Thursday, February 19, 2009

Review

Visionaries on a Mission: Save the Earth

Scientists and environmentalists have reached a growing consensus that time is running out for Planet Earth. The polar ice caps are melting. Three-quarters of the world’s flowering plant species are at risk of extinction. One in eight bird species is vanishing. Ninety percent of big fish like cod, tuna and swordfish that once swam the oceans have already disappeared. Air, water and ground pollutants from fossil-fuel sources are poisoning major population centers.

But according to Edward Humes, author of “Eco Barons: The Dreamers, Schemers, and Millionaires Who Are Saving Our Planet” (Ecco/HarperCollins), there is “a secret plan to save the Earth.” This plan is being carried out by a group of “eco barons” — both men and women — who are the modern-day heroic counterparts to the villainous 19th century robber barons who originally set the nation on the path to environmental destruction.

“In an era in which government has been either broke, indifferent or actively hostile to environmental causes, a band of visionaries — inventors, philanthropists, philosophers, grassroots activists, lawyers and gadflies — are using their wealth, their energy, their celebrity and their knowledge of law and science to persuade, and sometimes force, the United States and the world to take a new direction,” Mr. Humes declares.

A writer for Los Angeles magazine and a frequent contributor to The Huffington Post, Mr. Humes is the author of nine previous nonfiction books. In 1989, he won a Pulitzer Prize for an investigative series about the United States military...


click here for complete NY Times article by HARRY HURT III


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