Environmental Politics

In the spring of 2010, as we watched oil gushing unstoppably into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, many Americans turned their focus to the region for the first time, wondering how this could happen and demanding corporate and government accountability. Yet Rowan Jacobsen brings a surprising perspective to the tragedy: as bad as the spill was, it is only the latest chapter in a century-long story of destruction.

Most people know Ted Danson as the affable bartender Sam Malone in the long-running television series Cheers. But fewer realize that over the course of the past two and a half decades, Danson has tirelessly devoted himself to the cause of heading off a looming global catastrophe---the massive destruction of our planet's oceanic biosystems and the complete collapse of the world's major commercial fisheries.

In Indien ist die Kuh heilig. Das Abschlachten von Kühen würde viele Inder empören, so kommt Rindfleisch nun als "Büffelfleisch" auf den Tisch. Statt mit dem traditionsreichen Senföl wird mit dem angeblich gesünderen Sojaöl gekocht, die Getreidevielfalt weicht Standardweizen und Standardreis. Hinter diesem Wandel der indischen Ernährungsgewohnheiten stecken die Interessen der globalen Agrarindustrie.

Journalist Jelmer Mommers knows most people prefer not to talk or even think about climate change, and that is exactly why he wrote this book. Denial and despair are not the only possible responses to the current crisis. Drawing on the latest science, Mommers describes how we got here, what possible future awaits us, and how you can help make a difference.

A groundbreaking volume from the president and CEO of the Appalachian Mountain Club makes the profound argument that to preserve the environment, a revolution must take place in which every person becomes a champion for nature and the outdoors. In The Outdoor Citizen, John Judge coins the term "the outdoor citizen" delivering his remarkably persuasive argument that we must all become citizens of the natural world, owning and instilling in the next generation a keen interest in the outdoors and reconnecting with life's most essential foundation: nature.

At least thirteen million Americans will have to move away from American coasts in the coming decades, as rising sea levels and increasingly severe storms put lives at risk and cause billions of dollars in damages. In Charleston, South Carolina, denial, boosterism, widespread development, and public complacency about racial issues compound; the city, like our country, has no plan to protect its most vulnerable. Susan Crawford tells the story of a city that has played a central role in America's painful racial history for centuries and now stands at the intersection of climate and race.

Sixteen-year-old climate activist Xiuhtezcatl Martinez and his group the Earth Guardians believe that choices made now will have a lasting impact on the world of tomorrow, and they want to ensure a positive, just, and sustainable future. Beginning with their empowering story, We Rise explores many aspects of effective activism and provides step-by-step information on how to start and join solution-oriented movements.

Iain Murray's exposé reveals how environmental blowhards actually do more to waste energy, endanger species, and kill people than those they finger, while capitalism, hunting, and old-fashioned property rights have made the planet better. Rather than just myth busting and blame shifting, Murray offers applicable and effective solutions for each catastrophe - something the Left has yet to do.

As fossil fuel prices rise, oil insecurity deepens, and concerns about climate change cast a shadow over the future of coal, a new energy economy is emerging. Wind, solar, and geothermal energy are replacing oil, coal, and natural gas, at a pace and on a scale we could not have imagined even a year ago. For the first time since the Industrial Revolution, we have begun investing in energy sources that can last forever. Plan B 4.0 explores both the nature of this transition to a new energy economy and how it will affect our daily lives.

Toyota would like us to think that Mother Nature drives a Prius, Ford wants us to Join the Green Revolution,” and McDonald’s has painted its golden arches green. But are big brands and the celebrities endorsing them really as green as they claim? In The Greenwash Effect, Guy Pearse looks behind the corporate façade in the tradition of Fast Food Nation and No Logo - and what he finds will startle you.

Deniers of climate change sometimes quip that claims about global warming are more about political science than climate science. They are wrong on the science, but may be right with respect to its political implications. A hotter world, writes Andrew Guzman, will bring unprecedented migrations, famine, war, and disease. It will be a social and political disaster of the first order.

When most Americans think of environmentalism, they think of the political left, of vegans dressed in organic-hemp fabric, lofting protest signs. In reality, writes Jacob Darwin Hamblin, the movement - and its dire predictions - owe more to the Pentagon than the counterculture.

Imagine walking into a restaurant and finding chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides, or neonicotinoid insecticides listed in the description of your entree. They may not be printed in the menu, but many are in your food.These are a few of the literally millions of pounds of approved synthetic substances dumped into the environment every day, not just in the US but around the world.

From the author of the New York Times best-selling Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming (and Environmentalism) comes Red Hot Lies, an exposé of the hypocrisy, deceit, and outright lies of the global warming alarmists and the compliant media that supports them. Did you know that most scientists are global-warming skeptics? Or that environmental alarmists have knowingly promoted false and exaggerated data on global warming?

The Agile City engages the fundamental question: what to do about it? Journalist and urban analyst James S. Russell argues that we'll more quickly slow global warming - and blunt its effects - by retrofitting cities, suburbs, and towns. The Agile City shows that change undertaken at the building and community level can reach carbon-reduction goals rapidly. Adapting buildings (39 percent of greenhouse-gas emission) and communities (slashing the 33 percent of transportation related emissions) offers numerous other benefits that tax gimmicks and massive alternative-energy investments can't match.

On Earth Day 1970 20 million Americans displayed their commitment to a clean environment. It was called the largest demonstration in human history, and it permanently changed the nation's political agenda. By Earth Day 2000 participation had exploded to 500 million people in 167 countries. The seemingly simple idea—a day set aside to focus on protecting our natural environment—was the brainchild of U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin.

Colonists brought a different view of nature, one that saw its resources as commodities to be bought and sold. Over the course of centuries, this conflict of ideologies would continue, one that persists today in courtroom debates surrounding Indigenous rights, on frontlines protesting pipeline projects, and in the hearts and minds of people advocating that "water is life". So when a water protector proclaims "water is life", they speak not just in slogan form, but as part of an ancient philosophy that dates back millennia.

The world must reach negative greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change. Yet no single plan has addressed the full scope of the problem - until now. In The 100% Solution, Solomon Goldstein-Rose - a leading millennial climate activist and a former Massachusetts state representative - makes clear what needs to happen to hit the 2050 target: the manufacturing booms we must spur, the moonshot projects we must fund, the amount of CO2 we'll have to sequester from the atmosphere, and much more.

To listen to most pundits and political writers, evolution, stem cells, and climate change are the only scientific issues worth mentioning and the only people who are anti-science are conservatives. Now for the first time, science writers Dr. Alex B. Berezow and Hank Campbell have drawn open the curtain on the left’s fear of science. As Science Left Behind reveals, vague inclinations about the wholesomeness of all things natural, the unhealthiness of the unnatural, and many other seductive fallacies have led to an epidemic of misinformation.

In this brilliant, gracefully written, and important new book, former Secretary of the Interior and Governor of Arizona Bruce Babbitt brings fresh thought to questions of how we can build a future we want to live in.