The Little Earth Book

The Earth is now desperately vulnerable; so are we. This gift-priced-and-sized book contains original, stimulating mini-essays about what is going wrong with our planet and about the greatest challenge of our century: how to save the Earth for us all. It is pithy, yet intellectually credible well-referenced, wry, yet deadly serious. An all-new U.S. edition-the U.K. edition has sold over 40,000 copies!

Researched and written by an eminent British architect, James Bruges, The Little Earth Book is a clarion call to action, a mind-boggling collection of mini-essays on today's most important environmental concerns, from global warming and poisoned food to economic growth, Third World debt, genes and "superbugs." Undogmatic but sure-footed, the style is light, explaining complex issues with easy language, illustrations and cartoons. Ideas are developed chapter by chapter, yet each one stands alone. It is an easy browse-equally at home bedside, in the bathroom or in a briefcase.

The Little Earth Book provides hope, with new ideas and examples of people swimming against the current, of bold ideas that work in practice. Did you know:

If everyone adopted the Western lifestyle, we would need five earths to support us.
In 50 years the U.S. has-with intensive pesticide use, doubled the amount of crops lost to pests.
Environmental disasters have created more than 80 million refugees.

Packed with easy-to-digest information, James Bruges spells out, clearly, concisely and with alarming documentation just what we're up against and what must be done.

Presented in the same trim size as 50 Things You're Not Supposed To Know, this book continues Disinformation's line of value-priced, impulse purchase books.

We will be working with environmental groups to launch The Little Earth Book on Earth Day 2004 (April 22nd) with a wave of publicity and advertising.

If everyone lived as we do in the US, it would take four earths to support us.

In the last 50 years - with the intensive use of pesticides - the US has doubled the amount of crops lost to pests.

Three-fourths of all plant species have become extinct since 1900.

Environmental disasters have left 80 million people as refugees.

The number of people living on $2 a day in the world has risen by 50% in the last 20 years.

Genetically modified crops have farmers using more herbicides and pesticides, not less.

90% of the Earth's dwindling fresh water supply is consumed by industry alone.

The top 1% of US households possesses more wealth than the entire bottom 95%.

Commercial banks, not the central government, create the build of America's currency.

The arms trade is America's most heavily subsidized industry.

Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera...

Concise, well-documented, and full of great references and links, discussions in this book range from nanotechnology to natural farming; from biomimicry to the patenting of life; from the future of oil and the hydrogen economy; from ecological footprints to global equity accounting schemes; from the arms trade to peace tools; from religion to sustainability; from eugenics to intuition and creativity; from antibiotics to genetic experimentation; from Christianity to Islam; from increasing economic inequality to universal basic income grants; from plutonium to persistent organic pollutants; and draws from a wide variety of sources, from Bill Clinton to Hildegard of Bingen. Were the book printed on acid-free, 100% post-consumer recycled paper, I would dare say it foot the recognition-of-global-ecocrisis-and-response bill perfectly. Oh, wait, it was.

Another Disinformation Mindbomb!