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Summary
Summary
Senator (and vice presidential candidate) Gore (Democrat, Tennessee) demonstrates that the quality of air, water, and soil is at grave risk, not only locally or regionally but globally, and argues that only a radical rethinking of the human relationship with nature can save the earth's ecology for future generations. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Author Notes
Politician and businessman Al Gore was born on March 31, 1948. In 1969, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in government from Harvard College. He represented Tennessee in the House of Representatives from 1977-1985 and the Senate from 1985-1993. He was Vice-President of the United States from 1993-2001. He is currently the president of Current TV, chairman of Generation Investment Management, director on the board of Apple Inc., and senior advisor to Google Inc.
He lectures on the topic of global warming awareness and prevention and starred in the documentary An Inconvenient Truth, which won the 2007 Academy Award for Documentary Feature. He was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize along with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for their efforts to educate others about climate change and to find ways to counteract it.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
YA-- Too often, environmental challenges are presented in such a way that the more one learns, the more hopeless it all seems. Earth in the Balance does not shrink from the magnitude and painfulness of the conflicts YAs will soon inherit, but it also gives encouragement, offering the possibility of resolution. A passionate yet clearheaded exposition of a worldwide crisis is the starting point of this courageous book. Retracing his own journey, Gore leads readers toward a greater understanding of humanity and toward thinking beyond currently perceived limitations. With often stunning insight, he looks at how ``dysfunctional civilization,'' political realities, and religious traditions have helped to shape the current global ecological situation. This breadth of perspective should speak to a diversity of readers, while the final section, outlining a plausible plan of action, can capture the imaginations of practical as well as idealistic readers. The book may seem daunting to some, but its 3-part, 15-chapter structure, which allows readers to browse at will, should make it accessible enough to most YAs.-- Christine C. Menefee, Fairfax County Public Library, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Vice President-elect Gore explains the necessity of enviromentalism and offers bold initiatives for change in this thoughtful, compelling primer, a QPB selection and PW bestseller. Illustrations. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
When the senior senator from Tennessee talks about the weather, he's talking methane and carbon dioxide gas, ozone depletion, deforestation, desertification, and if something isn't done to reverse things, it's ecopocalypse now. His plan of salvation, dubbed a "Global Marshall Plan," resembles a position paper prepared for a future campaign for the White House, and in that sense, it is hardly spellbinding reading. As the actual author (the publisher assures us), Senator Gore's familiarity with a welter of subjects is superficially impressive, but they are often raised as intellectual name-dropping (saying "bear with me," he even explains Einstein), or as analogies resulting in non sequiturs. It's a tinny tune to rhetoricians, but when sung in the key of Green, the larger choirs might wish to score it. ~--Gilbert Taylor
Choice Review
A momentous event in our century is the realization that the scientific-technological civilization, which until only recently held the key to paradise on earth, has become a veritable nightmare. Human dominance over Nature is not bringing the universal abundance that seemed so imminent; instead, it threatens our very survival. Unquenchable craving for creature comforts and uncontrollable monetary greed, combined with a dangerous ignorance of the long-range effects of industry and technology, have led to an irresponsible ravaging of our physical environment with alarming consequences: precious species and tropical rain forests that took eons to evolve are being summarily decimated; the delicate proportion of atmospheric gases that maintain the planet's temperatures within a habitable range has been tampered with; the ozone shield protecting us from ultraviolet radiation has been torn open; vast quantities of toxic substances are spewed into the air we breathe; lakes and rivers are polluted; the ocean is a garbage dump. This important volume analyzes in delightful prose all this and more of how we have tipped the earth out of balance. Gore displays intelligence and insight, with clarity of writing matched by solid research. Most importantly, he is motivated by enlightened perspectives, and discarding doomsday attitudes, calls for concrete action (p. 346-47). The thoughtful chapter "A Global Marshall Plan" comes from Gore's heart and mind, and could well serve to inspire leaders and governments to take the urgent steps needed to keep our earth in the balance.-V. V. Raman, Rochester Institute of Technology
