Robert Emmet Hernan

The timing of Hernan's book is in perfect sync with the ongoing British Petroleum oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The format is simple: 15 chapters retelling 15 best known environmental disasters. Most of them I had heard of, a few were new, but none did I know the full story. Environmental disasters can take 20 or more years to play out as health impacts and law suits work through the system, so the book provides recent updates even to old affairs like Love Canal. If you were alive when these disasters happened, and followed the news, like with the current BP oil spill, you have a mental picture of the story. However for the younger of us, we've only heard about these disasters in bits and pieces and don't have a full story - this book solves that problem nicely, like watching a Frontline episode.

The 15 disasters:

Minamata, Japan, 1950s
London, England, 1952
Windscale, England, 1957
Seveso, Italy, 1976
Love Canal, New York, 1978
Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania, 1979
Times Beach, Missouri, 1982
Bhopal, India, 1984
Chernobyl, Ukraine, 1986
Rhine River, Switzerland, 1986
Prince William Sound, Alaska, 1989
Oil Spills and Fires of Kuwait, 1991
Dassen and Robben Islands, South Africa, 2000
Brazilian Rainforest
Global Climate Change

The disasters I found most heartbreaking were Minamata, Japan because of the callous denial that went on for decades which destroyed nearly everyone involved. Love Canal, New York was similar, as was Times Beach, Missouri - the criminal negligence confounds belief. I was surprised that Bhopal, India was mostly the fault of inept Indian plant managers and not a US company, although they were ultimately responsible. Likewise with Exxon Valdez the captain wasn't even at the bridge when it grounded, unlike the image of a drunken sailor that surrounds him. There wasn't a disaster I didn't gain new perspective and learn something new, I highly recommend it for anyone living in our age of man-made catastrophe. Heroes, villains, triumphs and surprises fill every page.

I would normally give this book 4 stars but have added a rare (for me) extra half star because the quality of the writing is so good. It's the kind of writing I wish I could do. It's not stylistic, but simple, clear, compelling and free of politics. Also the events retold here will still be remembered 50 years from now, combined with the prose, it will remain fresh and readable for generations.

--Review by Stephen Balbach, via CoolReading (c) 2010 cc-by-nd… (más)