BOOK OF JULY

                                            
Title         : This Borrowed Earth: Lessons from
                               the Fifteen Worst Environmental Disasters around the World

Author      : Robert Emmet Hernan
Pages      : 256
Publisher : Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN        : 0230619835

As the Gulf of Mexico continues to fill with oil due to our own negligence and government agencies’ lack of oversight, we are experiencing an environmental disaster of catastrophic proportions. Tragically, this isn’t the first human-caused environmental disaster. In his book, This Borrowed Earth: Lessons from the 15 Worst Environmental Disasters Around the World, Robert Emmet Hernan describes in detail 15 environmental crises we must remember so that history doesn’t repeat itself.

There is also the context of seven former senior employees of Union Carbide's Indian subsidiary being convicted of causing "death by negligence" over their part in the Bhopal gas tragedy more than 25 years ago. On 3 December 1984, about 40 tonnes of deadly methyl isocyanate gas leaked from a pesticide plant into the air in Bhopal, killing about 4,000 people.The lingering effects of the poison increased the death toll to about 15,000 over the next few years, according to government estimates.

In This Borrowed Earth, the culpability of Union Carbide is clear. Workers were poorly trained. Safety of the public was completely neglected, both in preparing for possible leak and in the panic that ensued after a leak occurred. Though a plant audit in 1982 had warned of serious problems, the warning was ignored. And, like most of the other disasters, financial awards for the victims were pathetically small in comparison to the $470 million Union Carbide paid in a relative pittance.

Corporate irresponsibility is seen to be sharing the large part of the problem, also in the other environmental disasters described in this book. Another theme that runs through this book is the complicity of the government in protecting companies who were contributing largely to the tax base of those countries. It was the tight relationship between the government and companies that often led to the tragedy.

This Borrowed Earth is an amazing book, and should be required reading in every classroom. Here are the  fifteen of the worst man-mand disasters that have shaped and given urgency to the contemporary environmental movement. Full of information about the causes of these disasters, the book also focuses on the human experiences around the events, often heartbreaking. This book will help future generations to avoid the mistakes of the past.

Contents: Minamata, Japan, (1950); London, England, (1952); Windscale, England, (1957); Seveso, Italy, (1976); Love Canal, New York, (1978); Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania, (1979); Times Beach, Missouri, (1982); Bhopal, India, (1984); Chernobyl, Ukraine, (1986); Rhine River, Switzerland, (1986); Prince William Sound, Alaska, (1989); Oil Spills and Fires of Kuwait, (1999); Dassen and Robben Islands, South Africa, (2000); List of Some Environmental Organization, Notes, Sources etc.

Book Review text courtesy: www.amazon.com, http://search.barnesandnoble.com,
www.blueplanetgreenliving.com