A List from 1000 Friends of Iowa Board Member, Erv Klaas

You are invited to send comments and suggestions for additional reading on these topics to: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it   

Global Warming

NEW! Those of us who have been following developments on climate change and global warming are asked, “If the planet is getting warmer why is it so cold?”  James Hansen, one of the world’s leading climatologists, says that he often is asked the same question.  So, he has published an essay titled, If Its That Warm, How Come Its So Damned Cold?, and placed it on his web site, it will also be available soon at BluePlanetGreenLiving.com . In this paper he states that 2009 tied as the second warmest year in the 130 years of global instrumental temperature records based on analysis of data at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.  The Southern Hemisphere set a record as the warmest year for that half of the world.   

Hansen and his three co-authors go into great detail describing how temperatures vary across the globe.  In Figure 5, they show that a temperature anomaly in which temperatures for June-July-August (2009) over much of eastern North America were the coolest on the globe, averaging as much as 1 degree Celsius (33.8 degrees Farenheit) below the rest of the world.  The regional anomaly expanded over most of North America in December 2009 even though global temperatures for that month were the fourth highest on record. There was a negative temperature anomaly in Siberia that averaged -8 degrees C. (46.4 degrees F.) over the month of December.  But, the temperature anomaly in the Arctic region as a whole was +7 degrees C. (44.6 degrees F.)

I have just read Hansen’s new book Storms of My Grandchildren, the Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity.  The book is a wonderful example of science written with clarity.  More importantly, Hansen tells policy makers what they need to do to reverse the steady climb in greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide.  He argues for stopping the burning of all fossil fuels.  He shows how a cap-and-trade policy will not work.  Instead he advocates a fee-and-dividend policy that would tax fossil fuels at their source, gradually increase the tax over time, and return 100 percent of the dividends to the people to offset increases in the cost of energy.  He also supports the development of third and fourth generation nuclear power.  Finally, as the title implies, he gets quite personal in saying that unless we initiate these policies immediately, our grandchildren will live in a world of chaos and poverty.  This is no ordinary gloom and doom book.  It provides ample evidence of the threat of global warming. Read his book and visit his web site frequently to get the latest updates on the science and policy of climate change.  ---Erv Klaas

Cox, Peter, Deepak Rughani, Peter Wadhams and David Wasdell.  2007. Planet Earth—We have a Problem. Feedback Dynamics and the Acceleration of Climate Change. Proceedings of a briefing given in the House of Commons, London to the All Party Parliamentary Climate Change Group (APPCCG), on the 6th June, 2007. 125 pp. Published by the APPCCG in association with the Meridian Programme.

Emanuel, Kerry. 2007.  With an afterward by Judith A. Layzer and William R. Moomaw. What We Know About Climate Change.  85 pp. A Boston Review Book, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

Orr, David W.  2004. Optimism and Hope in a Hotter Time.  Conservation Biology, Volume 21, No. 6.  (Reprinted in The Leopold Outlook Summer 2008 Volume 8, Issue 1: 5-9.  Land Ethic Press, the Aldo Leopold Foundation.)

Pearce, Fred. 2007.  With Speed and Violence, Why Scientists Fear Tipping Points in Climate Change.  Beacon Press, Boston.

Speth, James Gustave.  2004.  Red Sky at Morning. America and the Crisis of the Global Environment.  329 pp. (Paper) Yale University Press, New Haven and London.

Speth, James Gustave. 2008.  The Bridge at the Edge of the World. Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability. 295 pp. Yale University Press, New Haven and London.

Ecology and Environment

Brower, Michael and Warren Leon.  1999.  The Consumer’s Guide to Effective Environmental Choices.  Practical Advice from the Union of Concerned Scientists. 292 pp. (Paper). Three Rivers Press, New York.

Chambers, Nicky, Craig Simmons, and Mathis Wackernagel.  2000.  Sharing Nature’s Interest.  Ecological Footprints as an Indicator of Sustainability.  185 pp. (Paper), Earthscan Publications Ltd., London and Sterling, VA.

Hawken, Paul.  2007.  Blessed Unrest.  How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming.  342 pp.  Penguin Group, New York.

Kunstler, James Howard.  2005.  The Long Emergency.  Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century.  324 pp. (Paper). Grove Press, New York.

McKibben, Bill.  2007.  Deep Economy. 261 pp.  Time Books, Henry Holt & Co., New York.

Meadows, Donella H., Dennis L. Meadows, Jorgen Randers and William W. Behrens III.  1972.  The Limits to Growth. A Report for the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predicament of Mankind.  207 pp. (Paper).  Signet Books, New York.

Orr, David W. 2004.  The Last Refuge.  Patriotism, Politics, and the Environment in an Age of Terror. 172 pp.  Island Press, Washington, Covelo, London.

Wackernagel, Mathis and William Rees.  1996.  Our Ecological Footprint.  160 pp. (Paper).  New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island, British Columbia, Canada.

Wessels, Tom.  2006.  The Myth of Progress.  131 pp. University of Vermont Press, Burlington, VT.

Land Use and Sustainability 

Benfield, F. Kaid, Jutka Terris, Nancy Vorsanger.  2001.  Solving Sprawl. Models of Smart Growth in Communities Across America.  200 pp. (Paper).  Natural Resource Defense Council, New York, Washington, Los Angeles, San Francisco.

Hallsmith, Gwendolyn.  2003.  The Key to Sustainable Cities. Meeting Human Needs Transforming Community Systems.  258 pp.  (Paper, second printing).  New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island, British Columbia, Canada.

Hylton, Thomas.  2003.  Save Our Land, Save our Towns.  127 pp. (Paper, Fifth Printing).  RB Books, Seitz and Heitz, Inc., Harrisburg, PA.

James, Sarah and Torbjorn Lahti.  2004.  The Natural Step for Communities.  How Cities and Towns can Change to Sustainable Practices.  277 pp. (Paper).  New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island, British Columbia, Canada.

Karlenzig, Warren, Frank Marquardt, Paula White, Rachel Yaseen and Richard Young. 2007.  How Green is Your City. A Sustainability Ranking for the 50 Largest U.S. Cities. 205 pp. (Paper).  New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island, British Columbia, Canada

Portney, Kent E.  2003.  Taking Sustainable Cities Seriously: Economic Development, the Environment, and Quality of Life in America Cities.  284 pp. (Paper).  Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.

Roseland, Mark.  2005.  Toward Sustainable Communities. Resources for Citizens and Their Governments.  239 pp. (Paper).  New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island, British Columbia, Canada.

Schor, Juliet B. and Betsy Taylor, Editors.  2002.  Sustainable Planet.  Solutions for the Twenty-first Century.  273 pp. (Paper).  Beacon Press, Boston, MA.

Frece, John W. 2008. Sprawl and Politics: The Inside Story of Smart Growth in Maryland, 190 pp. State University of New York Press.

Farming and Farmland 

Bell, Michael Mayerfeld.  2004.  Farming For Us All.  299 pp. The Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park.

Orngard, Shellie and Jan Joannides, Editors. Renewing the Countryside.  159 pp. (Paper).  Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, Ames, Iowa.