World as Lover, World as Self


Joanna Macy - 1991
    A blueprint for social change, World as Lover, World as Self shows how we can reverse the destructive attitudes that threaten our world.

May All Be Fed: 'a Diet For A New World : Including Recipes By Jia Patton And Friends


John Robbins - 1992
    May All Be Fed explains why so few have so much to eat and why so many have so little, and it shows how everyone can make a difference by altering food choices. 8 charts.

Sepp Holzer's Permaculture: A Practical Guide to Small-Scale, Integrative Farming and Gardening


Sepp Holzer - 2004
    His farm is an intricate network of terraces, raised beds, ponds, waterways and tracks, well covered with productive fruit trees and other vegetation, with the farmhouse neatly nestling amongst them. This is in dramatic contrast to his neighbors' spruce monocultures.In this book, Holzer shares the skill and knowledge acquired over his lifetime. He covers every aspect of his farming methods, not just how to create a holistic system on the farm itself, but how to make a living from it. Holzer writes about everything from the overall concepts, down to the practical details.In Sepp Holzer's Permaculturereaders will learn:How he sets up a permaculture systemThe fruit varieties he has found best for permaculture growingHow to construct terraces, ponds, and waterwaysHow to build shelters for animals and how to work with them on the landHow to cultivate edible mushrooms in the garden and on the farmand much more!Holzer offers a wealth of information for the gardener, smallholder or alternative farmer yet the book's greatest value is the attitudes it teaches. He reveals the thinking processes based on principles found in nature that create his productive systems. These can be applied anywhere.

Atomic Accidents: A History of Nuclear Meltdowns and Disasters: From the Ozark Mountains to Fukushima


James Mahaffey - 2014
    Radiation: What could go wrong? In short, plenty. From Marie Curie carrying around a vial of radium salt because she liked the pretty blue glow to the large-scale disasters at Chernobyl and Fukushima, dating back to the late nineteenth century, nuclear science has had a rich history of innovative exploration and discovery, coupled with mistakes, accidents, and downright disasters. In this lively book, long-time advocate of continued nuclear research and nuclear energy James Mahaffey looks at each incident in turn and analyzes what happened and why, often discovering where scientists went wrong when analyzing past meltdowns. Every incident, while taking its toll, has led to new understanding of the mighty atom—and the fascinating frontier of science that still holds both incredible risk and great promise.

Red Alert!: Saving the Planet with Indigenous Knowledge


Daniel R. Wildcat - 2009
    Red Alert! seeks to debunk the modern myths that humankind is the center of creation.

The World Without Us


Alan Weisman - 2007
    In this far-reaching narrative, Weisman explains how our massive infrastructure would collapse and finally vanish without human presence; which everyday items may become immortalized as fossils; how copper pipes and wiring would be crushed into mere seams of reddish rock; why some of our earliest buildings might be the last architecture left; and how plastic, bronze sculpture, radio waves, and some man-made molecules may be our most lasting gifts to the universe.The World Without Us reveals how, just days after humans disappear, floods in New York's subways would start eroding the city's foundations, and how, as the world's cities crumble, asphalt jungles would give way to real ones. It describes the distinct ways that organic and chemically treated farms would revert to wild, how billions more birds would flourish, and how cockroaches in unheated cities would perish without us. Drawing on the expertise of engineers, atmospheric scientists, art conservators, zoologists, oil refiners, marine biologists, astrophysicists, religious leaders from rabbis to the Dalai Lama, and paleontologists—who describe a prehuman world inhabited by megafauna like giant sloths that stood taller than mammoths—Weisman illustrates what the planet might be like today, if not for us.From places already devoid of humans (a last fragment of primeval European forest; the Korean DMZ; Chernobyl), Weisman reveals Earth's tremendous capacity for self-healing. As he shows which human devastations are indelible, and which examples of our highest art and culture would endure longest, Weisman's narrative ultimately drives toward a radical but persuasive solution that needn't depend on our demise. It is narrative nonfiction at its finest, and in posing an irresistible concept with both gravity and a highly readable touch, it looks deeply at our effects on the planet in a way that no other book has.

Harmony: A New Way of Looking at Our World


Charles, Prince of Wales - 2010
    Prince Charles shows how the solutions to problems like climate change lie not only in technology but in our ability to change the way we view the modern world.For decades, the Prince of Wales has been studying a wide array of disciplines to understand every aspect of man's impact on the natural world, and in that time he has examined everything from architecture to organic farming to sustainable economics. Now, for the first time, he speaks out about his years of research, presenting a fascinating look at how modern industrialization has led us to a state of disharmony with nature, created climate change, and pushed us to the brink of disaster.From the rice farms of India to the prairies of America's corn belt, from the temples of Ancient Egypt to the laboratories of industrial designers, Harmony spans the globe to identify the different ways that contemporary life has abandoned the hard-earned practices of our history, a shift that has spurred a host of social problems and accelerated climate change.Drawing on cases from farming, healthcare, transportation, and design, the Prince of Wales also offers solutions for change, creating a new vision for our world, one that incorporates the traditional wisdom of our past with the modern science of our present to avert catastrophe. In the end, Harmony paints a holistic portrait of what we as a species have lost in the modern age, while outlining the steps we can take to regain the harmony of our ancestors.Illustrated with lush, four-color photographs and charts, this intelligent, practical, and well-reasoned guide is an indispensable weapon in the battle to save our planet.

The Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience


Rob Hopkins - 2008
    Most people don't want to think about what happens when the oil runs out (or becomes prohibitively expensive). This title shows how the inevitable and profound changes ahead can have a positive effect.

A Plea for the Animals: The Moral, Philosophical, and Evolutionary Imperative to Treat All Beings with Compassion


Matthieu Ricard - 2014
    Every chicken just wants to be free. Every bear, dog, or mouse experiences sorrow and feels pain as intensely as any of us humans do. In a compelling appeal to reason and human kindness, Matthieu Ricard here takes the arguments from his best-sellers Altruism and Happiness to their logical conclusion: that compassion toward all beings, including our fellow animals, is a moral obligation and the direction toward which any enlightened society must aspire. He chronicles the appalling sufferings of the animals we eat, wear, and use for adornment or "entertainment," and submits every traditional justification for their exploitation to scientific evidence and moral scrutiny. What arises is an unambiguous and powerful ethical imperative for treating all of the animals with whom we share this planet with respect and compassion.

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.

No. More. Plastic.: What you can do to make a difference – the #2minutesolution


Martin Dorey - 2018
    Start now. All it takes is 2 minutes of your time.'I read this book yesterday and I've done three things today and that is testament to Martin's brilliant vision and ideas. Now it's your turn!' Chris Packham'Once, plastic was the miracle material. Now it's the monster. We all need to cut down our plastic consumption and join Martin's #2minutesolution anti-plastic movement. I'm in.' Julia BradburyOpen this book with your children, give it to your friends. Share your #2minutesolution on twitter and instagram and inspire others. Martin Dorey, anti-plastics expert, has been working to save our beaches from plastic for the past 10 years. His Beach Clean Foundation and global call to arms #2minutebeachclean has been taken up by people all over the world, and has proven that collective small actions can add up to a big difference. Together we can fix this.

Confessions of an Eco-Warrior


Dave Foreman - 1991
    Rude and brilliant. Read it and you will see the future.--William Kittredge.

Original Instructions: Indigenous Teachings for a Sustainable Future


Melissa K. Nelson - 2008
    They’ve successfully managed complex reciprocal relationships between biological and cultural diversity. Awareness of indigenous knowledge is reemerging at the eleventh hour to help avert global ecological and social collapse. Indigenous cultural wisdom shows us how to live in peace--with the earth and one another.Original Instructions evokes the rich indigenous storytelling tradition in this collection of presentations gathered from the annual Bioneers conference. It depicts how the world’s native leaders and scholars are safeguarding the original instructions, reminding us about gratitude, kinship, and a reverence for community and creation. Included are more than 20 contemporary indigenous leaders--such as Chief Oren Lyons, John Mohawk, Winona LaDuke, and John Trudell. These beautiful, wise voices remind us where hope lies.

Curlew Moon


Mary Colwell - 2018
    They are particularly known for their evocative calls which embody wild places; they provoke a range of emotions that many have expressed in poetry, art and music.There is a wildlife spectacle that can transport the soul to a place of yearning and beauty, to an experience that has inspired generations of thinkers and dreamers. Imagine if you will, a blustery, cold day in December. Bitterly cold. A bird stands alone on the edge of a mudflat, some distance from where you are standing. Its silhouette is unmistakable. A plump body sits atop long, stilty legs. The long neck arcs into a small head, which tapers further into a long curved bill. The smooth, convex outlines of this curlew are alluring. They touch some ancestral liking we all have for shapes that are round and smooth. The curved curlew’s outline is anomalous in this planar, uniform landscape, but its colour blends well. The mud is gunmetal grey, the curlew brown and the water murky. The sky is dull with a hint of drab. The air is infused with the smells of decay.Over the last thirty years curlew numbers have fallen by an alarming 20 per cent across the European continent, and in their most western reaches in the Irish Republic there is nothing short of a disaster unfolding. In the 1980s there were around 5,000 pairs of nesting curlews, today there are fewer than 130, a staggering drop of 99 per cent. So alarming are the figures that curlews were made a species of highest conservation concern in the UK in December 2015, and put onto the red list of threatened species by the IUCN, the worldwide union of conservation bodies which monitors the status of animals and plants throughout the globe. They are now in the same category as jaguars, ‘near threatened,’ which means extinction is likely in the future.This transition of curlews to high conservation status made it clear they were slipping away for problems that could be addressed with the public and political will to solve them. It was then that the idea of a 500-mile journey by foot began to crystallise in Mary Colwell’s mind and became a concrete plan. Colwell decided to take time out to walk from the West coast of Ireland through Wales to the East coast of England to raise awareness about its plight, and to raise funds to protect this beautiful bird and its habitat.Colwell started walking in the early spring when birds were first arriving on their breeding grounds in the west of Ireland, walking through to Wales when they incubated their eggs. She then travelled through England to coincide with the time when the chicks were hatching. Six weeks after setting out she arrived in East Anglia as the fledglings were beginning to try out their wings. By finishing on the east coast, she marked the place where many curlews would come to spend the winter.Colwell chronicles her impressive journey in this beautifully illustrated book, weaving a wonderfully told story of the experiences on her walk, interspersed with the natural history of this most impressive of birds that has fascinated us for millennia.

The Farm on the Roof: What Brooklyn Grange Taught Us about Entrepreneurship, Community, and Growing a Sustainable Business


Anastasia Cole Plakias - 2016
    The founders of Brooklyn Grange, the world s largest green rooftop farm, share their inspirational s....