Eco Barons
The Dreamers, Schemers, and Millionaires Who Are Saving Our Planet
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
“Well written and compelling, Eco Barons gives the reader a first glimpse of the activists, philanthropists and gadflies who may well turn out to be the J.D. Rockefellers and Rachel Carsons of our time.”
—Cleveland Plain Dealer
Pulitzer Prize-winner Edward Humes offers readers an eye-opening look at the remarkable philanthropists and visionaries who are devoting their lives to saving the earth from overdevelopment and destruction. In Eco Barons, Humes, the bestselling author of Mississippi Mud and Monkey Girl, gives us fascinating portraits of extraordinary men and women who are dedicated to humankind’s survival—as important a contribution to the environmental cause as Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. As the New York Times points out, “Humes’s urgent message is clear: We must all strive to become ‘eco barons’ in our own right if we are to save Planet Earth.”
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Pulitzer Prize winner Humes (Mississippi Mud) profiles a band of idealistic environmentalists devoting their lives and fortunes to protecting nature, including such tycoons as Doug Thompson, the founder of fashion house Esprit, who now spends his millions buying up thousands of acres of land to create nature preserves, and Roxanne Quimby, creator of the cosmetics giant Burt's Bees, who is purchasing huge tracts of forests in Maine woods to "trump the real estate investor's visions of resorts, golf courses and suburban homes on clear-cut lands." But other "barons" are more David than Goliath. The Center for Biological Diversity, a cash-strapped nonprofit founded by an "owl expert, scientist and mystic" and a "former engineering student turned philosopher," is responsible for the recent campaign to fight climate change by protecting the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act. Engineering professor Andy Frank has spent 20 years "battling a recalcitrant industry and confused policy makers" to produce an affordable, plug-in hybrid car. Readers concerned with conservation will appreciate this optimistic if starry-eyed introduction to these little-known giants of the environmental movement.
