By BILL KOVARIK
 

The new SEJ book award, along with plans for an increased emphasis on environmental books at this year's SEJ annual conference in Roanoke, VA, are reflections of an increasing interest in environmental book publishing among SEJ members. Yet trends in the national marketplace of ideas seem paradoxical.

By STEVE WEINBERG

Listening to Cougar

By Marc Bekoff and Cara Blessley Lowe, editors
University Press of Colorado $24.95

Reviewed by David Baron

Compared with North America's other apex predators, cougars get little respect. Whether measured by screen time on the Discovery Channel or dollars raised for their protection, wolves and grizzlies gain the lion's share of attention.

Wallace Stegner and the American West

By Philip L. Fradkin
Alfred A. Knopf Publishers, $27.50

Reviewed by Laura Paskus

In his new book, Wallace Stegner and the American West, Philip L. Fradkin delves into the writer's upbringing, passions, his artistic influences and his demons.

Apollo's Fire: Igniting America's Clean Energy Economy

By Jay Inslee and Bracken Hendricks
Island Press $25.95

Reviewed by Tom Henry

Veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas calls Apollo's Fire a "brilliant, inspiring book on the need to set goals and find future solutions to achieve clean, efficient energy."

Naked in the Woods: Joseph Knowles and the Legacy of Frontier Fakery

By Jim Motavalli
$26.95 Da Capo Press

Reviewed by Bill Kovarik

Hermits and wild men of every shape and motivation have long been fixtures of world folklore. From John the Baptist to TV's Bear Grylls, survival in the wilderness has been a hallmark of integrity and, sometimes, intelligence.

  By ROGER ARCHIBALD

Protecting the cloud forest ecosystem of a nearly-extinct bird with a magnificent plumage.

  By JENNIFER OLADIPO

SEJ members Joy Horowitz, Erin K.D. Judd, Charlotte Kidd and Jennifer Oladipo were four of seven environmental reporting fellows at the National Tropical Botanical Garden in Hawai'i in May.

 By ROBERT McCLURE
 

The fastest-growing water pollution threat in my region – and probably in yours, too – is stormwater, that filthy mixture that results when rain or melting snow washes away oil, antifreeze, dog poop, fertilizer, pesticide and anything else on the ground. It is truly foul stuff.

All that ends up somewhere. Usually, that's your nearest stream, wetland or bay. And the rainwater running off streets and other hard surfaces tends to come in big surges that gouge out stream bottoms.

 By AMY GAHRAN

 Media aren't what-or where- they used to be, especially when it comes to news.

As an example, look at May 12, 2008, when in the wee hours of the morning (by U.S. reckoning) users of the popular social media service Twitter broke the news of a major earthquake centered in Chengdu, China, three minutes before the U.S. Geological Survey earthquake reporting site posted its announcement.