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"Because death belongs to all, so too should life," observes Portuguese writer José Saramago in a preface to this remarkable volume of black-and-white images. But death is easy and life is hard in Sebastião Salgado's native Brazil, where exploitation of labor and mechanization of agriculture have combined to paint a bleak future for the country's rural population. Even the faces of small children are clouded with despair in this book, which is at once a testament to human courage and a powerful argument for agrarian reform--a long-promised and long-delayed reform that has led to a bloody struggle to take possession of unused land in private hands.
Customer Reviews:
A lesson in empathy!!!.......2003-03-27
A poignant illustration of the landless plight in Brazil! As evidenced by another reviewer, this book has the ability to thaw the heart of even the most ultra conservative (e.g. "Most of the people in these photographs have extremely difficult lives, due to a twist of fate rather than a personal choice.") They are landless because most middle-class Brazilians view the landless as making horrible life choices as opposed to being pushed by the wind of fate...and ironically they think descendents of Africans in the United States have much to teach "their" Amerindians and African populations about success. The irony! Yes, read it, see it, and see yourself.
Will blow you away, you will not know yourself..........2002-12-19
I took a look at this book in a book store, here in Berkeley Ca. The people you meet as you flip thru the photos make you want to re-examine your own life. Most of the people in these photographs have extremely difficult lives, due to a twist of fate rather than a personal choice. Salgado has not photographed them for pity or to gain sympathy from you, as much as he has shown you a side of yourself... and I am not talking about a "mirror" either. (I am talking about the side that you CAN'T see without Salgado's camera)
These people struggle and may suffer personal tragedies, but there is dignity in their souls. When you see these people, they may not be in control of their fate, whatever terrible fate it may be, but they are in control of their hearts. The blood that runs through the veins of the people Salgado introduced me to, in the photos from the other side of the globe, flows deeper, and redder, and richer than does the blood in my world...
Their lives are fleeting and so is yours my friend, but I believe they have wings; we do not. While you and I are burdened with the weight of unfunny jokes and political scandals, they are free, burdened only with broken hearts and bones that heal fast and clean...
I could not afford the price of the book myself, I could barely afford to stand there as long as I did reading the book; I mean how long can one view a side of oneself so rarely llumiminated?
Once I thought, all I needed to know was God, or to know a beautiful woman, or maybe just smile to bystanders... but I realize I KNOW NOTHING... and that leaves a lot for me to want to know, still. Good luck to you if you should get this book.
A mirror pointed at our soul.......1997-09-02
Once again, Sebastiao Salgado is back, and with two heavy weights by his side: Jose Saramago (preface) and Chico Buarque (poems).
Like all his previous works, the camera that made `Terra' points to the heart of all human being worthy of that classification; with Chico's poems pointing at each ones soul and Saramago's pen pointing at our conscience (and that of God), if this book does not make us see the world in a whole different way, then we better worry before looking at the mirror...
Fernando Gouveia (fgouveia@marao.utad.pt), Vila Real, Portugal
Book Description
Amazonia has undergone a significant urban transformation since the late 1970s. This is the first comprehensive analysis of urbanization in the Brazilian Amazon. Drawing on comparative household and sectoral survey research, the authors find that the growth of Amazon cities fits no single current theory of urbanization; instead they propose a pluralistic theory of "disarticulated urbanization" to explain the region's varied and volatile settlement patterns.
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- a pragmatic approach to renewable energy in the U.S.
- Energy Revolution - an inspiring, practical vision
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Energy Revolution: Policies For A Sustainable Future
Howard Geller
Manufacturer: Island Press
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Similar Items:
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Renewable Energy Policy
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Energy at the Crossroads: Global Perspectives and Uncertainties
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Energy: Science, Policy, and the Pursuit of Sustainability
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Kicking the Carbon Habit: Global Warming and the Case for Renewable and Nuclear Energy
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Solar Revolution: The Economic Transformation of the Global Energy Industry
ASIN: 1559639652 |
Book Description
The transformation from a carbon-based world economy to one based on high efficiency and renewables is a necessary step if human society is to achieve sustainability. But while scientists and researchers have made significant advances in energy efficiency and renewable technologies in recent years, consumers have yet to see dramatic changes in the marketplace?due in large part to government policies and programs that favor the use of fossil fuels.
Energy Revolution examines the policy options for mitigating or removing the entrenched advantages held by fossil fuels and speeding the transition to a more sustainable energy future, one based on improved efficiency and a shift to renewable sources such as solar, wind, and bioenergy. The book:
- examines today's energy patterns and trends and their consequences
- describes the barriers to a more sustainable energy future and how those barriers can be overcome
- provides ten case studies of integrated strategies that have been effective in different parts of the world
- examines international policies and institutions and recommends ways they could be improved
- reviews global trends that suggest that the transition to renewables and increased efficiency is underway and is achievable
Energy policy represents a linchpin for achieving a broader transition to a more sustainable economy. Energy Revolution offers a unique focus on policies and programs, and on the lessons provided by recent experience. It represents a key statement of the available options for reforming energy policy that have proven to be successful, and is an essential work for policymakers, researchers, and anyone concerned with energy and sustainability issues.
Customer Reviews:
a pragmatic approach to renewable energy in the U.S........2004-04-01
ENERGY REVOLUTION presents a sensible strategy for promoting the necessary transition to renewable energy in the U.S. I would say the title is misleading (revolution?), but even sensible reforms seem like revolutionary changes in the face of the entrenched power of the oil companies, auto industry, nuclear power lobby, and the rest of the empire of the fossil fuel status quo.
Howard Geller is an old hand and an expert in the field -- he headed the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy for two decades in Washington D.C. He has stepped out of the Beltway, and is now Director of the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project based in Boulder. With that background, you can bet he knows what we're up against.
The core of Geller's book are his presentations of Clean Energy scenarios for the U.S. and Brazil, where he studied. His U.S. scenario has 10 policies:
1) increase passenger vehicle fuel economy standards,
2) establish a national system benefits trust fund (a utility surcharge used to promote energy efficiency),
3) adopt voluntary agreements to reduce industrial energy use,
4) establish a renewable energy portfolio standard for power generators,
5) adopt new appliance efficiency standards and stronger building codes,
6) provide tax incentives for innovative renewable energy and energy-efficient technologies,
7) expand federal R&D and deployment programs,
8) remove barriers to combined heat and power systems,
9) establish renewable or carbon content standards for vehicle fuel, and
10) strengthen emissions standards on coal-fired plants.
Geller calculates that the impact of these policies would be a $600 billion cost and a $1200 billion savings, for a net savings of $600 billion compared to a baseline scenario of continued promotion of fossil fuels. He knows that this economic analysis is critical, given that the fossil fuel lobby will try to portray renewable energy as more costly. Notice that Geller avoids proposing any sort of energy or CO2 emissions tax -- such "green taxes" are already being used to great effect in Europe, but Geller is experienced and pragmatic enough to know that the U.S., the land of cheap gas, long distances and gas-guzzling SUVs, requires a different approach.
Much more could be said about this excellent book. But given the political campaign now going on, let me add a word about Democratic political strategy and vision. The current debate is over who will do a better job of keeping gas prices low. Kerry is certainly realistic in this, and I hope he wins in November -- with Bush/Cheney and the oil industry in the saddle, renewable energy is going nowhere. But keeping gas cheap is doing nothing to encourage renewable energy -- it's sending the wrong price signal. Kerry needs to go on the offensive, making the case that we've got to rapidly wean ourselves from oil for the sake of national security as well as ecological survival. His policy team should take a look at the bold program of the Apollo Project, which includes major labor unions -- a proposed all-out push for renewable energy comparable to the 1960s race to the moon. This would create jobs and revitalize the economy while making the environment cleaner and making the U.S. self-sufficient in energy. Put Bush on the defensive! Renewable energy needs to become the focus of a mass movement, starting now.
For a truly revolutionary strategy for renewable energy, see THE SOLAR ECONOMY by Herman Scheer, a member of the German parliament, the Bundestag, and a Social Democrat (SPD) -- see my review. See my OVERSHOOT AND COLLAPSE? list for more on oil and energy.
Energy Revolution - an inspiring, practical vision.......2003-04-03
I would recommend "Energy Revolution" to anyone interested in energy policy. Howard Geller provides an inspired, yet extremely practical and down to earth vision of a path towards sustainable energy use. It is an understatement to say that most people in the energy industry assume that energy demand will continue to grow, and that the increasing supply needs should be met mainly through a mix of coal, nuclear, and natural gas. To successfully debate with the tremendous inertia of this business as usual view, it will be extremely valuable and essential to have available the depth of research and documentation that Geller provides in this book.
Of course all discussions of future energy use scenarios are debatable, but Geller provides numerous examples of policies to promote efficiency and renewables that are currently in use in various countries, as well as the successes and results they have achieved. The bottom line is that an intelligent and rational energy policy in the U.S. or any country would consider the least-cost options to meeting energy needs (including social and environmental costs as much as possible). Analyzed in this way, policies to encourage energy efficiency and renewable sources are clear winners, more often than not. As Geller clearly illustrates, the main obstacles to more sustainable energy use are not technical, but a variety of other obstacles that can be overcome through different types of policy instruments. However, there are also serious political obstacles to smarter energy policies. For example, U.S. oil and automotive companies continue to oppose and successfully block any new standards for increasing the fuel-efficiency of cars and trucks, in order to increase their own short-term profits and despite the negative impacts of wasteful U.S. oil consumption.
Even many people with only a moderate interest in energy policy would enjoy the reading at least the first and last chapters of Geller's book. Hopefully, "Energy Revolution" will become an important part of rational discussions of energy policy issues by policy- makers, researchers, progressive business leaders, students, and informed citizens for at least the next several years.
Book Description
The western Amazon is the last frontier, as wild a west as Earth has ever known. For thirty years David G. Campbell has been exploring this lush wilderness, which contains more species than ever existed anywhere at any time in the four-billion-year history of life on our planet. With great artistic flair, Campbell takes us with him as he travels to the town of Cruzeiro do Sul, 2,800 miles from the mouth of the Amazon. Here he collects three old friends: Arito, a caiman hunter turned paleontologist; Tarzan, a street urchin brought up in a bordello; and Pimentel, a master canoe pilot. They travel together even farther into the rainforest, set up camp, and survey every living woody plant in a land so rich that an area of less than fifty acres contains three times as many tree species as all of North America. Campbell knows the trees individually, has watched them grow from seedling to death. He also knows the people of the Amazon: the recently arrived colonists with their failing farms; the mixed-blood Caboclos, masters of hunting, fishing, and survival; and the refugee Native Americans. Campbell introduces us to two remarkable women, Dona Cabocla, a widow who raised six children on that lonely frontier, and Dona Ausira, A Nokini Native American who is the last speaker of her tribe's ages-old language. These people live in a land whose original inhabitants were wiped out by centuries of disease, slavery, and genocide, taking their traditions and languages with them -- a land of ghosts.
Customer Reviews:
One month later Still waiting for the book.......2007-10-09
I wouldn't mind reviewing this book but I still haven't recieved it yet. It's now a month since you posted it, perhaps you could please chase it up. Thankyou
Paul Lightfoot
AMAZING TRAVEL AND SCIENCE WRITING ON THE AMAZON.......2006-09-08
Though there are many books that describe nature in the Amazon, David Campbell definitely is among the top writers on it. In this book he offers, from start to finish, a very interesting mix between storytelling with lyrical qualities and scientific analysis with social commentary.
He is a scientist, focused on botany, and his knowledge of all aspects of science related to the forest are outstanding. We learn about the strategies employed by frogs to reproduce, or by snakes to identify prey, or by trees to attach polen to beetles. While learning about the science behind such activities and how they evolved, the author leads the reader through his travel log, meeting people and species and learning much about the history of the region he is visiting.
Besides all the interesting science, the author also provides a very deep character description of the people who live in this remote frontier. The stories range from rubber tappers left over from a period of abundance, to old indians who became westernized, to occupants moving there from the south due to government incentives. Each has a story and a way to deal with the challenges of the forest; some have a way to prosper in the exact same circumstances in which others fail. Some characters are presented as integrated in the forest, some as aliens beaten by the forest, some as leaders beating the forest.
Most amazing than all the history, social aspects and science however are the narrative abilities of the author. The book is a work of art, as it becomes clear that every word has been hand picked and every metaphor was chosen to provide the reader with the correct image, texture, taste, sound and smell of the forest. Reading is an experience of immersion and is to be savoured as very few books provide such a deep experience. It becomes quite clear to anyone reading the book that the author has a deep connection with his subject, much beyond science.
This book is the very best description of the Amazon I have encountered, written with gusto. It is the kind of book you will wish you had written. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the region, in nature writing or in popular science.
Richly textured.......2005-07-14
This book delivered much more than I expected. The author is a scientist, not just a traveler. Each observation went several steps deeper into the biology and history than typical with this kind of book. The story was made much richer by these details.
It is true that the vocabulary was a bit advanced. However, I never bothered to check the dictionary, and it didn't hurt the narrative.
Highly recommended.
Excellent!.......2005-07-06
A Land of Ghosts is a splendid journey through Amazonian Brazil. Infused with enlightened historical, ecological, and anthropological perspective, Campbell stands alone in his ability to fuse eloquent science writing with a tale of adventure. At times haunting, this book reveals the deep causes of rainforest destruction in the region. However, this book presents these causes in a unique way, and, at least for me, marks a new style of conservation advocation. Indeed, a refreshing one. If you have any interest in tropical ecology, and like works by such authors as David Quammen or Tim Flannery you will love this brilliant work.
some good, some bad.......2005-06-03
The "good" is that there are some very interesting stories in the book. The "bad" is that, in my opinion, it rambles in some places, especially in the last half of the book. Another "bad" is that the author uses a lot of uncommon words that only someone with an incredible vocabulary would understant. Example: page 127 (picked at random)uses the words: Flummoxed, estivation, tropeiro, mealy, prehensile, transect, naunce, anthocyanins, cotyledoms, transect, bromeliads. Trying to get through that for over 200 pages was a workout for me. The author also uses meters and hectars, not feet and acres, so distances and area are hard to understand. In addition he uses a lot of Portuguese words. There is a Portuguese glossary in the back if you don't mind flipping back and forth while you read, which I don't take the time to do. The author is an excellent writer, too bad it is so difficult to read.
Book Description
Brazil faces important issues as to whether and how socio-economic and political reforms will be pursued with urgency and persistence. This book presents a strong agenda and action plan to achieve for Brazil both economic growth and improved welfare for its citizens. The book begins by examining the existing welfare system, including the differences between that of people in rural areas and those in cities. It goes on to examine issues related to productivity, looking at whether investments in physical, natural, and human capital affect performance; to sustainability of the country’s growth and development; to its use and conservation of natural resources; and to the structure and effectiveness of its institutions. Finally, it compares and contrasts the priorities of these agendas, coming up with both quantitative and qualitative targets that can guide those setting down Brazilian policy.
Product Description
In the past few years, the issue of land invasions and the appropriateness of governmental responses to landlessness have often been at the forefront of international attention in the Southern African region. The Zimbabwe land crisis and concerns about its sub-continental impacts have taken center stage. In South Africa, local and international human rights awareness has risen following the Grootboom judgment. This book confronts the highly charged questions of exclusion and unlawful occupation and deals rigorously with the appropriateness of informal settlement responses in South Africa. It does so through a comparison with Brazil. The international and comparative aspects of the book are particularly noteworthy. Part one provides an international perspective on informal settlement intervention in Brazil and South Africa. It tracks the development of influential international positions on informal settlement intervention and argues that the South African paradigm is distorted, neither Marxist nor purely liberal. Part two explores the evolution of informal settlement in South Africa and Brazil from a socio-political perspective. This comparison brings into sharp relief the individualized, standardized intervention in South Africa and the more responsive informal settlement intervention approach in Brazil, especially in those municipalities with strong WorkersÂ’ Party mandates. The Brazilian experience presented in this book makes a compelling and provocative case for exploring an approach in South Africa that is more responsive and progressive, a people-managed process with political dimensions. It fundamentally calls into question the validity of market-driven arguments that support the current framework and challenges its people-centered rhetoric. This book is itself likely to stir up policy debate on the informal settlement intervention question, the absence of which it identifies as a fundamental constraint to challenging the current approach. It makes an eloquent and compelling case for a paradigm shift.
Book Description
The Forbidden Lands concerns a pivotal but unexamined surge in frontier violence that engulfed the eastern forests of eighteenth-century Brazil's most populous region, Minas Gerais. Focusing on social, cultural, and racial relations, it challenges standard depictions of the occupation of Portuguese America's vast interior, while situating its frontier history in the broader context of the Americas and the Atlantic world. The author argues that the key to understanding the colony's internal consolidation, ignored and misconstrued by scholars fixed on coastal events and export-led development, resides in the incompatible ways in which Luso-Brazilians, Afro-Brazilians, and seminomadic indigenous peoples accused of cannibalism sought to territorialize their distinctive societies. He demonstrates that cultural conflict on the frontier was a defining characteristic of Brazil's transition from colony to independent nation and a fundamental consequence of its relationship to a wider world. The study moves Brazil to a prominent place in our understanding of the hemispheric sweep of internal colonization in the Americas.
Essays based on material in this book have won two prizes for scholarly articles: the 2006 CLAH prize and the 2005 Tibesar Prize
Book Description
When the famous anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss arrived in Rio de Janeiro, he had one book in his pocket: Jean de Léry's History of a Voyage to the Land of Brazil. Léry had undertaken his fascinating and arduous voyage in 1556, as a youthful member of the first Protestant mission to the New World. Janet Whatley presents the first complete English translation of one of the most vivid early European accounts of life in the New World.
Book Description
In the country with the widest income gap between rich and poor and where millions of children fend for themselves on city streets, one of the world's most successful grassroots social movements has arisen. To Inherit the Earth tells the dramatic story of Brazil's Landless Workers' Movement, or MST -- millions of desperately poor, landless, jobless men and women who, through their own nonviolent efforts, have secured rights to over 20 million acres of farmland. Not only are the MST fighting for their own rights, they are transforming their society into a more just one--and their approach may offer the best solution yet to Brazil's environmental problems in the Amazon and elsewhere. Authors Wright and Wolford put the movement in its historical, political, and environmental context, trace its growth, and address the issues the MST faces going forward. And throughout, they share dozens of personal stories of people in the movement—stories filled with tremendous courage, personal sacrifice, faith, humor, drama, and determination.
Customer Reviews:
Too partial. . ........2004-12-01
The authors of this book are so pro-MST that the last page in the book includes information about where you can send money if you wish to contribute to the movement. It may be true that some land reform is necessary in Brasil, but not in the way the many of the people involved in the MST go about it. Yes, some of the landholders who own large farms and ranches resort to violence to protect their property, but the squatters also aren't afraid of killing people to get what they want. There has got to be a better book out there that tells both sides of the story. This one is too biased.
Got me thinking.......2004-08-31
I have not done much research on the MST, but this book does a great job of highlighting their struggle. The authors are clearly pro-MST and pro-Land Reform, but don't shy away from pointing out the difficulties the MST and their supporters face. I think this book is a must read for those who want to understand the issues surrounding the rural poor who are simply asking for life's basics (a place to call home, food, education). They seem to have been demonized by Brazil's conservatives and large land owners as violent land grabbers. This book gives an "on the ground" account that shows this to be false. I was also impressed by their treatment of the debate between the large agri-business model that the U.S. clearly supports versus the small landholder that actually cares about the land they work. More books like this are needed.
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Industrial Use Of Biomass Energy: The Example of Brazil
Frank, Ed. Rosillo-Calle
Manufacturer: CRC
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ASIN: 0748408843 |
Book Description
Industrial Uses of Biomass Energy demonstrates that energy-rich vegetation, biomass, is a key renewable energy resource for the future. Brazil, uniquely, has a recent history of large-scale biomass industrial uses that makes it a specially important test-bed both for the development of biomass technology and its utilisation, and for understanding how this is shaped by political and socio-economic forces. The book analyses the cause for this and the alternatives. It is argued that Brazil's experience with the development for industrial biomass use provides wider lessons and insights in the context of the international movement for sustainable economic development. This book is an interdisciplinary, multi-author work, based upon a recently completed international study by Brazilian and British experts and will prove a valuable reference to all those working in this field.
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