Dirt // Current

Rally America 2010 Mustang Race (Mustang Rally Ch. 1)

The last thing youd expect to see zooming through Bemidji, Minn. at the Ojibwe Forests... more

mustangunleashed
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Rally America 2010 Mustang Rally (Teaser)

The last thing youd expect to see zooming through Bemidji, Minn. at the Ojibwe Forests... more

mustangunleashed
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Man Makes Girlfriend Eat Dirt - Really!

Police say a Connecticut man told his girlfriend to ``eat dirt'' after shoving some... more

ebindelglass
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Skullcandy @ Kokanee Crankworxs! Part 2

Check it out as MTN team riders Paul Bass, Mike Montgomery, Andrew Taylor, and Geoff... more

Skullcandy
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The American West At Risk: A Book Review

The American West At Risk: Science, Myths, and Politics of Land Abuse and Recovery
by Howard G Wilshire, Jane E Nielson, Richard W. Hazlett
Review by Leslie Thatcher

I came upon this review this morning, from what I have read, this looks like a really interesting book...

If Dirt Could Talk ...
Monday 24 August 2009
by: Leslie Thatcher, t r u t h o u t | Book Review

" Co-author Rick Hazlett: "'The American West at Risk,' if nothing else, is a book about how a well-meaning people have been hoodwinked and conned, lied to and exploited by selfish interests and irresponsible, often ignorant leadership at sorry cost to our lands and waters, and to individual health and humanity." (Photo: Oxford University Press)
The American West At Risk Science, Myths, and Politics of Land Abuse and Recovery Howard G. Wilshire Jane E. Nielson Richard W. Hazlett Oxford University Press, 2008

Thick roiling billows of ochre, rust and mushroom earth crest into a towering 5,000 foot high tsunami of dirt in the photograph of a 1977 dust storm above the southern San Joaquin Valley. I cannot think of another book I have ever read more true to its cover than Howard Wilshire, Jane Nielson and Richard Hazlett's "The American West at Risk: Science, Myths, and Politics of Land Abuse and Recovery." It is truly as though the three earth-scientist authors allowed the Western earth to speak, to explain its complex but inexorable response to human displacements of soil and rock, to toxic emissions, applications and run-off, to deforestation, agribusiness, over-grazing, mining, road building, war games, nuclear testing, "development," water "management," garbage "disposal" and recreation activities.

The result is an absolute jewel of a book that anyone anywhere in today's world could read for profit and a certain kind of pleasure, but that is indispensable to any concerned citizen of the Western United States. If my budget allowed, I would place a copy in the hands of every elected and unelected official in the West involved in policy-making, along with a firm injunction to first read it through and then keep it on hand for reference. Oxford has published "The American West at Risk" as a textbook, and while it's organized like a textbook, and has wonderful, useful textbook features like a glossary, 150 pages of notes and a first-rate index, it doesn't read like any textbook I've ever encountered: the prose is polished, dispassionate and crystalline, accessible and even seductive in spite of the perhaps generically rebarbative topics addressed. And while it is arguably unpleasant to learn the details of how we as a society have squandered and continue to misuse the sensitive systems on which our own and all life on Earth depends, there is considerable dramatic tension to "The American West at Risk" that draws a reader in and propels the narrative forward."

continued below or go to link above...The American West At Risk: Science, Myths, and Politics of Land Abuse and Recovery... more