The Official Earth Day Guide to Planet Repair - Softcover

Hayes, Denis

9781559638098: The Official Earth Day Guide to Planet Repair

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1559638095 ISBN 13: 9781559638098

Publisher: Island Press, 2000

Covers global warming, clean energy sources, electric cars, energy efficient homes, and ways to support environmental issues

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Review:

That most of the world's environments are in bad shape is by now well known. They need not remain that way, insists veteran environmentalist Denis Hayes, a coordinator of the first Earth Day in 1970 and now CEO of the International Earth Day Network. Many animal and plant species have been brought back from the brink of extinction since the dawning of the environmental movement, and more and more people are aware of the ecological consequences of their actions. But then, Hayes notes, more and more people are buying gas-guzzling SUVs, using energy-thirsty halogen torchieres, consuming fossil-fuel-squandering foodstuffs grown far from home out of season, and otherwise behaving as if the good times will never end. The cost of that behavior is mounting: witness the greenhouse effect, by which gases trapped in the atmosphere prevent solar heat from escaping, thereby warming the earth. "Within a few decades," Hayes warns, "you will breathe air containing twice as much CO2 as the air your grandparents breathed unless we radically change our use of carbon fuels such as coal and fuel."

There is much we can do, counsels Hayes. We can change our habits of energy consumption and develop sources of clean energy. We can agitate for the protection of air-cleansing forests--especially the vast boreal forests of North America and Asia, which, while less rich in biodiversity than the better-publicized Amazon rainforest, are far more effective at filtering poisons out of the air. We can try to leave a smaller footprint, ratchet up our consciousness just a little bit more, elect "green" politicians and boycott "brown" corporations. The list goes on.

Thoughtful and well written, The Official Earth Day Guide to Planet Repair is a fine sourcebook for anyone willing to get started on the perhaps quixotic but just as certainly necessary task of fixing all the damage we have done. --Gregory McNamee

About the Author:

In 1969, Denis Hayes left Harvard's Kennedy School of Government to coordinate the first Earth Day, an event often credited with launching the modern American environmental movement. Twenty years later he headed the first International Earth Day, with 200 million participants in 141 countries. Today, Denis heads Earth Day Network, the group organizing the international campaign for Earth Day 2000. He is also President and CEO of the Bullitt Foundation, a $100 million environmental foundation based in Seattle, and Chairman of the Board of The Energy Foundation. During the Carter Administration, Denis was Director of the federal Solar Energy Research Institute. From 1973 to 1975, he headed the Illinois State Energy Office, and from 1983 to 1989 he served as an adjunct professor of engineering at Stanford University. He has published more than 100 articles and papers on energy and the environment in publications such as Bioscience, the NY Times and USA Today, and his solar energy blueprint, Rays of Hope, is available in six languages. A graduate of Stanford University and Stanford Law School, Denis has been awarded the highest honors bestowed by the Sierra Club, the National Wildlife Federation, the Natural Resources Defense Council, The Humane Society of the United States, the American Solar Energy Society, Beyond War, and the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility. In 1978, the American Institute for Public Service awarded him the Jefferson Medal for the greatest public service by an American under 35. Denis was selected by Look magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential Americans of the 20th Century, and he was chosen by the National Audubon Society as one of the 100 most important conservation figures of the 20th Century. Denis has been a guest on such programs as The Today Show, Good Morning America, Face the Nation, Meet the Press, the David Brinkley Show, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, and Donahue. He has been profiled as "Newsmaker of the Week" by ABC News and as "Today's Person in the News" by the New York Times. Denis' international interests and experience date back to the late 1960s, when on his own initiative he embarked on a journey that included hitchhiking across Southeast Asia, Africa, Europe and the Middle East. Denis is married and has one daughter, and currently lives and works in Seattle.

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