The most important eco-books: an alternative list

Newer and cheekier!

Posted by Emily Gertz (Guest Contributor) at 11:44 AM on 21 Dec 2006

Read more about: books | Bill McKibben | Bill McDonough

With sincere respect to my colleagues across the Atlantic (this is all a matter of opinion, after all), I'm dismayed by some of the choices on their list of most important environmental books. Hoary tomes like The Lorax, an analysis of the impact of pesticides on the environment that's nearly a half-century old (I shake in my boots to criticize La Carson thus) ... if the list were of books that had a big impact in their time, or books that will bolster the sentiments of the already-sympathetic, then it would be enough.

But the "small is beautiful," "earth as organism," "pursue simplicity" approach to eco-reform reflected in most of these choices has not proven a big winner in Western mass culture. Right or wrong, converting Western mass culture is the task at hand today, if we're going to solve the problems addressed by these authors over the decades.

What are the books that speak to more recent science, contemporary events, and our evolving understanding of the intersections of environment with economy, culture, and human rights?

Here are some titles I'd consider:

The End of Nature, by Bill McKibben
A Whale Hunt, by Robert Sullivan
Heavy Weather, by Bruce Sterling (fiction)
The Mars Trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson (fiction): Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars
Collapse, by Jared Diamond
Field Notes from a Catastrophe, by Elizabeth Kolbert
Silent Snow: The slow poisoning of the Arctic, by Marla Cone

For the quasi-kid's book perch (currently occupied by that good ol' Lorax), how about Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind?

And for the solutions-oriented section of the shelf, how about:

WorldChanging: A User's Guide to the 21st Century
Design Like You Give A Damn, by Architecture for Humanity
Cradle to Cradle, by Bill McDonough (as noted in the comments to the first list)
Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature, by Janine Benyus

(Disclosure: I contributed to the WorldChanging book, and DLYGAD was co-written by one of my WorldChanging colleagues.)

What suggestions do others have? And what ought to be on this list from places other than the United States?

For story: The most important eco-books: an alternative list
15 Comments | Post a Comment

eschew fiction

With Michael Crichton's State of Fear in mind - I think either list is improved by avoiding fiction works.

Aren't some of our current problems a result of our preference for fiction over reality? Not that good fiction doesn't have it's place, but aren't there some other great non-fiction that speaks to these times?

such as;

Omnivore's Dillema
Last Child in the Woods
Cohousing: a contemporary approach to housing ourselves
Seeing Like a State

by Kif Scheuer at 11:57 AM on 21 Dec 2006

other important books

Natural Capitalism by Lovins, Lovins, and Hawken
Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home Scale Permaculture by Toby Hemmenway

by GreenEngineer at 12:04 PM on 21 Dec 2006

I'll keep my fiction, thanks

Why let hacks like Crighton spoil our fun?

And besides, creative arts can be great and effective way to get a serious point across. Just because people use them to put over lies as well as truth, we should abandon novels as potentially potent mechanisms of social change?

The wretchedness of Crighton's prose as well as his denialism only makes the excellence of Robinson's "Mars Trilogy" and Bruce's "Heavy Weather" even more prominent!

Emily Gertz Journalist & Editor egertz AT oneatlantic DOT net http://www.apartmentecology.com/

by Emily Gertz at 12:20 PM on 21 Dec 2006

favorites

If Paolo Bacigalupi had an anthology published, I would put his short stories near the top of the environmental literature list. Until then, I have to be satisfied with various magazines and best-of-the-year anthologies. Didactic and memorable.

Kim Stanley Robinson's "Science in the Capital" trilogy comprise the finest novels to date about global warming. They are "Forty Signs of Rain" (2004), "Fifty Degrees Below" (2005) and the upcoming "Sixty Days and Counting."

Robert Charles Wilson's "Spin" just won the Hugo award for best novel. Not about anthropogenic climate change, this elegaic and bittersweet book directly confronts the personal toll and political ramifications of "hidden" ecological catastrophe.

Nausicaa is a good suggestion. I thought Princess Mononoke was a more accomplished, more subtle film, but maybe Nausicaa has more kid appeal.

Nonfiction: Mark Reisner's "Cadillac Desert" hit me like a cinder block when I read it. Amazon says it's "a very illuminating lesson in the political economy of limited resources anywhere."

"Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World" by Alan Weisman is tremendous and overflowing with solutions, but it probably belongs on the old-school list.

Ped Shed Blog

by Laurence Aurbach at 1:18 PM on 21 Dec 2006

Look to the past

While Emily is right to suggest that we brush the cobwebs away from antiquated lists of environmental books...

I'd like to suggest that for real depth, one has to go back to past authors. One needs exposure to other cultures, other times - otherwise one is a prisoner of the fads and taboos of the present.

In addition to the writers on Emily's list, why not:
Thoreau
John Muir
H.T. Odum (seminal U.S. ecologist; specialist on energy ecology)
Ivan Illich
St. Francis
John Seymour (English countryside & self-sufficiency)
Gene Logsdon (Midwest small farm & gardening, still writing)
William Blake and the Romantic poets
George Eliot and any of the other 19th C realistic novelists

Bart
Energy Bulletin

by Bart Anderson at 1:21 PM on 21 Dec 2006

Personal Inspiration

Great list. But I would have to add Aldo Leopold's "A Sand County Almanac." His essays "Thinking Like a Mountain" and "The Land Ethic" are a constant source of inspiration (and citation).

In addition, I would add William Dietrich's account of the spotted owl controversy in the Pacific Northwest, "The Final Forest." This book inspired me to pursue environmental studies as a freshman in college.

Looking forward to reading "Cadillac Desert" now that I live in the Phoenix area.

Phd Student, IGERT Urban Ecology Fellow, School of Sustainability, Arizona State University

by Thad Miller at 2:20 PM on 21 Dec 2006

online discussion of books

Hello All.

It would be great if the Grist folks could set up an area for discussing what we can learn from some of these books and how to implement some of the authors' suggestions.

At the moment -- probably because Greenland was a recent topic on the Grist site -- I'm interested in reading parts of "Collapse" again. Can anyone direct me to an online discussion of this book?

Thanks!

by wiscidea at 4:03 PM on 21 Dec 2006

fiction; Kolbert

I entirely agree with Emily Gertz's insistence that we need fiction, as well as with Bart Anderson's valuable suggestion that we always need to be reading things from the past as well as the present.

A couple of days ago, Biodiversivist offered a link to the Wikipedia article on the German naturalist Steller, and thence to the article on Steller's sea cow, apparently the first large aquatic mammal to be driven to extinction by human activity. The article mentioned (and this is perhaps the most beautiful little detail that I have ever seen in a Wikipedia article) that Rudyard Kipling's story "The White Seal," in the second volume of "The Jungle Books," has a character who is a Steller's sea cow -- something I never appreciated when I read the book as a child. Nevertheless, I loved those books, and even more perhaps, "The Just So Stories." These are excellent for encouraging zoophilia in young readers.

Jack London is one of America's greatest writers. Such stories as "To Build a Fire" are masterpieces in depicting life, and death, in the North. His most remarkably successful genre, IMHO, is the narrative told with an animal as intermediate narrator, most notably "Call of the Wild" and "White Fang."

A more recent very well done and well loved animal epic is "Watership Down," by Richard Adams. But that is not truly in the tradition of Jack London. A powerful novel which is reminiscent of both London and Adams is Barbara Gowdy's "The White Bone," the major characters of which are African elephants.

Also in the London tradition is the popular paleontologist Robert Bakker's "Raptor Red," the main character of which is a large Velociraptor-cousin, a Utahraptor, living in the early Cretaceous in western North America. Prehistoric fiction -- and there are very few book-length examples -- are wonderful ways to engage young readers in considering ecological systems in a more abstract way, and in thinking about the evolution of life on earth.

On Elizabeth Kolbert: Her excellent book covers much the same ground as Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," though in a different style -- so why not include AIT as well?

And, if current crises are fair subject matter, then I recommend Subhankar Banerjee's "Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Seasons of Life and Land."

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 8:05 PM on 21 Dec 2006

Resilience

I'm not sure how acessible it is to a general audience, but Gunderson and Holling's Panarchy covers a lot of important ground.

by Stentor at 8:59 PM on 21 Dec 2006

Others

Our Stolen Future (multiple authors forgotten at this moment)

Toxic Sludge is Good for You! (John Stauber/Sheldon Rampton)

Sand County Almanac (Leopold)

The Weather Makers (Tim Flannery)

For younger readers:
Water: A natural history (Alice Outwater)

The 5% Project

by JMG at 6:51 AM on 22 Dec 2006

My suggestions.

I am recommending two books and an author. The first is Losing Ground: American Environmentalism at the Close of the Twentieth Century by Mark Dowie. Dowie analyzes environmentalism as a movement and as old fashioned politics. His greatest contribution, was pointing out that the "little" green groups play a role at not only fighting the evil doers, but also play a role in making the "big" green groups accountable. My second book is At Odds with Progress: Americans and Conservation by Bret Wallach. Wallach is an author that has not produced near enough. He is geographer and does a tour of the US, illustrating forces behind land use, and tells about the complex politics behind the founding of such agencies as the National Forest Service. This is the line that sold me. "Conservation has been our way of doing what cannot be done. It has been our way of saying what must not be said. It has been the way for us to resist."

Finally, I want to recommend anything by Lewis Mumford. He was the urban and architecture critic for years for the New Yorker. He had a run in with Jane Jacobs, that I don't think he ever got over. His reputation has faded, while hers still survivies her. They don't make'em like him anymore. He can take a subject or issue and give you views of it from culture, to economics to history. I only know two people active today who can do that: Mike Davis and Rebecca Solnit. Most important of all, this man had down the environmental challenge in the 1930s, and people are still eating his dust on the issue. Don't be put off by his first half of the 20th century language and writing style. He was the real thing, and did not even go to college!

randino

Randy Cunningham

by randino at 7:11 AM on 22 Dec 2006

So many books, so little time!

I always have difficulty with "top ten" book lists, because there are so many books I love, for many different reasons. However, to contribute.. here is a list of books that I have read recently that have inspired me to think differently about all things environmental:

Omnivore's Dilemma Michael Pollan
Cradle to Cradle William McDonough
Caribou Rising Rick Bass
The Big Open: On Foot Across Tibet's Chang Tang Rick Ridgeway
Listening to the Land Derrick Jensen
Fluke Christopher Moore
Being Caribou Karsten Heuer
Prodigal Summer Barbara Kingsolver

Of course, there are many, many wonderful books out there. Just keep reading - anything and everything. Almost any book can give you new insight into the world around you, as long as your mind and heart are open. And if there is a book on the list above that you've been meaning to read, but haven't yet found the time... why not buy yourself a Christmas (Hanukah, Kwaanza, Solstice, New Year's) gift?

With that, I am off tomorrow morning to North Carolina to spend the hols with my Mom. Wishing everyone the best of the holiday season!

Kaela

by kmp at 7:35 AM on 22 Dec 2006

Two Top Enviro Books

This is a wonderful discussion and kudos to us eco-readers out there! My two favorites are:

1. The Ecology of Commerce (Paul Hawken) - to help us address practical solutions to sustainable development. I enjoyed this book much more than Natural Capitalism (Hawken and Lovins x2) which deals with the same topic but is not nearly as succinct or convincing.

and surprise...

2. A Sand County Almanac (Aldo Leopold) - to inspire us and keep us wanting to change the world. This one is a true classic for both its message and literary eloquence.

Keep on reading and stop fighting about fiction vs. non! Let's do whatever it takes to learn and reach others.

by JustitoVerde at 8:38 AM on 22 Dec 2006

passive solar

Yeah, it's old, but why not Ed Mazria's Passive Solar Energy Book

by willa at 5:38 PM on 22 Dec 2006

and i'd add...

nonfiction
vandana shiva's
stolen harvest: the hijacking of the global food supply and/or biopiracy

fiction
ursula k. leguin's
buffalo gals, won't you come out tonight

leslie marmon silko's
ceremony

edward abbey's
the monkey wrench gang

daniel quinn's
ishmael

tc boyle's
friend of the earth

ernest callenbach's
ecotopia

most of barbara kingsolver's books/essays

most of carl hiaasen is pretty hilarious, relevant, and getting to some wide populations...

of course i agree with those who have said that author's of the past are important as well--especially moments of transitions with the romantics and later, the modernists.

we could do a film list too....
soylent green
erin brokovich
the china syndrome
the piano
an inconvenient truth
who killed the electic car
the day after tomorrow
blue vinyl

jessica k. w.

by etoilebleu at 6:29 PM on 22 Dec 2006

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