Painting by Vi Huntley-Franck
Today, I’m going to suggest some great books to read for those of you concerned with pollution, climate change, and being a responsible human. I’ll be adding in more as my Living Green series continues.
I’ll start with the book that started it all off for environmentalists everywhere. Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson.
First published by Houghton Mifflin in 1962, Silent Spring alerted a large audience to the environmental and human dangers of indiscriminate use of pesticides, spurring revolutionary changes in the laws affecting our air, land, and water. “Silent Spring became a runaway bestseller, with international reverberations . . . [It is] well crafted, fearless and succinct . . . Even if she had not inspired a generation of activists, Carson would prevail as one of the greatest nature writers in American letters” (Peter Matthiessen, for Time’s 100 Most Influential People of the Century).
This edition celebrates Rachel Carson’s watershed book with a new introduction by the author and activist Terry Tempest Williams and a new afterword by the acclaimed Rachel Carson biographer Linda Lear, who tells the story of Carson’s courageous defense of her truths in the face of ruthless assault from the chemical industry in the year following the publication of Silent Spring and before her untimely death in 1964.
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My next selection is Diet For A Small Planet, by Frances Moore Lappe. This is not simply a diet book. This is a book of conscience. I’m mentioning it at a particularly volatile time when meat might be hard to find or the cost prohibitive.
The book that started a revolution in the way Americans eat.
The extraordinary book that taught America the social and personal significance of a new way of eating is still a complete guide for eating well in the twenty-first century.
Sharing her personal evolution and how this groundbreaking book changed her own life, world-renowned food expert Frances Moore Lappé offers an all-new, even more fascinating philosophy on changing yourself—and the world—by changing the way you eat.
The Diet for a Small Planet features:
• simple rules for a healthy diet
• streamlined, easy-to-use format
• food combinations that make delicious, protein-rich meals without meat
• indispensable kitchen hints—a comprehensive reference guide for planning and preparing meals and snacks
• hundreds of wonderful recipes
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Vietnam 1962–1975, by John CT Miller
I add this book, not with any pros or cons about the war in Vietnam, but to bring to light many of the harms that Agent Orange caused and is still causing. I will have a big expose on what I consider to be criminal acts in the testing, manufacture, and disposal of this deadly dioxin.
There have been hundreds of books written by those Americans who served their country either willingly or forced to do so in Vietnam. But little has been written about how the American government and its military deliberately lied time after time to its citizens and worse still to its own troops in Vietnam.
This book does not feature or include the thousands of close encounters or combat incidents retold by many American Vietnam veterans, but highlights the many lies told and spread by American authorities, especially Agent Orange and its consequences. Agent Orange must be one of the worst orchestrated litany of lies by the government and the military.
This deadly dioxin based herbicide has also led to millions of innocent Vietnamese being poisoned.
While the war might be over some 50 years ago, the battle for the millions of returning American troops and millions of Vietnamese continues to this day.
Dioxin, is one of the deadliest substances known to humankind. Just 85 grams of dioxin, if evenly spread, could wipe out a city of eight million people.
Illnesses and lingering deaths from Agent Orange exposure were only the early consequences of that war.
Dioxin affects not only people exposed to it, but also their children and their children’s children, and alters DNA.
The Vietnam war might have ended for the Americans, but for millions of Vietnamese families the battle against Agent Orange and survival continues.
American bombs and bullets no longer maim and kill, but instead, the Americans left behind a hidden and silent killer.
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Toxic Communities, by Dorceta Taylor
This book is one I stumbled upon and am glad I did! It is well researched and superbly written. The author explains how low-income and minority communities have been dumped on, contaminated, and exposed.
Uncovers the systemic problems that expose poor communities to environmental hazards.
From St. Louis to New Orleans, from Baltimore to Oklahoma City, there are poor and minority neighborhoods so beset by pollution that just living in them can be hazardous to your health. Due to entrenched segregation, zoning ordinances that privilege wealthier communities, or because businesses have found the ‘paths of least resistance,’ there are many hazardous waste and toxic facilities in these communities, leading residents to experience health and wellness problems on top of the race and class discrimination most already experience. Taking stock of the recent environmental justice scholarship, Toxic Communities examines the connections among residential segregation, zoning, and exposure to environmental hazards. Renowned environmental sociologist Dorceta Taylor focuses on the locations of hazardous facilities in low-income and minority communities and shows how they have been dumped on, contaminated and exposed.
Drawing on an array of historical and contemporary case studies from across the country, Taylor explores controversies over racially-motivated decisions in zoning laws, eminent domain, government regulation (or lack thereof), and urban renewal. She provides a comprehensive overview of the debate over whether or not there is a link between environmental transgressions and discrimination, drawing a clear picture of the state of the environmental justice field today and where it is going. In doing so, she introduces new concepts and theories for understanding environmental racism that will be essential for environmental justice scholars. A fascinating landmark study, Toxic Communities greatly contributes to the study of race, the environment, and space in the contemporary United States.
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These four books all portray different aspects of what Living Green is all about. Check them out and you'll see what I mean.
Blaze McRob
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