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Chasing the Sun
2005

If millions of people in the developing world can use solar power, why can’t we in North America? The question immediately arises from this fascinating account of the author’s 12-year quest to bring solar power and light to people in the developing world who have no electricity.

Chasing the Sun is a story of dreamers and doers who succeeded in their mission to make the world better by delivering nature’s energy to poor people and by building organizations to put the sun at their service in practical, affordable, and effective ways. A green energy development narrative that is fun and eye-opening, the book is also part autobiography. Author Neville Williams’ inspiring tale of trailblazing innovation describes the founding of Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF) in 1990, which promotes solar power in rural villages around the world.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Thomas L. Friedman speaks to America's urgent need for national renewal and explains how a green revolution can bring about both a sustainable environment and a sustainable America.

Friedman explains how global warming, rapidly growing populations, and the expansion of the world’s middle class through globalization have produced a dangerously unstable planet--one that is "hot, flat, and crowded." In this Release 2.0 edition, he also shows how the very habits that led us to ravage the natural world led to the meltdown of the financial markets and the Great Recession. The challenge of a sustainable way of life presents the United States with an opportunity not only to rebuild its economy, but to lead the world in radically innovating toward cleaner energy.  And it could inspire Americans to something we haven't seen in a long time--nation-building in America--by summoning the intelligence, creativity, and concern for the common good that are our greatest national resources.

In this visionary look into the future, Freeman Dyson argues that technological changes fundamentally alter our ethical and social arrangements and that three rapidly advancing new technologies - solar energy, genetic engineering, and worldwide communication - together have the potential to create a more equal distribution of the world's wealth.

Dyson begins by rejecting the idea that scientific revolutions are primarily concept driven. He shows rather that new tools are more often the sparks that ignite scientific discovery. In looking ahead, Dyson suggests that solar energy, genetics, and the Internet will have similarly transformative effects, with the potential to produce a more just and equitable society.

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Strength in What Remains is the story of Deogratias, a young man from the central African nation of Burundi. In 1993, through no fault of his own, he was forced onto a terrifying journey, a journey that split his life in two. First he made a six-months-long escape, on foot, from ethnic violence in Burundi and from genocide in Rwanda.

Deo doesn’t have to go back to Burundi. But he keeps returning, and, amid the postwar wreckage, with the help of friends and family, he has created a clinic and public health system, free to those who can’t pay, in a rural village—part of a beginning, Deo dreams, of a new Burundi.

This facility was a pile of rocks in the summer of 2006. By the fall of 2008, "Village Health Works" had become a medical center with several new buildings, a trained professional staff, and a fully stocked pharmacy. In its first year of operation it treated 21,000 different patients. In the spring of 2009, the Solar Electric Light Fund installed a 10 kW solar electric generating system providing clean, renewable energy 24/7.

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Here, from Bill Clinton, is a call to action. Giving is an inspiring look at how each of us can change the world. First, it reveals the extraordinary and innovative efforts now being made by companies and organizations—and by individuals—to solve problems and save lives both “down the street and around the world.” Then it urges us to seek out what each of us, “regardless of income, available time, age, and skills,” can do to help, to give people a chance to live out their dreams.

Clinton shares his own experiences and those of other givers, representing a global flood tide of nongovernmental, nonprofit activity. These remarkable stories demonstrate that gifts of time, skills, things, and ideas are as important and effective as contributions of money. From Bill and Melinda Gates to a six-year-old California girl named McKenzie Steiner, who organized and supervised drives to clean up the beach in her community, Clinton introduces us to both well-known and unknown heroes of giving. Among them: the Solar Electric Light Fund.

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The Climate Challenge lays out the world's best solutions for students, scientists, mayors, mavericks, policy-makers, president, and, yes just ordinary folk. Taken together, they represent an amazing blossoming of innovation that is changing the world and creating a host of new green collar jobs.

Guy Dauncey shows how it is possible to reduce our global carbon footprint to almost zero by 2040, ushering in a new civilization that will be happier, healthier, and more sustainable. Each solution describes steps the creative people are already taking in homes, schools, businesses, cities and governments around the world - and gives you the resources to dig deeper.

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The Clean Tech Revolution, authors Ron Pernick and Clint Wilder identify the major forces that have pushed clean tech from back-to-the-earth utopian dream to its current revolution among the inner circles of corporate boardrooms, on Wall Street trading floors, and in government offices around the globe.

By highlighting eight major clean-tech sectors—solar energy, wind power, biofuels and biomaterials, green buildings, personal transportation, the smart grid, mobile applications, and water filtration—they uncover how investors, entrepreneurs, and individuals can profit from this next wave of technological innovation. Pernick and Wilder shine the spotlight on the winners among technologies, companies, and regions that are likely to reap the greatest benefits from clean tech—and they show you why the time to act is now.