The new book Eco Barons reads likes a series of extended feature articles that you might find in a Sunday newspaper or top-flight magazine like the Atlantic or Readers Digest. Like the most engrossing short story you'll come across, even if the coffee runs out you won't want to stop reading until you've reached the end.

Eco Barons reminds me of the best that journalism has to offer as Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edward Humes has a knack for flowing the narrative in his tales as well as any fiction writer. Humes has written for Los Angeles Times Magazine, Readers Digest, the Oxford American and The New York Times and has published nine non-fiction books.

Much of the book is dedicated to describing the exploits of people who fit the term "baron" as they have accumulated considerable wealth and then used it to protect the planet. These stories include profiles of media mogul Ted Turner, who is returning ranch lands to their native states, Burt's Bees Roxane Quimby, who is buying up much of the Maine wilderness, and several chapters on Espirit founder Doug Tompkins, who has been preserving the Patagonia forests of Chile.

Each story tells of how these individuals stared down local opposition to their conservation efforts and committed to seeing their projects completed regardless of the personal (and often significant financial) cost.

But Eco Barons could have been just as easily titled Eco Mavericks because it also details the not-so-rich-or-famous individuals who have chosen their own path to achieving success in their environmental causes. Humes profiles a couple of folks I've had the privilege of interviewing -- Terry Tamminen, the accidental environmentalist who shook up the country as California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's point man on limiting greenhouse gases, and Andy Frank, the electric vehicle guru at the University of California at Davis.

There are also chapters on die-hard environmentalists who have been among the country's most successful individuals at winning protections for endangered species. The "against all odds" success stories of Kieran Suckling and Peter Galvin, the founders of the Center for Biological Diversity, are told in a series of lively vignettes that makes you root for them every page of the way. The team sued and beat the federal government in many cases to protect animals on the brink, although the attempt to use the Endangered Species Act to limit carbon emissions recently suffered a setback.

Eco Barons will make you feel good about humanity as it describes those who could have used the money and abilities to live in luxury, but instead selflessly worked to benefit all who inhabit the Earth. Considering all of the bad news in the world of late, Eco Barons offers welcome tales of people making positive change.

(You can buy Eco Barons as well as other Books That Matter through Matter Network's bookstore.)