Best of
Environment

2017

The Wolf: A True Story of Survival and Obsession in the West


Nate Blakeslee - 2017
    Before humans ruled the earth, there were wolves. Once abundant in North America, these majestic creatures were hunted to near extinction in the lower 48 states by the 1920s. But in recent decades, conservationists have brought wolves back to the Rockies, igniting a battle over the very soul of the West.With novelistic detail, Nate Blakeslee tells the gripping story of one of these wolves, O-Six, a charismatic alpha female named for the year of her birth. Uncommonly powerful, with gray fur and faint black ovals around each eye, O-Six is a kind and merciful leader, a fiercely intelligent fighter, and a doting mother. She is beloved by wolf watchers, particularly renowned naturalist Rick McIntyre, and becomes something of a social media star, with followers around the world.But as she raises her pups and protects her pack, O-Six is challenged on all fronts: by hunters, who compete with wolves for the elk they both prize; by cattle ranchers who are losing livestock and have the ear of politicians; and by other Yellowstone wolves who are vying for control of the park’s stunningly beautiful Lamar Valley.These forces collide in American Wolf, a riveting multi-generational saga of hardship and triumph that tells a larger story about the ongoing cultural clash in the West—between those fighting for a vanishing way of life and those committed to restoring one of the country’s most iconic landscapes.

Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming


Paul Hawken - 2017
    One hundred techniques and practices are described here—some are well known; some you may have never heard of. They range from clean energy to educating girls in lower-income countries to land use practices that pull carbon out of the air. The solutions exist, are economically viable, and communities throughout the world are currently enacting them with skill and determination. If deployed collectively on a global scale over the next thirty years, they represent a credible path forward, not just to slow the earth’s warming but to reach drawdown, that point in time when greenhouse gases in the atmosphere peak and begin to decline. These measures promise cascading benefits to human health, security, prosperity, and well-being—giving us every reason to see this planetary crisis as an opportunity to create a just and livable world.

The Death and Life of the Great Lakes


Dan Egan - 2017
    But they are under threat as never before, and their problems are spreading across the continent. The Death and Life of the Great Lakes is prize-winning reporter Dan Egan’s compulsively readable portrait of an ecological catastrophe happening right before our eyes, blending the epic story of the lakes with an examination of the perils they face and the ways we can restore and preserve them for generations to come.

The Ends of the World: Supervolcanoes, Lethal Oceans, and the Search for Past Apocalypses


Peter Brannen - 2017
    In The Ends of the World, Peter Brannen dives into deep time, exploring Earth’s past dead ends, and in the process, offers us a glimpse of our possible future.Many scientists now believe that the climate shifts of the twenty-first century have analogs in these five extinctions. Using the visible clues these devastations have left behind in the fossil record, The Ends of the World takes us inside “scenes of the crime,” from South Africa to the New York Palisades, to tell the story of each extinction. Brannen examines the fossil record—which is rife with creatures like dragonflies the size of sea gulls and guillotine-mouthed fish—and introduces us to the researchers on the front lines who, using the forensic tools of modern science, are piecing together what really happened at the crime scenes of the Earth’s biggest whodunits.Part road trip, part history, and part cautionary tale, The Ends of the World takes us on a tour of the ways that our planet has clawed itself back from the grave, and casts our future in a completely new light.

How to Create a Vegan World: A Pragmatic Approach


Tobias Leenaert - 2017
    He argues that, given our present situation, with entire societies dependent on using animals, we need a very pragmatic approach. How to Create a Vegan World contains many valuable ideas and insights for both budding advocates for animals and seasoned activists, organizational leaders, and even entrepreneurs.

An Inconvenient Deception: How Al Gore Distorts Climate Science and Energy Policy


Roy W. Spencer - 2017
    As was the case with Gore's first movie (An Inconvenient Truth), the movie is bursting with bad science, bad policy and some outright falsehoods. The storm events Gore addresses occur naturally, and there is little or no evidence they are being made worse from human activities: sea level is rising at the same rate it was before humans started burning fossil fuels; in Miami Beach the natural rise is magnified because buildings and streets were constructed on reclaimed swampland that has been sinking; the 9/11 memorial was not flooded by sea level rise from melting ice sheets, but a storm surge at high tide, which would have happened anyway and was not predicted by Gore in his first movie, as he claims; the Greenland ice sheet undergoes melt every summer, which was large in 2012 but then unusually weak in 2017; glaciers advance and retreat naturally, as evidenced by 1,000 to 2,000 year old tree stumps being uncovered in Alaska; rain gauge measurements reveal the conflict in Syria was not caused by reduced rainfall hurting farming there, and in fact the Middle East is greening from increasing CO2 in the atmosphere; agricultural yields in China have been rising, not falling as claimed by Gore. The renewable energy sources touted by Gore (wind and solar), while a laudable goal for our future, are currently very expensive: their federal subsidies per kilowatt-hour of energy produced are huge compared to coal, natural gas, and nuclear power. These costs are hidden from the public in increased federal and state tax rates. Gore is correct that "it is right to save humanity", but what we might need saving from the most are bad decisions that reduce prosperity and hurt the poor.

The Seabird's Cry: The Lives and Loves of the Planet's Great Ocean Voyagers


Adam Nicolson - 2017
    Their numbers are in freefall, dropping by nearly 70 percent in the last sixty years, a billion fewer now than in 1950. Extinction stalks the ocean, and there is a danger that the hundred-million-year-old cries of a seabird colony, rolling around in the bays and headlands of high latitudes, will this century become but a memory.

The World-Ending Fire: The Essential Wendell Berry


Wendell Berry - 2017
    Berry's sentences and stories deliver a great payload of edifying entertainment, which I hungrily consume, but it is the bass note of morality thumping through his musical phrases that guides me with the most constant of hands upon my plow." —Nick Offerman, New York Times bestselling author of Paddle Your Own Canoe"Read [Berry] with pencil in hand, make notes and hope that somehow our country and the world will soon come to see the truth that is told here." —The New York Times"He is unlike anybody else writing today…" —Andrew Marr, New Statesman"The rarest (and highest) of literary classes consist of that small group of authors who are absolutely inimitable… One of the half-dozen living American authors who belongs in this class is Wendell Berry." —Los Angeles TimesWendell Berry began his life in post-war America as the old times and the last of the old-time people were dying out, and continues to this day in the old ways: a team of work horses and a pencil are his preferred working tools. The writings gathered in The World-Ending Fire are the unique product of a life spent farming the fields of rural Kentucky with mules and horses, and of the rich, intimate knowledge of the land cultivated by this work. These are essays written in defiance of the false call to progress and in defense of local landscapes, essays that celebrate our cultural heritage, our history, and our home.With grace and conviction, he shows that we simply cannot afford to succumb to the mass-produced madness that drives our global economy—the natural world will not survive it.Yet he also shares with us a vision of consolation and of hope. We may be locked in an uneven struggle, but we can and must begin to treat our land, our neighbors, and ourselves with respect and care. As Berry urges, we must abandon arrogance and stand in awe.

Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist


Kate Raworth - 2017
    It has failed to predict, let alone prevent, financial crises that have shaken the foundations of our societies. Its outdated theories have permitted a world in which extreme poverty persists while the wealth of the super-rich grows year on year. And its blind spots have led to policies that are degrading the living world on a scale that threatens all of our futures.Can it be fixed? In Doughnut Economics, Oxford academic Kate Raworth identifies seven critical ways in which mainstream economics has led us astray, and sets out a roadmap for bringing humanity into a sweet spot that meets the needs of all within the means of the planet. En route, she deconstructs the character of ‘rational economic man’ and explains what really makes us tick. She reveals how an obsession with equilibrium has left economists helpless when facing the boom and bust of the real-world economy. She highlights the dangers of ignoring the role of energy and nature’s resources – and the far-reaching implications for economic growth when we take them into account. And in the process, she creates a new, cutting-edge economic model that is fit for the 21st century – one in which a doughnut-shaped compass points the way to human progress.Ambitious, radical and rigorously argued, Doughnut Economics promises to reframe and redraw the future of economics for a new generation.

Kiss the Ground: How the Food You Eat Can Reverse Climate Change, Heal Your Body & Ultimately Save Our World


Josh Tickell - 2017
    Now, in Kiss the Ground, he explains an incredible truth: by changing our diets to a soil-nourishing, regenerative agriculture diet, we can reverse global warming, harvest healthy, abundant food, and eliminate the poisonous substances that are harming our children, pets, bodies, and ultimately our planet. Through fascinating and accessible interviews with celebrity chefs, ranchers, farmers, and top scientists, this remarkable book, soon to be a full-length documentary film narrated by Woody Harrelson, will teach you how to become an agent in humanity’s single most important and time sensitive mission. Reverse climate change and effectively save the world—all through the choices you make in how and what to eat.

Blue Planet II


James Honeyborne - 2017
    Blue Planet II, which accompanies an epic 7-part series on BBC1, is a ground-breaking new look at the richness and variety of underwater life across our planet.From ambush hunters such as the carnivorous bobbit worm to cuttlefish mesmerising their prey with a pulsating light display, Blue Planet II reveals the never-before-seen secrets of the ocean. With over 200 breath-taking photographs and stills from the BBC Natural History Unit's spectacular footage, each chapter of Blue Planet II brings to life a different habitat of the oceanic world. Voyages of migration show how each of the oceans on our planet are connected; coral reefs and arctic ice communities are revealed as thriving underwater cities; while shorelines throw up continual challenges to those living there or passing through. A final chapter explores the science and technology of the Ocean enterprise – not only how they were able to capture these amazing stories on film, but what the future holds for marine life based on these discoveries.

Growing a Revolution: Bringing Our Soil Back to Life


David R. Montgomery - 2017
    Now conventional agriculture is threatening disaster for the world’s growing population. In Growing a Revolution, geologist David R. Montgomery travels the world, meeting farmers at the forefront of an agricultural movement to restore soil health. From Kansas to Ghana, he sees why adopting the three tenets of conservation agriculture—ditching the plow, planting cover crops, and growing a diversity of crops—is the solution. When farmers restore fertility to the land, this helps feed the world, cool the planet, reduce pollution, and return profitability to family farms.

Birding Without Borders: An Obsession, a Quest, and the Biggest Year in the World


Noah Strycker - 2017
    In 2015, Noah Strycker set himself a lofty goal: to become the first person to see half the world’s birds in one year. For 365 days, with a backpack, binoculars, and a series of one-way tickets, he traveled across forty-one countries and all seven continents, eventually spotting 6,042 species—by far the biggest birding year on record.This is no travelogue or glorified checklist. Noah ventures deep into a world of blood-sucking leeches, chronic sleep deprivation, airline snafus, breakdowns, mudslides, floods, war zones, ecologic devastation, conservation triumphs, common and iconic species, and scores of passionate bird lovers around the globe. By pursuing the freest creatures on the planet, Noah gains a unique perspective on the world they share with us—and offers a hopeful message that even as many birds face an uncertain future, more people than ever are working to protect them.

The Man in the Tent: My Life under Canvas - The First Four Years


Tony Beardsall - 2017
     In this volume he relates the first four years of his outdoor odyssey, from his initial escapist trips, through his gradual move towards full-time outdoor living, to his decision to put the harsh British winters behind him and head off to the more benign climate of southern Spain. Sincere but light-hearted, this story recounts his experiences in Lancashire, Yorkshire and Scotland, alongside the mental journey leading to his conviction that a conventional life is no longer for him, despite the well-meaning advice of his family and friends. The second and final part of Tony’s story will be available this winter.

Pure Land: A True Story of Three Lives, Three Cultures, and the Search for Heaven on Earth


Annette McGivney - 2017
    She was stabbed 29 times as she hiked to Havasu Falls on the Havasupai Indian Reservation at the bottom of Grand Canyon. Her killer was a distressed 18-year-old Havasupai youth. Pure Land is the story of this tragedy. But it is also the story of how McGivney’s quest to understand Hanamure’s life and death wound up guiding the author through her own life-threatening crisis. On this journey stretching from the southern tip of Japan to the bottom of Grand Canyon, and into the ugliest aspects of human behavior, Pure Land offers proof of the healing power of nature and the resiliency of the human spirit."There is such tragic irony here. The very things that Japanese tourist Tomomi Hanamure is so deeply passionate about--the wild, stark, beautiful American West and Native American culture--are what leads to her violent death. Around this single horrific event Annette McGivney has masterfully woven three separate, highly personal narratives."-- S. C. Gwynne, Author of Empire of the Summer Moon, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize"McGivney intuitively grounds her narrative while exploring humanity's roots of culture and origins of character, like the light of the sun awakening each intricate layer of earth in the deepest of canyons. She is a storyteller of the highest caliber, with a style reminiscent of Jon Krakauer's journalistic skill and unmistakable purpose."-- Carine McCandless, author of The Wild Truth, the New York Times bestselling follow-up to Into the Wild"Annette McGivney has gathered three disparate narratives and braided them into a bewitching tapestry of darkness and light, pain and atonement, along with the unexpected gifts that can sometimes accompany profoundly devastating loss." -- Kevin Fedarko, author of The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon

The Gulf: The Making of An American Sea


Jack Emerson Davis - 2017
    And so, in this rich and original work that explores the Gulf through our human connection with the sea, environmental historian Jack E. Davis finally places this exceptional region into the American mythos in a sweeping history that extends from the Pleistocene age to the twenty-first century.Significant beyond tragic oil spills and hurricanes, the Gulf has historically been one of the world's most bounteous marine environments, supporting human life for millennia. Davis starts from the premise that nature lies at the center of human existence, and takes readers on a compelling and, at times, wrenching journey from the Florida Keys to the Texas Rio Grande, along marshy shorelines and majestic estuarine bays, profoundly beautiful and life-giving, though fated to exploitation by esurient oil men and real-estate developers.Rich in vivid, previously untold stories, The Gulf tells the larger narrative of the American Sea—from the sportfish that brought the earliest tourists to Gulf shores to Hollywood’s engagement with the first offshore oil wells—as it inspired and empowered, sometimes to its own detriment, the ethnically diverse groups of a growing nation. Davis' pageant of historical characters is vast, including: the presidents who directed western expansion toward its shores, the New England fishers who introduced their own distinct skills to the region, and the industries and big agriculture that sent their contamination downstream into the estuarine wonderland. Nor does Davis neglect the colorfully idiosyncratic individuals: the Tabasco king who devoted his life to wildlife conservation, the Texas shrimper who gave hers to clean water and public health, as well as the New York architect who hooked the “big one” that set the sportfishing world on fire.Ultimately, Davis reminds us that amidst the ruin, beauty awaits its return, as the Gulf is, and has always been, an ongoing story. Sensitive to the imminent effects of climate change, and to the difficult task of rectifying grievous assaults of recent centuries, The Gulf suggests how a penetrating examination of a single region's history can inform the country's path ahead.

Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet: Ghosts and Monsters of the Anthropocene


Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing - 2017
    This timely anthology calls on twenty eminent humanists and scientists to revitalize curiosity, observation, and transdisciplinary conversation about life on earth.As human-induced environmental change threatens multispecies livability, Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet puts forward a bold proposal: entangled histories, situated narratives, and thick descriptions offer urgent “arts of living.” Included are essays by scholars in anthropology, ecology, science studies, art, literature, and bioinformatics who posit critical and creative tools for collaborative survival in a more-than-human Anthropocene. The essays are organized around two key figures that also serve as the publication’s two openings: Ghosts, or landscapes haunted by the violences of modernity; and Monsters, or interspecies and intraspecies sociality. Ghosts and Monsters are tentacular, windy, and arboreal arts that invite readers to encounter ants, lichen, rocks, electrons, flying foxes, salmon, chestnut trees, mud volcanoes, border zones, graves, radioactive waste—in short, the wonders and terrors of an unintended epoch.Contributors: Karen Barad, U of California, Santa Cruz; Kate Brown, U of Maryland, Baltimore; Carla Freccero, U of California, Santa Cruz; Peter Funch, Aarhus U; Scott F. Gilbert, Swarthmore College; Deborah M. Gordon, Stanford U; Donna J. Haraway, U of California, Santa Cruz; Andreas Hejnol, U of Bergen, Norway; Ursula K. Le Guin; Marianne Elisabeth Lien, U of Oslo; Andrew Mathews, U of California, Santa Cruz; Margaret McFall-Ngai, U of Hawaii, Manoa; Ingrid M. Parker, U of California, Santa Cruz; Mary Louise Pratt, NYU; Anne Pringle, U of Wisconsin, Madison; Deborah Bird Rose, U of New South Wales, Sydney; Dorion Sagan; Lesley Stern, U of California, San Diego; Jens-Christian Svenning, Aarhus U.

The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World


Jeff Goodell - 2017
    With each crack in the great ice sheets of the Arctic and Antarctica, and each tick upwards of Earth's thermometer, we are moving closer to the brink of broad disaster.By century's end, hundreds of millions of people will be retreating from the world's shores as our coasts become inundated and our landscapes transformed. From island nations to the world's major cities, coastal regions will disappear. Engineering projects to hold back the water are bold and may buy some time. Yet despite international efforts and tireless research, there is no permanent solution--no barriers to erect or walls to build--that will protect us in the end from the drowning of the world as we know it.The Water Will Come is the definitive account of the coming water, why and how this will happen, and what it will all mean. As he travels across twelve countries and reports from the front lines, acclaimed journalist Jeff Goodell employs fact, science, and first-person, on-the-ground journalism to show vivid scenes from what already is becoming a water world.

Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist and Other Essays


Paul Kingsnorth - 2017
    He fought against rampant development and the depredations of a corporate world that seemed hell-bent on ignoring a looming climate crisis in its relentless pursuit of profit. But as the environmental movement began to focus on 'sustainability' rather than the defence of wild places for their own sake and as global conditions worsened, he grew disenchanted with the movement that he once embraced. He gave up what he saw as the false hope that residents of the First World would ever make the kind of sacrifices that might avert the severe consequences of climate change.Full of grief and fury as well as passionate, lyrical evocations of nature and the wild, Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist gathers the wave-making essays that have charted the change in Kingsnorth's thinking. In them he articulates a new vision that he calls 'dark ecology,' which stands firmly in opposition to the belief that technology can save us, and he argues for a renewed balance between the human and nonhuman worlds.Provocative and urgent, iconoclastic and fearless, this ultimately hopeful book poses hard questions about how we have lived and should live.

The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire


Kyle Harper - 2017
    The Fate of Rome is the first book to examine the catastrophic role that climate change and infectious diseases played in the collapse of Rome's power--a story of nature's triumph over human ambition.Interweaving a grand historical narrative with cutting-edge climate science and genetic discoveries, Kyle Harper traces how the fate of Rome was decided not just by emperors, soldiers, and barbarians but also by volcanic eruptions, solar cycles, climate instability, and devastating viruses and bacteria. He takes readers from Rome's pinnacle in the second century, when the empire seemed an invincible superpower, to its unraveling by the seventh century, when Rome was politically fragmented and materially depleted. Harper describes how the Romans were resilient in the face of enormous environmental stress, until the besieged empire could no longer withstand the combined challenges of a "little ice age" and recurrent outbreaks of bubonic plague.A poignant reflection on humanity's intimate relationship with the environment, The Fate of Rome provides a sweeping account of how one of history's greatest civilizations encountered, endured, yet ultimately succumbed to the cumulative burden of nature's violence. The example of Rome is a timely reminder that climate change and germ evolution have shaped the world we inhabit--in ways that are surprising and profound.

The Golden Glow


Benjamin Flouw - 2017
    Fox meets Richard Scarry's Best Word Book Ever in this stylish picture book about a quest for a rare and mysterious plant.Fox loves nature. There's nothing he enjoys more than reading about and picking flowers. One evening he comes across a rare specimen in his old botany book -- the golden glow, a plant from the Wellhidden family, found only in the mountains . . . a plant that has yet to be described. Fascinated, Fox decides to set off on a quest in search of the mysterious Golden Glow. He packs his knapsack, a map, a compass, a flashlight, a sleeping bag and other items for his hike. Along the way Fox observes many different kinds of trees and plants. He also encounters woodland friends who help him make it to the summit of the mountain. But when Fox eventually stumbles upon the object of his quest, he makes a surprising decision.With spreads of educational content interspersed throughout, The Golden Glow is a charming story that details the simple pleasures of a nature hike and celebrates observing the beauty of nature.

Call of the Reed Warbler: A New Agriculture – A New Earth


Charles Massy - 2017
    Author and radical farmer Charles Massy explores transformative and regenerative agriculture and the vital connection between our soil and our health. It is a story of how a grassroots revolution – a true underground insurgency – can save the planet, help turn climate change around, and build healthy people and healthy communities, pivoting significantly on our relationship with growing and consuming food.   Using his personal experience as a touchstone – from an unknowing, chemical-using farmer with dead soils to a radical ecologist farmer carefully regenerating a 2000-hectare property to a state of natural health – Massy tells the real story behind industrial agriculture and the global profit-obsessed corporations driving it. He shows – through evocative stories – how innovative farmers are finding a new way and interweaves his own local landscape, its seasons and biological richness.  At stake is not only a revolution in human health and our communities but the very survival of the planet. For farmer, backyard gardener, food buyer, health worker, policy maker and public leader alike, Call of the Reed Warbler offers a tangible path forward for the future of our food supply, our Australian landscape and our earth. It comprises a powerful and moving paean of hope.

Many: The Diversity of Life on Earth


Nicola Davies - 2017
    The planet is full of millions of species of plants, birds, animals, and microbes, and every single one -- including us -- is part of a big, beautiful, complicated pattern. When humans interfere with parts of the pattern, by polluting the air and oceans, taking too much from the sea, and cutting down too many forests, animals and plants begin to disappear. What sort of world would it be if it went from having many types of living things to having just one? In a beautiful follow-up, the creators of the award-winning Tiny Creatures: The World of Microbes deliver an inspiring look at the extraordinary diversity of Earth's inhabitants -- and the importance of their preservation.

Inconvenient Facts: The Science That Al Gore Doesn't Want You to Know


Gregory Wrightstone - 2017
    Increases in droughts, heat waves, tornadoes and poison ivy—to name a few—are all blamed on our “sins of emissions” from burning fossil fuels and increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Yet, you don’t quite buy into this human-caused climate apocalypse. You aren’t sure about the details because you don’t have all the facts and likely aren’t a scientist. Inconvenient Facts was specifically created for you. Writing in plain English and providing easily understood charts and figures, Gregory Wrightstone presents the science to assess the basis of the threatened Thermageddon.The book’s 60 “inconvenient facts” come from government sources, peer-reviewed literature or scholarly works, set forth in a way that is lucid and entertaining. The information likely will challenge your current understanding of many apocalyptic predictions about our ever dynamic climate.You will learn that the planet is improving, not in spite of increasing CO2 and rising temperature, but because of it. The very framework of the climate-catastrophe argument will be confronted with scientific fact.Arm yourself with the truth.

Bee Quest


Dave Goulson - 2017
    Whether he is tracking great yellow bumblebees in the Hebrides or chasing orchid bees through the Ecuadorian jungle, Dave Goulson’s wit, humour and deep love of nature make him the ideal travelling companion.This utterly charming book will also inspire you to think about the ways in which we are all responsible for the future of our world. Through his scientific expertise and passion for conservation, Goulson shows us nature’s resilience against the odds, and that beauty hides in the most surprising places.

Energy and Civilization: A History


Vaclav Smil - 2017
    The conversion of energy on Earth ranges from terra-forming forces of plate tectonics to cumulative erosive effects of raindrops. Life on Earth depends on the photosynthetic conversion of solar energy into plant biomass. Humans have come to rely on many more energy flows—ranging from fossil fuels to photovoltaic generation of electricity—for their civilized existence. In this monumental history, Vaclav Smil provides a comprehensive account of how energy has shaped society, from pre-agricultural foraging societies through today's fossil fuel–driven civilization.Humans are the only species that can systematically harness energies outside their bodies, using the power of their intellect and an enormous variety of artifacts—from the simplest tools to internal combustion engines and nuclear reactors. The epochal transition to fossil fuels affected everything: agriculture, industry, transportation, weapons, communication, economics, urbanization, quality of life, politics, and the environment. Smil describes humanity's energy eras in panoramic and interdisciplinary fashion, offering readers a magisterial overview. This book is an extensively updated and expanded version of Smil's Energy in World History (1994). Smil has incorporated an enormous amount of new material, reflecting the dramatic developments in energy studies over the last two decades and his own research over that time.

Composting for a New Generation: Latest Techniques for the Bin and Beyond


Michelle Balz - 2017
    Composting is not just about reducing food and yard waste; it’s also about improving the health of your soiland the productivity of your garden. Compost is full of nutrients and beneficial microbes that help plants thrive, but store-bought compost is expensive and often comes packaged in non-recyclable plastic bags. Instead of running to the store to purchase compost, learn how to make your own rich, earthy compost and watch your garden thrive.  Composting for a New Generation explains the complex science behind effective and efficient composting in layman’s terms and includes detailed information on tried-and-true composting methods right along with new, innovative techniques. From traditional bin composting (including step-by-step instructions for building your own bin) and vermicomposting, to keyhole gardens and trench composting, you’ll close the cover with all the knowledge needed to be an expert composter today. Plus, you’ll learn how to use all that “home cooked” compost successfully. Composting for a New Generation is the most complete book to date on organic composting.

Out of School and Into Nature: The Anna Comstock Story


Suzanne Slade - 2017
    This picture book biography examines the life and career of naturalist and artist Anna Comstock (1854-1930), who defied social conventions and pursued the study of science. From the time she was a young girl, Anna Comstock was fascinated by the natural world. She loved exploring outdoors, examining wildlife and learning nature's secrets. From watching the teamwork of marching ants to following the constellations in the sky, Anna observed it all. And her interest only increased as she grew older and went to college at Cornell University. There she continued her studies, pushing back against those social conventions that implied science was a man's pursuit. Eventually Anna became known as a nature expert, pioneering a movement to encourage schools to conduct science and nature classes for children outdoors, thereby increasing students' interest in nature. In following her passion, this remarkable woman blazed a trail for female scientists today.

Letters to a Young Farmer: On Food, Farming, and Our Future


Martha HodgkinsJoan Dye Gussow - 2017
    Three dozen esteemed writers, farmers, chefs, activists, and visionaries address the highs and lows of farming life—as well as larger questions of how our food is produced and consumed—in vivid and personal detail. Barbara Kingsolver speaks to the tribe of farmers—some born to it, many self-selected—with love, admiration, and regret. Dan Barber traces the rediscovery of lost grains and foodways. Michael Pollan bridges the chasm between agriculture and nature. Bill McKibben connects the early human quest for beer to the modern challenge of farming in a rapidly changing climate. Congresswoman Chellie Pingree probes the politics of being a young farmer today. Farmer Mas Masumoto passes on family secrets to his daughter—and not-soon-forgotten stories to us all. Other contributors include Temple Grandin, Verlyn Klinkenborg, Wendell Berry, Rick Bayless, and Marion Nestle.Letters to a Young Farmer is both a compelling history and a vital road map—a reckoning of how we eat and farm; how the two can come together to build a more sustainable future; and why now, more than ever before, we need farmers.

How Cycling Can Save the World


Peter Walker - 2017
    Car culture has ensnared much of the world--and it's no wonder. Convenience and comfort (as well as some clever lobbying) have made the car the transportation method of choice for generations. But as the world evolves, the high cost of the automobile is made clearer--with its dramatic effects on pollution, the way it cuts people off from their communities, and the alarming rate at which people are injured and killed in crashes. Walker argues that the simplest way to tackle many of these problems at once is with one of humankind's most perfect inventions--the bicycle. In How Cycling Can Save the World, Walker takes readers on a tour of cities like Copenhagen and Utrecht, where everyday cycling has taken root, demonstrating cycling's proven effect on reducing smog and obesity, and improving quality of life and mental health. Interviews with public figures--such as Janette Sadik-Khan, who led the charge to create more pedestrian- and cyclist- friendly infrastructure in New York City--provide case studies on how it can be done, and prove that you can make a big change with just a few cycling lanes and a paradigm shift. Meticulously researched and incredibly inspiring, How Cycling Can Save the World delivers on its lofty promise and leads readers to the realization that cycling could not only save the world, but have a lasting and positive impact on their own lives.

Working The Roots: Over 400 Years of Traditional African American Healing


Michele Elizabeth Lee - 2017
    It began with the healing knowledge brought with the African captives on the slave ships and later merged with Native American, European and other healing traditions to become a full-fledged body of medicinal practices that has lasted in various forms down to the present day.Working the Roots: Over 400 Years Of Traditional African American Healing is the result of first-hand interviews, conversations, and apprenticeships conducted and experienced by author Michele E. Lee over several years of living and studying in the rural South and in the West Coast regions of the United States. She combines a novelist's keen ear for storytelling and dialogue and a healer's understanding of folk medicine arts into a book that makes for both pleasant, interesting reading, and serves as a permanent household healing guide.Divided between sections on interviews of healers and their stories and a comprehensive collection of traditional African American medicines, remedies, and the many common ailments they were called upon to cure, Working The Roots is a valuable addition to African American history and American and African folk healing practices.

Saving Arcadia: A Story of Conservation and Community in the Great Lakes


Heather Shumaker - 2017
    The story spans more than forty years, following the fate of a magnificent sand dune on Lake Michigan and the people who care about it. Author and narrator Heather Shumaker shares the remarkable untold stories behind protecting land and creating new nature preserves. Written in a compelling narrative style, the book is intended in part as a case study for landscape-level conservation and documents the challenges of integrating economic livelihoods into conservation and what it really means to "preserve" land over time.This is the story of a small band of determined townspeople and how far they went to save beloved land and endangered species from the grip of a powerful corporation. Saving Arcadia is a narrative with roots as deep as the trees the community is trying to save, something set in motion before the author was even born. And yet, Shumaker gives a human face to the changing nature of land conservation in the twenty-first century. Throughout this chronicle we meet people like Elaine, a nineteen-year-old farm wife; Dori, a lakeside innkeeper; and Glen, the director of the local land trust. Together with hundreds of others they cross cultural barriers and learn to help one another in an effort to win back the six-thousand-acre landscape taken over by Consumers Power that is now facing grave devastation. The result is a triumph of community that includes working farms, local businesses, summer visitors, year-round residents, and a network of land stewards.A work of creative nonfiction, Saving Arcadia is the adventurous tale of everyday people fighting to reclaim the land that has been in their family for generations. It explores ideas about nature and community, and anyone from scholars of ecology and conservation biology to readers of naturalist writing can gain from Arcadia's story.

Climate of Hope: How Cities, Businesses, and Citizens Can Save the Planet


Michael R. Bloomberg - 2017
    To Mayor Bloomberg and Carl Pope, it's clear that to treat climate change as either a lost cause or a non-issue is the wrong approach. Global leaders are stymied by the enormity of the doom-and-gloom scenarios. So what happens when you tell leaders that they can definitely—right now, this year—reduce the number of children who have asthma attacks, save thousands of Americans from dying of respiratory disease, cut energy bills, increase the security of our energy supply, make it easier for everyone to get around town, increase the number of jobs in their community—all while increasing the long-term stability of the global climate? That is actionable. That future is within our grasp.The changing climate should be seen as a series of discreet, manageable problems that should be attacked from all angles, each with a solution that can make our society healthier and our economy stronger. In these times, when it's less and less clear if the federal government will be willing to tackle climate change, Bloomberg and Pope lay out a powerfully persuasive argument about how cities can play an outsize role in fighting and reversing the dangerous effects of a warming planet. Together they lay out the economic and personal health reasons for businesses and individual citizens to support climate change action plans.

The Science of Climate Change: A Hands-On Course


Blair H. Lee - 2017
    This book is a complete, comprehensive guide to an essential environmental topic. Subjects covered in this book include: how molecules transfer energy from the sun to warm the atmosphere, greenhouse gases, the greenhouse effect, global warming, the Industrial Revolution, the combustion reaction, feedback loops, the relationship between weather and climate, climate change, carbon sinks, extinction, carbon footprint, recycling, and alternative energy. The data for this course was obtained from credible science sources: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (N.O.A.A.) Earth Systems Laboratory (ESL) National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA) Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (N.R.E.L.).

Out of the Wreckage: A New Politics in the Age of Crisis


George Monbiot - 2017
    It misrepresents human nature, destroying hope and common purpose. Only a positive vision can replace it, a new story that re-engages people in politics and lights a path to a better world.George Monbiot shows how new findings in psychology, neuroscience and evolutionary biology cast human nature in a radically different light: as the supreme altruists and cooperators. He shows how we can build on these findings to create a new politics: a “politics of belonging.” Both democracy and economic life can be radically reorganized from the bottom up, enabling us to take back control and overthrow the forces that have thwarted our ambitions for a better society.Urgent, and passionate, Out of the Wreckage provides the hope and clarity required to change the world.

Vanishing: Chronicling India’s Wildlife Crisis


Prerna Singh Bindra - 2017
    Can a populous country like India 'afford' to protect wildlife? Is there space for wildlife in a land-scarce, densely populated country, and can wild animals and people coexist, or is the relationship inevitably confrontational? Is conservation and protecting the flora and fauna a hindrance to the growth agenda? Is development inimical to ecological security? The Vanishing explores such burning issues that confront wildlife conservation today.

Matariki: the star of the year


Rangi Matamua - 2017
    

The Monarch: Saving Our Most-Loved Butterfly


Kylee Baumle - 2017
    West Coast populations make a similar though much shorter trip to coastal California. The National Wildlife Federation calls the monarch migration -one of the greatest natural phenomena in the insect world.- Not long ago, monarchs numbered in the billions, but in the last 20 years their population has dropped by 90%, due to habitat loss from pesticides, modern farming practices, urban development and other human activity. An estimated one million acres of habitat are lost each year.But today, an army of citizen scientists, students and gardeners is engaged in restoring this beloved pollinator's habitat - the wildflowers and milkweed and feeding corridors - so that one of nature's most beautiful creatures will still be there for generations to come. And it starts in our own backyards.The Monarch showcases this magnificent butterfly with eye-popping photos, fun facts about a monarch's life cycle, and things to know about the vital role that pollinators play in our ecosystem. Monarch enthusiast and nature blogger Kylee Baumle provides -action- projects for all ages, from planting milkweed and wildflowers to making butterfly watering stations...to volunteer activism.

Dead Zone: Where the Wild Things Were


Philip Lymbery - 2017
    While this is typically attributed to climate change and habitat destruction, few people realize that there is a direct link to consumer demand for cheap meat.Some may see intensive farming as a necessary evil. After all, we need to produce more food for a growing global population and are led to believe that squeezing animals into factory farms and growing crops in vast, chemical-soaked prairies is efficient and leaves land free for wildlife--but this is far from the truth. With the limits of the planet's resources now seemingly within touching distance, awareness is growing about how the wellbeing of society depends on a thriving natural world. Through the lens of a dozen iconic and endangered species, Dead Zone examines the role of industrial farming in their plight and meets the people doing something about it.By the author of the internationally successful Farmageddon, Dead Zone takes the reader on a global safari involving some of the world's most iconic and endangered species. The focus shifts from the plight of farm animals to the impact of industrial farming on specific endangered species, as the book lays bare the myths that prop up factory farming and shows what we can do to save the planet with healthy food.

The Rights of Nature: A Legal Revolution That Could Save the World


David R. Boyd - 2017
    New Zealand’s Te Urewera Act. Sierra Club v Disney. These legal phrases hardly sound like the makings of a revolution, but beyond the headlines portending environmental catastrophes, a movement of immense import has been building — in courtrooms, legislatures, and communities across the globe. Cultures and laws are transforming to provide a powerful new approach to protecting the planet and the species with whom we share it.Lawyers from California to New York are fighting to gain legal rights for chimpanzees and killer whales, and lawmakers are ending the era of keeping these intelligent animals in captivity. In Hawaii and India, judges have recognized that endangered species — from birds to lions — have the legal right to exist. Around the world, more and more laws are being passed recognizing that ecosystems — rivers, forests, mountains, and more — have legally enforceable rights. And if nature has rights, then humans have responsibilities.In The Rights of Nature, noted environmental lawyer David Boyd tells this remarkable story, which is, at its heart, one of humans as a species finally growing up. Read this book and your world view will be altered forever.

The River Is in Us: Fighting Toxics in a Mohawk Community


Elizabeth Hoover - 2017
    For years she witnessed elevated rates of miscarriages, birth defects, and cancer in her town, ultimately drawing connections between environmental contamination and these maladies. When she brought her findings to environmental health researchers, Cook sparked the United States’ first large-scale community-based participatory research project.In The River Is in Us, author Elizabeth Hoover takes us deep into this remarkable community that has partnered with scientists and developed grassroots programs to fight the contamination of its lands and reclaim its health and culture. Through in-depth research into archives, newspapers, and public meetings, as well as numerous interviews with community members and scientists, Hoover shows the exact efforts taken by Akwesasne’s massive research project and the grassroots efforts to preserve the Native culture and lands. She also documents how contaminants have altered tribal life, including changes to the Mohawk fishing culture and the rise of diabetes in Akwesasne.Featuring community members such as farmers, health-care providers, area leaders, and environmental specialists, while rigorously evaluating the efficacy of tribal efforts to preserve its culture and protect its health, The River Is in Us offers important lessons for improving environmental health research and health care, plus detailed insights into the struggles and methods of indigenous groups. This moving, uplifting book is an essential read for anyone interested in Native Americans, social justice, and the pollutants contaminating our food, water, and bodies.

The Songs of Trees: Stories from Nature's Great Connectors


David George Haskell - 2017
    Now, Haskell brings his powers of observation to the biological networks that surround all species, including humans. Haskell repeatedly visits a dozen trees around the world, exploring the trees connections with webs of fungi, bacterial communities, cooperative and destructive animals, and other plants. An Amazonian ceibo tree reveals the rich ecological turmoil of the tropical forest, along with threats from expanding oil fields. Thousands of miles away, the roots of a balsam fir in Canada survive in poor soil only with the help of fungal partners. These links are nearly two billion years old: the fir s roots cling to rocks containing fossils of the first networked cells. By unearthing charcoal left by Ice Age humans and petrified redwoods in the Rocky Mountains, Haskell shows how the Earth s climate has emerged from exchanges among trees, soil communities, and the atmosphere. Now humans have transformed these networks, powering our societies with wood, tending some forests, but destroying others. Haskell also attends to trees in places where humans seem to have subdued nature a pear tree on a Manhattan sidewalk, an olive tree in Jerusalem, a Japanese bonsai demonstrating that wildness permeates every location. Every living being is not only sustained by biological connections, but is made from these relationships. Haskell shows that this networked view of life enriches our understanding of biology, human nature, and ethics. When we listen to trees, nature s great connectors, we learn how to inhabit the relationships that give life its source, substance, and beauty."

A Million Fragile Bones


Connie May Fowler - 2017
    Eleven men died in the explosion. Before the well was capped, it spewed an estimated 4.9 million gallons of oil into the gulf. The spill directly impacted 68,000 miles of ocean, and oil washed ashore along the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas and Florida.Connie May Fowler began that day as she had begun most days for the previous sixteen years, immersed in the natural world that was her home on Alligator Point on Florida's gulf coast, surrounded by dunes and water birds, watching dolphins swim in the distance. Then began the nightmare from which she would not emerge for more than a year. In her memoir, A MILLION FRAGILE BONES, she details the beauty and peace she found on Alligator Point after years of heartbreak and loss, and the devastation and upheaval that followed the oil spill. It is, at its heart, a love song to the natural world and a cry of anger and grief at its ruin for the sake of corporate profits.It is also a cautionary tale – a clear-eyed look at the real cost of our seemingly insatiable appetite for fossil fuel. As the memoir points out, we will continue to abuse the natural world at our peril.

The North Coast 500 Guide Book


Charles Tait - 2017
    These include hundreeds of his photographs, combined with clear mapping and old photos. A major feature is the inclusion of 14 suggested itineraries and mini indexes throughout. This is the definitive guide to the NC500 route which starts and finishes in Inverness and is based on years of exploring every byway in this vast and beautiful area. The route may be undertaken clockwise or anti clockwise. It winds its way westwards to Wester Ross to Applecross via the dramatic Bealach na Ba, before heading north to northwest Sutherland. it continues along the north coast to Caithness before returning to Inverness on the A9. The book covers the whole area in depth. Lavishly illustrated, includes archaeology, nature, history and all of the best places to visit. This 256 page book has over 750 images by Charles Tait as well as OS maps and old prints. The Introduction covers Natural History, Archaeology and History, followed by a detailed gazetteer of broken into convenient sections. The book is completed by information on Transport, Services, fourteen suggested itineraries, a Bibligraphy and an Index. It is 140x220mm in size and provides a comprehensive source of information to the visitor.

The Man Who Climbs Trees


James Aldred - 2017
    But how many of us get to make a living at it, spending days observing nature from the canopies of stunning forests all around the world? As a wildlife cameraman for the BBC and National Geographic, James Aldred spends his working life high up in trees, poised to capture key moments in the lives of wild animals and birds. Aldred’s climbs take him to the most incredible and majestic trees in existence. In Borneo, home to the tallest tropical rain forest on the planet, just getting a rope up into the 250-foot-tall trees is a challenge. In Venezuela, even body armor isn’t guaranteed protection against the razor-sharp talons of a nesting Harpy Eagle. In Australia, the peace of being lulled to sleep in a hammock twenty-five stories above the ground— after a grueling day of climbing and filming—is broken by a midnight storm that threatens to topple the tree.   In this vivid account of memorable trees he has climbed (“Goliath,” “Apollo,” “Roaring Meg”), Aldred blends incredible stories of his adventures in the branches with a fascination for the majesty of trees to show us the joy of rising—literally—above the daily grind, up into the canopy of the forest.

The Water Walker


Joanne Robertson - 2017
    Nokomis walks to raise awareness of our need to protect nibi for future generations and for all life on the planet. She, along with other women, men and youth, has walked around all the Great Lakes from the four salt waters, or oceans, to Lake Superior. The walks are full of challenges, and by her example she challenges us all to take up our responsibility to protect our water, the giver of life, and to protect our planet for all generations.

The Patch: The People, Pipelines, and Politics of the Oil Sands


Chris Turner - 2017
    But this is no conventional story about the oil business. Rather, it is a portrait of the lifecycle of the Patch, showing just how deeply it continues to impact the lives of everyone around the world. In its heyday, the oil sands represented an industrial triumph and the culmination of a century of innovation, experiment, engineering, policy, and finance. Fort McMurray was a boomtown, the centre of a new gold rush, and the oilsands were reshaping the global energy, political, and financial landscapes. But in 2008, a new narrative emerged. As financial markets collapsed and the cold, hard, scientific reality of the Patch’s effect on the environment became clear, the region turned into a boogeyman and a lightning rod for the global movement combatting climate change. Suddenly, the streets of Fort McMurray were the front line of a high-stakes collision between two conflicting worldviews–one of industrial triumph and another of environmental stewardship–each backed by major players on the world stage. The Patch is a narrative-driven account of this ongoing conflict. It follows a select group of key characters whose experiences in and with the oil sands overlap in concentric narrative arcs. Through this insightful combination of global perspective and on-the-ground action, The Patch will show how the reach of the oil sands extends to all of us. From Fort Mac to the Bakken shale country of North Dakota, from Houston to London, from Saudi Arabia to the shores of Brazil, the whole world is connected in this enterprise. And it demands that we ask the question: In order to both fuel the world and to save it, what do we do about the Patch?

The Quarry Fox: And Other Critters of the Wild Catskills


Leslie T. Sharpe - 2017
    A mother black bear and her cubs hibernate beneath a felled tree. A barred owl snags a hapless cottontail from a meadow with its precise talons. In The Quarry Fox and Other Tales of the Wild Catskills, Leslie T. Sharpe trains her keen eye and narrative gifts on these and other New York wildlife through her tales of close observations as a naturalist living in the Great Western Catskills. The Quarry Fox is the first in-depth study of Catskill wildlife since John Burroughs invented the genre of nature-writing, in which Sharpe weaves her experiences with the seasons, plants, and creatures with the natural history of each organism, revealing their sensitivity to and resilience against the splendor and cruelty of Nature.Sharpe's frank, scientific observations join with her deeply felt connection to these creatures to instill in readers an appreciation of the undaunted and variegated beauty of the Catskills and camaraderie with its animals. From contemplating the importance of milkweed for monarchs to lay their eggs to reveling in the first steps of a wobbly fawn, The Quarry Fox is a celebration of the natural world and our place in it.

Conflicts of Interest: My Journey through India’s Green Movement


Sunita Narain - 2017
    While outlining the enormous environmental challenges that India faces today, Narain talks about how corporate lobbies and political interests often scuttle their effective resolution. She recounts some widely reported controversies triggered by research undertaken by her along with her team at the Centre for Science and Environment, such as a report on pesticides in colas, and a study on air pollution in Delhi, and includes a ringside view of global climate change negotiations.Confl icts of Interest also includes an "environmental manifesto", a blueprint for the direction India must take if it is to deal with the exigencies of climate change and environmental degradation.

The Green Amendment: Securing Our Right to a Healthy Environment


Maya K. van Rossum - 2017
    And for decades, they’ve been fighting a losing battle. The sad truth is, our laws are designed to accommodate pollution rather than prevent it. It’s no wonder people feel powerless when it comes to preserving the quality of their water, air, public parks, and special natural spaces.But there is a solution, argues veteran environmentalist Maya K. van Rossum: bypass the laws and turn to the ultimate authority—our state and federal constitutions.In 2013, van Rossum and her team won a watershed legal victory that not only protected Pennsylvania communities from ruthless frackers but affirmed the constitutional right of people in the state to a clean and healthy environment. Following this victory, van Rossum inaugurated the Green Amendment movement, dedicated to empowering every American community to mobilize for constitutional change.Now, with The Green Amendment, van Rossum lays out an inspiring new agenda for environmental advocacy, one that will finally empower people, level the playing field, and provide real hope for communities everywhere. Readers will discover:• how legislative environmentalism has failed communities across America,• the transformational difference environmental constitutionalism can make,• the economic imperative of environmental constitutionalism, and• how to take action in their communities.We all have the right to pure water, clean air, and a healthy environment. It’s time to claim that right—for our own sake and that of future generations.

Dawn Again: Tracking the Wisdom of the Wild


Doniga Markegard - 2017
    Dawn Again takes readers along on Doniga’s journey: as a troubled teen attending a wilderness immersion school where wildlife trackers and Indigenous elders were among her teaches, hitchhiking across the pacific northwest, the moment she first connected with a deer using owl eyes and fox walking techniques, and to Alaska where she fell in love with tracking white wolves and the rigor of wilderness survival. With chapters on food, permaculture, and more, Dawn Again dives into Doniga’s real-life experiences while arming readers with practical knowledge. When Doniga tracks mountain lions with Erik, a rancher, she finds herself falling in love with more than just nature. She settles down on a cattle ranch on the California coast to start a family, and has to learn how to apply the deep, unshakeable lessons of the wild to her everyday life.

Love in a Time of Climate Change: Honoring Creation, Establishing Justice


Sharon Delgado - 2017
    This book creatively adapts John Wesley's theological method by using scripture, tradition, reason, and experience to explore the themes of creation and justice in the context of the earth's changing climate. By consciously employing these four sources of authority, readers discover a unique way to reflect on planetary warming theologically and to discern a faithful response. The book's premise is that love of God and neighbor in this time of climate change requires us to honor creation and establish justice for our human family, for future generations, and for all creation. From the introduction: "As we entrust our lives to God, we are enabled to join with others in the movement for climate justice and to carry a unified message of healing, love, and solidarity as we live into God's future, offering hope in the midst of the climate crisis that 'another world is possible.' God is ever present, always with us. Love never ends."

Beneath the Trees


Laurel Saville - 2017
    Over the course of one tumultuous year, she becomes entangled with a series of unsettling events that none of her scientific training can help her explain.Best-selling author Laurel Saville uses incisive prose and evocative imagery in another page-turning story that picks up where her novel, “North of Here,” ended. She brings readers into the brooding backcounty of Upstate New York, where Colden searches for connections between petty thefts, sabotage vandalism, sexually-explicit emails, office gossip, Sasquatch myths, grainy game-camera images, an elusive chimera, a teenage runaway, and the contradictions of her own heritage. Alongside her handyman father, social worker step-mother, and a lawyer with secrets of his own, Colden confronts the mysteries she finds beneath the trees, and also within her own heart.

Whittled Away: Ireland's Vanishing Nature


Pádraic Fogarty - 2017
    This could represent a serious loss to the nation.’Irish Government Report, June 1969Nature in Ireland is disappearing at an alarming rate. Overfishing, industrial-scale farming and pollution have decimated wildlife habitats and populations. In a single lifetime, vast shoals of herring, rivers bursting with salmon, and bogs alive with flocks of curlew and geese have all become folk memories. Coastal and rural communities are struggling to survive; the foundations of our tourism and agricultural sectors are being undermined. The lack of political engagement frequently sees the state in the European Court of Justice for environmental issues. Pádraic Fogarty authoritatively charts how this grim failure to manage our natural resources has impoverished our country.But all is not lost: he also reveals possibilities for the future, describing how we can fill our seas with fish, farm in tune with nature, and create forests that benefit both people and wildlife. He makes a persuasive case for the return of long-lost species like wild boar, cranes and wolves, showing how the interests of the country and its nature can be reconciled.A provocative call to arms, Whittled Away presents an alternative path that could lead us all to a brighter future.

Mycorrhizal Planet: How Symbiotic Fungi Work with Roots to Support Plant Health and Build Soil Fertility


Michael Phillips - 2017
    These microscopic organisms partner with the root systems of approximately 95 percent of the plants on Earth, and they sequester carbon in much more meaningful ways than human "carbon offsets" will ever achieve. Pick up a handful of old-growth forest soil and you are holding 26 miles of threadlike fungal mycelia, if it could be stretched it out in a straight line. Most of these soil fungi are mycorrhizal, supporting plant health in elegant and sophisticated ways. The boost to green immune function in plants and community-wide networking turns out to be the true basis of ecosystem resiliency. A profound intelligence exists in the underground nutrient exchange between fungi and plant roots, which in turn determines the nutrient density of the foods we grow and eat.Exploring the science of symbiotic fungi in layman's terms, holistic farmer Michael Phillips (author of The Holistic Orchard and The Apple Grower) sets the stage for practical applications across the landscape. The real impetus behind no-till farming, gardening with mulches, cover cropping, digging with broadforks, shallow cultivation, forest-edge orcharding, and everything related to permaculture is to help the plants and fungi to prosper . . . which means we prosper as well.Building soil structure and fertility that lasts for ages results only once we comprehend the nondisturbance principle. As the author says, "What a grower understands, a grower will do." Mycorrhizal Planet abounds with insights into "fungal consciousness" and offers practical, regenerative techniques that are pertinent to gardeners, landscapers, orchardists, foresters, and farmers. Michael's fungal acumen will resonate with everyone who is fascinated with the unseen workings of nature and concerned about maintaining and restoring the health of our soils, our climate, and the quality of life on Earth for generations to come.

The Mill: Fifty Years of Pulp and Protest


Joan Baxter - 2017
    But it has also pulped millions of acres of forests, spewed millions of tonnes of noxious emissions into the air, consumed quadrillions of litres of fresh water and then pumped them out again as toxic effluent into nearby Boat Harbour, and eventually into the Northumberland Strait.From the day it began operation in 1967, the mill has fomented protest and created deep divisions and tensions in northern Nova Scotia. This story is about people whose livelihoods depend on the pulp mill and who are willing to live with the “smell of money.” It’s about people whose well-being, health, homes, water, air, and businesses have been harmed by the mill’s emissions and effluent. It’s about the heartache such divisions cause and about people who, for the sake of peace, keep their thoughts about the mill to themselves.

Way Out There: Adventures of a Wilderness Trekker


J. Robert Harris - 2017
    Robert Harris’s extraordinary exploits while backpacking in some of the world’s most tantalizing places―largely alone and unsupported. And after almost fifty years of wilderness travel, “J. R.,” as he’s known, has plenty of tales to tell! His stories are by turns funny, tragic, and uplifting, and are all told in his down‐to‐earth, friendly style.For J. R., it all began in 1966 when, as a young New Yorker, he impulsively drives his VW Beetle across the country to the very end of the northernmost road in Alaska, searching for an answer to a simple question: What is it like to be way out there? How this happened, whom he met, and what he encountered along the way became the foundation for a lifelong attraction to trekking and adventure travel. Subsequent chapters chronologically explore some of his many journeys, revealing an enduring wanderlust honed by his emerging maturity and outdoor skills. Stories of J. R.’s solo treks point to stark contrasts between his urban upbringing and his wilderness wanderings, while tales of adventure with small but diverse groups of friends are enriched by their collective experiences and varying viewpoints about exploration.Way Out There is a lively yet introspective book by a restless soul that will attract countless readers who love to travel, as well as armchair adventurers and communities looking for outdoor role models. The foreword is by the late Dr. Roscoe C. Brown, Jr., one of the famed Tuskegee Airmen fighter pilots during World War I.

Mycology


Joan Wilking - 2017
    Nearly thirty years later, during the height of the AIDS epidemic, those fungi and the death of acclaimed choreographer Haze Morton bring together his partner, Martin, his lover, Luca, and a reclusive artist, Charlotte Previty. Each of them come to understand the ways in which their lives have crossed because of Haze, and how they can begin living again, together. Mycology is a quiet, sharp examination about the ways in which we and others can keep ourselves from growing, and how the right people can help us repair that damage

We Walk Beside You: Animal Messages For An Awakening World


Sandra Mendelson - 2017
    Through the vehicle of telepathy — communicating from one mind to another — members of the animal kingdom step up to reveal what they want humans to finally know. They share their wisdom to help humankind to: better understand and process life’s more challenging experiences such as illness, trauma, hardship, fear, death and dying move through, and forgive ourselves for difficult emotions trust ourselves by following the body’s system of signals and warnings get out of our own way to experience more joy go with the flow of life, not against it, and much more. Ultimately, they show humanity how to create, with the help of our patiently awaiting animal partners, a world that heals and thrives. You may never look at a non-human — or yourself — the same way again.

Urban Ecology: A Natural Way to Transform Kids, Parks, Cities and the World


Ken Leinbach - 2017
    It starts from the simplicity of getting a city kid exploring their neighborhood park. How is it that so much life, community, and opportunity can grow from this unlikely soil? It's been called a miracle. It's contagious. It's spreading. It's exciting. And it works! This is a story of a group of ordinary people in a neighborhood who created something extraordinary. You will discover… The power of getting a city kid outside in nature. That kindness works. How to say no while following the yes. The value of clarity and focus. How to find abundance within your own diverse community by simply and humbly asking for help. Ten tried and tested rules for raising money (a lot of it!) while having a ton of fun doing it. A positive, believable, and very real vision for the future of our environment. We've got this! And... How to join our movement.

Storming the Wall: Climate Change, Migration, and Homeland Security


Todd Miller - 2017
    military planners, climate change now poses the #1 national security threat to the United States, even before terrorism. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre reports that a person is four times more likely to be forced to move due to environmental disaster than by war, and in 2015 alone, 19.2 million people were displaced worldwide by environmental disasters. Droughts, fires, and floods are driving ever-larger numbers of people to cross national borders, and the problem is not just the vast numbers of people on the move, but also the legions of highly militarized border armies being deployed to stop them.In fast-paced prose, Todd Miller travels to hot spots in the United States and around the globe to investigate how environmental crisis is creating millions of climate refugees who are challenging the developed world's borders and resources. Miller explores how a sense of threat in the United States is giving rise to high-tech surveillance fortresses and fueling calls for an ever-expanding border wall. He also weaves in stories of people engaged in creative defiance of the armies, border patrols, and police being deployed to fight those in need. Miller passionately makes the case for ecological restoration, not border militarization, as the best way to achieve sustainability and security.Todd Miller's writings about the border have appeared in the New York Times, Tom Dispatch, and many other places.Praise for Storming the Wall"Nothing will test human institutions like climate change in this century—as this book makes crystal clear, people on the move from rising waters, spreading deserts, and endless storms could profoundly destabilize our civilizations unless we seize the chance to re-imagine our relationships to each other. This is no drill, but it is a test, and it will be graded pass-fail"—Bill McKibben, author Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet"As Todd Miller shows in this important and harrowing book, climate-driven migration is set to become one of the defining issues of our time. … This is a must-read book."—Christian Parenti, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, author of Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence"Todd Miller reports from the cracks in the walls of the global climate security state—militarized zones designed to keep powerful elites safe from poor and uprooted peoples. … Miller finds hope—hope that may not survive in Trumpworld."—Molly Molloy, Research librarian for Latin America and the border at New Mexico State University and creator of "Frontera List""Miller delivers a prescient and sober view of our increasingly dystopian planet as the impacts of human-caused climate disruption continue to intensify."—Dahr Jamail, award-winning independent journalist, author of The End of Ice"Storming the Wall demonstrates why the struggles for social justice and ecological sustainability must be one struggle. Todd Miller's important book chronicles how existing disparities in wealth and power, combined with the dramatic changes we are causing in this planet's ecosystems, mean either we come together around our common humanity or forfeit the right to call ourselves fully human."—Robert Jensen, University of Texas at Austin, author of The End of Patriarchy, Plain Radical, and Arguing for Our Lives"Governments across the world today are planning for climate change. The problem, as Todd Miller ably shows, is that they're not planning mitigation, but militarization."—Roy Scranton, author of War Porn and Learning to Die in the Anthropocene"Here is the largely untold back story of the thousands of people turning up on our borders, and challenging the very idea of those frontiers in the process."—Mark Schapiro, author of The End of Stationarity: Searching for the New Normal in the Age of Carbon Shock

Wind Resistance


Karine Polwart - 2017
    A meditation on sanctuary. A moor walker's journal. A personal memoir of maternity. An archaeology of flight science and football, medieval medicine and compassion. A wonder tale.Karine Polwart's Wind Resistance is co-produced with the Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh and was originally presented in association with Edinburgh International Festival 2016, supported through the Scottish Government's Edinburgh Festivals Expo Fund.Winner of the Best Music and Sound Award at the Critics' Awards for Theatre in Scotland (CATS) 2017.

First Dog on the Moon's Guide to Living Through the Impending Apocalypse and How to Stay Nice Doing It


First Dog on the Moon - 2017
    Never have so many worked so hard to bring about the end of life as we know it, but what to wear? When Armageddon arrives, will it still be okay to walk around in your underpants? Full of handy tips on what to pack, where to go and how to wave a cricket bat menacingly when interlopers try to steal the family pets that you were saving for dinner, this gentle book is fun for all the family. If you don't buy it, you will probably be eaten by an enormous mutant Nazi tapeworm the size of a school bus. So when the 'SHTF', don't say we didn't warn you, and don't come to the First Dog On the Moon Institute bunker, because there isn't one, it is a secret.

Malama Honua: Hokule'a — A Voyage of Hope


Jennifer Allen - 2017
    Interwoven with descriptions of Hōkūleʻa's experiences in port are the voices of the master navigators and crew members, who guide the ship along the ocean's trackless path, and the local pioneers -- scientists, teachers, and children touched by Hōkūleʻa - who work tirelessly to weather the many environmental challenges in our modern lives. This is a story about our need to draw together into one global community. By respecting one another and nature's delicate and intricate systems, this book captures the many ways indigenous cultures are committed to living in ecological balance.

Creekfinding: A True Story


Jacqueline Briggs Martin - 2017
    It was filled with insects and brook trout that ate them, frogs that chirruped and birds watching for bugs and fish. This is a true story about a man named Mike who went looking for that creek long after it was buried under fields of corn. It is the story of how a creek can be brought back to life, and with it a whole world of nature. In the words of award-winning author Jacqueline Briggs Martin and the enchanting illustrations by Claudia McGehee, this heartening tale of an ecosystem restored in the Driftless Area of northeast Iowa unfolds in a way that will charm and inform young readers who are drawn to a good mystery, the wonders of nature—and, of course, big earth-moving machines.

Mind of a Survivor: What the wild has taught me about survival and success


Megan Hine - 2017
    Often faced with frozen tundra, sweltering deserts, humid jungles, perilous mountains and fast-flowing rivers, Megan Hine is no stranger to perilous conditions. Whilst leading expeditions and bushcraft survival courses and in her work on television shows such as Bear Gryll's Mission Survive and Running Wild, she has explored the corners of the globe in pursuit of adventure.Faced with the toughest of conditions: bad weather; lack of food and being in the presence of predators, is the ultimate test of character and often the biggest challenge to overcome is in the head. In these situations, the human brain is simultaneously the greatest asset and biggest liability. Not everyone is suited to the great outdoors and when danger calls many aren't as well-equipped to survive, no amount of top of the range kit will save you if you don't have the right frame of mind. Here Megan Hine examines the human ability and instinct for survival, showing us how others have developed the attitudes and attributes to thrive in the most dangerous situations, and how those same attitudes and attributes help them confront problems and obstacles at work and at home. Being chased through the jungle by armed opium farm guards, abseiling past bears and lighting fires with tampons, Megan has seen and done it all. In Mind of a Survivor she takes you along for a series of life-and-death adventures and shows you what happens to people when they are pushed to their limits. Inspirational rather than instructional, Megan examines the human ability and instinct for survival sharing the life tools that she uses and showing how they can as easily be applied to more domestic everyday life - from careers to relationships, from overcoming adversity to decision making. Filled with her own experiences, Mind of a Survivor is packed full of adventure and can help people survive in any situation and cope with whatever life throws at them.

So You Want to Know About the Environment


Bijal Vachharajani - 2017
    So You Want to Know About the Environment answers some of the questions about the world we live in, and how we impact it in different ways.

The Animals’ Vegan Manifesto


Sue Coe - 2017
    She does so with a combination of extraordinary images and few words. In her unstinting insistence on tolerance and love, Coe brings us to a life-affirming philosophy that values compassion over greed, community over self, and life over capital.In 115 black-and-white woodcut illustrations for The Animals’ Vegan Manifesto, Sue Coe unleashes an outraged cry for action that takes its rightful place alongside the other great manifestoes of history. As a prize-winning artist, she bears witness to unspeakable crimes, and has long advocated that we human beings must take more responsibility for ourselves, our fellow species, and the planet. Her illustrations, in the tradition of Goya, Kollwitz, and Grosz, will be familiar to many; her paintings, drawings and prints have been exhibited in galleries and museum around the world, including New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

Bridges: A History of the World's Most Spectacular Spans


Judith Dupre - 2017
    Covering thousands of years of architectural history, each bridge is gorgeously photographed "elevating the landmarks from mode of transportation to works of art" (Bustle). Technological advances, structural daring, and artistic vision have propelled the evolution of bridge design around the world. This visual history of the world's landmark bridges has been thoroughly revised andupdated since its initial publication twenty-five years ago, and now showcases well-known classics as well as modern innovators. Bridges featured include:The Brooklyn Bridge (New York)Dany and-Kunshan Grand Bridge (China)Gateshead Millennium Bridge (England)The Golden Gate Bridge (San Francisco)Zakim Bridge (Boston) Including all-new photographs and the latest cutting edgework from today's international superstars of architecture and engineering, Bridges covers two-thousand years of technological and aesthetic triumphs, making it the most thorough, authoritative, and gorgeous book on the subject-as dramatic in presentation as the structures it celebrates. Breathtaking photographs capture the bridges' details as well as their monumental scale; architectural drawings and plans invite you behind the scenes as new bridges take shape; and lively commentary on each structure explores its importance and places it in historical context. Throughout, informative profiles, features, and statistics make Bridges an invaluable reference as well as a visual feast.

The Climate Majority: Apathy and Action in an Age of Nationalism


Leo Barasi - 2017
    Anyone who cares about climate change can draw on the lessons of the book to help build a climate majority.

Deep Into Yellowstone: A Year's Immersion in Grandeur and Controversy


Rick Lamplugh - 2017
    During the year as they cross-country ski, hike, bicycle, canoe, and backpack into Yellowstone's grandeur, Rick digs into important controversies: the outrage over the proposed removal of grizzlies from the endangered species list; the dispute over hunting park wolves along Yellowstone's border; the debate about whether wolves help or harm the ecosystem and the economy; the fight to stop the slaughter of park bison; the overuse of the park; and their community's battle to prevent gold mining on the park's border. Rick ends the year with a stronger love for Yellowstone's grandeur, a deeper knowledge of the controversies threatening the park, and a desire to inspire readers to protect our nation's first national park.

Matters of Care: Speculative Ethics in More than Human Worlds (Posthumanities Book 41)


María Puig de la Bellacasa - 2017
    It can do good, it can oppress. But what is care? A moral obligation? A burden? A joy? Is it only human? In Matters of Care, María Puig de la Bellacasa presents a powerful challenge to conventional notions of care, exploring its significance as an ethical and political obligation for thinking in the more than human worlds of technoscience and naturecultures. Matters of Care contests the view that care is something only humans do, and argues for extending to non-humans the consideration of agencies and communities that make the living web of care by considering how care circulates in the natural world. The first of the book’s two parts, “Knowledge Politics,” defines the motivations for expanding the ethico-political meanings of care, focusing on discussions in science and technology that engage with sociotechnical assemblages and objects as lively, politically charged “things.” The second part, “Speculative Ethics in Antiecological Times,” considers everyday ecologies of sustaining and perpetuating life for their potential to transform our entrenched relations to natural worlds as “resources.” From the ethics and politics of care to experiential research on care to feminist science and technology studies, Matters of Care is a singular contribution to an emerging interdisciplinary debate that expands agency beyond the human to ask how our understandings of care must shift if we broaden the world.

The Battle of Bug World (Song Bird, #2)


Karen Tyrrell - 2017
    All the bees are disappearing. A giant sinkhole cracks open beneath Rosie’s school bus, and mysterious voices rise up from the depths. A tornado blasts the house of Frank, Rosie’s sinister next-door neighbor, threatening Rosie’s family. And Rosie’s sister, Raven, has gone missing. Should Rosie lead a mission into Bug World to rescue Raven?Or stay home and save her family?” Eco fantasy adventure.

Where Honeybees Thrive: Stories from the Field


Heather Swan - 2017
    In this artfully illustrated book, Heather Swan embarks on a narrative voyage to discover solutions to--and understand the sources of--the plight of honeybees.Through a lyrical combination of creative nonfiction and visual imagery, Where Honeybees Thrive tells the stories of the beekeepers, farmers, artists, entomologists, ecologists, and other advocates working to stem the damage and reverse course for this critical pollinator. Using her own quest for understanding as a starting point, Swan highlights the innovative projects and strategies these groups employ. Her mosaic approach to engaging with the environment not only reveals the incredibly complex political ecology in which bees live--which includes human and nonhuman actors alike--but also suggests ways of comprehending and tackling a host of other conflicts between postindustrial society and the natural world. Each chapter closes with an illustrative full-color gallery of bee-related artwork.A luminous journey from the worlds of honey producers, urban farmers, and mead makers of the United States to those of beekeepers of Sichuan, China, and researchers in southern Africa, Where Honeybees Thrive traces the global web of efforts to secure a sustainable future for honeybees--and ourselves.

Learning to Like Life: A Tribute to Lowell Bennion


George B. Handley - 2017
     All of Doc’s aphorisms imply a simple principle: our goodness and happiness must begin in the heart and depend on the quality of our affections, and, perhaps most importantly, we have the capacity to change those affections through a kind of cultivation. “Learn to like,” he repeats. Don’t assume that what you like is unchangeable, deeply rooted in your personality like some genetic code. Our affections stem from what we serve and devote ourselves to, and even if we don’t yet love as we should, it is enough to want to love better, more deeply, more generously. And loving is a way of practicing what we like. Proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to the Birch Creek Service Ranch, which continues the spirit of what Lowell Bennion began and which needs your support. Read about BCSR at http://www.serviceranch.org/.

Climate Change: The Facts 2017


Jennifer MarohasyCraig D. Idso - 2017
    At the same time as climate change has assumed this status, it has become a topic more likely to be included in a church sermon. Indeed, while once considered the concern of scientific institutions, climate change is now increasingly incorporated into faith-based initiatives with even Pope Francis weighing in, issuing an encyclical on the subject as explained in chapter 16 by Paul Driessen. There are those who believe Pope Francis, and admire another climate change exponent, Al Gore – who marketed An Inconvenient Truth with comment, ‘the fact of global warming is not in question’ and that ‘its consequences for the world we live in will be disastrous if left unchecked’. And then there are the die-hard sceptics who dare to doubt. Many claim that these climate sceptics and their support base have an undue political influence, successfully thwarting attempts to implement necessary public policy change. This book is a collection of chapters by so-called climate sceptics. Each writer was asked to write on an aspect of the topic in which they are considered to have some expertise. None of them deny that climate change is real, but instead, they point out how extremely complex the topic of Earth’s climate is, with some of the contributors also querying the, often generally accepted, solutions. As you will see, this is not a book with just one message, except perhaps that there is a need for more scrutiny of the data, and of our own prejudices. This book’s reason for being is to give pause for thought, and to throw some alternative ideas and considerations into the mix.

Onigamiising: Seasons of an Ojibwe Year


Linda LeGarde Grover - 2017
    In Onigamiising Linda LeGarde Grover accompanies us through this cycle of the seasons, one year in a lifelong journey on the path to Mino Bimaadiziwin, the living of a good life. In fifty short essays, Grover reflects on the spiritual beliefs and everyday practices that carry the Ojibwe through the year and connect them to this northern land of rugged splendor. As the four seasons unfold—from Ziigwan (Spring) through Niibin and Dagwaagin to the silent, snowy promise of Biboon—the award-winning author writes eloquently of the landscape and the weather, work and play, ceremony and tradition and family ways, from the homey moments shared over meals to the celebrations that mark life’s great events. Now a grandmother, a Nokomis, beginning the fourth season of her life, Grover draws on a wealth of stories and knowledge accumulated over the years to evoke the Ojibwe experience of Onigamiising, past and present, for all time.

The Secret Lives of Indian Mammals


Vivek Menon - 2017
    Mammals fascinate us, probably because we belong to that order! That’s why, along with expertly researched information about where these animals are found, and how they live, communicate and behave, conservationist and photographer Vivek Menon shares insider notes from his adventures in the wild. Key identification pointers and stunning colour photographs help you recognize different mammals easily, making The Secret Lives of Mammals both a ready reckoner as well as a field guide for animal lovers.

A Life with Wildlife: From Princely India to the Present


M.K. Ranjitsinh - 2017
    Ranjitsinh has had an unparalleled role in India s wildlife conservation history. He was the prime architect of the Wildlife (Protection) Act of 1972 and of the Central government schemes to assist national parks and sanctuaries. His passion for saving endangered species continues after his retirement, whether in planning the relocation of the Asiatic lion from Gir forest, the reintroduction of the cheetah into the grasslands of central India, or in saving from extinction the Kashmir stag, the Manipur brow-antlered deer and the Great Indian bustard.A Life with Wildlife traces the course of wildlife from the princely and British era to the present and shows how wildlife conservation in India has always emanated from the upper echelons of power. The book reveals the challenges of conservation in a democracy like India, and how to counteract them. There is also a candid account of the Bhopal gas tragedy from someone who played a pivotal role in its aftermath, never revealed before. This delightful first-hand account is in its essence the history of nature conservation in India during its most tumultuous period, by a person who was part of it and contributed to it.

Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters


Margo Neale - 2017
    Through artworks, stories and in-depth analysis, this book provides an important resource for those interested in knowing more about these complex pathways of spiritual, ecological, economic, cultural and ontological knowledge - the stories ‘written in the land’

Botanical Sketchbooks: {Over 500 years of beautiful botanical sketches by 80 artists from around the world, from Leonardo da Vinci to John Muir}


Helen Bynum - 2017
    While there are many histories of botanical art featuring beautiful paintings and finished drawings, the artists' preparatory sketches, first impressions, and scribbled notes on paper are rarely seen. But it is often these early attempts that give us real insight into the firsthand experiences and adventures of the botanists, artists, collectors, and explorers behind them.This exquisite visual compendium of botanical sketches by eighty artists from around the world brings these personal and vividly spontaneous records back into the light. Filled with remarkable images from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries, sourced from the unparalleled collections of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew Library, Art & Archives, and other libraries, museums, and archives, Botanical Sketchbooks also provides fascinating biographical portraits of the intriguing characters featured within, including such renowned artists, scientists, and amateur botanists as Leonardo da Vinci, Georg Dionysius Ehret, Carl Linnaeus, Maria Sibylla Merian, Mark Catesby, and Helen and Margaret Shelley (sisters of the novelist Mary Shelley), among many others.

Oak and Ash and Thorn: The Ancient Woods and New Forests of Britain


Peter Fiennes - 2017
    Even today, the British people continue to have a deep love for their woods, which have inspired countless myths, stories and poems throughout time. Peter Fiennes celebrates the beauty and mystery of Britain's woods, while also closely examining present issues of ownership, access, power and property. Fiennes visits Norwegian spruces in the Scottish Highlands, wild boars in Sussex, the small collection of trees in his childhood home's garden and everything in between in his exhilarating journey to understand our relationship to the forests and our duty to protect them. Of Oak and Ash and Thorn presents a powerful message for readers everywhere: our woods are important; they are under threat; and they must be saved.

Global Sustainability: 21 Leading Ceos Show How to Do Well by Doing Good


Mark Lefko - 2017
    It's not just good PR--it's good business, and a growing number of leading CEOs are embracing it. Mark Lefko's Global Sustainability examines this vital subject from the perspective of today's most influential business leaders. Global Sustainability means ensuring that everyone on Earth has what they need to survive and thrive. But in order for this to be feasible--and sustainable--businesses need to be able to turn a profit. Lefko shares profound insights gleaned from his one-on-one interviews with business leaders of all stripes, from the CEOs of Global Multinationals, Fortune 50 giants to visionaries leading plucky startups. Learn from these CEOs and others: Sir Richard Branson-Virgin Group, Paul Polman-Unilever, Ann Sherry-Carnival Australia, Feike Sijbesma-DSM, David MacLennan-Cargill, Marc Benioff-Salesforce. In exclusive interviews, these 21 leading CEOs explain:How the Global Sustainability movement is shaping the growth of the most profitable companies around the world How your company can participate fully in this movement--and profit from your participation How your guiding ethical principles shape your company's identity ... and why they're vital to your survival Global Sustainability is about more than just doing good; it's about doing well by doing good.

Cooper and Packrat: Mystery of the Bear Cub (Cooper and Packrat, #4)


Tamra Wight - 2017
    It's bad for the campground, and bad for the wildlife there, too. When Cooper Wilder and his friends, Packrat and Roy, find a fox in the woods with its head stuck in a jar, they know it's time to investigate. But when the boys start digging, they stumble headlong into the path of a garbage truck, toxic waste, and a black bear looking for its cub. Tamra Wight keeps the adventures coming in Book 4 of the award-winning Cooper & Packrat series.

Reversing the Apocalypse: Hijacking the Democratic Party to Save the World


Krystal Ball - 2017
    Krystal argues that Donald Trump is a predictable response to the massive economic dislocation of the past 40 years. Reversing the Apocalypse is not simple Trump bashing, but a powerful and self-reflective critique of where the Party went wrong and what Progressives can do to turn the tide. Krystal Ball narrates the modern descent of the Democratic Party from the party of workers and New Deal Progressives to the party of Silicon Valley elites and the managerial class. Tragically, this working class abandonment happened right when ordinary Americans needed the most help. But Krystal’s critique is radically action focused-what can we do to reclaim the Democratic Party for workers and start winning elections again. Critical Praise for Reversing the Apocalypse: "If you read one chapter of this book, it should be 'Preventing the Next Trump', but then you won't be able to put it down." -Lawrence O'Donnell, host of The Last Word on MSNBSC "It's easy to look at the disastrous policies and anti-working class politics of the other side instead of looking in the mirror for how we got here as a country. Krystal's book challenges progressives to look inward-for where we have gotten it wrong and how to think creatively to meet the challenges facing working people. For those within the progressive movement who want to be agents of the change we need-look no further, Krystal has the answers." -Congressman Tim Ryan (D-OH) of Youngstown "There will be many books emerging about how we ended up with Trump and what to do about it, along with others about what the Democratic Party needs to do to recapture its mojo. Some will be good, some not so good; some will be shallow, others deep with ideas and plans. Reversing the Apocalypse is good, deep and necessary." -Norm Ornstein, co-author of It’s Even Worse than it Looks "In Reversing the Apocalypse, Krystal makes it plain that there is a cry for systemic change in America that the political class, particularly Democrats, have failed to answer. She reminds us that we all have the responsibility and amazing opportunity to be the light for each other, our community and nation. In particular, she encourages us to find the causes that unite and ignite us, join forces and build." -Nina Turner, Former Ohio State Senator and Our Revolution board member Krystal has a prescription that includes fielding a dramatically different candidate slate around the country for US Congress, including those earning the minimum wage and those without a college degree. She also argues forcefully that the only litmus tests that matter for Democrats should have to do with economic issues and inclusion-and that the social and cultural issues, such as guns and abortion, need to take a back seat to issues of economic justice. Reversing the Apocalypse also takes on the dominant narrative regarding race in the Democratic Party and shows how a narrow focus on "white privilege" and on lecturing well-intentioned working class whites creates closed mindedness and division instead of receptivity to an economic justice message. If you want to take your party and your country back, not back in time to some mythical 1950s homogeny, but back to the New Deal Radicalism of the 1930s that saved us from the Great Depression, Reversing the Apocalypse has the answers you've been looking for.

Karl Marx's Ecosocialism: Capital, Nature, and the Unfinished Critique of Political Economy


Kohei Saito - 2017
    Understandably, this perspective has come under sharp attack, not only from mainstream environmentalists but also from ecosocialists, many of whom reject Marx outright.Kohei Saito's Karl Marx's Ecosocialism lays waste to accusations of Marx's ecological shortcomings. Delving into Karl Marx's central works, as well as his natural scientific notebooks--published only recently and still being translated--Saito also builds on the works of scholars such as John Bellamy Foster and Paul Burkett, to argue that Karl Marx actually saw the environmental crisis embedded in capitalism. "It is not possible to comprehend the full scope of [Marx's] critique of political economy," Saito writes, "if one ignores its ecological dimension."Saito's book is crucial today, as we face unprecedented ecological catastrophes--crises that cannot be adequately addressed without a sound theoretical framework. Karl Marx's Ecosocialism shows us that Marx has given us more than we once thought, that we can now come closer to finishing Marx's critique, and to building a sustainable ecosocialist world.

New Carbon Architecture: Building to Cool the Planet


Bruce King - 2017
    The New Carbon Architecture explores how biomimicry-inspired innovations in architecture and construction – from cities made of wood to insulation grown from straw and mycelium – will pull carbon from the atmosphere, heal the climate, and produce safer, healthier, and more beautiful buildings.

Climate Change and the Health of Nations: Famines, Fevers, and the Fate of Populations


Anthony J. McMichael - 2017
    But natural climate change has occurred throughout human history, and populations have had to adapt to its vicissitudes. Tony McMichael, a renowned epidemiologist and a pioneer in the field of how human health relates to climate change, is the ideal guide to this phenomenon, and in his magisterial Climate Change and the Health of Nations, he presents a sweeping and authoritative analysis of how human societies have been shaped by climate events. Some have theorized that natural environment determines the fate of communities. McMichael does not go that far, but he emphasizes that it does have vast direct and indirect repercussions for human health and welfare. After providing an overview of the dynamics of global warming and the greenhouse effect, McMichael takes us on a tour of the entirety of human history, through the lens of climate change. From the very beginning of our species some five million years ago, human biology has evolved to adapt to cooling temperatures, new food sources, and changing geography. As societies began to form, they too evolved in relation to their environments, most notably with the development of agriculture eleven thousand years ago. McMichael dubs this mankind's 'Faustian bargain, ' because the prosperity and comfort that an agrarian society provides relies on the assumption that the environment will largely remain stable; in order for agriculture to succeed, environmental conditions must be just right, which McMichael refers to as the 'Goldilocks phenomenon.' Now, with global warming, the bill is coming due-not that it was ever far out of mind. Climate-related upheavals are a common thread running through history, and they inevitably lead to conflict and destruction. McMichael correlates them to the four horsemen of the apocalypse: famine, pestilence, war, and conquest. Indeed, they have precipitated food shortages, the spread of infectious diseases, and even civilizational collapse. We can see this in familiar historical events-the barbarian invasions of Rome, the Black Death in medieval Europe, the Irish potato famine, maybe even the Ten Plagues-that had their roots in natural climate change. Why devote so much analysis to the past, when the terrifying future of climate change is already here? The story of mankind's survival in the face of an unpredictable and unstable climate, and of the terrible toll that climate change can take, in fact could not be more important as we face the realities of a warming planet. This sweeping magnum opus is not only a rigorous, innovative, and fascinating exploration of how the climate affects the human condition, but also a clarion call to recognize our species' utter reliance on the earth as it is.

The Carbon Code: How You Can Become a Climate Change Hero


Brett Favaro - 2017
    Our addiction to fossil fuels is destroying not only our ancient planet, but our modern civilization. How can we protect our fragile ecosystems while preserving our way of life? How can we respond to climate change deniers who mock the fact that environmental activists use fossil fuels? In short, how can your average concerned citizen live a normal life in a carbon-based economy without being justifiably called a hypocrite? In The Carbon Code, conservation biologist Brett Favaro answers these thorny questions, offering simple strategies to help you reduce your carbon footprint--without abandoning common sense.Favaro's Carbon Code of Conduct is based on the four R's: Reduce, Replace, Refine, and Rehabilitate. After outlining the scientific basics of climate change and explaining the logic of the code he prescribes, the author describes carbon-friendly technologies and behaviors we can adopt in our daily lives. However, he acknowledges that individual action, while vital, is insufficient. To achieve global sustainability, he insists that we must make the fight against climate change "go viral" through conspicuous conservation.The Carbon Code is a tool of empowerment. People don't need to be climate change experts to be part of the solution! In this book, Brett Favaro shows you how to take ownership of your carbon footprint and adopt a lifestyle of conspicuous conservation that will spur governments and corporations to do the same. Climate-friendly action is the best decision on every dimension--economics, health and well-being, and social justice. Saving the planet is, after all, about saving ourselves. The Carbon Code provides a framework to do this, and helps you to become a hero in the fight against climate change.

Thoreau's Animals


Henry David Thoreau - 2017
    A keen and thoughtful observer, he wrote frequently about these animals, always sensitive to their mysteries and deeply appreciative of their beauty and individuality. Whether serenading the perch of Walden Pond with his flute, chasing a loon across the water’s surface, observing a battle between black and red ants, or engaging in a battle of wits with his family’s runaway pig, Thoreau penned his journal entries with the accuracy of a scientist and the deep spirituality of a transcendentalist and mystic.   This volume, like its companion Thoreau’s Wildflowers, is arranged by the days of the year, following the progress of the turning seasons. A selection of his original sketchbook drawings is included, along with thirty-five exquisite illustrations by naturalist and artist Debby Cotter Kaspari.

Emerald Labyrinth: A Scientist's Adventures in the Jungles of the Congo


Eli Greenbaum - 2017
    The richly varied habitats of the Democratic Republic of the Congo offer a wealth of animal, plant, chemical, and medical discoveries. But the country also has a deeply troubled colonial past and a complicated political present. Author Eli Greenbaum is a leading expert in sub-Saharan herpetology—snakes, lizards, and frogs—who brings a sense of wonder to the question of how science works in the twenty-first century. Along the way he comes face to face with spitting cobras, silverback mountain gorillas, wild elephants, and the teenaged armies of AK-47-toting fighters engaged in the continent’s longest-running war. As a bellwether of the climate and biodiversity crises now facing the planet, the Congo holds the key to our planet’s future. Writing in the tradition of books like The Lost City of Z, Greenbaum seeks out the creatures struggling to survive in a war-torn, environmentally threatened country. Emerald Labyrinth is an extraordinary book about the enormous challenges and hard-won satisfactions of doing science in one of the least known, least hospitable places on earth.

When I Grow Up I Want to Be a Tiger


Prerna Singh Bindra - 2017
    Tigers don’t have names either. But then T-Cub is a very special tiger cub and he wants to tell you his story. It’s about his life in a forest in India, and his animal friends (and foes) including monkeys, peacocks and elephants.T-Cub is naughty, curious, lovable and brave (and sometimes scared too!). He is living the good life of a wild tiger—prowling the forest, loved by his Ma, teased by his sister. He is learning the ways of the jungle, to hunt, to be a tiger… And then one day his mother vanishes, and T-Cub learns another lesson—it isn’t easy being a tiger.Illustrated by Maya Ramaswamy.

The Earth, the City, and the Hidden Narrative of Race


Carl C Anthony - 2017
    Carl Anthony's memoir interweaves urban history, racial justice, and cosmology with personal experiences as an architect/planner, environmentalist, and black American.

Seeing the Light: The Case for Nuclear Power in the 21st Century


Scott L. Montgomery - 2017
    Global threats of climate change and lethal air pollution, killing millions each year, make it clear that nuclear and renewable energy must work together, as non-carbon sources of energy. Fortunately, a new era of growth in this energy source is underway in developing nations, though not yet in the West. Seeing the Light is the first book to clarify these realities and discuss their implications for coming decades. Readers will learn how, why, and where the new nuclear era is happening, what new technologies are involved, and what this means for preventing the proliferation of weapons. This book is the best work available for becoming fully informed about this key subject, for students, the general public, and anyone interested in the future of energy production, and, thus, the future of humanity on planet Earth.

Stories from the Dirt: Indiscretions of an Adventure Junkie


John Long - 2017
    BASE jumping in Europe. Climbing big walls in Yosemite. Riding bulls in Texas. These first-person stories from acclaimed climber and adventurer John Long may be vastly different in content, but they share an identifiable emotional texture, tone and delivery, and fundamentally are of one piece. This is storytelling at its best--nonfiction that reads like fiction. In Stories from the Dirt, the action leaves you breathless, but it's the characters that really leave a lasting mark. Like all stories worth a damn, this collection is all about the people.

Living In The Anthropocene: Earth in the Age of Humans


W. John Kress - 2017
    Even now, the basic requirements for human life--air, water, shelter, food, nature, and culture--are rapidly transforming the planet as billions of people compete for resources. These changes have become so noticeable on a global scale that scientists believe we are living in a new chapter in Earth's story: the Anthropocene, or Age of Humans. Living in the Anthropocene: Earth in the Age of Humans is a vital look at this era. The book contextualizes the Anthropocene by presenting paleontological, historical, and contemporary views of various human effects on Earth. It discusses environmental and biological systems that have been changed and affected; the causes of the Anthropocene, such as agricultural spread, pollution, and urbanization; how societies are responding and adapting to these changes; how these changes have been represented in art, film, television, and literature; and finally, offers a look toward the future of our environment and our own lives.

Vulture: The Private Life of an Unloved Bird


Katie Fallon - 2017
    In the United States we sometimes call them buzzards; in parts of Mexico the name is aura cabecirroja, in Uruguay jote cabeza colorada, and in Ecuador gallinazo aura. A huge bird, the turkey vulture is a familiar sight from culture to culture, in both hemispheres. But despite being ubiquitous and recognizable, the turkey vulture has never had a book of literary nonfiction devoted to it—until Vulture. Floating on six-foot wings, turkey vultures use their keen senses of smell and sight to locate carrion. Unlike their cousin the black vulture, turkey vultures do not kill weak or dying animals; instead, they cleanse, purify, and renew the environment by clearing it of decaying carcasses, thus slowing the spread of such dangerous pathogens as anthrax, rabies, and botulism. The beauty, grace, and important role of these birds in the ecosystem notwithstanding, turkey vultures are maligned and underappreciated; they have been accused of spreading disease and killing livestock, neither of which has ever been substantiated. Although turkey vultures are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which makes harming them a federal offense, the birds still face persecution. They’ve been killed because of their looks, their odor, and their presence in proximity to humans. Even the federal government occasionally sanctions “roost dispersals,” which involve the harassment and sometimes the murder of communally roosting vultures during the cold winter months. Vulture follows a year in the life of a typical North American turkey vulture. By incorporating information from scientific papers and articles, as well as interviews with world-renowned raptor and vulture experts, author Katie Fallon examines all aspects of the bird’s natural history: breeding, incubating eggs, raising chicks, migrating, and roosting. After reading this book you will never look at a vulture in the same way again.

Native: Art and design with Australian Plants


Kate Herd - 2017
    When Kate Herd started experimenting with how she pruned and trained the native plants in her riverside garden in Melbourne, she made some amazing discoveries. A eucalyptus shrub she had cut right back to the ground reappeared as the most beautiful sprawling ground cover. Westringia was shaped to impersonate perfect English Box balls. And she found that Tasmanian beech trees could grow as a copse in small city courtyards. Jela had similar experiences in her own garden design practice and together Kate and Jela have explored the unique beauty and resilience of Australia’s native plants. Known for their absolute versatility and hardiness in the garden, native plants also offer up original forms for cut flowers and sculpture. Garden designers Fiona Brockhoff and Sue Barnsley, Sculptor Tracey Deep and Artist Janet Lawrence all share their own love of Australian plants and how they incorporate them into their work. Chapters cover topics such as: Feature Foliage, Sculptural Forms, Pliability, Shady Spaces and Flowering Meadows.

The Word for World is Still Forest (Intercalations)


Anna-Sophie SpringerYanni A. Loukissas - 2017
    in response to their violent destruction, which characterizes the Anthropocene, these pages traverse various woodlands by way of their semiotic, socio-political, historical, and epistemic incitements in order to reveal how practices of care, concern, and attention also enable humans to inhabit and flourish in this world as forest.Taking its title from Ursula K. Le Guin’s 1972 novella, The Word for World is Still Forest curates an homage to the forest as a turbulent, interconnected, multinature. Moving from concepts of the forest as a thinking organism to the linear monocultural plantations that now threaten the life of global forests, the volume includes interviews, a photo essay, case studies, reflections, drawings, essays and more. Contributors: Sandra Bartoli, Kevin Beiler, Shannon Castleman, Dan Handel, Katie Holten, Elise Hunchuck, Silvan Linden, Yanni A. Loukissas, Eduardo Kohn, Pedro Neves Marques, Abel Rodríguez, Carlos Rodríguez, Suzanne Simard, Anna-Sophie Springer, Paulo Tavares Etienne Turpin, Catalina Vargas Tovar

Replenish: The Virtuous Cycle of Water and Prosperity


Sandra Postel - 2017
    Yet every year, recovery from droughts and floods costs billions of dollars, and we spend billions more on dams, diversions, levees, and other feats of engineering. These massive projects not only are risky financially and environmentally, they often threaten social and political stability. What if the answer was not further control of the water cycle, but repair and replenishment? Sandra Postel takes readers around the world to explore water projects that work with, rather than against, nature’s rhythms. In New Mexico, forest rehabilitation is safeguarding drinking water; along the Mississippi River, farmers are planting cover crops to reduce polluted runoff; and in China, “sponge cities” are capturing rainwater to curb urban flooding. Efforts like these will be essential as climate change disrupts both weather patterns and the models on which we base our infrastructure. We will be forced to adapt. The question is whether we will continue to fight the water cycle or recognize our place in it and take advantage of the inherent services nature offers. Water, Postel writes, is a gift, the source of life itself. How will we use this greatest of gifts?