How human existence doesn't have to cost the Earth

Book information The Last Beach by Orrin H. Pilkey and J. Andrew G. Cooper Published by: Duke University Press Price: $19.95

Tibet's rivers feed its people, but also those of lowland Asia (Image: Maria Stenzel/NGS)

From Tibet's endangered ecosystems to the crazy cost of saving beaches to New York's green example, three books probe the price tag of development

ENVIRONMENTAL problems can seem overwhelming if met head on, so sometimes the greatest benefit just comes from a change in attitude. Three new books, with wildly different subject matter, illustrate this deceptively simple proposition.

Beaches, whether sandy or stony, are very much part of summer, but if Orrin Pilkey and Andrew Cooper's The Last Beach is right, the traditional seaside may soon be a thing of the past.

These two geomorphologists argue that the problem is that beaches are dynamic systems, and change position, size and composition as a result of wave action and tidal flow. Up-coast migrations, rapid transitions from sand to gravel, even their total disappearance, are responses to time, tide and the undertow. None of which suits people, who want holiday homes with views and reliable places to site profit-making infrastructure.

The result is a Canute-like protectionism that, instead of accepting the capricious nature of beaches, tries to nail them in place. The resulting groins, breakwaters, sea walls and artificial sand stretches tend to be expensive and can destroy the very beaches they are meant to preserve. They are at best short-term fixes and at worst, long-term cash cows for the consultancy and engineering companies attempting to solve the self-created problems, argue Pilkey and Cooper.

Their book neatly combines geography with climate studies and conservation, making it an accessible guide to the threats facing a natural resource we mostly take for granted.

The Last Beach shows that Westerners should not get smug about their future because development and house prices frequently trump environmental good sense. But Meltdown in Tibet by Michael Buckley has a far more terrifying vision: development at any ecological price. If Stephen King quit horror-writing for environmental journalism, this would be the result, leaving you uneasy, with occasional horror flashbacks. Buckley's horror, however, is real.

If you've travelled in South-East Asia, you may have come across Buckley as a veteran author of guides for the Lonely Planet series. Widely travelled, with deep knowledge of terrain and peoples, he is well-placed to document recent developments. The completion of China's Golmud-Lhasa railway about a decade ago is linked to many such changes. It has facilitated an influx of heavy equipment, mass migration of workers, and exploitation of the Tibetan plateau's mineral wealth.