Environment

Jeff Goodell's book Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future, now out in paperback, argues that the U.S. is more dependent than ever on coal. Goodell is a contributing editor at Rolling Stone magazine; he's also the author of Our Story: 77 Hours That Tested Our Friendship and Our Faith, based on the account of nine miners trapped underground.

Journalist Kenneth Weiss writes for the Los Angeles Times, where he has covered the California coast and the oceans for five years. His five-part series "Altered Oceans," written with Usha Lee McFarling, explores how pollution has changed the basic chemistry of the oceans, raising questions about long-term marine health. The series recently won a George Polk Award.

Journalist Mark Harris is a former environmental columnist with the Los Angeles Times Syndicate. His new book is Grave Matters: A Journey Through the Modern Funeral Industry to a Natural Way of Burial.

Richard Cizik is the vice president for governmental affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals, a lobbying organization that represents 45,000 churches. He is a conservative Christian who preaches the message of environmentalism from a pro-life perspective. He talks about creation care in relation to the threat of global warming.

Kenya political activist Wangari Maathai won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize. Her new memoir is called Unbowed. She is the founder of the Green Belt Movement, which has planted over thirty million trees across Kenya. In 2002, she was elected to Kenya's parliament, and in 2003 was appointed assistant minister for the environment.

Disaster science specialist Ivor Van Heerden is the cofounder and deputy director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center and director of the Center for the Study of Public Health Impacts of Hurricanes. His new book is The Storm: What Went Wrong and Why During Hurricane Katrina -- the Inside Story from One Louisiana Scientist.

Dr. Paul Epstein is a physician in Boston, and the associate director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School. He's created a niche as an eco-physician, exploring the link between increased illness and global warming. Illnesses such as heatstroke, asthma and allergies are the more obvious outcomes of a warmer and more polluted planet, but Epstein says an increase in infectious diseases such as malaria and West Nile virus may also be linked to the greenhouse effect.

Environmentalist William Powers' new book is Whispering in the Giant's Ear: A Frontline Chronicle From Bolivia's War on Globalization. Powers is also the author of Blue Clay People, about Liberia. He has worked for over a decade in development aid in Latin America, Africa and Washington DC.

New York Times environmental reporter Andrew Revkin has covered climate change and climate politics for 20 years. His new book The North Pole Was Here: Puzzles and Perils at the Top of the World is geared toward young adults.

For 17 years, former Vice President Al Gore has been on the forefront of warning against global warming. But in his new documentary, The Inconvenient Truth, he says that he "failed to get the message out." He's now getting the message out with his documentary and new book of the same name. The Washington Post calls the book "downright chilling." The documentary has been critically acclaimed.