Some Good Source of Environmental Information

This is a collection of information sources that you can use learn more about the global environmental crisis. If you have any comments or suggestions, I’d be glad to hear from you. -- Wes Ernsberger

Internet

Church Involvement: Two good sources are Unitarian Universalist Green Sanctuary Program and New York Interfaith Power & Light.

The Psychology of our Predicament: The Waking Up Syndrome

Political Influence and Advocacy: 1Sky, League of Conservation Voters, and Environmental Defense Fund.

Carbon Offsets: TCI Carbon Offsets is a good source of background information. Carbonfund.org is a good example of an organization that invests carbon offset funds into actual projects.

Community Action: Empowerment Institute, particularly their Low Carbon Diet program. Cool Cities

Local to New York’s Southern Tier: UUCB Green Sanctuary, Binghamton Regional Sustainability Coalition, and Broome County Environmental Management Council

Population: The Garrett Hardin Society, including Garrett Hardin’s influential paper “The Tragedy of the Commons”. Nova’s World in the Balance.

Discussion Group Courses: Northwest Earth Institute

The Science: IPCC, AAAS

Government Policy: Earth Policy Institute, Earth Institute at Columbia University

Green Living: GreenYour.com is a handy way to search for information on how to “green” anything. Among other things, Green America makes available the National Green Pages (a directory of screened green businesses) and an annual Guide to Socially Responsible Investing. The excellent Better World Shopping Guide book (see below) also has the same information online.

Films: An Inconvenient Truth, The 11th Hour, and Six Degrees. I have the DVD for each of these and would be glad to lend them to you.

Web Videos: The Story of Stuff is an excellent discussion of our throw-away economy and what needs to be done about it.

Books

There are many excellent books on the subject. Here are the ones I’m currently familiar with that seem to be the most helpful. I have most of these books. Let me know if you’d like to borrow my copy for a while.

Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization by Lester Brown. This is among the best books I’ve seen about our environmental crisis. It first describes the problem and then lays out a detailed plan of action for responding to it. This book is also available for free in the form of one or more PDF files at the Earth Policy Institute website. The printed book will be available soon from the Green Sanctuary Committee at cost for $10.

Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet by Jeffrey Sachs. I feel that this book is especially informative on world population and the importance/feasibility of eradicating extreme poverty.

Earth: The Sequel: The Race to Reinvent Energy and Stop Global Warming by Fred Krupp. An encouraging look at the available and emerging technologies that we can use in our transition to renewable energy sources.

Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why we Need a Green Revolution – And How it can Renew America by Thomas Friedman. A thoughtful, comprehensive, and quite readable review of the worldwide environmental crisis and how America can and should lead the green response.

Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change by William Catton. A good discussion of the environmental crisis in terms of how we have exceeded our carrying capacity.

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond. An excellent review of human cultures from the past that either failed or succeeded to live sustainably with a discussion of how we can apply those lessons to today’s global environmental crisis.

Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sustainable Development by Herman Daly. An excellent discussion of how the field of economics needs major revisions in order to align itself with the reality that our planet’s resources and waste disposal capabilities are finite. Also, that GDP needs to be augmented with another metric that can be used to track progress in terms of human well-being.

Living within Limits: Ecology, Economics, and Population Taboos by Garrett Hardin. An excellent discussion of the absolute necessity of regulating human population, the various difficulties of doing so, and thoughts on how it might be accomplished.

Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic by John DeGraff et al. This is the companion book to a late 1990s PBS television program by the same name. It describes our hyper-consumer culture and how we can escape from it. In addition to the book, I have a VHS copy of the TV program.

The Better World Shopping Guide. This well-received, handy guidebook provides A+ through F grades for 75 different product categories based on each providing company’s social and environmental responsibility. By voting with our dollars, we can go a long way to encourage the best companies and put the others out of business. You can buy a copy from the Green Sanctuary Committee at cost for $5.