• Photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s 1990 book, Earth From Above, has graced many a coffee table since it was published. The New Earth From Above (Abrams, $30) includes 365 stunning aerial photographs, one for each day of the year. According to an introduction by Serge Orru, director general of World Wildlife Fund France, readers should “savour and absorb the power of its superb photographs, then consider what you yourself can do for the reconciliation of man and nature”.

To hammer home responsibility to our planet, a page of text with each photo describes the environmental concerns in each location. Do you like the look of Venice, photo of the day for March 4? Don’t get too attached: It’s sinking because of the settling subsoil and a rise in sea levels. Those beautiful tulips in the Netherlands on December 21? They were created with pesticides that are taking a heavy toll on the environment.

Ten million tonnes of waste

• Sandwiched between an article about Madonna’s “Sticky & Sweet Tour” and a profile of the Motorhead frontman in Rolling Stone’s October 29 issue is a four-page, outrage-inducing piece called “An Ocean of Plastic”. Did you know there is a floating garbage dump twice the size of Texas in the Pacific Ocean? It contains 10 million tonnes of waste, “a swirling vortex of plastic soup, an immense fetid swamp of debris” and has become known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. In some areas, the birds, fish and sea turtles eat a “plastic diet” that kills them; a photo of a cut-open dead seabird shows a pen, a lighter and 42 other pieces of trash in its belly. A proportional amount in a human being would weigh about five pounds.

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