon: The Life of Sister Dorothy Stang

Richard P. Tucker, Insatiable Appetite: The US and the Ecological Degradation of the Tropical World

Christopher Stone, The Gnat is Older than Man: Global Environment and Human Agenda

* Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution

* Peter Singer, Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for Our Treatment of Animals

Gail Eisnitz (2006), Slaughterhouse: The Shocking Story of Greed, Neglect and Inhumane Treatment…

* Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac

Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

* Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Upton Sinclair (1906), The Jungle

Jack London (1903), The Call of the Wild

Walker, et al. (2006), Resilience Thinking: Sustaining Ecosystems and People in a Changing World

* Simon Dalby, Environmental Security

* Stephen M. Meyer, The End of the Wild

 

 

Writing the Book Review

 

Paragraph 1: Summary of Book. What is the problem? What are the main points raised in relation to that problem? What are the author’s proposed solutions to the problem? What are his/her conclusions.

Paragraph 2-4: What is the author’s main thesis? How does he support his/her arguments? Provide specific examples from book with citations.

Paragraph 4-5: What are the strengths/weaknesses of the book? What are its limitations? What do you feel are its main contributions?

Paragraph 6: Conclusion. Wrap up the analysis with your own opinion on the book. Explain how this book fits into the global environmental politics/policy field.

 

**Send me a copy of the review via email, and bring a hard copy to class.

 

 

Anatomy of the Book Review Presentation

 

1. Title, Author, Year

2. Thesis/Main Points

3. Main Supporting Points made by author/Evidence

4. How book fits in Global Environmental Politics

5. What you thought of the book--pts made convincingly or not--why?