Green Means: Living Gently on the Planet

Based on a a series of short segments that appeared on KQED, San Francisco's public television station, Green Means offers profiles of 21 ``eco-heroes.'' Success stories range from that of Sally Fox, who turned naturally colored cotton into a high-profit business, to the heart-stirring story of Catherine Sneed and her work with prisoners in her organic-gardening projects. DeeVon Quirolo of Key West, Fla., fights the destruction of the 158-mile-long Florida reef, a living coral system some experts believe may die soon. Jerry Franklin of Seattle promotes his ``New Forestry'' to protect the nearly 2000-mile-long Pacific Forest by prescribing that loggers leave a ``biological legacy'' of a little of everything instead of clear-cutting. Nancy Wallace of Washington, D.C., abandoned her involvement with saving endangered species one at a time to concentrate on the fundamental problem of overpopulation. Kenny Ausubel of Santa Fe, N. Mex., farms with open-pollinating seeds as a means of counteracting the corporate stampede to create gene-spliced hybrid vegetables that can be patented to corner both the food-growing industry and home gardening (farmers now can be prevented by law from saving their own seeds). In the current maelstrom of environmental maladies, Wallace offers welcome reassurance that ordinary people with extraordinary commitment can make sweeping change for the long-term benefit of the earth and its residents. (Jan.)