An updated list of the best books about the environment. Obviously there are a lot more books and papers out there that didn’t make this list. Many of them are excellent, but I’m going to attempt keeping this list relatively short and limit it to less technical, popular “must reads.” Suggestions welcome!
2009:
- Diagnosis: Mercury – Money, Politics, and Poison by Dr. Jane Hightower
- Slow Death by Rubber Duck, by Rick Smith
2008:
- Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet, by Jeffrey Sachs
- In Defense of Food, by Michael Pollan
- Climate Solutions: A Citizen’s Guide, by Peter Barnes
- Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System, by Raj Patel
- Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood, by Taras Grescoe
- Green Inc.:An Environmental Insider Reveals How a Good Cause Has Gone Bad, by Christine Macdonald.
- Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution–and How It Can Renew America, by Thomas Friedman.
- The Deniers, by Lawrence Solomon
- Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet, by Mark Lynas
2007:
- Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalists Guide to Global Warming, by Bjørn Lomborg
- The Unnatural History of the Sea, by Roberts Callum
2006:
- The Omnivore’s Dilemma, by Michael Pollan
- An Inconvenient Truth, by Al Gore
- Field Notes from A Catastrophe, by Elizabeth Kolbert
- Garbage Land, by Elizabeth Royte
2005:
- Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, by Jared Diamond
- The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth, by Tim Flannery
- Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser
2004:
- Crimes Against Nature, by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
- Limits to Growth: The 30-year Update
2002:
- The Future of Life, by E.O. Wilson
- Cradle to Cradle, by William McDonough and Michael Braungart
2001:
- The Skeptical Environmentalist, by Bjorn Lomborg
2000:
- Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins
Classics:
- A Sand County Almanac, by Aldo Leopold
- Walden, by Thoreau
- Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson
- Pretty much anything, by Edward Abbey
- Cadillac Desert, by Marc Reisner
- The Ultimate Resource 2, by Julian Simon
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How about “Death by Rubber Duck”?
I haven’t had a chance to read it yet. Though I put it on the list and will add it to my ever growing “to read” pile.
I’m a big fan of “Ed Begley Jr.’s Guide to Sustainable Living” because it doesn’t just document the dire predicament of the planet but gives tons of useful prescriptive advice as to how to change our homes and habits to help reverse all the damage we’ve done to it. Better to light a soy candle than to curse our self-created darkness, no?