Culture & Celebrity

Over fifty years ago, Vance Packard wrote the best-selling Hidden Persuaders, which the New Yorker called "A brisk, authoritative and frightening report on how manufacturers, fundraisers and politicians are attempting to turn the American mind into a kind of catatonic dough that will buy, give or vote at their command." It was hugely influential, sold millions of copies right across America, and led to changes in the way advertisers could influence customers, with legal restrictions on subliminal messaging.

James Hoggan's Climate Cover-up is our generation's Hidden Persuaders, an exposé of the methods by which people are convinced (or paid) to write comments to TreeHugger like "climate change is a hoax" or why George Will and others can get away with saying that it has been getting cooler since 1979 and ice sheets and glaciers are getting thicker. It isn't true, but that doesn't matter any more.

Culture & Celebrity

There are lots of reasons to look for alternatives to oil and to use less of the stuff; the two main ones you hear about in America are climate change and energy security.

But there is another story, another problem with oil- the disruption it causes in communities that are unprepared to deal with the sudden wealth that comes from sitting on top of it. Peter Maass has visited those parts of the world, some of them places that very few people would dare to go, and has written about them in Crude World: The Violent Twilight of Oil.

You really don't have to get past the Contents page to learn what the book is about; the chapter titles are Scarcity, Plunder, Rot, Contamination, Fear, Greed, Desire, Alienation, Empire and Mirage.

Culture & Celebrity

Photo: George Whiteside

Margaret Atwood is one of the most respected authors of our time, with dozens of books of poetry and fiction to her name, among them Cat's Eye, The Handmaid's Tale, and Oryx and Crake. Her latest book, The Year of the Flood, is set in a fallen future: society has crumbled, climate change and pandemics ravage the planet, and people are forced to rediscover their relationship with the land. Miss Atwood chats with TreeHugger about the God's Gardeners (the book's rooftop-gardening eco cult), her pantheon of ecological saints, and the greening of her book tour and her own life. (Our apologies for the sound quality--we did our best.)

Listen to the podcast of this interview via iTunes, or just click here to listen, right-click to download. Music from Piers Faccini.

Full text after the jump.

Culture & Celebrity

Images via Amazon.

The weather outside is lovely, but before long we'll be ready to curl up inside with a good book and catch up on our reading. I am always looking for good book recommendations and thought that I would pass along a few that I've enjoyed.

So here are four recommended reads to educate and indulge you over the winter months.

Culture & Celebrity

images: Harper Collins Publishers

If you've ever come to TreeHugger and after perusing posts for a while just wondered to yourself "How did we get ourselves into this environmental mess in the United States," then Amanda Little's new book Power Trip: From Oil Wells to Solar Cells, Our Ride to the Renewable Future is definitely worth a read. Little gives a well-written, engaging account of how cheap and abundant energy is the long-running constructive theme in the US' rise to world dominance.

But this really isn't about a book review -- just, trust me, it's a worthwhile read; and even know-it-all greenies will get some new info out it --TreeHugger recently had a chance to talk with Little. We covered the change in communication style that a move from New York to Nashville brought about, how to speak with people new to the green way of thinking, peak oil, and more:

Culture & Celebrity

Wend Magazine's latest issue is out. As is expected from this fine publication, there is much to engage the grey matter and inspire the reader to ditch the sofa for a bike or board.

Sure, there are the usual exotic destinations that travel magazines that filled with, but somehow Wend finds stories that go beyond the What To Do pages of Lonely Planet. And writers who see the environmental and social aspects of faraway locales or journeys. This issue is no exception. We explore remote regions, whose very names conjure images of windswept adventure: Mongolia, Kashmir, Peru, and Antarctica.

To help readers get in the right mood, the Wendex gathers together scary statistics, which seem to equally reflect another world.

Culture & Celebrity

Recently I reviewed the book iWant by Jane Velez-Mitchell, HLN's Host of Issues with Jane-Velez Mitchell and it's nothing short of a very honest look at one person's very public struggle to come to peace with herself. Yet, while the process takes many years and is never really "complete," Velez-Mitchell doesn't beat the reader over the head and welcomes you to take the journey with her and possibly take the journey for yourself.

Culture & Celebrity

Lloyd Alter

Waaay up there on the podium of Saint James Cathedral in Toronto, pretty in pink, is Margaret Atwood, who filled the house for what is called a book launch, but is really a performance piece. The book is turned into drama, with Atwood as the narrator; a choir sings. The place is packed with acolytes.

At every stop of the Year of the Flood tour, admission and fundraising goes to local green charities; tonight is to Nature Canada. In the States, it will go to Farm Forward, the American Bird Conservancy, Oceana and WildEarth Guardians.