But there is an important and simple step toward reversing this alarming trend: Everyone with access to a patch of earth can make a significant contribution toward sustaining biodiversity.There is an unbreakable link between native plant species and native wildlife—native insects cannot, or will not, eat alien plants. When native plants disappear, the insects disappear, impoverishing the food source for birds and other animals. In many parts of the world, habitat destruction has been so extensive that local wildlife is in crisis and may be headed toward extinction.Bringing Nature Home has sparked a national conversation about the link between healthy local ecosystems and human well-being, and the new paperback edition—with an expanded resource section and updated photos—will help broaden the movement. By acting on Douglas Tallamy's practical recommendations, everyone can make a difference.

    He climbs, walks, and swims by day and spends his nights sleeping on cliff-tops and in ancient meadows and wildwoods. With elegance and passion he entwines history, memory, and landscape in a bewitching evocation of wildness and its vital importance. A unique travelogue that will intrigue readers of natural history and adventure, The Wild Places solidifies Macfarlane's reputation as a young writer to watch.

    In 1741, hungry explorers discovered herds of Steller’s sea cow in the Bering Strait, and in less than thirty years, the amiable beast had been harpooned into extinction. It’s a classic story, but a key fact is often omitted. Bering Island was the last redoubt of a species that had been decimated by hunting and habitat loss years before the explorers set sail. As Callum M. Roberts reveals in The Unnatural History of the Sea, the oceans’ bounty didn’t disappear overnight. While today’s fishing industry is ruthlessly efficient, intense exploitation began not in the modern era, or even with the dawn of industrialization, but in the eleventh century in medieval Europe. Roberts explores this long and colorful history of commercial fishing, taking readers around the world and through the centuries to witness the transformation of the seas. Drawing on firsthand accounts of early explorers, pirates, merchants, fishers, and travelers, the book recreates the oceans of the past: waters teeming with whales, sea lions, sea otters, turtles, and giant fish. The abundance of marine life described by fifteenth century seafarers is almost unimaginable today, but Roberts both brings it alive and artfully traces its depletion. Collapsing fisheries, he shows, are simply the latest chapter in a long history of unfettered commercialization of the seas. The story does not end with an empty ocean. Instead, Roberts describes how we might restore the splendor and prosperity of the seas through smarter management of our resources and some simple restraint. From the coasts of Florida to New Zealand, marine reserves have fostered spectacular recovery of plants and animals to levels not seen in a century. They prove that history need not repeat itself: we can leave the oceans richer than we found them.

    But the glory of each essay lies in Childs's ability to portray the sometimes brutal beauty of the wilderness, to capture the individual essence of wild creatures, to transport the reader beyond the human realm and deep inside the animal kingdom.

    The Varmints come and build their city where once was grass. Before they realise what they have done, there is nothing but a huge dark city. Can someone find the time and space to stop, think and plant seeds of change?

    From the #1 bestselling author of The Hot Zone comes an amazing account of scientific and spiritual passion for the tallest trees in the world, the startling biosystem of Rthe canopy, S and those who are committed to the preservation of this astonishing and largely unknown world.

    In Deakin's glorious meditation on wood, the "fifth element"as it exists in nature, in our culture, and in our souls the reader accompanies Deakin through the woods of Britain, Europe, Kazakhstan, and Australia in search of what lies behind man's profound and enduring connection with trees.Deakin lives in forest shacks, goes "coppicing" in Suffolk, swims beneath the walnut trees of the Haut-Languedoc, and hunts bushplums with Aboriginal women in the outback. Along the way, he ferrets out the mysteries of woods, detailing the life stories of the timber beams composing his Elizabethan house and searching for the origin of the apple.As the world's forests are whittled away, Deakin's sparkling prose evokes woodlands anarchic with life, rendering each tree as an individual, living being. At once a traveler's tale and a splendid work of natural history, Wildwood reveals, amid the world's marvelous diversity, that which is universal in human experience.

    It was the era of Manifest Destiny, a Gilded Age that treated the West as nothing more than a treasure chest of resources to be dug up or shot down. The buffalo in this world was a commodity, hounded by legions of swashbucklers and unemployed veterans seeking to make their fortunes. Supporting these hide hunters, even buying their ammunition, was the U.S. Army, which considered the eradication of the buffalo essential to victory in its ongoing war on Native Americans.Into that maelstrom rode young George Bird Grinnell. A scientist and a journalist, a hunter and a conservationist, Grinnell would lead the battle to save the buffalo from extinction. Fighting in the pages of magazines, in Washington's halls of power, and in the frozen valleys of Yellowstone, Grinnell and his allies sought to preserve an icon from the grinding appetite of Robber Baron America.Grinnell shared his adventures with some of the greatest and most infamous characters of the American West—from John James Audubon and Buffalo Bill to George Armstrong Custer and Theodore Roosevelt (Grinnell's friend and ally). A strikingly contemporary story, the saga of Grinnell and the buffalo was the first national battle over the environment. In Grinnell's legacy is the birth of the conservation movement as a potent political force.

    The yard, like all the surrounding yards, is plain, boring grass. But then she discovers a wildflower. Soon she’s got her own little wildflower preserve, carefully protected from Dad’s lawn mower. She adds a tree . . . a pond . . . birdhouses . . .she’s brought a meadow to Meadowview Street! Time brings more little meadows, as the neighbors see how beautiful and alive a yard can be. An ideal choice for classroom reading and sharing and for inspiring the creation of green corridors—safe havens for migrating birds and butterflies—at home. For fans of Peter Brown's The Curious Garden, Joanna Gaines's We Are the Gardeners, and Christie Matheson's Tap the Magic Tree.“This lovely picture book offers children a quiet approach to embracing the natural world.”—School Library Journal, starred review “Gentle persuasion for the naturalist in everyone.”—Kirkus Reviews

    Storming the Gates of Paradise, an anthology of her essential essays from the past ten years, takes the reader from the Pyrenees to the U.S.--Mexican border, from San Francisco to London, from open sky to the deepest mines, and from the antislavery struggles of two hundred years ago to today’s street protests. The nearly forty essays collected here comprise a unique guidebook to the American landscape after the millennium—not just the deserts, skies, gardens, and wilderness areas that have long made up Solnit’s subject matter, but the social landscape of democracy and repression, of borders, ruins, and protests. She ventures into territories as dark as prison and as sublime as a broad vista, revealing beauty in the harshest landscape and political struggle in the most apparently serene view. Her introduction sets the tone and the book’s overarching themes as she describes Thoreau, leaving the jail cell where he had been confined for refusing to pay war taxes and proceeding directly to his favorite huckleberry patch. In this way she links pleasure to politics, brilliantly demonstrating that the path to paradise has often run through prison.These startling insights on current affairs, politics, culture, and history, always expressed in Solnit’s pellucid and graceful prose, constantly revise our views of the otherwise ordinary and familiar. Illustrated throughout, Storming the Gates of Paradise represents recent developments in Solnit’s thinking and offers the reader a panoramic world view enriched by her characteristically provocative, inspiring, and hopeful observations.

    

    This is because almost 70 percent of Earth's surface is covered with water. Earth is the only planet with liquid water --- and therefore the only planet that can support life. All water is connected. Every raindrop, lake, underground river and glacier is part of a single global well. Water has the power to change everything --- a single splash can sprout a seed, quench a thirst, provide a habitat, generate energy and sustain life. How we treat the water in the well will affect every species on the planet, now and for years to come. One Well shows how every one of us has the power to conserve and protect our global well. One Well is part of CitizenKid: A collection of books that inform children about the world and inspire them to be better global citizens.

    Most of Earth’s oxygen is produced by phytoplankton in the sea. These humble, one-celled organisms, rather than the spectacular rain forests, are the true lungs of the planet.• Climate control. Our climate is regulated by the ocean’s currents, winds, and water-cycle activity.Sea Sick is the first book to examine the current state of the world’s oceans — the great unexamined ecological crisis of the planet — and the fact that we are altering everything about them; temperature, salinity, acidity, ice cover, volume, circulation, and, of course, the life within them.Alanna Mitchell joins the crews of leading scientists in nine of the global ocean’s hotspots to see firsthand what is really happening around the world. Whether it’s the impact of coral reef bleaching, the puzzle of the oxygen-less dead zones such as the one in the Gulf of Mexico, or the shocking implications of the changing Ph balance of the sea, Mitchell explains the science behind the story to create an engaging, accessible yet authoritative account.From the Hardcover edition.

    Environmental journalist Mark Harris examines this new green burial underground, leading you into natural cemeteries and domestic graveyards, taking you aboard boats from which ashes and memorial "reef balls" are cast into the sea. He follows a family that conducts a home funeral, one that delivers a loved one to the crematory, and another that hires a carpenter to build a pine coffin.In the morbidly fascinating tradition of "Stiff, Grave Matters" details the embalming process and the environmental aftermath of the standard funeral. Harris also traces the history of burial in America, from frontier cemeteries to the billion-dollar business it is today, reporting on real families who opted for more simple, natural returns.For readers who want to follow the examples of these families and, literally, give back from the grave, appendices detail everything you need to know, from exact costs and laws to natural burial providers and their contact information.

    Book by Stewart, Rob

    It's the most miraculous substance on earth, responsible for our food, our weather, our water, and our ability to hear. In this exuberant book, gifted science writer Gabrielle Walker peels back the layers of our atmosphere with the stories of the people who uncovered its secrets: - A flamboyant Renaissance Italian discovers how heavy our air really is: The air filling Carnegie Hall, for example, weighs seventy thousand pounds. - A one-eyed barnstorming pilot finds a set of winds that constantly blow five miles above our heads. - An impoverished American farmer figures out why hurricanes move in a circle by carving equations with his pitchfork on a barn door. - A well-meaning inventor nearly destroys the ozone layer. - A reclusive mathematical genius predicts, thirty years before he's proved right, that the sky contains a layer of floating metal fed by the glowing tails of shooting stars.

    The biological world under our toes is often unexplored and unappreciated, yet it teems with life. In one square meter of earth, there lives trillions of bacteria, millions of nematodes, hundreds of thousands of mites, thousands of insects and worms, and hundreds of snails and slugs. But because of their location and size, many of these creatures are as unfamiliar and bizarre to us as anything found at the bottom of the ocean.Lavishly illustrated with nearly three hundred color illustrations and masterfully-rendered black and white drawings throughout, Life in the Soil invites naturalists and gardeners alike to dig in and discover the diverse community of creatures living in the dirt below us.  Biologist and acclaimed natural history artist James B. Nardi begins with an introduction to soil ecosystems, revealing the unseen labors of underground organisms maintaining the rich fertility of the earth as they recycle nutrients between the living and mineral worlds. He then introduces readers to a dazzling array of creatures: wolf spiders with glowing red eyes, snails with 120 rows of teeth, and 10,000-year-old fungi, among others. Organized by taxon, Life in the Soil covers everything from slime molds and roundworms to woodlice and dung beetles, as well as vertebrates from salamanders to shrews. The book ultimately explores the crucial role of soil ecosystems in conserving the worlds above and below ground.A unique and illustrative introduction to the many unheralded creatures that inhabit our soils and shape our environment aboveground, Life in the Soil will inform and enrich the naturalist in all of us.

    Is Earth Warming? 2. Butterflies, Glaciers, and Hurricanes 3. Ice Ages and Beyond 4. In the Greenhouse 5. A Tale of Three Planets 6. Global Recycling 7. The Human Factor 8. Computing the Future 9. Impacts of Climate Change 10. Energy and Climate 11. EnergyResources and Alternatives 12. Sustainable Futures?

    But very few people know anything about how they live and their habits. Around 6,000 of these animals die every year; they are among the world's most endangered species! This book reveals the plain truth, and the tragedy of what is happening in the jungles of Borneo and Sumatra becomes apparent to all. The breathtaking and moving photographs cannot fail to trigger a strong emotional reaction on the part of the reader. "

    For the first time in human history, he observes, “more” is no longer synonymous with “better”—indeed, for many of us, they have become almost opposites. McKibben puts forward a new way to think about the things we buy, the food we eat, the energy we use, and the money that pays for it all. Our purchases, he says, need not be at odds with the things we truly value.McKibben’s animating idea is that we need to move beyond “growth” as the paramount economic ideal and pursue prosperity in a more local direction, with cities, suburbs, and regions producing more of their own food, generating more of their own energy, and even creating more of their own culture and entertainment. He shows this concept blossoming around the world with striking results, from the burgeoning economies of India and China to the more mature societies of Europe and New England. For those who worry about environmental threats, he offers a route out of the worst of those problems; for those who wonder if there isn’t something more to life than buying, he provides the insight to think about one’s life as an individual and as a member of a larger community.McKibben offers a realistic, if challenging, scenario for a hopeful future. As he so eloquently shows, the more we nurture the essential humanity of our economy, the more we will recapture our own.

    It challenges existing ideas about the scope and potential of sustainability issues in fashion and textiles, and sets out a more pluralistic, engaging and forward-looking picture, drawing on ideas of systems thinking, human needs, local products, slow fashion and participatory design, as well as knowledge of materials. The book not only defines the field, it also challenges it, and uses design ideas to help shape more sustainable products and promote social change. Arranged in two sections, the first four chapters represent key stages of the lifecycle: material cultivation/extraction, production, use and disposal. The remaining four chapters explore design approaches for altering the scale and nature of consumption, including service design, localism, speed and user involvement. While each of these chapters is complete in and of itself, their real value comes from what they represent together: innovative ways of thinking about textiles and garments based on sustainability values and an interconnected approach to design.

    Ester Hernandez’s 1976 etching Libertad/Liberty depicts a female artist chiseling away at the Statue of Liberty, freeing from within it a regal Mayan woman and, in the process, creating a culturally composite Lady Liberty descended from indigenous and mixed bloodlines. In her painting Coyolxauhqui Last Seen in East Oakland (1993), Irene Perez reimagines as whole the body of the Aztec warrior goddess dismembered in myth. These pieces are part of the dynamic body of work presented in this pioneering, lavishly illustrated study, the first book primarily focused on Chicana visual arts.Creating an invaluable archive, Laura E. Pérez examines the work of more than forty Chicana artists across a variety of media including painting, printmaking, sculpture, performance, photography, film and video, comics, sound recording, interactive CD-ROM, altars and other installation forms, and fiction, poetry, and plays. While key works from the 1960s and 1970s are discussed, most of the pieces considered were produced between 1985 and 2001. Providing a rich interpretive framework, Pérez describes how Chicana artists invoke a culturally hybrid spirituality to challenge racism, bigotry, patriarchy, and homophobia. They make use of, and often radically rework, pre-Columbian Mesoamerican and other non-Western notions of art and art-making, and they struggle to create liberating versions of familiar iconography such as the Virgin of Guadalupe and the Sacred Heart. Filled with representations of spirituality and allusions to non-Western visual and cultural traditions, the work of these Chicana artists is a vital contribution to a more inclusive canon of American arts.

    A powerful visual tool building on Joanna Macy’s book Coming Back to Life, this valuable resource is a light in the political darkness of our time. The lively, personal presentation of Joanna’s work will appeal to workshop facilitators and participants alike, as well as anyone with an interest in personal transformation.Joanna Macy is an eco-philosopher, scholar, teacher, activist, and the author of seven previous books.

    The chapters forming the bulk of this report describe scientists assessment of the state-of-knowledge in their respective fields. The report will be highly relevant as Governments and industry consider their options for moving forward together to address the challenge of climate change. (Includes CD-ROM)

    Now learn to identify them. This famous field guide, written by Don Mammoser with Stan Tekiela, features 200 of Colorado's wildflowers organized by color. (When you see a purple flower, simply turn to the purple section of the book.) Full-page photographs correspond with full-page species details, presenting the information that's critical to accurate identification in an easy-to-read format. Naturalist notes and gee-whiz facts further enhance your knowledge, so wildflower identification has never been easier!

    Her intuitive knowledge of poetic form (line breaks, enjambment, repetition, punctuation) and her strong poetic voice channel some of the genre’s greats while remaining distinctive. From the prayer-like musicality of “All Through the Night,” to the visually dynamic “Oceanside,” to the theatrical “Bird Woman, Duck Hunting,” these poems exhibit a visceral creativity that establishes the author as a major new voice in the field.

    This compelling work paints an unforgettable portrait not only of life on the inside?, but of our views of the natural world and our place in it.

    Daring to step beyond the rhetoric of panic and despair, The Geography of Hope points to the bright light at the end of this very dark tunnel.With a mix of front-line reporting, analysis and passionate argument, Chris Turner pieces together the glimmers of optimism amid the gloom and the solutions already at work around the world, from Canada’s largest wind farm to Asia’s greenest building and Europe’s most eco-friendly communities. But The Geography of Hope goes far beyond mere technology. Turner seeks out the next generation of political, economic, social and spiritual institutions that could provide the global foundations for a sustainable future–from the green hills of northern Thailand to the parliament houses of Scandinavia, from the villages of southern India, where microcredit finance has remade the social fabric, to America’s most forward-thinking think tanks.In this compelling first-person exploration, punctuated by the wonder and angst of a writer discovering the world’s beacons of possibility, Chris Turner pieces together a dazzling map of the disparate landmarks in a geography of hope.While most of the world has been spinning in stagnant circles of recrimination and debate on the subject of climate change, paralyzed by visions of apocalypse both natural (if nothing of our way of life changes) and economic (if too much does), Denmark has simply marched off with steadfast resolve into the sustainable future, reaching the zenith of its pioneering trek on the island of Samsø. And so if there’s an encircled star on this patchwork map indicating hope’s modest capital, then it should be properly placed on this island. Perhaps, for the sake of precision, at the geographic centre of Jørgen Tranberg’s dairy farm.There are, I’m sure, any number of images called to mind by talk of ecological revolution and renewable energy and sustainable living, but I’m pretty certain they don’t generally include a hearty fiftysomething Dane in rubber boots spotted with mud and cow shit. Which is why Samsø’s transformation is not just revolutionary but inspiring, not just a huge change but a tantalizingly attainable one. And it was a change that seemed at its most workaday–near-effortless, no more remarkable than the cool October wind gusting across the island–down on Tranberg’s farm.—from The Geography of Hope

    This beautifully illustrated field guide features over 400 species either common or particularly notable in the Lone Star state. Descriptions of each bird, as well as the illustrations and range maps, help you identify birds and understand their habits. A checklist helps you keep a list of your birding accomplishments.

    Here, she helps you learn to do that too.

    Wherever there is greenery, photosynthesis isworking to make oxygen, release energy, and create living matter from the raw material of sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide. Without photosynthesis, there would be an empty world, an empty sky, and a sun that does nothing more than warm the rocks and reflect off the sea. With photosynthesis, we have a living world with three billion years of sunlight-fed history to relish.Eating the Sun is a bottom-up account of our planet, a celebration of how the smallest things, enzymes and pigments, influence the largest things­­—the oceans, the rainforests, and the fossil fuel economy. From the physics, chemistry, and cellular biology that make photosynthesis possible, to the quirky and competitive scientists who first discovered the beautifully honed mechanisms of photosynthesis, to the modern energy crisis we face today, Oliver Morton offers a complete biography of the earth through the lens of this mundane and most important of processes.More than this, Eating the Sun is a call to arms. Only by understanding photosynthesis and the flows of energy it causes can we hope to understand the depth and subtlety of the current crisis in the planet's climate. What's more, nature's greatest energy technology may yet inspire the breakthroughs we need to flourish without such climatic chaos in the century to come.Entertaining, thought-provoking, and deeply illuminating, Eating the Sun reveals that photosynthesis is not only the key to humanity's history; it is also vital to confronting and understanding contemporary realities like climate change and the global food shortage. This book will give you a new and perhaps troubling way of seeing the world, but it also explains how we can change our situation—for the better or the worse.

    Written by the acclaimed author of High Tide, this highly relevant and compelling book uses accessible journalistic prose to distill what environmental scientists portend about the consequences of human pollution for the next hundred years.In 2001, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a landmark report projecting average global surface temperatures to rise between 1.4 degrees and 5.8 degrees Celsius (roughly 2 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of this century. Based on this forecast, author Mark Lynas outlines what to expect from a warming world, degree by degree. At 1 degree Celsius, most coral reefs and many mountain glaciers will be lost. A 3-degree rise would spell the collapse of the Amazon rainforest, disappearance of Greenland's ice sheet, and the creation of deserts across the Midwestern United States and southern Africa. A 6-degree increase would eliminate most life on Earth, including much of humanity.Based on authoritative scientific articles, the latest computer models, and information about past warm events in Earth history, Six Degrees promises to be an eye-opening warning that humanity will ignore at its peril.

    Judith Larner Lowry, winner of the prestigious John Burroughs award, here builds on themes from her best-selling Gardening with a Wild Heart, which introduced restoration gardening as a new way of thinking about land and people. Drawing on her experiences in her own garden, Lowry offers guidance on how to plan a garden with birds, plants, and insects in mind; how to shape it with trees and shrubs, paths and trails, ponds, and other features; and how to cultivate, maintain, and harvest seeds and food from a diverse array of native annuals and perennials. Working in passionate collaboration with the scrub jays, quail, ants, and deer who visit her garden, and inspired by other gardeners, including some of the women pioneers of native plant horticulture, Lowry shares the delights of creating site-specific, ever-changing gardens that can help us better understand our place in the natural world.

    Corporatism and globalization are two of the obvious villains here, but what part does human nature play in the problem? Since its inception in 1982, Orion magazine has been a forum for looking beyond the effects of ecological crises to their root causes in human culture. Less an anthology than a vision statement, this timely collection challenges the division of human society from the natural world that has often characterized traditional environmentalism. Edited and introduced by Barry Lopez, The Future of Nature encompasses such topics as local economies, the social dynamics of activism, America’s incarceration society, naturalism in higher education, developing nations, spiritual ecology, the military-industrial landscape, and the persistent tyranny of wilderness designation. Featuring the fine writing and insights for which Orion is famous, this book is required reading for anyone interested in a livable future for the planet.

    Science serves as an important activity for uncovering the processes and operations of nature, but it is also immersed in a social context where ideology influences the questions we ask and how we approach the material world. Biology Under the Influence: Dialectical Essays on the Coevolution of Nature and Society breaks from the confirms of determinism, offering a dialectical analysis for comprehending a dynamic social and natural world.In Biology Under the Influence, Richard Lewontin and Richard Levins provide a devastating critique of genetic determinism and reductionism within science while exploring a broad range of issues including the nature of science, biology, evolution, the environment, pubic health, and dialectics, They dismantle the ideology that attempts to naturalize social inequalities, unveil the alienation of science and nature, and illustrate how a dialectical position serves as a basis for grappling with historical developments and a world characterized by change. Biology Under the Influence brings together the illuminating essays of two prominent scientists who work to demystify and empower the public's understanding of science and nature.

    With his unique perspective and far-reaching vision, Berry poses complex questions about humankind and our relationship to the land and offers simple but profound solutions. Berry's essays, novels, and poems give voice to a provocative but consistent philosophy, one that extends far beyond its agrarian core to include elements of sociology, the natural sciences, politics, religion, philosophy, linguistics, agriculture, and other seemingly incompatible fields of study. Wendell Berry: Life and Work examines this wise and original thinker, appraising his written work and exploring his influence as an activist and artist. Jason Peters has assembled a broad variety of writers including Hayden Carruth, Sven Birkerts, Barbara Kingsolver, Stanley Hauerwas, Donald Hall, Ed McClanahan, Bill McKibben, Scott Russell Sanders, Norman Wirzba, Wes Jackson, and Eric T. Freyfogle. Each contributor examines an aspect of Berry's varied yet cohesive body of work. Also included are highly personal glimpses of Wendell Berry: his career, academic influence, and unconventional lifestyle. These deft sketches of Berry show the purity of his agrarian lifestyle and demonstrate that there is nothing simple about the life to which he has devoted himself. He embraces a life that sustains him not by easy purchase and haste but by physical labor and patience, not by mindless acquiescence to a centralized economy but by careful attention to local ways and wisdom. Wendell Berry: Life and Work combines biographical sketches, personal accounts, literary criticism, and social commentary. Together, the contributors illuminate Berry as he is: a complex man of place and community with an astonishing depth of domestic, intellectual, filial, and fraternal attributes. The result is a rich portrait of one of America's most profound and honest thinkers.

    This comprehensive guide covers everything you need to know to grow and maintain a thriving lawn using organic gardening methods. With expert advice on planting the best grass varieties, nourishing the soil, watering, fighting weeds, and sustainable maintenance, Paul Tukey helps you create a luscious and inviting lawn that is pesticide-free and safe for your children and pets.

    From this deep reservoir of writing--as well as from previously published work by writers including Joy Harjo, Denise Chávez, Diane Ackerman, Naomi Shihab Nye, Leslie Marmon Silko, Gloria Anzaldúa, Terry Tempest Williams, and Barbara Kingsolver--the editors of this book have drawn nearly a hundred pieces that witness both to the ever-changing, ever-mysterious life of the natural world and to the vivid, creative, evolving lives of women interacting with it. Through prose, poetry, creative nonfiction, and memoir, the women in this anthology explore both the outer landscape of the Southwest and their own inner landscapes as women living on the land--the congruence of where they are and who they are. The editors have grouped the writings around eight evocative themes: * The way we live on the land * Our journeys through the land * Nature in cities * Nature at risk * Nature that sustains us * Our memories of the land * Our kinship with the animal world * What we leave on the land when we are gone From the Gulf Coast of Texas to the Pacific Coast of California, and from the southern borderlands to the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains, these intimate portraits of women's lives on the land powerfully demonstrate that nature writing is no longer the exclusive domain of men, that women bring unique and transformative perspectives to this genre.

    Seeing an opportunity to play upon fears from market demand, chemical companies declared war on the vile, profitsucking, output-wreaking, arch-nemesis of the average American farmer - bugs. With precision, pesticide manufacturers delivered a 'shock and awe' media campaign, that can only be compared to the current blitzkrieg from today's pharmaceutical companies. Bugs were the threat to the American dream - and there was a cure available to every farmer in spray, granule, dust, or systemic form that could be applied to your crops. Will Allen's War on Bugs reveals how advertisers, editors, scientists, large scale farmers, government agencies, and even Dr. Seuss, colluded to convince farmers to use deadly chemicals, hormones, and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in an effort to pad their wallets and control the American farm enterprise. Utilizing dozens of original advertisements and promotions to illustrate the story, Allen details how consumers and activists have struggled against toxic food. The War on Bugs shouts that the time to stop poisoning our food, water, air, and ourselves is now!

    In his most autobiographical writing to date, these essays employ fire as a metaphor for the crucial moment when deeply held viewpoints yield to new experiences, and our spirits and minds broaden and mature. Snyder here writes and riffs on a wide range of topics, from explorations of southwestern European Paleolithic cave art to his own personal poetic history with haiku; from reminiscences of youthful West Coast logging and trail crew days to talks given in Paris and Tokyo on art and archetypes. He honors poets of his generation, like Philip Whalen and Allen Ginsberg, and meditates on art, labor, and the making of families, houses, and homesteads.This is a work that requires us to make friends with impermanence and error — to make "wildfire" a partner — and to keep burning the hazardous, the excess, and even one's own dreams and attainments, over and over again. The final impression is holistic: We perceive not a collection of essays, but a cohesive presentation of Snyder's life and work expressed in his characteristically straightforward prose.

    But in the early twentieth century, an exotic plague swept through the chestnut forests with the force of a wildfire. Within forty years, the blight had killed close to four billion trees and left the species teetering on the brink of extinction. It was one of the worst ecological blows to North America since the Ice Age—and one most experts considered beyond repair. In American Chestnut, Susan Freinkel tells the dramatic story of the stubborn optimists who refused to let this cultural icon go. In a compelling weave of history, science, and personal observation, she relates their quest to save the tree through methods that ranged from classical plant breeding to cutting-edge gene technology. But the heart of her story is the cast of unconventional characters who have fought for the tree for a century, undeterred by setbacks or skeptics, and fueled by their dreams of restored forests and their powerful affinity for a fellow species.

    WWF Global 200 identifies the world’s most critical and endangered natural sites. Magnificent photographs, presented in large-scale format, depict a diverse range of global ecoregions, conveying the unique characteristics of each region and the threats to each, and demonstrating the need for us to take action now to preserve these irreplaceable natural resources.Vibrant full-color photographs transport the reader to the East African Acacia savannas which are home to an exceptional diversity of large land mammals and birds threatened by poaching, agriculture, land use conflicts with pastoralists, and uncontrolled trophy hunting. The reader will visit the Patagonian Steppe, one of the largest single habitats in the world, and home to a number of threatened and endangered endemic species, and learn the sobering reality of this largely unprotected region. From the forest of Borneo to the Hawaiian forests and marine ecoregion, from the Siberian taiga to the Antarctic Peninsula and the Weddell Sea, this volume demonstrates the beauty, fragility, and inestimable significance of ecoregions around the world. Conservationists, nature lovers, fine-photography aficionados, and armchair travelers alike will appreciate the superb photography and urgent message of this call to action.

    This vast region is a study in contrasts: a hub of industry that's the resting spot for billions of migrating birds. 40 million residents, immense untamed forests. 95 percent of North America's fresh water and a dumping ground for poisonous wastes. The Great Lakes is an authoritative, accessible look at an ecosystem in eternal flux. Written by one of North America's most acclaimed science and nature writers, the book explores the area's geological formation and its role in human history; its diverse plant, bird, and animal species; and its significant physical, climatic, and environmental features. This captivating tribute to the Great Lakes region is also an essential guide to the challenge of preserving the natural world.

    Not many people know much about us. That′s why I want to share some things with you. Things about us. About our land. Things you may not have heard before.′In this beautiful photographic book for young children, Bob Randall explains, in a simple but effective way, the Anangu people′s relationship to all that is around them, and why we must learn to care for the earth, its plants and its creatures.Based on the award-winning documentary KANYINI, NYUNTU NINTI, meaning ′what you should know′, teaches us about the people who are at the heart of our country.Children′s Book Council Notable Book 2009

    On one page is a specific part of the world as it was 5, 20, 50 or even 100 years ago. On the facing page is the same place as it looks today. Each stark visual comparison tells a compelling story -- a melting glacier, an expanding desert, an encroaching cityscape, a natural disaster.Earth Then and Now reminds us that nothing is without a cost. Highly topical and thought provoking chapters in this book include:Environmental change Bearing witness to the effects of global warmingIndustrialization Revealing the hidden costs of "progress"Urbanization Showing the effects of our spreading citiesNatural disasters Reminding us of the power of natureWar Using comparisons to show the impact of armed conflictTravel and tourism Illustrating the predatory nature of development. Concise captions explain the facts and then allow the reader to draw personal conclusions. Anyone concerned about the environment will enjoy and appreciate Earth Then and Now.

    Vaclav Smil uses fundamental unifying metrics (most notably for power density and energy intensity) to provide an integrated framework for analyzing all segments of energetics (the study of energy flows and their transformations). The book explores not only planetary energetics (such as solar radiation and geomorphic processes) and bioenergetics (photosynthesis, for example) but also human energetics (such as metabolism and thermoregulation), tracing them from hunter-gatherer and agricultural societies through modern-day industrial civilization. Included are chapters on heterotrophic conversions, traditional agriculture, preindustrial complexification, fossil fuels, fossil-fueled civilization, the energetics of food, and the implications of energetics for the environment. The book concludes with an examination of general patterns, trends, and socioeconomic considerations of energy use today, looking at correlations between energy and value, energy and the economy, energy and quality of life, and energy futures. Throughout the book, Smil chooses to emphasize the complexities and peculiarities of the real world, and the counterintuitive outcomes of many of its processes, over abstract models. Energy in Nature and Society provides a unique, comprehensive, single-volume analysis and reference source on all important energy matters, from natural to industrial energy flows, from fuels to food, from the Earth's formation to possible energy futures, and can serve as a text for courses in energy studies, global ecology, earth systems science, biology, and chemistry.

    They appear in the ancient Irish brehon laws and early nature poetry for which Ireland is famous. As with its companion 'Irish Trees', this book is illustrated with specially commissioned watercolours by Grania Langrishe.

    Livingston is Canada’s Rachel Carson. His cogent, brilliant writing on the effects of man on nature has defined an entire generation of environmentalists and is required reading for anyone who wants to understand the underpinnings of today’s issues. Radical when first published in the early 1970s and 1980s, Livingston’s arguments that we must find new approaches to our perception of nature and our place within it or face the irreversibility of our destruction of nature now reads prophetically. The Reader brings two of Livingston’s poetic and provocative books back into print for a new generation of readers and features an appreciation by Graeme Gibson.

    What kind of economy would prevent Moab from becoming yet another ghost town? For more than two decades, environmentalists in southeast Utah have had a simple answer to this question: replace extractive industries—mining, timber, and cattle—with an economy catering to “green” tourists with hotels, restaurants, and bars. They feel that if these lands can be spared further degradation by huge industries, the West could begin to thrive on something cleaner and more lucrative. But Stiles sees a downside to this seemingly idyllic vision. Bringing insight based on decades of residence in Moab, he makes a provocative and compelling argument that the economy most environmentalists hail as the solution to the woes of the rural West is in fact creating an unprecedented impact of its own. In recent years, Moab and other rural towns across the West have seen a massive influx of urbanites fleeing crowded cities in search of a simpler life. Yet Stiles also observes that these transplants are often unwilling to accept the isolation and lack of services that characterize genuine rural life. Believing themselves to be liberal, sensitive, enlightened environmentalists, they nevertheless bring with them exactly the type of lifestyle and ecological impact that they sought to leave behind and, in the process, create a community that no longer serves the native inhabitants. With a blend of travelogue, local color, and geography, Stiles engages readers with folksy humor while defending the lifestyle of the “pre-cappuccino rural Westerners” and exposing the paradox that underlies the professed good intentions of liberal newcomers.

    Jung's work is taken further and linked with diverse disciplines and wisdom traditions, making scientific ideas accessible to nontechnical readers. Theory and experiential exercises are presented in a simple, imaginative manner, with diagrams and illustrations to strengthen lessons for readers.

    Not only will climate change potentially affect the multi-billion dollar energy strategies of countries worldwide, but it also could seriously affect many species, including our own. A fascinating introduction to the subject, this textbook provides a broad review of past, present and likely future climate change from the viewpoints of biology, ecology and human ecology. It will be of interest to a wide range of people, from students in the life sciences who need a brief overview of the basics of climate science, to atmospheric science, geography, and environmental science students who need to understand the biological and human ecological implications of climate change. It will also be a valuable reference for those involved in environmental monitoring, conservation, policy-making and policy lobbying.

    Discover the beauty and plant lore of the province in this extraordinary book: * More than 1000 colour photos * Over 700 primary species and over 300 secondary species of native and naturalized plants in 115 families * Clear descriptions to help identify plants * Habitat notes, range maps and similar species descriptions * Intriguing notes about edible plants, native and historical uses, and origins of plant names * Photo keys to plant types as well as plant families * Illustrated glossary.

    Will temperatures rise by 2�C or 8�C over the next hundred years? Will sea levels rise by 2 or 30 feet? The only way that we can accurately answer questions like these is by looking into the distant past, for a comparison with the world long before the rise of mankind.We may currently believe that atmospheric shifts, like global warming, result from our impact on the planet, but the earth's atmosphere has been dramatically shifting since its creation. This book reveals the crucial role that plants have played in determining atmospheric change - and hence the conditions on the planet we know today. Along the way a number of fascinating puzzles arise: Why did plants evolve leaves? When and how did forests once grow on Antarctica? How did prehistoric insects manage to grow so large? The answers show the extraordinary amount plants can tell us about the history of the planet -- something that has often been overlooked amongst the preoccuputations with dinosaur bones and animal fossils.David Beerling's surprising conclusions are teased out from various lines of scientific enquiry, with evidence being brought to bear from fossil plants and animals, computer models of the atmosphere, and experimental studies. Intimately bound up with the narrative describing the dynamic evolution of climate and life through Earth's history, we find Victorian fossil hunters, intrepid polar explorers and pioneering chemists, alongside wallowing hippos, belching volcanoes, and restless landmasses.

    I wrote my first book on this subject in German more than ten years ago, titled "School of Geomancy. However, since that time my knowledge of geomancy, coupled with my practical field work, has evolved and deepened to the extent that I was compelled to write a completely new book.'' Marko Pogacnik has written several books based on the results of his research into and practice of what he terms "geomancy." In this book, he presents the fundamental research and principles behind this new science of the spirit. As the author writes: ""Geomancy" is an ancient word denoting knowledge of the invisible and visible dimensions of the Earth and its landscapes. I see it as an essential complement to modern geography, which is interested exclusively in one level of reality, the material level of existence. To convey the idea that geomantic knowledge in a very specific way complements the material point of view of geography, I refer to geomancy as sacred geography. By sacred I mean that the task of geomancy in our present day is not simply to foster public interest in etheric, emotional and spiritual levels of places and landscapes, but also to promote a deeper, more loving, and more responsible relationship toward the Earth, the Cosmos, and all beings, visible and invisible. "This book is conceived not just as a theoretical introduction to the worlds of sacred geography, but primarily as a practical guide through different dimensions of places and landscapes. It includes more than 170 practical examples from different parts of the world, all of them presented as original drawings. Much of the text, drawings, and exercises are intended to describe and explain methods of pluri-dimensional perception, so that the reader will feel encouraged and supported to explore and develop her or his own experiences of the geomantic phenomena presented in the book."This is an essential text for understanding the vital work of sacred geometry called "geomancy.""

    Nor are they anticipating the dangerous adventure in store for them. They seem like normal kids. But are they? Claude has famous parents and sticks to the rules. Medea's got a scholarship to a fancy private school and can't get in trouble. How is it that they are thrown together, trying to outsmart Manhattan criminals? And why do they care so much about the weird Ms. Rattlebee? Find out what makes this unlikely pair begin to view the world differently, and to risk everything. Claude and Medea: The Hellburn Dogs is a riveting story that will make kids eager for more while offering them true heroes for today's world. This is a book that gives kids not only what they most want but also what they most need—protagonists who embody courage, compassion, and care.

    Written in graphic-novel format.

    Sebastian Copeland's photographs have captured both the incredible beauty of the continent and the devastation that climate changes have wreaked on it. His data, photographs, and conclusions — along with contributions from Will Steger, David De Rothschild, Stephen Schneider, Zac Goldsmith, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Leonardo DiCaprio — bring to readers with insight and urgency the momentous reality of the not so distant future with insight and urgency.

    With the rise of molecular biology came a growing popular awareness of species extinction. Carr championed endangered sea turtles, and his work reflects major shifts in the study of ecology and evolution. A gifted nature writer, his books on the natural history of sea turtles and their habitats in Florida, the Caribbean, and Africa entertained and educated a wide audience. Carr's conservation ethic grew from his field work as well as his friendships with the fishermen who supplied him with many of the stories he retold so engagingly. With Archie Carr as the focus, The Man Who Saved Sea Turtles explores the evolution of the naturalist tradition, biology, and conservation during the twentieth century.

    This may be the single thing each of us holds in common. And though the weather varies greatly from here to there, it is, ultimately, one weather that we share. Small talk everywhere has occasioned the popular distribution of the weather. Some say talking about the weather is talking about oneself. And with each passing day, the weather increasingly becomes ours, if not us. "Weather Reports You" is one beginning of a collective self-portrait." Over the past two years Roni Horn has been working with a small team in the south west of Iceland gathering personal testimonies from people talking about the weather. These "weather reports" include descriptions, reflections, memories and stories based on experiences of the weather that range from the matter-of-fact to the marvelous. The different nuances and usages of language suggest that the weather is not just a matter of meteorological conditions but is, in Horn's words, "a metaphor for the physical, metaphysical, political, social and moral energy of a person and a place."

    Wonderful full-color pictures give close-up views of the various wood grains, while the main section showcases more than 200 woods used in cabinetmaking, joinery, carpentry, turning, carving, and a host of specialist applications, and another 200 receive shorter listings. Every featured wood is illustrated and described in detail, with invaluable facts on its working properties, seasoning requirements, durability, and typical uses.

    This family-friendly, comprehensive guide to superior pet care features newly written text from an expert on a variety of topics, including feeding, housing, grooming, training, health care, and fun activities. Useful tip boxes in each chapter show every member of the household how to make the most out of owning a pet.

    This book presents the inspiring story of a woman who died defending the poor and God's creation.

    This series uses simple text and dramatic, full-color photos to take students inside nature's powerful and deadly storms. Each book explains one kind of storm- what it looks like, how it forms, the damage it can do, and how people can protect themselves from danger.

    It is an invitation to experience life firsthand again, as we did when we were children. In a culture where we have grown accustomed to accumulating knowledge from teachers and experts, it is rare to find a book that actually invites us to trust our own senses again. It is the authors’ intent to give back to the reader authority over his or her own experience and learning processes.Much of the book focuses on reviving the senses in order to open the mind and body to direct learning. The book imitates an actual Sensory Awareness class, involving the reader as a student, guiding him or her along a journey with and through the senses to a way of living that is in accordance with the natural functioning of the human organism in its environment.The range of explorations include a renewed connection to the support of the earth as a foundation for trust; the central role of gravity for our health and for finding orientation in life; a study of breathing that promotes health and vitality; and connecting and interacting with other people. A handbook to a more genuine and connected way of living, the work is also a beautifully crafted account of Sensory Awareness, showing these profound teachers at work with their students and with the reader.

    The author argues that these works locate fulfillment not in narrative fruition, but in grace understood both as a simplicity of formal means and a freedom from work, in particular that of self-concealment and self-presentation. Declining the twin pressures of self-actualization and self-denial defining modernity's call to make good on one's talents, the subjects of the "literature of uncounted experience" do nothing so heroic as renounce ambitions of self-expression; they simply set aside the fantasy of the all-responsible subject. The originality of Open Secrets is thus to imagine the non-instrumental without casting it as a heavy ethical burden. Non-appropriation emerges not as what is difficult to do but as the path of least resistance. The book offers a valuable counterpoint to recent anti-Enlightenment revaluations of passivity that have made non-mastery and non-appropriation the fundamental task of the ethical subject.

    Itprovides a comprehensive guide to the ways in which sociologistshave responded to the challenge of environmental issues as diverseas global warming, ozone depletion, biodiversity loss and marinepollution. It also covers sociological ideas such as risk, interpretations of nature, environmental realism, ecologicalmodernization and globalization. Environmentalism and greenpolitics are also introduced. Unlike many other texts in the field, the book takes a long-term view, locating environmental dilemmaswithin the context of social development and globalization.The Environment: A Sociological Introduction is unique inpresenting environmental issues at an introductory level thatassumes no specialist knowledge on the part of readers. The book iswritten in a remarkably clear and accessible style, and uses a richrange of empirical examples from across the globe to illustrate keydebates. A carefully assembled glossary and annotated furtherreading suggestions also help to bring ideas to life.The book will be a valuable resource for students in a range ofdisciplines, including sociology, geography and the environmentalsciences, but also for anyone who wants to get to grips withcontemporary environmental debates.

    It takes the reader on a journey through his discoveries, interspersed with anecdotes which illustrate how his mind worked.

    With contributions from an impressive group of Australian and New Zealand authors, the book is comprehensive in its examination of ecology from the perspective of Australian ecosystems andtheir future, and set a new standard in texts on marine ecology.The book begins with an examination of the fundamentals of marine ecology, then sets the Australian context by explaining the biogeographic patterns and processes of the continent. It then provides an overview of the major marine ecosystems, and finishes with the local through global changes totheir ecology. This information equips Australian and international students and researchers with a cutting-edge view of Australian systems. Of its nature, it will also identify the deficiencies in capacity and progress of Australian marine ecology and become a required text into the foreseeablefuture.

    Not just a "how to" but a "why to," the book begins with the story of dams in the American West—a story in which millions of acres of perfect farmland were flooded in order to irrigate the marginal land that—due to the same natural process that destroyed several ancient Native American civilizations—would turn the area into the Dust Bowl. Cleo Woelfle-Erskine and Laura Allen, both restoration activists and educators, demand a different approach for American watersheds and taxpayers. Through their own experiments with alternative water systems and thousands of hours of interviews with innovators from around the world, they create a comprehensive game plan for reusing household water, constructing miniature wetlands and improving our communities physical and political health. From people building protest villages atop dams in Thailand to activist entrepreneurs in Mexico and Africa, to Spanish squatter-gardeners, Native American restorationists and wetlands activists battling bureaucracy in Louisiana and California; To the Last Drop gives voice to the water warriors battling for a sane relationship to our most essential shared resource.

    They look to previously unexamined or underexamined aspects of literature's relationship to the environment, including swamps, internment camps, Asian American environments, the urbanized Northeast, and lynching sites. The authors relate environmental discourse to practice, including the teaching of green design in composition classes, the restoration of damaged landscapes, the persuasive strategies of environmental activists, the practice of urban architecture, and the impact of human technologies on nature.The essays also put ecocriticism into greater contact with the natural sciences, including elements of evolutionary biology, biological taxonomy, and geology. Engaging both ecocritical theory and practice, these authors more closely align ecocriticism with the physical environment, with the wide range of texts and cultural practices that concern it, and with the growing scholarly conversation that surrounds this concern.

    In Making Mountains, David Stradling shows the transformation of the Catskills landscape as a collaborative process, one in which local and urban hands, capital, and ideas have come together to reshape the mountains and the communities therein. This collaboration has had environmental, economic, and cultural consequences.Early on, the Catskills were an important source of natural resources. Later, when New York City needed to expand its water supply, engineers helped direct the city toward the Catskills, claiming that the mountains offered the purest and most cost-effective waters. By the 1960s, New York had created the great reservoir and aqueduct system in the mountains that now supplies the city with 90 percent of its water.The Catskills also served as a critical space in which the nation's ideas about nature evolved. Stradling describes the great influence writers and artists had upon urban residents - especially the painters of the Hudson River School, whose ideal landscapes created expectations about how rural America should appear. By the mid-1800s, urban residents had turned the Catskills into an important vacation ground, and by the late 1800s, the Catskills had become one of the premiere resort regions in the nation.In the mid-twentieth century, the older Catskill resort region was in steep decline, but the Jewish "Borscht Belt" in the southern Catskills was thriving. The automobile revitalized mountain tourism and residence, and increased the threat of suburbanization of the historic landscape. Throughout each of these significant incarnations, urban and rural residents worked in a rough collaboration, though not without conflict, to reshape the mountains and American ideas about rural landscapes and nature.

    Nature’s great migrations have captivated countless spectators, none more so than premier ecologist David S. Wilcove. In No Way Home, his awe is palpable—as are the growing threats to migratory animals.   We may be witnessing a dying phenomenon among many species. Migration has always been arduous, but today’s travelers face unprecedented dangers. Skyscrapers and cell towers lure birds and bats to untimely deaths, fences and farms block herds of antelope, salmon are caught en route between ocean and river, breeding and wintering grounds are paved over or plowed, and global warming disrupts the synchronized schedules of predators and prey. The result is a dramatic decline in the number of migrants.   Wilcove guides us on their treacherous journeys, describing the barriers to migration and exploring what compels animals to keep on trekking. He also brings to life the adventures of scientists who study migrants. Often as bold as their subjects, researchers speed wildly along deserted roads to track birds soaring overhead, explore glaciers in search of frozen locusts, and outfit dragonflies with transmitters weighing less than one one-hundredth of an ounce. Scientific discoveries and advanced technologies are helping us to understand migrations better, but alone, they won’t stop sea turtles and songbirds from going the way of the bison or passenger pigeon. What’s required is the commitment and cooperation of the far-flung countries migrants cross—long before extinction is a threat. As Wilcove writes, “protecting the abundance of migration is key to protecting the glory of migration.” No Way Home offers powerful inspiration to preserve those glorious journeys.

    By the end of the book, readers are left to form their own conclusions as to whether or how the human race is capable of taking the steps necessary to solve this global crisis before it's too late. Blue Planet Run is two books in one: First, it is about an extraordinary 15,000-mile relay race - the longest relay race in human history - in which 20 athletes spent 95 days running around the globe to spread awareness of the world's water crisis. Secondly, it is a showcase of powerful, inspiring, disturbing and hopeful images captured by leading photojournalists around the world who documented the human face of the crisis and its possible solutions. The result of these two parallel projects is the book you hold in your hands. One hundred percent of the royalties from this book will be used to provide clean water to people around the world who desperately need it.

    Exceptional Women Environmentalists profiles ten advocates for the earth-passionate women who work tirelessly on behalf of those who have no voice. From Jane Goodall, famed primate researcher and advocate, to -Amazonian Legend- Sharon Beder, activist for the Brazilian rainforest and its people, Exceptional Women Environmentalists shows how ordinary people can do extraordinary things.

    The hardcover book, A is for Acadia, features vibrant color photographs by Johnson that highlight the island's natural beauty. It includes, among others, images of harbor seals and barred owls as well as landscapes such as Sand Beach and Bass Harbor. Grierson's text accompanies each image. Overall, the book is slightly more sophisticated than many ABC books with roughly 140 words per image. While it is aimed at young children, it is fun and informative and should appeal to residents and visitors of any age. The letter topics range from Acadia, to lighthouse, to nuthatch, to zoophtye.

    Meanwhile, ideas about collaboration and learning are converging around the idea of adaptive co-management. This book provides a comprehensive synthesis of the core concepts, strategies, and tools in this emerging field, informed by a diverse group of researchers and practitioners with over two decades of experience. It also offers a diverse set of case studies that reveal the challenges and implications of adaptive co-management thinking.

    Yet now, for the first time, more people are living in urban rather than rural areas, bringing about an estrangement. This book, by acclaimed author Jules Pretty, is fundamentally about our relationship with nature, animals and places. A series of interlinked essays leads readers on a voyage that weaves through the themes of connection and estrangement between humans and nature. The journey shows how our modern lifestyles and economies would need six or eight Earths if the entire world s population adopted our profligate ways. Pretty shows that we are rendering our own world inhospitable and so risk losing what it means to be human: unless we make substantial changes, Gaia threatens to become Grendel. Ultimately, however, the book offers glimpses of an optimistic future for humanity, in the very face of climate change and pending global environmental catastrophe."

    Bruce Franklin shows how menhaden have shaped America’s national—and natural—history, and why reckless overfishing now threatens their place in both. Since Native Americans began using menhaden as fertilizer, this amazing fish has greased the wheels of U.S. agriculture and industry. By the mid-1870s, menhaden had replaced whales as a principal source of industrial lubricant, with hundreds of ships and dozens of factories along the eastern seaboard working feverishly to produce fish oil. Since the Civil War, menhaden have provided the largest catch of any American fishery. Today, one company—Omega Protein—has a monopoly on the menhaden “reduction industry.” Every year it sweeps billions of fish from the sea, grinds them up, and turns them into animal feed, fertilizer, and oil used in everything from linoleum to health-food supplements. The massive harvest wouldn’t be such a problem if menhaden were only good for making lipstick and soap. But they are crucial to the diet of bigger fish and they filter the waters of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, playing an essential dual role in marine ecology perhaps unmatched anywhere on the planet. As their numbers have plummeted, fish and birds dependent on them have been decimatedand toxic algae have begun to choke our bays and seas. In Franklin’s vibrant prose, the decline of a once ubiquitous fish becomes an adventure story, an exploration of the U.S. political economy, a groundbreaking history of America’s emerging ecological consciousness, and an inspiring vision of a growing alliance between environmentalists and recreational anglers.

    As a result, offshore prospects in the Gulf of Mexico took on new strategic value. Shell Oil Company pioneered many of the early moves offshore and continues to lead the way into “deepwater.” Tyler Priest’s study is the first time the modern history of Shell Oil has been told in any detail. Drawing on interviews with Shell retirees and many other sources, Priest relates how the imagination, talent, and hard work of personnel at all levels shaped the evolution of the company. The narrative also covers important aspects of Shell Oil’s corporate evolution, but the company’s pioneering steps into the deepwater fields of the Gulf of Mexico are its signature achievement. Priest’s study demonstrates that engineers did not suddenly create methods for finding and producing oil and gas from astounding water depths. Rather, they built on a half-century of accumulated knowledge and improvements to technical systems. Shell Oil’s story is unique, but it also illuminates the modern history of the petroleum industry. As Priest demonstrates, this company’s experiences offer a starting point for examining the understudied topics of strategic decision-making, scientific research, management of technology, and corporate organization and culture within modern oil companies, as well as how these activities applied to offshore development.   “. . . tells a dramatic story of imaginative businessmen and engineers who propelled Shell forward in the search for ways to locate and recover oil from the depths of the sea.”—Southwestern Historical Quarterly “This book’s narrative is sustained throughout by easily understood explanations of the technical details of drilling and production.”—Journal of Southern History

    Revolutionary natural-light filter photography is combined with a marine biologist's expert understanding of reef-life behaviours in this visual manifesto of a world at the sharpest edge of climate change.

    Also featured are individual specimens of great beauty such as the coast redwood of California, Japanese cherry blossom and the frangipani of Oceania. The informative text by Dr. Mike Wilcox describes the tree species of each continent and the roles they play in people's lives, including the myths and legends surrounding specific trees, and the economies built around them. With over 120 photographs from Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, South America and Oceania, accompanied by extended captions detailing the species and where it was photographed, Trees of the World is both a celebration of trees and a call for their continued conservation.

    Its tremendous history is now in danger of profound, catastrophic disruption. In "Terra," a brilliant synthesis of evolutionary biology, paleontology, and modern environmental science, Michael Novacek shows how all three can help us understand and prevent what he (and others) call today's "mass extinction event."  Humanity's use of land, our consumption, the pollution we create, and our contributions to global warming are causing this crisis. True, the fossil record of hundreds of millions of years reveals that wild and bounteous nature has always evolved not quietly but thunderously, as species arise, flourish, die off, and are replaced by new species. We learn from paleontology and archaeology that for 50,000 years, human hunting, mining, and agriculture have changed many localities, sometimes irrevocably. But today, Novacek insists, our behavior endangers the entire global ecosystem. And if we disregard--through ignorance, antipathy, or apathy--the theory of evolution that developed with our modern understanding of the Earth's past, we not only impede enlightenment but threaten any practical strategy for our own survival.  The evolutionary future of the entire living planet depends on our understanding this.

    This cutting-edge guide discusses topics that are imperative for sustaining a thriving family of koi, including how to create and maintain the best water quality, how different filtration systems work, the biology of koi and how to keep them in good health, and detailed information on feeding, buying, and showing. It also provides important details on the breeding of koi, a serious and rewarding pastime for many aquarists, and explains how koi are bred commercially as well as getting started at home. The fact-filled text is complemented by vivid, brand new photographs that detail the seemingly endless color variations of koi. Whether you are a hobbyist looking to show or breed koi in your pond, or you simply want to admire these fishes, The Essential Book of Koi is an excellent guide to these wildly popular fishes that enhance the visual enjoyment of both indoor and outdoor ponds.

    In addition to learning the basics—including how to grow common plants from seed—young gardeners will be encouraged to discover nature’s cycles, become ecologically aware, and follow their inborn curiosity as they explore. It doesn’t matter whether kids have access to a large green yard or only to a windowsill planter: here are scores of fun projects that can awaken their sense of wonder about the natural world while nourishing cognitive functioning and self-confidence. Youngsters will love building a root-view garden from a milk container, making chlorophyll prints, constructing a hummingbird feeder, and more.

    By connecting the cosmic dots, you can figure out where you came from and the destiny you chose for this life. Fulfilling your contract is just a matter of knowing where to look.Praise: "Warm, funny, and upbeat, Cosmic Karma makes the astrology chart understandable to anyone interested in questions of spiritual purpose. This is a valuable and accessible book, with much helpful counsel in its cheerful pages."--The Mountain Astrologer"Incredibly accurate with tremendous wit and insight. What I like about this book is that it shows how individually we are all connected to a larger whole, some kind of universal intelligence."--Dell Horoscope"Marguerite Manning's Cosmic Karma is one of this year's best...Pull out your birth chart and get ready to learn your karmic lesson."--newWitch"Cosmic Karma is INCREDIBLE."--Lisa Mc Sherry, FacingNorth.net"Cosmic Karma is fantastic book about the connection we all have with the Universe. Marguerite Manning helps you understand the forces that move it and changes your perception about yourself and the number one law of life: The Law of Karma."--Dr. Carmen Harra, bestselling author of Everyday Karma"Marguerite has made understanding the birth chart very simple and she writes with a great sense of humor, enthusiasm, and passion. She brings those traits as a fabulous radio guest, too!"--John Hodge, creator and host of Think Again Radio"Marguerite's book is absolutely the most user friendly book I've ever read on karmic astrology! In fact, I plan on using it as an accompanying text for my future classes. She has been able to take a truly intimidating branch of astrology and managed to write about it in a way that even a complete beginner to astrology can grasp!"--Maria DeSimone, Vice President for the Long Island NY chapter of NCGR"A simple, yet thought provoking book on fulfilling your cosmic contract--a wonderfully useful guide to understanding your contract with the universe."--F. Reed Brown, president of United Metaphysical Churches, Roanoke, Va. and pastor of Arlington Metaphysical Chapel, Arlington, Va."The 12th house chapter is the best I've ever seen, which is to say I read both the signs that appear in my 12th and was shocked. I've been in the astro book biz, one way or another, more than 20 years. I've seen lots of books. Shock doesn't happen often anymore...darn impressive."--David Roell, astroamerica.com"Marguerite Manning has that exceptional gift of being able to speak directly to the person she is communicating with in her writing. Her astrological insights are nothing short of breathtaking."--Alixandra Vanderzon, author and CEO and radio hostess of www.angelmystics.com

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    Forestry Department mistakenly delivers 1,000 spruce tree seedlings to former attorney Horace, who decides to plant the tiny trees in the wild. Horace's wife begins to think he's gone mad. Into the mix come an ex-convict, who helps Horace plant the trees, and his girlfriend. Four souls adrift finally come together on a Maine island, where they discover unexpected joy in each other's company and ultimately come together as a family.

    By some estimates, we may already have lost almost half of the songbirds that filled the skies only forty years ago. Renowned biologist Bridget Stutchbury convincingly argues that songbirds truly are the "canaries in the coal mine"--except the coal mine looks a lot like Earth and we are the hapless excavators.Following the birds on their six-thousand-mile migratory journey, Stutchbury leads us on an ecological field trip to explore firsthand the major threats to songbirds: pesticides, still a major concern decades after Rachel Carson first raised the alarm; the destruction of vital habitat, from the boreal forests of Canada to the diminishing continuous forests of the United States to the grasslands of Argentina; coffee plantations, which push birds out of their forest refuges so we can have our morning fix; the bright lights and structures in our cities, which prove a minefield for migrating birds; and global warming. We could well wake up in the near future and hear no songbirds singing. But we won't just be missing their cheery calls, we'll be missing a vital part of our ecosystem. Without songbirds, our forests would face uncontrolled insect infestations, and our trees, flowers, and gardens would lose a crucial element in their reproductive cycle. As Stutchbury shows, saving songbirds means protecting our ecosystem and ultimately ourselves.Some of the threats to songbirds: - The U.S. annually uses 4-5 million pounds of active ingredient acephate, an insecticide that, even in small quantities, throws off the navigation systems of White-throated sparrows and other songbirds, making them unable to tell north from south. - The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service conservatively estimated that 4-5 million birds are killed by crashing into communication towers each year.- A Michigan study found that 600 domestic cats killed more than 6,000 birds during a typical 10-week breeding season. Wood thrush, Kentucky warbler, the Eastern kingbird--migratory songbirds are disappearing at a frightening rate. By some estimates, we may already have lost almost half of the songbirds that filled the skies only forty years ago. Renowned biologist Bridget Stutchbury convincingly argues that songbirds truly are the "canaries in the coal mine"--except the coal mine looks a lot like Earth and we are the hapless excavators.Following the birds on their six-thousand-mile migratory journey, Stutchbury leads us on an ecological field trip to explore firsthand the major threats to songbirds: pesticides, still a major concern decades after Rachel Carson first raised the alarm; the destruction of vital habitat, from the boreal forests of Canada to the diminishing continuous forests of the United States to the grasslands of Argentina; coffee plantations, which push birds out of their forest refuges so we can have our morning fix; the bright lights and structures in our cities, which prove a minefield for migrating birds; and global warming. We could well wake up in the near future and hear no songbirds singing. But we won't just be missing their cheery calls, we'll be missing a vital part of our ecosystem. Without songbirds, our forests would face uncontrolled insect infestations, and our trees, flowers, and gardens would lose a crucial element in their reproductive cycle. As Stutchbury shows, saving songbirds means protecting our ecosystem and ultimately ourselves.Some of the threats to songbirds: - The U.S. annually uses 4-5 million pounds of active ingredient acephate, an insecticide that, even in small quantities, throws off the navigation systems of White-throated sparrows and other songbirds, making them unable to tell north from south. - The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service conservatively estimated that 4-5 million birds are killed by crashing into communication towers each year.- A Michigan study found that 600 domestic cats killed more than 6,000 birds during a typical 10-week breeding season.

    This book marshals ecological literature from the last century on facilitation to make the case against the widely accepted "individualistic" notion of community organization. Clearly, many species in many communities would not be present without the ameliorating effects of other species. In other words, communities are not produced only by summing the population ecology of species. Concepts covered include the idea that positive interactions are more prevalent in physically stressful conditions, species specificity in facilitative interactions, indirect facilitative interactions, how facilitation contributes to diversity-ecosystem function relationships, and potential evolutionary aspects of positive interactions.

    It includes his poem The Translator, which was selected for inclusion in Best New Zealand Poems 2004, and poems which have been published in the Listener, North & South, New Zealand Books, JAAM, and a number of other venues, including US and Australian magazines. The poems range all the way from Southland to Iraq, from a backyard telescope to Mars, from the Rapture to rugby league. Along the way, there’s love, sex, children, and Motorhead.

    Making an Atlantic World explores how Native Americans, Africans, and Europeans understood the landscapes they inhabited and how, after contact, their views of the world had to accommodate and then accept the presence of the others. Based on the notion of “founding peoples” rather than “founding fathers,” Making an Atlantic World uses an innovative, interdisciplinary approach to interpret the Colonial South. James Taylor Carson uses historical ethnogeography-a new methodology that brings together the study of history, anthropology, and geography.  This method seeks to incorporate concepts of space and landscape with social perspectives to give students and scholars a better understanding of the forces that shaped the development of a synthesized southern culture. Unlike previous studies, which considered colonization as a contest over land but rarely considered what the land was and how people understood their relationships to it, Making an Atlantic World shows how the founding peoples perceived their world before contact and how they responded to contact and colonization.The author contends that each of the three groups involved-the first people, the invading people, and the enslaved people-possessed a particular worldview that they had to adapt to each other to face the challenges brought about by contact. James Taylor Carson is associate professor of history at Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada.  He is the author of Searching for the Bright Path: The Mississippi Choctaws from Prehistory to Removal. His articles and reviews have appeared in Ethnohistory, Journal of Mississippi History, Agricultural History, Journal of Military History, and other publications.

    Told from an expert geologist's perspective, this book will reveal the secrets behind its evolution, opening up an amazing new perspective for anyone who loves this wild and magnificent area.

    The increase in thrillcraft use is responsible for wildlife habitat fragmentation, disturbance of sensitive wildlife, soil erosion, spread of invasive weeds, loss of silence, as well as water and air pollution. With more than one hundred shocking color photographs, "Thrillcraft" vividly documents the destruction caused by these machines on American public lands. Essays by activists, policy experts, scientists, and others support the photographs, explain the harm done by these machines, and critique the cultural foundation of this phenomenon. "Thrillcraft" bears witness to the mindless destruction of our collective natural heritage and offers a vision for a future when the howl of the wind or wolf can again be heard more often than the howl of a machine.