Teaching and Learning about the Environment

Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh
By Helena Norberg-Hodge, Sierra Club Books, San Fransisco, 1992. This renowned anthropologist explores a culture at the top of the world, in the Himalayas near Tibet. She has worked with the Ladakhi people to protect their culture and environment from the effects of rapid modernization, helping them sustain their sustainable models of small-scale agriculture and the Buddhist tradition.

Beyond the Limits: Confronting Global Collapse, Envisioning a Sustainable Future
By Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, and Jorgen Randers, Chelsea Green, Vermont, 1992. The sequel to the ground-breaking, The Limits to Growth which became an international bestseller 20 years ago. Arguing that the planet will reach its limits in the next 100 years if present growth trends continue, the authors believe that sustainability is possible. They help us see the possibility of global collapse in order to envision the possibility of a sustainable future.

Dharma Gaia: a Harvest of Essays in Buddhism and Ecology
Edited by Allan Hunt Badiner, Parallax Press, Berkeley, CA, 1992. Exploring the link between Buddhist beliefs and the goals of the environmental movement in the west, this anthology of prominent Buddhist leaders frames the discussion of ecological consciousness in spiritual terms.

Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit
By Al Gore, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1992. Gore dismisses critics of the enviromental crisis and shows how human civilization has brought the earth to the brink of catastrophe. He traces the roots of the problem primarily to timid politicans who refuse to enact long-term solutions to problems. In a concrete plan for action, he calls for a worldwide mobilization to put the earth back in balance.

Earth in Mind: On Education, Environment, and the Human Prospect
By David Orr, Island Press, Washington D.C., 1994. In these essays, Orr examines the dangers, problems, and business of education and calls for a new pedagogy which would train a new citizenry to protect, not to exploit, the earth's natural resources.

The Ecology of Commerce: a Declaration of Sustainability
By Paul Hawken, HarperBusiness, New York, 1993. In this now classic treatise, Hawken makes the case that business must be responsible to environmental concerns if we are to sustain our civilization. Though he foresees a bleak future if we do not act soon, HawkenÕs vision of the present is hopeful and ennobling. It breaks down the business vs. environment dichotomy to show that a healthy planet is not revolutionary, but essential to sustaining life.

The Geography Coloring Book
By Wynn Kapit, Addison-Wesley, New York, 1999. This coloring book is filled with detailed maps of the U.S. and world nations. The text provides a reference book of facts regarding population, land size, languages, religions, exports, and climate, etc. Special attention is given to shapes, locations, and comparative sizes that contribute to the visual approach to learning and recall, and to the fun of creating your own atlas.

A Green History of the World
By Clive Ponting, Penguin Books, New York, 1991.
Ponting shows how all great civilizations, from Rome to ancient Egypt to pre-Columbian North America, have prospered by exploiting the earth's resources until those resources can no longer sustain the population, which leads to the decline and collapse of that society. This answer has urgent relevance for our modern global civilization.

Nature and Madness
By Paul Shepard, Sierra Club Books, San Fransisco, 1982. Shepard seeks to explain the cultural roots of our ecological crisis. In the sense that madness is an expression of infantilie characteristics, he asserts we have gone mad. In this psycho-history of Western civilization, he shows how we have lost our connection to nature on a spiritual and pragmatic level, and we could lead ourselves to the point of consuming our own planet.

Spirit and Nature: Why the Environment Is a Religious Issue
Edited by Steven C. Rockefeller and John C. Elder, Beacon Press, Boston, MA, 1992. What can the religious traditions of the world teach us about how to save the earth? As featured in the Bill Moyers PBS Special Spirit and Nature, leaders from major traditions around the world speak out in this volume about what spiritual resources we may turn to in our age of unprecedented danger to the planet.

This Place on Earth: Home and the Practice of Permanence
By Alan Thein Durning, Sasquatch Books, Seattle, 1996. This book is a personal journey toward, and a working blueprint for, a way of life tha can last. After traveling the world, Durning returned to the Pacific Northwest to devote his time to nourishing a sense of place and helping cultivate a sustainable future. Advocating for Practice of Permanence, he calls for a comprehensive approach to healing our culture and our species.