Required Reading for the Entire Planet

Michael J. Vandeman, Ph.D.

March 10, 2000 (last updated June 29, 2008)

These are the most important works I have read to date, so this is a work in progress, not a complete list. I welcome suggestions for other works that should be added. My criterion is that they are foundational works that contribute to understanding the most important realities of life on Earth, and what needs to be done to ensure its survival, i.e., the survival of all life on Earth. What could be more important than that?!

Also, I am sure that each author has other writings of equal or greater importance. I suggest that you definitely read these (as soon as possible), but also look for their other works. They are all on the "cutting edge" of their fields.

Please send your comments and suggestions to me at mjvande@pacbell.net.

Beattie, Andrew and Paul Ehrlich, Wild Solutions. How Biodiversity Is Money in the Bank. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001.

Chang, Iris, The Rape of Nanking. New York: Basic Books, 1997 (about what humans are capable of, both the worst and the best).

Cone, Marla, Silent Snow -- The Slow Poisoning of the Arctic. New York: Grove Press, 2005.

"They were the same contaminents found in the milk of women in the south -- PCBs and pesticides -- but the milk of the arctic mothers had up to ten times more than that of the mothers in Canada's biggest cities. ... [T]he PCB levels were the highest he had ever seen. Those women, the expert said, should stop breast-feeding their babies -- immediately. ... [T]he bodies of some Inuit there carried such extraordinary loads of chemicals that their bodies and breast milk could be classified as hazardous waste." p.31-2. "The Aleutian otters were supposed to be the uncontaminated ones, but he had never seen PCB numbers so high. How could otters inhabiting these remote Alaskan islands contain twice as much of these industrial compounds as otters off urban California?" p.35. "Derocher checked the sex of one bear as he routinely did, and found both a vagina and a penis-like knob." p.37. "[T]he evidence is overwhelming that toxic substances have spread throughout the Arctic, harming animals and people of the far North." p.39.

De Graaf, John, David Wann, and Thomas H. Naylor, Affluenza. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 2001.

Deffeyes, Kenneth S., Hubbert's Peak -- The Impending World Oil Shortage. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001.

"In 1956, the geologist M. King Hubbert predicted that U.S. oil production would peak in the early 1970s. Almost everyone, inside and outside the oil industry, rejected Hubbert's analysis. The controversy raged until 1970, when U.S. production of crude oil started to fall. Hubbert was right. Around 1995, several analysts began applying Hubbert's method to world oil production, and most of them estimate that the peak year for world oil will be between 2004 and 2008. These analyses were reported in some of the most widely circulated sources: Nature, Science, and Scientific American.", p.1.

Dubos, Rene', The Wooing of Earth. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1980.

"Laws may prevent exploitation or permanent occupation of wilderness areas, as in the case of national parks, but they cannot protect them against the damaging effects resulting from the mere presence of innumerable tourists", p.29. "There is no evidence ... that early humans always lived in ecological harmony with Nature out of respect for it", p.63. "The wilderness is being loved to death. The conflict between preservation and recreation is becoming more intense as more people seek the wilderness experience", p.136. "The only solution to the overuse and degradation of wilderness areas is in restriction of visitors", p.138.

Ehrenfeld, David, The Arrogance of Humanism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978.

"A clever person can use reason to support any course of action that he or she fancies -- it takes decent feelings to pick the right one", p.146. "Last night I listened to one of my favorite pieces of early baroque music. It reminded me, as it always does, of the sea pounding relentlessly on a dark beach where I have spend many nights waiting to watch the giant sea turtles, last of their noble race, heave themselves out of the depths to lay their gleaming eggs in the black sand. The music saddened me beyond my power to express, because I know that it could not have been written in my time; there has been too much progress; there is not enough peace. It saddened me because it reminded me of the sea, the sea that gave birth to human beings, that we carry with us yet in our very cells. It saddened me because it reminded me that in my century nothing is totally free of the taint of our arrogance. We have defiled everything, much of it forever, even the farthest jungles of the Amazon and the air above the mountains, even the everlasting sea which gave us birth." p.269. [The thesis of this book is that technology always has unintended harmful consequences, which, in a vicious cycle, we always promise to repair … with more technology!]

Ehrlich, Paul R. and Ehrlich, Anne H., Extinction: The Causes and Consequences of the Disappearances of Species. New York: Random House, 1981.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, "Self-Reliance" and other essays in Essays and Journals. Garden City, NY, 1968.

Engwicht, David, "2040 -- A Message from the Future" (a videotaped satire on the end of the Auto Age, available from craig@lesstraffic.com; skewers the auto/road/oil industry like no other film).

Flannery, Tim, The Eternal Frontier -- An Ecological History of North America and Its Peoples. New York: Grove Press,2001.

"The behaviours animals use to avoid predators are both genetically based and learned. The genetic component is acquired through natural selection and so can only slowly be developed. This may account in part for the fact that most of the world's surviving large mammals live in Africa, for it was there that humanity evolved, and it was only there that animals had the time to acquire the genetically based behaviours that allowed them to cope with the new predator. … Given the level of efficiency achieved by Clovis hunters, it seems unlikely that the Columbian mammoth had time to acquire either an appropriate genetic or learned response to the threat humans posed." Pp.198-9.

Foreman, Dave, Confessions of an Eco-Warrior. New York: Harmony Books, 1991.

"A step beyond Primeval management would be human exclosure zones: large areas where no human beings, including scientific researchers or rangers, would be permitted." p.68.

Forman, Richard T. T., Daniel Sperling, and Frederick J. Swanson, Road Ecology: Science & Solutions. Island Press, 2002.

Gandhi, Arun, Legacy of Love. My Education in the Path of Nonviolence. El Sobrante, California: North Bay Books, 2003.

"It is difficult for me to believe that humanity is the end product and ultimate beneficiary of all creation." p.115. "We must be the change we wish to see in the world." (Mohandas Gandhi) p.137.

Gandhi, Mohandas, Essential Writings, Selected with an Introduction by John Dear. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2002.

"Complete nonviolence is complete absence of ill will against all that lives. It therefore embraces even subhuman life not excluding noxious insects or beasts." p.101. "It is discipline and restraint that separates us from the brute." P.131.

Gatto, John Taylor, A Different Kind of Teacher. Berkeley, California: Berkeley Hills Books, 2001.

"Schools train individuals to respond as a mass. Boys and girls are drilled in being bored, frightened, envious, emotionally needy, generally incomplete. A successful mass production economy requires such a clientele. Small business and farm economies, like those of the Amish, require individual competence, thoughtfulness, compassion, and universal participation. Our own economy requires a managed mass of levelled, spiritless, anxious, family-less, friendless, godless, and obedient people who believe the difference between Coke and Pepsi is a subject worth arguing about." p.51. "television destroys the power to think by providing pre-seen sights, pre-thought thoughts, and unwholesome fantasies" p.68.

Griffin, Donald, Animal Thinking. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1984.

"[The] assumption of a human monopoly on conscious thinking becomes more and more difficult to defend as we learn about the ingenuity of animals in coping with problems in their normal lives." p.47.

Knight, Richard L. and Kevin J. Gutzwiller, eds. Wildlife and Recreationists. Covelo, California: Island Press, c.1995.

B. Blake Levitt, _Electromagnetic Fields -- A Consumer's Guide to the Issues and How to Protect Ourselves_. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1995.

"The Best guidelines at present appear to be those recommended by the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP) in its Report No. 86, titled 'Biological Effects and Exposure Criteria for Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Fields'. ... The phone number is 800-229-2652." p.31.

Margulis, Lynn and Dorion Sagan, Microcosmos -- Four Billion Years of Microbial Evolution. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, c. 1986.

Morrison, Reg, The Spirit in the Gene -- Humanity's Proud Illusion and the Laws of Nature. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999.

"The fossil record shows that the arrival of human beings in an area has always coincided with a wave of extinctions" pp.147-8.

Myers, Norman, ed., Gaia: An Atlas of Planet Management, Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1984.

"In 1974,the women of Reni in northern India took simple but effective action to stop tree felling. They threatened to hug the trees if the lumberjacks attempted to fell them. The women's protest (known as the Chipko movement) saved 12,000 sq km of sensitive watershed." P.57

Newbold, Heather, ed., Life Stories: World-Renowned Scientists Reflect on their Lives and the Future of Life on Earth. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.

"Instead of islands of wilderness in a sea of humanity, we should have islands of humanity in a sea of wilderness", p.49. "Although humanity is part of nature, it is no use just saying that. We have to work out how we harmonize with nature." p.119.

Newman, P.W.G, J.R. Kenworthy and T.J. Lyons, "Does Free-Flowing Traffic Save Energy and Lower Emissions in Cities?" Search, Vol.19, No.5/6, September/November, 1988.

Newman, Peter W. G. and Jeffrey R. Kenworthy, Sustainability and Cities. Overcoming Automobile Dependence. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1999.

Newman, P. W. G. and J. R. Kenworthy, "The Transport Energy Trade-Off: Fuel-Efficient Traffic Versus Fuel-Efficient Cities". Transportation Research-A, Vol.22A, No.3, pp.163-174, 1988.

Newman, Peter W. G. and Jeffrey R. Kenworthy, "The Use and Abuse of Driving Cycle Research: Clarifying the Relationship between Traffic Congestion, Energy and Emissions". Transportation Quarterly, Vol.38, No.4, October, 1984 (615-635).

Norberg-Hodge, Helena, Ancient Futures – Learning from Ladakh. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1991.

"The old culture reflected fundamental human needs while respecting natural limits. And it worked! It worked for nature and it worked for people. ... I am convinced that people were significantly happier before development than they are today." p.136 "Development is stimulating dissatisfaction and greed; in so doing, it is destroying an economy that had served people's needs for more than a thousand years." p.141-2. "Unless the consumer monoculture is halted there is no hope of preventing greater poverty, social divisiveness, and ecological degradation." p.163

Noss, Reed F., "The Ecological Effects of Roads", in "Killing Roads -- A citizen's Primer on the Effects & Removal of Roads", "Earth First! Journal", May 1, 1990.

"Nothing is worse for sensitive wildlife than a road." p.1.

Noss, Reed F. and Allen Y. Cooperrider, Saving Nature's Legacy: Protecting and Restoring Biodiversity. Island Press, Covelo, California, 1994.

"Over 200 full species of plants, plus many more varieties, and 71 species and subspecies of vertebrates have gone extinct In North America north of Mexico since European settlement." p.16. "Every major human colonization of a new continent or island has been accompanied by a wave of extinctions, especially of large mammals and flightless birds." p.40. "Blocks of habitat that are roadless or otherwise inaccessible to humans are better than roaded and accessible habitat blocks." p.141. "Off-road vehicle use is so blatantly harmful and frivolous that we wonder why there is even a debate about continuing this use on public lands." p.143. "No off-road vehicles or other motorized equipment or mountain bikes." p.175. "Reduce road density as much as possible by closing, obliterating, and revegetating roads." p.217.

Simberloff, Daniel, Don C. Schmitz, and Tom C. Brown, eds., Strangers in Paradise: Impact and Management of Nonindigenous Species in Florida. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1997.

"Florida's most destructive nonindigenous population ... will probably continue to be the 14 million people derived from foreign ancestries." p.315.

Singer, Peter, Animal Liberation. A New Ethics for Our Treatment of Animals. New York: Avon Books, 1975.

Stanford, Craig, Significant Others -- The Ape-Human Continuum and the Quest for Human Nature. New York, N.Y.: Basic Books, 2001.

"To understand human nature, you must understand the apes. Significant Others is a field guide to the current state of our understanding of both human and ape nature and to the debates now raging in the fields of primate behavior and human evolution." p.xviii. "Contrary to our popular belief, people who rely on forest resources for a living do not necessarily try to conserve it. … A second myth … is that economic improvements necessarily lead people to protect their forests and wildlife." pp.195-6.

Steingraber, Sandra, Living Downstream -- An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment. New York: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., 1997. (Words cannot do justice to this easy-to-read collage of meticulous science and lyric storytelling. And, as if that weren't enough, it may save your life!)

"According to the most recent tally, forty possible carcinogens appear in drinking water, sixty are released by industry into ambient air, and sixty-six are routinely sprayed on food crops as pesticides." p.270.

Stone, Christopher D., Should Trees Have Standing? Toward Legal Rights for Natural Objects. Los Altos, California: William Kaufmann, Inc., 1973.

Suzuki, David and Keibo Oiwa, The Japan We Never Knew. Toronto: Stoddard Publishing Co. Ltd., 1996.

This eloquent look at the social and ecological status of several of the minorities and aboriginal peoples of Japan shows exactly why diversity should be valued: such peoples often have a clearer view, and more sustainable practices, than the majority culture. This is not just a book about Japan, but one with truly urgent and timeless value for all of humanity. "Many of the large, industrialized cities of Japan are ecological nightmares, biological deserts entombed in concrete and asphalt, with rivers choking on industrial sludge and garbage, air thick with exhaust fumes and factory emissions. The pollution became more intense the closer we got to Tokyo. The problems here can be seen as [as] much a failure of education as of politics and business. ... Around the world, social structures are collapsing under the weight of explosive population growth and massive shifts in where this population lives.  There are enormous pressures of widespread poverty, ecological collapse, civil strife, and the increase in new and old diseases -- AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis. Highly industrialized countries like Japan, which depend on global resources and markets, are beginning to confront the reality of their dependence on renewable and nonrenewable products, of the planet's finite limits, and of the ecological and social unsustainability of our high consumption lifestyle. It is from the turmoil within the Japan that we now see that new paradigms, priorities, lifestyles, and goals are emerging. They provide an important source of new ways of perceiving, thinking, and acting for all of us in the global village who strive to find ways to achieve social, economic, and environmental balance." pp.303-4.

Taylor, Paul W., Respect for Nature. A Theory of Environmental Ethics. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1986.

"Being willing to take the standpoint of nonhuman living things and to make informed, objective judgments from that standpoint is one of the central elements of the ethics of respect for nature." p.67.

Terborgh, John, Carel van Schaik, Lisa Davenport, and Madhu Rao, eds., Making Parks Work. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2002.

"Humans, even in low numbers, are incompatible with the persistence of megaherbivores and top carnivores, two groups of animals that are among the most crucial to maintaining normal ecosystem functioning." p.7. "Prevention of … conflict by achieving spatial separation between humans and wildlife appears to be an attractive proposition." p.259. "We do not find any evidence that [coexistence of humans and wildlife in parks] is beneficial for either conservation or human welfare." p.260. "As a matter of principle, people-free parks [no human residents] should always be the ultimate goal. It is the only goal that over the long run is consistent with the requirements of biodiversity conservation. Thus, all relevant policies should be directed to reducing the human presence within parks." p.310.

Terborgh, John, Requiem for Nature. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2002.

The Middlesex Fells [near Boston] is one of an extremely small number of protected areas to have been thoroughly inventoried early in its history. In 1894, two of the most eminent botanists in the United States at that time, Merritt Fernald and Liberty Hyde Bailey, documented the presence of 422 plant species, including trees, shrubs, vines, herbs, and ferns. Ninety-nine years later, in 1993, Brian Drayton and Richard Primack of Boston University resurveyed the Fells. Despite a search that covered every corner of the reserve, they failed to locate 155 of the species that had been present at the first survey, 37 percent of the 1894 list.

Vandeman, Michael J., http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande, especially “Wildlife and the Ecocity”, "Wildlife Need Habitat Off-Limits to Humans!", "Rethinking the Impacts of Recreation", "Telling the Truth about Chimpanzees", and "The Myth of the Sustainable Lifestyle"

Ward, Peter Douglas, The End of Evolution: On Mass Extinctions and the Preservation of Biodiversity. New York: Bantam Books, 1994.

Wilcove, David S., The Condor's Shadow. New York: Anchor Books, 1999.

"People and condors don't mix." p.239.

Wilson, Edward O., The Diversity of Life. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1992.

Wilson, Edward O., The Future of Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002.

"As a rule around the world, wherever a people entered a virgin environment, most of the megafauna soon vanished. Also doomed were a substantial fraction of the most easily captured ground birds and tortoises." p.92. "For hundreds of millenia, evolving humanity was a native species … in Africa and Asia. … The modern Races of Homo sapiens were a true alien species when they colonized the rest of the world, from Australia to the New World and finally the distant oceanic islands." p.98. "The noble savage never existed." p.102.

Wuerthner, George "Selfish Genes, Local Control, and Conservation", in Wild Earth, Winter 1999/2000, pp.87-91.