New Community Project - Reading List

The amazing economic growth experienced in the Rich World over the past several centuries has had less to do with things like innovation or marketing, and everything to do with cheap energy. According to the author, as this era comes to an end--thanks to the end of readily available fossil fuels--so will the growth. In fact, he goes so far as to state "Economic growth as we have known it is over and done with."

This is a stark assessment, and seems to fly in the face of the current stock market boom. But as Heinberg points out, the natural capital underlying the global economy is nature--and nature is fast being depleted, is being made chaotic by climate change, and is subject to even more pressure as the world's poor seek the "good life" (material prosperity) currently only enjoyed by the thin upper crust of the world's population. Food supplies in particular will be jeopardized, as present industrial agriculture is based on abundant fossil fuels.

Heinberg also gives a lot of thought to the role of money and credit in the world economy, and how these are less and less founded in reality, and more in speculation--eventually to come crashing down.

His solutions? Get to know your neighbors--you'll need each other as shortages force us to relocalize. Work toward establishing new, more community-based economies. Dis-invest from big banks and other large institutions. Be visible--let the people around you know what you and others are doing. Redefine progress away from economic growth and toward humanity's and nature's well-being.

He says we are living through the fifth great turning in human history, preceded by the taming of fire, the development of language, the agricultural revolution, and the industrial revolution. Now we are turning from fossil-fueled, debt- and growth-based industrial society toward a sustainable, renewable, steady-state society.

Hopeful quote: "We can survive the end of growth, and perhaps thrive beyond it, but only if we recognize it for what it is and act accordingly."

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Trafficking in Humans, Cameron and Newman, eds. (2008)

Sending your daughter away into the sex trade can earn a Nepali family enough money for a tin roof for their house.

It's this kind of economic calculation—along with a devaluation of young women, well-organized regional and global criminal renetworks, ethnic/caste bias, and unenforced laws and officials on-the-take or on-the-make—that are part of the trafficking equation. This book, a compilation of chapters on various aspects of human trafficking by experts in the field, is a comprehensive overview of a worldwide scourge.

The solutions? Education is one, in several senses. First, actually going to school: "Absence of education, a direct result of poverty, can lead to greater vulnerability for recruitment by traffickers." And then the "street education" of young women as to what awaits them on the other end of the "deal" they are being offered by a relative or agent or even a boyfriend. (In Nepal, for instance, fake marriage is a leading avenue for girls to be brought into the sex trade. The suitor is only interested in gaining control over the girl for the purpose of exploitation.)

International economic policies also need to be changed. They have served to impoverish entire regions, leaving young men and women little choice but to migrate in search of viable—even if undesirable—work. Entire nations suffer from this as well, as sex tourism has become an important source of income production.

And then there's domestic violence: some young women would rather face a stream of abusers in a brothel than the alcoholism, beatings and sexual abuse they find at home. At least they may get some pay for the former...

With friends like these: In Africa, 67 percent of trafficked girls are handed over to a trafficker by someone they know.

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Life Without Oil: Why we must shift to a new energy future by Steve Hallett with John Wright (2012)

This is one of the best looks at the sorry history of civilizations that have arisen only to meet their end by over-use of nature around them—the very natural world that allowed them to prosper. Why was the Fertile Crescent so named? Because it once was. Why did Rome fall? Because it felled too many trees to feed the ever increasing appetites of its citizenry for things like heated baths and smelting iron for armaments and silver for coins. What became of the people of Easter Island, once a thriving society of 15,000 people—reduced to 3,000 when discovered by outsiders? Over-fishing, deforestation, killing off beneficial species (all six species of ground birds went extinct—and with them the eggs that nourished the people), conflict over increasingly-scarce resources, and monuments to their gods that further depleted their fragile resource base. Of the waves of extinctions that followed humans wherever they went, he writes: “The destruction of edible animals has been a hallmark of all lands discovered by tool-wielding humans."

Hallett keeps raising the question of ‘why didn’t people change their behaviors when it was clear that their continued abuse of nature would be their end?’ Of the Mayan he laments, “Where conservation, sustainable agriculture and land management might have paid dividends, they instead became more competitive with their neighbors. They were fighting the wrong enemy—(the enemy being) their own exploitation of the environment.” Sound familiar?

The first half of the book is a look at the misuse of pre-industrial resources; the second half looks at our 200 year-old coal/petroleum world—the past 100 years being what he calls the “petroleum interval”—a brief interlude that may well lead to our ruin. Compared to the past, the trends and tendencies are the same, it’s only the resource in question that has changed.

Hallett sees trouble ahead; trouble from which technology can’t save us. He turns to Cuba under the embargo and Britain gearing up for war with Nazis as models of the kind of resilience and determination and even sacrifice we will need. We must control population growth, clean up our energy sources, conserve rather than consume, and practice sustainable agriculture. He calls for connection, community and a return to the concept of the Commons—community-managed land that is held in trust for all and for future generations. In addition, “we need stability—economic, political, environmental—innovation and democracy. Getting to this point in history, if, indeed, it is possible at all, will take generations."

Poignant quote: "The invisible hand of nature is much more powerful than the invisible hand of the market."

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Heatstroke: Nature in an Age of Global Warming by Anthony Barnosky (2009)

Lots of attention gets focused on the impacts of climate change on human communities—drought, storms, food supplies, heat waves, etc. This book lays out an alarming prognosis for the effects of a warming world on Earth’s non-human inhabitants. Well-written and based on his own and others’ research, Barnosky shows how the combination of “normal” human impacts such as over-hunting and habitat degradation are combining with human-induced global warming to leave other life forms with ever-worsening chances of escaping the coming warmer world.

From the American pika (which tends to “explode” if the temperature regularly exceeds 78 degrees) to sea life along the coast of Oregon (suffocated by the aftereffects of extensive upwelling of ocean currents caused by shifting wind patterns)to the caribou on which the Gwich’in of NE Alaska depend for life and culture (more snow in winter leads to more difficult foraging; more warmth in summer brings bigger swamps of blood-sucking insects), land- and sea-based creatures all around the planet are disappearing or threatened with extinction by out-of-control climate change. The author calls for immediate coordinated international efforts to halt greenhouse gas emissions and offers ways ordinary folks can do their part to turn down the heat.

You don’t wanna know: None of the species of mammals or birds currently inhabiting the planet were able to live here when the temperature reached 7 degrees above the present norm three million years ago; we may well be headed to that temperature by the end of this century.

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Nuclear Roulette: The truth about the world’s most dangerous energy source by Gar Smith (2012)

While some see nuclear energy as a less-troublesome energy source than fossil fuels, Gar Smith comes to just the opposite conclusion. Writing post-Fukushima, he offers 14 reasons that nuclear energy does not hold the key to our future energy needs: among them are the years it takes to get a plant up and running (the world would need to be building 32 new ones every year for the next 40 years to cut our carbon emissions in half); the cost—without generous government subsidies (that would be our tax dollars), nuclear wouldn’t be in play as a power source today; unreliability, even compared to solar and wind: of 253 proposed nuclear power plants in the US since 1950, only 137 ever got built, and 21 of those have been closed and temporary plant shut-downs are commonplace; catastrophic danger (TMI ring a bell?—cancer rates for people living within 10 miles of TMI are 65% higher than average) (and if anyone would ever manage to target a nuclear power plant anywhere near an urban area, estimates are of over 40,000 immediate deaths, half a million more later on from cancer, and a $2 trillion clean-up tab); damage to indigenous communities where uranium is mined; the 20-30 tons of radioactive waste produced per plant each year—which has to be kept under containment for 100,000 years; environmental pollution (the cooling towers send 1000 degree steam up into the atmosphere, while waste water pumped back into surrounding waterways is often 20 or more degrees higher than the stream itself, often resulting in fish kills).

His solution to our energy crisis (meaning the pollution and climate change fossil fuels are causing)? Institute a carbon tax, make polluters pay for the mess they’re making, reject globalization, turn to locally-produced energy (solar panels, etc.), redefine “success” to be less about stuff and more about relationships.

Along with his thorough analysis, Smith also says what few other energy writers will say: we won’t be able to “green” our gross over-consumption. “A combination of these efforts, enthusiastically embraced, will have a good chance of saving the world by adopting sustainable lifestyles that eschew the notion that happiness can only come from never-ending consumption and accumulation. A new level of appreciation for sufficiency and equitability will be the ultimate answer.” Amen to that.

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Plastic Free: How I Kicked the Plastic Habit—and how you can too by Beth Terry (2012)

Can’t imagine a world without plastic? Terry reminds us that there was such a time (and not that long ago), and that one can work toward a plastic-free world today—although the stuff is nearly ubiquitous. Where is it? It’s easier to ask where it isn’t, as plastics are found in items ranging from floor tiles to clothing to cosmetics to cash register receipts to drink containers to cling wrap. But we can recycle it, right? Maybe. Even the little recycling symbol on the bottom doesn’t guarantee recyclability—it depends on the community. And what is recycled is typically shipped to China. Those plastic bag recycling bins at your store? Most of that plastic ends up as plastic lumber, which can’t be recycled any further. California mandates that stores recycled those flimsy shopping bags, but only 3 percent get returned.

The author weaves her personal efforts to kick the habit with loads of information about where plastic comes from (a nasty brew of petroleum-based chemicals), where it goes (mostly to landfills), and how one can deplasticize (buy second-hand plastic items, take your own drink cups on plane trips or to fast food places, buy in bulk, etc.). Along with the typical “R’s” (Reduce, etc.), she adds: Remember there was a time without plastic; Repair—fix things rather than automatically replace them; Report—get the word out about this issue; Realize—be attentive to how plastic has invaded our lives; Rally—gather collaborators to work de-plasticize our lives, congregations, schools, restaurants.

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Drinking Water by James Salzman (2012)

This is perhaps the most comprehensive book available when it comes to tracing the history of what the author calls “our relationship with drinking water.” Taken for granted by most citizens of the US, securing adequate supplies of water has brought out the best in us (ancient legal codes and community mores insisted that a thirsty person be given a drink even from a private well); the creative in us (the first flush toilets by the Minoans in 1700 BC); the oblivious in us (massively overdrawn aquifers in the American grain belt and elsewhere around the world—what you can’t see can hurt you!); and the capitalist in us (1500 water bottles are opened per second in the US—at a cost 240-10,000 times higher than water from the faucet, and an annual expenditure of $16 billion).

Some troubling water facts:

Less than half of the people in sub-Saharan Africa live within a 15 minute walk of a water source
It takes 750,000 gallons of water to raise a beef cow (mostly to irrigate the grain to feed it)
Growing the cotton needed for a pair of jeans: 1800 gallons
Every two minutes a major water line bursts in a US city
In the past seven years, the aquifer under the Central Valley of California has been drawn down by 25 million acre feet—or about as much water as is held in Lake Mead

It was Ben Franklin who said “We know the value of water when the well runs dry.” Without better management, this author points out, we’re all about to learn how true that is.

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Consulting the Genius of the Place by Wes Jackson (2011)

While NCP is proud to claim Wes Jackson as a supporter, his (much) larger claim to fame is his role as founder of The Land Institute, the Kansas-based effort to reintroduce perennial crops as the basis for our food supply. Why try doing this in Kansas? Because that’s what grew in Kansas before the white man and his plow arrived. And that, my friends, is the theme of Jackson’s book: what does the land have to teach us and show us about what works best in a particular place? “Reduced in number and limited in scale, natural ecosystems still hold answers to countless questions we have not yet learned to ask.”

Jackson weaves his own personal story with the origins of The Land Institute and ruminations on the state of agriculture. He’s passionate about the role of farming in renewing the earth—or at least stemming our assault on it and buying us a little time. It is farming that largely got us into this mess (thanks to agriculture, we are a “species out of context,” he writes), and ag that can lead the way to restoring the balance.

Along with his call for a return to the land as our teacher, Jackson is one of a number of out-of-the-mainstream yet out-in-front voices calling for a new environmental ethic. “We are living in the most important and challenging moment in the history of homo sapiens…we have to consciously practice restraint."

We’re not very good at that—but a starting point might be to practice the “restraint” of paying attention to the land around us, rather than charging it like we know it all—when we don’t know enough to know that we don’t.

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Over-Dressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion by Elizabeth Kline (2012)

Feel like something’s just not right about the way we buy clothing in the US? Too cheap to be true? Made well enough to make it to the next fashion cycle—but not much more than that? Way more stuff in our closets than we need—or will ever wear? And what about all those textile jobs that went to China—are they ever coming back? What is the fabric anyway (I’m wearing petroleum?!)? The workers who make our clothes—slaving away for less than a living wage and in unsafe conditions (the factories made to look great whenever the international monitors visit): that can’t be right! And what do you mean my used clothing ends up being sold on the streets of Africa—I thought they went to clothe poor people…

Kline is unsparing in her analysis of her own MO—a 30-something bargain-conscious clothes addict—asking incisive questions about why, how, of what and by whom our clothing is made—and how it’s marketed. Her answers to the questions raised above include buying fewer, more expensive but better-made clothes; seeking out the few Fair Trade clothing brands; learning to sew; shopping for vintage clothes in used clothes stores; and…gasp…mending.

Telling stat: Nike could double pay for the 160,000 workers making its shoes and not have to raise the selling price—and still turn a nice profit.

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The God Species: Saving the Planet in the Age of Humans by Mark Lynas (2011)

This reformed radical environmentalist is unsparing of in his assessment of human conquest of the earth in recent centuries—it has been a catastrophe for the biosphere. Climate change, invasive species, destroying biodiversity—we’re really made a mess of things. He’s for preserving wetlands, wilderness and rainforests, and calls for a quick move away from fossil fuels.

Where some will take issue is when it comes to his recent conversion to nuclear energy (after years of anti-nuclear activism) as the only viable alternative to coal for electricity generation, as it requires a lot less land than wind or solar, and his insistence that we need to continue to expand economic growth, rather than adjust our idea of what constitutes the “good life."

He says: “Nature no longer runs the Earth. We do. It is our choice what will happen from here."

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Food Fight by Daniel Imhoff (2012)

Imhoff provides a primer on what’s wrong with the way we’re growing crops these days and the many things that need to change for a sustainable agricultural future. The problems include soil erosion, subsidies to many already-well-off farmers ($3 billion a year to 20,000 cotton farmers, allowing them to sell their crops for less than it cost to produce them), monopoly control of food production (four large corporation control 85 percent of US beef packing), and the way our food system impacts our health (in part due to the cheapness of corn sweeteners, the average US’er consumes 44.7 gallons of soft drinks per year).

Need to know: one bat consumes one-third to one-half its weight in insects and other small pests each night; altogether, these winged mammals provide $3.7 billion in pest-control services to US farmers annually. Pollinators of all stripes provide $40 billion in free services to US agriculture every year.

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The Wealth of Nature: Economics as if Survival Mattered by John Michael Greer (2011)

According to Greer, we need a Copernican Revolution in the way we think about economics, since the way we do it now is fundamentally flawed—as was the pre-Copernican belief that the earth was the center of the universe. Our problem is that we think economic growth will never end, and neither will the earth’s resources. As his “new Copernicus” Greer turns to E. F. Schumacher of “small is beautiful” fame and his insistence on nature as the “primary good,” with all the things we produce from nature being “secondary goods” and that if we aren’t protecting that which is primary, everything else is in jeopardy. Greer is particularly hard on “tertiary goods”—people making money from money, rather than actual labor or other useful skills.

So it makes sense that he is also keen on recognizing and honoring “labor,” the human capital so often underappreciated if not outright exploited by global capitalism. Bringing together both the need for labor and the looming environmental crises we face, he asks: In a world of seven billion people, rising unemployment and dwindling energy supplies, is replacing workers with machines powered by fossil fuels the way to go? Perhaps—if short-term profit is your main concern—but not if you want to pass on a viable planet and functioning human community to your children.

For Greer, the challenge of our time is how we will manage the end of abundance, since this once-in-history window of readily available fossil fuels and other finite resources is quickly being closed. Some starting points: tax polluting and the extraction of resources, rather than income or food purchases; learn once-well-known skills like gardening and sewing and collecting rainwater; do everything you can with local resources/power rather than depending on complex, distant sources—since these may soon be gone.

Notable quote: “Empire is the methamphetamine of nations; in the short term, the effects feel great, but in the long term they’re lethal."

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The Race for What’s Left by Michael Klare (2012)

We are running out of frontiers to exploit—that’s the main message of Klare’s book on the looming shortages facing our world as we mine, drill and plunder the planet for its last reserves of the minerals, metals, farm land, and other resources that make modern life possible. From “rare earth” (anybody remember the band by this name?) to petroleum to strategic minerals like copper and coltan, production is leveling off or in some cases declining—but in every case will soon be coming up against inevitable shortfalls. This is already leading to conflict (think “oil”), hardball politics (China recently cut off supplies of rare earths to Japan over a territorial dispute) and overrunning the needs of the poor (foreign powers buying up African communal lands as a hedge against future food shortages).

Klare’s remedy is a “race to adapt”—a global quest to free the world from its dependence on finite resources while turning toward renewables and vastly increased efficiencies.

We saw it: Klare notes China’s policy of making loans to countries and demanding payment in petroleum. On our Learning Tours to the Ecuadorian Amazon, we see Chinese oil concessions where this is exactly what is happening—oil from the rainforest being used to repay Chinese loans, with the ensuing destruction and pollution of the forest.

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God with Us by Jeff Neuman-Lee (2012)

Jeff provides a lively invitation to rethink our basic presuppositions about living as people of faith in the modern world. In a style at once conversational and challenging, and seasoned with humor, humility and palpable energy, Jeff offers engaging ideas about God, Jesus, the Bible and human community, based on a fresh reading of scripture and active attention to the world around us. On subjects ranging from salvation to peacemaking to materialism, he asks us to join him in paddling into the boundary waters (he’s an avid canoeist) of a deeper and more vibrant experience of human life lived for higher purposes—purposes best exemplified in the life, death and living presence of Jesus of Nazareth and best sought in community. It will be clear that the going is not always easy, the answers never simplistic, and we may well get caught in a storm on the lake as we try to find our way—but there can be deep satisfaction when we arrive drenched and cleansed by the journey we’ve taken together.

He said it: “Central to the Good News is that when we are saved by Jesus, we are not merely saved from dying, we are saved for living. And real, full life has an inescapable quality—community."

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Three Cups of Deceit by Jon Krakauer (2011)

If you’re a fan of Greg Mortenson of Three Cups of Tea fame—and want to stay that way—you’d best not read this book. In it, Krakauer (also author of Into the Wild), a former large donor to Mortenson’s Central Asia Institute, delivers a scathing expose of Mortenson’s ethics and the financial practices of his organization, which has collected millions to build schools in Pakistan and elsewhere.

According to Krakauer’s well-documented research, Mortenson not only made up the story of arriving near-death in a small Pakistani community after a failed attempt to climb K-2 and at one point being kidnapped by the Taliban, but also about his promise to build a school there and triumphant return to do so. His organization has since built dozens of schools—many of which stand unused. He has also earned lots of money from the sale of his books (which his organization pays to promote), and is unwilling to account for how he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of CAI’s money. And did we mention the private jet that delivers him to speaking engagements?

On Mortensen’s claim to have paid last respects to Mother Theresa—“one of his heroes”— on learning of her death while passing through Calcutta in September 2000, Krakauer writes, “This is a poignant anecdote, but it’s difficult to reconcile with the fact that Mother Theresa died on September 5, 1997….”

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Tropic of Chaos by Christian Parenti (2011)

Climate change is affecting some parts of the world more quickly and more severely than others, and some people—mainly the poor—worse than the rest of us. Parenti takes us to where these two realities intersect—the middle of the earth. It is in this band of land and mass of humanity on either side of the equator that climate change is already wreaking havoc with agriculture, water supplies and social structures, and is leading to conflict, starvation, migration, and the uprooting of traditional lifestyles and relationships.

His analysis ranges from Kyrgyzstan to Afghanistan (Why grow opium? Not only is it 50 times as profitable as wheat, but requires six time less water) to tribal conflicts in the Horn of Africa to the constant flow of out-of-water Mexican farmers to the US -Mexican border. In each place he shows how the droughts and storms and most of all unpredictability of climate change (coupled with left-over dynamics from colonialism and the Cold War) are reshaping our world and especially affecting the poor—and not for the better.

If you want a good easy-to-read review of the history of countries in Central Asia, East Africa and Latin America, this is a very good place to find it—with the impact of climate change thrown in as a bonus.

Fact to ponder: From 1997-2005, over 150,000 farmers in India took their own lives—often by drinking the pesticides the corporations sold them to put on their fields—as they couldn’t continue to provide for their families by farming due to uncertain water supplies thanks to erratic weather, large debt related to drought and expensive hybrid seats, and economic liberalization (which left the farmers on their own without state assistance to navigate these challenges).

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The Ripple Effect: The Fate of Fresh Water in the 21st Century by Alex Prud’homme (2011)

Water, water everywhere—at least that’s how we in the US tend to think. Well, we need to start thinking differently, according to this author. Much of the water we drink has a worrisome level of pollutants; the water irrigating much of our food supply is draining aquifers and sapping rivers of their vitality; the water we send down our rivers contains everything from hormone disrupting hand-sanitizer (not removed by water treatment plants) to enough fertilizer to create a 6000 square mile Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico; water barons would love to have the rights to distribute our water—rather than municipal governments—and make loads of money in the process; and thanks to climate change, floods and droughts will be a permanent part of our weather patterns.

Prud’homme spends a good deal of the book looking into US water issues—from groundwater pollution to the past, present and future water wars of the American West. But he also analyzes the impact of water shortages in the face of a growing global population and climate change in the years to come.

His solution? “…adopt a new approach to managing water that emphasizes conservation and working with nature, rather than trying to constantly bend it to human will.” This means saying goodbye to dam-building, waterfall-like shower heads and flood-irrigated fields, and hello to water catchment systems, low-flow showers and toilets, drip irrigation, and asking “how much water can we leave in the river”—rather than how much we can take out.

Interesting note: Along with seeking room to expand and controlling mineral deposits, China’s 1959 invasion of Tibet was also undertaken to gain control of water sources in the Tibetan Himalaya Range.

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Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth about Climate Change by Clive Hamilton (2010)

“We moderns have become accustomed to the idea that we can modify our environment to suit our needs and have acted accordingly for some 300 years. We are now discovering that our intoxicating belief that we can conquer all has come up against a greater force, the Earth itself. The prospect of runaway climate change challenges our technological hubris, our Enlightenment faith in reason and the whole modernist prospect. The Earth may soon demonstrate that, ultimately, it cannot be tamed and the human urge to master nature has only aroused a slumbering beast.”

If you want to read one book on the imperative to deal the threat of climate change seriously and promptly, this is it. While it contains lots of facts about climate change, it also lays out the reasons why we aren’t doing enough about it—and what this says about us and our way of defining ourselves and the purpose of life. In the end, Hamilton wonders if we’ll exchange the false gods of money, growth and hedonism for the real god of creation, who alone has the power to save us from the mess we’ve made for ourselves. Wow….

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Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way We Fight Poverty by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Daflo (2011)

Offering extensive research drawn from actual interviews with the poor in 18 different countries, as well as those trying to help them, the authors do what anyone should do when wanting to offer assistance to others—listen to them to see how they got in their predicament, and to find out what will or won’t work to help them get on a better path.

Some key findings:

the poor have much less margin for error, which means a) they can quickly fall further into poverty and b) that they may resist taking the risk to be very innovative in order to realize larger financial gains (as taking out larger loans to expand their small business)—if they fail, then what?
the poor often work many part-time jobs, or supplement farm work with other enterprises—but all this doesn’t compare with the regular income and peace-of-mind of a “good job”—which is most likely located in an urban area, where things like affordable decent housing are not readily available for a poor family.
microloans that help people start small businesses do provide more money to spend on daily needs, but generally fail to live up to the claims of the organizations that provide them—e.g. these small loans rarely empower women to have a greater say in their family or community, and they seldom help the recipient substantially improve their life by enabling them to send more children to school, etc.
we must confront the three I’s if we hope to overcome chronic poverty: ignorance (people not understanding the risks and benefits of choices); ideology (making anti-poverty programs fit a certain philosophy); and inertia (continuing to run programs as they’ve always been run and without evaluation or input from the “ground”)

Disconcerting fact: When poor families desperately wanting to have more sons (to provide for them in their old age) have a daughter instead, she is often breast-fed for a shorter period (increasing her susceptibility to diseases such as diarrhea from drinking impure water) so that the mother might more quickly become pregnant again

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But Will the Planet Notice: How Smart Economics Can Save the World by Gernot Wagner (2011)

Gernot Wagner praises individual action such as recycling, buying organic food, or using canvass bags etc. but he points out that those actions alone are not enough to address our daunting environmental challenges. Why? It doesn't add up to make enough of a difference and not enough people are reducing their environmental footprint.

Wagner lays out what the "smart economics" are that can save the world and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050. How do we get there? By making us pay for our bad behavior--in other words, applying economics to environmental problems. Ireland's 2002 PlasTax, for instance, which reduced the demand for landfill-clogging plastic bags by 90%. Applying economics at both the macro level (making dirty energy more expensive to maintain) and the micro (increasing the cost of filling your car with gas) can help us create a greener world in a larger, more substantive way.

Wagner's engaging writing style allows him to broach an emotionally charged subject while urging us to take personal responsibility for the planet by demanding an economically sound solution to guiding market forces in the right direction, making it in our best interests to do the right thing.

In a personal email exchange with the NCP director, when asked what he would tell a group of church folks wanting to make a difference regarding climate change, Wagner said: a) study economics b) challenge the system as high up the chain as you can--city council over bike lanes, state energy commission over green power, Congress over the value of a tax on carbon, etc. c) buy my book. Not necessarily in that order…

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The Great Disruption by Paul Gilding (2011)

The former Greenpeace director has recently shifted his thinking about the future of the planet (due to the impacts of climate change and a host of other eco-perils) from ‘all is lost’ to ‘it will be catastrophic, and we may lose a couple billion lives, but this common threat to our species will cause humankind to move to a new and higher plane of co-existence.’ This new era will be characterized by a redefinition of the meaning of life (away from materialism), and an evolution in human values, politics, and personal expectations. He often compares the scale and rapidity of this response to the way the Allies mobilized to fight Hitler in WWII. His timetable:

1-5 years, Climate War: leads to 5 percent reduction in CO2 emissions
5-20 years, Climate neutrality: moving toward zero emissions within 20 years
20-100, Climate recovery: negative emissions, removing CO2 from atmosphere, with a goal of reaching 350 ppm (390 and rising now) by 2100

Gilding doesn’t see us changing our ways out of concern for the planet or even for our children, but out of the shock of a plummeting global economy coupled with widespread hunger and the collapse of important ecological services (water, fisheries, forests). A key to our successful transition to a new way of living on this earth and with each other (and to avoiding chaos) will be hope: “the attitude we adopt—hope vs. despair—is perhaps the most profound issue we will face.”

This is a hopeful book—if we can have his confidence we have it in ourselves to summon our nobler instincts in the face of the crisis that is even now upon us.

“The earth is full.” (In the sense of maxed out by human consumption, pollution and over-whelming of natural systems. This is the opening sentence of the book.)

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Oceana by Ted Danson (2011)

Ted Danson is more than Sam Malone in the long-running television series Cheers—over the past 25 years, he has tirelessly devoted himself to the cause of heading off a looming global catastrophe—the massive destruction of our planet’s oceanic ecosystems and the complete collapse of the world’s major commercial fisheries.

In Oceana (also the name of a pro-ocean organization he helped found), Danson details his journey from joining a modest local protest in the mid-1980s to oppose offshore oil drilling near his Southern California neighborhood to his current status as one of the world’s most influential oceanic environmental activists.

In his incisive, conversational voice, Danson describes what has happened to our oceans in
just the past half-century, ranging from the ravages of overfishing and habitat destruction to the
devastating effects of ocean acidification and the wasteful horrors of fish farms. Danson also
brings in the voices of the world’s most respected authorities in the fields
of marine science, commercial fishing, and environmental law, as well as with other influential
activists.

Combining his own narrative with an array of stunning graphics, charts, and photographs,
Oceana powerfully illustrates the impending crises and offers solutions that may allow us
to avert them, showing you the specific courses of action you can take to become active,
responsible stewards of our planet’s most precious resource—its oceans.

“The fact is that all our lives are intertwined with and, in the end, dependent upon the health of the seas that surround us.”

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Switch: How to Change Things when Change is Hard by Chip and Dan Heath (2010)

For any of us involved in the work of bringing change—whether to our companies, our schools, or the world as a whole—this book offers lots of insight into what it takes to move people and/or organizations in a new direction. It stresses the importance of connecting with people on a visceral/emotional level; creating the proper context/mechanisms for change; looking at the big picture while offering clear, manageable and measurable steps; identifying things people are already energized by/doing well and build on these; find ways to turn problems into opportunities and problem people into collaborators.

Sample Problem: People simply aren’t motivated to change. 1) Is an identity conflict standing in the way? If so, you’ll need to “sell” a new identity. 2) Make the change attractive (what is there to feel good/excited about?). 3) Lower the bar to get people motivated. 4) Use social pressure to encourage change. 5) Smooth the Path so that even an unmotivated person will slide along.

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The Work of Nature: How the Diversity of Life Sustains Us by Yvonne Baskin (1997)

If you ever wondered how the invasive plant disease pine blister rust contributes to more frequent grizzly/human encounters, this book is for you. (Answer: the rust has decimated stands of white bark pines on the upper slopes of mountains in the Pacific Northwest; the nuts from these pines are a key food supply for bears—as well as squirrels and birds; now that they’re disappearing, the bears have nowhere to go but down for additional food, leading to the aforementioned encounters—where the grizzlies usually come out on the short end.)

Along with chronicling the many impacts of introduced species on native plants and animals, Baskin also does an excellent job of just showing how “nature works.” From earth worms (the most important creature relative to promoting soil fertility and productivity) to the acidified water of the Amazon (which doesn’t support mosquito populations), she tells us how nature literally makes life as we know it possible—and how we contribute to our own undoing by intentionally or unwittingly messing with nature’s finely tuned system of life.

Quote: “If we are realistic about our dreams for tomorrow, our goal is not really ‘saving the planet’ in some minimalist form, but perpetuating its atmosphere, climate, landscapes and living services in a state that allows human civilization to prosper. For that to occur, we need to preserve natural systems that are rich, healthy, and resilient enough to support human welfare [into the future]…”

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State of the World 2011: Innovations that Nourish the Planet, Worldwatch Institute (2011)

Worldwatch Institutes annual report takes on a new global issue every year, and there's a special timeliness to this one, given the turmoil in the world food system due to climate change and energy prices, and the fact that food supply was one of the key factors in spurring the “Arab spring” revolutions around the Middle East .

With an overall focus on Africa , this comprehensive report also covers the challenges facing food production in other parts of the world, including the looming threat posed by climate change. It exposes the ecological and economic failure of industrialized farming, and calls for a return to more localized, ecologically sustainable practices. It trumpets the importance of listening to and responding to local wisdom, and capitalizing on traditional foods rather than exotic imports. It names water misuse and underuse as key issues for the future. And it castigates Rich World subsidies as ecologically ruinous and catastrophic for Poor World farmers, who are left to compete—and lose—in this unequal competition with cheaper commodities from corporations benefitting from welfare-like subsidies.

Quote: “We have succeeded, remarkably, in increasing yields. But we must now realize that we can produce more and yet fail to tackle hunger at the same time, that increase in yields—while a necessary condition for alleviating hunger and malnutrition—are not a sufficient condition, and that as we spectacularly boosted overall levels of production during the second half of the twentieth century we created the conditions for a major ecological disaster in the twenty-first century.”

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World on the Edge by Lester Brown, 2011

Lester Brown, the guru of greening our way out of our environmental mess, points to water scarcity, higher energy prices, and looming food shortages as the coming “perfect storm” to undo much of the progress we have made—and perhaps civilization itself. In the course of book, he highlights a wide array of other problems as well, including climate change, soil loss, depletion of aquifers (Saudi Arabia has tapped out its aquifers and by 2015 will be importing all its grain—sometimes from land it has purchased in Africa and elsewhere), deforestation and desertification. While pointing out the problems with a car-centered, increasingly meat-eating, coal-burning world—and pointing to solar, wind and high-speed rail development and putting a price on carbon as keys to a sustainable future—Brown seems hesitant to call on US'ers to downsize their appetites for larger homes, meat and other amenities that contribute directly to our problems. His focus is more about policies than individual practices—while both are critical, seems to me we can't wait for the policy-makers to get us out of this mess.

Fact-of-interest: Refilling a glass drink bottle uses 10 times less energy than recycling an aluminum can

Plentitude: The New Economics of True Wealth by Juliet Schor, 2010

Schor is one of the founders of the Center for the New American Dream, a group dedicated to inviting Americans to redefine the “good life” by focusing more on quality than quantity. Her book is along these same lines, as she notes the many excesses of the US lifestyle: 67 items of new clothing per person per year, 65 million computer purchases annually, 25 tons of materials per person per year to fuel our lifestyles (oil, gravel, lumber, etc.). She also challenges the ‘out-sourcing' of the environmental cost of things: e.g. if we factored in the external costs incurred by the electric power industry (climate change, air pollution, etc.), this sector would go from a $22 billion annual profit to a $28 billion yearly loss.

Recommended personal actions? 1) Work less—give up income for time 2) learn to generalize in life skills in order to provide for oneself 3) be a “true materialist,” valuing material things by not using so much of them 4) invest in one another and in one's community

Corporate action? Build in the true eco-cost of making and growing things

Fact: An hour of eating out at a restaurant requires an average of 11 kilowatts of energy; eating at home, an average of 7.4 kilowatts

Quote: “Solving our problems in the time we have available is not possible if all we do is change our technology.”

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The Flooded Planet: Our Future in a World Without Ice Caps by Peter Ward (2010)

I read this book on the way to Burma , a Southeast Asian nation with hundreds of miles of shoreline, and a tidal effect extending up rivers and streams several dozen miles up into the country's critical rice growing delta region. Seeing the high water mark only a foot or two below the top of stream banks—and the rice fields stretching out from there—left a chill. What will happen to this area when the sea rises the predicted 3-5 feet by century's end? These and millions of already-poor and for-now rich coastal dwellers will have to hike up their pants and move to higher ground, leaving behind the lives they knew and the crops they grew.

Ward presents a convincing and compelling case that we are in for steadily (or catastrophically) rising sea levels, thanks to the warming global climate and to what this heat is doing to the great ice caps in Antarctica and Greenland in particular. He compares our present CO2 level with previous eras in earth's history with similarly high concentrations, and finds that without fail great ice sheets melted or disappeared, resulting in wholesale changes in the shorelines of the world's land masses.

As does Dyer in Climate Wars (below), Ward employs possible dire future scenarios to drive home the devilish consequences of our inaction. At book's end, he also offers one scenario in which humanity has risen to the occasion and met the challenge, sparing the earth and humanity itself the ravages of a flooded world. His recipe for our success?

turning away from personal vehicle use and scaling back jet travel
lose suburbs and shopping malls outside cities; work where you live—or even in your own home
mass tree plantings
attention to the climate impacts of food, clothes, investments
structural way-of-life changes on a global scale
cutting coal use and mining alternative energy sources instead (including some use of nuclear power)
reduce military activities with their unpublicized but massive carbon outputs
using some technical fixes such as carbon sequestration and perhaps even orbiting mirrors may be acceptable, but mindful that “…a great danger is ‘falling in love' with technical fixes as a substitute for real changes in reducing carbon”

“Only a revolutionary change in personal, corporate and public use of energy will avert a disastrous increase in atmospheric emissions”—and the sea level rises that will inevitably accompany this.

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The World According to Monsanto by Marie-Monique Robin (2010)

What do Agent Orange, PCB's, Dioxin, DDT, BST, GM crops and aspartame have in common? They were all developed and sold by the chemical giant Monsanto. Even as these products earn the 17,500-employee corporation a billion dollars a year, they exact another price: they have left a trail of environmental and human disease, death and destruction in their wake. And why is Monsanto still up and running after all these years and tears? Mostly because of the US government's willingness to look the other way—often because the very staff assigned to monitor the company were/are once or future employees of that same company.

Robin's book paints a picture of a corporation without a conscience, abetted by scientists, politicians, stock holders, and even universities “on the take.” To make matters worse, even journalists who investigate the behemoth find their careers—if not their lives—threatened.

Find out what suicidal Indian farmers, sick Vietnam veterans, irate Wisconsin dairy families, disease-plagued poor black communities and maybe breast cancer victims (rates up 55% since the introduction of BST—which causes mastitis in dairy cows) have in common—they've all be victims of the greed and avarice of this corporation, as, in some ways, are we all, as it is nearly impossible to escape its influence.

“In the US now you can't work in biology if you don't accept funding from bio-tech. That's why I say we're living in a totalitarian world, ruled by the interests of multi-nationals who recognize their responsibility only to their stockholders.” – Ignacio Cappela, denied tenure at UC-Berkeley due to his research on the effects of Monsanto GM corn on native Mexican corn varieties.

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War is Not Over When it's Over by Ann Jones (2010)

Jones takes the reader on a tour of current and former combat zones of the world to show the effects of war especially on women—but on men as well. Included are conflicts in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Lebanon, the Congo, Iraq, and Burma. While the context may be different in each place, the consequences are not—violence begets violence, often against the least deserving.

This book began as a personal journey: Jones' own father never rid himself of the demons of combat, bringing the violence to his own family. So also have men around the world not left their aggression on the battlefield, but carry it back to their families or to the women they abuse and use in the course of military operations.

At times the book seems a little over-anecdotal, and her references to her employer, the International Rescue Committee are many, yet it shines a light on a dark part of war-fighting—its affect on women. It also offers a glimmer of hope, chronicling efforts to empower women by giving them means (sometimes cameras) to record their stories or to document abuse.

“Women run away from violence, men carry it with them.” Abuse victim in Burmese refugee camp along the Thai border, when asked why there is violence in the camp when they had fled their homeland to escape violence

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Power Hungry by Robert Bryce (2010)

Robert Bryce seems to pride himself as the “reality” candidate in the energy debate, putting down more idealistic proposals with a literary sneer. As petroleum runs out and coal proves too environmentally costly (especially due to emissions of mercury, lead and particulate matter), Bryce invites short-term reliance on abundant natural gas supplies as the world ramps up to go nuclear.

His main arguments against solar and wind are three-fold: space, materials and intermittency. (He also makes what seems all-too-much like a self-serving argument that fossil fuels are the salvation of world's poor—it saves the work of wood-gathering and generally increases their standard of living. He then uses this argument to say that we shouldn't work to eliminate fossil fuels from our societies—if we did, we'd somehow be shortchanging the poor. This reviewer has no problem with funneling natural gas reserves to the world's poor to provide heating and cooking—this, however, has nothing to do with our indefensible over-consumption. Plus Bryce never mentions the impact climate change—caused by our fossil fuel use—will have on the poor as it alters the environments on which they depend. And never mind that fossil fuel extraction almost always brings misery and poverty on the poor—think West Virginia or Nigeria .)

In terms of a lack of space (a feature of “energy density”—how much land per kilowatt it takes to provide energy), he notes that if all US soybean production was put toward biofuels, this would only provide 10 percent of our diesel fuel needs. Other comparisons: per unit of energy, corn ethanol requires 1150 times as much space as nuclear; wind requires 45 times more land; solar 8 times more. (He doesn't factor in the open-pit uranium mines needed to produce the fuel for the reactors, nor the mountains under which to bury the waste.)

He also looks at the materials needed to build the generators for various fuel sources: for one megawatt of wind-generated energy, constructing the turbine requires 956 cubic meters of concrete (at 33 percent capacity); gas turbine per megawatt, 27 m3; nuclear power plant 90 m3.

In terms of intermittency, Bryce notes that all wind energy must be backed up by an equal amount of conventionally-fueled generation, as the wind is not constant, and especially at night. Concerning carbon reductions, Bryce claims that wind would only cut carbon emissions by 1.3 percent by 2030.

His bottom line: natural gas as a transition fuel on the way to nuclear power.

“The US should forget about trying to cut CO2 emissions and focus on adapting to the ever-changing global climate.”

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Nuclear Power is Not the Answer by Helen Caldicott (2006)

In the other corner… Providing a sharp counterpoint to Byrce's nuclear solution is Helen Caldicott, Australian-born physician and long-time anti-nuclear activist.

Caldicott hates nuclear power—let us count the ways:

Mining and enriching uranium releases huge amounts of CO2 (some enriching facilities need two coal-fired plants' worth of electricity)
If all the world's electricity were to be produced by nuclear power, global uranium supplies would be gone in nine years
Nuclear is ($13 billion in 2005 Energy Bill) and always will be heavily subsidized
A 1000 MW reactor creates 100 pounds of plutonium per year; it takes 10 pounds to make an atomic bomb
Nuclear waste, of which there are already thousands of tons, needs to be securely stored for 240,000 years
“Allowable” radiation for workers in a nuclear power plant is set at a high enough level by the DOE that 1 of 125 will likely have cancer as a result of exposure; one-half to one-fifth of uranium miners have cancer or have already died from it
The depleted uranium created by nuclear power is used to “harden” munitions that the US has used in both wars in Iraq (it vaporizes on impact, spreading radioactivity), leading to an epidemic of cancer and leukemia in children

Her solutions to our energy needs?

efficiency could save nearly 30 percent
hydro and renewables could provide 15 percent of our electricity needs
TX, KS and ND could provide enough wind energy to power the country
cut back at home by hanging clothes, wearing a sweater, etc.

“With only the barest comprehension of evolution and the delicate process of genetics, we create massive quantities of radioactive elements to power our ‘lifestyle' because we are attached to ever-increasing levels of technological progress, prosperity, luxury and ease of living.”

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Lights Out by Spencer Abrahamson (2010)

This former Bush Administration Secretary of Energy plies the middle ground between Calicott and Bryce. His goal is a society where 30 percent of our energy comes from nuclear (he calls for 50 new plants in the US by 2030), 30 percent from hydro and other renewables, 20 percent from natural gas and coal gasification, and 10 percent from efficiency. He doesn't really deal with transportation, other than to promote hybrid cars with much more efficient batteries.

“We are never going to be able to deal with global warming or energy independence without reviving nuclear power.”

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The Story of Stuff by Annie Leonard (2010)

This book is an expanded version of and companion to Leonard's viral video by the same name. Here, of course, she can go into much more detail (e.g.: cotton production takes up 2.5% of the world's agricultural land but uses 10% of the fertilizer and 25% of the pesticides) and expand on her analysis of what's wrong with the system (“it's the economic system, stupid—not just a bunch of bad choices” that is giving people and the planet fits) and her prescription for how to fix it (reduce our consumption to at least European levels, make polluters and producers be responsible for their waste , reevaluate capitalism as a viable economic model). All in all, a very readable and impassioned plea for a saner approach to life on Planet Earth.

Pithy quote: “The economy is a subsystem of the earth's ecosystem—it's biosphere. For one system to exist inside another, the subsystem needs to fit inside the constraints of the parent system.”

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Carbon Shift, Thomas Homer-Dixon, editor (2009)

Let's open with a pithy quote: “The greatest threat to our future may not be that our fossil fuel economy will disappear—but that that it will endure.” This pretty much spells out the conundrum that is the centerpiece of this somewhat scholarly book on the impacts of our carbon combustion on the ecosystem. The various writers each bring a slightly different approach to bear on the central problem—how to quickly transition from a global economy based on fossil fuel use to one where these fuels are passed over in favor of sustainable energy sources.

As with many similar books, the focus is on efficiencies, with only a very modest admission that maybe, just maybe our over-the-top lifestyles are a big part of the problem—and that it may not be possible to “green” all this greed to the point that we can have our cake—and eat it too (that we can enjoy all our present excesses but do it without condemning future generations to an unrecognizable—and perhaps unlivable—planet).

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Half the Sky by Nicolas Kristoff and Sheryl WuDunn (2009)

“Sweatshops have given women a boost.” If sweatshops are seen as a positive step for millions of young women around the world, this can only be in comparison with the other options they have for life. Yes, I suppose if compared to spending your life under the thumb of your father or husband or religion, where you're consigned to carrying wood, water and babies and being beaten if you protest, then even the long hours and low pay and possibility of harassment of a maquila may look attractive….

Rather than an opportunity, I call this “the economics of desperation”—a job, but not a job with dignity or real opportunity.

But we digress. The husband/wife writing team of Dunn and Kristof have done us a favor by highlighting, often in the form of personal stories, the situation of millions of the world's women. The remind us that more women have died in the past 50 years due to gender violence of one form or another than all the men that were killed in war in the 20 th Century; that 3 million women and girls are enslaved in the sex trade; that every minute a woman dies in pregnancy and childbirth around the world (by the way, with regard to maternal mortality, 11 US women die for every 1 Irish woman).

And they make a strong case that for societies to succeed, women need to be given the chance to fully participate in community and economic life.

As with many books like this, there is little call to change the underlying economic system that so callously enslaves women and men around the world while enriching Rich World CEO's and stockholders, and little challenge for those of us in the Rich World to do more than sponsor a child or give to Kiva. These things are fine as far as they go; they just don't go far enough.

Something to think about: the more Rich World donors are told about why people are poor, the less they give; the more they hear about the plight of “one little girl,” the more they give.

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Climate Wars by Gwynne Dyer (2010)

Dateline: 2036 Northern Europe has closed its borders to immigration from southern Europe , which has been overrun by Africans fleeing climate-induced drought and famine in their home countries. Their own continent has seen crop production decline by half, and millions are dead or dying.

Dateline: mid-20 th Century Agriculture is no longer possible in the Central Valley of California due to failed water supplies as snowpack on the Sierra Nevada mountains no longer lasts into the summer season; drought in Mexico and Central America has meant the end of democratic governments there, as authoritarian regimes have stepped in to control the hungry masses

Dateline: 2100 Global temperature increases of over 6 degrees centigrade have led to a sea level rise of over 70 meters, displacing 10 percent of the world's population.

To ward off these and other scenarios, Dyer warns us that if we don't act soon and drastically, climate change will be a runaway train leaving conflict in its wake all around the world. He notes that the climate is warming faster than we anticipated and impacting natural systems in ways we don't understand, and that personal actions like changing light bulbs are insignificant in the face of this looming global catastrophe.

Eerily, one of his predictions has already come true—that grain exporting countries facing drought will halt grain shipments out of fear of running short on grain to feed their own people. Russia took this action in the summer of 2010 due to extended drought in its grain-producing regions.

Quote: “We have to decarbonize our economies wholesale and if we haven't reached zero emissions by 2050—and preferably an 80 percent cut by 2030—then the second half of this century will not be a time you would choose to live in.”

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Prosperity Without Growth by Tim Jackson (2010)

We can't have our cake and eat it too, according to Tim Jackson. While many (or even most) people are convinced that "technology" and ever-increasing efficiencies will allow humankind, and especially us Rich World folks, to live green and still live large, this books demonstrates in well-documented detail the fallacy of this way of thinking. For instance, while we are getting more production for any carbon we emit into the atmosphere (25 percent more efficient globally in the past 40 years), our actual carbon output is up by 80 percent, as more people are finding more ways to burn fossil fuels--in effect overwhelming any impact from being more efficient.

Jackson is thorough in documenting our overuse of important materials such as copper, bauxite and iron ore, which he points out, if the rest of the world used like we do, world supplies would be exhausted within 20 years. He is also quick to note that not only are we exhausting the planet's physical storehouse and storage capacity for things like carbon, we are at the same time driving a large wedge between the haves and have-nots of the world. And more wealth won't solve these inequities: per capita income in the US is some $42,000 per year, yet the US has the largest income stratification of any rich nation.

He blames much of our problem on "novelty"--the pursuit of the new thing. This creates a throwaway society as product after product is "up-graded" for the next model; it also creates persistent anxiety among and between citizens as they strive for acceptance and supremacy via things. He feels that the goal of society should be to create a world that is environmentally sustainable and that focuses on helping people flourish--neither of which can be accomplished in a highly competitive capitalistic society whose mantra is "more." He calls for both local and national initiatives to redefine life, rewarding behaviors that promote the goals mentioned above.

Pithy quote: "Prosperity for the few founded on ecological destruction and persistent social injustice is no foundation for a civilized society."

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100 Heartbeats by Jeff Corwin (2009)

Species of all shapes and sizes and locations are vanishing before our eyes around the world, and we—humans—are both the cause of the catastrophe and the only ones who can halt it. Jeff Corwin draws on his extensive field experience among endangered creatures to present a fact-filled but also quite engaging journey into the worlds—and the threats to those worlds—of the planet's most threatened living creatures, from the giant panda (needs to eat over 80 pounds of bamboo every day—and its bamboo-rich range is fast disappearing) to the polar bear (which loses over two pounds of weight every day it doesn't eat during the ever-longer period between the disappearance of the ice pack in the spring and its reappearance in the fall).

This book is a very personal (having his hair caressed by the trunk of a 350-pound baby elephant as he slept with it in the absence of its murdered mother) and poignant (the bird before him is boringly ordinary—until the keeper tells him there are only 15 left in the world) look into the threats to species' survival. These include global warming, invasive species, over-harvesting, pollution, and the king-‘o-them-all, loss of habitat. His primary solution is that we must care, and show that we care by mustering the resources and willpower to protect these animals—our kindred spirits in a 3-billion year old dance of life on planet earth.

You don't want to know: A species becomes extinct every 20 minutes. At this pace, half of all species of living creatures will have disappeared by 2100.

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Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick (2009)

Demick draws on her long career as a correspondent in East Asia to give us an inside look at the lives of the people of North Korea . She traces the stories of several people from different walks of life—all of whom started out in North Korea , but eventually fled, ending up in South Korea . The personal style of the story-telling is quite compelling, showing how the fervor of some of the subjects for their homeland slowly waned in the face of systemic repression, grinding poverty, and just plain hunger and suffering as their government ignored their plight in deference to its own objectives.

(The NCP director admits a personal interest in these stories, having visited North Korea twice and the South over a dozen times. Both are fascinating places in their own way—and both are populated with ordinary people who are gracious, hard-working, and quite devoted to the things that matter to them.)

Telling quote: “ Mi-ran described watching her five- and six-year-old pupils die of starvation. As her students were dying, she was supposed to teach them that they were blessed to be North Korean."

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State of the World 2010: Transforming Cultures—from Consumerism to Sustainability by Worldwatch Institute 2010

This annual report is perhaps the best overview of current environmental and economic trends from a progressive perspective. This year's volume is filled with information dear to any environmental educator's or activist's heart, e.g.:

tons of resources extracted from the earth annually (60 billion tons—50 percent more than 30 years ago—even with a 30 percent increase in resource efficiency);
in 2008 Greenland lost ice pack at three times the rate of 2007;
the average US'er creates 25 tons of CO2 per year (a rate of 2.5 tons per person would stabilize the earth's climate);
the world produces 100 million tons of hazardous waste per year—or about 30 pounds per person;
if everyone on earth mimicked our living standard, the planet could support only 1.4 billion people, rather than its current 6.7 billion

“In the 20th Century, the glory of the human has become the desolation of the planet. And now, the destruction of the earth is becoming the destruction of the human. From here on, the principle judgment of all human institutions, professions, programs and activities will be determined by the extent to which they inhibit, ignore or foster a mutually-enhancing human-earth relationship.” – Thomas Berry, Catholic priest and ecological philosopher

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Diet for a Hot Planet by Anna Lapp é (2010)

Title ring a bell? Anna's mom Frances Moore Lapp é wrote Diet for a Small Planet back in the 70's; now daughter has written this fine sequel in an attempt to align our eating habits with the struggle to control global warming. The Lapp é 's also founded the Small Planet Institute in 2002.

Lapp é combines engaging narrative about key links in food production chain that either abet or combat climate change with lots of good information about the carbon cost of the way we currently eat. She takes on issues like fertilizer use (one ton requires 33,000 cubic feet of natural gas to produce); Big Ag (two of them—Cargill and ADM control 80 percent of US soy production); livestock (it occupies one-fourth of ice-free land globally and creates 25 percent of all US methane—a potent greenhouse gas); organic farming (if entire world food supply was produced organically, it would increase production by 45 percent); and imported food (creates 45 times more greenhouse gases than local food; if air-freighted, make that 500 times).

Pithy quote: “What's naïve—utterly impractical—is the belief that we can continue along the path of controlled, industrialized food and survive and thrive as a planet.”

Belching out the Devil: Global Adventures with Coca- Cola by Mark Thomas (2008)

What is the most popular brand in the world (the brand itself worth $65 billion)? What company spends $2.4 billion a year on advertising (1/300 th of all the ad dollars spent globally)? What product requires 8 teaspoons of sugar and 46 ounces of water per 12 ounce serving?

According to sleuth Mark Thomas, it's the same product that has

tolerated harassment and murders of union workers at its subsidiaries plants in Colombia
drained water tables near its plants in India at a rate of 3 feet per year
led to eutrophication of streams in El Salvador (oxygen-depleting waste-water that kills fish)
allowed its subcontractors to purchase sugar harvested by child laborers in Central America
and was one of the corporations Martin Luther King, Jr. urged African Americans to boycott in his final speech, the day before his assassination, naming their discriminatory hiring practices

Yes, it's the real thing—Coca-Cola.

This is an engaging, easily-readable expose on the often-negative presence of Coke in communities around the world, based on interviews with those who have been affected—or imprisoned—for their role in challenging the Coke brand.

“They (Coke) have not done anything (to help the community): they go to a place, they exploit all the resources and when there aren't any left, they leave—and leave the people in that place with the problems.” – Mayor Rene Canjura, Nejapa , El Salvador

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The World Without Us by Alan Weisman (2007)

What would the world be like without its human interlopers? A quite different place—and relatively soon in some cases—according to Weisman. The author looks both backwards to see how the ecosystem fared prior to human emergence as a force (and in some cases, how other cultures fared before the arrival of Westerners) and forward to see how long it would take for nature to shake us off and move on.

Among his findings: the native population of Mexico declined by 96% within 100 years after Europeans arrived, mostly due to disease; eco-invaders such as purple loosestrife and the fungal blight that wiped out the American Chestnut were both a result of post-Columbian transoceanic travel; the famous red cloaks now worn by the Maasai people of East Africa were actually introduced by Scottish missionaries in the 19 th century; in Wisconsin alone, cats kill some 200 million songbirds a year, while another 1 billion are on the short end of collisions with glass windows in the US annually; the US Department of Energy is legally bound to discourage anyone from getting close to a nuclear waste depository in New Mexico for the next 10,000 years (hmmm, that's equal to the span of time that humans have been engaged in agriculture); the human entry into North America 13,000 years ago led to a mass extinction of ground sloths, camels, horses, mammoths, mastodons—all told, at least 70 genera of mammals in just 1000 years.

Quote: “Classic Mayan civilization had mimicked the rainforest, producing dispersed shade-grown crops, undertaking low-intensity conflict with neighbors to relieve border pressures —until the Dos Pilas Empire. Then a lust for wealth and power led to more aggression against neighbors, followed by reprisals, then the centralization of out-lying villages for protection; which led to more pressure near the center and a depletion of resources. This Late Mayan society had evolved too many elites, all demanding exotic baubles. Nobility is expensive, nonproductive and parasitic, siphoning away too much of society's energy to satisfy its frivolous cravings. Stakes rise, trade is disrupted, population concentrates—all lethal in a rainforest. People lose faith, ritual activity ceases. The main city was surrounded by a moat that required three times the energy to build it as to build the city itself. The end was near.”

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Cornered: The new monopoly capitalism and the economics of destruction by Barry Lynn (2010)

Barry Lynn is trying to wake us up to the power of corporate monopolies as the tool of economic elites to gain profit for themselves without “any concern that their actions might endanger their own children, let alone the well-being of the nation and the world.” According to the author, we should be afraid—very afraid—when power and profit and the means of production are so centralized in a smaller and smaller number of corporations. These entities can then manipulate the political process, run roughshod over worker rights and the environment, and set the rest of us up to bail them out when they “become too big to fail.”

Sound familiar? Lynn 's arguments gain even more credibility when we realize that he had begun this book before the financial meltdown of 2008-9, events which only served to give validity to his warnings.

These trends—which took on their current shape under Reagan and Clinton—had their first expressions in the debates between Alexander Hamilton, who would have concentrated wealth and power in a few trusted hands, and Madison and Jefferson, who fought to have both more broadly shared.

Keys to bringing stability and fairness to the global marketplace?

Pricing—producers and consumers must hash it out, rather than price being controlled by mega-retailers or unfair subsidies of one kind or another
Supply—it's always best if consumers purchase as directly as they can from the producer, cutting out as many in-between buyers/sellers as possible
Transparency—the rules governing trade should be public, and so should any attempts to manipulate the system
Innovation—producers should thrive by learning to differentiate their products from their competitors', rather than by overwhelming competitors through massive amounts of capital or by underpricing them by putting pressure on the supply chain
Protection—rules should level the playing field to protect smaller producers from better-capitalized players and from cheaters
Diversity—there must be multiple suppliers/producers for key goods, otherwise the system is vulnerable to the untimely collapse of a few key players

Bet'cha didn't know: Proctor and Gamble controls 80 percent of the US toothpaste market, including Tom's of Maine . Pepsi, Coke and Nestle own 90 percent of the US bottled water market. Iam and Hills Pet Nutritional Science Diet pet foods roll off the same assembly line as Supervalu brand (don't tell Fido…).

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What We Leave Behind by Derrick Jensen (2009)

“If we wish to survive, we must accommodate ourselves to the land.” This serves as Derrick Jensen's mantra-in-many-forms throughout this wide-ranging book on the challenges facing humanity and its home planet. At root it makes sense—the well-being of the earth must be our first priority, even above individual human lives and certainly above the growth-at-any-cost economy that currently rules the day.

Jensen combines his earthy observations about his own life (outdoor toiletry as an act of liberation/fertilization?) and our society, including the inherent deceit in the messages of “environmental leaders” such as Al Gore and Paul Hawken, for whom industrial civilization is a given rather than the real enemy. Jensen sees this same industrial civilization as that which enslaves and exploits us and our earth, and as that which must be brought down if we—and more importantly, our earth—are to survive.

Along with Jensen's somewhat controlled—and always entertaining—rantings, this book is filled with lots of good stats on everything from burial vaults (100,000 tons of steel and 30 million board feet of hardwood per year in the US) to plastics (only 10 percent of US plastic is recycled; there are six oceanic garbage patches—one the size of Africa—comprised mostly of plastic) to species' decline (bobwhite populations are down by 80 percent).

Quote: “The only sustainable culture is a local culture.”

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Dead Aid by Dambisa Moyo (2009)

This Zambian female writer lays out a clear and compelling indictment about the way aid has been distributed by Rich World governments and agencies, which more often than not encourages corruption and conflict in receiving countries while discouraging free enterprise. She is also very critical of the lack of consultation with national leaders by donors, lamenting that decisions about the use of aid is often dictated by rock stars like Bono or international lending agencies.

She also tackles corruption, noting that as much as 85 percent of the $1 trillion in aid to Africa since the 1940's hasn't gone to its intended purposes. In the light of such misuse of funds, why does the lending continue? a) There is pressure to lend and keep the lending institutions in business (the World Bank has 10,000 employees: Non-governmental groups employ perhaps 500,000) and b) donors can't agree on who is corrupt (and China doesn't seem to care).

Her solutions: 1)cut subsidies on Rich World products (the US subsidizes its cotton industry @ $4 billion per year—three times US aid to Africa's 500 million people—at a multi-million dollar cost to African cotton farmers) 2)follow the lead of the Grameen Bank in denying outside funding for programs like micro-loans 3) make aid conditional on good behavior by recipient country (increased school attendance, etc.) 4) reduce fees on the transfer of remittances from the 33 million Africans who live abroad (currently 20 percent of monies sent back to Africa are lost to fees); Africans should issue international bonds to raise funds for projects, rather than depending on international donations.

Quote: “The vicious cycle of aid…chokes off desperately-needed foreign investment, instills a culture of dependency, and facilitates rampant and systemic corruption, all with deleterious consequences for growth…perpetuating underdevelopment and guaranteeing economic failure…and the dependency continues.”

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The Atlas of Endangered Species by Richard Mackey (2009)

Mackey is comprehensive in assessing the threats facing the world's living organisms caused by human activity, sounding the warning that one-third of amphibians are threatened with extinction, as are 34,000 plants and 12 percent of bird species. He ties these disturbing trends into causes such as the disappearance of wetlands and coral reefs, while also detailing hidden threats such as the growing acidity of the oceans, which directly imperils shell-fish, as their shells can no longer form in higher acidic water, and the disconnect these days between the breeding season of creatures like lemurs and the availability of food, due to global warming.

He also helps us see that we are not disconnected from the web of life; for instance, as bats decline (one-third of bat species are endangered), there are fewer bats to eat insects, causing farmers to use more pesticides, which then leads to even fewer bats.

Fact: Only 1.8 million of the world's species of living things have been identified and named by science—there may be as many as 10-100 million species altogether.

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The Earth: Natural Resources and Human Intervention by Frederick Schmidt-Bleek (2007)

This book bears the mark of a pragmatic German researcher—it unsparingly lays out the information about what we're doing to our planetary resource base (dramatically over-drawing it) and then gives the well-considered prescription. To summarize succinctly: we need to get more bang for the buck. This is another way of saying that our extraction and use of everything from aluminum to coal is wasteful, and will not only lead to drastic shortages in the future, but serious ecological and economic problems long before that.

Schmidt-Bleek first gives an overview of the state of the earth's resources. The climate is warming, species are disappearing, half of all available fresh water is being used, a quarter of all fish stocks are depleted or threatened, 75 billion tons of soil are lost per year to erosion.

He blames Rich World appetites, noting that there is “not even close” to enough resource on earth to supply everyone a Rich World lifestyle. He then runs the numbers on the resources it takes to create everyday appliances and activities. For instance, a desktop computer has 14 tons of solid nature behind it—that much of the earth extracted to come up with the materials every computer. A 2700 pound car requires 85,000 pounds of nature to manufacture—which comes out to a per mile average of one pound of earth used. (A bicycle requires 850 pounds.) A pair of jeans needs 66 pounds of materials/resources to create. A pound of irrigated grain requires 1000 pounds of water to produce. It takes 30 tons of water to irrigate 2.2 pounds of cotton on US cotton plantations.

His prescription revolves around his Factor 10 principle—overall we need to use 10 times fewer resources than we are currently using to fuel our lifestyles (15 times less in the US ). He feels we can still lead prosperous lives, even as we become much more efficient in our production, as we give up some private ownership for shared resources (lawn mowers, cars, etc.), as we tax resource waste rather than income, and as we find enjoyment in things like art rather than powerboats.

Why do they hate us? “Perhaps the US should realize that many people today regard that country's excessive resource consumption as an attack on the physical and emotional well-being of billions of people in other countries.”

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Now or Never by Tom Flannery (2009)

Flannery's “now or never” is about…you guessed it, dealing with global warming. He does a very nice job highlighting the way the planet works in regard to carbon sequestration (the oceans are the most important carbon sinks, but are in danger of carbon overload; the polar ice caps work as earth's cooling elements—when they disappear the thermostat will be turned up on the planet; an acre of tropical forest can sequester 7.4 tons of CO2 per year).

While short on prescriptions for changing our ways, Flannery lays out the facts of global warming in an evocative way, drawing on gaia theory as part of his approach (earth as a living organism). Like others, he seems to think we can put the warming genie back in the bottle without significantly altering our way of life, and he misses the role of things like beef production in the global warming equation.

No more seashells? There are areas of the North Pacific where shellfish may soon be nonexistent, since higher levels of carbon in seawater leads to acidification—which prevents shell formation. Already these creatures can only live in the top 100-325 feet of the ocean there; previously they existed down to 1800 feet.

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Enough by Lester Thurow and Scott Kilman (2009)

This book is a scathing indictment of US and Rich World policies toward Poor World nations, especially in terms of agricultural policies. The authors, who write for the Wall Street Journal as their day job, pin the tail for the on-going struggles of “developing countries” on:

the legacy of colonialism (which left countries without skilled managers and entrepreneurs),
the World Bank's encouragement for Africa to depend on cheap imported food rather than develop its agricultural sector
US aid programs that foster dependency instead of self-reliance, especially regarding food production
Cold War-fueled conflict which cost $120 billion in lost food production in the last 35 years of the 20 th Century
US and Rich World agricultural subsidies that allow farmers to effectively undersell poor farmers, costing these producers $50 billion in lost revenue annually (Rich World aid to poor countries is $52 billion a year. Hmmmm….)
US laws mandating the purchase of US farm commodities when there is a food crisis (more expensive, takes longer to arrive, doesn't support local economies)
The boondoggle of ethanol production, which will consume 30 percent of the US corn crop this year and consequently raise food prices at home and abroad

Given that these guys write for a more conservative paper, they show a good bit of righteous indignation at the way Rich World governments have responded to the needs of our global neighbors with mostly their own self-interest in mind.

Their prescription for Africa's recovery:

The Rich World must keep its promises to expand development aid…for once
Creation of a global fund to aid agriculture and invest in infrastructure
African governments take responsibility for stopping wars and protecting property rights
End harmful subsidies to Rich World farmers
Allow up to half of all food aid to be purchased from the affected region
Create seeds suited to African climate
Stop turning food into fuel

Drive you crazy fact: The corn needed to create enough ethanol to fill a 25 gallon SUV tank (8 bushels) would feed a person for a year.

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Bad Samaritans: The myth of free trade and the secret history of capitalism by Ha-Joon Chang (2008)

This Korean-born economist dispels the myth that the US and other rich nations got to where they are by the path of the free market without government support or intervention—the same free market they insist on imposing on developing nations around the world. All the currently successful economies got to their present status by a combination of state-protected industries (using tariffs to protect budding sectors of the economy), some natural monopolies (mail service, utilities) and subsidies (aiding fledgling enterprises), yet our economic policies imposed on poorer countries insist that they not have the right to do these things—so that our products can overwhelm locally-produced products and these economies can be kept from ever maturing into full-fledged competitors. And of course, Rich World nations still enforce monopolies on select categories such as manufactured goods by the use of tariffs and subsidies.

If you don't care for Thomas Friedman's “globalization/free trade is the only viable path” approach, you'll love Chang. Count me among his admirers.

This book would be a more rewarding read for a trained economist, although I did enjoy his many references to South Korean life, as I was involved in programs there in the 1990's.

Bad people—or just more vulnerable? “When people are poor, it is easy to buy their dignity.” (speaking of corrupt governments)

Everyday Justice: the global impact of our daily choices by Julie Clawson (2009)

For a compassionate, comprehenive, well-documented, and personal account of the struggles many of us face in trying to do justice in our daily consumer choices, this is a great place to turn. Clawson takes on chocolate, coffee, clothing (she chronicles her quest for an organic cotton, fair trade-made undergarment), transportation, waste generation, and more--the everyday choices that can lead to a better world--or not. Coming from a faith perspective, she weaves in scriptural texts and faith language in a non-intrusive way, and highlights people whose faith has led them to become "Everyday Practitioners"--including a certain NCP director who traded in his car for a bicycle. This would be a great read for a book club or for personal use.

Community is vital to the work of justice. No one can do this alone. Justice is done in the name of, by the power of and in the community of Jesus.

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Confessions of an Eco-Sinner by Charles Pearce (2008)

You don't want to know what Charles Pearce has to tell you about where your clothes came from, how your coffee and cocoa were picked, or what raising the shrimp for your salad did to the coastal areas of Bangladesh. On the other hand, if you're brave enough to face the facts about our lifestyles and their impact on the planet and our neighbors, you will find this book well-researched and a welcome bright light shone on the dark corners of the global consumption chain. And Pearce doesn't leave us stranded with our guilt—he offers positive ideas for making the most of our troubling predicament.

A few pithy facts:

-1 gold ring required 2 tons of rock mined from a couple miles under the Earth's surface, 30 tons of air pumped down to cool the 120 degree shaft, 5.5 tons of water pumped out of the mine to keep it from flooding, 10 hours of human labor @ $1 per hour, and enough energy to run a house for several days

-Coffee farmers growing Fair Trade coffee for $1.46 a pound in the shadow of Mt. Kilimanjaro asked a visiting Fair Trade buyer: “We'd like to know how much our coffee costs in a coffee shop where you live.” Starbucks earns $300 from a pound of coffee purchased for $1.50.

-800 square miles of the formerly mangrove-covered deltas of Bangladesh have been flooded to create shrimp ponds. The shrimp industry is a controlled by mob bosses and shady middlemen. “Mass production of shrimp for export is disastrous.” – Khushi Kabir of the NGO Nijera Kabir (“we can do it ourselves”)

-To maintain the typical Rich World lifestyle in Roman-times-equivalence would have required an estimated 6000 slaves

“What does chocolate taste like?” – child of cocoa farmer in Cameroon , West Africa

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The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein (2007)

On the flight back from our Learning Tour in El Salvador I was sitting by a young woman who had been vacationing in the Dominican Republic . She had seen enough of the poverty just outside their beachfront hotel to say at one point: “We're so lucky to live where we live.”

I wanted to say “if that's why you think we have it this good, don't read this book.” I had in hand Klein's unsparing analysis of US actions to spread its Free Market economy to all corners of the earth, but especially to Latin America and the Middle East, actions that often included destabilizing or just plain overthrowing elected governments who didn't see economics the way we do in order to give our corporations more room to operate. So it had little to do with luck, and lots to do with greedy corporations backed by ruthless politicians and the threat of military and financial intervention.

Klein's thesis is that just as the US military used Shock and Awe to overwhelm Iraq and make its people pliant and as CIA interrogators used torture to break the will of prisoners, so our government has used such tactics to “soften up” whole societies by deposing their governments and then moving quickly to impose economic policies that favor US corporations. From Chile after the overthrow of Allende and Guatemala after the overthrow of Arbenz to Argentina and Iran following the installation of Pinochet and the Shah to the USA after September 11 to Sri Lanka after the tsunami to Iraq after the fall of Saddam—these forces make use of “shock therapy” to leave the society disorganized and dispirited—and incapable of resisting economic plans for reshaping their world.

“Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence.” Genesis 6:11 (yes, she begins one chapter with this quote)

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The Global Deal: Climate Change and the Creation of a New Era of Progress and Prosperity by Nicholas Stern (2009)

From the author of the Stern Report chronicling the threat of global warming and the cost of waiting decades to address it comes this well-done analysis of climate change, its causes, the threat it poses, and what we need to be doing—urgently—to address it.

Stern calls global warming history's greatest “market failure” as we have failed to build into the price of carbon-based fuels their true cost for the future of our planet. He goes on to show the expected impacts of sea level rise (1 meter rise=displacement of 150 million Asians); the true culprits (China is out-CO2'ing us now, but in the past century the US emitted 50 times more CO2 than China: 290 billion tons v. 5.4 bt); and what we need to do about it (cut back on meat-based diets; stop subsidies for fossil fuels; halt deforestation; pay for the impact of climate change on the world's poor; quintuple spending on R&D for alternative energy options).

A 4-5 degree increase in global average temperature will lead to a “radical transformation of the world we know,” rewriting the physical geography of the planet.

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Menu for the Future by Northwest Earth Institute (2008)

Everything you wanted to know—and some things you didn't—about our diets and the price they extract from the planet (run-off in streams, fossil fuels in shipping), our neighbors (banana workers in Central America, small farmers in the US), and our health (low nutritional value, high pesticide residues). This is a collection of fact-filled essays by writers ranging from Bill McKibben to Frances Moore Lappe to Thich Nhat Hahn, with accompanying study questions, and arranged under six chapter headings (Farming for the Future, You are What You Eat, Towards a Just Food System, etc.). Great for individual reading or for group study.

The humble but tasty and nutritious banana requires more agrochemicals than any other crop besides cotton, thanks to US and EU demand for "perfect" fruit. And then it gets shipped a thousand miles to your store... What price potassium...?

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Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet by Michael Klare (2008)

This is the latest offering from one of the most insightful analysts of national and global security issues. In this book, Klare is essentially warning of the impending energy crisis, both related to climate change and to the increasing scarcity of petroleum, and of how both will likely escalate into political and/or military crises. He tells the sordid tale of the unholy alliances the United States has historically entered into to secure access to petroleum, and reveals the dynamics of the current global energy market—who has it, who needs it, the deals being cut to access it, and what the consequences of this arrangement may be. Klare also makes a compelling case for US/Chinese cooperation on things like carbon sequestration for coal-powered power plants to mitigate global warming, since both nations will continue to rely heavily on this dirtiest of fuels. He also makes a strong pitch for a rapid and massive move toward renewable energy sources as a key part of not only securing energy, but securing peace as well.

"Oil will cease to be primarily a traded commodity, but instead the preeminent strategic resource on the planet — with power struggles over energy being the defining characteristic of the new century."

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Blessed Unrest, by Paul Hawken (2007)

If you're looking for some encouragement, here's a good read for you. Hawken is a long-time participant in and observer of what is becoming one of the most important realities of our time--the rising up of networks of people concerned enough about the way things are that they're organizing to do something about it. He doesn't particularly like the word "movement" to describe this phenomenon (since movements tend to coalesce around single issues and charismatic leaders), and notes that these groups are not always well-connected to each other or to mainstream media, but nonetheless have the potential for temendous impact on the world. Hawken initially figured there were 100,000 such organizations--now he believes he was off by at least a factor of 10!

According to Hawken's analysis, this movement of movements (to quote Naomi Klein) tends to focus on three areas: care for the environment, social justice and indigenous voices. (I couldn't help but note that these are three core program areas for NCP!). And it is on this planet-wide organic response to the troubles of our times that Hawken pins his hopes for the future.

"If you look at the science that describes what is happening on earth today and aren't pessimistic, you don't have the correct data. If you meet the people in this unnamed movement and aren't optimistic, you don't have a heart."

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The Bridge at the End of the World by James Speth (2008)

As Homer-Dixon below, Speth (a one-time science advisor for the Carter Administration)sees us heading for catastrophe in the way we're over-using and over-polluting the earth. He attributes this to an economic system based on little more than constant growth, which in turns requires ever more extraction from the earth; weak or nonexistent government leadership; and an environmental movement that has been less "movement" and more an insider operation that down deep believes a) the government can and will eventually do the right thing and b) there won't be need for drastic redirection of our economic and political systems or serious change in our way of living.

Speth calls for a rediscovery of the true meaning of life (relationships, service, enjoyment of leisure, etc.)--and orienting our economic pursuits around this; a new form of participatory democracy that takes back our country from the corporate-led government we currently "enjoy;" ending over $850 billion in annual global subsidies for "perverse" practices such as overfishing the seas; developing an economic model that incorporates environmental care, human rights and worker well-being at its core; and international treaties with "teeth" to enforce environmental protection of critical habitats and endangered species and ecosystems.

This is a depressing book in that it clearly lays out the challenges facing us; it is hopeful in that it does provide a "bridge" to get us from this world to the next. It's up to us to build it and then be ready to walk over it.

"When the crisis occurs, the actions taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, and to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable."

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The Upside of Down by Thomas Homer-Dixon (2006)

If this book were in the Bible, it would be a part of the apocalyptic literature as it has an "end times" tone. But as with Revelation or Daniel, the point here is not to predict an inevitable future or ascribe what's coming to some Divine Plan, but to encourage us to be ready when facing the end of the world as we know it.

Homer-Dixon relates our current condition to that of the Roman Empire at its pinnacle--over-extended and subject to seismic shifts that could and would eventually bring it tumbling down. For Rome, central to the problem was an overextended energy supply chain (the energy being grain--Rome needed an external area the size of France to provide for the motherland). The stressors were enviromental problems, unrest of the populace, loss of local economies to agribusiness (yes, even back then!), outside "terrorist" forces, inside bureaucracy and over-complexity. Any of this sound familiar?

The author makes the point that all complex systems eventually tend to "re-set." Panarchy Theory notes that forests, for instance, go through growth, collapse, regeneration and growth. The trick is to be prepared for the crisis that accompanies such collapse, so that the moment can be maximized rather than bringing catastrophe. To do so, we need to quickly move away from a "growth imperative"--which is cauising much of our problem--to a "resilience imperative." He calls for resilience to be fostered by reducing the force of underlying tectonic stressors (reducing poverty, seeking environmental sustainability, for instance), cultivating readiness for surprises, boosting the resilience of the food system, and making preparations to use breakdown to society's advantage.

"Perhaps before we've exhausted nature and ourselves in a futile attempt to produce meaning from material things, we'll reconsider our values and recognize we can choose another path into the future." And maybe then we can say (with REM): "it's the end of the world as we know it...and I feel fine..."

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Deep Economy: the wealth of communities and the durable future, by Bill McKibben (2007)

McKibben in fast becoming the favorite son of faith-based environmental writers. He knows his facts, but also has an ear to the ground to sense the pulses in local communities, both in his home state of Vermont but also around the globe.

In this book, McKibben calls US consumers to look a little deeper (looking beyond excessive consumption for real satisfaction from life), a little smaller (community-based solutions to our problems) and a little closer to home (supporting local economies) as keys to getting us out of the environmental and spiritual mess we're in. He's quite critical of Big Agriculture and Big Business and prevailing economic models, but not of farming and commerce per se. Along with useful statistics, he offers many examples of real communities making real changes to make their lives more managable, their economic choices more just, and the planet a little healthier.

"It's our greatest challenge--the only real question of our time--to see whether we can transform our current economies enough to prevent some damage and to help us cope with what we can't prevent. To see if we can manage to mobilize the wealth of our communities to make the transition tolerable, even sweet, instead of tragic."

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Christianity and the Making of the Modern Family, by Rosemary Radford Reuther (2000)

This leading Christian feminist does a very good job tracing the roots--or lack thereof--of the contemporary concept of family. Turns out there never really was a "good ole days," as models of the family have changed considerably over the years. She examines families in Judaism and the Greco-Roman world, then reminds us the way in which the Jesus Movement challenged concepts of family--along with all other human institutions. Reuther follows gender roles, the teachings (and practice) of the church in relation to marriage and family, and societal family arrangements on up through the time of the early church, the Middle Ages, and recent history. She challenges the idea of God-ordained male domination of families, and calls for love, justice and equality to reign.

On Christianity's radical beginnings: "The Jesus Movement was a gathering of mostly marginalized women and men out of families and occupations into a countercultural community."

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The Future of Life by E. O. Wilson (2002)

The noted Harvard biologist reveals the complexity of life on earth with a special focus on biodiversity and the magnificent interrelatedness of the ecosystem--and how we still have so much to learn (who would have thought 60 or so new species of flowering plants are discovered in North America annually!). Wilson highlights the impact of human activity (our species appropriates 40 percent of the planet's organic matter produced by plants), catergorizing the primary threats posed by humans under the acronym HIPPO: Habitat destruction, Invasive species, Pollution, Population, and Overharvesting. An insightful and often poetic analysis of the state of the planet, and what we can do to preserve its beauty and integrity.

If we don't change our ways and stop emptying the planet of its biodiversity: "The most memorable heritage of the 21st Century will be the age of loneliness that lies before humanity."

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Consumed, by Benjamin Barber (2007)

Our consumer culture is actively working to infantalize adults--molding them into self-absorbed "children" who seek constant gratification, while giving children (from four years on) adult-like powers of consumer decision-making (including global marketing to children in an effort to create one signal globalized consumer market--easier than trying to reach adults, who sometimes are too attached to deeply rooted cultural values to readily submit). The tools of this process include: ubiquity (everywhere); omnipresence (all the time); omni-legitimacy (legitimating cultural structures to overcome opposition to religion, civil involvement, culture or other forces that might challenge consumerism); fast over slow; simple over complex; self-replicating (franchising); addictiveness (obliterate rival interests).

Take note: "Religion may be the one sector with the most potential for resistance from the outside to the infantalist ethos and its consumer culture."

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The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community, by David Korten (2007)

If you're going to read one book to get a new perspective on why we have such deeply-embedded problems ecologically and economically--and what it will take to shift our thinking and actions--read this one. I took 14 pages of notes--what can I say... On the one hand, we have the Empire model, characterized by material excess for the ruling class, denying the feminine principle of collaboration and life-affirmation, and worshipping male gods that demand, exclude and rule through anointed representatives. Empire has held sway for more or less the past 5,000 years. Often it has had the religious institutions on its side. Today it is expressed as corporate-led economic globalization that:

seeks a world-wide market without restrictions or borders
increases the power of the most powerful players to become even more powerful
forces communities and the environment to pay the price
honors the dominating principle of death and violence

In the other corner is Earth Community, a cooperative, locally-rooted, self-organizing movement in which each individual organism is constantly balancing individual and group interests. Religious radicals such as Jesus have been leaders in promoting this kind of community--even if they haven't had many followers. At heart, Earth Community is a democratic, market-based, community-serving alternative to socialism and capitalism that:

seeks material sufficiency for all
encourages balance of feminine and masculine principles, honoring love and life
nurtures full potential of human nature
worships a god that is an intrinsic omnipresent spirit beyond gender and essentially giving

Korten strongly believes Earth Community is poised to make a come-back, thanks to the tireless efforts of grassroots communities and movements, and the intrinsic truth of its precepts.

According to Korten, the kind of people who rise to leadership in the Empire model see self-interest as the primary good; refuse to take responsibility for their actions or admit errors; craft moral arguments suited to the morals of the people they are trying to persuade; and "so believe their own lies that they are able to lie with great sincerity." Sound familiar?

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Thin Ice, by Mark Bowen (2005)

This book was named Best Science Book of 2005 by National Public Radio's Living on Earth. In it, Bowen, a physicist and mountain climber, travels with Lonnie Thompson, the pioneer of high-altitude ice core drilling, from the Andean Altiplano to Tibetan ice sheets to Mount Kilimanjaro in Kenya and more. Their mission: to look back in history (via the ice cores) to discover how changes in the earth's atmosphere led to changes in the earth's climate. A side-note: as Thompson returns to mountaintop glaciers he's visited before, he has to hike farther-they're rapidly disappearing.

Thin Ice reads like a cross between a science text book, political thriller, and adventure narrative. In the course of the book, Bowen makes a strong research-based case for the reality of human-induced climate change and the importance of taking action to head it off.

Take note: Every known glacier in the tropics is retreating.

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Why Entrepreneurs Should Eat Bananas by Simon Tupman (2006)

Thinking about starting your own business-or faith-based shoestring nonprofit organization? This book offers 101 hints for succeeding, from recognizing that people are looking for someone who is a specialist in their field (and will pay for this) to the value of sometimes giving something away as a way of building loyalty or beginning a relationship (like the owner of the new Italian restaurant on Long Island sending over a free appetizer to our table of eight environmental entrepreneurs on our one-meal-out during a recent retreat) to seeing "personality" as the top quality you're looking for in new hires (only then moving on to skills, knowledge and experience) to marketing in a way that differentiates, not just describes, and that shows how what you have/are will benefit the customer/constituent.

This is a quick read, and if you come away with just one good idea for your endeavor, it was worth the trip to the library to pick it up.

Key learning for NCP director: Organize your space!

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State of the World's Children 2007 by UNICEF

These annual reports by this UN agency are basic reading for anyone wanting an unbiased assessment of the well-being of the world's children. A couple of stats to whet your interest: 115 million primary-age children aren't in school around the world; under-five mortality of children falls by half when mothers have a primary education; women do 75% of the world's agricultural work, but only own 10% of the world's land; the Millennium Development Goals for women could be achieved by an additional $20 billion a year rising to $73 billion a year by 2015-coincidentally just about the exact amount the US would be contributing toward aid for the world's poor if we were paying what the UN recommends (we currently contribute just $15 billion). Enough said?

You can read the whole report as a pdf at the UNICEF website.

Good grief: One in sixteen women in sub-Saharan Africa will die of complications during pregnancy and childbirth. That's 250 times the rate as industrialized countries.

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The Consumer's Guide to Effective Environmental Choices by Union of Concerned Scientists (Three Rivers Press, 1999)

A practical myth-debunking guide to making good choices for the earth. Looks behind products to see their real impact; has easy to grasp stats; does a lot with diet (surprisingly big role in our overall enviro impact), including giving comparisons of various foods (meat, pasta, soy) for their true enviro costs; and encourages us to deal with the large issues (water impacts of beef consumption) rather than smaller ones (cutting off the water while brushing). This is one of the books that finally got me off beef completely.

The Union of Concerned Scientists is generally considered a progressive group-out in front on the nuclear issue some years back, and now with enviro research. One thing's for sure-they can't be accused of "bad science"!

One piece of key advice: Living near work is the most important transportation-related environmental decision a U.S. consumer can make.

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The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs (2005)

With a foreword by U2's Bono, this book comes with good references. Sachs is a highly-regarded expert on the global economy and more recently on global poverty, having been a main figure in the development of the Millennium Development Goals. Even with a bit much self-congratulation in these pages, Sachs very helpfully lays out the challenges facing the world's poor, and the role of the rest of us in helping these billions of neighbors escape poverty's grasp. He's especially hard on rich-world governments for their stinginess. (He may not do enough to challenge the rest of us on our over-consumptive lifestyles.) His analogy of poverty like a sickness of the human body-where the doctor needs to look at the interrelated systems to find a cure-is a helpful one in showing the broader view we must take in addressing poverty.

A key stat: 8 million people in the world die every year because they are poor.

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State of the World 2004: Consumption by World Watch Institute

This special edition of the annual State of the World report focused on the "root of all enviro evil"-our over-consumption. Great job chronicling the massive U.S. consumption habit, right down to how many plastic bags we each toss per day (one). Every year's edition of State of the World is worth the read.

Telling statistic: if we'd cut our beef consumption in half by 2030, we'd save an amount of water equal to the flow of 14 Colorado Rivers.

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Applebee's America by Sosnik and Dowd (2006)

This book, co-written by folks on the opposite side of the political spectrum, shows us why some commercial enterprises (like Applebee's Restaurants), religious groups (mega churches) and political campaigns (Clinton's and Bush's) are successful, and why figuring out what " America " is looking for is a critical part of their success.

Among the findings: most of us are turning for guidance in important issues to trusted people around us rather than to media figures, corporate or political types, or even clergy; people today are making choices more by their heart than by their head; and we're using technology to link rather than to isolate (contrary to many predictions that technology would further isolate us). Helpful reading for anyone trying to connect with "the masses."

It-didn't-take-a-rocket-scientist observation: people today are looking for community and authenticity, tired of being manipulated.

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The Way We Eat: Why our Food Choices Matter by Singer and Mason (2006)

After reading this book, the next time I went to the store I spent 12 precious minutes stymied in front of the egg case, trying to decide between "free range" eggs-laid by hens allowed to scratch around, establish pecking orders and maybe even tend chicks-vs. "prison eggs"-laid by hens in the solitary confinement of small metal cages. "Precious" minutes because I was on my bike and the light was fading fast; "stymied" because the eggs of the liberated hens were twice the price.

The authors trace the origins and production conditions of foods eaten by four U.S. families, ranging from meat and potatoes diet to vegan/local/organic. They provide loads of insight into the trail (of tears, often) taken by these various foods to get to our tables. The book also is unrelenting in doing its enviro calculations, even when the numbers seem counter-intuitive; e.g. "local is always best." Turns out for San Franciscans, it's more environmentally sound to buy rice shipped from Bangladesh than from the San Joaquin Valley of California, due to the enviro impact of irrigation and chemicals used in growing the U.S. crop. The authors take us on visits to confined and free-to-root hog farms and "prison" and free-range chicken operations-after these tours, you'll know why the caged chicken doesn't sing..

Feather-ruffling stat: recommended living space for a broiler chicken in a confinement operation-8.5 x 11 inches.

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Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond (reprinted 2005)

When the residents of Easter Island ran out of forest animals, dolphins and then rats, they turned to the one remaining source of fresh meat.

Of course the question is: why did they run out of those other things? Diamond looks at failed civilizations (and the few long-term success stories) to see what factors determine a society's fate. While most declines have to do with environmental overreach, why don't people notice things are going wrong and change their ways? Included in the list of reasons they don't: leaders isolated from the problems confronting common people; failure to learn from the natives; sticking with practices that worked well for a while, but then began to be detrimental.

Frighteningly prescient concerning our predicament today-and we've got the whole world in our hands-not just an island somewhere.

Something to think about from this book: Failing societies often wasted precious resources trying to persuade the gods to bail them out (most gods worth their salt won't fall for that.).

Might as well pick up Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel while you're at it-fascinating study of why Europeans ended up invading and conquering other groups, and not the other way around..and it had nothing to do with smarts or religion.

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The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-first Century by James Howard Kunstler

It's not going to be pretty when the oil runs out-and takes suburbia and cheap imported products with it. Kunstler takes a hard look at what's coming down the pike-and what it will take for us to make it through. He even rates parts of the country for how he expects them to react to the coming shortages-and isn't kind to my home region of the south (too many individualists, evangelicals, and rifles in pick-up truck windows).

Light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel from this book: Kunstler concludes by calling for a "religion of hope"-challenging us to muster faith in ourselves and in our resurrected local communities as a way of surviving with civility. In the process, he says, we may even find lives more to our liking.

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Crude: The Story of Oil by Sonia Shah (2006)

A very readable-and unflattering-history of the petroleum industry by an Asian-American feminist. She notes that in most countries with oil deposits, this fact has typically exacerbated the gap between the rich and poor-rather than having brought wide-spread prosperity. Also a good introduction to the process-and eco-impact-of oil extraction and production.

Shah says: One-sixth of the global economy is dedicated to harvesting oil.

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Red Sky at Morning: America and the Crisis of the Global Environment by James Speth (2004)

One of the best treatments of the threats posed by human meddling with the ecosystem, including the impact of global warming. His book is set in the context of the position humanity finds itself for the first time in history-able to dominate the entire planet. This new status calls for new sets of values and new forms of thinking-but can we pull it off? He calls on individuals and grass-roots groups to take the lead.

Speth quote:"Human society is in a radically new ethical position because it is now at the planetary controls."

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Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver (2007)

What was the Oxford Dictionary's 2007 Word of the Year? Although my spell-check is saying that it's not a word, that would be “locavore,” or someone who strives to eat only foods produced within a certain geographic radius of where they live. People are increasingly making this choice due to: More accountability for how one's food is raised (if the farmer is polluting the stream, the neighbors will know about it), less environmental impact (since the average food item travels 1500 miles to our table), support for local small-scale farmers, and a more direct connection to the land by the consumer, especially when one is raising a good portion of one's own food.

Barbara Kingsolver's family moves from arid Arizona —where everything from water to residents is piped in—to southwest Virginia , which as we all know (especially those of us born there) is about as close to heaven as earth gets. There they restore an old homestead and set about raising as much of their food as they can in their garden and in their hen house, purchasing from local farmers what they can't or don't produce themselves. In the interest of family harmony, they allow one exception per family member (coffee makes the cut). An interesting feature of the book is that the teenage daughter provides regular commentary throughout.

AVM is mostly engaging narrative of the daily challenges and blessings of a self-sustaining lifestyle, but also includes pithy commentary on the dependence of our agriculture system on fossil fuels (400 gallons per person per year—17% of our energy consumption); biodiversity (we now eat less than 1% of the varieties of plants eaten through human history); junk food (one-third of the average US'er's calories); and small v. large farming (smaller farms produce over three times as much produce dollar-wise per acre as larger farms).

“Eaters must understand, how we eat determines how our world is used.”

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Getting a Grip: Clarity, Creativity and Courage in World Gone Mad by Frances Moore Lappe (2007)

Lappe, best-known for her Diet for a Small Planet some 30 years back, is at it again—helping us see what we're doing to ourselves and how we can find a better way forward. This book is principally a challenge to our consumer economy, and the impact of this way of life on three fronts: what it's doing to us (spiritual/emotional), to the planet (environmental), and to our neighbors (justice).

Lappe really knows her stuff, and brings information into play in a useful way. For instance, while reminding us that the tax rate for the richest one-tenth of one percent of US'ers has gone down by half (yes, 50%!) since 1970, at the other end of the spectrum, poverty costs our society some $500 billion a year in added health costs, crime, and lost economic output.

Beyond lots of good stats, she gets at the deeper meanings of what we're doing to our world, and suggests ways to be and bring change. Keys are decentralization, separating money from politics, taking responsibility (“you made it, it's your responsibility” to manufacturers of our throw-away economy), and redefining power as something shared by all and enhanced in relationships rather than by wealth or status. And she notes that “believing is seeing” for humans: once we begin to believe in another reality, we can begin to see it taking shape.

“Our solutions need spontaneous inventiveness and widespread behavioral changes—and both need the grassroots.”

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Earth Under Fire by Gary Braasch (2007)

Did you know they've moved the lighthouse on Cape Hatteras 2800 feet back from the shore due to rising sea levels? Me neither, but this is one of a myriad of telling tales Braasch brings into play to sound the alarm about global warming. He literally circled the globe—east to west and north to south—to gather information and photos for this book. He then combines these with easy-to-read narrative in a large-format work to tell the tale of a changing world.

Braasch's research is meticulous, and he goes out of his way to note dissenting views, but the conclusions are crisp and clear as a warming Arctic winter day—the planet is getting hotter and this can only mean trouble. If you have time to read one book on the current reality and looming consequences of global warming, this is it.

Stand-by mode of electronic gadgets consumes 6 percent of US electricity—one coal-fired electrical generation plant produces as much CO2 as 1.5 million cars—coal power plant pollutants kill 24,000-30,000 US citizens every year—and 10 times that many Chinese.

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Fugitive Denim by Rachel Louise Snyder (2007)

So what did happen to the Aral Sea …? Turns out it was drained to irrigate cotton, according to Rachel Snyder's wide-ranging investigation into the “seamier” side of this ubiquitous but far from pure fiber.

In tracing the history and current incarnations of denim production (ultimately derived from cotton), Snyder examines the environmental (cotton occupies 3 percent of the world's agricultural land, but uses 25 percent of the world's pesticides), economic (the US provides over $260 million in subsidies to US cotton farmers—completely illegal according to the World Trade Organization) and human consequences of this important global crop (in India, there were 17,000 suicides by farmers in 2003, mostly in cotton-growing regions; the cost of pesticides and GM seeds create debts that overwhelm them—they often kill themselves by ingesting the cotton pesticides).

By the end of the book, you'll realize that the “pure and natural” aura that surrounds cotton is a total myth—and also how hard it is to escape the reach of this versatile if demanding crop, found in everything from pipes to feed to celluloid to, of course, the shirt on your back…

“I believe great people have no nationality; only little people fight over borders.” Visif Iruizou, cotton broker from Bilasuvar, Azerbajan. “We had Russian imperialism, now we have American. What's the difference?”

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The White Man's Burden by William Easterly (2007)

What are the tangible gains from $2.3 trillion in aid given by rich countries to poorer countries since 1950? Not nearly enough, according to William Easterly in this unsparing critique of western aid programs. While the world is divided between the ‘have's' and the ‘have-not's' (the 3 billion people living on less than $2 a day), there is also a great divide in the way aid is or should be offered to the world's poor.

On the one hand, Easterly exposes the problems inherent in the Big Plans of donor nations and agencies (he is particularly hard on Jeffrey Sachs and his “449 interventions”—see Sachs' book above). These groups are typically: full of good intentions, but without motivation; they raise expectations without taking real responsibility for results; they are the ones determining what is needed, ready to apply global blueprints to local problems; and in summary, the donors already know the answers to the problems of our neighbors—without asking for their input.

Contrary to the style of the Planners is that of the Searchers. This method takes responsibility for outcomes; seeks to discover what is needed according to local conditions; discerns the reality of the situation of those being assisted; engages in assessment and follow-up; admits lack of knowledge and turns to local people for guidance; and recognizes the complexity of solutions, and the importance of taking into consideration the mix of political, social, environmental, and historical factors that can make or break a development initiative.

Investing in individuals rather than governments—and seeking their counsel and then their feedback—is the best way to make progress in addressing the problems of the world's poor.

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Over a Barrel: the cost of US foreign oil dependence by John Duffield

If you want to get the bottom of US dependence on petroleum, here's your book. Duffield does a wonderful job scoping out all the ways petroleum courses through our economy, infects our politics, and drains our personal and national treasury. He considers us a gluttonous and inefficient consumer of the black stuff (which we are), while providing a country-by-country analysis of the price we and they (think Iran under the Shah) have paid for our addiction.

This is a thorough and understandable treatment of the key geo-political, environmental and economic reality of our time—dependence on petroleum.

Bottom line? Not counting the war in Iraq , we spend $30-50 billion a year securing the flow of oil from the Middle East . Add in Iraq , and that's about a $50 per barrel surcharge on each of the 7 billion barrels of oil we consume annually.

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Bitter Chocolate by Carol Off (2007)

Need a good excuse to cut back on your chocolate consumption? Look no further. In her expose on the cocoa industry, Off is relentless in chronicling the history (cocoa beans were used as currency by the Aztecs) and tracking the seamy underside of the production of this sweet confection.

Among the findings of her sleuthing: the Cadbury chocolate dynasty was founded by Quakers in England, and these Friends had a tendency to turn a blind eye to the fact that much of their cocoa was supplied by Portuguese traders using slave labor on the island of Sao Tome (ironically, “Saint Thomas” Island). The current situation isn't much better, with cocoa playing a pivotal role in the on-going political turmoil and military conflict in Ivory Coast , a desperately poor country where half the world's cocoa is produced. The young people who live in virtual enslavement on cocoa plantations there have no clue what is made of the precious beans they are forced to pick; poor families who own small cocoa plots cannot fathom that a child in the US might spend $1 on a chocolate bar—more than these families earn in day of picking the beans.

The author is also unsparing in her criticism of rich world consumers, who seem more than happy to turn a blind eye to the plight of children forced to pick the beans that end up in their candy bar. She highlights the potential of Fair Trade products as a way of redeeming this tawdry trade, but feels justice is still far off for those on the producing end of chocolate.

“Low prices are what consumers consider ‘fair,' even if their affordable goods create injustice elsewhere.”

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Simple Prosperity: Finding Real Wealth in a Sustainable Lifestyle by David Wann (2007)

This book is a practical guide to living more sustainably without sacrificing the joy of living. It's chock full of stats and stories (and a few too many pics of the author), and is a great beginnings guide to making personal choices in line with the best interests of the planet.

It's a fact: it takes 2.8 gallons of fuel to air freight a pineapple from Hawaii , but only 1/3 gallon to transport one by ship from Costa Rica.

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Superclass: The global power elite and the world they are making by David Rothkopf (2008)

No conspiracy theory is needed by Rothkopt to make his case that many of the decisions affecting our lives and that of whole industries and even nations is made by a small group of around 6000 people he calls the “superclass.” These people have influence by virtue of their wealth, their decision-making ability and their access to those in power. They serve on many of the same boards, attend many of the same high-level conferences, and enjoy the feeling of being in an exclusive club whose membership spans the globe.

The author goes into a lot (perhaps a bit too much at times) of detail about these people and their place in the order of things, but it nonetheless makes for interesting and troubling reading for those of us not on the list. They are the driving force behind the globalizing trends of our time, often having more decision-making power than heads-of-state. And rather than being tied to particular nations, they are increasingly in a league of their own with rules of their own making. While they may at times show charitable urges, their first priority is nearly always the maintenance of a global order that insures their continued ascendancy. The vast majority of the Top 6000 are male, baby-boomers, have cultural roots in Europe , attended an elite university, have a business background and an institutional power base (corporation or government), are rich and lucky, want it bad, and are self-obsessed, self-reliant, and driven.

The author warns that when the powerful continue to act without the consent of the community and often not in the best interest of the community, “it is inevitable that discontent and tension result,” and calls for strong efforts to democratize both wealth and decision-making power in the long-term interest of all concerned.

“How can a global system prioritize asset allocation if those who need the assets the most are unable to be heard unless a movie star adopts one of them or a rock star passes through town?”

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Slaves to Fashion by Robert Ross (2007)

This is a good overview of the global apparel industry—where our clothes are made (90 percent of shirts and blouses made abroad, but there are over 250,000 sweatshop workers in the USA), by whom (29 million workers, mostly women), for how much (Nicaraguan workers earn 30-40 cents an hour—less than 1% of the retail price of the jeans they are making). Free trade? NAFTA was great for retailers and importers, terrible for workers in the US (lost jobs) and abroad (sweatshop workers paid 10x less that their US counterparts).

What is a sweatshop? A manufacturing plant characterized by long hours, low wages, unsanitary working conditions, often demeaning treatment, and with a middleman between purchaser and producer, guaranteeing that the retailer isn't directly connected to—and thus not responsible for—the working conditions of those who make the products.

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Endgame by Derrick Jensen (2006)

Jensen is a frightened and angry person who is determined to bring down the system—frightened about where we are headed (toward ecological disaster and human suffering), angry at the forces that brought us to this point (capitalism, corporate greed, complicit governments, cities), and advocating bringing down this exploitative system by any means necessary before it brings us all down. His heroes are native people and the occasional non-native person who have seen the system for what it is and have fought it; he disparages anyone who talks about changing the world but who eschews taking up the tools (including violence) to do it. Among this group he ranges pacifists, environmentalists and Christians (and generally other people of faiths too). While much of his focus is on overthrowing or undoing the “system,” he also calls on every person to do what they are called to do after they've woken up to their enslavement—plant gardens, organize communities, learn about edible plants nearby, etc.

He's also very hard on cities, seeing urban areas and their need to extract resources from rural and natural areas as parasitic behavior, and the driving force behind the capitalistic economy.

Much of his analysis is right on: When seven people died from poisoned Tylenol back in the 80's, there was an immediate recall and millions were spent putting on tamper-proof caps; when 24,000 people die every year from air pollution from coal-fired power plants…. He speaks of our situation as one in which we are trapped in an abusive situation (he was abused as a child), and calls for taking immediate steps to extract ourselves from our predicament. And I like his idea that we move forward not due to hope (he doesn't have much) but due to our love—for the planet and its people. This becomes our motivation for bringing about drastic change.

Seems to me he falls short in two areas: not giving religious figures—especially Jesus, but also Romero, Gerardi, Tutu, King, and others—any due as people who have directly confronted exploitative systems; and his affirmation of the use of violence by others, when he himself hasn't taken that path—and when it is not at all clear that this tactic would not backfire, creating pandemonium and a further cycle of the very violence he blames the “system” for promulgating.

“Bringing down civilization first and foremost consists of liberating ourselves by driving the colonizers out of our hearts and minds: seeing civilization for what it is, seeing those in power for what and who they are, and seeing power for what it is. Bringing down civilization then consists of actions rising from that liberation; fighting them on our own terms when we choose.”

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The World is Fat by Barry Popkin (2009)

According to Popkin, a professor of nutrition at UNC, hunger isn't the world's only food-related health issue—a large and rapidly expanding global waistline is nearly as much a threat to human health as lack of adequate food. Having studied eating trends over several decades in a number of societies around the world, Dr. Popkin notes a 16-fold increase in the number of people overweight or obese—from 100 million 60 years ago to 1.6 billion today—and a 20-fold rise in diabetes and hypertension. Interestingly, he shows that none of these were factors in human health (nor were cavities or cancer) until the advent of agricultural societies allowed for stock-piling grain and for life-styles that were more sedentary—a one-two combo that haunts us to this day.

Enter also the food corporations and their insatiable appetite for profit—at any cost to their customers' health; government subsidies and tariffs that under-price key commodities like corn and soybeans (used for meat production and sweeteners), while leaving healthier choices like fruits and vegetables to fend for themselves; globalization of unhealthy eating habits (WTO rules forbade South Korea from keeping western fast food restaurants out of their country); and the gullibility of consumers to fall for the latest diet fad—or the biggest piece of pie. He's especially hard on sweetened drinks (to the point that he's a bit too easy on the wastefulness of bottled water, seeing it as the lesser of the liquid evils), and indeed, we average 2½ sugared beverages per person per day in the USA . In the end, it comes down to calories—are we burning as many as we take in? In a word: not even close.

His solutions? Whole grain, grass-fed, home-prepared foods; government support for good nutrition, not bad; exercise.

“This book is a tale of two worlds. The first is a world of the global food industry and the global medical industry, both of which gain far more from living with the obesity problem than from curing it. The second world…is united in its resolve to prevent these problems by first understanding their underlying causes and then by creating macroeconomic and politics solutions. Right now, the former world is winning completely. But there are genuine signs of hope…”

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The Shadows of Consumption by Peter Dauvergne (2008)

This tell-all book from University of British Columbia professor Dauvergne offers a revealing look at our over-consuming global society and its impact on the planet, from our carbon output (4 tons per person globally) to eco-system destruction (half the world's forests and wetlands gone) to the consequences of an unhealthy environment on human health (causing half of the world's 10 million preventable child deaths), and putting the blame for present and future ecological troubles squarely on those of power and privilege: “Much of the (ecological) progress is incremental and local, doing more to protect fragments of privilege and power than ecosystems or poor people.”

Dauvergne is unsparing in naming the principle causes for the mess we're in: capitalism and Western values, along with faster technologies that exponentially increase our impact. Corporations also are key culprits, green-washing environmental standards, fostering complex supply chains with many gray areas of environmental impact, having double standards (one for the US, another for “over there”), unbridled pursuit of profit, and lack of full-cost accounting for their environmental impacts. And he lays bare the false assumptions that allow us to continue down this path, to wit: indefinite economic growth is possible and necessary; the world's emerging economies should follow the path of industrial development and intensive agriculture; and that consuming more per capita is a sign that all is well.

Did you know: a) Land Cruisers (mostly in the hands of governments and development organizations) are a primary source of three billion tons of dust per year blowing over Africa; b) one-third of all grain grown globally (and two-thirds in the US) is fed to livestock (where 11-17 calories of feed produces 1 calorie of beef); c) cattle are 10 times as destructive to the Amazon as logging (33 million cattle are consumed in the US annually).

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...reviews by friends of NCP...

When the Rivers Run Dry: Water-the Defining Crisis for the 21st Century by Fred Pearce (2006)

Fred Pearce makes the claim that of all the climate challenges facing our planet, the demand for ample amounts of clean water is the greatest challenge before us. Will there be enough water—available in the right places—to meet the needs of a growing population.

Global water challenges are a demand-side problem. There is a sustainable amount of water for drinking and cleaning, even for over 6 billion people. But when the challenges of urbanization, waste, pollution, and the practice of growing water intensive crops in arid places are factored in, it quickly becomes apparent that our world is simply using more water than is available. Around the world, ancient aquifers are drying up, lakes are disappearing and some major rivers no longer flow to the sea.

Some would say that in light of this problem that “technology will save us.” But this is a misleading hope, because in the face of a water supply’s demand-side problem, technology is being used to bring supply-side answers. And that is adding to the problem...

I.    Not enough water in the your area? No problem, we’ll dig more wells. But in certain parts of the world, wells are drying up aquifers faster than they can be refilled. In other areas, shallow wells are inadvertently tapping in to water supplies that are contaminated (sometimes even naturally contaminated, not all pollution is caused by humans) with chemicals like fluorine and arsenic.
II.  Not enough economy in your area? No problem, we’ll divert the rivers and drain the lakes to enable you to grow cash crops. But just take a look at countries in North Asia ( Uzbekistan , Turkmenistan , and others), a desert area that has been growing cotton for decades, and drying up the Aral Sea in the process.
III.  Too much water in your area? No problem, we’ll dig canals and pump rainwater runoff out of the area, then pay to have drinking water piped in.

The last section of the book provides some insightful—and local—solutions to water supply problems: capturing monsoon-rains in India by digging ponds along storm routes, harvesting rain from roofs and storing it in underground reservoirs in China. Interestingly, many of the solutions to water supply problems are decidedly “low-tech” in their approach.

When the Rivers Run Dry has a similar writing style to National Geographic articles. Those who enjoy that magazine and are interested in global water challenges will find this book an very interesting read.

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For the Beauty of the Earth by Steven Bouma-Prediger (2001)

For the Beauty of the Earth provides a challenging theological and ethical argument for creation care. In the first pages, the author introduces the reader to the concept of ecolacy, defined as an understanding of how the world works—including the pressures placed upon it from a variety of sources—and a sense of ecological consciousness. Beginning with a deeper sense of the local area in which we live (Can you name five agricultural plants that are grown in your area? What flowers bloom where you live? How many days until the moon is full?), we move to comprehend the pressures that an increasing population and technological demands of that population is placing on the environment.

But once we know those things, where will we go? What will be our basic theory of how to move from where we are to a more sustainable manner of living? From an understanding of the current state of the environment, Bouma-Prediger walks carefully through Scripture, theology, and ethics to help us understand the various ways we might think about the earth.

Perhaps most helpful is the continued insistence that we adopt a theocentric view of creation, as opposed to a anthropocentric (human-centered), biocentric (life-centered) or ecocentric (environment-centered) view. A theocentric view of creation reminds us that all of life is good because God made it so, and humans are to tend and care for the earth (as opposed to dominating it), preserving creation in its inherent beauty and as a gift to be passed on to future generations.

For the Beauty of the Earth is an excellent resource for those looking to expand their theological and moral view of creation care. It is best read alongside another environmental or creation-care text that focuses on particular creation-related issues, so the ideas of the author can be considered in light of current issues of creation care.

Quote: “The objection about consumption voices a common complaint, namely, that any attempt to scale back our desires and spending habits will push the economy into a tailspin and destroy ‘the American way of life.’ Truth be told, however, our current way of life is in many respects unsustainable, and it is already showing signs of collapse.”

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Omnivore's Dilemma: a natural history of four meals by Michael Pollan (2006)

In The Omnivore's Dilemma the author examines the American food culture and industry, and to a degree, the human species' history of food. As the subtitle reflects, Pollan tells the story in the context of four meals: an organic dinner with ingredients purchased at his local Whole Foods Market (or "Whole Paycheck" as some know it); a lunch from McDonalds with his wife and son; dinner from a sustainable-practice farm in Virginia; and finally, a meal hunted and gathered by the author near his northern California home.

Pollan describes the insidious presence of corn in one form or another in nearly everything we consume. A spectrographic analysis of his family's McDonald's lunch reveals that some 60 percent of it has its origins in corn - from the sweetener in the soft drinks to the binders in the McNuggets and the unnatural diet of corn fed to the cattle ground into the hamburger, plus other more obscure derivatives of corn in ingredients unseen by the consumer. Pollan also tracks the cradle-to-plate path of a calf he purchases in the Dakotas to its corn-fed life and death at a western Kansas confined animal feeding operation (CAFO - an acronym that should encourage vegetarians and deeply disturb the rest of us).

Throughout the book Pollan carefully researches and reveals the cost of his - and our - food choices. Cost is measured in direct consumer prices, irrational federal farm subsidies and environmental impact both locally and globally. Just as important, he examines how those choices affect us on a more personal level: nutritional value and health, the effort required to produce a meal and, significantly, taste - the pleasure of consumption.

The details provided in The Omnivore's Dilemma are important and fascinating, well worth the reader's (or listener's) time and attention. Not to give away too much, the book left me with two significant conclusions: 1. Organic is good. 2. Locally produced food raised by sustainable methods is better.

-Reviewed by Todd Steele, Fort Wayne, IN

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A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah (2007)

"I have never been so afraid to go anywhere in my life as I was that day. Even the scuttle of a lizard frightened my being. Tears had begun to form in my eyes, but I struggled to hide them and gripped my gun for comfort." At just thirteen years old, Ishmael Beah prepared for his first day of active duty as a boy soldier - a day in which he would successfully kill a man, a day in which he would return to the "pot"-pungent village with two dead friends to bury. In his book A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, Ishmael paints a portrait of war that none of us should ever know. From singing rap music and performing talent shows - to smoking marijuana and slitting throats - this truly gentle boy races from village to village, starving, yet surviving, searching for his family, escaping his foe . . . all along the way, stumbling between child and savage, fear and hope. In reading his powerful story, you will meet the incredible mind and strength of this now 26 year-old man, who inadvertently invites each of us to discover the immensity and possibility of our own spirit. It's a dynamic resource for youth and young adults - in particular, asking the question, "Where is God in Ishmael's story?" Check it out!

- Reviewed by Elizabeth Keller, Richmond, IN

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Women Empowered by Phil Borges

If you merely flip through its pages, this book appears to be just another devastating tale of the overwhelming travesties in our world. Ahh, but if you dare to look deeper - into the eyes, cheeks, hands, and stories of these extraordinary women, then you will be humbled by what they have overcome - and how they have transformed individual, familial, and communal lives - along with the life of Mother earth. Cover to cover, photographer Phil Borges gives justice to these women by sharing their stories through honest accounts and telling portraits. As a woman I resonated with the words of Christy Turlington Burns, entrepreneur and author, "For any woman who has struggled with her own feminine identity, there is nothing more reassuring or rewarding than recognizing yourself in the life of another woman, despite the cultural differences and disparities in individual challenges that may exist."

I was particularly moved with how much this book gives beautiful affirmation to the work strived -- and succeeded -- through New Community Project (especially the photographs and narratives shared by David Radcliff). This book is powerful and poignant - instantly, it took me back to our NCP Learning Tour to Nepal, where we worked alongside a grassroots organization, Women Empowerment, where we visited the villages of Godavari and Rithepani, where we were welcomed and worshiped guests, where we listened intently to the quivering stories of Monita, Prajani, Arati, Dipti, Gyany and Ishma, where we gained strength from their strength, where we were challenged by our own ceaseless comforts and plentiful privileges, where language was transcended through smiles, laughter, and tears, and where we drank and danced their culture and customs - and empowerment. This book continues to bring alive the stories of struggling, challenged, yet powerful women everywhere.

This book is provocative - instantly, it made me weep - giving further force to a movement that must be deeply felt, loudly heard, and boldly manifested. In the words of Madleine Albright in the Forward, "This is a book about hope, based on reality. It rests on the premise that the ancient enemies of human progress - poverty, ignorance, and disease - can be defeated, or at least forced to retreat, through the empowerment of women and girls."

- Reviewed by Elizabeth Keller, Richmond, IN

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New Community Project
Building a new community of justice and peace for our neighbors and respect for the earth
9036 W. Quail Track Drive
Peoria, AZ 85383
888-800-2985-toll free
David Radcliff, director; Tom Benevento, Sustainable Living Homestead director; Aaron Johnston, Sustainable Building coordinator; Kim Chaffin, Care for Creation specialist; Becky Fletcher, website manager; Juliana Pitruzzello, financial secretary and product management
ncp@newcommunityproject.org
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New Community Project never sells or otherwise discloses user or donor information outside the organization.

About the upside-down logo: From space there is no up or down to planet Earth. When drawing the maps, the US and Europe are on top because . . . we draw the maps. The choice of the “upside-down” Earth as our logo shows our commitment to begin looking at our world and its people in a new way, with a new set of values and relationships. The early Christian community was accused of "turning the world upside down" for its radical way of doing things, and movements throughout history have been blamed for upsetting the established order. We can only hope they say the same thing about us….