Earth Odyssey

Rating:
Summary: A Long Night's Journey Into Day
Review: Having just read Mark Hertsgaard's THE EAGLE'S SHADOW I moved on to his much longer and earlier book EARTH ODYSSEY. Though not intending to read all of this important information in one sitting, I found this book so well written as well as informative that it became a page turner that happily usurped an entire evening. Try to bed down after reviewing the state of the world's environmental crises! Yet in the darkness, having finished the book, there was time to reflect on just how important it is to get this information to the entire public. Not just the active Environmentalists, those who know intuitively the dangers we have bred and are still breeding, but the Everyman out there - all of us who glibly fill our multiple cars with gasoline, clog the freeways, allow the government to ignore Global Warming, remain uninformed about the terrifying diasters associated with the world's nuclear energy programs.

Hertsgaard is a fine journalist and as such he traveled the globe from 1991 - 1997 observing, breathing the noxious air in China, the extreme poverty in Africa, the filth in Russia, India, among the Third World countries, and reporting the complacency echoing in groups who live in this deteriorating world and do very little about taking action to guard our planet's future. Currently the media (such as it is) is alerting us to the presence of an Asteroid a mile wide apparently headed for the earth from outer space. That incident, devastating though it would be, is only a possibility. The more pertinent devastation ( our clamouring for "the better life" through industry and its concomitant wasting of our natural resources by knowingly turning them into poisonous by-products ) seems to go unnoticed. Hertsgaard intermixes reportage with very readable converstaions with people around the world and the result is a book that feels as though it unites all of us, even though that core of unity may be a shared terror.

Had we more writers like Mark Hertsgaard who are brave enough and concerned as deeply about 'Whither mankind' perhaps our newspapers and magazines and television/radio news shows would feel compelled to report the important issues before us today rather than search for the latest movie star wedding or sex scandal or whatever sells commercial space. Take this journey with Hertsgaard and wake up to a morning of commitment to the guardianship of our fellowmen.

Rating:
Summary: An environmental travelogue with a somber warning
Review: Hertsgaard's book, while sounding the alarm about global environmental degredation, for the most part avoids the dogmatic rhetoric of the environmental movement. His method is simple but effective. He travelled around the world and witnessed environmental disasters first hand. Particularly chilling is the chapter on China. He is also realistic, acknowledging that the biggest environmental crisis consists of billions of third world citizens who aspire to a first world lifestyle and the environmental damage this would cause. Hertsgaard also offers solutions, however unlikely that they might be implemented any time soon. A very worthwhile book.

Rating:
Summary: Our environmental crisis
Review: Investigative reporter Mark Hertsgaard spent six years traveling around the world, gathering material for this book. This is not strictly a scientific treatise (although he conducted extensive research into his topics). Rather, he reports through the eyes of the people who live in the environmentally damaged places he visited. The theme of the book is how technology has both benefitted and harmed the planet and its inhabitants, and how greed continues to threaten our existence. His accounts of wanton destruction of nature in the 19th century make the reader gasp with dismay over the short-sightedness of our predecessors: the damming of a mighty river and its magnificent waterfall; the murder of the largest, oldest sequoia on earth. (Two of the examples which brought me to tears.) The horror is: the destruction, the contamination, and waste are still happening. And not only at the hands of totalitarian regimes or ignorant third-world peasants, but due to the callousness of greedy American corporations and government lobbies. The conclusions of Chapter Three, "The Irrisistable Automobile", will come as no surprise to most American readers, although the images of the perpetually gridlocked traffic-jams of fume-choked Asian cities astonished even this rider of Southern California freeways. Statistics of the predicted explosion in automobile sales world wide are especially ominous. This book was published in 1999 and exposes the hypocrisy of the Clinton administration in paying lip service to environmental issues while simultaneously caving to the demands of the powerful fossil fuel lobby. If Chapter Three is gloomy, Chapter Four, "To the Nuclear Lighthouse", is utterly terrifying. The account of Hertsgaard's visits to the most blighted areas of the former USSR is preceeded by a dismal, just recently uncensored history of the Soviets' worst nuclear disasters. While everyone knows about Chernobyl, few people knew about the radiating of the Siberian region of Chelyabinsk. Few, that is, other than the hapless residents who've been suffering its effects for years. With the aid of his translator, Russian author and photographer Vlad Tamarov, Hertsgaard conducted a relentless expose' of the deliberate coverups of "incidents" at nuke plants and shipping lanes, which irreversibly poisoned crops, fisheries, and even the water table. Even more worrisome than the damage already done are Hertsgaard's reports of poorly inventoried and practically unguarded nuclear stockpiles in volatile republics such as Kazakhstan. The American reader who attributes Soviet environmental crimes to Communist cruelty is in for an ugly shock -- Hertsgaard then documents identical coverups by our own government, of similar "incidents" on our own soil! From Russia, the author journeyed to China and Africa to report on overpopulation and its adverse effects on nature, health, and standards of living. The bleak narrative ends on a hopeful note: "Sustainable Development and the Triumph of Capitalism". Since the publication of "Earth Odyssey", the Bush administration has all but declared war on the environment, so even that fleeting hope now appears elusive.

Rating:
Summary: A little sick, a lot wise
Review: It's probably common to think about what happens to the trash we throw away, our human refuse, and other stuff that has to go somewhere, preferably away from where we are. But it's probably less common to think about what happens to refuse from every other process, system, and activity that takes place every second to keep the entire world running. For one thing, such ruminations would be depressing. Once you read about Hertsgaard's sobering journey, you'll be forced to face your own personal contribution to earth's demise. I think cognitive dissonance would be a normal reaction. But perhaps we're lucky that Hertsgaard was willing and able to survey the earth's conditions first hand, and deliver his account with subjective experiences. I think it took a lot of guts for him to approach this subject at all, because it's the kind of message that gets the messenger killed. He did an excellent job of meshing human interest and scientific research and statistics, making the book as valuable as it is interesting. You may not be happy when you finish this book, but you will definitely be informed.

Rating:
Summary: Well written account of ecological perils we face
Review: Mark Hertsgaard presents an unbiased unsentimental firsthand account of the environmental problems the human race faces. He identifies the pattern of overconsumption in developed countries and the economic disparity among nations and people as the biggest cause and deterrant to a better environmental future. We will have to ensure that every human being is clothed and fed before we can expect them to be concerned about the environment. Perhaps at the end of the book, he sounds too hopeful about the fate of human beings - but quoting Vaclav Havel, as the author did - hope forces me to do something to make them [the better possibilities] happen.