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Blue Revolution
Unmaking America's Water Crisis
by Cynthia Barnett
Americans
see water as abundant and cheap: we turn on the faucet and out it
gushes, for less than a penny a gallon. We use more water than any
other culture in the world, much to quench what’s now our largest
crop—the lawn. Yet most Americans cannot name the river or aquifer
that flows to our taps, irrigates our food, and produces our
electricity. And most don’t realize these freshwater sources are in
deep trouble.
Blue Revolution exposes the truth about the water crisis—driven not
as much by lawn sprinklers as by a tradition that has encouraged
everyone, from homeowners to farmers to utilities, to tap more and
more. But the book also offers much reason for hope. Award-winning
journalist Cynthia Barnett argues that the best solution is also the
simplest and least expensive: a water ethic for America. Just as the
green movement helped build awareness about energy and
sustainability, so a blue movement will reconnect Americans to their
water, helping us value and conserve our most life-giving resource.
Avoiding past mistakes, living within our water means, and turning
to “local water” as we do local foods are all part of this new, blue
revolution. |
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Challenging Nature
The Clash of Science and Spirituality at the New Frontiers of Life
by Lee M. Silver
From Booklist The archetype of mortal defiance, Prometheus has found a new
champion. Outspoken molecular biologist Silver argues that only
scientists willing to join Prometheus in challenging divine
prohibitions will ever deliver on the promise of new genetic
technologies. Although despairing of ever expunging spiritual
beliefs from liberal democracies altogether, Silver hopes that a
truly open and rational public dialogue will expose the folly of
continuing to allow religious fundamentalists to impose needless
restrictions on scientific research. It particularly galls Silver
that such religionists often confuse an ill-informed public by
cleverly wrapping their religious objectives in scientific rhetoric.
Surprisingly, Silver sees the Christian obstructionists of the
Religious Right finding allies among the left-leaning,
post-Christian devotees of nature. Both groups recoil from the
prospect of using new science to improve human genes or to
reengineer the plants and animals humans rely on for food. Both
groups, Silver asserts, fail to realize that humans have been
productively intervening in natural reproductive processes for
millennia--and should now use available tools to do so more
aggressively, both to minimize human suffering and to maximize
ecological health. The relentlessness with which Silver disputes the
views of his opponents will impress many readers--and alienate
others. But this book will surely fuel precisely the kind of debate
Silver recognizes as essential in a democracy sorting out perplexing
scientific possibilities. Bryce Christensen Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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Creation,
The
An Appeal to Save Life on Earth
by E. O. Wilson
(Author)
From Booklist
Famed entomologist, humanist thinker, and cogent writer Wilson
issues a forthright call for unity between religion and science in
order to save the "creation," or living nature, which is in "deep
trouble." Addressing his commonsensical yet ardent discourse to
"Dear Pastor," he asks why religious leaders haven't made protecting
the creation part of their mission. Forget about life's origins,
Wilson suggests, and focus on the fact that while nature achieves
"sustainability through complexity," human activities are driving
myriad species into extinction, thus depleting the biosphere and
jeopardizing civilization. Wilson celebrates individual species,
each a "masterpiece of biology," and acutely analyzes the nexus
between nature and the human psyche. In the book's frankest
passages, he neatly refutes fantasies about humanity's ability to
re-create nature's intricate web, and deplores the use of religious
belief (God will take care of it) as an impediment to conservation.
Wilson's eloquent defense of nature, insights into our resistance to
environmental preservation, and praise of scientific inquiry
coalesce in a blueprint for a renaissance in biology reminiscent of
the technological advances engendered by the space race. Donna
Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
--This text refers to
the Hardcover edition.
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Earth
Democracy
Justice,
sustainability, and Peace
by Vandana Shiva
A
leading voice in the struggle for global justice, Vandana Shiva is a
world-renowned environmental activist and physicist. In Earth
Democracy, Shiva updates the struggles she helped bring to
international attention—against genetic food engineering, culture
theft, and natural resource privatization-—uncovering their links to
the rising tide of fundamentalism, violence against women, and
planetary death.
Starting in the 16th century with the initial enclosure of the
British commons, Shiva reveals how the commons continue to shrink as
more and more natural resources are patented and privatized. As our
ecological sustainability and cultural diversity erode, so too is
human life rendered disposable. Through the forces of neoliberal
globalization, economic and social exclusion ignite violence across
lines of difference, threatening the lives of millions.
Yet these brutal extinctions are not the only trend shaping human
history. Struggles on the streets of Seattle and Cancun and in homes
and farms across the world have yielded a set of principles based on
inclusion, nonviolence, reclaiming the commons, and freely sharing
the earth’s resources. These ideals, which Shiva calls Earth
Democracy, serves as an urgent call to peace and as the basis for a
just and sustainable future.
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Environmental
Ethics
Divergence &
Convergence
by
Susan J. Armstrong and Richard G. Botzler
This collection of essays and articles surveys multidisciplinary
approaches to environmental ethics by leading writers, and provides
an historical survey of thought on our responsibility to the
environment. It includes non-Western as well as Western religious
and cultural perspectives. Readers are encouraged to develop their
own environmental ethic by the presentation of a number of differing
but viable theories in the readings. |
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Ethics for a
Finite World
An Essay
Concerning a Sustainable Future
by Herschel Elliott
(Author)
Herschel Elliott takes traditional environmental ethics to task in
this provocative, challenging, and controversial look at the balance
between human activity and the environment. His comments on this
balance are illustrated by the effects of Hurricane Katrina. He had
this to say about the efforts to rebuild: "The whole problem is that
the constant population and economic increase can't stand up against
natural disasters like this, and until that is addressed, the
problem will remain and this will happen again. The constant
requests for money is like a band-aid on an open wound, it won't fix
it."
This acclaimed philosopher constructs a coherent theory of ethics
based on the idea that both self-centered and self-sacrificing
behaviors lead to the same end: the total collapse of our
environment. Therefore, the first ethical obligation of everyone
should be to maintain the endurance and resilience of the Earth's
ecosystem. Then, after the environment is secure, ethical attention
can be directed towards maintaining the human population at a level
that will allow human life to become worth living.
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Global:
Environmental Ethics
by
Louis P. Pojman
Dr. Louis Pojman is Professor of Philosophy at the United States
Military Academy. He has a Ph.D. in Religion and Ethics from Union
Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Oxford
University. He has been a Fulbright Fellow at the University of
Copenhagen and a Rockefeller Fellow at the University of Hamburg. He
has taught at Oxford University, the University of Notre Dame, the
University of Texas and the University of Mississippi before coming
to West Point last year. He has won several Outstanding Teaching
Awards and has been the President of the Society for Philosophy of
Religion and an Associate Editor for The Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
He is the author of more than 25 books and more than 80 articles.
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How Are We to Live?
Ethics in an Age of
Self-Interest
by
Peter Singer
Singer suggests that people who take an ethical approach to life
often avoid the trap of meaninglessness, finding a deeper
satisfaction in what they are doing than those people whose goals
are narrower and more self-centered. He spells out what he means by
an ethical approach to life and shows that it can bring about
significant and far-reaching changes to one's life. How Are We to
Live? explores the way in which standard contemporary assumptions
about human nature and self-interest have led to a world that is
fraught with social and environmental problems. Singer asks whether
selfishness is in our genes and concludes that we do not have to
accept the bleak view of human nature sometimes believed to be
inevitable, given our evolutionary origins. |
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Invitation
to Environmental Philosophy
Edited by
Anthony Weston
Brief, inviting, and provocative, this book is a perfect
introduction to the burgeoning field of environmental ethics. It
animates the basic questions, tells compelling stories, and offers a
range of philosophical responses as complementary--not
antagonistic--exploratory strategies vital to this growing topic.
The book is built around five individually authored chapters, each a
representative contribution by a major author in the field. Each
chapter covers a central topic in environmental ethics in a somewhat
different style. An epilogue offers both a bibliographical guide to
these topics and many related issues and a practical guide to
environmental action. An Invitation to Environmental Philosophy is
an ideal text for courses in environmental ethics and environmental
philosophy and an intriguing and rich supplement to a general ethics
course, as well as a bridge into the academic literature in
environmental philosophy. |
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The Last Refuge
Patriotism, Politics, and the Environment in an Age of Terror,
Revised an Updated Edition
by David W. Orr
From Publishers Weekly
In 13 essays, Orr, professor of environmental studies and politics
at Oberlin, critiques what he says is the current Bush
administration's lack of environmental policy and calls for a more
engaged citizenry. Orr sets the scene by relating a 2001 meeting
with noncommittal White House staffers in which he and other leading
environmentalists presented an environmental status report, entitled
"Common Ground/Common Futures." "The news was delivered," he writes.
"But no one was home." The present state of environmental affairs,
he says, reflects "an unconstrained managerial and well-armed
plutocracy intent on global plunder." Orr advocates a coherent
environmental agenda, vigorous public information, restored
political leadership and increased emphasis on environmental study
in higher education. Specific essays focus on particular figures in
the debate: one exposes Bjorn Lomberg, a favorite author of Dick
Cheney's, as "scientifically dishonest," while another praises
writer Wendell Berry's commitment to agrarian ideals. Perhaps the
most informative essay in the collection, entitled "Leverage,"
examines the meager patchwork of U.S. environmental regulations and
the nation's libertarian tendencies. Orr's politics will be familiar
to all left-wing readers. There is little originality in his
criticisms of the right and its attitude toward natural resources
and energy efficiency. Orr's writing is steeped in sometimes utopian
antimodern longings for small family farms, ecologically sound urban
planning, increased public transportation and ecological diversity.
While it's not hard to imagine how these essays might energize a
readership committed to Orr's brand of politics, their rhetoric is
too repetitive and ponderously moralizing to win wider audiences for
their ideas.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier
Inc. All rights reserved.--This
text refers to the
Hardcover edition.
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Making Peace
with the Earth
by
Vandana Shiva
In this compelling and rigorously documented exposition,
Vandana Shiva demolishes the myths propagated by corporate
globalisation in its pursuit of profit and power and shows its
devastating environmental impact. Shiva argues that consumerism
lubricates the war against the earth and that corporate control
violates all ethical and ecological limits. She takes the reader on
a journey through the world's devastated eco-landscape, one of
genetic engineering, industrial development and land-grabs in
Africa, Asia and South America. She concludes that exploitation of
this order is incurring an ecological and economic debt that is
unsustainable. Making Peace with the Earth outlines how a paradigm
shift to earth-centred politics and economics is our only chance of
survival and how collective resistance to corporate exploitation can
open the way to a new environmentalism. |
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What
Have We Done?
By
John Nolt (Author), Athena Lee Bradley (Author), Mike Knapp
(Author), Donald Earl Lambard (Author), Jonathan Scherch (Author)
What Have We Done: The Foundation for Global Sustainability's State
of the Bioregion Report for the Upper Tennessee Valley and the
Southern Appalachian Mountains, is a comprehensive assessment of the
ecological health of the Upper Tennessee Valley and Southern
Appalachian Mountains. A synoptic story of a land and people-a
bioregional narrative-it paints, for the first time, a large-scale
picture of what we have done to this land and to ourselves. |
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