Eco Barons: The Dreamers, Schemers, and Millionaires Who Are Saving Our Planet »

Edward Humes is the author of eight critically acclaimed nonfiction books, including the bestseller Mississippi Mud and, most recently, Monkey Girl. He has received the Pulitzer Prize for his journalism and is a writer-at-large for Los Angeles magazine. He lives in California.

From Pulitzer Prize winner Edward Humes comes Eco Barons, the story of the remarkable visionaries who have quietly dedicated their lives and their fortunes to saving the planet from ecological destruction.

While many people remain paralyzed by the scope of Earth's environmental woes, eco barons—a new and largely unheralded generation of Rockefellers and Carnegies—are having spectacular success saving forests and wildlands, pulling endangered species back from the brink, and pioneering the clean and green technologies needed if life and civilization are to endure.

A groundbreaking account that is both revealing and inspiring, Eco Barons tells of the former fashion magnate and founder of Esprit who has saved more rainforests than any other person and of the college professor who patented the "car that can save the world," the plug-in hybrid. There are the impoverished owl wranglers who founded the nation's most effective environmental group and forced a reluctant President George W. Bush to admit that humans cause global warming. And there is the former pool cleaner to Hollywood stars who became the guiding force behind a worldwide effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

At a time when there is no shortage of dire news about the environment, Eco Barons offers a story of hope, redemption, and promise—proof that one person with determination and vision can make a difference.

Publishers Weekly

Pulitzer Prize-winner Humes (Mississippi Mud) profiles a band of idealistic environmentalists devoting their lives and fortunes to protecting nature, including such tycoons as Doug Thompson, the founder of fashion house Esprit, who now spends his millions buying up thousands of acres of land to create nature preserves, and Roxanne Quimby, creator of the cosmetics giant Burt's Bees, who is purchasing huge tracts of forests in Maine woods to "trump the real estate investor's visions of resorts, golf courses and suburban homes on clear-cut lands." But other "barons" are more David than Goliath. The Center for Biological Diversity, a cash-strapped nonprofit founded by an "owl expert, scientist and mystic" and a "former engineering student turned philosopher," is responsible for the recent campaign to fight climate change by protecting the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act. Engineering professor Andy Frank has spent 20 years "battling a recalcitrant [auto] industry and confused policy makers" to produce an affordable, plug-in hybrid car. Readers concerned with conservation will appreciate this optimistic if starry-eyed introduction to these little-known giants of the environmental movement. (Mar.)

Introduction: The Plan-Buy Low, Sell Never

Pt. 1 Out of fashion

1 Reaching the Summit

2 The Empire Strikes Out

3 Lost and Found

4 Image and Reality

Pt. 2 Of Hot Spots and Hooters

5 Thinking Like AIda

6 They Never Saw It Coming

7 The Polar Bear Express

Pt. 3 Waiting for Thoreau

8 A Plum in the Wood Basket

9 Bees and Trees

10 Your Land Is My Land

Pt. 4 Lone Wolves

11 Andy Frank and the Power of the Plug

12 Can a Malibu Pool Cleaner Savethe World?

13 The Turtle Lady

14 Wild Man

Epilogue: Schemers and Dreamers

Appendix Some Resources

Notes

Index