Table of Contents
Preface ix
Introduction xi
1 Water: No Cholesterol, Fat Free, Zero Sugar 1
The Water Future 3
Where Does Our Water Come From? 4
Virtual Water: Now You See It, Now You Don't 10
How Do We Use It? 12
What Do We Pay for It? 16
Reusing Dirty Water 17
Taking Out the Salt 19
Poisoning Our Water 19
Water as a Human Right 31
2 Infrastructure: Pipes, Wires, Roads, Bridges, Railroads, Dams, Airports, and Levees 35
The Real Needs 36
Pipes for Water 38
Pipes for Sewers 40
Pipes for Gas and Hazardous Liquids 44
Wires for Electricity 45
Crumbling Highways 49
Collapsing Bridges 51
Resurrecting Railroads 52
Unsafe Dams 56
Airports: Taking Off and Landing 58
When the Levees Break 60
3 Floods: When the Levees Break 63
River Floods Are Terrible 64
Hurricane Floods Are Worse 69
Will Your Insurance Cover It? 79
4 Garbage: Trash Talk 83
The Stuff We Throw Out 83
Litter: Do We Care? 89
Who Wants My Garbage? 89
Really Bad Garbage 94
Superfund: The Worst of the Worst 95
Brownfields 97
Incineration 97
Plasma Gasification 98
Recycling 99
Garbage in the Ocean 104
5 Soil, Crops, and Food: Dirt and Nutrition 105
How Are Crops Nourished? 106
Pesticides and the Human Body 111
Why Eat Organic Food? 112
Is Your Food Contaminated? 115
Can We Improve on Nature? Genetically Modified Foot 120
How Much Food Can We Grow? 122
Will Climate Change Affect Crop Production? 123
Can Terrorists Harm Our Food Supply? 124
Fossil Fuels and Crop Production 126
Food Production and Renewable Energy 127
Eating Animals 128
Fish, the Bounty of the Sea 130
From Farms to Factories to Families 132
What Is Food? 133
6 Fossil Fuels: Energy from the Past 137
Petroleum: Can We Live without It? 137
Natural Gas: Better Than Petroleum 152
Coal: The Worst of the Worst 157
Summing Up: What Should We Do? 171
7 Alternative Energy Sources: Energy for the Future 179
Alternative Energy and Geography: Where Should We Put It? 179
Current Development: Where Are We Now? 180
Energy from Plants: Biological Energy 185
Energy from Moving Water: Our Major Source of Electricity 192
Energy from Nuclear Fission: Splitting Atoms 196
Energy from the Earth's Interior: Heat beneath Our Feet 199
Energy from the Wind: Hold On to Your Hat 203
Energy from the Sun: It's Hot Out There 207
Fuel Cells: Splitting Water for Power 212
Summing Up: We Know What to Do. Will We Do It? 213
8 The Nuclear Energy Controversy: Radiation for Everyone 215
Is Nuclear Energy Renewable? 217
How Much Does Nuclear Energy Cost? 217
Reactor Construction in Other Countries 220
Will Nuclear Power Plants Slow Global Warming? 221
Accidents and Explosions at Nuclear Power Plants 222
Irradiating Employees and Their Neighbors 226
Fanatical Terrorists and Nuclear Power 227
Tearing Down Old Nuclear Reactors 229
Radioactivity Never Dies; It Just Fades Away-Very Slowly 230
What Should We Do with Old Nuclear Waste? 235
Should There Be a Global Nuclear Waste Repository? 238
What's the Bottom Line? 239
9 Climate Change: What Have We Done? 241
How Hot Is It? 243
Who's Going to Suffer? 245
The Nasty Gases 264
Let's Be Realistic 271
What's Causing the Climate to Change? 273
10 Air Pollution: Lung Disease 277
What's in the Air We Breathe? 279
Good News 288
Air Pollution and Ultraviolet Radiation 289
Air Pollution in Homes and Offices 294
Multiple Chemical Sensitivity 299
11 Conclusion: Is There Hope? 301
So, How Are We Doing? 301
Why Does Environmental Pollution Continue? 306
Gimme More Stuff: The Growth Economy 307
Does More Money Bring More Happiness? 310
Why Do We Work? 311
The Law of Unintended Consequences 311
What Can We Conclude from This Information? 315
The Environment and Spirituality 315
The Ideal Environmental Life 318
Notes 321
Additional Readings 353
Index 363
