Politics & Current Affairs

Today, many people around the world are concerned about global warming. The attention on the recent Copenhagen summit and its attempts to halt global warming had people worldwide paying attention to the plight of the planet

This guide of 50 practical steps is a positive and uplifting presentation of a serious subject organised in a fun, easy-to-read format. Each step is a simple way you can help in the fight against global warming and feel good about being part of the solution to the current environmental crisis.

Sample steps include:
· Determine Your Carbon Footprint
· Buy Green Energy
· Plant a Rooftop Garden
· Take an Eco-Vacation
· Check Your Tire Pressure
· Compost Your Food Waste
· Recycle Your Shoes
· Use Petrochemical-Free Cosmetics
· Buy Locally Grown Foods
· Wear Organic Clothing
· Go Vegetarian for a Day
· Invest in the Solution

ASLEEP AT THE GEIGER COUNTER vigorously exposes the destructive sweep of nuclear scams and frauds. It documents why nuclear programmes mean cancer everywhere, birth defects forever, the uncontrolled proliferation of nuclear weapons, increased chance of nuclear war, the undermining of our national defence, the loss of civil liberties and unending billions in subsidies which have been bleeding us dry, while actually delaying genuine energy independence.

Responsible energy policies can give us a golden age of environmental and economic benefits, a more peaceful world and conditions which will help rich and poor alike. We are getting the opposite of all that, sanctimoniously shrouded with a cloak of big lies. Some of those lies are so brazen, they violate the most basic laws of physics and engineering.

The book is written by an engineer who has been on the front line of varied research design and development for 42 years and, also, on the front line of ardent environmental activism. 

We are in trouble. The social, financial, and religious institutions are crumbling. The criminal justice system is a prime example of society's dysfunction.

Courtroom veteran and law professor Sylvia Clute was burned out on the American system of justice. What she saw on a daily basis was all too often the miscarriage of justice. Because of her legal background, Clute focuses on legal horror stories to demonstrate her underlying thesis. The crisis in our legal system is merely symptomatic of a rot found in each of our institutions. It is rooted in a philosophy of dualism that pits us against one another. It is rooted in a philosophy that fails to recognize the oneness or unity of all life.

Taking a page from the Eckhart Tolle spiritual playbook, Clute unfolds her argument for applying the philosophy of non-duality to not only our criminal justice system, but to all social relationships. She explores the roots of dualist thinking in the religious traditions of the world and offers the hope that if individuals—and societies—can move beyond dualistic thinking, we will create a society that is truly just and authentically caring.

Breakdown or Breakthrough? Seven Years to Avoid Global Collapse and Promote Worldwide Renewal. We are at a critical juncture in history, a "decision-window" where we face the danger of global collapse--or the opportunity for global renewal. Written by Ervin Laszlo, the founder of systems philosophy and general evolution theory, The Chaos Point provides a concise overview of the present world situation, showing where we are and how we got here. According to Laszlo, for the next six to seven years--roughly until the end of 2012-- we have the opportunity to head off trends that would lead to a critical tipping point. Beyond this "chaos point," we either evolve to a safer, more sustainable world, or the social, economic, and ecological systems that frame our life become overstressed and break down. The 2012 chaos point need not be the end of the world, but it will certainly be the end of the kind of world we have created. In today’s decision-window, we have a unique chance to break through to a new world. This pioneering book tells us what this new world can look like and how each of us can help to achieve it. The Chaos Point is a healing book. It not only identifies the nature of the malady every person and every society now suffers from, but offers a cure.

At this critical moment in the world’s history, we are called sharply but lovingly to think in new ways about our moral and political behaviour by Harold Schulweis, one of America’s great spiritual leaders. Like the biblical prophets, he speaks to people of all faiths, all backgrounds in this call for renewal of conscience. “The urgent challenge for religion is to provide religious groups with the resources needed to resist immoral authority. Religion is morally obligated to instill the sanctity of conscience that may balance the culture of obedience with the culture of moral disobedience.… Organized religion appears unable to envision the interdependent coexistence of obedience and disobedience, a time to obey and a time to disobey.” A provocative book, it examines the idea of conscience and the role conscience plays in our relationships to law, ethics, religion, human nature and God - and to each other. From Abraham to Abu Ghraib, from the dissenting prophets to Darfur, he probes history, the Bible and the works of contemporary thinkers for ideas about both critical disobedience and uncritical obedience, illuminating the potential for evil and the potential for good that rests within us as individuals and as a society.

With the rise of violent crimes committed by teenagers in recent years, heated discussion has arisen over the social factors that lead to juvenile criminality and the ways that public institutions are failing to curtail them. Now a team of experts with decades of collective hands-on experience present a book that cuts through the hype and paranoia to offer real solutions. Drawing on actual case studies, DISPATCHES FROM JUVENILE HALL shows how conventional “tough on crime” tactics have only worsened the problem and presents a new blueprint for change that incorporates punitive action, rehabilitation and family intervention - a progressive programme that will encourage and enlighten all those concerned about the future of our youth.

This shocking, lively exposure of the intellectual vacuity of today’s under thirty set reveals the disturbing and, ultimately, incontrovertible truth: cyberculture is turning us into a nation of know-nothings.

Can a nation continue to enjoy political and economic predominance if its citizens refuse to grow up?

For decades, concern has been brewing about the dumbed-down popular culture available to young people and the impact it has on their futures. At the dawn of the digital age, many believed they saw a hopeful answer: The Internet, e-mail, blogs, and interactive and hyper-realistic video games promised to yield a generation of sharper, more aware, and intellectually sophisticated children. The terms “information superhighway” and “knowledge economy” entered the lexicon, and we assumed that teens would use their knowledge and understanding of technology to set themselves apart as the vanguards of this new digital era.

That was the promise. But the enlightenment didn’t happen. The technology that was supposed to make young adults more astute, diversify their tastes, and improve their verbal skills has had the opposite effect. According to recent reports, most young people in the United States do not read literature, visit museums, or vote. They cannot explain basic scientific methods, recount basic American history, name their local political representatives, or locate Iraq or Israel on a map. The Dumbest Generation is a startling examination of the intellectual life of young adults and a timely warning of its consequences for American culture and democracy.

Drawing upon exhaustive research, personal anecdotes, and historical and social analysis, Mark Bauerline presents an uncompromisingly realistic portrait of the young American mind at this critical juncture, and lays out a compelling vision of how we might address its deficiencies.

The United States has more people locked away in prison per capita than any other country. Prison building is a multi-billion-dollar industry and in some states more money is spent on prisons and prisoners than on education. Nearly one quarter of all prison inmates worldwide are housed in U.S. jails or penitentiaries even though the United States has only five percent of the world's population. Yet in spite of the vast amount of resources spent on locking people up and the number of people in prison the United States leads the developed world in the number of homicides and violent assaults. For the last eighteen years Jens Soering has experienced the inside of many different prison environments from a youth remand centre in London to America's notorious Supermax prisons to medium-security institutions. What he has seen and experienced has convinced him that not only do prisons not rehabilitate prisoners who may be useful for society once their sentence has ended but prisons turn petty criminals into hardened convicts - all at enormous expense to society. Meanwhile other nations control their crime rates at a fraction of the cost of the United States correctional system. Soering does not argue that prisons should not exist or dispute that there are people who need to be locked away. His book is not an indictment of the legal system that lands many people in prison. Instead AN EXPENSIVE WAY TO MAKE BAD PEOPLE WORSE offers a mainly monetary analysis of why it is absurd fiscal policy to lock people up so often and for so long.