plants are all as equal as kings and poor people in their graves. No one planned that these things should rot somewhere in a desert or on a beach. They were all built with progress, with successful ventures, in mind. And yet, there they are—billions of dollars and years of effort rendered meaningless by the next step that technology or common interest took. For some of them, like the acres and acres of B52 bombers ordered readied for World War II and Vietnam, the best hope we can have is that they be allowed to rust quietly or be recycled into soup cans. It was impossible for me to read this book without thinking of our latest "ruins complex" in the making: the MX missile scheme. Like the B52s, the very best that can happen to our enormous investment in this thing is that we never be compelled to lise it. What can be the lesson learned from this artful rendering of decaying ambitions? That we benefit from the lessons of history? That we mark our own progress by its consequences? Page 8 RAIN March/April 1984 The futurist Robert Jungk in his memorable introduction to this book explains how desperate the stakes have become. "Never before in history have the effects of war or of catastrophes been irreversible. Each blunder was something one could learn from, every error one could afterward try to repair." The lesson, it seems, is that from now on, the repair must come before the deed. —Carlotta Collette Carlotta Collette, a former editor of RAIN, is a Portland-based free-lance writer. Hazardous Waste in America, by Samuel S. Epstein, Lester O. Brown, and Carl Pope, 1983, 593 pp., $12.95 from: Sierra Club Books 2034 Fillmore Street San Francisco, CA 94115 Here is a book that could serve as a model for anyone attempting to present complex environmental information in a clear. well-organized, highly readable fashion. The authors characterize hazardous waste as "the environmental problem of the century" and back up that dramatic assertion with a convincing, no-nonsense description of faulty disposal methods and the heavy risks they pose to people in many parts of the U.S. They also detail the political battles that have broken out in recent years over efforts to regulate the hazardous-waste flow. Hazardous Waste in America not only advances the cause of citizen awareness and makes evident the need for citizen action, it can also serve as a field manual for the activist. It lists the locations of thousands of hazardous-waste dumps around the country, describes how to organize community "hunt the dump" campaigns, and explains how dumpers can be fought in the courts. All in all, this is a fine book that conveys not only a sense of urgency about hazardous-waste problems, but also a sense of the power that we have to address those problems directly. —John Ferrell ACCESS: The Living Earth Lately, a spate of books has been published thatfocus on the perception of the earth as a living being. Perhaps the idea is beginning to gain wider acceptance in mainstream western culture. Great news, for such a wonderful perception isn't vital unless it's shared. The following three books, all related to the theme of the living earth, recently arrived at RAIN. They seemed to "want" to be reviewed together. I obliged and was rewarded-these books used the theme to highlight different, but interconnected, vieivs: global consciousness as a step on the path of universal evolution, the identity ofglobal and personal health, and the value of a feelingful relationship with nature. —}S The Global Brain, by Peter Russell, 1983, 251 pp., $8.95 from: J.P. Tarcher 9110 Sunset Boulevard Los Angeles, CA 90069 What can I say—this book says it all. It's a highly readable recapitulation of past evolution and a vision of future evolution from a human, global, and universal point of view. Russell shows how we— humans, the earth—are at the threshold of an evolutionary leap as profound as the origin of life or the development of human consciousness. The impetus for this leap comes not only from outside our skins, but also from within, and in fact, the two are indivisible. Individual evolution or enlightenment is thus equated with global evolution or enlightenment, and we can visualize human "cells" experiencing a change of perspective such that they join to form a global mind/ body. The Global Brain is the ultimate synthesis. It encompasses both logical and mystical, past and future, particular and universal. Reading it brings the joy of escaping ourselves, of seeing the world and the human purpose from a universal perspective. Well Body, Well Earth, by Mike Samuels and Hal Zina Bennett, 1983, 275 pp., $12.95 from: Sierra Club Books 530 Bush Street San Francisco, CA 94108 Well Body, Well Earth, subtitled "The Sierra Club Environmental Health Sourcebook," is a well-organized presentation of the state of the world's health. The skeleton of the book is "The Source- book," a 94-page section detailing the effects on humans and the prevalence in the environment of radiation, chemicals, air pollution, and water pollution. The subject is complex because of the many types of radiation and chemicals, and the statistical treatment is necessarily exhaustive. The statistics would have been more understandable if the authors had converted some of them into common units. For example, the book gives no explanation of how the radiation units "rad," "rem," and "^Ci," listed in different tables, relate to each other. The flesh and blood of this book consists of sections on the evolution of a balanced system for maintaining the
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