Customer Reviews:
Best Yet.......2007-09-20
Plan B. 2.0 is the most comprehensive book I've found yet on the converging crises that we are facing in the world today. In Part I of the book, Lester R. Brown lays out each crisis, explaining the causes, and then goes on in Parts II and III, lays out a rational, well-thought-out,practical solution to the problems at hand. I gave my husband a copy of it to use for part of the Critical Issues for Law Enforcement class he's teaching at our local university. As far as I'm concerned, every American ought to have a copy and read it often and thoroughly. We need to be aware of what we're doing to ourselves and others. The frosting on this cake is that he gives us the tools we need to remedy the situation...if we act now.
Essential reading for every human on this planet.......2007-09-19
If you care about this planet and our journey upon it, this book is essential reading for the millennium ahead. I just wanted to add my five stars. Please read the other reviews for the overview of "Plan B: 2.0"
Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble.......2007-02-06
We do have prophets for our time. Lester Brown is one of the most important among them. In his well founded search for truth and solutions for our demographic, ecological and economic problems of global dimensions, he powerfully opposes the four faces of destructive stupidity of our times: ignorance, refusal to discuss matters, denial, and faithful dysfunctionality. I made this book the present day Bible that must be read and discussed in my course on Bioethics: Perspectives on Human Life, at Le Moyne College, Syracuse NY.
Dr. Andrew Szebenyi S.J.
Best Single Book for Both General Public and Broadly Read Specialists.......2007-01-26
It's a real shame that the publisher did not take the trouble to load the table of contents into the product information section provided by Amazon, because that alone should persuade anyone that gets to this page that the book is a MUST BUY MUST READ MUST SHARE.
Each of the following section titles has six sub-titles that I will not repeat here:
1. Entering a New World
2. Beyond the Oil Peak
3. Emerging Water Shortages
4. Rising Temperatures & Rising Seas
5. Natural Systems Under Stress
6. Early Signs of Decline
7. Eradicating Poverty, Stabilizing Populations
8. Restoring the Earth
9. Feeding Seven Billion Well
10. Stabilizing Climate
11. Designing Sustainable Cities
12. Building a New Economy
13. Plan B: Building a New Future.
Although an updated version of the first edition published in 2003, this version can be said to be both completely new, and finally ready for public consumption now that Al Gore has put Global Warming on the public mind.
I still prefer J. F. Rischard's HIGH NOON: 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them for the general reader, and I still think E. O. Wilson's "The Future of Life" is one of the top three in this area, but this book by Lester Brown has the merit of consolidating and structuring detail in a manner I have not seen elsewhere.
I recommend the book be ready in conjunction with books by Herman Daly and Paul Hawken, in part because everyone is now starting to realize that green sustainability is in fact the non-negotiable first step for any business to survive into the next decade--natural capitalism.
Most intriguing to me, and the heart of the book on page 257, is the consolidated Plan B budget totallying $161 billion a year needed to meet all of the goals the author postulates.
BASIC SOCIAL GOALS
12B Universal primary education
04B Adult literacy
06B School lunch in 44 poorest countries
04B Assistant to pregnant women and preschool childen in 44 poorest
07B Reproductive health and family planning
33B Universal health care
02B Closing the condom gap (Bill & Melinda Gates can have this one)
EARTH RESTORATION GOALS
06B Reforesting the earth
24B Protecting topsoil on cropland
09B Restoring rangelands
10B Stabilizing water tables
13B Restoring fisheries
31B Protecting biological diversity
As the author points out on the next page, world military expenditures total $975B a year, with the US alone responsible for $492B (this was published before we all knew of the half trillion dollar cost of the Iraq invasion and occupation). Hence, the $161B a year total is a fraction of the total spent on out-dated military systems, and could be funded by the US alone if we had the right leadership and public consensus.
Personally, and based on other readings, I believe that the author is under-estimating the costs, and avoiding a focus on many other factors including the urgent need to eradicate transnational crime and end inter-state and civil war. This is, however, a superb start and ideally suited as a primer for any level of learning.
Readers interested in seeing a broader perspective that places the ten high-level threats (poverty, infectuous disease, environmental degradation, inter-state conflict, civil war, genocide, other atrocities, proliferation, terrorism and transnational crime) in the context of the twelve policies that must be managed as a whole by all nations (agriculture, debt, diplomacy, economy, education, energy, family, immigration, justice, security, society, and water), and that in turn oriented toward the urgency of keeping the eight challengers (Brazil, China, Indonesia, India, Iran, Russia, Venezuela, Wild Cards) from repeating our mistakes, can check in at Earth Intelligence Network.
Rescuing are planet and our civilization is going to be a great deal harder than the author suggests, and is going to need a massive awakening by the public as to the "true cost" of all that we are doing wrong. I expect that we will succeed, in part from top down efforts by Al Gore and this author among others, and in part by bottom up efforts where individuals can get from the Internet the "true cost" of any good or service in terms of water content, fuel content, sweatshop labor content, and tax avoidance status. Noami Klein's book, "No Logo" is recommended in this regard.
Over-all an absolutely superb piece of work that caps the author's decades of advocacy on behalf of the planet. There is no other person that has been focused on this topic with due diligence year after year.
Wake Up America.......2007-01-14
Lester Brown has been monitoring the state of the world for many years and is probably one of the most knowledgeable and authoritative people on this topic. The first half of the book, filled with many little known but interesting and important facts lets us know how a declining resource base at a time of rapidly increasing human population is taking us toward a very unstable and potentially dangerous world. In the second half of the book he spells out what needs to be done worldwide and how it can be accomplished with about 1/3rd of our annual US Defense Dept. expenditures if we wake up to the facts and act immediately.
The book was so factual and encouraging that I bought a dozen to share with my congregation in the hope of spreading the facts, stimulating concern, and seeing some personal action.
Average customer rating:
- So So
- great customer service from amazon
- Great introduction to Environmental Economics .
- complete and comprenhensive
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Environmental Economics
Charles Kolstad
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
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Similar Items:
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Economics of the Environment: Selected Readings, Fifth Edition
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Resource Economics
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Environmental Economics
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Environmental Ethics: An Anthology (Blackwell Philosophy Anthologies)
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Essential Statistics for Public Managers And Policy Analysts
ASIN: 0195119541 |
Book Description
Environmental Economics is the first text that concentrates solely on environmental economics--the problems of earth, air, and water pollution--with an emphasis on both government and regulation and private-sector anti-pollution incentives. It assumes a knowledge of intermediate microeconomics; therefore, basic economics is not reviewed in this book as it is in others. The book is divided into four primary sections: the first section defines the field of environmental economics in relation to general economics and to ecological and resource economics; the second section looks at market failure and considers why, even with apparent environmental protection, the market often fails to work properly; the third section examines government regulation of pollution using the industrial organization literature; and the final section looks at the demand for environmental quality, covering both revealed preference and stated preference methods. Because of global interest in environmental economics, this text includes many international examples and places special emphasis on the way countries around the world approach and control their own environmental problems. Environmental Economics is ideal for undergraduate and beginning graduate courses in environmental economics.
Customer Reviews:
So So.......2007-02-25
Purchased for an Eviro Econ Course. Book covers most topics, weak on valuation. Full of typos. Discussion of many topics very convoluted. Not an easy read.
great customer service from amazon.......2005-10-09
i ordered this book for a class, but the class ended up being cancelled so i returned the book since i didn't need it anymore. the return process was simple and amazon credited the money back to my account very quickly. very good service!
Great introduction to Environmental Economics ........2002-01-24
Actual rating - 4.5 stars .
I read this book as a must-read for the Environmental Economics course I had taken in the beginning of the last semester . I think this book is a great choice for students that are interested in this topic . Myself , I didn't know what to expect in the beginning of the course , but it turned up to be a surprisingly interesting and important issue - with the good help of this book .
I have to say that I've learned a lot from reading this book , and it has been a pleasant experience too . Professor Kolstad has really accomplished a commendable achievement in writing a fluent , methodical , thorough and interesting book about Environmental Economics , nearly everyone who wishes to , can read and understand .
I say it as a student who hasn't read other works on the subject , but nevertheless , feels this book has many pluses as an introduction to this subject :
- The author , in spite of announcing it is a book for persons that have taken an Intermediate Microeconomics courses , makes far-reaching efforts to explain nearly every statement he proclaimed . This is a good feature students can use for reviewing forgotten material , deleting the need to use more fundamental books for understanding .
- Significant number of chapters includes a small use of mathematic tools . This fact is of considerable help for the layman , who is interested in expending horizons and lacks the necessary mathematical skills .
I believe the following points characterize many tutorials , but it's important to note them anyway;
- Every figure the author uses is accompanied with detailed explanations that enhance the reader's ability to understand the sketch and the whole subject while at it .
- Every chapter includes an introduction and a summery . The first connects the chapter to the previous one , and assists in grasping the place it takes in the big picture of things , while the second one summarize the major issues dealt with . This functions organize the material and construct an understandable structure of knowledge .
- One last thing , that consists an advantage constructed with disadvantage is the appearance of questions and problems in the end of each chapter , in the obvious order to help you check out your understanding , but with the irritating absence of answers and solutions (!) . What's the point in composing personal examinations without any achievable , certified solutions ? How can I know I am right ? I recommend authors to annex a booklet/extra pages with the correct answers , along with a full description of the way to the solution plus explanations - if you include such a tutorial tool in your book - do it right .
Excluding the last disadvantage , I'm most pleased with this book , and would recommend it for anyone who is interested in environment and its protection problems
complete and comprenhensive.......2000-03-26
This book is more than a simple overview of the wide environmental economics world, since it embraces the subject in a clear, comprenhensive but in-depth enough to get a very good picture of it.
Book Description
This collection of readings contains comprehensive primary and secondary works in the field of conservation, emphasizes the history of ideas and attitudes about conservation, and gives a chronology of important conservation events in U.S. history from the beginning to the present. Edited by a national leader in the fields of conservation, environmental management, and education, this well-organized anthology is appropriate for courses dealing with American environmental studies and ecology.
Customer Reviews:
A worthy addition to the tree-hugger's bookshelf.......2001-06-14
What a joy to see that this book is back in print! When our nature book discussion group chose it as a monthly selection several years ago, we had to scramble to find copies. I was one of the lucky ones who got one, read it all, and underlined a whole slew of passages for later reference.
Here are some of my favorite quotes:
"Man is everywhere a disturbing agent. Wherever he plants his foot, the harmonies of nature are turned to discords." (George Perkins Marsh, 1864)
"Environment is to the would-be cultured man what air is to the animal -- it is the breath of life." (Benton MacKaye, 1928)
"When you have reached the edge of an abyss ... the only progressive move you can make is to step backward." (David R. Brower, 1977)
Then the compiler adds his answer to the question "Why do we love wilderness?" by giving seven reasons: scientific value, spiritual values, aesthetic value, heritage value, psychological value, cultural value, and intrinsic value. His explanations make this selection the one I most often pass on to other people. (Roderick Frazier Nash, 1988)
My advice is to buy this book as a present for your favorite environmentalist friend. Sure, you could go instead with _The Quotable Nature Lover_, a Nature Conservancy book edited by John A. Murray. But _American Environmentalism_ puts those kinds of quotes back into context; the editor not only provides full text but also explains what was going on at the time of its writing. Selections are arranged chronologically and are short enough to hold anyone's interest. And we're not talking just Thoreau, Muir, Carson and Leopold here, as the excerpts above show. There are names you might not recognize at first glance. Amateur environmentalists can use this compilation as a starting point for further reading, as full citations are always provided. Though it's not entirely current (1989) this book is still useful.
Give it to a graduating senior, or to anyone else who has the potential to save the planet. They'll be inspired.
A good reader.......2000-05-23
This isn't the type of book someone could pick up and get a good view of the American Environmental movement. It does well in teaching about past movements but ignores modern movements like Environmental Justice and the controversy surrounding Market Based Incentives. It is a good book for teaching if coupled with extra material as it is very readable and interesting.
Book Description
Out of sight of most Americans, global corporations like Nestlé, Suez, and Veolia are rapidly buying up our local water sources—lakes, streams, and springs—and taking control of public water services. In their drive to privatize and commodify water, they have manipulated and bought politicians, clinched backroom deals, and subverted the democratic process by trying to deny citizens a voice in fundamental decisions about their most essential public resource.
The authors' PBS documentary Thirst showed how communities around the world are resisting the privatization and commodification of water. Thirst
, the book, picks up where the documentary left off, revealing the emergence of controversial new water wars in the United States and showing how communities here are fighting this battle, often against companies headquartered overseas.
Read a review...http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/18/RVGS9OHPKT1.DTL
Customer Reviews:
Our Most Precious Resource.......2007-06-13
This is an easy to read but alarming account of the privitization of public water in eight communities across the United States. It is a book that should be read and understood in our nation's high schools and colleges. THIRST Fighting The Corporate THEFT Of Our Water is an interesting and entertaining read while also providing reasonable and ample documents and records to support the information provided on its pages. Snitow, Kaufman and Fox provide information in their book on how easy it is in today's world to lose our rightful access to the most precious resource we have - water.
Book Description
Sustainable land development strategies based on scientific information
Land and Natural Development (LAND) Code offers a pioneering method to develop sites in harmony with natural processes that is solidly based on peer-reviewed scientific findings. While the LAND Code can be readily used in conjunction with LEED, EPA, and other guidelines, it features several unique characteristics, including:
- Recommendations based on peer-reviewed scientific research
- Rating scheme that weights each development and land use practice based on its environmental benefit and difficulty of implementation
- Straightforward, step-by-step system that is accessible to non-experts
- Focus on land rather than buildings
- Extensive use of photographs and diagrams to illustrate practices and procedures
After an introduction, the book begins with chapters covering water, soil, air, living resources, energy, and materials. Throughout these chapters, the authors recommend tested and proven strategies that minimize disruption of the natural processes. Each chapter provides background, describes benefits for both developers and ecosystems, and recommends protective strategies in simple, non-technical language (a glossary is provided explaining all terms not in common usage). A toolbox of environmental engineering methods to implement the strategies follows, and the final chapter of the book provides a series of examples of actual development projects in which a variety of approaches have successfully attained sustainable development. With its emphasis on scientific understanding, the LAND Code offers you the information needed to make and implement decisions for ecologically sound land development.
Customer Reviews:
every developer should be given a copy of this book.......2007-08-04
Balmori and Benoit are visionaries on the all-important issue of land development. Their commonsensical approach should guide the behavior of all land policy people--real estate agents, bankers, regional and local zoning commissions AND developers. Doing the "green" thing is cheaper and better, always.
Average customer rating:
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Perspectives on Integrated Coastal Zone Management (Environmental Science)
Manufacturer: Springer
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ASIN: 3540655654 |
Book Description
All coastal areas are facing a growing range of stresses and shocks, the scale of which now poses threats to the resilience of both human and environmental coastal systems. Responsible agencies are seeking better ways of managing the causes and consequences of the environmental change process in coastal zones. This volume discusses the basic principles underpinning a more integrated approach to coastal management and highlights the obstacles that may be met in practice in both developed and developing countries. Successful strategies will have to encompass all the elements of management, from planning and design through financing and implementation, as highlighted in this book. This book includes a CD-ROM with computer visualisation of field data and water quality modelling. There are also movie clips of spectacular scenes.
Book Description
Water provides benefits as a commodity for agriculture, industry, and households -- and as a public good for scenic values, waste assimilation, wildlife habitats, and recreational use. However, even as the nature and needs of economies change, water continues to be allocated to other than high priority uses, water quality continues to decline, environmental uses get inadequate attention, and floods and droughts take an unnecessarily severe toll. One reason for this is that price signals that reflect scarcities of goods and thereby guide investments and resource allocation in the private sector are usually distorted or absent in decision-making relating to water. To aid in cost-benefit analysis under conditions where appropriate price incentives are absent, economists have developed a range of alternative or "non-market"methods for measuring economic benefits.
Robert Young aims to provide the most comprehensive exposition to-date of the application of nonmarket economic valuation methods to proposed water resources investments and policies. He provides a conceptual framework for valuation of both commodity and public good uses of water, addressing valuation techniques appropriate to measuring public benefits -- including water quality improvement, recreation and wildlife habitat enhancement, and flood risk reduction. However, in contrast to the existing environmental valuation literature, the emphasis here is on the commodity uses of water by agriculture, industries, and households. The discussion describes the various measurement methods, illustrates how they are applied in practice, and discusses their strengths, limitations, and appropriate roles.
Book Description
Named one of a hundred "visionaries who could change your life" by the Utne Reader, Herman Daly has probably been the most prominent advocate of the need for a change in economic thinking in response to environmental crisis. An iconoclast economis t who has worked as a renegade insider at the World Bank in recent years, Daly has argued for overturning some basic economic assumptions. He has won a wide and growing reputation among a wide array of environmentalists, inside and outside the academy.
In a book that will generate controversy, Daly turns his attention to the major environmental debate surrounding "sustainable development." Daly argues that the idea of sustainable development--which has become a catchword of environmentalism and international finance--is being used in ways that are vacuous, certainly wrong, and probably dangerous. The necessary solutions turn out to be muc h more radical than people suppose.
This is a crucial updating of a major economist's work, and mandatory reading for people engaged in the debates about the environment.
"Daly is turning economics inside out by putting the earth and its diminishing natural resources at the center of the field . . . a kind of reverse Copernican revolution in economics."
--Utne Reader
Customer Reviews:
Outstanding work, Daly's predictions have come to pass 10 years later.......2007-09-08
I've read a *lot* of economics books in recent years, some good, some not. But Daly's is really in a class by itself for seeing the big picture and explaining it clearly: traditional economics is broken. Neoclassical economics today is like high energy physics: all the trusty laws that held so true in normal energy physics, or 19th and 20th century economies, mysteriously start to fail us. I love the simple, yet compelling logic of Daly's insight: take the existing neoclassical model of economics--the circular flow of income between households and firms--and then draw a box around it, to acknowledge that the world is of finite size. Once you do that, analyze however you wish...the recognition of a finite world leads inexorably to the notion of an optimum size for the national and global economy. I like how Daly uses tools from mainstream economics to make the point: we all remember from Microeconomics that every firm has an optimal size, based on the size of the overall economy. Economics has the notion of limits to growth embedded already, we just need collectively to apply that logic without flinching.
Something that impressed me was how Daly in 1997 used his intellectual model to forecast the concentration of asset ownership in the U.S., with the consequence of increasing class disparity and declining real wages for the middle class. That would have seemed like outlandish poppycock in the mid-90s, but now in 2007, lo and behold, it's coming to pass (per the CIA and the Economic Policy Institute, and BLS.gov statistics) for all the reasons Daly outlined 10 years ago. The man is onto something, and policymakers would do well to listen to him.
Even better, I think, is that reading between the lines of Daly's book there is a real and believable message of hope. The world of the future that acknowledges limits, and embraces development over growth (think "quality" not "quantity" of the economy as the goal) is a better place than the world we live in today. Instead of the world becoming a planetary Los Angeles or Hong Kong, where life is crowded, expensive, polluted and mean, what I took away from Daly's book was a clear intellectual architecture for a world that is beautiful, full of possibilities for interesting life work, and full of hope and things to look forward to. I sincerely hope that Daly's vision helps shape the world my daughter grows up in.
Surprising Religious Angle from Serious Economist.......2006-04-15
This book is well worth reading for Daly's explanation of "ecological economics." Rather than looking at the economy as a system existing in a vacuum, where an infinite amount of exchanges are possible to create an infinite amount of economic growth--as neo-classical economists believe--Daly places the economy within the physical environment. This environment of course is a place of limits: limits on raw materials and limits on places to store pollution. Thus, Daly shows that the economy must observe limits too.
Common sense, right? Yet, our whole economy is premised on the opposite idea, that we can just keep growing forever. Think of compound interest and then move on from there and you get the idea of how pervasive growth is in our economic mindset today. Offering an alternative is what makes Daly's theory radical.
But the bonus in the book comes at the very end, where Daly offers economics (rightly understood with limits) as the intermediary between the physical world and religious belief. The latter, Daly believes, is necessary to offer humans the inspiration we need to radically change our current society and save our species. Some parts of the text are rough going, but if you're not an economist you can skim them to get to Daly's truly novel integration of heart and head.
Good enough.......2005-03-11
this book is good enough to get a good view of how SD is going and should go. Though much has changed since this book has been published. Globalization has taken SD in directions that were not previously predicted.
Growth isn't everything.......2004-10-05
I can't say enough about how moved I was by this book. Having worked in a corporate setting for a number of years, I have wondered how growth can always be the goal of business and how the world can keep expanding and still accommodate everyone's needs. Herman Daly breaks down the problems with economic growth and how fraudulent it is for measuring economic health. Daly advocates sustainable development from a number of economic and social angles. His explanations become abstract at times, but he effectively challenges established economic thinking and offers alternatives.
Without recognition of physical ecological parameters, economic growth as we know it, including GNP, does not measure economic reality. The concept met with opposition from economists at the World Bank where Mr. Daly once worked (as of the mid-1990s when this book was written). The book starts with a passionate rebuttal to the World Bank and their "preanalytic vision" that the economy operates separately from the environment. In the remainder of the book his frustration is aimed more broadly at neoclassical western economists for ignoring the environment and the laws of thermodynamics. A great example is not accounting for environmental costs during the "throughput" process where products go from raw material to final waste.
I learned how important size or "scale" of macroeconomics is, but not accounted for even though it is surpassing the "carrying capacity" of our planet. Daly refutes modern developments such as an "information economy," to replace depleted resources. Also, lack of natural materials can't be substituted with efficiency: "One cannot substitute efficient cause for material cause--one cannot build the same wooden house with half the timber no matter how many saws and carpenters one tries to substitute," (p. 76).
Globalization, Daly argues, opposes the goal of sustainable development as does free trade, overpopulation, and inequality, all of which are closely analyzed. Globalization and free trade came across to me as particularly harmful because they limit a nation's ability to protect its people, culture, and environment. Daly recommends "maximum wage" to limit inequality. Justification for this concept uses biblical references in a religious-based section, which might seem inappropriate for an economics book, but I found the points made important and well presented.
His solutions for change have the goal of creating a "steady state" economy. With such an economy, humans are able to live on the earth and use amounts of the resources that can be maintained indefinitely. This difficult goal includes principles that may seem radical like population control and limiting inequality. But accounting for our environmental costs in our economy is not radical; it's common sense.
I appreciate the perspective the book takes because it proves that the loss of natural resources isn't just anti-ecological, but also anti-economical. Probably one of the most important books I've ever read.
A Truly Important Book.......2004-07-01
Don't miss reading this book! When I read conventional economics, I constantly find myself asking why most economists use such ridiculous assumptions. Herman Daly's book tells why, and gives a start of what to do about it. Mr. Daly's work convinced me that economics will soon be undergoing a revolution like that of physics in the time of Einstein. As a patent attorney with a biochemistry degree, I can tell you that Mr. Daly is right on the money when he discusses the importance to humanity's future of discarding GNP as an economic measure. If you didn't realize before that understanding entropy is essential to economics, Mr. Daly will tell you. There is plenty of other great stuff here, too.
I don't agree with all of Mr. Daly's points. One of his major themes is that being truly concerned about the environment and the future of humanity requires reverence for the Earth as God's creation. Since I am an atheist, and I am very concerned about the environment and the future of humanity, I find this viewpoint a little hard to swallow. Don't let that stop you from reading this great book, though.
Books:
- Forecasting, Structural Time Series Models and the Kalman Filter
- Foundations of Microeconomics plus MyEconLab Student Access Kit, Second Edition
- Free Trade Under Fire: Second Edition
- Freedom from the Known
- From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State: Fraternal Societies and Social Services, 1890-1967
- Game Theory with Economic Applications (2nd Edition)
- Generative Social Science: Studies in Agent-Based Computational Modeling (Princeton Studies in Complexity)
- George Soros on Globalization
- Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
- Global Civil Society: An Answer to War
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
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- Perfect Match: A Novel
- Construction Drawings and Details for Interiors: Basic Skills
- Food Safety Law
- History: Fiction or Science
- Inside the House of Money: Top Hedge Fund Traders on Profiting in the Global Markets
- Manor of Death
- Native to Nowhere: Sustaining Home And Community In A Global Age
- Groundswell: Constructing The Contemporary Landscape
- God Bless John Wayne
Modern Labor Economics: Theory and Public Policy (9th Edition)
Environmental And Natural Resource Economics: A Contemporay Approach.
Free Market Environmentalism
Out of Date.......2004-04-28
