There's been a tendency since Sept. 11 to reconsider everything in light of that horrific tragedy. I've tried to resist that inclination, but I had read both Affluenza and Red before that day and could not ignore the way the attacks highlighted the importance of the books' divergent subject matters: our desire for the good life, which has made us the greatest consumers on earth; and the need to protect the wild places which that pattern of consumption threatens. Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic By John de Graaf, David Wann, and Thomas H. Naylor Berrett-Koehler Publishers Inc., 268 pages, 2001 Affluenza: …

Given my distaste for fast food and the general knowledge of its detrimental effect on the American diet, I didn't expect to find any revelations in Fast Food Nation. But journalist Eric Schlosser's thoroughly researched and well-written probe into the industry that has transformed American roadsides, eating patterns, and agriculture was actually an eye-opener. Fast Food Nation By Eric Schlosser Houghton Mifflin Co., 288 pages, 2001 Wanna buy it? Fast Food Nation traces the history of the fast food industry from modest hotdog stands to the umpteen billion burgers sold as America spread its gospel of quick-and-easy (and greasy) cuisine …

First, the facts. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge covers about 19 million acres in northeastern Alaska, almost all north of the Arctic Circle. It was created in 1980 by the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, which renamed and more than doubled the size of an existing wildlife range, designated about 8 million acres within the refuge as wilderness, and prohibited oil and gas production in the refuge unless authorized by Congress. Caribou on the coastal plain. Photo: Alaska Wilderness League. The Arctic Refuge provides essential and unique habitat for more than 250 animal species, including polar bears, caribou, wolves, …

For countless generations the Makah Indians have lived on the shores of Neah Bay, in the corner of Washington's Olympic Peninsula, the northwesternmost tip of the 48 states. Until the 1920s, hunting the gray whales that swam past this stretch of coastline as they migrated between Baja California and Alaska's Bering Sea had been a Makah tradition for 2,000 years. Gray whale blues. Photo: NOAA. In the early 20th century, commercial whaling pushed gray whales to the brink of extinction and eventually won them the protection of the Endangered Species Act -- putting them off-limits to the Makah. But by …

The underlying premise is simple: without water we die. As a Turkish businessman quoted in Marq de Villiers' impressive book, Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource, says, "Millions have lived without love. No one has lived without water." Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious ResourceBy Marq de VilliersHoughton Mifflin Co., 352 pages, 2000 In Water, de Villiers, who grew up in South Africa and lives in Nova Scotia, tours the world to examine the state of its most vital resource. What he finds is not encouraging. From Africa to Asia and Australia, from Europe to the Middle …

You Can't Eat GNP: Economics As Though Ecology MatteredBy Eric A. DavidsonPerseus, 247 pages, 2000 "The more money we spend, according to the GNP ... the better off we are," explains Eric Davidson in You Can't Eat GNP. The Gross National Product, or GNP in common parlance, is the cumulative value of products and services created and traded by a nation, and the traditional measure of economic well-being. Yet in the past decade or so, the flaws in this measuring system have become increasingly clear to a growing number of economists, social scientists, and other observers. As Davidson learned during …

This is the place. Photo: BLM. With its red rock canyons, snow covered peaks, alkali plains, slickrock, and Great Salt Lake, the varied terrain of Utah forms strikingly beautiful landscapes. This arresting scenery drew Chip Ward and family to the state in the 1970s, and persuaded them to settle in the seemingly placid town of Grantsville on the edge of Utah's West Desert. The West Desert, like much of the Great Basin, with its vast sagebrush hills, dry soils, rocky outcrops, and subtle coloring, has prompted both early and modern-day settlers to ask, "What is it good for?" In the …

"The last quarter of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th has been called the most destructive period in the history of American wildlife," writes David Wilcove, senior ecologist with Environmental Defense, in his perspicacious book, The Condor's Shadow. But he makes the case that the fin de siècle era has a daunting rival in our current age, thanks to the booming economy and rising human population in the U.S. "At stake this time is a far greater number of species, facing a more diverse and powerful set of threats," Wilcove warns. The Condor's Shadow: The Loss and …

Conservationists have long been known for their staunch defense of cuddly and charismatic megafauna, and in recent years for their spirited battles on behalf of lowly, unseen creatures and enigmatic microflora. Now they're going to bat for a species that doesn't fit neatly into either of those camps and might best be described as, well, funny-looking. Geeky, yet endearing. Photo: Louis Swift The Gunnison sage grouse is a bird about the size of a roasting chicken, whose brown and white plumage blends in with the sagebrush scrublands where it lives in Colorado and Utah. Despite its generally low profile, it …

It was a beautiful night spent sitting by a waterfall in the southern Utah wilderness that convinced Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) of the need for more discussion in the Senate about wilderness and public lands issues. "I've had the good fortune to sea kayak the Apostle Islands, to canoe the Boundary Waters, and to hike in Utah wilderness," says Feingold in a phone interview between votes on the Senate floor. "My interest was always there," he explains. But these trips inspired a passion, and the Utah trek ultimately galvanized him into action. Southern Utah sandstone. Photo by John George, courtesy …