Environmental Protection

“A passionate and heartfelt call to care.” —Bruce Feiler, New York Times bestselling author of Walking the Bible and America’s Prophet In You Are Here, Thomas Kostigen, the New York Times bestselling co-author of The Green Book, takes us to the most extreme environmental areas on the...

Part memoir, part critique, and paean to the value of national parks, American Covenant distills the experience and insights from two long careers in conservation. Soukup and Machlis show how the national parks are essential to maintaining the essence of our national heritage, and key to America's future in a changing climate and political landscape. Sharing real-world examples of both victories and defeats in protecting national parks, this candid, thoughtful book reminds us that the national parks are a promise - a covenant - within and between generations of Americans.

Early in the morning on August 27, 1996, 20-year-old Scott Dominguez showed up for an ordinary day at the fertilizing plant where he worked. By 11:00 am, he was clinging to life, unconscious and suffocating from toxic exposure to cyanide in a tank that was supposed to contain only mud and water. EPA Special Agent Joseph Hilldorfer was tasked with finding out what really happened on that horrific day in Soda Springs, Idaho, but the answers would not be easily uncovered.

For a culture careening from right to left in search of societal values, Patricia Beard offers the moral lessons learned by former New Jersey governor and head of the EPA Christine Todd Whitman during her formative years. "Family came first. Then came the farm....Then the community: other farmers and neighbors around Oldwick....The way my family, and many others, practiced politics grew out of this sense of interdependence," Whitman explains.