The God Species: How the Planet Can Survive the Age of Humans / Mark Lynas -- London: Fourth Estate, 2011.

In 2007, Mark Lynas published a brilliant book entitled Six Degrees (reviewed in this blog).  In it, he presented in a clear and readable format, the consequences of a warming planet.  Each chapter described the scientific research that predicted the effects of an additional centigrade degree of global warming, up to a six degree warming.  Currently, there is a debate in the scientific community about whether we can prevent the planet from warming more than two degrees centigrade.  It is likely that we will not be able to keep the increase below two degrees and four degrees is frighteningly possible.  Lynas's book provides a clear picture of what is at stake.  While we may have to suffer a two degree increase, a concerted effort to curb our greenhouse gas emissions can prevent a four degree increase which will make a huge difference to the well-being of future generations.

Based on the strength of Lynas's Six Degrees, I had high hopes for his 2011 book, The God Species.  I also understood that he had joined a faction of environmentalists that has parted ways with the mainstream opinion among environmentalists.  So I hoped his work would offer constructive challenges to how I thought about the strategies for mitigating our unfolding environmental crises.  To a limited extent, I was not disappointed, but Lynas's main thesis is not generally well-established.  Lynas attempts to argue that because our species has fundamentally changed the planet's ecology, we must now accept responsibility for "our new task of consciously managing the planet."  This involves a number of traditional conservation measures, but more to his point, it involves embracing a number of technological solutions to environmental threats or "geo-engineering."  It also endorses a strategy of continued economic growth which Lynas believes is important both to developing the necessary mitigating technologies and to persuading a growth-hungry public to support mitigating efforts.

The work is organized around nine "planetary boundaries," a term coined by Johan Rockstrom, director of the Stockholm Resilience Center.  The boundaries are natural limits which we must not cross, lest we push the planet into a state which will not support life.  Specifically, they are (1) the biodiversity boundary, (2) the climate change boundary, (3) the nitrogen boundary, (4) the land use boundary, (5) the fresh water boundary, (6) the toxics boundary, (7) the aerosols boundary, (8) the ocean acidification boundary, and (9) the ozone layer boundary.  According to Lynas's research, we have already passed the first three boundaries and must find ways to quickly return to within these boundaries.  Two of the boundaries -- the toxics boundary and the aerosols boundary -- cannot be sufficiently quantified at this point to know whether we have crossed them.  Encouragingly, Lynas believes that we have not yet crossed the others, but that we are in danger of doing so. 

To better understand the notion of a planetary boundary, consider the accumulation of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.  Currently there are approximately 390 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere.  It is now well-understood that we must reduce this figure to at least 350 parts per million if we are to avoid a change to the ecosystem that will spell disaster for human civilization and possibly life on the planet.  350 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere is the planetary climate change boundary.

Each of Lynas's descriptions of the nine boundaries are replete with sobering scientific research, emphasizing what is at stake.  In that respect, The God Species is a lot like Six Degrees, but Lynas's main purpose in writing this book is not so much to alert us to these dangers, but to suggest what we might do to remain on the safe side of the boundaries, and as I a mentioned earlier, the solutions involve embracing technological advances.  He discusses four at some length:  nuclear power, genetically modifying crops, injecting sulfates into the upper stratosphere, and pouring alkaline substances into the ocean.  

Lynas stongly and repeatedly promotes making a quick transition to nuclear power.  He argues that the "Greens" opposition to nuclear power is unjustified and is as misguided and anti-scientific as the attitudes of climate change deniers.  This is perhaps the most useful contribution he makes in The God Species.  While his arguments may not be completely convincing, they are strong enough to unsettle settled opinion on the topic of nuclear energy.  Given the enormous and growing threat of carbon pollution, it may be wise to re-examine the role of nuclear power in the planet's energy future.  Certainly many responsible scientists and environmentalists are coming around to this opinion, most notably James Hansen and George Monbiot, but also James Lovelock, Barry Brook, Gwyneth Cravens, and Patrick Moore.

His advocacy of genetically modified crops (and genetic engineering generally) is less persuasive.  Lynas believes genetic engineering will help solve the problem of feeding our growing human population, while not contaminating the planet's water with excess nitrogen.  Unfortunately, the track record of genetically modified crops is not long enough to really understand its dangers, and while significant dangers might not have become apparent yet, the very notion of making drastic and quick changes in the genes of long-evolved organisms (or creating new organisms from scratch) invites disaster from the law of unintended consequences.    The same is true for Lynas's two other geo-engineering fixes.  Lynas is correct in noting that we have already been engaged in accidental geo-engineering with the massive release of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.  Indeed, the unintended consequences of the industrial revolution threaten to ruin us, but it borders on the reckless to suggest that we understand the complexities of Earth systems sufficiently to avoid equally or even more disastrous unintended consequences that might result from an intentional and concerted effort to change Earth systems.

To a large extent, Lynas's prescription for mitigation is in line with the views of Bjorn Lomborg who has advocated continued, even accelerated, economic growth on the theory that a richer future society will be better equipped to solve environmental (particularly climate change) problems.  His argument depends on the claims that economic growth will increase faster than our emerging environmental problems.  This seems highly dubious.  First, it disregards the likely phenomenon of "tipping points" that would quickly launch the Earth into a new and drastically different physical state -- one to which we or our civilization will not be adapted.  Second, it relies upon continuing economic growth that is similar to what we have seen in the past.  Given that we are reaching the limits of our natural resources and given that we will be seeing increased economic disruption due to resource scarcity and climate change, the likelihood that economic growth will continue as it has is doubtful.  All that is necessary is for the climate change to slightly out pace economic growth for our current crisis to become soon unsolvable.  Lomborg misunderstands that "growth" must be replaced by "sustainability" as the supreme economic value as we approach planetary boundaries.

Lynas appears to follow Lomborg on this score.  He is an unapologetic booster of expensive technological fixes and he emphasizes the importance of economic growth in finding solutions.  Lynas is a critic of socialism and endorses "market solutions."  Most of all, he believes that pretty much any mitigation strategy that requires social or cultural transformations will fail.  He appears to believe that certain market forces act, in effect, like laws of nature, and that we must recognize this in our mitigation plans. 

So for example, to remain on the safe side of the water boundary, Lynas recommends privatizing water resources.  He claims that public water systems are corrupt and inefficient, and that private systems provide water to populations more effectively.  He provides little support for these claims.  Corruption in the public sector is, of course, problematic.  Many public officials will use their position for personal gain, but the use of resources for private gain is the very essence of the private sector.  Simply because the legal system accords private actors the license to personally gain from the distribution of resources does not make it morally legitimate, particularly when these resources are essential for human survival.  Private sector business as usual is effectively the legitimization of public corruption.  See post-soviet Russia as an undisguised exmple of this. 

Regarding the inefficiency of public utilities, one must look into the goals of the utility.  Fred Pearce reiterates a well-established point in his excellent book When Rivers Run Dry (reviewed in this blog), when he notes that "water flows uphill to money."  That is, in an unregulated market, water resources will be trucked, flown, sailed, and piped to the whatever wealthy market will purchase them, leaving the poor without.  If the point of the water utility is to deliver water resources to those who can best cover the cost of delivery, then a private system is more efficient.  If the point is to ensure water-sufficiency to all sectors of a population, then a regulated system is necessary.

Lynas's enthusiasm for technological fixes is born of his appreciation for science.  His desire to make sure that mitigation strategies are firmly rooted in the best science available is extremely laudable.  Indeed sound science is essential to successful mitigation strategies.  No serious observer would disagree.  Where Lynas goes astray is in limiting the options for mitigation strategies to those which he believes the public will accept.  Once he has done that -- once he has assumed that cultural and social norms are like laws of nature -- he is driven to seek drastic and potentially very dangerous technological solutions.  To make his case, he must downplay their risks

Nothing makes this point more clearly than his dismissal of vegetarianism.  In a ten page section entitled, "Meat and Energy," Lynas devotes less than a single paragraph to reducing our meat consumption.  He writes, "campaigners are on to a loser if they try to convince people...to convert en masse to vegetarianism....People's desire to eat more meat as they grow more wealthy is so deeply embedded in most cultures...that it is not something that is amendable to outside influence."  Lynas's appreciation for science doesn't seem to extend to the social sciences.  Changes to cultural and social norms and to social, political, and economic institutions are commonplace.  Lynas is perhaps too young to remember the days when vegetarianism was so unheard of in the U.S. and Europe that virtually no restaurant offered a vegetarian entree.  Today, it is rare to find such restaurants and many wholly vegetarian restaurants are flourishing.  Just a couple decades ago, catered business lunches and conferences would not include a vegetarian entree and airlines would offer only meat on their flights.  Now, vegetarians are accommodated.  These changes have taken place despite significant government subsides for the meat industry and vigorous marketing efforts by that industry.  No similar support has ever existed for vegetarianism and yet vegetarianism is becoming more and more common in the U.S. and Europe.

Just as there are tipping points in the progress of natural phenomena, there are tipping points in social, economic, and political phenomena -- perhaps even more so.  Consider, for example, the French and Russian revolutions, the Arab Spring, the reaction to the Tet Offensive in the U.S. during the Vietnam War, and fads and fashions of all sorts. If the 100 most prominent environmentalist (including Lynas) came out forcefully in favor of vegetarianism and made clear the extent to which meat consumption is pushing us toward trespassing the biodiversity, climate change, nitrogen, water, land use, and toxics boundaries, it could easily make vegetarianism a de rigueur practice among environmentalists.  This might well push us over a cultural tipping point that would dramatically reduce meat consumption; but given the significant impact that meat eating has on the environment, it would not take an "en masse" conversion of the population to yield important benefits.  Furthermore, our diet is central to our daily lives.  So becoming vegetarian for the sake of environmental concerns will transform many people's self-image and the importance they place on othr environmentally beneficial actions.

Government support for vegetarianism would also be made easier to institute.  For many years (particularly beginning with policy put in place by Richard Nixon's Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz), the federal Farm Bill has privileged big agribusiness.  Butz's mantra was "get big or get out."  The result of this was a huge expansion of land devoted to animal feed crop, making meat production artificially inexpensive.  Increased recognition of the damage that meat eating does will make removing these feed production subsidies and instituting financial disincentives much easier, resulting in rising meat prices and a further shift toward vegetarianism.  Given what's at stake, it's hard to understand why Lynas does not advocate this.  In contrast, he does advocate a law banning palm oil biofuels that are produced on Malaysian and Indonesian plantations that wer formerly rain forests.  Why such laws should protect Malaysia and Indonesia and not Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska is left unexplained.

Vegetarianism is not the only opportunity that Lynas misses.  He is surprisingly dismissive of efforts to control our population, claiming that the only measures that have successfully curbed population growth are economic progress and authoritarian prohibitions.  None of this is clear.  There is certainly a correlation between economic progress and birth rate reductions in Europe and North America, but many other factors might be involved in the trend.  Ready availability to birth control, the presence of a social safety net, and the education and liberation of women come immediately to mind.  Only the social safety net depends in part on economic development, but even there, with a more egalitarian, less plutocratic society, a basic social safety net can be established.  Lynas asserts that the number of children that one chooses to have is "an intensely personal" matter.  This may well be true, but so too is the habitability of one's planet intensely personal. 

Lynas's The God Species is an important work in that it publicizes important "planetary boundaries" that we have either crossed or appear to be about to cross.  While each of these boundaries has been describe in greater detail in other works, bringing them all together in a single volume ensures that we do not get too fixated on one and neglect the others.  Furthermore, it highlights the importance of understanding their interrelationships.  Lynas's advocacy of mitigating strategies that have been more or less taboo among environmentalists is also a welcome addition to the debate.  Unfortunately, his views are much too limited.  He fails to recognize the flexibility of cultural and social norms and the role that they can and must play in addressing the our environmental challenges.  Consequently, he reaches for a number of potentially dangerous technical "solutions" to our crises.  Geo-engineering programs may well be something we will need to implement, but we need to understand that some are certainly harmless, while others are desparate throws of the dice.  Much can and must be done before we toss those dice. 

Our Dying Planet: An Ecologist's View of the Crisis We Face / Peter F. Sale -- Berkeley, Cal.: University of California Press, 2011

When one reads the title of Peter Sale's book -- Our Dying Planet -- one immediately thinks of the paramount environmental problem of the day: global warming, but the subject is much broader than this. Sale admirably connects a host of environmental problems to provide a stark picture of the planet's peril. The title is, in all likelihood, an overstatement. Our Declining Planet might be a better title, but given the gravity of our situation, Sale's hyperbole is excusable.

Sale is first of all a marine biologist, specializing in coral reefs. So global warming certainly plays an important part in his analysis of our environmental plight; but more than anything, Sale emphasizes the striking loss of biodiversity that is being caused by more than just climate change. His first chapter is an account of the collapse of fisheries, due mainly to overfishing. Much of this is rather well known, but the extent of the collapse would, perhaps, surprise many. Industrial fishing techniques used in the Northwest Atlantic have decimated the cod population there. In 1968, 1.9 million metric tons of cod were caught, but just 22 years later, in 1990, only 80,000 metric tons of cod were caught. This led the Canadian government to close the northern cod fishery in 1992.

One might expect that with a ban on fishing, the cod population would recover, but it has not. This is perhaps the most sobering message that Sale delivers. During the first 100 years of research into ecosystems, the paradigm of a "balance of nature" was dominant. Populations were seen to be regulated naturally by homeostatic mechanisms. When a population declined, its predators declined and its food sources thrived, creating the conditions for recovery; however, by the later half of the twentieth century, ecologists began to recognize the "patchiness" of nature. Species inhabit a constantly changing patchwork of habitats that are tenuously connected to create metapopulations. Inside these patches, the success of individual organisms in surviving and reproducing is more significant than was previously appreciated. The result is that populations are not "resilient" due to homeostatic mechanisms, but instead, exhibit a kind of "inertia." Large populations will continue until a powerful external force depletes them and once depleted, they will tend to remain in their depleted state. The consequence of this dynamic is that the numerous assaults that we have committed against populations are causing damages that are not repairing themselves, leading to an unprecedented rate of species extinctions. The North Atlantic cod, while not extinct, is but one of many examples of the loss of biodiversity that is occurring around the planet; hence, the "dying planet."

As dire as our circumstances are, Sale provides a few chapters that hold out hope or at least suggest ways to confront the problem. The two primary responses he recommends are to reduce our use of fossil fuels and to slow the growth of the human population. Though his chapter on slowing the growth of the human population is brief, it is clearly his most important concern. Sale writes, "Unchecked population growth presents substantial (I am tempted to say insurmountable) impediments to our need to achieve sustainable use of the earth's goods and services. If those of us who understand this do not speak up concerning our population problem, who else will? I fear we have been complacent for far too long." Given that we are already pressing up against the limits of the world's resources, it is hard to believe that we will be able to support the 9.2 billion people expected to be inhabiting the planet by 2050 and so, it is hard to disagree with Sale.

At a time when climate change is the focus of so much attention, it is useful to look at other ecological problems that we face, though certainly a changing climate will exacerbate whatever harms we are doing to the world's biodiversity. The obvious conclusion is that all of these concerns are interrelated and that we must address them all at once. There is no single policy or approach that will mitigate the coming disasters.

Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants / Douglas W. Tallamy -- Portland, OR: Timber Press, 2007

I've known more than a few wags who have remarked slyly that a weed is simply a plant that you don't want, and while that initially seems generous and open minded with respect to the natural world, it misses the critical role that some plants play in their ecosystem and the role that others don't play. From the perspective of a healthy, diverse, and functioning ecosystem, some plants (weeds) simply don't pull their weight, while others are citizens in good standing. In the first half of Bringing Nature Home, Douglas Tallamy brilliantly argues that plants in good standing are, generally speaking, native to the region, while non-natives tend in almost every case to be either unhelpful or positive threats to the diversity of life. What Tallamy hopes the reader will take home from this is that converting your garden to a native plant preserve is one of the easiest ways a gardener can help recover the ecosystem that is most beneficial to his or her locale.

The key element in the overall picture is the insect population. Gardeners often treat insects as the enemy and in some cases they can be; however, in a well-functioning ecosystem herbivorous insects are a critical link in the food chain linking plants to larger, more charismatic animals, like birds, frogs, rabbits, and turtles. Non-native plants have become best-sellers in nurseries all over the country in large part because they are "insect resistant," meaning, they aren't food for anything in the ecosystem. Planting such species is comparable to laying down astroturf, planting plastic flowers, and erecting artificial trees. They may look nice and be generally whole and intact, but they serve no other purpose but to decorate one's garden. Worse, they have a tendency to spread out of control and take up an enormous amount of space, crowding out ecologically valuable species. Of course, the loss of habitat for insects results in a loss of habitat for larger animals. After reading Tallamy's arguments, one comes to appreciate the beauty of the ragged shape of an insect-eaten leaf. One's heart goes out to noble native plants that has given up some portion of their foliage for the greater good of the ecosystem.

One of the most significant environmental problems we face today is the loss of habitat. Urban sprawl and mono-cultural fence-to-fence agribusiness farming has left less and less room for inhabitants of the natural world and is drastically reducing the size of numerous species' populations. Tallamy argues that urban and suburban gardeners can do quite a lot to mitigate this problem simply by choosing to plant natives in their gardens. One small suburban lot may not seem like a significant contribution to the solution, but if gardening with natives becomes as popular as gardening with non-natives, the problem will be cut in half.

A yet stronger response to the urban-suburban desert-scape that we have created would be to organize whole neighborhood or cities to plant native plants. Recent ecological research shows that the size of a contiguous ecosystem is important to maintaining a native wildlife population. This runs counter to the belief that many small fragments of an ecosystem can effectively support the population. Obviously, fragments suitably close and with no significant barriers can be helpful, but organizing large swaths of natural habitat is preferable. Still, to get to this stage, pioneer native gardeners are critical. Happily, Tallamy provides tips on "making it happen."

The second half of Bringing Nature Home is essentially a reference guide to useful native plants and insects, a.k.a., "bird food." Tallamy also provides a valuable chapter entitled "Answers to Tough Questions," like "If birds eat the berries of alien plants..., why shouldn't I plant those species?" (The short answer is that those berries do not provide adequate nutrients required to make eggs, to feed the parent birds while they are feeding the young, and to feed the young themselves. Too many such plants means there will be fewer insects to provide the nutrition needed for reproduction.)

Finally, there are three excellent indexes listing native plants across the U.S., host plants for specific butterflies, and results from experiments comparing the value of native and non-native plants. Also there are numerous beautiful color photographs and a superb bibliography.

No gardener interested in native plants should be without this book!

Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet / Mark Lynas -- Washington D.C.: National Geographic, 2008

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is composed of three working groups. The second group is responsible for reporting on the impacts of climate change on the natural and human environment. Its most recent report (the fourth assessment report) makes for difficult reading and not simply because of its disturbing predictions. The prose is at best terse, sometimes to the point of being cryptic. Futhermore, while it describes the probable impacts of climate change, it does not clearly identify when these impacts will come about, neither on a temporal scale nor on a thermal scale. Thankfully, Mark Lynas has done an admirable job of partly filling this gap in his book Six Degrees.

The basis of Lynas's book is scholarship done at the Earth Sciences Library at Oxford University. Lynas systematically scoured articles in peer reviewed journals and classified their predictions of impacts according to temperature increases degree by degree. The literature estimates impacts for temperature increases ranging from less than one degree Celsius to five degrees Celsius. Occasionally impacts are discussed for more than five degrees. This provided a convenient structure for Lynas's book: each of his six substantive chapters describes the effects of progressively greater temperature increases. Lynas makes no attempt to predict when these increases might occur as this depends on the public policies we adopt.

Broadly speaking, the impacts of increases up to two degrees Celsius are in the manageable range, though they will certainly be extremely problematic for regions most vulnerable to climate change. Indeed, we have already experienced enough unusual weather events consistent with climate change to say that the impacts of climate change are upon us. The 2003 heat wave that dominated Europe for three months, for example, is estimated to have killed 22,000 to 35,000 people. Lynas describes this event in his "Two Degrees" chapter, suggesting that such heat waves would become common in such a world. It is noteworthy, that reasonable assumptions about our future carbon emissions would make a two or three degree increase likely.

As the temperature rises into the third degree, predictions of cataclysmic consequences become common in the scientific literature. Dangerous feedbacks will begin to play an important role in increasing the Earth's surface temperature. For example, the Amazon and other rain forests are likely to begin burning away, causing a loss of moisture. As the forest floor dries out, it will begin releasing significant amounts of greenhouse gasses locked in the peat and soil. The permanent ice covering Greenland is also likely to begin melting at an accelerated pace. This will raise sea level, of course, but it will also lower the elevation of the ice pack and dump increasing quantities of ice into the surrounding water, thus raising the local temperature in Greenland and accelerating the melting process in another dangerous feedback. Food production will be severely disrupted by flooding and droughts around the world.

By the fourth degree increase, the nightmare truly begins. Both the Ross and Ronne ice shelves of the Antarctic could become unstable. Were one or both to collapse (as did the Wordie, Larsen A, and Larsen B ice shelves) the rate of glacier melt from the Antarctic mainland would increase dramatically leading to a rapid rise in sea level. By the fifth degree increase "an entirely new planet is coming into being....The remaining ice sheets are eventually eliminated from both poles. Rain forests have already burned up and disappeared, rising sea levels have inundated coastal cities and are beginning to penetrate far inland into continental interiors. Humans are herded into shrinking 'zones of habitability' by the twin crises of drought and flood."

As early as the third degree of warming, methane hydrates will begin to be released from the Arctic Ocean floor and from melting permafrost. Methane hydrates are greenhouse gasses that are far more potent than carbon dioxide. By the fifth degree of increase, the quantities of methane hydrates released into the atmosphere are likely to be staggering and will trigger a feedback that might make the planet entirely uninhabitable.

Lynas does not find many predictions in the scientific literature about the consequences of a sixth degree of warming; however, it is recognized as a possibility, particularly if there are enough strong feedbacks to push the planet to an new equilibrium that is far warmer than what we now experience. In Storms of My Grandchildren, NASA climatologist James Hansen raises the possibility of "the Venus Syndrome" in which the greenhouse effect extinguishes all life on Earth. Lynas thinks it is unlikely that the changes to the climate will extinguish human life, but were the planet to reach the high end of the range of warming predictions, such a possibility is not negligible.

The methodology behind Lynas's book is sound and the presentation of his scholarship is illuminating. I doubt that there is a better general summation of the scientific literature as it pertains to the effects of climate change. Six Degrees is a cogent account of the future we likely face. Despite its dispassionate tone, it is a clarion call for action to mitigate the disaster that is likely to unfold during the lifetimes of the younger members of our world.

Native Plants for Wildlife Habitat & Conservation Landscaping-Chesapeake Bay Watershed / Britt Slattery, et al -- MD: US Fish & Wildlife Service, 2003

There are a lot of very good reasons to remove invasive plants -- particularly non-native invasives -- and replace them with less aggressive native plants. Most important is the ability of a variety of native plants to support the local wildlife, but also important is their ability to improve the soil quality by sinking deep roots that aerate the top soil and add organic matter. Deep rooted plants are also far better at retaining water and in urban and suburban areas, this is critical for reducing the destructive, polluting, storm water runoff that is killing our streams rivers, and bays.

However, identifying the right native plant is not always easy. Fortunately for those of us who live in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has published a handy catalog of hundreds of native plants: ferns, grasses, herbaceous plants, herbaceous emergents, shrubs, and trees. For each (or almost each) plant, the guide provides basic information to help you decide if the plant is right for you.

The guide identifies the basic characteristics of the plant: size, colors of its flowers, leaves, and fruit, as well as the time of the year when it flowers and fruits. It also provides basic information about its optimal growth conditions: sun, shade, and partial shade; but also soil pH and soil conditions: clay, loam, sand, or organic. It even provides an indication of the ideal habitat and geographic region within the watershed to help ensure that its nativity is reasonably local. For anyone particularly interested in attracting wildlife to your garden, it indicates how attractive the plant is to song birds, water fowl, small mammals, butterflies, beneficial insects, and hummingbirds.

The authors point out, of course, that the Chesapeake Bay contains many more native plants than are included in this catalog, and encourage the reader to seek out other sources to learn about those plants outside of their selection. The encouragement isn't necessary, though, as one's appetite for more information about native plants is whetted by the guide's clear presentation alone.

Perhaps the only weakness is the size of the photographs. While it is great to have photos of each plant, the photos are tiny and there is only one (sometimes two) for each plant, sometimes showing fruit, leaves, or blossoms, but seldom more than one of the characteristics. Consequently, using the book in conjunction with other reference sources amplifies its value, but regardless of this drawback, it is an extremely helpful starting point for learning about what native plants will grow well in your garden.

Wild Urban Plants of the Northeast: A Field Guide / Peter Del Tredici -- Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2010

For at least a century, American botanists have raised the alarm over the invasion of non-native plant species. The immigration to North America of people from all over the world has brought with it food crops, ornamental plants, and stow-away seeds that have found a congenial new habitat in the Americas. The primary concern is that these non-native species are sometimes "invasive," meaning they exist without natural predators and therefore spread out of control. Their success crowds out many native species, thus reducing the diversity of the native ecosystem and damaging the health of the environment.

Despite the apparent threats, Peter Del Tredici, Senior Research Scientist at the Arnold Arboretum at Harvard University, is not so alarmed about non-native invasives. Starting from the premise that our native ecosystem has been irreparably transformed by urban development, native species are now as alien to the new urban ecosystem as non-natives. For Del Tredici, the important question in the urban setting is not whether the plant thrived in a by-gone local ecosystem, but whether the plant provides "ecosystem services" that would not otherwise be provided to the city.

In place of the native/non-native distinction, Del Tredici distinguishes plants that grow spontaneously in the urban environment versus plants that require cultivation. In the concrete jungle, Ailanthus altissima (the tree-of-heaven) is able to grow without any help from us, and according to Del Tredici, without this species, our urban tree canopy would be greatly impoverished. Replacing them with "native" species and maintaining natives would require an enormous effort for little or no increased benefit. Among the ecological benefits that spontaneous plants can provide to the city are temperature reduction, food and habitat for wildlife, erosion control, riparian stabilization, nutrient absorption, soil building, and phytoremediation or the ability to absorb and store heavy metals thereby cleaning contaminated sites.

Del Tredici's argument is persuasive, but only as long as we accept that our urban environments will be built without caring that they be hospitable to formerly native species. Careful urban planning can increase the areas that are compatible with native plants and thereby preserve the local biological heritage. Del Tredici would, however, point out that this reflects a cultural value judgement and can not be defended on the basis of biodiversity or ecological services. On the other hand, invasives are often able to spread rapidly outside of the urban environment and into relatively undisturbed ecosystems. Such escapees from the city likely pose all the threats to native species about which botanists warned us.

Del Tredici's argument in favor of spontaneous plants makes up just 23 of the book's 374 pages. The rest of the book is, as the subtitle states, a field guide in which spontaneous urban plants are cataloged and described in a manner traditional to such field guides. Each entry includes, however, information on the ecological functions and cultural significance of the plant described. This is consistent with Del Tredici's two primary goals, "to teach people how to identify the plants that are growing in urban areas, and to counter the widespread perception that these plants are ecologically harmful or useless and should be eliminated from the landscape." Each entry also includes five or six useful color photographs of the plant or its near cousins.

The Sixth Extinction: Journeys Among the Lost and Left Behind / Terry Glavin -- NY: St. Martin's Press, 2006

In The Sixth Extinction: Journeys Among the Lost and Left Behind, Terry Glavin provides a moving narration of the world we are losing. The book is most statistical in its first few pages, where Glavin lays out how the pace and scope of extinctions we face today is comparable to five historical periods of significant extinction. The book's seven chapters are stories of risk and resilience among (as the subtitles outline): a tiger, a bird, a fish, a lion, a whale, a flower, and a world.

While the highly readable narrative style is commendable on its own, the book also is satisfying for its geographic scope - taking readers to varied cultures and ecosystems - and several strains of analysis woven throughout the text. Glavin borrows an analytical tool from the United Nations Environment Programme, which developed four scenarios of how humans might respond to loss of biodiversity, dubbed the "security first," "markets first," "policy first," and "sustainability first" options. Introducing their basic tenets in the prologue, Glavin further elucidates the scenarios in his chapters by pointing to ways in which the movements he documents might be categorized. Although the set of possible future conditions is virtually infinite and inevitably messier than is suggested by scenario analyses, I find them useful tools for understanding likely consequences of different sets of values. The scenarios Glavin borrows are relevant to responses underway today, and his use of them enriches both the scenarios set forth and his narratives of biodiversity challenges.

The book understands extinctions to be complex phenomena, with a variety of proximate and ultimate causes. Glavin both implicates humans and goes easy on us, identifying human actions as the critical factor in the current wave of extinctions, but noting that it was not our intention and that humans have made many noble efforts to reverse or mitigate this impact. Human actions have lead to extinctions not only by directly killing animals but also by destroying habitat and by introducing exotic species that crowd out natives. Glavin seems to imply that because our destructiveness is a secondary effect of our actions, we are somehow less culpable for their results. In the long span of history, there may be something to this argument, but we now have the ability to anticipate secondary effects and do have responsibility for the foreseeable consequences of our actions. On the other hand, the evidence the book provides that humans do value the natural world is a source of hope that we might in fact take responsibility for and change our actions.

Another recurring theme is Glavin's assertion that humans (and environmentalists in particular) have made false distinctions between humans and nature, civilization and wilderness. Although this is an intriguing and on some level compelling assertion, Glavin does a mediocre job of substantiating it in his writing. His illustration of how societies in different times and places have had various relationships with nature successfully casts doubt on the notion that there is one Right Relationship or that we have found it (although I don't think either of these beliefs are widely held), but does not successfully breakdown distinctions between human society and the natural world. Moreover, the writing style, while enjoyable, tends to re-enforce the us/them dichotomy. In telling the story of endangered species, the style tends to exoticize the animals and conveys an almost voyeuristic sense of watching them in their habitat (almost like a National Geographic special) rather than relating to them in the world we share, as I might expect from someone trying to break down arbitrary distinctions.

The strongest way in which Glavin establishes a unitary sense of nature is by addressing both species loss and the loss of diversity in human cultures as part of the same "dark and gathering sameness." Having the stories of losses of human languages, history, and local knowledge and lore woven with the stories of habitat and species loss adds richness to the storytelling. However, the analysis of the association of these two phenomena is a bit shallow. In the examples provided, their causes and consequences seem a bit distinct (e.g., cultural repression in Soviet Russia led to losses in human culture while fish species fared better in Soviet days). Also, while the text draws on a fairly well established literature regarding the benefits of biodiversity (especially as laid forth by E.O. Wilson), it does not provide comparable references or well formed arguments regarding the benefits of diverse human cultures. Glavin asserts that the human species is more "resilient" for having diverse cultures, in parallel to an example about crops with diverse sub-species being more resilient to diseases. However, the book does not grapple with the fact that cultures are not static artifacts under any conditions (gathering sameness or otherwise) nor compare the benefits of diverse cultures to those of a more homogeneous culture which is also more complex. Perhaps he will explore the connections more fully in another work.

Another area that was not adequately addressed was climate change. Glavin makes mention of climate change a few times in the book, as something that will worsen the current period of extinction. Indeed, other reading I've done (e.g., The Rough Guide to Climate Change: Symptoms, Science, Solutions by Robert Henson (London: Rough Guides, 2008) has pointed to the biodiversity impacts of climate change that we already are experiencing and expect to intensify in the coming decades. While The Sixth Extinction is more historic than predictive and I would not expect Glavin to include a great deal of anticipatory evidence of the impact of climate change, devoting a couple of solid paragraphs would be a worthwhile addition to the book, as considering an expanded set of causes for extinctions has a significant impact on the set of responses we should be preparing.

What most disappointed me about the book is Glavin's rejecting environmentalism and the "language of environmentalism."  He defines these terms in fairly broad brush early on, and goes on to repeat his criticism at several points in the book. This troubles me because of the suggestion that the environmental movement is some solid, well defined structure of a white liberal elite walking in lock step and speaking with one voice. It's not. And while I might enjoy watching Carl Pope, Wangari Maathai, and Van Jones duke it out to claim the microphone of Environmentalism, the reality is that these are just a few figures inside a big tent of people that come with diverse values and proposed solutions. They form alliances. They have arguments. The behavior among the various groups and activities that I would include as part of today's environmental movement look an awful lot like the whole rest of the world. Perhaps defining an environmental movement within human society at all is a false distinction on the order of considering nature as "other."

The reason this is more than a minor irritation to me is that it seems a familiar tactic. Writers decry environmentalism in an effort to have their environmental arguments taken seriously by a public they believe are not environmentalists. That the naysayers draw arbitrary distinctions is illustrated, conveniently, by an article that appeared in the New York Review of Books while I was reading The Sixth Extinction. John Terborgh's review of Rewilding the World: Dispatches from the Conservation Revolution by Caroline Fraser (15 July 2010) sets forward a different notion about what humans' relationship with nature is and should be. In the Rewilding analysis, conservation is best achieved when humans are willing to respect a separate space for wildlife, giving up the "romantic" and "fanciful" European/American idea that people and nature can co-exist peaceably (perhaps that we are in fact one...?). This group of romantic westerns sounds an awful lot like Glavin's environmentalists, the ones who draw false distinctions between humans and nature, society and wilderness. Hmmm...

A similar ploy has been used in works like "The Death of Environmentalism" (Shellenberger and Nordhaus, 2004). I've argued against the environmental movement's being viewed as a uniform, cohesive group, but do think there is some valid criticism of the power structure within parts of the movement and manner in which groups have chosen to talk about and address environmental issues. Certainly the movement has as yet been insufficient to the task of changing our course or transforming our ethos. Still, I would call on critics not to wholly dismiss environmentalism but rather to identify allies within the movement and to call on everyone to think deeply about their relationship with the world we live in and how to appropriately act on their own values. Drawing arbitrary lines among people will no more get us to our goal of living in a just, peaceful, and flourishing world than will drawing arbitrary lines between humans and nature.

The Sixth Extinction is an enjoyable and thought provoking read. I hope to find other books that draw on Glavin's style and theme to explore our relationship with and impact on the planet.

Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization / Steven Solomon -- NY: Harper Collins, 2010

My habit is to read books cover to cover. I feel a certain obligation to an author to treat his or her work as a whole, but in the case of Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization, I decided to read only the last 130 pages of this nearly 500 page book. These pages were titled, "The Age of Scarcity." Solomon's interesting treatment of the planet's unfolding water crisis made me wish I had time to read his earlier chapters on water's role in the history of civilization, but time is fleeting, so I contented myself with that portion of his book that seemed most pressing to read.

The world currently faces three enormous problems: climate change, the depletion of conventional oil reserves, and the depletion of water resources. Each interacts with the others to complicate solving (or even mitigating) any of these problems. Solomon's section "The Age of Scarcity" is a detailed examination of many of the issues we face regarding the depletion of water resources.

Most critical are the pressures faced by water poor countries which also turn out to be among the poorest countries in the world. There are exception to this, of course, mostly oil producing countries, but virtually no country is untouched by the unfolding water shortage, and some -- particularly China and India -- are rapidly moving toward water poverty. Both countries are planning massive water diversion projects to support industrial and agricultural development and are rapidly depleting their ancient ground water. Their impending water shortages are likely to put a significant break on their vaunted economic futures.

Such massive diversion projects are consistent with, but larger than, projects previously employed by other countries to manage water. In nearly every instance, these projects have resulted in the destruction of water resources and environmental disaster. Among the most dramatic was the diversion of water for irrigation in Central Asia which destroyed the Aral Sea. Less obvious was the loss of Nile water due to evaporation from the reservoir created by the Aswan Dam.

It is noteworthy that the Nile is currently completely exploited. Nile water no longer flows into the Mediterranian Sea. With the predicted increase in Egypt's population (along with the populations of other Nile basin countries) political turmoil is bound to erupt, both between Nile basin countries and within domestic populations. Such turmoil will not be unique. The shrinking of Lake Chad due to climate changes already has resulted in significant political turmoil in Africa and the melting of Himalayan glaciers could cause even greater turmoil in south Asia. Solomon describes the decades of war between the Israelis and their Arab neighbors as significantly rooted in the control of water resources.

Even the water rich countries (the US, Canada, Russia, and nearly all European and South American countries) are or will one day need to more rigorously manage their water as economic development and population growth creates an increasing demand for water. This will become particularly problematic in the American West which has enjoyed an unusually wet century. Solomon devotes a good deal of attention to the Colorado River basin, which currently is completely exploited. No water from the Colorado reaches the Gulf of California. He also observes that 40% of the huge Ogallala aquifer under the Midwest has been depleted.

Solomon alludes to two important strategies for dealing with these problems. The first is to adopt "soft" approaches to water use, i.e., innovative conservation methods. Isreal and Austrailia are well advanced in generating these methods. Much can be learned from them. The second is to abandon the age old tradition of considering water a basic human right which thereby undervalues it in the market. According to Solomon, allowing market discipline to set prices for water will obviate waste. This later technique has obvious pitfalls. Using the market to price water may have some application in more affluent countries, but globally, without safeguards, it promises greater and greater political strife and human misery.

One method not mentioned by Solomon for employing pricing discipline on water consumption would be to establish a sliding scale for water pricing, where a consumer may purchase a small (necessary) amount of water for little to no cost, with progressive price increases for additional increments of consumption. This method would continue to respect water as a basic human right while discouraging waste.

In all, Solomon's "The Age of Scarcity" is a sobering examination of an unavoidable future. For another admirable treatment of the world's water crises, see When Rivers Run Dry by Fred Pearce reviewed in this blog.

Right Relationship: Building a Whole Earth Economy / Peter G. Brown and Geoffrey Garver -- San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2009

People have faced problems connected to the depletion of natural resources and the disposal of waste in the past, but these problems have been highly localized. Civilizations fell or migrated when their critical resources ran out or their land was too contaminated to be productive, but the planet was large enough to provide new resources elsewhere and heal the destruction caused by our exploitation. It is becoming clear, however, that there are no longer significant untapped resources and that throwing "away" our waste is meaningless given the sheer amount of waste and the limits of the world's ecosystems. In Right Relationship, Brown and Garver address these problems and offer a blueprint for dealing with them.

The first chapters of the book give an admirable explanation of the problems. The most significant observation is something that must become a truism if we are to flourish: the economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the natural world. From this observation, Brown and Garver conclude that any sustainable economy must acknowledge and operate within the limits of the natural world. Specifically, it must not depend on an unlimited supply of resources and must not assume that the planet is a bottomless sink for industrial waste. Brown and Garver ague that given the present use of resources and how we dispose of waste, we must abandon our current economic assumption that growth is a necessary good. Their argument is undeniable.

Furthermore, Brown and Garver recognize the challenge of resisting the powerful economic forces that drive growth. They offer two strategies to tackle the challenge. The first strategy is modelled on the Quaker movement to end slavery in which individuals bore witness to the injustice of slavery, transforming their daily actions and creating a social climate in which the end of slavery became possible. The second strategy is to create a world government empowered to protect the planet from selfish exploitation. This world government would be responsible for creating resource budgets for nations based upon the environmental impact of the nations' economic needs. The formula describing an economy's ecological impact is a function of population, affluence, technology, and ethics. Each nation would be free to maximize any of these elements only to the extent that the others are reduced enough for the nation to remain within its budgeted impact.

This second strategy is bold to the point of impracticality, but Brown and Garver assert that the ecological dangers we face are so imminent and significant that sketches for a global system need to be formulated and discussed immediately. Their book is an attempt to begin this. Their world government would be composed of four branches: (1) the Global Reserve, responsible for analysing the world's life support budgets, (2) Trusteeships of the Earth's commons, responsible for monitoring and protecting the Earth's major life support systems, e.g., atmosphere, ocean, soil, forests, etc., (3) a Global Federation, responsible for protecting human rights and the global commonwealth using both executive and legislative measures, and (4) a Global Court, responsible for preventing the abuse of the global authorities and enforcing global rules.

Through out their advocacy of a world government, Brown and Garver are sensitive to the criticism that this amounts to a world-wide fascism. In response, they observe that a de facto world government already exist in the form of the World Trade Organization, the IMF, the World Bank, and other international institutions that regulate our actions in pursuit of economic growth, and do so to enhance the well-being of transnational corporate elites. In contrast to this de facto world government, their government would be a more democratic, federated system, operating for the benefit of people and the global commonwealth, and it would establish an economy that remains within the realistic boundaries of the planet's natural extent.

Right Relationship is a valuable contribution to how we might address the coming ecological train wreck. Unfortunately, it is unlikely to convince anyone not already alarmed by corporate, government, and popular negligence. It will, however, be successful if it inspires other work along the same line which might more effectively and practically outline how international institutions could understand and address the challenges to come. Undoubtedly, these challenges will be addressed, but a thoughtful, global, holistic strategy is more likely to be effective than piecemeal actions to correct the most obvious, local disasters.

The Ethics of Climate Change: Right and Wrong in a Warming World / James Garvey –- N.Y.: Continuum Books, 2008

Of all the books I read my first semester as a graduate student, The Ethics of Climate Change: Right and Wrong in a Warming World was my favorite. Although Garvey takes up perhaps too many words of his introduction assuring his readers that philosophy is not overly abstruse, in this short (158 page) volume, he successfully lays out background information and provides eloquent arguments on the ethics of climate change. The arguments are developed systematically, from a simple notion of causal responsibility, to more nuanced questions, for example, what obligations one has in the absence of action from others. The book ends evaluating the international response to climate change in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol and addressing the potential of individual actions. While not a rousing call, Garvey does offer more impetus to action than I had expected from a philosophy book on climate change.

Two areas that were not adequately addressed were the questions of, Does futility obviate moral imperative? and Are moral arguments politically persuasive? Nonetheless, The Ethics of Climate Change is an excellent introduction to the topic. Much attention is paid to the science and economics of climate change, but the need to make the ethics of climate change politically persuasive may be the key to addressing the enormous challenge ahead.

The World Without Us / Alan Weisman -- NY: St. Martin's, 2007.

Alan Weisman's The World Without Us is based on the implausible premise that all human beings on the planet might suddenly and simultaneously disappear. What then? How much of what we have created will remain and for how long? As absurd as such a premise is, the inquiry sheds light on the ecological role of humans on the planet and how we have and have not irreversably changed it. Weisman writes that many of the non-native plants that we established in one place or another will, in time, lose ground to the native plants. Others will survive. Domesticated farm animals will be easy targets for a regenerated population of preditors. Dogs will not survive, but cats might.

Some of his most interesting passages describe the slow decay of buildings and their eventual complete decomposition. He compares the probable lifespan of specific artificial substances and comes to some rather interesting conclusions. For example, in time, little of Phoenix, Arizona will remain in a regenerated dessert but shards of glass and fire hydrants. The longest lasting materials will be plastics and nuclear waste. Both will continue to be deadly dangers to the remaining, recovering, or newly evolving species left behind.

Plastics will not retain their present form. Instead, they will decompose, but this will mean only that they will fragment into smaller and smaller peices. At first this seems benign, but Weisman points out that while we are familiar with birds and other animals that die because they mistakenly swallow plastic artifacts, the decomposition of these artifacts means that smaller and smaller animals will become the victims of our plastics. Plastic is the substance "that keeps on killing." The long-lived danger of nuclear waste is, of course, well known.

Among Weisman's more interesting observations is that much of the existing built world remains only because of constant maintanence by people. For example, without a constant supply of electricity, pumps that daily evacuate water from the New York subway system would fail, and much of system would flood. Water damage would cause widespread collapse of structures over and around the subway lines.

The World Without Us is not, however, a single coherent story. Weisman runs off on frequent tangents that make grasping the whole of the work difficult. After some of these tangents, he appears to recall that he is writing about the world without us and offers a tenuous link between his tangent and the main theme. Unfortunately, this hodge-podge structure is all too common in books I have read recently. It's as though authors don't quite have enough material on a subject to fill 250-300 pages, and are given the freedom by their editors to throw in whatever interesting padding they can vaguely relate to the book's subject. It makes me long for solid sustained treatments of a single subject.

Plan C: Community Survival Strategies for Peak Oil and Climate Change / Pat Murphy -- Gabriola Island, Canada: New Society Publishers, 2008.

Briefly stated "Plan C" is Pat Murphy's proposal for how we can respond to the "triple threats of peak oil, climate change and increasing inequity" in the standard of living of the planet's population. Murphy suggest we must curtail our use of fossil fuels and strengthen the bonds of community. I had expected a bit more practical advice about how to do this, particulary building community, but that's not the book that Murphy wrote. Instead, he mainly describes the the activities and institutions that have promoted our current problems. Along with the "triple threats," Murphy discusses U.S. militarism and imperialism and the corporate control of the mass media.

There is very little in the book with which I would disagree, but then very little that has not been described better elsewhere. The value of the book is in how Murphy brings together under one cover brief explanations of the most pressing problems of our time; however, I more than a few times wanted more complete arguments for his assertions (as willing as I was to accept them.)

Among the more interesting points was Murphy's criticism of various green technologies as inadequate to resolve our environmental problems. Instead, Murphy has the courage to conclude that our only hope is to drastically "curtail" our greenhouse gas emissions. The term "conservation" is too moderate for Murphy as it does not seem to imply returning to a virtually pre-industrial lifestyle.

Murphy argues that we, as pioneer individuals, must transform our lifestyles before a wider political commitment can form to make wholesale societal changes and it is the role of small, ecologically aware communities to support these pioneer members.

The notions are compelling for me. For several years I have worked to create and strengthen the Maryland Green Party, thinking that having a political institution that could champion a radical political and ecological agenda would be an important avenue for change. I have, however, come to the conclusion that such a political institution can not flourish without more or less permanent social groupings that will sustain the connections between people while they are politically active, and for such social groupings to succeed, they must be based in geographically compact communities. Murphy does not write about the extension of his vision of lifestyle and community into politics, but such and extension seems natural and beneficial.

I would recommend Plan C to anyone with a curiousity about and slight knowledge of Climate Change and Peak Oil for its concise summary of these problems. However, Murphy's "curtailment" response to these problems may be more than anyone who is not already convinced of the depth of the problem can handle.

Design with Nature / Ian McHarg -- NY: Wiley, 1969, 1994.

My introduction to Landscape Architecture, Design with Nature gives me a sense of the field as being where geology meets the built environment. McHarg’s “ecological planning method” identifies geological features such as slope, drainage, bedrock foundation, et al., for a given region and uses these factors to determine what type of development is appropriate for what land. Although the emphasis is on ecological factors, McHarg also recognizes historic value and leaves room for other social values to be considered in the process.

I found myself frustrated that the process does not address certain planning questions such as how to build communities that promote transit and non-motorized transportation. McHarg allayed these frustrations by repeatedly noting that the ecological method does not generate a plan, it simply lays the environmental basework; other goals can be addressed when the plan is made. Indeed, the method seems a far more sophisticated base than either sprawl or geometric concepts such as greenbelts, wedges, or even spider-web networks.

The book moves back and forth between chapters presenting broad ideas and concepts and chapters presenting case studies. Many of the case studies are set in the mid-Atlantic, with much information on Washington, DC, which I enjoyed. There is a lot of information in this book, and I found the broad chapters a bit heavy on ranting and the case studies sometimes too detailed. Nevertheless, between the rants and the geological inventories, this book is a real nugget of insight on how to think about the world we live in and our relationship to it.

When the Rivers Run Dry Water: The Defining Crisis of the Twenty-first Century / Fred Pearce -- Boston: Beacon Press, 2006.

Pearce's When the Rivers Run Dry is a nice introduction to hydrological problems around the world. From ground water to aquifers, from sea water to rain water, Pearce describes attempt to capture and use a resource that is in ever-increasing demand. Besides giving the impression that everything hydrologists have done in the past 150 years was a mistake, Pearce drive homes the maxim, "water runs up hill to money," meaning that those with money always have the power to acquire water at whatever cost to others or the environment. It's a sobering read with one hopeful note: "We never destroy water...Somewhere, sometime, it will return, purged and fresh."

Garbageland: On the Secret Trail of Trash / Elizabeth Royte -- NY: Little, Brown, 2005.

Royte began to wonder what happened to her trash once it left her New York City residence, so she started following its trail and then wrote about what she discovered. The result is this highly entertaining and informative book. She covers waste that ends in landfills, recyclable materials, and compost, all in amazing detail. By the end, she introduces the reader to the concept of "Zero Waste," or working to make our modern waste stream conform more closely to nature's universal practice of turning "waste" into resources for new life. I was so inspired by this book that I joined my city's Environment Committee and I'm looking for ways to bring Zero Waste to my city's waste management practices.

Dwellers in the Land: The Bioregional Vision / Kirkpatrick Sale

Kirkpatrick Sale's Dwellers in the Land presents a brisk argument in favor of geographical determinism, particularly the importance of bioregions in shaping our identities. He goes on to argue that this is a very good thing -- that our nationalized and globalized economy and culture is the root of many of our problems. Sales argues that by reconnecting with our local bioregion, we can restore our environment and resolve significant social and economic problems. Occasionally, he waxes on about the Earth as a single organism, i.e., the "Gaea" (or Gaia) Thesis. While this sometimes amounts a kind of religious faith, embracing the vision has the practical consequence of underscoring the value of the planet and humbling our place in it.

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals / Michael Pollan -- NY: Penguin Press, 2006.

I was attracted to this book on based on Pollan's earlier book, The Botany of Desire. In the Omnivore's Dilemma, Pollan examines the origins of food in four food chains. In the process he reveals startling facts about the food we get from grocery stores, restaurants, and "big organic" grocers like Whole Foods. He provides a detailed description of Polyface Farms in Virginia, which strives to produce food for local consumption, using inputs that are entirely found on the farm itself. All in all, the book is a powerful argument for eating locally grown produce. His section on vegetarianism presents the stongest case for meat eating that I have read, though what is argued to be justified is only meat that comes from a self-sufficient farm like Polyface and where the animals are essential to the sufficiency of the farm.

The American Woodland Garden: Capturing the Spirit of the Deciduous Forest / Rick Darke -- Portland, OR: Timber Press, 2002

This is a really wonderful book. Darke's hundreds of photographs of America's Eastern Woodlands are stunning, even though he does not appear to rely on lab or digital techniques to enhance the images. They seem true to the eye. His text really makes you appreciate the forest as a living place that changes from season to season and develops over the years. The last half of the book is essentially a brief encyclopedia of native woodland plants listed according to their Latin names. It's an excellent resource.