Peter Madden, chief executive of Forum for the Future, writes a monthly column for Gristmill on sustainability in the U.K. and Europe.
What are the most important environmental books? At Forum for the Future, we polled 100 staff and colleagues from around the U.K. for the green books that had most influenced us, and came up with our top 10. The list spans the last 50 years, and contains the usual suspects -- as well as a few surprises.
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Small Is Beautiful and Silent Spring are the runaway winners, and the top 10 also contains one novel, one children's book, and one autobiography. While a couple of titles on the list are peculiarly British, others have had a global impact.
It's interesting to see what didn't get the votes. There are no wildlife or wilderness classics, and no overt spirituality. Would that be different if this were an American list, I wonder?
And there's no place for a number of classic reference texts -- no Limits to Growth, Our Common Future, or State of the World. This might have something to do with the fact that great sources of information are not always the most riveting of reads.
Here's the top 10 in full: