The English version of Earth Fever: Living Consciously with Climate Change by authors Judy McAllister, Erik van Praag, and Jan Paul van Soest has been released by Cosimo and is now available for ordering at Amazon, Barnes& Noble, and the Cosimo online bookstore.

As we mentioned in a previous post on the book:

How can we individually do our part in dealing with climate change? One answer is provided in Earth Fever, coming soon from Cosimo Books. In it, authors Jan Paul van Soest, Erik van Praag, and Judy McAllister bring to bear their diverse experience in the fields of sustainability, leadership, and entrepreneurialism on the problem of bringing about the change of consciousness and the new spirituality the endeavor will require. Along with the wisdom of international opinion leaders—including management consultant Peter Senge; Jeroen van der Veer, the former CEO of Royal Dutch Shell; cultural creative Paul Ray; Herman Wijffels, former governor at the World Bank; and others—Earth Fever delves into what is needed to bring about this essential new way of thinking.

The first edition of Earth Fever was published by Dutch publisher Uitgeverij ten Have in 2008, and with this new English-language release, the crucial information about climate change and our response can reach even more people worldwide

no comments »

Thomas Croft will be in San Diego June 2-3, speaking at a Building Workforce Partnerships conference. Croft is the author of Up From Wall Street: The Responsible Investment Alternative, and an active speaker about the job market and labor unions.

The conference, which will be held at the Hilton San Diego Resort, is called “Building the Jobs Recovery,” and will draw participants and support from labor unions, environmental groups, community organizations, and the like. You can make reservations at find out more about the conference on the Workforce and Economic Developments Website.

no comments »

Danny Schechter, author of Plunder: Investigating Our Economic Calamity and the Subprime Scandal, is shocked at the lack of understanding in Wall Street about the market drop. You can read his analysis of the problem here, in the original Media Channel article. Written in Schechter’s usual sardonic style, he clearly points out the problems and suggests the solutions–for Wall Street and ourselves–in this time of economic crisis.

no comments »

Scheduled for tonight, there is a free screening of Danny Schechter (The New Dissector)’s new film, Plunder: The Crime of Our Time on the Lower East Side at the lovely Sixth Street Community Center. The movie is based on the book Schechter wrote and Cosimo published in 2008, Plunder: Investigating Our Economic Calamity and the Subprime Scandal.

For anyone interested, before the event starts there will be an organic dinner at 6:30 pm. To RSVP to the dinner, simply email or call the Center at 212-677-1863.

The screening itself starts at 7:00, requires no RSVP, and boasts free admission.
You can read more about the event on Danny’s Blog.

no comments »

Loren Coleman — author of Mothman and Other Curious Encounters, from Cosimo imprint Paraview, and Mysterious America: The Ultimate Guide to the Nation’s Weirdest Wonders, Strangest Spots, and Creepiest Creatures, from Paraview Pocket Books — was recently noted for his culture contributions to the city of Portland, Maine:

At last night’s Portland Phoenix annual “Best of Portland” Red Carpet VIP Dinner and Awards Party, the International Cryptozoology Museum won, in its first year of operation, as this year’s “Best of Portland” winner for “Best Museum.” In a night filled with surprises, where the awards to be announced were picked randomly out of a presentation box, the “Best Museum” award came first. I found myself having to break the ice by going up to receive my plaque at the start of the evening, not even knowing if an acceptance speech was part of what was expected. (They were not, thus making the event of scores of awards go by, thankfully, “quickly,” between 7 and 10 p.m.)

Incredibly, against five listed and previously nominated choices, minutes later, it was announced that I ran away with the write-in victory, as the 2010 “Best of Portland” award-winner for “Best Author.” The host, the Portland Phoenix managing editor, yelled out to the audience that I was the author of not 17 books, but 30 books. So much for my low profile in Portland for all these years, in this, my 50th year of cryptozoology!

Cosimo congratulates Coleman on his awards.

Cosimo books are available at Amazon.com and from other online booksellers.

no comments »

The Cosimo book Plunder: Investigating Our Economic Calamity and the Subprime Scandal, by Danny Schechter, is now a movie. In the hard-hitting Plunder: The Crime of Our Time:

Schechter… [t]he “News Dissector” explores how the financial crisis was built on a foundation of criminal activity uncovering the connection between the collapse of the housing market and the economic catastrophe that followed. To tell this story Schechter speaks with bankers involved in these activities, respected economists, insider experts, top journalists including Paul Krugman, and even a convicted white-collar criminal, Sam Antar, who blows the whistle on intentionally dishonest practices.

(Visit Schechter’s blog News Dissector for ongoing coverage of the financial crisis.)

Schechter discusses Plunder, and specifically how this issue is not a business story but a crime story:

About the film, the Wall Street Journal blog Deal Journal says:

[T]he movie promises to serve up some interesting footage: The film begins with protestors outside Morgan Stanley Chairman John Mack’s Connecticut house. Schecter also has interviews with former Bear Stearns bankers and one of the executives indicted in the Crazy Eddie accounting fraud case from the 1980s.

Schecter insists he is no Michael Moore. For one, Moore has backing from Hollywood and Schecter is on a shoe-string budget. Also, Schecter says he isn’t indicting capitalism, as Moore did in his most recent film. “It is the system we live under,’’ Schecter said. “The question is: is it working? No, it is not. Why? Because people are scamming the system.”

no comments »

Graydon Carter in Vanity Fair calls Michael Lewis’s The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine “the work of our greatest financial journalist, at the top of his game… essential reading.” But Danny Schechter, author of the Cosimo book Plunder: Investigating Our Economic Calamity and the Subprime Scandal, begs to differ. At Media Channel, he writes:

Lewis has criticized those who criticize Goldman Sachs, according to Bloomberg, writing earlier, “Bashing Goldman Sachs is Simply a Game for Fools.”Which side is he on? I would guess, his side? On 60 Minutes, TV’s top newsmagazine, he was described as a former trader. Not according to Janet Takakoli who runs her own financial firm: “Imagine my surprise to see him billed as a trader on 60 Minutes, since he was actually a junior salesman,” she writes on Huffington Post, “Well-heeled male peacocks strutted the trading floor, and junior salesmen were girlie-men, mere eunuchs serving their pashas.”

She also notes that he was among the “experts” who downplayed the warnings about the very financial crisis that he has suddenly, thanks to validation from CBS and MSNBC, become THE expert on, charging, “he ridiculed their concern of a pending crisis due to the surge in derivatives demand and called it “this year’s case in point.” Then Michael showed how dangerous it is to be a brilliant writer with a poor command of facts and their true meaning.”

And:

Lewis, like many non-fiction novelists, prefers character-based story telling or “yarns” to more objective analytical investigation. The reason: it makes for better narratives, and bigger best sellers. It also gets interviewers laughing instead of crying. Why? Because there are only smart men doing things that turn out to be stupid, it makes us all feel superior to them even if they had the last laugh on the way to the bank. If no one is to blame, then everyone is to blame, etc..Sorry, “The Big Short” seems short—short of a serious consideration of what really drove the financial crisis and the reason that 82% of the American people recently said they want a crack down on Wall Street, not a chance to feel sorry for the “delusions” of its masters of the universe. They want a jail out—not a bailout.

Cosimo books are available at Amazon.com and from other online booksellers.

no comments »

When news of a mysterious creature captured in central China — allegedly an “Oriental Yeti,” or “abominable snowman” — began to spread through the Western news media, there was only one person for journalists to call on for comment: Cosimo author Loren Coleman, perhaps the most famous cryptozoologist in the world.

From the Christian Science Monitor:

“This is not a true yeti. This is more media madness,” says Loren Coleman, author of more than 30 books on mythical creatures, including “Bigfoot! The True Story of Apes in America” published by Simon and Schuster.Photos today show a four-legged, thick-tailed, hairless animal caught in Sichuan province, reports The Telegraph. The mystery beast is now being sent to scientists in Beijing for DNA testing.

“It looks a bit like a bear but it doesn’t have any fur and it has a tail like a kangaroo,” one of the Chinese hunters said. “It also does not sound like a bear – it has a voice more like a cat and it is calling all the time – perhaps it is looking for the rest of its kind or maybe it’s the last one?”

If it sounds like a cat, then it probably is a cat, says Mr. Coleman, who opened the International Cryptozoology Museum in November in downtown Portland, Maine. The museum features hair samples and some 150 foot casts credited to Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and the yeti.

More comments from Coleman can be found at AOL News, Discovery News, Metro, and Nu.nl.

Coleman’s cryptozoology books include Mothman and Other Curious Encounters, from Cosimo imprint Paraview, and Mysterious America: The Ultimate Guide to the Nation’s Weirdest Wonders, Strangest Spots, and Creepiest Creatures, from Paraview Pocket Books. Cosimo and Coleman have recently been bringing back into print in beautiful new editions older and harder-to-find classics in the field, as part of the Loren Coleman Presents series:

• The Book of Werewolves by Sabine Baring-Gould

• The Romance of Natural History by Philip Henry Gosse

• The Great Sea Serpent by A. C. Oudemans

• Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come to Life by Ivan T. Sanderson

no comments »

Tom Croft, author of the Cosimo title Up From Wall Street: The Responsible Investment Alternative, discusses what constitutes a responsible investment alternative.”

Part 1:

Part 2:

For more on Croft’s insightful approach to investing, see videos The Future of Socially Responsible Investing: Part 1 and The Future of Socially Responsible Investing: Part 2, from Marlboro College Graduate School’s symposium on Socially Responsible Investing, held December 11, 2009. The moderator was Anders Ferguson of VERIS Wealth Partners, and the panelists were Peter Kinder, Senior Strategic Advisor for RiskMetrics Group and founding president of KLD Research and Analytics; Cary Krosinsky of Trucost; Terry Mollner of Stakeholders Capital and the Trusteeship Institute; and KC Burton of Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility.

Up From Wall Street is available at Amazon.com and from other online booksellers.

no comments »

Darwin Gillett, author of the Cosimo book Noble Enterprise: The Commonsense Guide to Uplifting People and Profits asks, “Can an ‘Ordinary’ Business be NOBLE and Successful?” at his blog Notes on Noble Business. The answer, of course, is yes. From one case history:

IT’S ALL ABOUT PEOPLE: How can one build a Noble Enterprise out of a pizza company? Now that’s a concept! After all, the typical employee is a teenager trying to pick up some extra cash as he or she goes through high school – and usually moving on after a short time. What do they care? In fact, the typical turnover rate for pizza businesses is about 200% (that is, each job has to be filled three times a year), whereas turnover at Nick’s is about 20% (that is, only one out of every five jobs has to be filled each year!) – a remarkable stat, given that most of his employees are teenagers! Ninety-six percent of those hired stay at least a year.How in the world did/does he accomplish that? It’s a long story, sprinkled with innovative people-centered ways of hiring, training, rewarding and advancing people – and of giving them scope to do the job on their own. It’s also about growing people, so (even at a pizza place) he has found ways for people to develop themselves and their skills. And it’s about creating a sense of community, of oneness.

People outside the business can hardly believe the loyalty and excitement the staff has for the company and their role in it. You probably won’t be surprised that only one out of every twelve applicants gets hired by Nick’s. One 25-year old server reflected, “When I come here, I really don’t feel like I’m coming to work” (sic). She works only on the weekend and has a full-time job at an advertising agency during the week. “My boyfriend doesn’t understand it. I just like to be here.” Wouldn’t you do just about anything to have employees who feel that way about your company and their role in it?

Visit Notes on Noble Business for the full article.

Noble Enterprise is available at Amazon.com and from other online booksellers.

no comments »