Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World

Customer Reviews:

Must Read.......2007-03-15

This is an amazing story about an amazing REAL place... It is an obligated reading for all of those who care about sustainability and renewable energy and wonder whether there is an alternative for our society.
Read this and you will be full of hope and energy for action.

Engaging Style.......2006-04-04

This book shows people solving ecological problems as a community. Weisman engages the reader by showing the people involved, not only the ones with training in certain disciplines, but also natives with practical solutions for living in a Columbian village. Even the children got involved in problem solving in Gaviotos.

They have learned to live in a place where there are many dangers due to drug wars, yet their survival skills are exceptional.

I highly recommend this eye-opening book

Barbara Spring

Not DIY.......2005-03-14

The vision described in the book is inspiring and very hopeful. The idea is to use our ingenuity in ways directly adapted to our environment so that small towns can be self-sufficient. Along the way, very clever uses of wind and water are discovered and described. If the reader is looking for great general ideas or approaches, this book would be hard to beat. On the other hand, if you are a garage-tinkerer and would delight in building the clever devices described, this book is close but no cigar. The drawings offered in the book purposely omit the most important details required to fabricate the devices in a proper working form. If you are a tinkerer and want to build these "goodies," you have three options. In the U.S., you can e-mail with the "Sustainable Village" web site and get the plans (eventually---they are not quick in responding). You can contact the Gaviotas offices in Bogota, Colombia. You can, of course, also take the basic idea and think through the details for yourself. That could take longer and be a little more expensive---perhaps. If you primarily want the ideas and the inspiration, then buy the book, by all means. If you primarily want to tinker and build, go straight for the plans.

interesting.......2004-12-17

In 1998, journalist Alan Weisman collected and presented information about a little known, yet quite monumental, village known as Gaviotas. To get there, one must travel 16 hours by car from the nearest major Columbian city, Bogotá. Even then the path there is not a smooth one; rough, muddy roads and severe political unrest serve as some major barriers in getting to Gaviotas. So why then is such an arduous trip worth it; in essence, Gaviotas is yet another tiny village located in a generally uninhabitable region and possesses none of the modern modes of transportation or communication that we are accustomed to. While in a sense these aspects may be true of Gaviotas, it is also undeniable that this community holds as one of the most efficient, supportive, and thoughtful communities on the planet.
Started in 1971 by a group of Bogotá scientists, Gaviotas originally was created as a sort of scientific experiment, a reaction to the way things were - which clearly wasn't working. A Gaviotas saying goes "the real maturity in life is to realize your dreams" and the founders of Gaviotas did just that when they decided to create their own society. The harsh life and extreme poverty that had been rampant in developing urban areas paired with the blatant depletion of natural resources was enough to spark the idea that maybe there should be a change. Yet instead of trying to make changes in the system already in place, this group of determined individuals took on the radical notion of creating an entirely new, segregated, yet completely self-sufficient, place to live. And that is just what happened.

Wonderful, Inspiring, Hopeful!.......2003-05-06

It was one of the best books I've ever read.
Go get it right now!

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Glimpse into tribal life in Brazil's Amazon jungle.

Vanishing Amazon
Mirella Ricciardi
Manufacturer: Harry N Abrams
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Photography | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Customer Reviews:

Glimpse into tribal life in Brazil's Amazon jungle........1999-04-03

Photographs in black and white, as well as color, document the life of some tribes found in the Brazilian Amazon jungle. Tribes such as the Yanomami and Kampa are shown at work and at play in this endangered rain forest. The reader is furnished with images and words that give a glimpse into tribal life in this most important part of the world.

Hope, Human and Wild: True Stories of Living Lightly on the Earth (World As Home, The)

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This book changed my life
At Last I Get It
Up from poverty
The End of Nature's Sequel
Another Thoughtful Book By Bill McKibben

Hope, Human and Wild: True Stories of Living Lightly on the Earth (World As Home, The)

Manufacturer: Milkweed Editions
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1571313001

Book Description

Divided into three sections, Hope, Human and Wild profiles the efforts of three caring communities to preserve wilderness and reverse environmental devastation. They include the reforestation of McKibben’s home territory, New York’s Adirondack Mountains; solving traffic and pollution problems in the densely populated Curitiba, Brazil; and how the citizens of Kerala, India have demonstrated that quality of life doesn’t depend on overconsumption of resources. This edition features a new introduction that revisits these places and explores how they’ve changed over the years.

Customer Reviews:

This book changed my life.......2007-09-29

In it, there are stories about how entire communities have been positively transformed by the action of a few determined individuals. This book will have you contemplating how you can affect change in your own community, and will give you the courage to enact it.

At Last I Get It.......2006-02-01

This book is an exploration into what's right and what's wrong with the planet and our relationship with it. It was written as a sequel to an earlier book by McKibben, "The End of Nature." In this book, McKibben starts by identifying some areas where there is hope for improvement in the environment in the future. The book is arranged in four parts. In the first part, McKibben considers examples of environmental recovery in his own region. He then turns to two parts of the world with very different local solutions to global problems. The first of these is Curataiba, Brazil, a city made famously livable by some very forward-thinking city planners. He then turns to Kerala, India, noting that a relatively high quality of life can be achieved with extremely limited resources, provided one addresses the key structural problems of society first. In the last section of the book, he reflects on his observations from the three regions.

McKibben hardly needed to look any further than his own backyard for proof that the environment can indeed bounce back to some extent from extreme abuse. His backyard in the Adirondacks is now full of trees, a condition that is now common throughout the Eastern United States. Much more common, in fact, than it was just fifty years ago. A little over a hundred years ago, most landscapes in the Northeast were treeless. The trees had been cut down to clear fields, to use for ship building and house construction, and most notably, to use for fuel. With the invention of a plow that could at last turn the thick prairie soil, many of the New England farmers pushed westward, glad to leave their cold, stony fields to grow up into forest again. But changes in fuel usage played an even larger role in the recovery of the trees. A hundred years ago, we got 90% of our energy from wood, necessitating the cutting down of millions of acres of forest per year just to keep the economy going. With the switch to petroleum-based fuels, we now rely on wood for just 10% of our energy, and as a result, the forests in the East are now thicker than they have been for over four hundred years. In tandem with the return of the trees, the wildlife are also coming back, and wild turkeys and bear sightings are now more common in this region than they have ever been since the arrival of Europeans on the continent. As petroleum fuels become more difficult and expensive to come by, we can only hope that we will stumble on a new fuel to replace oil, just as oil replaced wood.

McKibben's discussion of Curataiba is quite stimulating. He describes how ingenious local leaders made the city into a model of a livable, workable metropolis. They did this not by copying technology of developed countries, but by creating original solutions based on locally available materials and culture. Kerala also was faced with seemingly insurmountable problems of poverty, race, and class. Individual leaders in Kerala were successful in getting the community to rally around local solutions to these problems. Thus, McKibben's theme seems to be, in a world of ever-increasing globalization, where all problems are global, the solutions need to be local.

I've been wrestling with trying to understand globalization ever since the protests in Seattle. Despite reading heavily on the topic and talking to others, I just couldn't understand why the protesters made such a fuss. I even completed a discussion course on globalization offered by the Northwest Institute, and I still didn't get it. But as I read this book, the problems of an economy controlled by transnational corporations finally began to sink in. McKibben describes the shocking extent of deforestation in Maine. It just so happens that a South African company is now one of the largest owners of timber rights in the state. With a home office some 10,000 miles distant, they don't have a personal stake in what happens to the Maine environment. So millions of acres of forest in the state are being clear cut, but visitors and locals don't notice the missing trees because the companies leave 50 yard wide swathes of undisturbed forest along the roads, trails, and waterways. Along with the clear cuts comes erosion, silting of streams, and massive loss of habitat for the wildlife. After reading about Maine, I thought about a plot of land up the road that is currently being logged. Fortunately, the land up the road is owned not by a transnational corporation, but by a neighbor, who has a vital interest in seeing that the forest remains healthy throughout his logging operations; indeed, he is truly managing the forest, rather than simply cutting down trees. I now see calls for supporting the local economy rather than going with the flow of globalization in a new light-in purchasing items made in a global economy, we may unwittingly be contributing to environmental destruction on a massive scale, destruction that is magnified by the fact that the decision makers in the production process have no personal interest in the environment that they are damaging. And the ones who do have a personal interest in that environment are powerless to fight the big companies. If, on the other hand, we support local producers and local economies, we can directly influence how the producers treat the land. At the same time, the local producers have a very personal interest in not causing damage to their own homes and livelihood. Indeed, there is plenty of food for thought in this book.

Up from poverty.......2005-04-17

Bill McKibben offers a more hopeful set of scenarios in this book, pointing to cities like Curitiba and regions like Kerala as examples of how communities can achieve sustainability and raise standards of living without big money projects. Closer to home, McKibben shows how forests are being regenerated in the Northeast allowing wolves, moose and other wild species to reinhabit this region. But, something seemed to be missing in this volume. It lacked the focus of The End of Nature and didn't seem to go very far beyond surface observations. Nonetheless, I am thankful to McKibben for drawing attention to Curitiba and Kerala, showing that in many ways the so-called Third World has achieved greater sustainability than many parts of the so-called First World, leading him to make the salient observation that maybe we should re-examine our priorities here in the United States.

The End of Nature's Sequel.......2004-10-25

Hope, Human and Wild is a kind of sequel to The End of Nature in which Bill McKibben highlights some positive, hopeful examples of sustainable human activity. He quotes Al Gore as saying, essentially, that our environmental problems now exceed our political ability to solve them. This is a deeply disturbing statement, so McKibben profiles a pair of cities in Brazil and India where sustainability and quality of life movements have taken hold and are actually succeeding. The implications are obvious: if two Third World cities can pull this off despite long odds, both political and environmental, then why can't we?

McKibben's studies of Curitiba, Brazil, and Kerala, India are both informative and uplifting, containing concrete examples of what creative thinking and political courage can achieve. We long, then, for a chapter or so in which these examples are applied to American urban centers; we long for a roadmap of possibilities applied to our culture of greed and consumerism. We long for an idea-or even the hint of an idea-we can use to break our cycle of destructive consumption. Instead, McKibben returns to his beloved Adirondacks and editorializes about the need for community, local economies, and so on. He demonstrates (I believe correctly) that sustainable agrarian communities beget sustainable wild lands and open space as well as a healthier human psyche. Trouble is, though, succeeding on this small scale will not make a dent in the larger problem.

McKibben does not use this book to explore a more global vision. The seeds are there, but once the harvest begins he falls back upon his mountains and the good, community life one is often able to achieve when living on an urban income in a rural area. He begins to proselytize and sound more like a politician: we need to do this, and we should do that-these are obvious goals, but how do we get there? McKibben's Jeffersonian ideals are just that, ideals, and the idealistic will make them work. What we need now is a program of ideas that can build toward a sustainable world while countering the effects of the tragedy of the commons.

Despite this, McKibben's work is vitally important and should be read. His body of work will one day define our era.

Another Thoughtful Book By Bill McKibben.......2002-10-01

In a time when many people finally accept the fact of global warming and of continuing human assault on the environment, Bill McKibben has launched this wonderfully written, inspiring, and informative book, another in his continuing series of important essays on the complex relationship between humankind and the planet we inhabit. McKibben, a former writer for The Atlantic Monthly magazine, transplanted himself and his small family in the Adirondack region of upstate New York in the late 1980s, from whence he has come once more to deliver a healthy dollop of insight, whimsy, and wisdom concerning the way we continue to walk not so lightly on the earth.

Like most environmentalists, McKibben is deeply concerned about the continuing onslaught on the skin of the planet, and about our continuing disregard for the welfare of everything within the natural environment we most depend upon to have a continuing quality of life. Yet he is also propelled by aspects of his own experience with the ecology of his local area to set off on what he terms to be an exploration of hope, in the sense that he was searching for examples of recovery and progress in the natural landscape. One wonderful example he uses is that of the recovery of the amount of land reforested since the signal journey of one Timothy White, who in traveling in the early 1800s found very little land not cut and turned to the plow. Yet some two hundred years later, much of the Northeast forest is once again covering the landscape, and all of this in spite of the vastly increased population over the landmass in question.

Of course, as McKibben admits, must of the reforesting took place based on the gradual abandonment of the lands of the Northeast in the so-called western migration as we fulfilled our "Manifest Destiny", and this migration also spelled further deforestation efforts in those area under active migration. Once again, part of the genius of the natural environmental processes can be viewed in such a way, requiring not so much in the way of human intervention as in a kind of purposeful benign neglect (my own hackneyed term, not McKibben's). Left alone long enough, natural processes are underway that are restoring the Northeast forests to their primordial glory. And, like McKibben, I wonder at the good fortune some of us have to live in relatively sparsely developed and populated areas, where we can enjoy nature on amore personal level, where deer and bear and moose and all sorts of birds are free to live and roam. I sit in wonder with my friends the Labradors and watch, enraptured as the geese soar noisily above me this time every year.....

Moreover, one must share his frustration and sadness at the prospect of such massive forces denuding and despoiling the ecosystems even as we read and write. While he offers some reasons for hope, the truth may be that things will have to become much worse for human beings to begin to act more responsibly in following his advice to find many more ways to walk more lightly on the earth. It is imperative for those of us who understand the magnitude of the dangers confronting us act to continue to try to inform others, while also preparing to gradually break our own bonds to this culture of waste and wanton destruction. This book is more fuel for our own sustenance as we begin the long journey back to what Joni Mitchell once called "the garden'. See you there! Enjoy!

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'Tis Nature's Fault: Unauthorized Sexuality during the Enlightenment

Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0521347688

Book Description

The essays in this volume address sexual phenomena in eighteenth-century Europe that were for one reason or another outside the legal or sanctified systems of acceptability: most notably, unwed heterosexual domesticity, masturbation, prostitution, libertinism, homosexuality, and erotic literature. The contributors' essays make an important first step toward integrating sexuality into our general understanding of eighteenth century culture. Contributors: Roy Porter; Jean-Marie Goulemot with Odile Wagner and Arthur Greenspan, translators; John R. Gillis; Theodore Tarczylo with James Coke and Michael Murray, translators; Vern L. Bullough; James G. Turner; Jean-Pierre Guicciardi with Michael Murray, translator; David Coward; Randolph Trumbach; Michel Delon, with Nelly Stephane, translator; G. S. Rousseau; Arend H. Huussen, Jr.; Michael Rey with Robert A. Day and Robert Welch, translators; Peter Sabor; Paul-Gabriel Bouce Robert J. Ellrich; Robert L. Dawson; Armando Marchi with James Cook and David Marsh, translators.

Ecological Revolutions: Nature, Gender, and Science in New England

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Fundamental text

Ecological Revolutions: Nature, Gender, and Science in New England
Carolyn Merchant
Manufacturer: The University of North Carolina Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0807842540

Book Description

By exploring the stages of ecological transformation that took place in New England as European settlers took control of the land, Carolyn Merchant develops a fresh approach to environmental history. Her analysis of how human communities are related to their environment opens a perspective that goes beyond overt changes in the landscape.

Merchant brings to light the dense network of links between the human realm of economic regimes, social structure, and gender relations, as they are conditioned by a dominant worldview, and the ecological realm of plant and animal life. Thus we see how the integration of the Indians with their natural world was shattered by Europeans who engaged in exhaustive methods of hunting, trapping, and logging for the market and in widespread subsistence farming. The resulting "colonial ecological revolution" was to hold sway until roughly the time of American independence, when the onset of industrialization and increasing urbanization brought about the "capitalist ecological revolution." By the late nineteenth century, Merchant argues, New England had become a society that viewed the whole ecosphere as an arena for human domination. One can see in New England a "mirror of the world," she says. What took place there between 1600 and 1850 was a greatly accelerated recapitulation of the evolutionary ecological changes that had occurred in Europe over a span of 2,500 years.

Customer Reviews:

Fundamental text.......2007-06-23

Ecological Revolutions is an absolutely fundamental text in the fields of Colonial and Environmental American history. This book, along with William Cronon's Changes in the Land, transformed historians' understandings of Native American relationships to the land, as well as the ecological, economic, and reproductive changes brought by European colonists. Changes in the Land is more entertaining to read, but Ecological Revolutions is more advanced methodologically. I recommend both books heartily.

The Environmental Endgame: Mainstream Economics, Ecological Disaster, And Human Survival

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An important tool

The Environmental Endgame: Mainstream Economics, Ecological Disaster, And Human Survival
Robert L. Nadeau
Manufacturer: Rutgers University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0813538122

Book Description

"The Environmental Endgame is substantive, innovative, and profound. Nadeau exposes the weaknesses of neoclassical economic theory, and shows why it cannot address environmental concerns. He offers instead a stimulating and radically new approach to sustainability."—Joseph Tainter, author of The Collapse of Complex Societies "The Environmental Endgame by Robert Nadeau is an astonishingly original and challenging book that examines the current global environmental crisis from multiple angles and differing perspectives. Above all, it provides the reader a sobering overview about critical steps that must be taken to undo momentous mistakes that policy makers have made in the past century by clinging to anachronistic and outmoded economic theories that belong to the early days of Western industrial societies." --A. Karim Ahmed, Director, International Program, National Council for Science and the Environment For decades, scholars have warned of an impending global environmental crisis. Yet politicians, particularly in the United States, have consistently shown through their actions towards crucial "green" policies that they are not taking the threat seriously. Initiatives aimed at protecting the planet are commonly seen as belonging to a category unto themselves—the preserve of scientists and environmental enthusiasts.

In this groundbreaking book, Robert L. Nadeau warns that we have moved menacingly close to a global environmental catastrophe and that the first step in evading large-scale ecological disaster is to stop drawing a distinction between issues that are "environmental" or "scientific" and those that reside in the sphere of "real life." Although scientists have attempted to bring ecological concerns to the forefront of the conversation on global issues, Nadeau argues that problems are rarely communicated in ways that can be readily understood by those outside the scientific community.

By bringing together perspectives from a variety of disciplines, including economics, politics, biology, and the history of science, The Environmental Endgame makes a bold and original effort to articulate the concerns of scientists in such a way that they become the real-life, tangible concerns of billions of people around the world. Starting from the premise that people require stories to explain their world, how they fit in it, and their relationship and responsibility to different groups, Nadeau asserts that we have entered a new phase of human history and the story that accompanies it cannot be one of separation and division. Instead, it must be on one of coherence and mutual goals.

Nadeau demonstrates that our current governmental and financial institutions, based on neoclassical economics, lack the mechanisms for positing and implementing viable solutions to large-scale crises. In other words, we should not be thinking in terms of competing nation-states, but should reconfigure international government as a supranational federal system. The book concludes with a call to view the natural world as a part of, not separate from, humanity. This unifying worldview would be a catalyst for implementing the new sorts of international government organizations necessary to resolving the current crisis.

The Environmental Endgame is an ambitious and timely book that will change the way we think about our economy, our government, and the environment. It should be read by everyone who cares about the pervasive neglect and abuse of planet Earth and what can be done about it.

Customer Reviews:

An important tool.......2006-09-24

THE ENVIRONMENTAL ENDGAME: MAINSTREAM ECONOMICS, ECOLOGICAL DISASTER, AND HUMAN SURVIVAL reiterates we've moved even closer to global environmental disaster - and maintains that distinctions must be abolished which consider environmental issues as outside the sphere of 'real' or everyday concerns. Scientists have long attempted to bring these issues to consumer attention: here perspectives from a range of disciplines connect environmental issues with the real worlds of people around the world. From government institutions to economic concerns, THE ENVIRONMENTAL ENDGAME is an important tool for linking environmental science with the rest of the world.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

American Environmental History (Blackwell Readers in American and Cultural History)

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American Environmental History (Blackwell Readers in American and Cultural History)

Manufacturer: Blackwell Publishing Limited
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0631228640

Book Description

This compilation of seminal essays introduces students to the most exciting scholarship and writing on the environmental history in the United States. With primary documents that illustrate the conditions, perception, and influences of environmental issues from the pre-Columbian era to the present, the book invites students to analyze not only the connections between people and nature, but popular ideas of the environment in American history. Subjects include the changing American landscape, virgin soil epidemics and biological invasions, the impact of colonialism and industrial development, conservation, and the environmental movement and the backlash against it.An editorial introduction and headnotes for each chapter add scholarly value to the readings and documents. Students and instructors of American environmental history will find this an ideal collection for their courses and research.

Rocky Mountain Futures: An Ecological Perspective

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A sober and comprehensive survey

Rocky Mountain Futures: An Ecological Perspective

Manufacturer: Island Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 1559639547

Book Description

The Rocky Mountain West is largely arid and steep, with ecological scars from past human use visible for hundreds of years. Just how damaging were the past 150 years of activity? How do current rates of disturbance compare with past mining, grazing, and water diversion activities? In the face of constant change, what constitutes a "natural" ecosystem? And can a high quality of life be achieved for both human and natural communities in this region.

Rocky Mountain Futures presents a comprehensive and wide-ranging examination of the ecological consequences of past, current, and future human activities in the Rocky Mountain region of the United States and Canada. The book brings together 32 leading ecologists, geographers, and other scientists and researchers to present an objective assessment of the cumulative effects of human activity on the region's ecological health and to consider changes wrought by past human use. This combined view of past and present reveals where Rocky Mountain ecosystems are heading, and the authors project what the future holds based upon current economic and social trends and the patterns that emerge from them. The book:

examines the biogeographic and paleoenvironmental setting and historical climate that have shaped Rocky Mountain ecosystems
traces the direct human influences on landscapes and ecosystems over the past 150 years
explores the cumulative effects of past, present, and projected future human activities on tundra, subalpine and montane forests, valleys, grasslands, and waters
offers case studies that illustrate specific examples of human influence and current efforts to restore the environment

Case studies focus on northern New Mexico; Summit County, Colorado; Flathead Valley, Montana; and Alberta, Canada. Among the contributors are Craig D. Allen, N. Thompson Hobbs, Linda L. Joyce, Robert E. Keane, David Schindler, Timothy R. Seastedt, David Theobald, Diana Tomback, William Travis, Cathy Whitlock, and Jack Stanford.

The United Nations has proclaimed 2002 as the International Year of Mountains to increase international awareness of the global importance of mountain ecosystems. The case-based multidisciplinary approach of this book constitutes an important new model for understanding the implications of land-use practices and economic activity on mountains, and will serve a vital role in improving decisionmaking both in the Rocky Mountains and in other parts of the world that face similar challenges.

Customer Reviews:

A sober and comprehensive survey.......2003-02-10

Capably edited by Jill S. Baron (Ecosystem Ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory at Colorado State University, Fort Collins), and enhanced with an informative four-page Foreword by Paul R. Ehrlich (Bing Professor of Population Studies and President of the Center for Conservation Biology, Department of Biological Science, Stanford University), Rocky Mountain Futures: An Ecological Perspective is a sober and comprehensive survey of the tremendous impact human influence has had on the Rocky Mountain ecosystems. Featuring case studies, cascading effects, human-driven changes and more, this seminal and authoritative compilation of researched essays by educated authors paints an accurate and documented picture of an ecology being pushed beyond its limits, and then offers succinct, practical, and occasionally inspired ideas on what to do about it before it's too late. Rocky Mountain Futures is an essential, fundamentally critical addition to any personal, professional, governmental, organizational, academic, or community library Environmental Studies reference collection and supplemental reading list.

Green Versus Gold: Sources In California's Environmental History

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Some among them are killers park referrence for Yosemite
An excellent survey of the environmental history of California
An excellent collection on the history of the California environment

Green Versus Gold: Sources In California's Environmental History

Manufacturer: Island Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1559635800

Book Description

While the state of California remains one of the most striking and varied landscapes in the world, it has experienced monumental changes since European settlers first set foot there. The past two centuries have witnessed an ongoing struggle between environment and economy, nature and humanity that has left an indelible mark on the region.

Green Versus Gold provides a compelling look at California's environmental history from its Native American past to conflicts and movements of recent decades. Acclaimed environmental historian Carolyn Merchant has brought together a vast storehouse of primary sources and interpretive essays to create a comprehensive picture of the history of ecological and human interactions in one of the nation's most diverse and resource-rich states.

For each chapter, Merchant has selected original documents that give readers an eyewitness account of specific environments and periods, along with essays from leading historians, geographers, scientists, and other experts that provide context and analysis for the documents. In addition, she presents a list of further readings of both primary and secondary sources. Among other topics, chapters examine.

California's natural environment and Native American lands

the Spanish and Russian frontiers

environmental impacts of the gold rush

the transformation of forests and rangelands

agriculture and irrigation

cities and urban issues

the rise of environmental science and contemporary environmental movement.

Merchant's informed and well-chosen selections present a unique view of decades of environmental change and controversy. Historians, educators, environmentalists, writers, students, scientists, policy makers, and others will find the book an enlightening and important contribution to the debate over our nation's environmental history.

Customer Reviews:

Some among them are killers park referrence for Yosemite.......2007-01-10

Interesting definition of the park Some among them are killers park. I am a descendent of the original Indians of Yosemite and there is a problem with that meaning. The defintion "Some of them are killers" for Yosemite was fabricated in 1978 and is not the original meaning of Yosemite. The real meaning was "The Killers" or "The Grizzlies" because the Miwoks were afraid of the Ahwahnees. It was Chief Bautista and Russio, who were helping the Mariposa Battalion, who coined that term "Yosemite" for the Indians in Yosemite Valley which they were afraid to enter. It is because the Miwoks were once enemies of Chief Tenaya and the Ahwahnees. 30 years Yosemite National Park Service hired a person named Craig Bates who was married to a Miwok woman and had a 1/2 Miwok son who created that new defintion. So it is increble that ONE person changed the meaning and defintion of one of the most important and well known parks in the whold world...and no one noticed. The Miwoks were actually the scouts and guides for James Savage and the Mariposa Battalion, but you would not know it because the information was controlled by the "Indian expert" at Yosemite, which causes wrong information to be written...like the actual defintion of Yosemite.

An excellent survey of the environmental history of California.......1998-12-01

Versus Gold presents a broad, sweeping record of the environmental history of the California region over the past 250 years. Its vast scope and rich material make it an excellent book for anyone interested in the evolution of the human-environment interaction in California, from the pre-European communities, who flourished successfully in the region for millennia, to today's nature-isolated society. The painstakingly gathered primary source material and bibliography and the relevance of the essays make it an invaluable resource for any formal study in the environmental history of California or the U.S. (People familiar with the editor's related book, _Major Problems in American Environmental History_ (Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath, 1993), may be interested to know that only seven of the 105 entries in this book are taken from that one.) The editor uses the cumulative effect of a selection of primary texts and related essays to describe and analyze the history of the human-environment relationship in California. The primary sources are extremely diverse and include origin stories and compelling firsthand accounts of Native American groups and excerpts of various documents such as old diaries, legal notices, historic academic writings, novels, contemporary journal articles, maps, antique photographs, etc. The essays represent a wide range of writings by historians, environmentalists, ethnographers, ecologists, activists, philosophers, etc.--from Mark Twain, Mary Austin and John Steinbeck to Judi Bari and Gary Snyder. The essays generally do not directly refer to the primary sources, but rather discuss the general topics of the chapters and provide context and analysis on the subject of the sources. A few of the topics covered are "Native Californian Cultivators", "Dredging for Gold", "Sea Otters Encounter Russians", "Aboriginal Fishers", "Hydraulic Society Triumphant", "Chaos and California", "The Battle for Bodega Bay", and Deep Ecology. One negative effect of all of this variety of material is that it sometimes diffuses the book's focus. Indeed, a cover-to-cover reading can be challenging because of the kaleidoscopic effect of its topics. On the other hand, this does not detract from its usefulness as an occasional reader, a complement to other books in a course, or as a resource for additional research in the field, as its subtitle suggests. Also, considering its variety, the coherence afforded by its organization is remarkable. The documents and essays together cover topics spanning the days of prehistory in the California region to the present day. Descriptions of pre-European inhabitants of the region are followed by discussion of European settlement and use of the area and interaction with the land, with attention paid to the relationship between immigration and the natural wealth of the region--particularly gold, the concept of which drew a frenzied influx 150 years ago. The book follows the early transformation of the idea of nature into commodity and the exploitation and large-scale transformation of ecosystems by the European settlers; some contemporary philosophical thought on that exploitation and its dramatic results is also included. Throughout, the work illustrates human perceptions of and reactions to environmental destruction, such as that wrought by hydraulic mining, the flooding of large valleys and the transformation of grasslands by over-grazing, including the preservation efforts of the twentieth century by such people as John Muir, Huey Johnson, etc.; various preservation rationale are discussed. Particularly interesting is the surprising amount of concern by Europeans in previous era for the human impact on the environment, such as the despair expressed by a mid-nineteenth-century author about the already-extreme non-local ownership of California land; this lends new perspective to our current environmental concerns. The theme of the human response to environmental destruction intensifies in later chapters (reflecting actual chronology), culminating in chapters on the evolution of environmental science, environmental movements and the editor's own vision for a rejoined green (nature) and gold (economy) in California. The sources presented in _Green Versus Gold_ are extensive and impressively varied (this is typical of Merchant's work, such as the foundational _The Death of Nature_); it would be hard to imagine a more diverse and comprehensive collection of material about the environmental history of California in a single volume. The breadth of the material gives the reader unique insight into the state of environment and the human-environment relationship across a variety of landscapes and social structures, from the intense management of ecosystems by Indian groups in pre-European times to the high degree of alienation from the land in modern Los Angeles. Through these selections, the central theme of the book--the developing tension between the green of nature and the gold representing the human use of nature in California--is brought to light. The discussion of human efforts for nature and the editor's ideas about a partnership ethic in the closing chapters provide relief from the overwhelming evidence of the human domination and destruction of nature.Kenneth WorthyNovember, 1998

An excellent collection on the history of the California environment.......1998-11-13

Carolyn Merchant, ed. _Green Versus Gold: Sources in California's Environmental History_. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1998. Green Versus Gold presents a broad, sweeping record of the environmental history of the California region over the past 250 years. Its vast scope and rich material make it an excellent book for anyone interested in the evolution of the human-environment interaction in California, from the pre-European communities, who flourished successfully in the region for millennia, to today's nature-isolated society. The painstakingly gathered primary source material and bibliography and the relevance of the essays make it an invaluable resource for any formal study in the environmental history of California or the U.S. The editor uses the cumulative effect of a selection of primary texts and related essays to describe and analyze the history of the human-environment relationship in California. The primary sources are extremely diverse and include origin stories and compelling firsthand accounts of Native American groups and excerpts of various documents such as old diaries, legal notices, historic academic writings, novels, contemporary journal articles, maps, antique photographs, etc. The essays represent a wide range of writings by historians, environmentalists, ethnographers, ecologists, activists, philosophers, etc.--from Mark Twain, Mary Austin and John Steinbeck to Judi Bari and Gary Snyder. The essays generally do not directly refer to the primary sources, but rather discuss the general topics of the chapters and provide context and analysis on the subject of the sources. A few of the topics covered are "Native Californian Cultivators", "Dredging for Gold", "Sea Otters Encounter Russians", "Aboriginal Fishers", "Hydraulic Society Triumphant", "Chaos and California", "The Battle for Bodega Bay" Deep Ecology. The documents and essays together cover topics and issues spanning the days of prehistory in the California region to the present day. Descriptions of pre-European inhabitants of the region are followed by discussion of European settlement and use of the area and interaction with the land, with attention paid to the relationship between immigration and the natural wealth of the region--particularly gold, the idea of which drew a frenzied influx 150 years ago. The book follows the early transformation of the idea of nature into commodity and the exploitation and large-scale transformation of ecosystems by the European settlers; some contemporary philosophical thought on that exploitation and its dramatic results is also included. Throughout, the book illustrates human perceptions of and reactions to environmental destruction, such as that wrought by hydraulic mining, the flooding of large valleys and the transformation of grasslands by over-grazing, including the preservation efforts of the twentieth century by such people as John Muir, Huey Johnson, etc.; various preservation rationale are discussed. Particularly interesting is the surprising amount of concern by Europeans in previous era for the human impact on the environment, such as the despair expressed by a mid-nineteenth-century author about the already-extreme non-local ownership of California land; this lends new perspective to our current environmental concerns. The theme of the human response to environmental destruction intensifies in later chapters (reflecting actual chronology), culminating in chapters on the evolution of environmental science, environmental movements and the editor's own vision for a rejoined green (nature) and gold (economy) in California. The sources presented in _Green Versus Gold_ are extensive and impressively varied (this is typical of Merchant's work, such as the foundational _The Death of Nature_); it would be hard to imagine a more diverse and comprehensive collection of material about the environmental history of California in a single volume. The breadth of the material gives the reader unique insight into the state of environment and the human-environment relationship across a variety of landscapes and social structures, from the intense management of ecosystems by Indian groups in pre-European times to the high degree of alienation from the land in modern Los Angeles. Through these selections, the developing tension between the green of nature and the gold representing the human use of nature is brought to light. The discussion of human efforts for nature and the editor's ideas about a partnership ethic in the closing chapters provide relief from the overwhelming evidence of the human domination and destruction of nature.Kenneth WorthyOctober, 1998

Average customer rating:

A detailed and very dogmatic case that all's well
Simon say "can I take a baby step?"
A comment
Have we PROVEN anything?
Oh no!

The State of Humanity

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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 155786585X

Book Description

This book provides a comprehensive and balanced assessment of the state of the Earth and its inhabitants at the close of the twentieth century. More than fifty scholars from all over the world present new, concise and accessible accounts of the present state of humanity and the prospects for its social and natural environment. The subjects range from deforestation, water pollution and ozone layer depletion to poverty, homelessness, mortality and murder. Each contributor considers the present situation, historical trends, likely future prospects, and the efficacy or otherwise of current activity and policy. The coverage is worldwide, with a particular emphasis on North America.The State of Humanity is a magnificent and eye-opening synthesis of cultural, social, economic and environmental perspectives. It will interest all those - including geographers, economists, sociologists and policy makers - concerned to understand some of the most pressing problems of our time.

Customer Reviews:

A detailed and very dogmatic case that all's well.......2005-02-24

This is the other side of the coin to the attacks on contemporary government, finance and business contained in books like Korten: When Corporations Rule the Worldand the earlier Hawken: The Ecology of Commerce.

The purpose of Simon and his collaborators was to present a 'scorecard' on the progress of humanity against historical trends and to predict the level of our future health and prosperity (he specifically declines to become involved in predicting our happiness).

The basis of the book is that historical trends have always been the best guide to the long term future and, in the absence of any overwhelming evidence to the contrary (he doesn't find any) will continue to be the best guide to the future. It is crafted as a riposte to those who have seen storm waters ahead, who he refers to collectively (and unnecessarily derisively) as 'the doomsayers'.

The underlying message, which is only occasionally explicit, is that anywhere that there is a problem, we can rely on the market to fix it.

It contains five substantive Parts plus a Section on Thinking about the Future and a Conclusion - 58 chapters in all crammed with facts and figures. The substantive parts are:

* Life, Death and Health
* Standard of Living, Productivity and Poverty
* Natural Resources
* Agriculture, Food, Land and Water
* Pollution and the Environment.

I think it was Samuel Smiles who proposed the mantra 'Every day, in every way, I grow better and better' and Simon and his colleagues have taken it up with a vengeance. Some of the conclusions are, of course unquestionable. Infant mortality in the developed countries has fallen dramatically, average standards of living - at least as measured by GDP - have risen, and so on. The picture is nowhere near as rosy in the Third World, but the authors choose not to focus on that, nor on the extent to which developed countries may have contributed to the problems of the third world in order to achieve the trends with which the authors are so pleased.

Others of their conclusions fall into the 'so what' category; chapters on alcohol consumption and the rate of murder and suicide don't really add much to either the argument or the readability of the book.

Other chapters are much more tendentious and are written on the basis that 'if you can't prove absolutely that there is a problem, and that that problem directly and adversely affects humans, then its not a problem'. Their conclusions are, to say the least, surprising and there is more than a whiff of what has been rudely described as the advocate's arts of never telling an untruth but relying on suppression of the truth and suggestions that lead in a false direction (suppressio veri et suggestio falsi). For example:
species extinctions?: not happening, what's a species anyway and what does 'endangered' mean if anything

acid rain?: may actually be good for the crops

reserves of oil?: not a problem, never has been, never will be

nuclear waste?: a power station only produces a truck load of high level waste a year, in 100 years it will take 0.1 of an ounce to kill you and of course we can keep it safe. In any case, its better than coal, while solar or other renewal forms of energy are not economically viable (nothing about externalities, precious little about small matters like decommissioning, disasters touched on only for their direct cash cost)

ozone hole?: it may well have more to do with stratospheric temperature than with CFCs and there's no proof that it does any harm

The figures on which they rely would be more impressive if there were not a strong impression that they are selected to suit their case (something of which their opponents are of course also sometimes guilty). For example, dismissing the problem of pollution with a stack of figures about declining levels of pollution in US cities, there is no mention at all of the fact that part of this may be due to the wholesale export of polluting processes to other countries, such as Mexico.

On the basis of these, sometimes selective histories, they predict the long term future (with the saver that there may of course be short term variations). Based on Keynes' dictum that 'in the long term, we are all dead', this provides a reasonably safe platform for the contributors.

With a good deal of care and a bit of luck, we may prove the authors right. There is little doubt that we have the technology and the knowledge to be able to deal with the issues that face us globally - if we also have the wisdom and if we make a rapid enough start.

Whether the correct approach is, as the authors would suggest, one which focuses only on the direct verifiable and short term effects on humans and which relies totally on existing market mechanisms is a much more dubious question. Where we are dealing with large scale impacts on a global system, where cause and effect may be distant in time and space, a policy of sturdy denial until every last sceptic has finally admitted to have seen the 'smoking gun' seems an unnecessarily dangerous course to pursue.

It requires great dedication to read the whole of the book. On the other hand, because of the breadth of its range, it is a valuable source for scenario builders and others - provided that the facts and perspectives put forward in it are checked against other sources.

If you do believe that 'all is for the best' and that our current system of governance is ideal, this is unquestionably the book for you. It gives you a mountain of facts, figures, trend lines and assertions with which to confound your enemy.

Simon say "can I take a baby step?".......2002-02-18

Since this book was published in 1995 we have had several revelations which have added to its most virtuous verification that the state of humanity is indeed improving. The most recent and probably the best commentary on this subject can be found in Bjorn Lomborg's book, "the Skeptical Environmentalist". As anyone who follows this debate knows, Lomborg delved into a project to disprove Julian Simon after reading his summations on this subject. Indeed Lomborg is currently being smeared by the same detractors who have castigated Simon, the American and international Socialists on the political far Left. The simple reason for this is that both men have exposed the fraudulence of bad science, fomented on a naive public, as part of a political agenda ostensibly in favor of improving our environment.

Simon amasses the work of 54 different scholars in his effort to point up the obvious; that the health of mankind is improving under a world increasingly devoted to free markets. The critics of this thesis are unfortunately subject to the dictum that Marxism exploits the economic ignorance of man. Unlike Simon, these environmental Marxist's are generally unacquainted with the works of Adam Smith or of Frederic Von Hayek and Ludwig Von Mises. Because of this gap in the intellectual development of Simon's critics his message is suppressed by a major media in America and Europe, which is more dedicated to the Socialist dogma. However, this suppression of good news on the environmental front is slowly lifting due to competing sources of information.

Another contributor to scientific truth is Michael Fumento who's book, "Science Under Siege", recites how the environmental misinformation campaign of the critics of Simon, affects our laws, our taxes, and our daily life... This book offers useful references to the many topics assessed in this ruthlessly contended arena.

The reason Simon has met with such hostility warrants increased scrutiny. It seems that mankinds need to feel virtuous and self-important, clashes with his need to champion ostensibly virtuous, but often factually invalid causes. When confronted with irrefutable proof of the invalidity of the cause, man has a way of engaging in a colossal self-deception, seemingly with few limitations. It isn't Simon or Lomborg who are wrong, it is the misguided notion of people who desire and need a continuation of a consistent worldview, one that assures their continuing validation as virtuous, caring souls. A study of religion offers a surfeit of anecdotal testament to this truth.

I predict that the complete works of Julian Simon will soon be offered in the e-learning world of online universities. The continual thwarting of scientific fact and economic reality by the major media and the elite academy has heard its swan song; its time has come and gone. The disrupting technologies of the information revolution have sealed the fate of this exercise as just another aberrant chapter in the history of mankind's quest for a greater economic surplus for all of its citizens. Let's hear it for Julian Simon, a man whose greatness will unfortunately, only be realized posthumously.

A comment.......2001-10-21

I have a comment for the reviewer who seems to loathe everything about Simon. Life expectancy in the U.S. just reached its historic, all-time high. It could drop in any given year, but the trend is still up. In general, Simon's analyses are still correct today (October 2001).

Have we PROVEN anything?.......2001-01-24

Simon states the world has trended positive in the past and will continue to do so in the future. If you read a review which states Simon has been proven wrong since the time of publication, then that reviewer totally misunderstands Simon's position OR really hasn't read the material. It would be impossible to say anything has been proven at this point, because Simon's analysis requires long periods of time for a trend to develop. Pointing to an increase in fuel prices or a decline in a region's life expectancy (due to a disaster, natural or economic) does not show a flaw in Simon's reasoning, only a bump in the road, to which humanity must develop a response. It is the RESPONSE which has made humans what they are, and has brought us to the modern state in which we now live.

Oh no!.......2001-01-09

I find the reviews of this book interesting. The last few comments made on the book are on how Simon's "predictions" have been debunked. His predictions are in fact panning out quite nicley. The united states "fall" on the world life expectancy list does not mean things have gotten worse: it means more countries are improving, and some have surpassed us. This is a bad thing? Other readers point out how things just havn't panned out. Are you all on crack? In truth Simon makes no predictions in his books that aren't based of fact. Over the last 100 years things have gotten MUCH better for EVERYONE. You can argue about disparities among the races, but the TRENDS for ALL of humanity show great improvements (ie, for all races). Scoff at his claims if you will, but you are likley living proof of some miracle brought about within even the last 40 years. It matters not what race you are. If you don't like Simon, hit up the statistical abstract of the united states and verify his numbers - this is a claim simon makes. Lastly, seeing some blips in humanity, such as the adverse effects of the fall of the soviet union (again, you cannot simply say simon is wrong because the soviets dove into free market economies and are struggling, anymore than you could have said capitalism is wrong because of the recession in the 80's, or the depression before WW2; russia is an EXTREME example of how NOT to transition into democracy, hence the term use of the uncontrolled "fall" in "fall of the soviet union"). This is the essence of simons ENTIRE BOOK - that the overall TRENDS are improving. Readers who miss that miss the book. Life isn't easy every day or every year, sorry. Don't go blaming Simon for that.

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