Green Group discussion

I am depressed to have to admit that I have very little time to read these days. As such, I have had to become much more careful about what books I invest my time in. I can't stand it when one of the few books I can find time to read turns out to be a waste of time. That said, I want to read a new Green Lifestyle book, especially one on food justice/Ethical Eating or Urban Homesteading, and I would really appreciate suggestions.

What is your favorite Green book (or Sustainable/Food Justice/Urban Homesteading) and why? The WHY is very important.

I would really appreciate some help on this!

And if the book is available on audio - so much the better!

And if you're looking for some Everyday Sustainability Tidbits, please don't hesitate to visit me at www.UrbanEarthworm.org! (Or www.facebook.com/UrbanEarthworm)

I'm not sure about fave books, but I just started reading Quarter Acre Farm. I'm slowly trying to convert my front and back yards into food producing landscape (emphasis on the slowly...) so I love reading about urban and suburban homesteading.

I'd read Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes. I wouldn't necessarily call it a green book. It's important because it shows how a small group of well-funded "scientists" (consider me spitting that word out) have sabotaged efforts to do anything about important issues like climate change.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. About her time growing her own food.

I agree that Animal, Vegetable, MIracle is a great read. Very interesting and well-written. I also enjoyed Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer by Novella Carpenter a lot. It is written with humor and is a remarkable story about her squatting on a vacant lot and not only growing veggies, but ultimately raising pigs as well. Easy to read and inspiring.

Hi Amanda,

I highly recommend John Robbins' Diet for a New America: How Your Food Choices Affect Your Health, Happiness and the Future of Life on Earth



It talks about how what we eat and how we eat it affects everything and everyone. It's a brilliant read on how to do things better, be healthier, take care of mamma earth and the animals. It uncovers the truth about these things and is very, very educational.

I copied this in from the Amazon product page:

*****

From Publishers Weekly
This well-documented expose of America's "factory farms" should prompt even die-hard meat-and-potatoes lovers to reevaluate their diets. Asserting that "we are ingesting nightmares for breakfast, lunch and dinner," Robbins, who is medical director of the California Institute for Health and Healing, details how livestock is raised under increasingly industrialized conditions by "agribusiness oligopolies." Grazing and foraging have given way to debeaking, tail-docking, dehorning and castration, and treatment with pesticides, hormones, growth and appetite stimulants, tranquilizers and antibioticswhich, in turn, are assimilated by humans. The author correlates our "protein obsessed" society with a higher incidence of arteriosclerosis, osteoporosis, cancer and other degenerative diseases, as well as freakish occurrences like premature puberty from estrogen contamination. As Robbins debunks nutritional myths perpetuated by the powerful meat and dairy industries (indicting as well his family's Baskin-Robbins ice-cream empire), this is sure to prove controversial.

Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

******

Namaste.

Rai

I recently finished Ship Breaker and The Drowned Cities by Paolo Bacigalupi who did The Windup Girl. These are YA, but paint a realistic picture of what human life might be like in 50-100 years given the current CO2 concentration.

Since I spend a lot of time reviewing the scientific literature about global warming and other ecological subjects, I prefer reading ecofiction novels to non-fiction 'green' books.