The Human, The Orchid, and The Octopus: Exploring and Conserving Our Natural World

I suggest this is one of the most important books of our time - a must for anyone at all interested or concerned with our marine environment.

This book, compiled by Cousteau shortly before his death in 1997, can serve as his last testimony to the world. We have the old man's tales of his early adventures and the marvels he found in the seas. But we also hear his mounting fury against the devastation of our planet. With coldly objective, passionately presented data, he rages against the apologists for chemical and nuclear industries who protect the public from knowing that they are being poisoned, and ridicule citizens who fear for their children's safety. With grandfatherly outrage he details the complicity of governments in strip-mining the seas of life, and subsidizing the corporations responsible. But maybe nothing matches his attack on nuclear "defense" systems and the mounting peril of plutonium stockpiles, which are the inevitable by-product of nuclear power plants. This is a fiery Cousteau to match the kindly guide we knew. His passion for life is so far beyond sentimentality that it's close to stunning.