Environment

Discussions of global warming and climate change often center around anecdote and cyclical analysis. Scientist Tim Flannery seeks to clarify current — and future — conditions in The Weather Makers: How Man is Changing the Climate and What it Means for Life on Earth.

Robert Shaler, former director forensic biology at the New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, led efforts to identify remains at the World Trade Center attacks. He discusses the challenges that lie ahead for those responsible for identifying the bodies of Hurricane Katrina's victims.

Former New Jersey governor and Environmental Protection Agency head for the Bush administration Christine Todd Whitman. She is a moderate Republican and in her new book argues against the hijacking of her party by zealous "social fundamentalists." Her new book is It's My Party, Too: The Battle for the Heart of the GOP and the Future of America.

Journalist Michael Dobbs is a staff writer for The Washington Post. When the tsunami hit South Asia last week, Dobbs and his brother Geoffrey were swimming near the small island Taprobane off the southernmost tip of Sri Lanka.

Daszak is the executive director of the Consortium for Conservation Medicine. The program is designed to study the environmental changes brought on by humans and the links between animal, human and ecosystem health. The consortium is interested in finding out how infectious diseases like West Nile virus, malaria and other emerging diseases move between populations, or depend on environmental conditions.

She is senior policy analyst for energy and environment at The Heritage Foundation. Coon researches and writes about energy and environmental policy, such as oil drilling in Alaska and the recent blackouts in California. The Heritage Foundation is a conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C.

He is senior counsel for the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington, D.C. Kennedy thinks Bush will be considered the worst environmental president in history and is concerned that Bush will dismantle 30 years of pro-environmental legislation.

Writer Daniel Glick's new book is Monkey Dancing: A Father, Two Kids, and a Journey to the Ends of The Earth. After Glick's wife left him for another woman, and his older brother died, he took his two children, ages 9 and 13, on a trip around the world, seeking out endangered places. Glick was a Newsweek correspondent for 12 years, and has written for many other publications including Rolling Stone and The New York Times.

Scientist and conservationist Dr. Alan Rabinowitz. He’s been called the “Indiana Jones” of wildlife science. He is Director of the Science and Exploration Program at the Wildlife Conservation Society, based at the Bronx Zoo in New York. In 1985 his research in Belize resulted in the world’s first jaguar sanctuary. Since then he has spearheaded the preservation of vast tracts of wilderness land around the globe. The survival of the Jaguar is now in jeopardy.

His new book is Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago. It*s about a 1995 heat wave in that city which proved to be an insidious natural disaster. Streets buckled, electric power blew, and over 700 people died. Klinenberg is an associate professor of Sociology at New York University.