17 replies to this topic

[Shortpoet-GTD]

I'll start it with-
Silent Spring
Gasland
An Inconvenient Truth
Food, Inc.
The Omnivore's Dilemma
Cradle to Cradle
Hot, Flat and Crowded
Food, not lawns.
(Animated-Wall-E-Avatar)
Heat (Frontline documentary)

What are your must reads-must see environmental books/movies/documentaries?

[mariaandrea]

I have lots but I want to start with just one. We tend to think of Monsanto as it relates to GMOs and pesticides and our food supply. But to make their pesticides they have chemical plants. At least one chemical plant poisoned a town in Alabama and a really good book that brings home the human cost in small and big ways is:

"My City Was Gone: One American Town's Toxic Secret, Its Angry Band of Locals, and a $700 Million Day in Court"by Dennis Love, 2006.

The city was also home to a federal depot for chemical weapons. It was one of the most toxic cities in the country. It was also home to a very, very high cancer rate. But, it has a good ending. Think Erin Brokovitch good. Which, of course, means that there's still sorrow and tragedy mixed in with the happy ending.

I like stories of everyday people fighting back. Stories that don't make much of a splash in the mainstream media and that average people tend to forget even if they do hear about it. Stories about real people fighting for their lives. This book covers them all and then some. Highly recommended.

[aspen]

pedder dreaming by Natasha Cica. http://www.penguin.c...nian-wilderness
Not long ago I read this wonderful book. It tells the story of Olegas Truchanas, a photographer whose photos helped bring awareness of the beauty of Tasmania's wilderness. The Green movement came from this period when he was active in saving Lake Pedder in the early 1970's. His legacy remains today. The book is also filled with stunning photographs and paintings.

[still learning]

I recommend Visit Sunny Chernobyl By Andrew Blackwell.

Website at http://www.visitsunnychernobyl.com/

It's a sort of travelog, with the subtitle including "and other adventures in the world's most polluted places."
The places visited include, beside Chernobyl, the Alberta tarsands, the Texas oil refinery town of Port Arthur, the great Pacific Garbage patch, in Brazil, Santarem for Amazon deforestation, two areas in China for electronics recycling pollution and for coal mining effects, then "downstream on India's most polluted river."

I found Blackwell's book engrossing, reasonably informative and even funny in spots.  He does present things from more than one angle, both from the traditional environmentalist viewpoint and also from the viewpoint of the people who actually live in these areas.

I checked it out from the local public library, definitely worth reading if you can borrow it.  Not quite sure it's worth buying your own copy though.   

.

[zararina]

We do have local  documentaries here  about the environment such as about the fast depletion of fresh water and the remaining rainforest in the Philippines.
With regards to movies, I think the Happy Feet can be considered as environmental movie since it shows the problem of penguins when they lack of food and how people is the main cause for that. As well as the Ice Age movies which  shows climate changes and problems brought by it.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

zararina, on 07 July 2012 - 01:54 AM, said:

With regards to movies, I think the Happy Feet can be considered as environmental movie since it shows the
problem of penguins when they lack of food and how people is the main cause for that.

It was an eco movie, but the solutions provided in the movie (optimistic ending-they all had plenty of food to eat)
was naive.
Overfishing continues. Water pollution and predators also add to the decline.
http://oceanicdefens...ontinue-to.html

[serahki]

I second anything written by Michael Pollan. His books have both inspired and horrified me at times. They remain to be some of my favorite works and my introduction to the nonfiction category concerning food. His novels are great for anyone wanting to read environmental nonfiction or about sustainability. I would love to eventually own a copy of The Omnivore's Dilemma to study and highlight.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

Bill McKibben-"The End of Nature." 1989
Elizabeth Kolbert  "Field Notes from a Catastrophe."

[DeeNeely]

Its not a documentary, but I like Ferngully: The Last Rainforest.

"Human tales? Humans don't have tails. They have big big bottoms in bad shorts walk around going "Hi Helen!"

[adam_a]

I really enjoyed "The Age Of Stupid." It shocked me into action. Some others:

Books
-No Impact Man
-Diet For A Small Planet
-Living Like Ed
-The Home Energy Diet
-Sustainable Living
-The Story Of Stuff
-Cradle To Cradle
-Food Rules

Movies:
-The Age Of Stupid
-No Impact Man
-Carbon Nation
-Design e2 (tv show)
-Living With Ed (tv show)

[Shortpoet-GTD]

Silent Spring turns 50,
and if anything, things are worse now than when Rachel Carson warned us about chemicals in her book.
Link here.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

A Sand County Almanac- Aldo Leopold
Earth in the Balance- Al Gore
The Empty Ocean - Richard Ellis

[adam_a]

I'd add the documentary Bag It and I second The Omnivore's Dilemma

[Shortpoet-GTD]

This sounds like a good one although I haven't read it yet; Salt, Sugar, Fat from Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter Michael Moss.

[watersurveyEU]

Great book and generally an awesome author: Jonathan Safran Foer
"Eating Animals" ... you will probably end up being a vegetarian after having read it

[Shortpoet-GTD]

watersurveyEU, on 25 February 2013 - 09:25 AM, said:

Great book and generally an awesome author: Jonathan Safran Foer
"Eating Animals" ... you will probably end up being a vegetarian after having read it

Became a vegetarian years ago.

[adam_a]

A few more:

Another Turn Of The Crank -- Wendell Berry
What Are People For? -- Wendell Berry

The Documentary Food Matters is also worth a look

Also All issues of Mother Earth News are worth reading, even old ones

[Shortpoet-GTD]

Adding to this list-
Whole. Rethinking the Science of Nutrition.
(Article and mini interview with the author- here)