Mike Vandeman
2012-04-08 17:12:09 UTC
Required Reading for the Entire Planet
Michael J. Vandeman, Ph.D.
Last Updated April 8, 2012
These are the most important works I have read to date, so this is a
work in progress, not a complete list. I welcome suggestions for other
works that should be added. My criterion is that they are foundational
works that contribute to understanding the most important realities of
life on Earth, and what needs to be done to ensure its survival, i.e.,
the survival of all life on Earth. What could be more important than
that?!
Also, I am sure that each author has other writings of equal or
greater importance. I suggest that you definitely read these (as soon
as possible), but also look for their other works. They are all on the
"cutting edge" of their fields.
Please send your comments and suggestions to me at
***@pacbell.net.
Barrett, Deirdre, Supernormal Stimuli – How Primal Urges Overran Their
Evolutionary Purpose. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2010.
"No one owns the land", p.112. "The key to most of our modern crisis
lies in 'making the ordinary seem strange'. We are the one animal that
can notice, 'Hey, I'm sitting on a polka-dotted plaster egg' and climb
off", p.177.
Beattie, Andrew and Paul Ehrlich, Wild Solutions. How Biodiversity Is
Money in the Bank. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001.
Chang, Iris, The Rape of Nanking. New York: Basic Books, 1997 (about
what humans are capable of, both the worst and the best).
Cohen, Jon, Almost Chimpanzee. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2010.
"'What's crucial at an ethical level and a moral level … is that
there is no animal anywhere in the world where I've experienced what
I've experienced with a chimp. To walk into a situation absolutely
cold and within minutes understand what's going on around me because
all of my life I've seen what's going on with the people around me.
That understanding which is absolutely intuitive. And that feeling of
knowing what's happening does not exist with any other species.' It
was early afternoon, and I was sitting against a tree and resting from
a long morning of chimping while more than a dozen chimpanzees
scattered about me in a midday siesta, reclining with one hand behind
the head, picking through one another's hair, playing with their
babies, quietly digesting food and thoughts from a busy morning
foraging. It was as though I had stumbled into a group of ancient
humans. It was as though I was almost a chimpanzee myself.", pp.
314-315. Cohen writes masterfully, and exhaustively details the
science of human-chimpanzee differences.
Cone, Marla, Silent Snow -- The Slow Poisoning of the Arctic. New
York: Grove Press, 2005.
"They were the same contaminents found in the milk of women in the
south -- PCBs and pesticides -- but the milk of the arctic mothers had
up to ten times more than that of the mothers in Canada's biggest
cities. ... [T]he PCB levels were the highest he had ever seen. Those
women, the expert said, should stop breast-feeding their babies --
immediately. ... [T]he bodies of some Inuit there carried such
extraordinary loads of chemicals that their bodies and breast milk
could be classified as hazardous waste." p.31-2. "The Aleutian otters
were supposed to be the uncontaminated ones, but he had never seen PCB
numbers so high. How could otters inhabiting these remote Alaskan
islands contain twice as much of these industrial compounds as otters
off urban California?" p.35. "Derocher checked the sex of one bear as
he routinely did, and found both a vagina and a penis-like knob." p.
37. "[T]he evidence is overwhelming that toxic substances have spread
throughout the Arctic, harming animals and people of the far North." p.
39.
De Graaf, John, David Wann, and Thomas H. Naylor, Affluenza. San
Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 2001.
Deffeyes, Kenneth S., Hubbert's Peak -- The Impending World Oil
Shortage. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001.
"In 1956, the geologist M. King Hubbert predicted that U.S. oil
production would peak in the early 1970s. Almost everyone, inside and
outside the oil industry, rejected Hubbert's analysis. The controversy
raged until 1970, when U.S. production of crude oil started to fall.
Hubbert was right. Around 1995, several analysts began applying
Hubbert's method to world oil production, and most of them estimate
that the peak year for world oil will be between 2004 and 2008. These
analyses were reported in some of the most widely circulated sources:
Nature, Science, and Scientific American.", p.1.
Dubos, Rene', The Wooing of Earth. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons,
1980.
"Laws may prevent exploitation or permanent occupation of wilderness
areas, as in the case of national parks, but they cannot protect them
against the damaging effects resulting from the mere presence of
innumerable tourists", p.29. "There is no evidence ... that early
humans always lived in ecological harmony with Nature out of respect
for it", p.63. "The wilderness is being loved to death. The conflict
between preservation and recreation is becoming more intense as more
people seek the wilderness experience", p.136. "The only solution to
the overuse and degradation of wilderness areas is in restriction of
visitors", p.138.
Efron, John, Steven Weitzman, Matthias Lehmann, Joshua Holo, The Jews
-- A History. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2009.
"Perhaps the best single volume on the Jewish Experience", David
Meyers, University of California, Los Angeles
Ehrenfeld, David, The Arrogance of Humanism. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1978.
"A clever person can use reason to support any course of action that
he or she fancies -- it takes decent feelings to pick the right one",
p.146. "Last night I listened to one of my favorite pieces of early
baroque music. It reminded me, as it always does, of the sea pounding
relentlessly on a dark beach where I have spend many nights waiting to
watch the giant sea turtles, last of their noble race, heave
themselves out of the depths to lay their gleaming eggs in the black
sand. The music saddened me beyond my power to express, because I know
that it could not have been written in my time; there has been too
much progress; there is not enough peace. It saddened me because it
reminded me of the sea, the sea that gave birth to human beings, that
we carry with us yet in our very cells. It saddened me because it
reminded me that in my century nothing is totally free of the taint of
our arrogance. We have defiled everything, much of it forever, even
the farthest jungles of the Amazon and the air above the mountains,
even the everlasting sea which gave us birth." p.269. [The thesis of
this book is that technology always has unintended harmful
consequences, which, in a vicious cycle, we always promise to repair …
with more technology!]
Ehrlich, Paul R. and Ehrlich, Anne H., Extinction: The Causes and
Consequences of the Disappearances of Species. New York: Random House,
1981.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, "Self-Reliance" and other essays in Essays and
Journals. Garden City, NY, 1968.
Engwicht, David, "2040 -- A Message from the Future" (a videotaped
satire on the end of the Auto Age, available from
***@lesstraffic.com; skewers the auto/road/oil industry like no
other film).
Flannery, Tim, The Eternal Frontier -- An Ecological History of North
America and Its Peoples. New York: Grove Press,2001.
"The behaviours animals use to avoid predators are both genetically
based and learned. The genetic component is acquired through natural
selection and so can only slowly be developed. This may account in
part for the fact that most of the world's surviving large mammals
live in Africa, for it was there that humanity evolved, and it was
only there that animals had the time to acquire the genetically based
behaviours that allowed them to cope with the new predator. … Given
the level of efficiency achieved by Clovis hunters, it seems unlikely
that the Columbian mammoth had time to acquire either an appropriate
genetic or learned response to the threat humans posed." Pp.198-9.
Foreman, Dave, Confessions of an Eco-Warrior. New York: Harmony Books,
1991.
"A step beyond Primeval management would be human exclosure zones:
large areas where no human beings, including scientific researchers or
rangers, would be permitted." p.68.
Forman, Richard T. T., Daniel Sperling, and Frederick J. Swanson, Road
Ecology: Science & Solutions. Island Press, 2002.
Gandhi, Arun, Legacy of Love. My Education in the Path of Nonviolence.
El Sobrante, California: North Bay Books, 2003.
"It is difficult for me to believe that humanity is the end product
and ultimate beneficiary of all creation." p.115. "We must be the
change we wish to see in the world." (Mohandas Gandhi) p.137.
Gandhi, Mohandas, Essential Writings, Selected with an Introduction by
John Dear. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2002.
"Complete nonviolence is complete absence of ill will against all
that lives. It therefore embraces even subhuman life not excluding
noxious insects or beasts." p.101. "It is discipline and restraint
that separates us from the brute." P.131.
Gatto, John Taylor, A Different Kind of Teacher. Berkeley, California:
Berkeley Hills Books, 2001.
"Schools train individuals to respond as a mass. Boys and girls are
drilled in being bored, frightened, envious, emotionally needy,
generally incomplete. A successful mass production economy requires
such a clientele. Small business and farm economies, like those of the
Amish, require individual competence, thoughtfulness, compassion, and
universal participation. Our own economy requires a managed mass of
levelled, spiritless, anxious, family-less, friendless, godless, and
obedient people who believe the difference between Coke and Pepsi is a
subject worth arguing about." p.51. "television destroys the power to
think by providing pre-seen sights, pre-thought thoughts, and
unwholesome fantasies" p.68.
Gladwell, Malcolm, Blink. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2005.
"When Julie Landsman auditioned for the role of principal French horn
at the Met, the screens had just gone up in the practice hall. At the
time, there were no women in the brass section of the orchestra,
because everyone 'knew' that women could not play the horn as well as
men. But Landsman came and sat down and played – and she played well.
'I knew in my last round that I had won before they told me,' she
says. 'It was because of the way I performed the last piece. I held on
to the last high C for a very long time, just to leave no doubt in
their minds. And they started to laugh, because it was above and
beyond the call of duty.' But when they declared her the winner and
she stepped out from behind the screen, there was a gasp. It wasn't
just that she was a woman, and female horn players were rare, as had
been the case with Conant. And it wasn't just that bold, extended high
C, which was the kind of macho sound that they expected from a man
only. It was because they knew her. Landsman had played for the Met
before as a substitute. Until they listened to her with just their
ears, however, they had no idea she was so good. When the screen
created a pure Blink moment, a small miracle happened, the kind of
miracle that is always possible when we take charge of the first two
seconds: they saw her for who she truly was." p.254.
Griffin, Donald, Animal Thinking. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard
University Press, 1984.
"[The] assumption of a human monopoly on conscious thinking becomes
more and more difficult to defend as we learn about the ingenuity of
animals in coping with problems in their normal lives." p.47.
Knight, Richard L. and Kevin J. Gutzwiller, eds. Wildlife and
Recreationists. Covelo, California: Island Press, c.1995.
B. Blake Levitt, _Electromagnetic Fields -- A Consumer's Guide to the
Issues and How to Protect Ourselves_. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace
and Company, 1995.
"The Best guidelines at present appear to be those recommended by the
National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP) in
its Report No. 86, titled 'Biological Effects and Exposure Criteria
for Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Fields'. ... The phone number is
800-229-2652." p.31.
Livingston, John A., Rogue Primate. Toronto, Ontario: Key Porter
Books, 1994.
"Give a lower animal a 'self', and before you know it, some
ideological subversive will want to give it a soul." p.98 "Few
exercises in rationalization have involved quite so much intellectual
pretzel-bending as has the task of demonstrating absolute human
uniqueness. Our obsession with this is revealing. It's not enough that
every individual, and every species, is a unique, one-time-only event.
Fanatical humanism demands more. All species are unique, we may
acknowledge, but one species is uniquely unique." p.100 "Washoe was
'self-aware'. This was flabbergasting. And for many people it was
deeply unsettling. We seemed to be witnessing the collapse of the last
bastion of human uniqueness. Something had to be done about Washoe.
Human brows furrowed in thought. Then came the answer. Of course! How
blindingly obvious! Washoe was not aware that she was self-aware. One
could almost feel the collective sigh of relief. We could not know
this, of course, but it was fundamental to the shoring-up of the
collective self-esteem that we assert." pp.101-102 "By far the most
penetrating -- merciless -- analysis of humanistic ideology has been
that of David Ehrenfeld [in The Arrogance of Humanism]." p.139 "The
clear assumption is that Nature owes us. It is Nature's appointed task
-- its reason for being -- to maintain and nourish the human project.
Nature was provided to serve the Chosen Species. That is the received
cultural and historical wisdom that sustains such madness as
'sustainable development'." p.185 "'Evil' is a formidable word, but
not an extreme one. If, after all, life diversity is manifestly good
in an absolute sense, then its wanton spoilage and eradication is the
opposite." p.195
Margulis, Lynn and Dorion Sagan, Dazzle Gradually – Reflections on the
Nature of Nature. White River Junction, Vermont: Chelsea Green
Publishing, c. 2007.
"For as long as I can remember, when someone asked me what I wanted
to be when I grew up, I answered, 'An explorer and a writer.' Explorer
of what? As a child, I didn't know: undersea cities, African jungle
pyramids, unmapped tropical islands, polar caves. 'Whatever will need
exploring,' I said without hesitation." p.3. "We are recombinations of
the metabolic processes of bacteria that appeared during the
accumulation of atmospheric oxygen some two thousand million years
ago. We tend to separate ourselves from the rest of life, yet without
the others, especially the microbial others, we would sink in our
feces, drown in our urine, and choke in the carbon dioxide we exhale."
p.35.
Margulis, Lynn and Dorion Sagan, Microcosmos -- Four Billion Years of
Microbial Evolution. Berkeley, California: University of California
Press, c. 1986.
Morrison, Reg, The Spirit in the Gene -- Humanity's Proud Illusion and
the Laws of Nature. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999.
"The fossil record shows that the arrival of human beings in an area
has always coincided with a wave of extinctions" pp.147-8.
Myers, Norman, ed., Gaia: An Atlas of Planet Management, Garden City,
NY: Anchor Books, 1984.
"In 1974,the women of Reni in northern India took simple but
effective action to stop tree felling. They threatened to hug the
trees if the lumberjacks attempted to fell them. The women's protest
(known as the Chipko movement) saved 12,000 sq km of sensitive
watershed." P.57
Neffe, Juergen (translated by Shelley Frisch). Einstein. Baltimore:
The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005.
"Whoever writes grim fairy tales
Will end up in our harshest jails.
But if he dares the truth to tell
We'll cast his soul down into hell."
Albert Einstein, p.285.
Newbold, Heather, ed., Life Stories: World-Renowned Scientists Reflect
on their Lives and the Future of Life on Earth. Berkeley: University
of California Press, 2000.
"Instead of islands of wilderness in a sea of humanity, we should
have islands of humanity in a sea of wilderness", p.49. "Although
humanity is part of nature, it is no use just saying that. We have to
work out how we harmonize with nature." p.119.
Newman, P.W.G, J.R. Kenworthy and T.J. Lyons, "Does Free-Flowing
Traffic Save Energy and Lower Emissions in Cities?" Search, Vol.19, No.
5/6, September/November, 1988.
Newman, Peter W. G. and Jeffrey R. Kenworthy, Sustainability and
Cities. Overcoming Automobile Dependence. Washington, D.C.: Island
Press, 1999.
Newman, P. W. G. and J. R. Kenworthy, "The Transport Energy Trade-Off:
Fuel-Efficient Traffic Versus Fuel-Efficient Cities". Transportation
Research-A, Vol.22A, No.3, pp.163-174, 1988.
Newman, Peter W. G. and Jeffrey R. Kenworthy, "The Use and Abuse of
Driving Cycle Research: Clarifying the Relationship between Traffic
Congestion, Energy and Emissions". Transportation Quarterly, Vol.38,
No.4, October, 1984 (615-635).
Norberg-Hodge, Helena, Ancient Futures – Learning from Ladakh. San
Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1991.
"The old culture reflected fundamental human needs while respecting
natural limits. And it worked! It worked for nature and it worked for
people. ... I am convinced that people were significantly happier
before development than they are today." p.136 "Development is
stimulating dissatisfaction and greed; in so doing, it is destroying
an economy that had served people's needs for more than a thousand
years." p.141-2. "Unless the consumer monoculture is halted there is
no hope of preventing greater poverty, social divisiveness, and
ecological degradation." p.163
Noss, Reed F., "The Ecological Effects of Roads", in "Killing Roads --
A citizen's Primer on the Effects & Removal of Roads", "Earth First!
Journal", May 1, 1990.
"Nothing is worse for sensitive wildlife than a road." p.1.
Noss, Reed F. and Allen Y. Cooperrider, Saving Nature's Legacy:
Protecting and Restoring Biodiversity. Island Press, Covelo,
California, 1994.
"Over 200 full species of plants, plus many more varieties, and 71
species and subspecies of vertebrates have gone extinct In North
America north of Mexico since European settlement." p.16. "Every major
human colonization of a new continent or island has been accompanied
by a wave of extinctions, especially of large mammals and flightless
birds." p.40. "Blocks of habitat that are roadless or otherwise
inaccessible to humans are better than roaded and accessible habitat
blocks." p.141. "Off-road vehicle use is so blatantly harmful and
frivolous that we wonder why there is even a debate about continuing
this use on public lands." p.143. "No off-road vehicles or other
motorized equipment or mountain bikes." p.175. "Reduce road density as
much as possible by closing, obliterating, and revegetating roads." p.
217.
Pineda, Cecile, Devil's Tango -- How I Learned the Fukushima Step by
Step. San Antonio, TX: Wings Press, 2012.
"Returning U.S. troops father severely deformed children; their urine
tests positive for uranium from exposure to DU [depleted uranium].
There is a 'reason' for all this; nuclear waste, the waste products of
nuclear testing and nuclear reactors is now in the millions of tons;
the Pentagon's policy of using DU ordnance -- especially in oil-rich
countries -- is an effort to GET RID of nuclear wase. But every time
we turn on a light, or turn on our computers to compose our poems, we
are benefitting from nuclear power; we are living in the pipeline that
deliberately spews nuclear by-products on the soils of 'other' people,
members, like us, of the same human race. Let us remember that we are
one human flesh. Let us make 'words' that stop the murder of a planet,
which, last time I looked, was not the property of General Dynamics,
General Electric, or any other general murderer. But what words will
those be?" pp.102-3
Sapolsky, Robert M., Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers. New York: Henry Holt
and Company, 2004.
" ... traffic jams, money worries, overwork, the anxieties of
relationships. Few of them are 'real' in the sense that that zebra or
lion would understand. In our privileged lives, we are uniquely smart
enough to have invented these stressors and uniquely foolish enough to
have let them, too often, dominate our lives. Surely we have the
potential to be uniquely wise enough to banish their stressful hold."
p. 418. [I have rarely learned as much from a book as I did from this
one. Sapolsky is both very funny, and very scientifically rigorous.
The book is about all the ways that stress harms us, and how we can
avoid that harm.]
Sears, Barry, The Anti-Inflammation Zone -- Reversing the Silent
Epidemic That's Destroying Our Health. New York: Regan Books, 2005.
"At the turn of the twentieth century, the greatest physician in
America was Sir William Osler. When asked why he didn't include a
chapter on heart disease in his classic textbook of medicine, he
replied the disease is so rare that most physicians would never see
it. However, all this began to change." p.249 "'The USDA Pyramid is
wrong.' Walter Willett" p.303 "This war based on good intentions would
undermine the health of millions of Americans by unleashing a new and
frigtening epidemic of silent inflammation that is fueled by obesity."
p.304 "Currently, about 7 percent of adult Americans have type 2
diabetes, and I estimate once that figure reaches 10 percent of the
adult population, we will be unable to pay for the resulting health
care costs, regardless of our economic strength." p.308 http://www.zonediet.com/
Seife, Charles, Sun in a Bottle: The Strange History of Fusion and the
Science of Wishful Thinking. New York, NY: The Penguin Group, 2008.
"The promise of a fusion reactor a few decades away has been a
cliche' for a half century. Every time it is repeated, it just
illuminates how generation after generation of scientists, drunk with
the promise of personal glory and unlimited energy, keep forgetting
the hard lessons learned by their predecessors. The quest to put a
star in the bottle is intoxicating. Fusion might be the energy source
of the future. If fusion scientists are unable to rid themselves of
their intemperate self-deception, it always will be." p.227.
Silverstein, Ken, The Radioactive Boy Scout -- The Frightening True
Story of a Whiz Kid and his Homemade Nuclear Reactor. New York:
Villard Books, 2005 (originally Random House, 2004).
"[The] Chernobyl ... fallout is believed to have ultimately killed
thousands of people and poisoned hundreds of thousands more. ... [The]
accident cost the Soviet Union more than three times the total
benefits that accrued from the operation of every Russian nuclear-
power plant between 1954 and 1990." pp. 88-89 "As the Fermi accident
unfolded, the plant management ... and government authorities were
careful to keep the press and the public in the dark. ... It was
almost two decades before reporters and independent investigators
uncovered the full story." pp. 123-124. "'Many homeowners would sooner
burn coal in their own fireplaces than live next to a reactor.'
Furthermore, the industry has yet to come up with a long-term solution
to the problem of storing nuclear waste generated by its power plants,
which continues to pile up on-site and at temporary disposal stations
around the country. ... With fifty-nine nuclear reactors, France
occupies second place in the nuclear-power club, followed by Japan
with fifty-four, Britain with thirty-five, and Russia with twenty-
nine. But as in America, nuclear-power production is declining in
relative terms in those countries as well. Meanwhile, Italy has phased
out nuclear power, and Belgium, Germany, Holland, and Sweden have
decided to follow suit. According to a 2001 report from the
International Energy Agency, 'Nuclear power is currently being
abandoned globally.'" pp.200-201
Simberloff, Daniel, Don C. Schmitz, and Tom C. Brown, eds., Strangers
in Paradise: Impact and Management of Nonindigenous Species in
Florida. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1997.
"Florida's most destructive nonindigenous population ... will
probably continue to be the 14 million people derived from foreign
ancestries." p.315.
Singer, Peter, Animal Liberation. A New Ethics for Our Treatment of
Animals. New York: Avon Books, 1975.
Stanford, Craig, Significant Others -- The Ape-Human Continuum and the
Quest for Human Nature. New York, N.Y.: Basic Books, 2001.
"To understand human nature, you must understand the apes.
Significant Others is a field guide to the current state of our
understanding of both human and ape nature and to the debates now
raging in the fields of primate behavior and human evolution."
p.xviii. "Contrary to our popular belief, people who rely on forest
resources for a living do not necessarily try to conserve it. … A
second myth … is that economic improvements necessarily lead people to
protect their forests and wildlife." pp.195-6.
Steingraber, Sandra, Living Downstream -- An Ecologist Looks at Cancer
and the Environment. New York: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company,
Inc., 1997. (Words cannot do justice to this easy-to-read collage of
meticulous science and lyric storytelling. And, as if that weren't
enough, it may save your life!)
"According to the most recent tally, forty possible carcinogens
appear in drinking water, sixty are released by industry into ambient
air, and sixty-six are routinely sprayed on food crops as pesticides."
p.270.
Stone, Christopher D., Should Trees Have Standing? Toward Legal Rights
for Natural Objects. Los Altos, California: William Kaufmann, Inc.,
1973.
Suzuki, David and Keibo Oiwa, The Japan We Never Knew. Toronto:
Stoddard Publishing Co. Ltd., 1996.
This eloquent look at the social and ecological status of several of
the minorities and aboriginal peoples of Japan shows exactly why
diversity should be valued: such peoples often have a clearer view,
and more sustainable practices, than the majority culture. This is not
just a book about Japan, but one with truly urgent and timeless value
for all of humanity. "Many of the large, industrialized cities of
Japan are ecological nightmares, biological deserts entombed in
concrete and asphalt, with rivers choking on industrial sludge and
garbage, air thick with exhaust fumes and factory emissions. The
pollution became more intense the closer we got to Tokyo. The problems
here can be seen as [as] much a failure of education as of politics
and business. ... Around the world, social structures are collapsing
under the weight of explosive population growth and massive shifts in
where this population lives. There are enormous pressures of
widespread poverty, ecological collapse, civil strife, and the
increase in new and old diseases -- AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis.
Highly industrialized countries like Japan, which depend on global
resources and markets, are beginning to confront the reality of their
dependence on renewable and nonrenewable products, of the planet's
finite limits, and of the ecological and social unsustainability of
our high consumption lifestyle. It is from the turmoil within the
Japan that we now see that new paradigms, priorities, lifestyles, and
goals are emerging. They provide an important source of new ways of
perceiving, thinking, and acting for all of us in the global village
who strive to find ways to achieve social, economic, and environmental
balance." pp.303-4.
Taylor, Paul W., Respect for Nature. A Theory of Environmental Ethics.
Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1986.
"Being willing to take the standpoint of nonhuman living things and
to make informed, objective judgments from that standpoint is one of
the central elements of the ethics of respect for nature." p.67.
Terborgh, John, Carel van Schaik, Lisa Davenport, and Madhu Rao, eds.,
Making Parks Work. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2002.
"Humans, even in low numbers, are incompatible with the persistence
of megaherbivores and top carnivores, two groups of animals that are
among the most crucial to maintaining normal ecosystem functioning."
p.7. "Prevention of … conflict by achieving spatial separation between
humans and wildlife appears to be an attractive proposition." p.259.
"We do not find any evidence that [coexistence of humans and wildlife
in parks] is beneficial for either conservation or human welfare." p.
260. "As a matter of principle, people-free parks [no human residents]
should always be the ultimate goal. It is the only goal that over the
long run is consistent with the requirements of biodiversity
conservation. Thus, all relevant policies should be directed to
reducing the human presence within parks." p.310.
Terborgh, John, Requiem for Nature. Washington, D.C.: Island Press,
2002.
The Middlesex Fells [near Boston] is one of an extremely small number
of protected areas to have been thoroughly inventoried early in its
history. In 1894, two of the most eminent botanists in the United
States at that time, Merritt Fernald and Liberty Hyde Bailey,
documented the presence of 422 plant species, including trees, shrubs,
vines, herbs, and ferns. Ninety-nine years later, in 1993, Brian
Drayton and Richard Primack of Boston University resurveyed the Fells.
Despite a search that covered every corner of the reserve, they failed
to locate 155 of the species that had been present at the first
survey, 37 percent of the 1894 list.
Turse, Nick, The Complex -- How the Military Invades Our Everyday
Lives. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2008.
Vandeman, Michael J., http://mjvande.nfshost.com, especially “Wildlife
and the Ecocity”, "Wildlife Need Habitat Off-Limits to Humans!",
"Rethinking the Impacts of Recreation", "Telling the Truth about
Chimpanzees", "The Myth of the Sustainable Lifestyle", and "What Is
Homo Sapiens' Place in Nature, from an Objective (Biocentric) Point of
View?"
Ward, Peter Douglas, The End of Evolution: On Mass Extinctions and the
Preservation of Biodiversity. New York: Bantam Books, 1994.
Wilcove, David S., The Condor's Shadow. New York: Anchor Books, 1999.
"People and condors don't mix." p.239.
Wilson, Edward O., The Diversity of Life. Cambridge, Massachusetts:
Harvard University Press, 1992.
Wilson, Edward O., The Future of Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
2002.
"As a rule around the world, wherever a people entered a virgin
environment, most of the megafauna soon vanished. Also doomed were a
substantial fraction of the most easily captured ground birds and
tortoises." p.92. "For hundreds of millenia, evolving humanity was a
native species … in Africa and Asia. … The modern Races of Homo
sapiens were a true alien species when they colonized the rest of the
world, from Australia to the New World and finally the distant oceanic
islands." p.98. "The noble savage never existed." p.102.
Wu, Hongda Harry, Laogai -- the Chinese Gulag. Boulder, CO: Westview
Press, 1992.
"The LRC [labor reform camps] are ... able to suppress class enemies,
maintain the dictatorship, and also provide economic benefits. Is this
not one of the CCP's [Chinese Communist Party's] great achievements?"
p.141 "Mr. Wu has been focusing all of his energy on fulfilling a
promise he made to himself in an oxcart leaving #586, the mass
graveyard stretching across the fields behind Qinghe Farm – to reveal
to the world the true nature of China's laogaidui system in the hope
that one day it will take its place in history beside Treblinka and
Dachau" p.233.
Wuerthner, George "Selfish Genes, Local Control, and Conservation", in
Wild Earth, Winter 1999/2000, pp.87-91.
Michael J. Vandeman, Ph.D.
Last Updated April 8, 2012
These are the most important works I have read to date, so this is a
work in progress, not a complete list. I welcome suggestions for other
works that should be added. My criterion is that they are foundational
works that contribute to understanding the most important realities of
life on Earth, and what needs to be done to ensure its survival, i.e.,
the survival of all life on Earth. What could be more important than
that?!
Also, I am sure that each author has other writings of equal or
greater importance. I suggest that you definitely read these (as soon
as possible), but also look for their other works. They are all on the
"cutting edge" of their fields.
Please send your comments and suggestions to me at
***@pacbell.net.
Barrett, Deirdre, Supernormal Stimuli – How Primal Urges Overran Their
Evolutionary Purpose. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2010.
"No one owns the land", p.112. "The key to most of our modern crisis
lies in 'making the ordinary seem strange'. We are the one animal that
can notice, 'Hey, I'm sitting on a polka-dotted plaster egg' and climb
off", p.177.
Beattie, Andrew and Paul Ehrlich, Wild Solutions. How Biodiversity Is
Money in the Bank. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001.
Chang, Iris, The Rape of Nanking. New York: Basic Books, 1997 (about
what humans are capable of, both the worst and the best).
Cohen, Jon, Almost Chimpanzee. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2010.
"'What's crucial at an ethical level and a moral level … is that
there is no animal anywhere in the world where I've experienced what
I've experienced with a chimp. To walk into a situation absolutely
cold and within minutes understand what's going on around me because
all of my life I've seen what's going on with the people around me.
That understanding which is absolutely intuitive. And that feeling of
knowing what's happening does not exist with any other species.' It
was early afternoon, and I was sitting against a tree and resting from
a long morning of chimping while more than a dozen chimpanzees
scattered about me in a midday siesta, reclining with one hand behind
the head, picking through one another's hair, playing with their
babies, quietly digesting food and thoughts from a busy morning
foraging. It was as though I had stumbled into a group of ancient
humans. It was as though I was almost a chimpanzee myself.", pp.
314-315. Cohen writes masterfully, and exhaustively details the
science of human-chimpanzee differences.
Cone, Marla, Silent Snow -- The Slow Poisoning of the Arctic. New
York: Grove Press, 2005.
"They were the same contaminents found in the milk of women in the
south -- PCBs and pesticides -- but the milk of the arctic mothers had
up to ten times more than that of the mothers in Canada's biggest
cities. ... [T]he PCB levels were the highest he had ever seen. Those
women, the expert said, should stop breast-feeding their babies --
immediately. ... [T]he bodies of some Inuit there carried such
extraordinary loads of chemicals that their bodies and breast milk
could be classified as hazardous waste." p.31-2. "The Aleutian otters
were supposed to be the uncontaminated ones, but he had never seen PCB
numbers so high. How could otters inhabiting these remote Alaskan
islands contain twice as much of these industrial compounds as otters
off urban California?" p.35. "Derocher checked the sex of one bear as
he routinely did, and found both a vagina and a penis-like knob." p.
37. "[T]he evidence is overwhelming that toxic substances have spread
throughout the Arctic, harming animals and people of the far North." p.
39.
De Graaf, John, David Wann, and Thomas H. Naylor, Affluenza. San
Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 2001.
Deffeyes, Kenneth S., Hubbert's Peak -- The Impending World Oil
Shortage. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001.
"In 1956, the geologist M. King Hubbert predicted that U.S. oil
production would peak in the early 1970s. Almost everyone, inside and
outside the oil industry, rejected Hubbert's analysis. The controversy
raged until 1970, when U.S. production of crude oil started to fall.
Hubbert was right. Around 1995, several analysts began applying
Hubbert's method to world oil production, and most of them estimate
that the peak year for world oil will be between 2004 and 2008. These
analyses were reported in some of the most widely circulated sources:
Nature, Science, and Scientific American.", p.1.
Dubos, Rene', The Wooing of Earth. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons,
1980.
"Laws may prevent exploitation or permanent occupation of wilderness
areas, as in the case of national parks, but they cannot protect them
against the damaging effects resulting from the mere presence of
innumerable tourists", p.29. "There is no evidence ... that early
humans always lived in ecological harmony with Nature out of respect
for it", p.63. "The wilderness is being loved to death. The conflict
between preservation and recreation is becoming more intense as more
people seek the wilderness experience", p.136. "The only solution to
the overuse and degradation of wilderness areas is in restriction of
visitors", p.138.
Efron, John, Steven Weitzman, Matthias Lehmann, Joshua Holo, The Jews
-- A History. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2009.
"Perhaps the best single volume on the Jewish Experience", David
Meyers, University of California, Los Angeles
Ehrenfeld, David, The Arrogance of Humanism. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1978.
"A clever person can use reason to support any course of action that
he or she fancies -- it takes decent feelings to pick the right one",
p.146. "Last night I listened to one of my favorite pieces of early
baroque music. It reminded me, as it always does, of the sea pounding
relentlessly on a dark beach where I have spend many nights waiting to
watch the giant sea turtles, last of their noble race, heave
themselves out of the depths to lay their gleaming eggs in the black
sand. The music saddened me beyond my power to express, because I know
that it could not have been written in my time; there has been too
much progress; there is not enough peace. It saddened me because it
reminded me of the sea, the sea that gave birth to human beings, that
we carry with us yet in our very cells. It saddened me because it
reminded me that in my century nothing is totally free of the taint of
our arrogance. We have defiled everything, much of it forever, even
the farthest jungles of the Amazon and the air above the mountains,
even the everlasting sea which gave us birth." p.269. [The thesis of
this book is that technology always has unintended harmful
consequences, which, in a vicious cycle, we always promise to repair …
with more technology!]
Ehrlich, Paul R. and Ehrlich, Anne H., Extinction: The Causes and
Consequences of the Disappearances of Species. New York: Random House,
1981.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, "Self-Reliance" and other essays in Essays and
Journals. Garden City, NY, 1968.
Engwicht, David, "2040 -- A Message from the Future" (a videotaped
satire on the end of the Auto Age, available from
***@lesstraffic.com; skewers the auto/road/oil industry like no
other film).
Flannery, Tim, The Eternal Frontier -- An Ecological History of North
America and Its Peoples. New York: Grove Press,2001.
"The behaviours animals use to avoid predators are both genetically
based and learned. The genetic component is acquired through natural
selection and so can only slowly be developed. This may account in
part for the fact that most of the world's surviving large mammals
live in Africa, for it was there that humanity evolved, and it was
only there that animals had the time to acquire the genetically based
behaviours that allowed them to cope with the new predator. … Given
the level of efficiency achieved by Clovis hunters, it seems unlikely
that the Columbian mammoth had time to acquire either an appropriate
genetic or learned response to the threat humans posed." Pp.198-9.
Foreman, Dave, Confessions of an Eco-Warrior. New York: Harmony Books,
1991.
"A step beyond Primeval management would be human exclosure zones:
large areas where no human beings, including scientific researchers or
rangers, would be permitted." p.68.
Forman, Richard T. T., Daniel Sperling, and Frederick J. Swanson, Road
Ecology: Science & Solutions. Island Press, 2002.
Gandhi, Arun, Legacy of Love. My Education in the Path of Nonviolence.
El Sobrante, California: North Bay Books, 2003.
"It is difficult for me to believe that humanity is the end product
and ultimate beneficiary of all creation." p.115. "We must be the
change we wish to see in the world." (Mohandas Gandhi) p.137.
Gandhi, Mohandas, Essential Writings, Selected with an Introduction by
John Dear. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2002.
"Complete nonviolence is complete absence of ill will against all
that lives. It therefore embraces even subhuman life not excluding
noxious insects or beasts." p.101. "It is discipline and restraint
that separates us from the brute." P.131.
Gatto, John Taylor, A Different Kind of Teacher. Berkeley, California:
Berkeley Hills Books, 2001.
"Schools train individuals to respond as a mass. Boys and girls are
drilled in being bored, frightened, envious, emotionally needy,
generally incomplete. A successful mass production economy requires
such a clientele. Small business and farm economies, like those of the
Amish, require individual competence, thoughtfulness, compassion, and
universal participation. Our own economy requires a managed mass of
levelled, spiritless, anxious, family-less, friendless, godless, and
obedient people who believe the difference between Coke and Pepsi is a
subject worth arguing about." p.51. "television destroys the power to
think by providing pre-seen sights, pre-thought thoughts, and
unwholesome fantasies" p.68.
Gladwell, Malcolm, Blink. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2005.
"When Julie Landsman auditioned for the role of principal French horn
at the Met, the screens had just gone up in the practice hall. At the
time, there were no women in the brass section of the orchestra,
because everyone 'knew' that women could not play the horn as well as
men. But Landsman came and sat down and played – and she played well.
'I knew in my last round that I had won before they told me,' she
says. 'It was because of the way I performed the last piece. I held on
to the last high C for a very long time, just to leave no doubt in
their minds. And they started to laugh, because it was above and
beyond the call of duty.' But when they declared her the winner and
she stepped out from behind the screen, there was a gasp. It wasn't
just that she was a woman, and female horn players were rare, as had
been the case with Conant. And it wasn't just that bold, extended high
C, which was the kind of macho sound that they expected from a man
only. It was because they knew her. Landsman had played for the Met
before as a substitute. Until they listened to her with just their
ears, however, they had no idea she was so good. When the screen
created a pure Blink moment, a small miracle happened, the kind of
miracle that is always possible when we take charge of the first two
seconds: they saw her for who she truly was." p.254.
Griffin, Donald, Animal Thinking. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard
University Press, 1984.
"[The] assumption of a human monopoly on conscious thinking becomes
more and more difficult to defend as we learn about the ingenuity of
animals in coping with problems in their normal lives." p.47.
Knight, Richard L. and Kevin J. Gutzwiller, eds. Wildlife and
Recreationists. Covelo, California: Island Press, c.1995.
B. Blake Levitt, _Electromagnetic Fields -- A Consumer's Guide to the
Issues and How to Protect Ourselves_. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace
and Company, 1995.
"The Best guidelines at present appear to be those recommended by the
National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP) in
its Report No. 86, titled 'Biological Effects and Exposure Criteria
for Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Fields'. ... The phone number is
800-229-2652." p.31.
Livingston, John A., Rogue Primate. Toronto, Ontario: Key Porter
Books, 1994.
"Give a lower animal a 'self', and before you know it, some
ideological subversive will want to give it a soul." p.98 "Few
exercises in rationalization have involved quite so much intellectual
pretzel-bending as has the task of demonstrating absolute human
uniqueness. Our obsession with this is revealing. It's not enough that
every individual, and every species, is a unique, one-time-only event.
Fanatical humanism demands more. All species are unique, we may
acknowledge, but one species is uniquely unique." p.100 "Washoe was
'self-aware'. This was flabbergasting. And for many people it was
deeply unsettling. We seemed to be witnessing the collapse of the last
bastion of human uniqueness. Something had to be done about Washoe.
Human brows furrowed in thought. Then came the answer. Of course! How
blindingly obvious! Washoe was not aware that she was self-aware. One
could almost feel the collective sigh of relief. We could not know
this, of course, but it was fundamental to the shoring-up of the
collective self-esteem that we assert." pp.101-102 "By far the most
penetrating -- merciless -- analysis of humanistic ideology has been
that of David Ehrenfeld [in The Arrogance of Humanism]." p.139 "The
clear assumption is that Nature owes us. It is Nature's appointed task
-- its reason for being -- to maintain and nourish the human project.
Nature was provided to serve the Chosen Species. That is the received
cultural and historical wisdom that sustains such madness as
'sustainable development'." p.185 "'Evil' is a formidable word, but
not an extreme one. If, after all, life diversity is manifestly good
in an absolute sense, then its wanton spoilage and eradication is the
opposite." p.195
Margulis, Lynn and Dorion Sagan, Dazzle Gradually – Reflections on the
Nature of Nature. White River Junction, Vermont: Chelsea Green
Publishing, c. 2007.
"For as long as I can remember, when someone asked me what I wanted
to be when I grew up, I answered, 'An explorer and a writer.' Explorer
of what? As a child, I didn't know: undersea cities, African jungle
pyramids, unmapped tropical islands, polar caves. 'Whatever will need
exploring,' I said without hesitation." p.3. "We are recombinations of
the metabolic processes of bacteria that appeared during the
accumulation of atmospheric oxygen some two thousand million years
ago. We tend to separate ourselves from the rest of life, yet without
the others, especially the microbial others, we would sink in our
feces, drown in our urine, and choke in the carbon dioxide we exhale."
p.35.
Margulis, Lynn and Dorion Sagan, Microcosmos -- Four Billion Years of
Microbial Evolution. Berkeley, California: University of California
Press, c. 1986.
Morrison, Reg, The Spirit in the Gene -- Humanity's Proud Illusion and
the Laws of Nature. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999.
"The fossil record shows that the arrival of human beings in an area
has always coincided with a wave of extinctions" pp.147-8.
Myers, Norman, ed., Gaia: An Atlas of Planet Management, Garden City,
NY: Anchor Books, 1984.
"In 1974,the women of Reni in northern India took simple but
effective action to stop tree felling. They threatened to hug the
trees if the lumberjacks attempted to fell them. The women's protest
(known as the Chipko movement) saved 12,000 sq km of sensitive
watershed." P.57
Neffe, Juergen (translated by Shelley Frisch). Einstein. Baltimore:
The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005.
"Whoever writes grim fairy tales
Will end up in our harshest jails.
But if he dares the truth to tell
We'll cast his soul down into hell."
Albert Einstein, p.285.
Newbold, Heather, ed., Life Stories: World-Renowned Scientists Reflect
on their Lives and the Future of Life on Earth. Berkeley: University
of California Press, 2000.
"Instead of islands of wilderness in a sea of humanity, we should
have islands of humanity in a sea of wilderness", p.49. "Although
humanity is part of nature, it is no use just saying that. We have to
work out how we harmonize with nature." p.119.
Newman, P.W.G, J.R. Kenworthy and T.J. Lyons, "Does Free-Flowing
Traffic Save Energy and Lower Emissions in Cities?" Search, Vol.19, No.
5/6, September/November, 1988.
Newman, Peter W. G. and Jeffrey R. Kenworthy, Sustainability and
Cities. Overcoming Automobile Dependence. Washington, D.C.: Island
Press, 1999.
Newman, P. W. G. and J. R. Kenworthy, "The Transport Energy Trade-Off:
Fuel-Efficient Traffic Versus Fuel-Efficient Cities". Transportation
Research-A, Vol.22A, No.3, pp.163-174, 1988.
Newman, Peter W. G. and Jeffrey R. Kenworthy, "The Use and Abuse of
Driving Cycle Research: Clarifying the Relationship between Traffic
Congestion, Energy and Emissions". Transportation Quarterly, Vol.38,
No.4, October, 1984 (615-635).
Norberg-Hodge, Helena, Ancient Futures – Learning from Ladakh. San
Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1991.
"The old culture reflected fundamental human needs while respecting
natural limits. And it worked! It worked for nature and it worked for
people. ... I am convinced that people were significantly happier
before development than they are today." p.136 "Development is
stimulating dissatisfaction and greed; in so doing, it is destroying
an economy that had served people's needs for more than a thousand
years." p.141-2. "Unless the consumer monoculture is halted there is
no hope of preventing greater poverty, social divisiveness, and
ecological degradation." p.163
Noss, Reed F., "The Ecological Effects of Roads", in "Killing Roads --
A citizen's Primer on the Effects & Removal of Roads", "Earth First!
Journal", May 1, 1990.
"Nothing is worse for sensitive wildlife than a road." p.1.
Noss, Reed F. and Allen Y. Cooperrider, Saving Nature's Legacy:
Protecting and Restoring Biodiversity. Island Press, Covelo,
California, 1994.
"Over 200 full species of plants, plus many more varieties, and 71
species and subspecies of vertebrates have gone extinct In North
America north of Mexico since European settlement." p.16. "Every major
human colonization of a new continent or island has been accompanied
by a wave of extinctions, especially of large mammals and flightless
birds." p.40. "Blocks of habitat that are roadless or otherwise
inaccessible to humans are better than roaded and accessible habitat
blocks." p.141. "Off-road vehicle use is so blatantly harmful and
frivolous that we wonder why there is even a debate about continuing
this use on public lands." p.143. "No off-road vehicles or other
motorized equipment or mountain bikes." p.175. "Reduce road density as
much as possible by closing, obliterating, and revegetating roads." p.
217.
Pineda, Cecile, Devil's Tango -- How I Learned the Fukushima Step by
Step. San Antonio, TX: Wings Press, 2012.
"Returning U.S. troops father severely deformed children; their urine
tests positive for uranium from exposure to DU [depleted uranium].
There is a 'reason' for all this; nuclear waste, the waste products of
nuclear testing and nuclear reactors is now in the millions of tons;
the Pentagon's policy of using DU ordnance -- especially in oil-rich
countries -- is an effort to GET RID of nuclear wase. But every time
we turn on a light, or turn on our computers to compose our poems, we
are benefitting from nuclear power; we are living in the pipeline that
deliberately spews nuclear by-products on the soils of 'other' people,
members, like us, of the same human race. Let us remember that we are
one human flesh. Let us make 'words' that stop the murder of a planet,
which, last time I looked, was not the property of General Dynamics,
General Electric, or any other general murderer. But what words will
those be?" pp.102-3
Sapolsky, Robert M., Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers. New York: Henry Holt
and Company, 2004.
" ... traffic jams, money worries, overwork, the anxieties of
relationships. Few of them are 'real' in the sense that that zebra or
lion would understand. In our privileged lives, we are uniquely smart
enough to have invented these stressors and uniquely foolish enough to
have let them, too often, dominate our lives. Surely we have the
potential to be uniquely wise enough to banish their stressful hold."
p. 418. [I have rarely learned as much from a book as I did from this
one. Sapolsky is both very funny, and very scientifically rigorous.
The book is about all the ways that stress harms us, and how we can
avoid that harm.]
Sears, Barry, The Anti-Inflammation Zone -- Reversing the Silent
Epidemic That's Destroying Our Health. New York: Regan Books, 2005.
"At the turn of the twentieth century, the greatest physician in
America was Sir William Osler. When asked why he didn't include a
chapter on heart disease in his classic textbook of medicine, he
replied the disease is so rare that most physicians would never see
it. However, all this began to change." p.249 "'The USDA Pyramid is
wrong.' Walter Willett" p.303 "This war based on good intentions would
undermine the health of millions of Americans by unleashing a new and
frigtening epidemic of silent inflammation that is fueled by obesity."
p.304 "Currently, about 7 percent of adult Americans have type 2
diabetes, and I estimate once that figure reaches 10 percent of the
adult population, we will be unable to pay for the resulting health
care costs, regardless of our economic strength." p.308 http://www.zonediet.com/
Seife, Charles, Sun in a Bottle: The Strange History of Fusion and the
Science of Wishful Thinking. New York, NY: The Penguin Group, 2008.
"The promise of a fusion reactor a few decades away has been a
cliche' for a half century. Every time it is repeated, it just
illuminates how generation after generation of scientists, drunk with
the promise of personal glory and unlimited energy, keep forgetting
the hard lessons learned by their predecessors. The quest to put a
star in the bottle is intoxicating. Fusion might be the energy source
of the future. If fusion scientists are unable to rid themselves of
their intemperate self-deception, it always will be." p.227.
Silverstein, Ken, The Radioactive Boy Scout -- The Frightening True
Story of a Whiz Kid and his Homemade Nuclear Reactor. New York:
Villard Books, 2005 (originally Random House, 2004).
"[The] Chernobyl ... fallout is believed to have ultimately killed
thousands of people and poisoned hundreds of thousands more. ... [The]
accident cost the Soviet Union more than three times the total
benefits that accrued from the operation of every Russian nuclear-
power plant between 1954 and 1990." pp. 88-89 "As the Fermi accident
unfolded, the plant management ... and government authorities were
careful to keep the press and the public in the dark. ... It was
almost two decades before reporters and independent investigators
uncovered the full story." pp. 123-124. "'Many homeowners would sooner
burn coal in their own fireplaces than live next to a reactor.'
Furthermore, the industry has yet to come up with a long-term solution
to the problem of storing nuclear waste generated by its power plants,
which continues to pile up on-site and at temporary disposal stations
around the country. ... With fifty-nine nuclear reactors, France
occupies second place in the nuclear-power club, followed by Japan
with fifty-four, Britain with thirty-five, and Russia with twenty-
nine. But as in America, nuclear-power production is declining in
relative terms in those countries as well. Meanwhile, Italy has phased
out nuclear power, and Belgium, Germany, Holland, and Sweden have
decided to follow suit. According to a 2001 report from the
International Energy Agency, 'Nuclear power is currently being
abandoned globally.'" pp.200-201
Simberloff, Daniel, Don C. Schmitz, and Tom C. Brown, eds., Strangers
in Paradise: Impact and Management of Nonindigenous Species in
Florida. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1997.
"Florida's most destructive nonindigenous population ... will
probably continue to be the 14 million people derived from foreign
ancestries." p.315.
Singer, Peter, Animal Liberation. A New Ethics for Our Treatment of
Animals. New York: Avon Books, 1975.
Stanford, Craig, Significant Others -- The Ape-Human Continuum and the
Quest for Human Nature. New York, N.Y.: Basic Books, 2001.
"To understand human nature, you must understand the apes.
Significant Others is a field guide to the current state of our
understanding of both human and ape nature and to the debates now
raging in the fields of primate behavior and human evolution."
p.xviii. "Contrary to our popular belief, people who rely on forest
resources for a living do not necessarily try to conserve it. … A
second myth … is that economic improvements necessarily lead people to
protect their forests and wildlife." pp.195-6.
Steingraber, Sandra, Living Downstream -- An Ecologist Looks at Cancer
and the Environment. New York: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company,
Inc., 1997. (Words cannot do justice to this easy-to-read collage of
meticulous science and lyric storytelling. And, as if that weren't
enough, it may save your life!)
"According to the most recent tally, forty possible carcinogens
appear in drinking water, sixty are released by industry into ambient
air, and sixty-six are routinely sprayed on food crops as pesticides."
p.270.
Stone, Christopher D., Should Trees Have Standing? Toward Legal Rights
for Natural Objects. Los Altos, California: William Kaufmann, Inc.,
1973.
Suzuki, David and Keibo Oiwa, The Japan We Never Knew. Toronto:
Stoddard Publishing Co. Ltd., 1996.
This eloquent look at the social and ecological status of several of
the minorities and aboriginal peoples of Japan shows exactly why
diversity should be valued: such peoples often have a clearer view,
and more sustainable practices, than the majority culture. This is not
just a book about Japan, but one with truly urgent and timeless value
for all of humanity. "Many of the large, industrialized cities of
Japan are ecological nightmares, biological deserts entombed in
concrete and asphalt, with rivers choking on industrial sludge and
garbage, air thick with exhaust fumes and factory emissions. The
pollution became more intense the closer we got to Tokyo. The problems
here can be seen as [as] much a failure of education as of politics
and business. ... Around the world, social structures are collapsing
under the weight of explosive population growth and massive shifts in
where this population lives. There are enormous pressures of
widespread poverty, ecological collapse, civil strife, and the
increase in new and old diseases -- AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis.
Highly industrialized countries like Japan, which depend on global
resources and markets, are beginning to confront the reality of their
dependence on renewable and nonrenewable products, of the planet's
finite limits, and of the ecological and social unsustainability of
our high consumption lifestyle. It is from the turmoil within the
Japan that we now see that new paradigms, priorities, lifestyles, and
goals are emerging. They provide an important source of new ways of
perceiving, thinking, and acting for all of us in the global village
who strive to find ways to achieve social, economic, and environmental
balance." pp.303-4.
Taylor, Paul W., Respect for Nature. A Theory of Environmental Ethics.
Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1986.
"Being willing to take the standpoint of nonhuman living things and
to make informed, objective judgments from that standpoint is one of
the central elements of the ethics of respect for nature." p.67.
Terborgh, John, Carel van Schaik, Lisa Davenport, and Madhu Rao, eds.,
Making Parks Work. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2002.
"Humans, even in low numbers, are incompatible with the persistence
of megaherbivores and top carnivores, two groups of animals that are
among the most crucial to maintaining normal ecosystem functioning."
p.7. "Prevention of … conflict by achieving spatial separation between
humans and wildlife appears to be an attractive proposition." p.259.
"We do not find any evidence that [coexistence of humans and wildlife
in parks] is beneficial for either conservation or human welfare." p.
260. "As a matter of principle, people-free parks [no human residents]
should always be the ultimate goal. It is the only goal that over the
long run is consistent with the requirements of biodiversity
conservation. Thus, all relevant policies should be directed to
reducing the human presence within parks." p.310.
Terborgh, John, Requiem for Nature. Washington, D.C.: Island Press,
2002.
The Middlesex Fells [near Boston] is one of an extremely small number
of protected areas to have been thoroughly inventoried early in its
history. In 1894, two of the most eminent botanists in the United
States at that time, Merritt Fernald and Liberty Hyde Bailey,
documented the presence of 422 plant species, including trees, shrubs,
vines, herbs, and ferns. Ninety-nine years later, in 1993, Brian
Drayton and Richard Primack of Boston University resurveyed the Fells.
Despite a search that covered every corner of the reserve, they failed
to locate 155 of the species that had been present at the first
survey, 37 percent of the 1894 list.
Turse, Nick, The Complex -- How the Military Invades Our Everyday
Lives. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2008.
Vandeman, Michael J., http://mjvande.nfshost.com, especially “Wildlife
and the Ecocity”, "Wildlife Need Habitat Off-Limits to Humans!",
"Rethinking the Impacts of Recreation", "Telling the Truth about
Chimpanzees", "The Myth of the Sustainable Lifestyle", and "What Is
Homo Sapiens' Place in Nature, from an Objective (Biocentric) Point of
View?"
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"As a rule around the world, wherever a people entered a virgin
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tortoises." p.92. "For hundreds of millenia, evolving humanity was a
native species … in Africa and Asia. … The modern Races of Homo
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"The LRC [labor reform camps] are ... able to suppress class enemies,
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p.141 "Mr. Wu has been focusing all of his energy on fulfilling a
promise he made to himself in an oxcart leaving #586, the mass
graveyard stretching across the fields behind Qinghe Farm – to reveal
to the world the true nature of China's laogaidui system in the hope
that one day it will take its place in history beside Treblinka and
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