Unnatural Disasters

Disasters like Love Canal and more recently in Flint, Michigan, happened slowly over years, and caused lasting damage. A powerful way to demonstrate cause and effect in ecosystems, this book chronicles each disaster's story, and even the resulting legal battles. This book is lamentably timely, and all readers will easily be drawn in by these morality stories of corporations' terrible impact in the effort to save money. Statistics on each spread communicate the impact of the disasters, another way to drive home to readers the damage they cause. The final pages aim to engage readers in environmental conversation and good citizenship through specific ways that affect our water.

People have accumulated a frightening and environmentally devastating amount of garbage-even in outer space! This book rips from the headlines the powerful stories of some of the world's worst dumps, including Mumbai in India, Dandora in Kenya, and more. Fact boxes chronicle the legal changes made-and not made-in each place with regard to waste management. Statistics presented in sidebars on each spread illuminate the problem for readers using frighteningly true numbers. This book reinforces lessons on recycling, littering, and community activism, and concludes with instructions on how to help with Earth's garbage problem.

Smog is in today's headlines regularly, with vivid photographs of hordes of people wearing masks as they commute. There aren't many things that acutely threaten the human ecosystem like smog, as the death tolls of the London, Donora, Shanghai, and Meuse Valley disasters show. This is an unfortunately topical book, chronicling several historic episodes-some lasting days, some years-through both focused text and powerful sidebars showing real statistics. Each spread has a fact box discussing what legal changes were made-and not made-following these events. The final chapter cites specific ways readers can help.

DDT, Agent Orange, and asbestos are just some of the many frightening examples used in this book to illustrate how people's disastrous decisions impact human life. Along with compelling main text and arresting historical photographs, sidebars of harrowing statistics help readers understand the scope of the damage more fully. Each spread also includes a fact box that tells the lasting effects of each disaster and chronicles the legal changes made, and not made, in the wake of these events. This book concludes with a discussion of what work still needs to be done to reverse and prevent chemical disasters.

Industrial accidents occur all over the world at an alarming rate, and readers have no doubt heard of at least one in their lifetime. This topical book chronicles the frightening stories of several of the world's worst examples of chemical leaks and spills, detailing the environmental impact not only in the text, but also through graphic, full-color images, and through sidebars full of real statistics. Fact boxes chronicle the legal response in the direct wake of disasters like Bhopal, Amoco Cadiz, Exxon Valdez, Deepwater Horizon, and more. The book closes with a note about activism and how to help.

Is there a more terrifying example than the "Door to Hell" in Turkmenistan of the negative impact of people on Earth? But there are many, many more. This and several other frightening examples serve as prime and telling true stories in this book. Each spread has a fact box illuminating legal changes made-and not made-as a response to the disaster, and a statistics sidebar that reinforces the immense impact of each disaster through numbers. The book ends with a discussion of increased stewardship of the planet, calling readers to activism in specific ways.