Recommended Products by MATTER - Covering the Clean Technology, Green and Sustainable Revolution

The blend of passionate advocacy and lucid analysis that Ross Gelbspan brings to this, his second book about global warming, is extremely readable because the author's voice is so authentic. When Gelbspan first encountered the issue as a reporter nine years ago, he writes, he had no inkling of how it would change his life. But as he put together the evidence of the global climate crisis he describes in this book, he found himself pulled inexorably to do more than simply write about it. So he now feels called to a kind of mission: to describe what is happening, to single out the specific failures and misdeeds of politicians, energy companies, environmental activists and journalists who share responsibility for our predicament, and then propose bold solutions that -- unlike more timid blueprints already on the public agenda -- would in his view actually solve the problem. -- Al Gore, New York Times Book Review

Paul Hawken (Natural Capitalism, Ecology of Commerce) presents the history leading to a natural merger between the environmental and social justice movements.  This convergence offers perhaps the best hope that the world's worst problems will be solved.  Hawken's book inspires the reader to recognize their place in a bottoms-up revolution.

Margonelli has written about the culture and economy of energy for publications such as Wired, Discover, Salon, and the San Francisco Chronicle. In the summer of 2003, she started hanging out at independent gas stations, where owners might clear pennies per gallon of gas, surviving on impulse sales of junk food and soda. Her journey takes us up the delivery chain, spending a typical day with a tanker truck driver, hanging out with suppliers, touring refineries, and seeing what life is like at an oil rig. Whether visiting "wildcatters" in Texas, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in the Gulf of Mexico, or the oil pit at the New York Mercantile Exchange, Margonelli charms her way into the good graces of insiders to report on the vast petroleum network. Her voyage takes us to Venezuela, Chad, Nigeria, and ultimately the Persian Gulf, where she spends time at the Salmon oil fields in Iran. Filled with rich history, industry anecdotes, and politics, Margonelli's book brings a deeper appreciation of the complicated and often tenuous process that we take for granted. David Siegfried Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

The Climate Institute's new book promises to be a leading reference work for those seriously interested in risks of global warming and practical measures that can be taken both to adapt to and slow the apparent acceleration in the pace of climate change. Written by a transdisciplinary group of internationally respected researchers at the Washington Summit on Climate Stabilization held September 18-21 2006, Sudden and Disruptive Change explores the significance for society of such changes and efforts already undertaken by a wide range of individuals and groups.

In Nature, Landscape, and Building for Sustainability, a diverse group of contributors considers the concept of sustainability, both philosophically and practically. Some take a broad view of the divisions between nature and humanity, exploring the incomprehensible scale of human intervention in the natural world, the relationship between how we feel about nature and what we do about it, and the commodification of the natural world. Other essays focus on sustainable design practices: sustainability’s roots in the American conservation tradition, its utility as a framework for future design practice, and the necessity of moving beyond demonstration projects into the mainstream.

To help managers and academics keep their eye on the ever-moving target of sustainability, award-winning author and academic Marc Epstein's provides an authoritative and comprehensive guide to implementing corporate sustainability initiatives and to measuring both their social and financial impacts.

In Unbowed, Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai recounts her extraordinary journey from her childhood in rural Kenya to the world stage. When Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement in 1977, she began a vital poor people’s environmental movement, focused on the empowerment of women, that soon spread across Africa. Persevering through run-ins with the Kenyan government and personal losses, and jailed and beaten on numerous occasions, Maathai continued to fight tirelessly to save Kenya’s forests and to restore democracy to her beloved country. Infused with her unique luminosity of spirit, Wangari Maathai’s remarkable story of courage, faith, and the power of persistence is destined to inspire generations to come.

James Gustave Speth, renowned as a visionary environmentalist leader, warns that in spite of all the international negotiations and agreements of the past two decades, efforts to protect Earth’s environment are not succeeding. Still, he says, the challenges are not insurmountable. He offers comprehensive, viable new strategies for dealing with environmental threats around the world.

In this book Gus Speth, the dean of the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale University, begins with the observation that the environmental community has grown in strength and sophistication, but the environment has continued to decline, to the point that we are now at the edge of catastrophe. Speth contends that this situation is a severe indictment of the economic and political system we call modern capitalism. Our vital task is now to change the operating instructions for today’s destructive world economy before it is too late. The book is about how to do that.