"For readers who want to know what it is really like on the ground and around the world to suffer the silent violence of environmental devastation, Mark Hertsgaard's Earth Odyssey is a gripping tour guide. For readers who are taken in by corporatist screeds that nature is cleansing itself, Earth Odyssey stands like a Sequoia of empirical rebuke. A book for all classes and masses." --Ralph Nader "I didn't intend to read this book: Too many deadlines, too little time. But during a bout with insomnia the other night I picked it up merely to thumb through it. I was still reading at dawn! Mark Hertsgaard has circled the earth to report on a global drama of enormous implications and his exceptional skills as a journalist make each one of us a companion on the journey. Even insomniacs will find Earth Odyssey a wake-up call." --Bill Moyers, author of Healing and the Mind "Mark Hertsgaard, one of America's finest reporters, asks one of the few questions really worth asking: Will our species survive the environmental depredations committed by global capitalism and heavy industrial socialism--and, if so, how? Earth Odyssey provides not only a sober, compassionate assessment of our chances; it is one more piece of evidence, in case you needed it, that our species is well worth saving.

" --Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Blood Rites "This is the way to cover the daunting environmental issues of our time--from the ground up. Combining the best of travel writing and analysis, Mark Hertsgaard narrates a captivating yet disconcerting six-year voyage around the planet. Neither writer nor reader will ever be quite the same." --Mark Dowie, author of Losing Ground "Earth Odyssey is a brilliant integration of global environmental trends and local environmental truths--a must-read for anyone who wants to understand how population growth and environmental deterioration are affecting the human prospect." --Lester R. Brown, president, Worldwatch Institute "Mark Hertsgaard's Earth Odyssey forces us to see the earth whole--not as a remote, gleaming astronaut's vision, but as the ground-level reality of a decimated, contaminated, and critically ill habitat. If there is one message that permeates this compelling, urgent, and sobering account of our world, it is: 'Look out the window. Time's up.

'" --Ross Gelbspan, author of The Heat Is On "There is a world of difference between knowing, in some abstract sense, that we face 'environmental problems,' and in having a gifted reporter show you the situation on the ground. Mark Hertsgaard has taken the planet for his beat, and he has delivered the goods; if you want to understand the next century as it unfolds, this is the required background reading." --Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature.