Books Recommended by Burt Liebert, co-author of From Out of the Cage: Cooling a Warming Planet (http://outofthecagenow.blogspot.com/)

Bell, Art and Whitley Strieber, The Coming Global Superstorm, 1997. An interesting theory that civilization was once wiped out, possibly by a “superstorm,” and that it can happen again if society does not respond adequately to the threat of global warming.

Brown, Lester R., Eco-Economy: Building an Economy for the Earth, 2001. The need to build a new economy based not on profit but on what’s good for the earth.

Brown, Lester R., Outgrowing the Earth: The Food Security Challenge In An Age of Falling Water Tables and Rising Temperatures, 2004. Population and industrialization growth make many American agricultural and industrial processes obsolete.

Brown, Lester R., Plan B 2.0, 2006. What we are doing wrong; what we are doing right; what we have to do if we aren’t going to force our grandchildren to pay for our luxury.

Brune, Michael, Coming Clean: Breaking America’s Addiction to Oil and Coal, 2008. Just what the title says.

Calvin, William H., Global Fever: How to Treat Climate Change, 2008. Some of the dire consequences of climate change: their causes and effects, and what we need to do.

Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring, 1962. This little piece of dynamite started the whole ecological movement. Although now mainly obsolete because of subsequent legislation, this is a milestone in ecological thinking.

Daley, Michael, Nuclear Power: Promise or Peril?, 1997. The good and the bad of nuclear power.

Diamond, Jared, The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and the Future of the Human Animal, 1992. The dangers to the human race if we are unable to conquer our destructive impulses.

Diamond, Jared, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, 2005. The rise of civilizations and why they disappear.

E Magazine, Green Living: The E Magazine Handbook for Living Lightly on the Earth, 2005. What our own life style can do to improve the ecology of the planet.

Ehrlich, Paul R., The Population Bomb, 1969. Seven years after Rachel Carson, this book introduced another major phase of the struggle for a healthy planet.

Ehrlich, Paul R. and Richard Harriman, How to be a Survivor, 1971. Population control, planned industrialization for optimum benefit and minimum destruction.

Ehrlich, Paul R. and Anne H. Ehrlich, One With Ninevah, 2004. “Global warming is . . . potentially much more threatening to civilization than Saddam Hussein could ever have been.”

Eisler, Riane, The Chalice and the Blade, 1987. Want to see a more livable world? Let’s get over our need to dominate others, as individuals and as nations.

Friedman, Thomas L, Hot, Flat, and Crowded, 2008. More thoughts about global warming, climate change, and what we need to do about them.

Fuller, Buckminster, Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, 1969. An assessment of the situation as it was 40 years ago by one of the deepest thinkers of the 20th century.

Gore, Al, An Inconvenient Truth, 2006. Based on his blockbuster film, this is an emotional appeal to change the way we do things.

Gore, Al, The Assault on Reason, 2007. Political and economic reasons for global climate change.

Gore, Al, Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis, 2009. A summary of knowledge to date about various methods of energy generation and the advantages and limitations of each.

Huffington, Arianna, Pigs at the Trough: How Corporate Greed and Political Corruption Are Undermining America, 2003. A scathing indictment of American business and politics.

Korten, David, The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community, 2006. How recent developments in the United States are reducing this country to secondary status.

Korten, David, Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth, 2009. Current economic situation in this country is leading to destruction.

Klare, Michael T., Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America’s Growing Petroleum Dependency, 2004. The title says it all.

Laszlo, Ervin and Peter Seidel, Global Survival: The Challenge and its Implications For Thinking and Acting. Challenges many of the myths and assumptions about making a society prosperous and people happy.

Liebert, Burt and Marjorie Liebert, Out of the Cage: Cooling a Warming Planet, 2009. In fiction format, presents a society that has achieved sustainability by developing communities in which human relationships are more important than the never-ending quest for wealth and possessions.

Longman, Phillip, The Empty Cradle: How Falling Birthrates Threaten World Prosperity and What To Do About It. We are all aware of the danger of growing world population. But there is also a danger in decreasing population. Suggestions for increasing parenthood.

Lovelock, James, Healing Gaia: Practical Medicine For the Planet, 1991. The earth seen as a living being, which tries to maintain homeostasis and has self-healing ability.

Lovelock, James, The Revenge of Gaia: Earth’s Climate and the Fate of Humanity, 2006. Development of the themes of his earlier book.

McDonough, William and Michael Braungart. Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, 2002. The need to change our industrial methods from destructive to constructive.

McKibben, Bill, The Age of Missing Information, 1992. Television presents an unreal view of reality.

McKibben, Bill, Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future, 2007. Economic growth is no longer making us happy.

Meadows, Donella H., Dennis L. Meadows, and Jorgen Randers, Beyond the Limits: Confronting Global Collapse: Envisioning a Sustainable Future, 1992. Growth is neither good nor bad; it depends on: What growth? For whom? Costing how much? Who is paying for it?

Move-on’s 50 Ways To Love Your Country: How To Find Your Political Voice and Become a Catalyst For Change, 2004. A collection of essays by Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi, and others about how citizens can influence elected officials.

Rees, Martin, Our Final Hour: A Scientist’s Warning: How Terror, Error, and Environmental Disaster Threaten Humankind’s Future in This Century: On Earth and Beyond, 2003. A collection of scenarios about terrible disasters that could befall the human race, possibly destroy all of humanity, or even all life on earth.

Rifkin, Jeremy, Beyond Beef: The Rise and Fall of the Cattle Culture, 1992. The destructiveness of the cattle industry.

Rifkin, Jeremy, The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Post-Market Era, 1995. The transition to a near-workerless labor force and its effects on society.

Roberts, Paul, The End of Oil: On the Edge of a Perilous World, 2004. Consequences of running out of cheap oil.

Romm, Joseph J., The Hype About Hydrogen, 2004. The many unsolved technical problems involved in extracting hydrogen from water or natural gas mean that it will be many years before hydrogen becomes a major source of energy.

Roodman, David Malin, The Natural Wealth of Nations: Harnessing the Market for the Environment, 1998. Wealth is provided by nature, and we should be nourishing, not squandering it.

Sachs, Jeffrey, The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time, 2005. If the wealthy nations lived up to their pledge of giving .7% of their GDP to end world poverty, it could be accomplished by 2025.

Sandalow, David, Freedom from Oil: How the Next President Can End the United States’ Oil Addiction, 2008. Suggestions, mainly for automobiles, to cut down use of oil.

Stern, Nicholas, The Global Deal: Climate Change and the Creation of a New Era of Progress and Prosperity , 2009. The world must unite to fight climate change.

Tickell, Josh, Biodiesel America: How To Achieve Energy Security, Free America From Middle East Oil Dependence and Make Money Growing Fuel. Increased emphasis on non-petroleum fuel, particularly biodiesel.

Weizsacker, Ernest von, Amorey B. Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins, Factor Four: Doubling Wealth––Halving Resource Use, 1997. High technology to the rescue!

Wilson, Edward O., The Creation: An Appeal To Save Life on Earth, 2006. The planet is headed for mass extinctions if we continue business as usual.