Customer Reviews

Our Living Earth: A Story of People, Ecology, and Preservation

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I borrowed this book from a public library and found the contents inside way above my expectation. The first thing to attract me is the spectacular aerial photos of humans daily lives from a macroscopic point of view. Those topics related to consumption, waste disposal, scarcity of precious natural resources are illustrated by the stunningly vibrant and thoughtfully framed photos. There are a lot of topics that are not just interesting but very inspiring and informational. One example is on the shrimp farming and how it is hurting the surrounding environment, which is something unaware of by most people who eat shrimp everyday and still think that the food is coming from the normal fishing.

My wife being a picky school teacher also finds this book a gem to own and to give out to her best friend as a gift. So we order 2 copies from Amazon and are happy with the efficient logistics and delivery process.

I highly recommend this book to young high-schoolers up to adults like us. It is not just educational, mentally refreshing but also a pleasure to read because of the wonderful photos taken by the author who is an aerial photo expert.

Yann Arthus-Bertrand is famous for his aerial photographs of our planet and its inhabitants. I understand the photographer typically works from hovering hot-air balloons, so his vantage points are distant enough to reveal patterns that we don't see from the ground, but close enough to still see the humans and their vehicles that create these patterns.

He has very successfully marketed these photos in coffee-table books with titles like "The Earth from above" and in exhibitions. In this book, his photos are hooked up with facts and figures about the current threats to our environment, and with pleas to save the Earth, which puts the photos to a good use and also gives the reader the warm feeling of doing something useful rather than just looking at pretty pictures.

The text, aimed at young readers, doesn't delve into scientific depths, and doesn't cite sources for the numbers given, which is a bit of a shame. If the photos and alarming facts manage to stir readers up to the extent that they want to find out more, they will have to go googling to find more comprehensive accounts.