Book picks similar to
Our Dying Planet: An Ecologist's View of the Crisis We Face by Peter F. Sale
non-fiction
environment
science
biology
How to Save Our Planet: The Facts
Mark A. Maslin - 2021
No beating around the bush. This brilliant book contains all the information we need to have in our back pocket in order to move forward' Christiana Figueres, Former Executive Secretary UN Climate Change Convention'A timely and important book, not only laying out the facts...but suggesting real solutions to the challenges facing us' Professor Alice Roberts, Anatomist, Professor of Public Engagement in Science, University of Birmingham_________________________ How can we save our planet and survive the 21st century? How can you argue with deniers? How can we create positive change in the midst of the climate crisis?Professor Mark Maslin has the key facts that we need to protect our future.Global awareness of climate change is growing rapidly. Science has proven that our planet and species are facing a massive environmental crisis. How to Save Our Planet is a call to action, guaranteed to equip everyone with the knowledge needed to make change.Be under no illusion the challenges of the twenty-first century are immense. We need to deal with: climate change, environmental destruction, global poverty and ensure everyone's security.We have the technology.We have the resources.We have the money.We have the scientists, the entrepreneurs and the innovators.We lack the politics and policies to make your vision of a better world happen.So we need a plan to save our planet...How to Save Our Planet is your handbook of how we together can save our precious planet. From the history of our planet and species, to the potential of individuals and our power to create a better future, Maslin inspires optimism in these bleak times.We stand at the precipice. The future of our planet is in our hands.It's time to face the facts and save our planet from, and for, ourselves._________________________'A handbook of clearly established, authoritative facts and figures about the terrible toll we as humans have taken of our planet, plus ways in which we can lessen the impact. For laypeople like me, who can see what is happening but haven't always got the precise statistics to hand, it's hugely valuable' John Simpson CBE, BBC World Affairs Editor, Broadcaster, Author & Columnist'Saving the world is no small thing, but picking up this book's a good start' Paris Lees, Contributing Editor at British Vogue, campaigner
Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century
Alex Steffen - 2006
Each chapter will offer practical answers to important questions, such as: Why does buying locally produced food make sense? What steps can we take to influence our workplace toward sustainability? How do we volunteer and advocate more effectively? How can we travel, live, work and learn in world changing ways? How, in short, can every human being help build a better future locally and globally? Illustrated with photographs and designed by Stefan Sagmeister, one of the most influential graphic designers working today, Worldchanging will prove that a life that is sustainably prosperous, just and democratic, dynamic and peaceful, is not just possible, it's here.
The ARRL Extra Class License Manual for Ham Radio
H. Ward Silver - 2002
Whenyou upgrade to Extra Class, you gain access to the entire Amateur Radio frequency spectrum. Ues this book to ace the top-level ham radio licensing exam. Our expert instruction will lead you through all of the knowledge you need to pass the exam: rules, specific operating skills and more advanced electronics theory.
101 Ways to Go Zero Waste
Kathryn Kellogg - 2019
Enter Kathryn Kellogg, who can fit all her trash from the past two years into a 16-ounce mason jar. How? She starts by saying “no” to straws and grocery bags, and “yes” to a reusable water bottle and compostable dish scrubbers.In 101 Ways to Go Zero Waste, Kellogg shares these tips and more, along with DIY recipes for beauty and home; advice for responsible consumption and making better choices for home goods, fashion, and the office; and even secrets for how to go waste free at the airport. “It’s not about perfection,” she says. “It’s about making better choices.”This is a practical, friendly blueprint of realistic lifestyle changes for anyone who wants to reduce their waste.
What We Think About When We Try Not To Think About Global Warming: Toward a New Psychology of Climate Action
Per Espen Stoknes - 2015
With dozens of examples—from the private sector to government agencies—Stoknes shows how to retell the story of climate change and, at the same time, create positive, meaningful actions that can be supported even by deniers.In What We Think About When We Try Not To Think About Global Warming, Stoknes not only masterfully identifies the five main psychological barriers to climate action, but addresses them with five strategies for how to talk about global warming in a way that creates action and solutions, not further inaction and despair.These strategies work with, rather than against, human nature. They are social, positive, and simple—making climate-friendly behaviors easy and convenient. They are also story-based, to help add meaning and create community, and include the use of signals, or indicators, to gauge feedback and be constantly responsive.Whether you are working on the front lines of the climate issue, immersed in the science, trying to make policy or educate the public, or just an average person trying to make sense of the cognitive dissonance or grapple with frustration over this looming issue, What We Think About When We Try Not To Think About Global Warming moves beyond the psychological barriers that block progress and opens new doorways to social and personal transformation.
The Age of Sustainable Development
Jeffrey D. Sachs - 2015
Sachs is one of the world's most perceptive and original analysts of global development. In this major new work he presents a compelling and practical framework for how global citizens can use a holistic way forward to address the seemingly intractable worldwide problems of persistent extreme poverty, environmental degradation, and political-economic injustice: sustainable development.Sachs offers readers, students, activists, environmentalists, and policy makers the tools, metrics, and practical pathways they need to achieve Sustainable Development Goals. Far more than a rhetorical exercise, this book is designed to inform, inspire, and spur action. Based on Sachs's twelve years as director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, his thirteen years advising the United Nations secretary-general on the Millennium Development Goals, and his recent presentation of these ideas in a popular online course, "The Age of Sustainable Development" is a landmark publication and clarion call for all who care about our planet and global justice.
The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness, and Greed
John Vaillant - 2005
Five months earlier, logger-turned-activist Grant Hadwin had plunged naked into a river in British Columbia's Queen Charlotte Islands, towing a chainsaw. When his night's work was done, a unique Sitka spruce, 165 feet tall and covered with luminous golden needles, teetered on its stump. Two days later it fell.As vividly as John Krakauer puts readers on Everest, John Vaillant takes us into the heart of North America's last great forest.
Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth
William Bryant Logan - 1995
Whether William Bryant Logan is traversing the far reaches of the cosmos or plowing through our planet’s crust, his delightful, elegant, and surprisingly soulful meditations greatly enrich our concept of "dirt," that substance from which we all arise and to which we all must return.
The Climate Fix: What Scientists and Politicians Won't Tell You about Global Warming
Roger A. Pielke Jr. - 2010
In The Climate Fix, Pielke offers a way to repair climate policy, shifting the debate away from meaningless targets and toward a revolution in how the world’s economy is powered, while de-fanging the venomous politics surrounding the crisis. The debate on global warming has lost none of its power to polarize and provoke in a haze of partisan vitriol. The Climate Fix will bring something new to the discussions: a commonsense perspective and practical actions better than any offered so far.
We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast
Jonathan Safran Foer - 2019
But do those of us who accept the reality of human-caused climate change truly believe it? If we did, surely we would be roused to act on what we know. Will future generations distinguish between those who didn’t believe in the science of global warming and those who said they accepted the science but failed to change their lives in response?In We Are the Weather, Jonathan Safran Foer explores the central global dilemma of our time in a surprising, deeply personal, and urgent new way. The task of saving the planet will involve a great reckoning with ourselves—with our all-too-human reluctance to sacrifice immediate comfort for the sake of the future. We have, he reveals, turned our planet into a farm for growing animal products, and the consequences are catastrophic. Only collective action will save our home and way of life. And it all starts with what we eat—and don’t eat—for breakfast.
Windows Into the Earth: The Geologic Story of Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks
Robert Baer Smith - 2000
Generating cataclysmic volcanic eruptions and large earthquakes, the hotspot helped lift the Yellowstone Plateau to more than 7,000 feet and pushed the northern Rockies to new heights, forming unusually large glaciers to carve the landscape. It also created the jewel of the U.S. national park system: Yellowstone. Meanwhile, forces stretching apart the western U.S. created the mountainous glory of Grand Teton National Park. These two parks, with their majestic mountains, dazzling geysers, and picturesque hot springs, are windows into the Earth's interior, revealing the violent power of the dynamic processes within. Smith and Siegel offer expert guidance through this awe-inspiring terrain, bringing to life the grandeur of these geologic phenomena as they reveal the forces that have shaped--and continue to shape--the greater Yellowstone-Teton region. Over seventy illustrations--including fifty-two in full color--illuminate the breathtaking beauty of the landscape, while two final chapters provide driving tours of the parks to help visitors enjoy and understand the regions wonders. Fascinating and informative, this book affords us a striking new perspective on Earth's creative forces.
Vesper Flights
Helen Macdonald - 2020
Helen Macdonald's bestselling debut H is for Hawk brought the astonishing story of her relationship with goshawk Mabel to global critical acclaim and announced Macdonald as one of this century's most important and insightful nature writers. H is for Hawk won the Samuel Johnson Prize for Nonfiction and the Costa Book Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction, launching poet and falconer Macdonald as our preeminent nature essayist, with a semi-regular column in the New York Times Magazine.In Vesper Flights Helen Macdonald brings together a collection of her best loved essays, along with new pieces on topics ranging from nostalgia for a vanishing countryside to the tribulations of farming ostriches to her own private vespers while trying to fall asleep. Meditating on notions of captivity and freedom, immigration and flight, Helen invites us into her most intimate experiences: observing songbirds from the Empire State Building as they migrate through the Tribute of Light, watching tens of thousands of cranes in Hungary, seeking the last golden orioles in Suffolk's poplar forests. She writes with heart-tugging clarity about wild boar, swifts, mushroom hunting, migraines, the strangeness of birds' nests, and the unexpected guidance and comfort we find when watching wildlife. By one of this century's most important and insightful nature writers, Vesper Flights is a captivating and foundational book about observation, fascination, time, memory, love and loss and how we make sense of the world around us.
The Ministry for the Future
Kim Stanley Robinson - 2020
It soon became known as the Ministry for the Future, and this is its story.From legendary science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson comes a vision of climate change unlike any ever imagined.Told entirely through fictional eye-witness accounts, The Ministry For The Future is a masterpiece of the imagination, the story of how climate change will affect us all over the decades to come.Its setting is not a desolate, post-apocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon us - and in which we might just overcome the extraordinary challenges we face.It is a novel both immediate and impactful, desperate and hopeful in equal measure, and it is one of the most powerful and original books on climate change ever written.
Civilizations: Culture, Ambition, and the Transformation of Nature
Felipe Fernández-Armesto - 2000
To the author, Oxford historian Felipe Fernández-Armesto, a society's relationship to climate, geography, and ecology are paramount in determining its degree of success. "Unlike previous attempts to write the comparative history of civilizations," he writes, "it is arranged environment by environment, rather than period by period or society by society." Thus, for example, tundra civilizations of Ice Age Europe are linked with those of the Inuit of the Pacific Northwest, the Mississippi Mound Builders with the deforesters of eleventh-century Europe. Civilizations brilliantly connects the world of ecologist, geologist, and geographer with the panorama of cultural history.
The National Parks: America's Best Idea
Dayton Duncan - 2009
In this evocative and lavishly illustrated narrative, Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan delve into the history of the park idea, from the first sighting by white men in 1851 of the valley that would become Yosemite and the creation of the world’s first national park at Yellowstone in 1872, through the most recent additions to a system that now encompasses nearly four hundred sites and 84 million acres.The authors recount the adventures, mythmaking, and intense political battles behind the evolution of the park system, and the enduring ideals that fostered its growth. They capture the importance and splendors of the individual parks: from Haleakala in Hawaii to Acadia in Maine, from Denali in Alaska to the Everglades in Florida, from Glacier in Montana to Big Bend in Texas. And they introduce us to a diverse cast of compelling characters—both unsung heroes and famous figures such as John Muir, Theodore Roosevelt, and Ansel Adams—who have been transformed by these special places and committed themselves to saving them from destruction so that the rest of us could be transformed as well.The National Parks is a glorious celebration of an essential expression of American democracy.