With over half a million copies of Earth in the Balance sold, this timely re-issue benefits from a major new Foreword. It is a powerful and passionate analysis of the most crucial and far reaching issues confronting humanity.
"When I wrote this book, terms like global warming and greenhouse gases seemed exotic, unfamiliar, and unimportant to the lives of ordinary Americans. That has changed dramatically – except for those who still want to pretend that no one cares. There is a powerful awareness of the danger, and a widespread determination that we must not and will not leave our grandchildren a ravaged planet ringed with a thickening layer of carbon dioxide concentrations. So we have to strengthen, not weaken, environmental protection across the board, from global warming to stabilizing world population. This was my conclusion when this book was first published: We can believe in that future and work to achieve it and preserve it, or we can whirl blindly on, behaving as if one day there will be no children to inherit our legacy. The choice is ours; the Environment Decade is within our reach; the earth is in the balance."
- Al Gore, December 1999 From the Foreword
- Ships in the desert
- the shadow our future throws
- climate and civilization
- Buddha's breath
- if the well goes dry
- skin deep
- seeds of privation
- the wasteland
- self-stewardship
- eco-nomics
- we are what we use
- dysfunctional civilization
- environmentalism of the spirit
- a new common purpose
- a global marshall plan
Al Gore is an Academy Award winning filmmaker, the author of New York Times bestseller An Inconvenient Truth, a Nobel Peace Prize Nominee and former Vice President of the US.
"Dazzlingly meticulous [...] a model for the politically relevant, comprehensive discussion of environmental policy"
- New Scientist
"He argues forcefully, unanswerably, with intense humanity"
- The Observer
"An honest and thoughtful explanation of why preservation of the environment is central to the future of humanity"
- Hamish McRae in The Independent
"Close to the action, readable, passionate"
- Financial Times
"The whole darn' thing [...] even more daring than Star Wars"
- The Independent on Sunday
"Well-argued ideas for saving the world"
- The Mail on Sunday
"The book is an indication that Mr Gore is a thinker as well as a doer"
- The Times
"An intelligent, articulate and highly readable study of the parlous state of mother earth"
- The Scotsman
"A work of intelligence and passionate authenticity"
- Time
"An astonishing book"
- The Irish Times