One of the great joys of my work reviewing books on natural history subjects is that, while many times the books arriving for review are expected, occasionally one appears that I otherwise may have quite possibly missed. In some cases this may be just as well; however in others, such as with the recently arrived A Sustainable Future; 12 Key Areas of Global Concern, not having the opportunity to discover what their authors had to say would be most regrettable indeed.
Published this past March in the UK by Haus Publishing and as of this autumn distributed in North America by University of Chicago Press, A Sustainable Future offers “an introductory guide to the key issues of sustainability and is also a wake-up-call, a plea to society to act, to inform itself, and to call politicians to account.”
Edited by Klaus Wiegandt, and containing contributions on such diverse but thematically related topics as the Earth’s water resources, renewable energy sources, climate change, the demise of diversity in plant and animal life, overpopulation, and malnutrition from some of the world’s leading scientists and intellectuals, this new book promises to offer a remarkably inter-disciplinary, cosmopolitain perspective on an over-arching topic that is unquestionably prominent in the minds of millions of people around the world and most assuredly among most all of us interested in natural history.
