Uncle Sam and Mother Earth explains how individual voices and actions can make a real difference in protecting the environment. With eye-opening details and essential information about how the US government works, you'll gain indispensable insight into the complexities of effective environmental action. Author Dr. Jake Plante draws from three decades of work on environmental and energy issues to bring the intriguing process of environmental policy making to life. The narrative begins with a look back at some of the inspiring leaders-Rachel Carson, Stewart Brand, Gaylord Nelson, Bill Ruckelshaus, and Al Gore, to name a few-who energized the modern environmental movement in the United States, highlighting how their understanding of the government's role in agenda setting contributed to their success in raising environmental awareness. In chronicling the government's policy making process, Plante provides a fascinating insider's perspective on the intricate dance of environmental protection that involves institutions such as the Environmental Protection Agency, the Council on Environmental Quality, and the US Department of Energy. This inside look is balanced with fascinating examples of local community actions that have made a difference in shaping national policy.

In this compelling study, Rena Steinzor highlights the ways in which the government, over the past twenty years, has failed to protect children from harm caused by toxic chemicals. She believes these failures—under-funding, excessive and misguided use of cost/benefit analysis, distortion of science, and devolution of regulatory authority—have produced a situation in which harm that could be reduced or eliminated instead persists. Steinzor states that, as a society, we are neglecting our children's health to an extent that we would find unthinkable as individual parents, primarily due to the erosion of the government's role in protecting public health and the environment. At this pace, she asserts, our children will inherit a planet under grave threat. We can arrest these developments if a critical mass of Americans become convinced that these problems are urgent and the solutions are near at hand. By focusing on three specific case studies—mercury contamination through the human food chain, perchlorate (rocket fuel) in drinking water, and the effects of ozone (smog) on children playing outdoors—Steinzor creates an analysis grounded in law, economics, and science to prove her assertions about the existing dysfunctional system. Steinzor then recommends a concise and realistic series of reforms that could reverse these detrimental trends and serve as a blueprint for restoring effective governmental intervention. She argues that these recommendations offer enough material to guide government officials and advocacy groups toward prompt implementation, for the sake of America's—and the world's—future generations.

Attributed to Tecumseh in the early 1800s, this statement is frequently cited to uphold the view, long and widely proclaimed in scholarly and popular literature, that Mother Earth is an ancient and central Native American Figure. In this radical and comprehensive rethinking, Sam D. Gill traces the evolution of female earth imagery in North America from the sixteenth century to the present and reveals how the evolution of the current Mother Earth figure was influenced by prevailing European-American imagery of Americaand the Indians as well as by the rapidly changing Indian identity.