Environmental Disasters

Environmental disasters come in two sorts - natural and man-made. Demonstrating his awareness of both, the author chooses to concentrate on the latter - gradual as well as sudden - which he groups together according to causative agent. So under 'Nuclear Danger', following an objective stating of the nuclear rationale, we get Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, 'Stripping the Earth' shows us American dustbowls and African famine, and 'Oil on Water' laments Exxon Valdez and Braer. The book also deals with poisoned water, poisoned landfill, military pollution, chemical hazards and industrially fouled air. In each case Baines shows what happened and how, what the effects were and may still be, and includes eyewitness/survivor accounts to add impact. He is professional enough to avoid pontification over rights and wrongs, so the tide of facts and impressions flows unhindered, preferring, more potently, to end up citing all the foregoing as 'a warning to us all'. Baines is a fluent writer with excellent credentials for this sort of job (three entries in the BfK Green Guide for starters) and this is another example of his excellent work for Wayland.