I picked up a book called Earth Odyssey by Mark Hertsgaard at a thrift store last year. Finally had time to read it during my summer at the Jersey Shore, and not a moment too soon. This book is deeply disturbing! It shook me up more than anything I’ve read in at least the last 6 years. I was already far more informed than the average lay person, now I am also far more upset.

You would have to be inhuman to read about the huge human populations who live in toxic or horribly degraded environments More...

I read this book because it is by a guy who spent seven years traveling the world to write a book about the environment.

Mark is a good writer, and I admire many passages in this book. Likewise, he has fantastic passages about some of the people he meets. I also really like the section where he takes the long-run perspective, talking about the history of the earth and how we find ourselves at this point in civilization. In general, when he talks about history, I like it.

His organizing question, t More...

We are going through a drought here in Northern California. Since this summer we've been asked to use no more than 100 gallons of water per day. We took the request seriously and let the summer heat kill our patio garden. One hundred gallons still seems like an extravagant amount of water but according Mark Hertsgaard in Earth Odyssey, the typical American household uses 186 gallons a day, nearly twice what we've been asked to cut back to!

In 1991 Mark Hertsgaard traveled around the world to see More...

I read this book a few years ago but, with the recent discussion on global warming and especially George Bush's recent (April '08) global warming goal nonstatement, I have been thinking about issues raised in this book. This is a great introduction to the global environment and issues facing the global community. I want to reread the book and then write a real review. Right now I want to recommend the book to anyone who cares about people, the Earth or both! We should ALL be environmentalists. W More...

Skipped ahead to the Russia chapter -it's very interesting to me -esp. since Dr. Natalia Mironova and some other Russians are mentioned in this chapter and we just had an international nuclear accountability workshop with Natalia and others in April 2007.
Worse than Chernobyl is Mayak, another little known nuclear facility in the Urals in Russia. Before glasnost (and "open" sharing of information) there were 4 accidents at Mayak -accidents that were WORSE than Chernobyl but aren't known because More...

A very blunt report of the environmental outlook of humanity and commentary on our global gamble with long-term planetary health. I think it was overall optimistic - we as a species have all the right tools to establish a health progress to fixing our environmental footprint, but thus far markets remained skewed, and we lack the political will to put these tools into action. This book was written in 1999 and still remains relevant today. I believe anyone interested in environmental issues should More...

The environmental problem is two-fold: the poor focus on survival and advancement more than preserving the environment, and the rich are unwilling to curtail their overconsumption - focuses on China, little bits on Sudan and Brazil

A quest for answers to the questions that really matters. Makes you think closer about your own daily actions. Action makes reaction. You know. Chapter three is one of those that is right on the painful spot!

Employing a refreshingly anthropological approach in which just a few statistical crumbs are couched in the cracks, Herstgaard explores international environmental concerns in context of socioeconomic and political cultures throughout the world. He introduces us to many colorful faces and places whose contributions to environmental degradation are all too human, while casting dark shadows on the few institutions which have the means, but fail to lead the way out. Sometimes heart-wrenching, frequ More...

A book about overpopulation, pollution, famine, disease, war, global warming, ozone destruction, etc. It was too depressing to read.

I read this book when i was pretty young, right when it came out, and i think it is what sparked my activism, just the stories of his travels and the hardships and realities of the rest of the world compared to white north americans.

i recently re-got this book and debate about reading it again because i probably wont like it as much. I think this came out in 1996 or something and he said then that the world was already ten years late on turning back the clock on global warming and if we stopped More...

Shocking book about a one man's journey around the globe, describing the state of the planet where ever he goes.

Hands down, one of the most important books I have ever read.

Read this, please. Well-written,fascinating, scary

They need a category for tried to read and failed. What is it about this book? Highly recommended by Sievert Rohwer, who I respect enormously and who actually went so far as to provide a free copy to all attendants of the 2001 AOU meeting. I admit to having found myself self-righteously espousing ideas from the first chapter (and only chapter I read). Just couldn't get any further. Suspect it might have to do with the inexcusably hideous cover.

The title sounds like a "green" annoying preaching type - but it is to the contrary and almost reads like a fiction in that his tales of discovery and people that he encounters is quite entertaining. His thoughts combined with extrememly interesting information that is unknown to most is intruiging and balanced.

Wonderful book. Author writes about first hand experiences in third world countries while simultaneously digging deep into the problems that people face in each country due to environmental problems, what has been done to mitigate them, and what should be done. Inspired me.

This book will make you a better person. It opens your eyes to what it truly means to be a good steward of this Earth. It is depressing at times but the author has some great ideas for changes.

This book is interesting because the author travels around the world and interview individuals about the greatest environmental issues in their country. It's a wake-up call with hope.

I learned that technology is both a blessing and a curse in terms of the environment

Good first-hand account of how the rest of the world lives and uses resources.

An entertaining read on a most disturbing subject.

In the 1990s, an American journalist visited many environmentally blighted places: a refugee camp in South Sudan, Russian villages downstream of Kombinat Mayak, Bangkok, Chinese and Brazilian countryside, and many more. The air and water are terribly polluted, and people are sick. For several years, not a single boy from several villages around a heavily poluted river in North China has been able to pass the army physical examination; in a village in Amazonia, children routinely die of dehydrati More...

Insanely informative