Best ECO Books for the New Year

Whether you’re snowbound or beach bound… here are a couple of books to take with you into the New Year. The Swarm, by Frank Schatzing, is an eco-disaster thriller that drops you in the deep end of the ocean and makes you look around before swimming ashore.

Schatzing mixes good science with science fiction, and holds readers captive with his good writing. It makes me want to be the first to register for the World Ocean Conference in Manado in May 2009 to find out what is really going on down deep in our world’s oceans. Bring your scuba gear!

Richard Heinberg’s latest book, Peak Everything: Waking up to the Century of Declines, offers a hopeful message to would-be-farmers. The message: order your seed catalogs now, find a plot of rural land, and learn how to feed yourself.

According to Heinberg, as we build a different food system - based on what we have learned about biology, geology, hydrology, permaculture and other relevant subjects over the past few decades - we will inevitably be building a new kind of culture.

Until Heinberg’s trend kicks in, we’ll still be living like the folks in Iowa. In Iowa, where the soil is some of the richest in the U.S., only 7 percent of food is locally produced, and 93% is imported into the state. With the rise of a bio-fuels industry in Iowa, the percentage of locally produced food may drop even lower. Along with this loss is the absence of college classes in food canning, and master gardening. These were dropped in the mid-1980s.

The counter-trend is permaculture, community supported agriculture (CSA) and farmers markets. The permaculture bible is: Introduction to Permaculture, by Bill Mollison and Reny Mia Slay. Three other books to buy and put away for Spring: Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability, by David Holmgren, Earth User’s Guide to Permaculture, by Rosemary Morrow, and Gia’s Garden, by Toby Hemenway. See also: The Permaculture Activist.