Green Books Reviews showcases the latest and greatest Green Books in an extensive and constantly updated database. Browse through environmental publications and authors, as well as view the entire archive of published reviews from Alternatives Journal, Canada's leading environmental magazine.
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Archive for May, 2010
Congratulations Michelle on winning this week’s Green Books Giveaway:
1. Obsessive Consumption by Kate Bingaman-Burt
2. The Self-Sufficient Life by John Seymour
3. Terracide by Hubert Reeves
We asked our readers to share “An Inspirational Environmental Quote”
Our winning contestants submission:
“When we walk like (we are running), we print anxiety and sorrow on the earth. We have to walk in a way that we only print peace and serenity on the earth… Be aware of the contact between your feet and the earth…Walk as if you are kissing the earth with your feet.” - Thich Nhat Hanh
Thank you to all of our contestants for sharing suck great quotes.
Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent
Andrew Nikiforuk
Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2008, 208 pages.
It’s no secret that Stephen Harper’s Conservatives have designed their environmental policy to fit a full-speed-ahead exploitation of Alberta’s tar sands. It’s important, therefore, to have an understanding of the industry’s environmental impact. Andrew Nikiforuk’s award-winning Tar Sands offers precisely that.
First, “oil sands” is a misnomer. The resource is actually a mixture of sand and clay that contains a small percentage of bitumen – a sticky concoction of hydrocarbons that also 
contains sulfur, nitrogen and heavy metals. Energy companies scour vast reaches of the … [Click here to read more!]
Congratulations Eric on winning this week’s Green Books Giveaway:
1. Protect or Plunder? by Vandana Shiva
2. Hot Flat and Crowded by Thomas Friedman
3. Grow Organic: A cleaner, greener book
We asked our readers to tell us “Where is your favourite place to buy Green Books?”
Our winning contestants answer:
I like to buy at Second Look Books on Queen Street, in downtown Kitchener.
-Eric
Thank you to all of our contestants for sharing their green book stores.
Climate Wars
Gwynne Dyer
Toronto: Random House, Canada, 2008, 288 pages.
Global Warring
Cleo Paskal
Toronto: Key Porter Books, 2009, 288 pages.
Here’s a fact I had never considered: the word “rival” comes from the Latin word rivalis, meaning “those who draw water from the same source.” Rivalry is closely related to the availability of shared resources, and tensions are easily triggered when food and water are at stake.
Now, let’s take this to the extreme: climate change projections suggest that the flow of many of the world’s major rivers will be seriously 
reduced as glaciers retreat. The scale of potential conflict is staggering. The Himalayan watershed alone, which includes the Ganges, Indus, Yangtze and Mekong 
Rivers, supplies water to almost half the people on this planet, including nuclear powers China, India and Pakistan.
But this is about more than rivers. Two new books on the issue, Climate Wars and Global Warring, introduce a bevy of reasons for concern: natural disasters, disappearing low-lying island states, shifting coasts and access to oceanic exploitation zones, the melting Northwest Passage, desertification and altered patterns of food production. Each has the potential to redefine how we interpret and conceptualize international law, how we interact diplomatically with other nations, and how and why we engage militarily.
Cleo Paskal, a fellow at Chatham House who boasts journalistic stints at The Economist and the Chicago Tribune, seeks to “introduce and legitimize the idea that environmental change is about to have enormous, and specific, geopolitical consequences.”…[Click here to read more!]
