Product Description

The American West at Risk summarizes the dominant human-generated environmental challenges in the 11 contiguous arid western United States - America's legendary, even mythical, frontier. When discovered by European explorers and later settlers, the west boasted rich soils, bountiful fisheries, immense, dense forests, sparkling streams, untapped ore deposits, and oil bonanzas. It now faces depletion of many of these resources, and potentially serious threats to its few "renewable" resources.

The importance of this story is that preserving lands has a central role for protecting air and water quality, and water supplies--and all support a healthy living environment. The idea that all life on earth is connected in a great chain of being, and that all life is connected to the physical earth in many obvious and subtle ways, is not some new-age fad, it is scientifically demonstrable. An understanding of earth processes, and the significance of their biological connections, is critical in shaping societal values so that national land use policies will conserve the earth and avoid the worst impacts of natural processes. These connections inevitably lead science into the murkier realms of political controversy and bureaucratic stasis. Most of the chapters in The American West at Risk focus on a human land use or activity that depletes resources and degrades environmental integrity of this resource-rich, but tender and slow-to-heal, western U.S.

The activities include forest clearing for many purposes; farming and grazing; mining for aggregate, metals, and other materials; energy extraction and use; military training and weapons manufacturing and testing; road and utility transmission corridors; recreation; urbanization; and disposing of the wastes generated by everything that we do. We focus on how our land-degrading activities are connected to natural earth processes, which act to accelerate and spread the damages we inflict on the land.

Visit www.theamericanwestatrisk.com to learn more about the book and its authors.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #455264 in Books
• Published on: 2008-06-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 640 pages

Review

"An absolute jewel of a book that anyone anywhere in today's world could read for profit and a certain kind of pleasure, but that is indispensable to any concerned citizen of the Western United States. If my budget allowed, I would place a copy in the hands of every elected and unelected official in the West involved in policy-making, along with a firm injunction to first read it through and then keep it on hand for reference."--Leslie Thatcher, Truthout
"The American West at Risk's exhaustive accounting of the ecological costs of empire-building provides a long-overdue perspective."--Frank Clifford, The Sante Fe New Mexican, Pasatiempo
"If you wish to be informed, enraged, enlightened, and appalled about the American west, this is the book to read."--Journal of Environmental Quality
"The conclusions reached by Wilshire, Nielson, and Hazlett aren't all doom and gloom - solutions are included- but amid climate chagne, the authors deserve great credit for not mincing words. This book appeals to anyone with an interest in environmental issues, and is essential bedside reading for any environmentalist or activist. It should be read by all Westerners - and by anyone who cares about this great, vast, once bountiful planet, not on the brink of death."--Amanda Witherell, San Francisco Bay Guardian
"The authors, using their broad and unchallengeable expertise, have produced a book that actively seeks out crises and battlegrounds where good science exists and needs to be applied, and civic policy lessons drawn. The book is a practical gift to civic society and to public interest advocates. It is one of those rare works written by people of science who - like Theo Colburn, Rachel Carson, and too few others - are impelled to be citizens as well as scientists." --Zygmunt J. B. Plater, Professor of Law at Boston College Law School and lead author of Environmental Law & Policy - Nature, Law & Society
"Wilshire, Nielson, and Hazlett show how rising human population and affluence amongst a citizenship with decreasing connections to nature have left indelible scars on the western landscape and beyond, as the Earth's natural resources and plant productivity have been tapped for human needs. Well referenced and written by some of the nation's most credentialed earth scientists, this book is simultaneously alarming, depressing, and hopeful that it is not too late to create a sustainable future for humankind." -- William H. Schlesinger, President, the Institute of Ecosystem Studies
"The American West at Risk emphasizes the need for genuine concern for our precious soils, freshwater, and other environmental resources. As the authors document, we should be making every effort to conserve and protect all our vital natural resources, which indeed support human life."--David Pimentel, Cornell University
"We Americans have adopted a 'use it, throw it away, and move on' attitude to just about everything that seemed to make sense in an era of geographic expansion and cheap energy. Now we've entered the resulting era of scarcity-of water, soil, energy, and more. Can the famously trend-setting West adapt quickly enough? Surely this clearly-written and timely book will help. Changing our land use practices is essential to the survival not just of endangered species, but of human civilization."--Richard Heinberg, author of The Party's Over and Peak Everything
"The west has been won, whipped and beat, and now must be healed. Here's a science-based guide to future hopes of health for the web of life, and avoiding past land management mistakes. The western economy and quality of life depend on our moving to sustainability, conservation, and restoration. This book is critical reading for anyone living or interested in the American West."--Daniel R. Patterson, Ecologist & Southwest Director, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility Tucson
"The American West at Risk is both a sobering read and a strong call to action. With its concise, engaging text and detailed references Howard Wilshire and company have produced an invaluable desk reference for public lands advocates."--Stephen Bloch, Staff Attorney, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance
"What's truly valuable about this book is that the information that the authors distilled into it is so pertinent and relevant yet usually impossible to find in one place with such clarity and detail. The authors, deeply concerned about land abuse in the West, have taken the time and effort to put together this themed-reference guide that no one else has done. They did a 5-star job at it." -- Andrew Kishner
"Professional scientists will find much that is new and of keen interest here. I learned a great deal from it, even though I have worked throughout the region during my long-career. Politicians and lay audiences need the book's message." -- Warren Hamilton for Geoscientist
"This is a must-have book for conservationists, teachers and anyone who cares about understanding our impact on these rugged but fragile lands." -- Karen Schambach

About the Author

Howard G. Wilshire was a U. S. Geological Survey research geologist for thirty-five years and now is Board Chairman of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

Jane E. Nielson was a U. S. Geological Survey research geologist for twenty-five years and now is President of the Sebastopol Water Information Group.

Richard W. Hazlett is Professor of Geology and the coordinator of the Environmental Analysis Program at Pomona College.

Customer Reviews

An Ideal Environmental Studies Text
This book is an ideal source book for environmental studies programs at the university level. It provides objective, largely dispassionate discussions of a broad range of human activities that have fundamentally shaped and degraded the natural landscape of the American West. These activities include: logging, mining, minerals exploration, oil and gas production, road building, military training, chemical and nuclear weapons manufacture and testing, waste disposal, water diversion, grazing, and motorized recreation.

The authors provide comprehensive discussions of the more significant environmental impacts of each of these activities; general scientific background for understanding the nature and interrelations of these impacts; and historical/political insights for understanding how these adverse environmental situations have developed through time. Each discussion attempts to provide an even-handed treatment of these complex and often controversial issues. Moreover, the book is very well documented. It includes a 23-page glossary of terms, a 25-page index, 45 pages of factual appendices, and 150 pages of clearly referenced footnotes.

In summary, The American West at Risk is an excellent guide and text for the serious study of environmental issues in the western United States.

This book never made it onto my bookshelf
'The American West at Risk' never made it onto my bookshelf. It is still on my desk, months after buying it, and I expect it will remain there for some time as my frequently referenced, easy-to-understand guide to the environmental problems facing the American West. What's truly valuable about this book is that the information that the authors distilled into it is so pertinent and relevant yet usually impossible to find in one place with such clarity and detail. The average person usually has to grapple with lengthy, convoluted and sometimes misleading environmental assessments and impact statements regarding the extent of damage that projects of the DoD, DoE and other federal agencies have caused or may cause the land and health of peoples in the West. Wilshire, Nielson and Hazlett have distilled the thousands of pages that the beginner or amateur researcher - whether farmer, rancher, downwinder, transplant or even politician - would normally have to page through to get a handle on a controversial Western land-use issue. The authors, deeply concerned about land abuse in the West, have taken the time and effort to put together this themed-reference guide that no one else has done. They did a 5-star job at it.

Long overdue inventory and prospect
Anyone with even the remotest fondness for the "wide open spaces" of folklore and song will be rewarded by time spent with this indictment of our culture's wastage of a rich patrimony. I know of no better exploration of the themes sounded so well 40 years ago in Garrett Hardin's prophetic "Tragedy of the Commons." Degradation of the West's fragile land, its scarce water, and the biota they support, plus the links to resource extraction and waste disposal, are all here, and the many interwoven issues are inescapably documented. The book is at once passionate and sober, clearly written, and founded on solid research by authorities qualified to render an opinion. Given the host of environmental ills growing with our expanding population, I can't imagine a classroom in the country without this volume and its clarion call for the political will to act. Copious notes provide a sourcebook of material for those roused to explore further. Perhaps best of all, the nudge toward good stewardship of the natural world--so convincingly delivered here--is not unique to the American West, but will ring true in many another region across the globe. My sole reservation is that the publisher missed a bet by rejecting the book's snappy original title, "Losing the West;" indeed.