Comments for Mark Hertsgaard

Comment on Earth Odyssey: Around the World in Search of Our Environmental Future by admin

admin — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 19:06:58 +0000

Dear Lorelei (if I may),
Thank you so much for assigning Earth Odyssey all these years and for your heartening words about how the book has opened the eyes of hundreds of your students. That is music to my ears; influencing (young) minds is one of my chief motivations for writing what I do.
Of course you are right that the book, published in 1998, is now dated in parts, though I think the main thesis and even many of the subject areas (e.g., Africa, the auto, capitalism vs. sustainability) still hold true. In any case, I take your point about the need for a sequel, and I think I have provided one, at least in regards to climate change, with my latest book, HOT: Living Through the Next 50 Years on Earth. Published in hardback last January, it will be released in paperback in March 2012. It features a number of quotes from your UCSB colleague, Robert Wilkinson. In fact, Bob and I were talking about trying to get me down to UCSB (I live in San Francisco) for a visit, public speech, classroom visits, etc. Would that be something you’d like to collaborate on? If so, and even if not, please contact me at mark@markhertsgaard.com, and we can make a plan.
And thanks again for taking the time to write and for sharing my work with your students–I appreciate!

Comment on Earth Odyssey: Around the World in Search of Our Environmental Future by Lorelei Moosbrugger

Lorelei Moosbrugger — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 00:32:16 +0000

I’ve been using Earth Odyssey as required reading in my Comparative Environmental Politics course for ten years. I’ve watched as your writing has opened the eyes and minds of hundreds of my students. They uniformly praise the book in course evaluations and they often tell me how grateful they are that they have read it – and that they in turn give it to family and friends. I pair the book with films from around the world, including two from Russia and St. George on nuclear power and radiation that you discuss. But the book is now dated and I need a new edition! Please consider revising it if nothing else – updating us on nuclear radiation, deforestation and air /water pollution – as well as climate change. Your ability to make problems outside the United States real to young people really is invaluable. Thank you, Lorelei

Comment on Climate Deniers-in-Chief Run the Show in Durban by admin

admin — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 18:22:37 +0000

As you suspect, there were no binding commitments made in copenhagen, so no, that Accord does not fill the gap until 2020. We need to keep pushing.

Comment on Climate Deniers-in-Chief Run the Show in Durban by michael

michael — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 18:35:38 +0000

HI – I have a question. Does not the Copenhagne Accord fill the gap until 2020. I am a ware it is inadequate but had not heard that those commitments had been abandoned. (although commitments is probably too strong a word)

Comment on On Bended Knee: The Press and the Reagan Presidency by A long strange trip with Daily Kos | FavStocks

A long strange trip with Daily Kos | FavStocks — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 08:17:38 +0000

[...] thought, the sense of isolation could have been overwhelming. It was worse even than during the Reagan years. But we didn’t have the internet during the Reagan years. In 2001, I was fortunate to be [...]

Comment on Earth Odyssey: Around the World in Search of Our Environmental Future by admin

admin — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 23:39:44 +0000

Thanks, Scott. Actually, I view my latest book, HOT, as kind of an update to Earth Odyssey, since one basic finding of Odyssey was that if we waited ten years to respond to such cumulative environmental threats as climate change, those threats could acquire so much momentum that they threatened to become irreversible–which is more or less where we stand now on climate change, alas…..

Comment on Earth Odyssey: Around the World in Search of Our Environmental Future by Scott Rowland

Scott Rowland — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 15:39:58 +0000

Have you considered an update to Earth Odyssey? – still have my copy from 1999 – a wonderfully unsettling read.

Comment on HOT: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth by “Hot, Flat, and Crowded 2.0″ – getting lost in the details | Panethos

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 00:47:41 +0000

[...] found the book Hot, Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth by Mark Hertsgaard to be much more engaging because the author personalized the same distressing [...]

Comment on America as Environmental Superpower by tableau contemporain

tableau contemporain — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 12:27:14 +0000

hi, that’s a pleasant situation. There is some mistakes but the primary is here.

Comment on HOT: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth by admin

admin — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 21:58:35 +0000

Thanks for this suggestion. I’m completely booked with other assignments at the moment, but I’ll consider this one down the road and hope to look into it on my next visit to New Orleans.