The Center for Science Writings created the Green Book Award in 2007 to honor books that address environmental issues in a compelling way. The annual award includes a payment of $5,000.

Turner Construction Company, the leading general and green builder in the U.S., has generously underwritten the first three years of the award.

The judges for the award include CSW staff and board in consultation with Friends,  a network of science journalists.

Candidates for the Green Book Award must meet the following qualifications:

1. The book must have been published, for the first time, in the year  preceding the award year (The 2009 Award winner must have been published sometime between January and December of 2008).
2. The book must draw attention to environmental issues in a unique, thought-provoking manner while maintaining readability in its writing style.

If you would like to submit a book for consideration please send an email to: John.Horgan@stevens.edu.

The CSW also welcomes comments and nominations from visitors to this website.

Temperatures and sea levels are creeping up. Banks, auto-makers, companies of all kinds are falling down. More and more people in the U.S. and elsewhere lack jobs, homes, medical care, even food and clean water. Some are so crazed and desperate that they are shooting and bombing each other. The world is ending! Get what you can before it’s too late!

In pessimistic times like these we need optimists like Jeffrey D. Sachs. An economist and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, Sachs is the epitome of the intellectual activist, who puts his ideas to work in real-world situations. He has served as an advisor to the U.N. and countries in Eastern Europe, South America and Africa coping with economic instability and poverty. (more…)

The Center for Science Writings at Stevens Institute of Technology presents its annual Green Book Award to Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger for their book, “Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility.” A discussion follows with Nordhaus, Shellenberger, and special guest, New York Times reporter, Andrew C. Revkin.

The second Green Book Award was given to Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger for their book Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility. Nordhaus and Shellenberger received the award during a public ceremony at Stevens on April 30, 2008.

An expansion of their widely discussed 2004 essay, “The Death of Environmentalism,” Break Through faults environmentalists for implying that global warming and other problems can only be addressed by limiting human progress. Instead, Nordhaus and Shellenberger argue, green activists should recognize the potential of economic development and technological innovation to help us overcome ecological crises.

(ISBN-10: 0618658254, ISBN-13: 978-0618658251)