Book picks similar to
Dam Nation: Dispatches from the Water Underground by Cleo Woelfle-Erskine
environment
water
nonfiction
conservation
SOS: What you can do to reduce climate change – simple actions that make a difference
Seth Wynes - 2019
What you do matters - and the science proves it. How many actions can you tick of the list in this book to help save our planet?
Mint Juleps with Teddy Roosevelt: The Complete History of Presidential Drinking
Mark Will-Weber - 2014
The eighteenth century saw the Father of His Country distilling whiskey in his backyard. The nineteenth century witnessed the lavish expenses on wine by the Sage of Monticello, Honest Abe’s inclination toward temperance, and the slurred speech of the first president to be impeached. Fast forward to the twentieth century and acquaint yourself with Woodrow Wilson’s namesake whisky, FDR’s affinity for rum swizzles, and Ike's bathtub gin. What concoctions can be found in the White House today? Visit the first lady’s beehives to find out!In Mint Juleps with Teddy Roosevelt, you’ll learn:• Which Founding Fathers had distilleries in their backyards• The teetotalers versus the car-totalers• Whose expensive tastes in vintages led to bankruptcy• Which commanders in chief preferred whiskey to whisky• The 4 C’s: Cointreau, claret, Campari, and cocktails• The first ladies who heralded the “hair of the dog” and those who vehemently opposed it• The preferred stemware: snifter or stein?• Which presidents and staff members abstained, imbibed, or overindulged during Prohibition• Recipes through the ages: favorites including the Bermuda Rum Swizzle, Missouri Mule, and Obama’s White House Honey AleSo grab a cocktail and turn the pages of Mint Juleps with Teddy Roosevelt for a unique and entertaining look into the liquor cabinets and the beer refrigerators of the White House. Cheers!
How To Read Water: Clues & Patterns from Puddles to the Sea
Tristan Gooley - 2016
From wild swimming in Sussex to wayfinding in Oman, via the icy mysteries of the Arctic, Tristan Gooley draws on his own pioneering journeys to reveal the secrets of ponds, puddles, rivers, oceans and more to show us all the skills we need to read the water around us.
The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America
Douglas Brinkley - 2009
"Douglas Brinkley brings to this magnificent story of Theodore Roosevelt's crusade on behalf of America's national parks the same qualities that made TR so fascinating a figure—an astonishing range of knowledge, a superb narrative skill, a wonderfully vivid writing style and an inexhaustible energy." —Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of Team of RivalsA vast, inspiring, and enormously entertaining book.” — New York Times Book ReviewFrom New York Times bestselling historian Douglas Brinkley comes a sweeping historical narrative and eye-opening look at the pioneering environmental policies of President Theodore Roosevelt, avid bird-watcher, naturalist, and the founding father of America’s conservation movement—now approaching its 100th anniversary.
Sustainable Home: Practical projects, tips and advice for maintaining a more eco-friendly household
Christine Liu - 2018
Whether its by making your own toothpaste, converting to renewable energy sources, reducing your consumption of plastic, growing your own herb garden or upcycling old pieces of furniture, there are numerous ways – both big and small – to make a difference. With environmental issues at the forefront of global politics, the desire to make small changes on an individual level is on the rise; this book will guide anyone hoping to make a difference, but who perhaps don’t know where to begin.
Zero Waste Home: The Ultimate Guide to Simplifying Your Life by Reducing Your Waste
Bea Johnson - 2013
But where to begin? How? Many of us have taken small steps, but Bea Johnson has taken the big leap. Bea, her husband Scott, and their two young sons produce just one quart of garbage a year.In Zero Waste Home, Bea Johnson shares her story and lays out the system by which she and her family have reached and maintained their own Zero Waste goals—a lifestyle that has yielded bigger surprises than they ever dreamed possible. They now have more time together as a family, they have cut their annual spending by a remarkable 40%, and they are healthier than they've ever been, both emotionally and physically.This book shares how-to advice and essential secrets and insights based on the author’s own experience. She demystifies the process of going Zero Waste with hundreds of easy tips for sustainable living that even the busiest people can integrate: from making your own mustard, to packing kids' lunches without plastic, to cancelling your junk mail, to enjoying the holidays without the guilt associated with overconsumption.Stylish and completely relatable, Zero Waste Home is a practical, step-by-step guide that gives readers the tools and tips to improve their overall health, save money and time, and achieve a brighter future for their families—and the planet.
The Organic Machine: The Remaking of the Columbia River
Richard White - 1995
He concentrates on what brings humans and the river together: not only the physical space of the region but also, and primarily, energy and work. For working with the river has been central to Pacific Northwesterners' competing ways of life. It is in this way that White comes to view the Columbia River as an organic machine--with conflicting human and natural claims--and to show that whatever separation exists between humans and nature exists to be crossed.
The Story of Stuff: How Our Obsession with Stuff is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities, and our Health—and a Vision for Change
Annie Leonard - 2010
Leonard examines the “stuff” we use everyday, offering a galvanizing critique and steps for a changed planet.The Story of Stuff was received with widespread enthusiasm in hardcover, by everyone from Stephen Colbert to Tavis Smiley to George Stephanopolous on Good Morning America, as well as far-reaching print and blog coverage. Uncovering and communicating a critically important idea—that there is an intentional system behind our patterns of consumption and disposal—Annie Leonard transforms how we think about our lives and our relationship to the planet.From sneaking into factories and dumps around the world to visiting textile workers in Haiti and children mining coltan for cell phones in the Congo, Leonard, named one of Time magazine’s 100 environmental heroes of 2009, highlights each step of the materials economy and its actual effect on the earth and the people who live near sites like these.With curiosity, compassion, and humor, Leonard shares concrete steps for taking action at the individual and political level that will bring about sustainability, community health, and economic justice. Embraced by teachers, parents, churches, community centers, activists, and everyday readers, The Story of Stuff will be a long-lived classic.
Plastic: A Toxic Love Story
Susan Freinkel - 2011
Where would we be without bike helmets, baggies, toothbrushes, and pacemakers? But a century into our love affair with plastic, we’re starting to realize it’s not such a healthy relationship. Plastics draw on dwindling fossil fuels, leach harmful chemicals, litter landscapes, and destroy marine life. As journalist Susan Freinkel points out in this engaging and eye-opening book, we’re nearing a crisis point. We’ve produced as much plastic in the past decade as we did in the entire twentieth century. We’re drowning in the stuff, and we need to start making some hard choices. Freinkel gives us the tools we need with a blend of lively anecdotes and analysis. She combs through scientific studies and economic data, reporting from China and across the United States to assess the real impact of plastic on our lives. She tells her story through eight familiar plastic objects: comb, chair, Frisbee, IV bag, disposable lighter, grocery bag, soda bottle, and credit card. Her conclusion: we cannot stay on our plastic-paved path. And we don’t have to. Plastic points the way toward a new creative partnership with the material we love to hate but can’t seem to live without.
Che: The Diaries of Ernesto Che Guevara
Ernesto Che Guevara - 1970
Che’s first encounter with Fidel Castro in Mexico, when he immediately commits himself to join the guerrilla expedition to Cuba.
The dramatic moment when Che has to decide his future either as a doctor or a guerrilla fighter, symbolized by the choice of two backpacks: one with medicine, the other with ammunition.
Che’s poetic letter to his parents before he sets out on the fateful Bolivia mission.
Maps, chronology, and a useful glossary.
Thirty-six pages of original photos from the period and stills from the movie.
Movie tie-in cover.
Blurbs by Benicio del Toro and Steven Soderbergh.
Also published in English this season is Che: Guerrilla Diaries, 978-1-920888-93-0.
Pollution Is Colonialism
Max Liboiron - 2021
She points out that even when researchers are working toward benevolent goals, conducting environmental science and activism is often premised on a colonial worldview and access to land. Focusing on plastic pollution, Liboiron models an anticolonial scientific practice aligned with Indigenous, and particularly Métis, concepts of land, ethics, and relations. She draws on her work in the Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research (CLEAR)—an anticolonial science laboratory in Newfoundland, Canada—to illuminate how pollution is not a symptom of capitalism, but a violent enactment of colonial land relations that claim access to Indigenous land. Her creative, lively, and passionate text refuses theories of pollution that make Indigenous land available for settler and colonial goals. In this way, her methodology demonstrates that anticolonial science is not only possible, it is currently being practiced in ways that enact more ethical modes of being in the world.
Inconspicuous Consumption: The Environmental Impact You Don't Know You Have
Tatiana Schlossberg - 2019
By examining the unseen and unconscious environmental impacts in four areas-the Internet and technology, food, fashion, and fuel - Schlossberg helps readers better understand why climate change is such a complicated issue, and how it connects all of us: How streaming a movie on Netflix in New York burns coal in Virginia; how eating a hamburger in California might contribute to pollution in the Gulf of Mexico; how buying an inexpensive cashmere sweater in Chicago expands the Mongolian desert; how destroying forests from North Carolina is necessary to generate electricity in England. Cataloging the complexities and frustrations of our carbon-intensive society with a dry sense of humor, Schlossberg makes the climate crisis and its solutions interesting and relevant to everyone who cares, even a little, about the planet. She empowers readers to think about their stuff and the environment in a new way, helping them make more informed choices when it comes to the future of our world. Most importantly, this is a book about the power we have as voters and consumers to make sure that the fight against climate change includes all of us and all of our stuff, not just industry groups and politicians. If we have any hope of solving the problem, we all have to do it together.
"A compelling-and illuminating-look at how our daily habits impact the environment."--Vanity Fair"Shows how even the smallest decisions can have profound environmental consequences."--The New York Times
The Whole-Body Approach to Osteoporosis: How to Improve Bone Strength and Reduce Your Fracture Risk
R. Keith Mccormick - 2009
While medication can sometimes help, it won't fully address the underlying causes of your osteoporosis or osteopenia. To restore bone health, you'll need a targeted program combining the best bone-building strategies from traditional and holistic medicine. The Whole-Body Approach to Osteoporosis distills these complex strategies into a whole-body plan you can begin today to dramatically improve your bone strength and overall vitality.This comprehensive guide includes information on:What to eat for stronger bonesChoosing bone-building supplements and osteoporosis medicationsFoods and medications that may be contributing to bone lossSigns and symptoms that can help you monitor your bone healthHow lab tests can help you personalize your plan
No Impact Man
Colin Beavan - 2009
And that’s just the beginning. Bill McKibben meets Bill Bryson in this seriously engaging look at one man’s decision to put his money where his mouth is and go off the grid for one year—while still living in New York City—to see if it’s possible to make no net impact on the environment. In other words, no trash, no toxins in the water, no elevators, no subway, no products in packaging, no air-conditioning, no television . . .What would it be like to try to live a no-impact lifestyle? Is it possible? Could it catch on? Is living this way more satisfying or less satisfying? Harder or easier? Is it worthwhile or senseless? Are we all doomed or can our culture reduce the barriers to sustainable living so it becomes as easy as falling off a log? These are the questions at the heart of this whole mad endeavor, via which Colin Beavan hopes to explain to the rest of us how we can realistically live a more “eco-effective” and by turns more content life in an age of inconvenient truths.
Killing for Coal: America's Deadliest Labor War
Thomas G. Andrews - 2008
When the dust settled, nineteen men, women, and children among the miners’ families lay dead. The strikers had killed at least thirty men, destroyed six mines, and laid waste to two company towns. Killing for Coal offers a bold and original perspective on the 1914 Ludlow Massacre and the “Great Coalfield War.” In a sweeping story of transformation that begins in the coal beds and culminates with the deadliest strike in American history, Thomas Andrews illuminates the causes and consequences of the militancy that erupted in colliers’ strikes over the course of nearly half a century. He reveals a complex world shaped by the connected forces of land, labor, corporate industrialization, and workers’ resistance. Brilliantly conceived and written, this book takes the organic world as its starting point. The resulting elucidation of the coalfield wars goes far beyond traditional labor history. Considering issues of social and environmental justice in the context of an economy dependent on fossil fuel, Andrews makes a powerful case for rethinking the relationships that unite and divide workers, consumers, capitalists, and the natural world. (20090215)