Category Archives: Book reviews

What Would You Sacrifice for a Secure Future? Worldwatch Inst.

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A new book, (Firestone GE170 .E5774 2010) The Environmental Politics of Sacrifice, challenges the widely held assumption that people will not sacrifice for environmental goals. In his own take on the topic, Worldwatch senior researcher Erick Assadourian observes that even the word “sacrifice” has become taboo – associated more with violent rituals (think Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom) than with its root meaning, “to make “sacred.”

Read: What Would You Sacrifice for a Secure Future? by Erik Assadourian

Source: Worldwatch Institute mailer, Oct. 7, 2010

Worldwatch Institute – 1776 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20036 USA

– has a newsfeed, a Facebook page and a Twitter account, and is a very enlightening resource.

Thoreau’s Legacy: American Stories about Global Warming

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This book is available free on the Web, compiled by the Union of Concerned Scientists in 2009:

Thoreau’s Legacy: American Stories about Global Warming introduces a new generation of writers and photographers with a personal connection to global warming. The 67 essays and images in this anthology are drawn from nearly 1,000 submissions about beloved places, people, plants, animals, and activities at risk from a changing climate—and the efforts that individuals are making to save what they love. A foreword by author Barbara Kingsolver serves as a powerful call to action.
The essays we selected represent a variety of perspectives, voices, and experiences. The authors follow in the long tradition of great American environmental writers, like Henry David Thoreau, who have broadened our awareness and sharpened our perspective about the world we share. And they are inspiring action to protect our planet from global warming. They are Thoreau’s legacy.

Source: Email from Union of Concerned Scientists [action@ucsusa.org] June 22, 2009.

Degrees that Matter: Climate Change and the University

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Peter Hopkinson reviews Degrees that Matter: Climate Change and the University
by Ann Rappaport & Sarah Hammond Creighton

MIT Press: 2007. 376 pp. $24.95, £15.95

in the latest Nature
448, 28 (5 July 2007) | doi:10.1038/448028a; Published online 4 July 2007. Link to review.

The reviewer feels that the book is instructive. It is about the efforts of Tufts University (the Tufts Climate Initiative) to reduce its carbon emissions.
Firestone has a copy: QC981.8.C5 R367 2007