Product Description

From toxic polluted cityscapes of industrial China to poverty-stricken tribes in Sudan, from children's leukaemia wards in ex-soviet nuclear disaster zones to the conference tables of Rio's Earth Summit, Mark Hertsgaard's quest around the globe forms an urgent investigation into the future of the environment. The ecological ravages of capitalist hyperconsumption and communist mismanagement can only worsen as developing nations - desperately trying to bridge the ancient divide between rich and poor - achieve 'progress' at the expense of environmental degradation. Questioning the credibility of sustainable development with leading figures such as Al Gore and Jacques Cousteau, Mark Hertsgaard depicts with an eye for anecdote and human detail the activities of government agencies, business leaders and citizen activists engaged in saving (or destroying) the environment. Whether describing the lethal appeal of the automobile or detailing the impact of Amazonian deforestation on world climate change, his first-hand reportage and storyteller's sense of narrative produce a vital, edifying - and even hopeful - call for action. Time is running out.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1000851 in Books
• Published on: 2000-04-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 372 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Paying his own way, Mark Hertsgaard set out on a world tour in 1991 wondering what people thought of environmental problems. Earth Odyssey is the result, a sweeping and provocative work of travel and serious reporting that covers 19 countries and reveals, with often stark reality and vision, the legacy and prospects for our global environment.

Hertsgaard focuses on and reveals much of his story through the people who guide him and whom he meets along the way. After touring a state-owned paper factory in Chongqing, China, and seeing billowing clouds of chlorine and foaming rivers, Hertsgaard hears his guide and interpreter Zhenbing mourning for his country. In Sudan, Hertsgaard visits areas of extreme famine and poverty, where "the environment is no abstraction" to the people who live there. Through interviews with Vaclav Havel, Jacques Cousteau and Al Gore, as well as research and philosophy about the roles of industry and technology, the global environmental picture is etched skilfully chapter by chapter. When at Africa's Lake Turkana, Hertsgaard delineates in clarity and detail the evolution of our species and the history of technology to build perspective on our current lifestyles, values and environmental problems. Earth Odyssey is not only a good book but an important one--even essential--grasping the true human predicament as the planet faces a worldwide environmental breakdown. --Byron Ricks

Review
'A brilliant integration of global environmental trends and local environmental truths - a must-read for anyone who wants to understand how population growth and environmental deterioration are affecting the human prospect' Lester R. Brown, President, Worldwatch Institute 'Gifted reporter Mark Hertsgaard has taken the planet for his beat and he has delivered the goods; if you want to understand the next century, this is the required background reading' Bill McKibben, author of THE END OF NATURE 'A brilliant, complex and ultimately hopeful analysis which shines a light into the darkness of forecast chaos ... (we) should make this marvellous book required reading for all politicians as well as for the rest of us' THE TIMES 'Hertsgaard presents an elegant portrait of the human species, full of character, dignity, perseverance and strength' GEOGRAPHICAL 'Mark Hertsgaard once of America's finest reporters, asks one of the few questions really worth asking... EARTH ODYSSEY provides not only a sober, compassionate assessment of our chances; it is one more place of evidence, in case you need it, that our species is well worth saving.' Barbara Ehrenreich, author of BLOOD RITES 'Yet another well-considered, thoughtful work reminding us- not that we need reminding- that we are doing things to out environment and to the earth in general, which are indefensible and in some cases irreversible.' IRISH TIMES 'If you want to understand the environmental plight of the human race as we enter the new millenium, look no further.' GLOBAL ADVENTURE 'A fine vision.' EARTH MATTERS 'If you are at all interested in the subject, I guarantee that Hertsgaard will keep you going to the end.' SUNDAY TIMES 'Paying his own way, Mark Hertsgaard set out on a world tour in 1991 wondering what people thought of environmental problems. Earth Odyssey is the result, a sweeping and provocative work of travel and serious reporting that covers 19 countries and reveals, with often stark reality and vision, the legacy and prospects for our global environment. Hertsgaard focuses on and reveals much of his story through the people who guide him and whom he meets along the way. After touring a state-owned paper factory in Chongqing, China, and seeing billowing clouds of chlorine and foaming rivers, Hertsgaard hears his guide and interpreter Zhenbing mourning for his country. In Sudan, Hertsgaard visits areas of extreme famine and poverty, where "the environment is no abstraction" to the people who live there. Through interviews with Vaclav Havel, Jacques Cousteau and Al Gore, as well as research and philosophy about the roles of industry and technology, the global environmental picture is etched skilfully chapter by chapter. When at Africa's Lake Turkana, Hertsgaard delineates in clarity and detail the evolution of our species and the history of technology to build perspective on our current lifestyles, values and environmental problems. Earth Odyssey is not only a good book but an important one--even essential--grasping the true human predicament as the planet faces a worldwide environmental breakdown.' - Byron Ricks, AMAZON.CO.UK REVIEW

GEOGRAPHICAL
'Hertsgaard presents an elegant portrait of the human species, full of character, dignity, perseverance and strength'

Customer Reviews

A Long Night's Journey Into Day
Having just read Mark Hertsgaard's THE EAGLE'S SHADOW I moved on to his much longer and earlier book EARTH ODYSSEY. Though not intending to read all of this important information in one sitting, I found this book so well written as well as informative that it became a page turner that happily usurped an entire evening. Try to bed down after reviewing the state of the world's environmental crises! Yet in the darkness, having finished the book, there was time to reflect on just how important it is to get this information to the entire public. Not just the active Environmentalists, those who know intuitively the dangers we have bred and are still breeding, but the Everyman out there - all of us who glibly fill our multiple cars with gasoline, clog the freeways, allow the government to ignore Global Warming, remain uninformed about the terrifying diasters associated with the world's nuclear energy programs.
Hertsgaard is a fine journalist and as such he traveled the globe from 1991 - 1997 observing, breathing the noxious air in China, the extreme poverty in Africa, the filth in Russia, India, among the Third World countries, and reporting the complacency echoing in groups who live in this deteriorating world and do very little about taking action to guard our planet's future. Currently the media (such as it is) is alerting us to the presence of an Asteroid a mile wide apparently headed for the earth from outer space. That incident, devastating though it would be, is only a possibility. The more pertinent devastation ( our clamouring for "the better life" through industry and its concomitant wasting of our natural resources by knowingly turning them into poisonous by-products ) seems to go unnoticed. Hertsgaard intermixes reportage with very readable converstaions with people around the world and the result is a book that feels as though it unites all of us, even though that core of unity may be a shared terror.

Had we more writers like Mark Hertsgaard who are brave enough and concerned as deeply about 'Whither mankind' perhaps our newspapers and magazines and television/radio news shows would feel compelled to report the important issues before us today rather than search for the latest movie star wedding or sex scandal or whatever sells commercial space. Take this journey with Hertsgaard and wake up to a morning of commitment to the guardianship of our fellowmen.

A compelling view of the future of planet Earth.
This is an excellent book, written in plain English with clear explanations, great examples and vivid depictions of the future we face if we don't get our act together now. Perhaps the most frightening part of the book was the detail of Al Gore who, as an ardent ecologist wrote a book on environmental issues only to throw it all to the wind when he became Vice President of the USA. If he can do this, what hope for the rest of us? I recommend this book to any student, at any level, who wishes to understand the environmental issues we face. However, be warned - this book will depress you! There are no holds barred and you will come away with a feeling of hopelessness.

Hertsgaard's journey makes a compelling read.
Mark Hertsgaard's journey explores not only environmental degradation but also the very different attitudes that exist towards the Earth's ability to cope with mankind. To much of the environmentalist PR is concentrated on the survival of theWorld, phrases such as "Save the World" cloud the issue because the question is: Can the human race survive the environmental degradation it is causing?

Earth Odyssey carries you around the world with Hertsgaard, the book is very readable and you feel the interaction with characters such as Garang in Southern Sudan and Father Ron in Brazil. Hertsgaard is not judgemental in his writing and this makes the book more enjoyable and you are left to make your own judgement, however you finish the book feeling that you want to do something with your own lifestyle.