http://www.progressivebookclub.com/blog Just another WordPress weblog Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:00:17 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en In his important and influential book Last Child in the Woods, child advocacy expert Richard Louv argues that today's kids are increasingly disconnected from nature, a rift he explicitly connects to such alarming trends as the rise in obesity, attention disorders, and depression. Among the findings: - Children today spend much less ... http://www.progressivebookclub.com/blog/2009/11/20/ten-books-to-reconnect-you-with-nature/ Any sincere effort to tackle global warming will require a change in the very way we use our brains. So argues Al Gore in In Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis, the worthy and beautifully produced sequel to his seminal An Inconvenient Truth. Part of the reason humans don’t have a ... http://www.progressivebookclub.com/blog/2009/11/20/traditions-of-environmental-stewardship/ "The world has been Googled," is how Ken Auletta begins his book about the company whose motto is the very uncorporate "Don't be evil," but which in 11 years has grown from a rented garage in Silicon Valley to a juggernaut that other companies, even entire industries have grown to ... http://www.progressivebookclub.com/blog/2009/11/20/google-by-the-numbers/ It would be nice to think that gaining broad recognition of the reality of human-induced global warming was yesterday’s exercise, and that today’s challenge is figuring out how to combat it. Yet, as Al Gore makes clear in Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis, the global warming denial movement--in ... http://www.progressivebookclub.com/blog/2009/11/19/denial-still-hinders-action-on-climate-change/ Update: Thanks to everyone who attended the event - in person or online. We've taken down the live-stream player. A full video archive of the event will be available soon. Welcome Street Prophets Viewers! Remember to head back over to Street Prophets with your comments before the Q&A starts. ... http://www.progressivebookclub.com/blog/2009/11/18/the-future-of-faith-with-harvey-cox-and-ej-dionne/ Google is a different kind of company. True or false, that's certainly a widespread perception. And as the New Yorker's Ken Auletta tells it in Googled: The End of the World as We Know It, that perception explains, in part,  the tremendous success the company has in attracting top talent. Though its salaries are ... http://www.progressivebookclub.com/blog/2009/11/18/working-for-google-somewhere-between-grad-school-and-burning-man/ When you watch Barack Obama give a speech or meet with voters, it’s easy to believe that the political process comes naturally to him. He is poised, conversational, on message – the kind of candidate a campaign strategist could only dream of. Yet those who know the president more personally have ... http://www.progressivebookclub.com/blog/2009/11/18/another-side-to-obama-he-doesn%e2%80%99t-seem-like-he-really-wants-it/ Biomass fuels – defined as fuels made from plant life – have long been a focal point of the green energy movement. In the United States, the spotlight has largely been on corn-based ethanol, which accounts for 140 billion gallons of the gasoline used domestically each year. Yet as Al Gore ... http://www.progressivebookclub.com/blog/2009/11/18/al-gore-on-the-false-promise-of-ethanol/ Obama Close to a Decision on Afghanistan “I am very confident that when I announce the decision, the American people will have a lot of clarity about what we’re doing, how we’re going to succeed, how much this thing is going to cost.” - President Obama said Wednesday he was “very close ... http://www.progressivebookclub.com/blog/2009/11/18/when-i-announce-the-decision-the-american-people-will-have-a-lot-of-clarity-about-what-we%e2%80%99re-doing-and-other-quotes-of-the-day/ Sarah Palin’s book hit the shelves just hours ago, yet unless you’ve been in the Alaskan wilderness hunting elk these past seven days, you can be forgiven if you’re already feeling some Palin fatigue. Going Rogue, Palin's already bestselling political memoir, is dominating our media circus, even as the ... http://www.progressivebookclub.com/blog/2009/11/17/max-blumenthal-palin-goes-rogue-on-the-facts/