This Borrowed Earth

"This Borrowed Earth: Lessons from Fifteen Environmental Disasters Around the World,  powerfully depicts in simple, transparent prose, the lasting and wrenching impact of some of the major environmental disasters of the last century, which younger generations may only barely remember.  But Mr. Hernan’s book does much more.  It reveals a striking similarity in the genesis of these disasters that can shed light on ways to prevent them in the future – in particular, the profit-driven development of production technologies with no heed to their health and environmental effects or the environmental fate of their products.  One is convinced, after reading Mr. Hernan’s book, that the only way to slow the rate of growth of devastating climate change is for governments around the world to assert control over our most basic technology – the production of energy in ways that can lift the world out of poverty without destroying it in the process."--Barry Commoner

“Lets the facts and the victims speak for themselves. Again and again, we see polluters hiding or denying information, threatening those impacted by pollution, and putting profits before people. Hernan’s stories show that each of these disasters were avoidable; we can only hope that by reading of them we all learn and avoid future ones.”--Peter Lehner, Executive Director, Natural Resources Defense Council