Books

• A River No More - This is a definitive history of the development of the Colorado River and the claims made upon it from its source in the Wyoming Rockies to the Gulf of California, where it evaporates in the sand.
• Cadillac Desert - The definitive history of water resources in the American West, and a very illuminating lesson in the political economy of limited resources anywhere. Via amazon.com.
• Food Not Lawns - combines practical wisdom on ecological design and community-building with a fresh, green perspective on an age-old subject. Activist and urban gardener Heather Flores shares her nine-step permaculture design to help farmsteaders and city dwellers alike build fertile soil, promote biodiversity, and increase natural habitat in their own "paradise gardens." Via chelseagreen.com.
• Gila: The Life and Death of an American River - Follows the ecologic history of the Gila River from its source in New Mexico, through its confluence with the Colorado River and into Arizona. Today, half of the Gila is dead, due to overgrazing, damming, and other practices.
• Last Oasis: Facing Water Scarcity - The worldwide water crisis, according to this book, is due to its ready availability, low cost, people's overuse, and lack of respect for this life-sustaining resource. Solutions are giving for restoring and sustaining this essential lifeline.
• The Ripple Effect - When author Alex Prud'homme set out to discover how people across the U.S. and around the world are using and abusing water, he discovered the ripple effect: every time we use water, it sets off deep and wide hydrologic ripple effects, with consequences that most of us are unaware of.  
• The Big Thirst - Explore the fascinating history, current usage, and turbulent future of our most vital resourse: water.
• Elixir: A History of Water and Humankind - Archeologist Brian Fagan reveals how all civilizations and societies, from ancient Mesopotamia to modern day Los Angeles, are shaped by their relationship to water. 
• Blue Revolution: Unmaking America's Water Crisis - Journalist Cynthia Barnett both outlines the causes of our current water crisis, as well as provides hopeful and practical solutions.
• When the Rivers Run Dry - Through his travels to more than thirty countries, Fred Pearce weaves together the complicated scientific, economic, and historic dimensions of the world water crisis.
• Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World's Water - With the increase in privatization of water, authors Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke argue that this trend leads to higher water prices and decreased supply.
• Unquenchable: America's Water Crisis and What To Do About It - From manufactured snow for tourists in Atlanta to trillions of gallons of water flushed down the toilet each year, Unquenchable reveals the heady extravagances and everyday inefficiencies that are sucking the nation dry.
• Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands - This is the first volume of a three-volume guide on how to conceptualize, design, and implement sustainable water-harvesting systems for your home, landscape, and community.

Energy & Climate Change

• Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis by Al Gore - This book is about the solutions to the climate crisis. During the three and a half years since the publication and release of An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore organized and moderated more than 30 lengthy and intensive “Solutions Summits” where leading experts from around the world have come to discuss and share their knowledge of and experience in subjects relevant to the construction of a plan to solve this crisis. Our Choice is the result of the groundbreaking insights offered by the participants in this multiyear dialogue.
• An Inconvenient Truth - Gore’s follow-up to the bestselling Earth in the Balance. Both the book and film were inspired by a series of multimedia presentations on global warming that Gore created and delivers to groups around the world.
• Boiling Point - Gelbspan, a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, offers no less than a call to arms in this treatise on how global warming is a threat and how it can be avoided.
• The Heat is On - Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ross Gelbspan exposes the machinations of oil and coal companies and conservative politicians to undermine the public confidence in science and thereby defer action against global warming. This riveting expose is a spirited call to action against the corporate disinformation campaign that threatens us all.
• Power Down - If the US continues with its current policies, the next decades will be marked by war, economic collapse, and environmental catastrophe. Resource depletion and population pressures are about to catch up with us, and no one is prepared. The alternative is "Powerdown," a strategy that will require tremendous effort and economic sacrifice in order to reduce per-capita resource usage in wealthy countries, develop alternative energy sources, distribute resources more equitably, and reduce the human population humanely but systematically over time.
• Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air - Comprised of case studies, this informative reference answers questions surrounding nuclear energy, the potential of sustainable fossil fuels, and the possibilities of sharing renewable power with foreign countries. While underlining the difficulty of minimizing consumption, the tone remains positive as it debunks misinformation and encourages individual changes that will benefit the world at large.
• Eaarth - Acknowledging that massive change is already underway, Bill McKibben argues that our only hope relies on building the kind of societies and economies that can hunker down, concentrate on essentials, and create the type of community that will allow us to weather trouble on an unprecedented scale. 
• The Discovery of Global Warming - Traces the history of the scientific consensus surrounding global warming.
• Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth - Mark Hertsgaard refers to every child on earth born after June 23, 1988 as part of "Generation Hot." That is the date NASA scientist James Hansen gave testimony to the United States Senate about global warming and the news was printed on the front page of The New York Times. Hertsgaard  views this as the day humanity was put on notice about greenhouse gas emissions and now we must all pull together to make up for not heeding Hansen's warning. 
• The Homeowner's Guide to Renewable Energy - Learn how to utilize renewables in order to reduce your carbon footprint and energy costs.
• Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert's Peak - No longer a discussion that can be kicked down the road, geologist Kenneth S. Deffeyes explores our fuel options to replace oil. 

Waste

• Cradle to Cradle - William McDonough's book, written with his colleague, the German chemist Michael Braungart, is a manifesto calling for the transformation of human industry through ecologically intelligent design.
• Natural Capitalism - Chapter 3 Waste Not - excerpt outlining all the resources that go into manufacturing a can of soda. p. 49-50.
• Paper or Plastic - by Daniel Imhoff. "About one-third of America's municipal solid waste is packaging - at least 300 pounds per person each year - and the "upstream" costs in energy and resources used to make packaging are even more alarming." This book also has some amazing photography.
• Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash - Take a journey inside the secret world of our biggest export, our most prodigious product, and our greatest legacy: our trash.
• Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash - Before the twentieth century, almost everything was reused out of necessity and lack of wealth. Author Susan Strasser tells the story of how we moved from this, to our modern day affinity for convenience, disposability, fashion, and constant technological change which has led to waste on a massive scale.
• Rubbish!: The Archaeology of Garbage - Authors William Rathje and Cullen Murphy show what the study of garbage tells us about a population's demographics and buying habits. 
• Teaming With Microbes: A Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web - by Jeff Lowenfels and W. Lewis. A popular book among gardeners and composters, this book provides an interesting and in-depth look at how to create healthy soil without the use of fertilizers and other chemicals.
• Worms Eat My Garbage - by Mary Appelhof. How to set up and maintain a worm composting system.
• Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage - Journalist and filmmaker Heather Rogers takes the reader on an oddly fascinating tour through the underworld of garbage and brings meaning to all that gets discarded. 
• Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash - Acclaimed science writer Elizabeth Royte exposes the "away" that trash seemingly goes to after we set it out on the curb.
• The World's Scavengers: Salvaging for Sustainable Consumption and Production - Up to 2% of the urban population in developing countries survives by salvaging materials from waste for recycling, which represents up to 64 million scavengers in the world today. In this book, Martin Medina reveals the truths behind some of the myths associated with scavenging.  

Chemicals

• Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What's at Stake for American Power by Mark Schapiro - about the book from Center for Investigative Reporting.
• Not Just a Pretty Face by Stacy Malkan - Do your favorite products contain hazardous chemicals?
• Silent Spring by Rachel Carson - released in 1962, offered the first shattering look at widespread ecological degradation and touched off an environmental awareness that still exists. Rachel Carson's book focused on the poisons from insecticides, weed killers, and other common products as well as the use of sprays in agriculture, a practice that led to dangerous chemicals to the food source.
• The Hundred-Year Lie: How to Protect Yourself from the Chemicals That Are Destroying Your Health - Investigates the negative effects of man-made chemicals on humans and provides suggestions for leading healthier lives.
• Super Natural Home - After a health scare caused author Beth Greer to reevaluate her lifestyle, she provides practical advice for readers to do the same.
• Our Stolen Future - Following in the footsteps of Silent Spring, this book expands on Rachel Carson's work by revealing the full consequences of man-made chemicals, not only on wildlife, but also on humankind.
• Slow Death by Rubber Duck - Authors Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie use themselves as guinea pigs by ingesting and inhaling a host of things that are part of our everyday lives. They also draw connections between the manufacturers of everyday toxins, government oversight, or lack thereof, and the ultimate consequences these toxins have on people and families. 
• What's Toxic, What's Not - Cut through the confusion about which chemicals are dangerous and which are not with the help of two toxics experts with decades of experience in public health. 
• How to Grow Fresh Air - Learn about which houseplants are the best filters of common pollutants such as ammonia, formaldehyde, and benzene released from furniture, carpets, and building material.
• No More Dirty Looks - After revealing the ingredients in beauty products, authors Siobhan O’Connor and Alexandra Spunt walk you through how to detoxify your beauty regimen. 
• Plastic: A Toxic Love Story - Explore our love affair with plastic through eight familiar plastic objects: comb, chair, Frisbee, IV bag, disposable lighter, grocery bag, soda bottle, and credit card. 

Transportation

• Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time - Urban planner Jeff Speck has dedicated his career to determining what makes cities thrive. And he has boiled it down to one key factor: walkability. Bursting with sharp observations and real-world examples, giving key insight into what urban planners actually do and how places can and do change, Walkable City lays out a practical, necessary, and eminently achievable vision of how to make our normal American cities great again.
• Biodiesel America: How to Achieve Energy Security, Free America from Middle-east Oil Dependence And Make Money Growing Fuel - by Josh Tickell. "Oil: In the time that it takes Earth to travel around the sun once, humanity extracts 30 billion barrels of it from the crust of this planet."
• Plug In Hybrids - by Sherry Boschert. "Includes the most comprehensive analysis of Well to Wheels emissions Alternative Fuel comparisons."
• The Cyclist's Manifesto: The Case for Riding on Two Wheels Instead of Four - Author Robert Hurst takes off his gloves to lay out the case in favor of the bicycle as today’s superior mode of transport—and to voice a resounding call to action for people to use it.
• Pedaling Revolution: How Cyclists Are Changing American Cities - In a world of growing traffic congestion, expensive oil, and threats of cataclysmic climate change, a grassroots movement is carving out a niche for bicycles on the streets of urban cityscapes. In Pedaling Revolution, Jeff Mapes explores the growing urban bike culture that is changing the look and feel of cities across the U.S. 
• Suburban Nation - Provides a voice to the growing movement in North America to put an end to suburban sprawl and replace the last century’s automobile-based settlement patterns with a return to more traditional planning.
• Human Transit - Public transit is a powerful tool for addressing a huge range of urban problems, including traffic congestion and economic development as well as climate change. But while many people support transit in the abstract, it's often hard to channel that support into good transit investments. In Human Transit, Jarrett Walker supplies the basic tools, the critical questions, and the means to make smarter decisions about designing and implementing transit services.
• Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do - Providing insight into out human nature, this book explores driver behavior and presents us with some not so intuitive facts related to life behind the wheel.
• The High Cost of Free Parking - Donald Shoup argues that free parking has contributed to auto dependence, rapid urban sprawl, extravagant energy use, and a host of other problems. Shoup proposes new ways for cities to regulate parking - namely, charge fair market prices for curb parking, use the resulting revenue to pay for services in the neighborhoods that generate it, and remove zoning requirements for off-street parking. 

Shopping & Food

• The Sharing Solution - Written by Janelle Orsi and Emily Doskow, The Sharing Solution guides you, in plain English, through the steps you’ll need to take to create and maintain successful sharing arrangements. From housing to childcare, cars to lawnmowers, gardens to bike repair, The Sharing Solution gives you the tips and tools to share your resources, while addressing commonly held questions about liability and individual security with compassion.
• Deep Economy - Bill McKibben's book about a sustainable economy and the wealth that is created when we build strong and resilient communities. A manifesto on moving beyond 'growth' as the measure of economic prosperity.
• Food Politics - "In the U.S., we're bombarded with nutritional advice--the work, we assume, of reliable authorities with our best interests at heart. Far from it, says Marion Nestle, whose Food Politics absorbingly details how the food industry--through lobbying, advertising, and the co-opting of experts--influences our dietary choices to our detriment. Central to her argument is the American "paradox of plenty," the recognition that our food abundance (we've enough calories to meet every citizen's needs twice over) leads profit-fixated food producers to do everything possible to broaden their market portion, thus swaying us to eat more when we should do the opposite. The result is compromised health: epidemic obesity to start, and increased vulnerability to heart and lung disease, cancer, and stroke--reversible if the constantly suppressed "eat less, move more" message that most nutritionists shout could be heard."
• Food Revolution - John Robbins exposes the dangers behind many of today's foods and reveals the extraordinary benefits of healthy alternatives. The Food Revolution will show you how to extend your life, increase your vibrancy and vitality, and take a stand for a more compassionate and sustainable world. Via foodrevolution.org.
• In Defense of Food - "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." "That's it. That is the short answer to the supposedly incredibly complicated and confusing question of what we humans should eat in order to be maximally healthy. The implication of Pollan's advice, however, is that what we're eating now isn't food."
• Omnivores Dilemma - "Michael Pollan examines what he calls "our national eating disorder" (the Atkins craze, the precipitous rise in obesity) in this remarkably clearheaded book. It's a fascinating journey up and down the food chain, one that might change the way you read the label on a frozen dinner, dig into a steak or decide whether to buy organic eggs. You'll certainly never look at a Chicken McNugget the same way again."
• The Ethics of What We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter - Ethicist Peter Singer collaborates with coauthor Jim Mason to analyze the food we buy and eat: where it comes from, how it is produced, and whether it was raised humanely. Together they explore the impact our food choices have on humans, animals, and the environment. 
• Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic - Based on two highly acclaimed PBS documentaries watched by 10 million viewers, "Affluenza" uses the whimsical metaphor of a disease to tackle a very serious subject: the damage done -- to our health, our families, our communities, and our environment -- by the obsessive quest for material gain. 
• Diet for a Hot Planet - Nearly four decades after her mother, Frances Moore Lappé, published Diet for a Small Planet, sparking a revolution in our thinking about the social and environmental impact of our food choices, Anna Lappé picks up the conversation, examining another hidden cost of our food system: the climate crisis. 
• Eating Animals - As Jonathan Safran Foer became a husband, and then a father, the moral dimensions of eating became increasingly important to him. Faced with the prospect of being unable to explain why we eat some animals and not others, Foer set out to explore the origins of many eating traditions and the fictions involved with creating them. 
• The Overspent American - Harvard economist Juliet B. Schor explores why so many of us feel materially dissatisfied, why we work staggeringly long hours and yet walk around with ever-present mental "wish lists" of things to buy or get, and why Americans save less than virtually anyone in the world. 
• Born to Buy - Marketing targeted at kids is virtually everywhere -- in classrooms and textbooks, on the Internet, even at Girl Scout meetings, slumber parties, and the playground. Product placement and other innovations have introduced more subtle advertising to movies and television. Drawing on her own survey research and unprecedented access to the advertising industry, Juliet B. Schor examines how marketing efforts of vast size, scope, and effectiveness have created "commercialized children."