GREEN MEANS: Living Lightly on the Planet...

GREEN MEANS: Living Lightly on the Planet by Aubrey Wallace (KQED Books: $9.95; 251 pp., illustrated). Unlike many ecology books, this companion volume to the PBS series has an upbeat, encouraging tone. The text profiles 20 individuals who have managed to find ways of leading environmentally sensible lives. A rancher in Wyoming raises superior beef cattle by not harming the ecosystem of the range; a woman in Arizona produces naturally colored cotton without chemical dyes, pesticides or fertilizers; a community in northern California raised its water quality and cut costs by turning a sewage treatment plant into a park. These ecological success stories disprove the spurious jobs-vs.-environment rhetoric of many conservative politicians.