The Mother of all Green Books, the just-released Wildlife Conservation Society’s 2008-2009 round-up of the warming climate’s impact on planetary life. James Hansen’s “Tipping Point” essay sets the stage for the rest of the book. When the director of a governmental agency, NASA, is telling us “climate change is under way,” you can bet it’s the truth he when talks about global warming as a “crystallizing planetary emergency.” No “case for caution” here — we are witnessing the extinction of wildlife — flora, fauna, insect — throughout the world.

In the preface, Kent Redford says “With this series we hope to inform and inspire others who dream of the wild and care about ensuring its future. Our objective is to fulfill a need for a science-based publication that focuses on achievable conservation of wildlife and wild places.”

Sweet. Just as soon as I can stop crying about the polar bears and elephants and the frogs and the … I’ll get back to dreaming about conservation.

A New Green History of the World

First published in 1991, this book has been painstakingly updated to more accurately reflect our current, horrific state. I mean, jeezlouise, it’s charming to think about a book over 15 years old that addresses climate change. Those were the Good Olde Days, all right. Only his chapter on the deforestation of Easter Island is pretty much the same — that section alone is worth the read, as Easter Island continues to be a perfect metaphor for our current, global deterioration.

A New Green History of the World is a perfect companion to Jarod Diamond’s Collapse. Ponting’s survey of history paints a quick picture of how we got to this precipice; reading it is like finding yourself marooned in an episode of “Scared Green Straight,” which ain’t a bad idea when you think about it... Scared Green Straight: A new TLC reality show where carbon emitters are confronted with their evil ways.

Living Like Ed: A guide to the eco-friendly life

In case the producers of Scared Green Straight come knocking on your door, you’ll want to make sure you have a copy of Begley’s book around. You’ll be a holy one in their eyes. Begley is considered by many to be the primordial environmentalist; he was green before it was hot … or cool… or whatever.

This chatty, informative breeze of a read takes you through every step of your existence — and how you can green it. His wife Rachelle chimes in with her own suggestions, and the result is a handy workbook that can a) save you money immediately on your energy costs, b) make you feel better and c) distract you from the fact that it probably doesn’t matter a whole lot anyway as we’re certainly screwed. That at least is the conclusion one can draw from.

Uninhabitable: A case for caution

One look at the cover says it all: an Apocalyptic-looking book cover image – a red, dying sun hovering above a blighted cityscape – juxtaposed with his subtitle “A case for caution.” To me, one look at the cover, and I say the hell with caution, let’s party while we still have a few months left.

Goldsmith, an insurance dude turned amateur environmentalist, seeks to tell us we’re about to be mega-screwed by the methane hydrate that’s lurking in great burbling pockets under the oceans. Methane is way worse than CO2 gases, and we’re talking here about a herd of Babe the Blue Oxen farting in cataclysmic concert.

Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, And the Global Crisis of American Capitalism

Kevin Phillips (American Theocracy, American Dynasty) can’t be brushed off; he’s a Republican and former White House strategist with a disconcerting penchant for telling it like it is – and he is very unhappy. His book follows three co-dependent strands: our country’s strategic decision during the Clinton years to make its financial services sector the largest part of the U.S. private economy – “moving money around instead of making things,” as Phillips puts it – our abject failure to wean ourselves off oil, and the calcification of our political institutions.

The book is short, but the data Phillips provides is dense and closely reasoned. It’s a critical lens through which to view the vapid reassurances of presidential aspirants in this election season.

A People’s History of American Empire

Howard Zinn continues to fight the good fight, standing up and, in effect, insisting that the emperor is naked. That’s certainly what his landmark  book, A People’s History of the United States – now in its sixth edition with 1.7 million copies sold – has done. Now Zinn is back, with a variation on his familiar, if under-appreciated theme. It begins with the title: Zinn seems to feel a reinvigorated urgency to call things by what he considers their proper names. So we’re no longer talking about “the United States,” but what that nation has become – the American Empire. His emphasis here is on the recurring theme of American expansion – from Wounded Knee to the war in Iraq -- and the various stories Americans have told themselves to justify our government’s imposition of itself over other peoples.

Working in collaboration with cartoonist Mike Konopacki, Zinn chooses to present this version of our history in a graphic format, which is to say a comic book that happens to be packaged between hard covers.

Urgency, again, would seem to be the key. As rumors of impending war with Iran gather like thunderheads, Zinn’s strategy seems to be to try and make his case as quickly and as accessibly as possible. This isn’t so much a book, then, as political theater with footnotes.

— DH