Research Catalog

Title

Earth odyssey : around the world in search of our environmental future / Mark Hertsgaard.

Author

Hertsgaard, Mark, 1956-

Publication

• New York : Broadway Books, [1998]
• ©1998

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

372 pages; 25 cm

Summary

"Like many of us, Mark Hertsgaard has long worried about the declining health of our environment. But in 1991, he decided to act on his concern and investigate the escalating crisis for himself. Traveling on his own dime, he embarked on an odyssey lasting most of the decade and spanning nineteen countries. Now, in Earth Odyssey, he reports on our environmental predicament through the eyes of the people who live it. From the gilded boardrooms of Paris to the traffic-clogged streets of Bangkok, we travel from the deep human past to our still unfolding future. Much of the story revolves around people like Zhenbing, Hertsgaard's charismatic interpreter in China, whose desire to escape poverty leaves him indifferent to his country's horrific air and water pollution. We also meet Garang, a proud Dinka tribesman whose response to Sudan's famine shows the difficulty of building an environmentally sustainable future without bridging the gap between rich and poor. Drawing on interviews with Václav Havel, Al Gore, Jacques Cousteau, and numerous other prominent figures, Hertsgaard offers fresh insight into such complex issues as humanity's growing addiction to the automobile, the insidious spread of nuclear technology, and the inevitable tension between unfettered capitalism and the health of the biosphere. Earth Odyssey is a vivid, passionate narrative about one man's journey around the world in search of the answer to the most important question of our time: Is the future of the human species at risk? Combining first-rate reportage with irresistible storytelling, Mark Hertsgaard has written an essential--and ultimately hopeful--book about the uncertain fate of humankind."--Provided by publisher.

Subject

• Hertsgaard, Mark, 1956- > Travel
• Hertsgaard, Mark, 1956-
• Global environmental change
• Nature > Effect of human beings on
• Global environmental change
• Nature > Effect of human beings on
• Travel
• Milieu
• Toekomst
• Aarde (planeet)

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. [339]-362) and index.

Contents

Prologue: Playing the sorcerer's apprentice -- " ... We are still here" -- Bicycles, Churchill, and evolution -- The irresistible automobile -- To the nuclear lighthouse -- "Is your stomach too full?" -- How population matters -- The hurricane of hell -- Sustainable development and the triumph of capitalism -- Living in hope -- Epilogue: Ambassadors from another time.

ISBN

• 0767900588
• 9780767900584

LCCN

98028202

OCLC

• ocm39380265
• 39380265
• SCSB-1205088

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library