Required Reading for the Entire Planet

Required Reading for the Entire Planet
Michael J. Vandeman, Ph.D.
March 10, 2000 (last updated September 23, 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
.

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
; 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.

Turse, Nick, The Complex -- How the Military Invades Our Everyday
Lives. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2008.

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", "The Myth of the Sustainable Lifestyle", and "What
Is Homo Sapiens' Place in Nature, from an Objective (Biocentric) Point
of View?"

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.
--
I am working on creating wildlife habitat that is off-limits to
humans ("pure habitat"). Want to help? (I spent the previous 8
years fighting auto dependence and road construction.)

Please don't put a cell phone next to any part of your body that you are fond of!

http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande

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