What do we do when dealing with issues as complex and important as those that bring us all here, when all sides are simultaneously claiming expertise, where the experts spout contradictory opinions and counsel, and where action is probably called for? Well, there can be no easy answer to that, yet given the fact that there are a very large number of issues in our new century that correspond to this profile, there has to be a survival strategy for the responsible citizen.

One of these has to be to look real hard at what is going on, to make an effort to read widely, to listen closely to alternative points of view, and gradually to build up the information we need in order to make up our own minds as to what to do next. Then, once we have started to get directly involved in these issues in our own daily lives, there is every chance that we will in time fashion a wise and judicious amalgam of what we have learned in books and what we are experiencing in our own more activist lives.

With this firmly in our sights, we have set out to see if we can find and work with a relatively small number of authors who have written outstanding books which look at these complex issues and in the process have tried to make up their own minds as to what is going on and what is called for. Both for them as responsible individuals living in a suddenly shrinking planet, and for society more broadly. In making our minds up as to who to invite and how to present their books and views, we have had several basic thoughts in mind.

• First, we are on the lookout for authors who started at the outset of their journey to create their book with a thoroughly open mind on the topic. And of course in this context when we mean an open mind, we do not mean an empty one -- which is surely not the case since one thing that these authors do have in common is a rather higher than average sensitivity to matters of environment and community.
• We also want to distinguish between books and reports, with the emphasis on books which are written with the generally informed and caring reader in mind.
• In this same spirit, we have decided to avoid anything or anybody who sets out to "sell" a given technical approach, technology, dogma, or other quick fix formula or mechanism.