Humans versus Nature
A Global Environmental History
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Humans versus Nature
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Narrated by:
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David Stifel
About this listen
Since the appearance of Homo sapiens on the planet hundreds of thousands of years ago, human beings have sought to exploit their environments, extracting as many resources as their technological ingenuity has allowed. As technologies have advanced in recent centuries, that impulse has remained largely unchecked, exponentially accelerating the human impact on the environment.
Humans versus Nature tells a history of the global environment from the Stone Age to the present, emphasizing the adversarial relationship between the human and natural worlds. Nature is cast as an active protagonist rather than a mere backdrop or victim of human malfeasance. Daniel R. Headrick shows how environmental changes - epidemics, climate shocks, and volcanic eruptions - have molded human societies and cultures, sometimes overwhelming them. At the same time, he traces the history of anthropogenic changes in the environment - species extinctions, global warming, deforestation, and resource depletion - back to the age of hunters and gatherers and the first farmers and herders.
Throughout, Headrick examines how human-driven environmental changes are interwoven with larger global systems, dramatically reshaping the complex relationship between people and the natural world. In doing so, he roots the current environmental crisis in the deep past.
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- Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All
- By: Michael Shellenberger
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 2,998
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,578
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Story5 out of 5 stars 2,568
Michael Shellenberger has been fighting for a greener planet for decades. He helped save the world’s last unprotected redwoods. He co-created the predecessor to today’s Green New Deal. And he led a successful effort by climate scientists and activists to keep nuclear plants operating, preventing a spike of emissions. But in 2019, as some claimed "billions of people are going to die", contributing to rising anxiety, including among adolescents, Shellenberger decided that he needed to speak out to separate science from fiction.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Environmentalist with integrity!
- By Wayne on 07-01-20
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Energy and Civilization
- A History
- By: Vaclav Smil
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 20 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 587
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 477
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 478
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 and offers listeners a magisterial overview of humanity's energy eras.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Not a good format for this book
- By C. Hoogeboom on 05-19-18
By: Vaclav Smil
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Water in Plain Sight
- Hope for a Thirsty World
- By: Judith D. Schwartz
- Narrated by: Tia Rider
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 34
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 27
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Story5 out of 5 stars 26
Water scarcity is on everyone's mind. Long taken for granted, water availability has entered the realm of economics, politics, and people's food and lifestyle choices. But as anxiety mounts - even as a swath of California farmland has been left fallow and extremist groups worldwide exploit the desperation of people losing livelihoods to desertification - many are finding new routes to water security with key implications for food access, economic resilience, and climate change.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Crucial solutions
- By Shane Emanuelle on 07-25-19
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The Nature of Nature
- Why We Need the Wild
- By: Enric Sala
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 74
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 61
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Story5 out of 5 stars 61
In this inspiring manifesto, an internationally renowned ecologist makes a clear case for why protecting nature is our best health insurance, and why it makes economic sense.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Amazing
- By Lars Pardo on 11-21-24
By: Enric Sala
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Late Victorian Holocausts
- El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World
- By: Mike Davis
- Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin
- Length: 15 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 74
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 53
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 53
Examining a series of El Niño-induced droughts and the famines that they spawned around the globe in the last third of the 19th century, Mike Davis discloses the intimate, baleful relationship between imperial arrogance and natural incident that combined to produce some of the worst tragedies in human history. Late Victorian Holocausts focuses on three zones of drought and subsequent famine: India, Northern China, and Northeastern Brazil.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Mike Davis on Audible!
- By Nathan D. Backlund on 09-02-17
By: Mike Davis
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Artificial Intelligence
- Modern Magic or Dangerous Future?
- By: Yorick Wilks
- Narrated by: Hannibal Hills
- Length: 5 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 5
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 4
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Story4 out of 5 stars 4
AI expert Yorick Wilks takes a journey through the history of artificial intelligence up to the present day, examining its origins, controversies, and achievements, as well as looking into just how it works. He also considers the future, assessing whether these technologies could menace our way of life and how we are all likely to benefit from AI applications in the years to come.
By: Yorick Wilks
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The Vertical Farm
- Feeding the World in the 21st Century
- By: Dickson Despommier
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 116
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 71
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Story4 out of 5 stars 72
When Columbia professor Dickson Despommier set out to solve America's food, water, and energy crises, he didn't just think big - he thought up. The vertical farm has excited scientists, architects, and politicians around the globe. These farms, grown inside skyscrapers, would provide solutions to many of the serious problems we currently face.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Excellent Brainstorming - Not reality
- By Texas Community Project on 01-25-11
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The Ages of Globalization
- Geography, Technology, and Institutions
- By: Jeffrey D. Sachs
- Narrated by: Steve Menasche
- Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 49
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 43
Today's most urgent problems are fundamentally global. They require nothing less than concerted, planetwide action if we are to secure a long-term future. But humanity's story has always been on a global scale. Sachs takes listeners through a series of seven distinct waves of technological and institutional change, starting with the original settling of the planet by early modern humans through long-distance migration and ending with reflections on today's globalization.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Narrator.
- By ROGER QUESADA on 08-03-20
By: Jeffrey D. Sachs
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An Edible History of Humanity
- By: Tom Standage
- Narrated by: George K. Wilson
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 567
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 464
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Story4 out of 5 stars 464
Throughout history, food has acted as a catalyst of social change, political organization, geopolitical competition, industrial development, military conflict, and economic expansion. An Edible History of Humanity is a pithy, entertaining account of how a series of changes---caused, enabled, or influenced by food---has helped to shape and transform societies around the world.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Flawed, but worthwhile
- By Ary Shalizi on 12-28-17
By: Tom Standage
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The Rational Optimist
- How Prosperity Evolves
- By: Matt Ridley
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 13 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,453
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,994
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,999
Life is getting better at an accelerating rate. Food availability, income, and life span are up; disease, child mortality, and violence are down all across the globe. Though the world is far from perfect, necessities and luxuries alike are getting cheaper; population growth is slowing; Africa is following Asia out of poverty; the Internet, the mobile phone, and container shipping are enriching people's lives as never before.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Personal
- By Robert F. Jones on 09-15-17
By: Matt Ridley
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Guns, Germs and Steel
- The Fate of Human Societies
- By: Jared Diamond
- Narrated by: Doug Ordunio
- Length: 16 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 12,327
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 10,359
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 10,315
Having done field work in New Guinea for more than 30 years, Jared Diamond presents the geographical and ecological factors that have shaped the modern world. From the viewpoint of an evolutionary biologist, he highlights the broadest movements both literal and conceptual on every continent since the Ice Age, and examines societal advances such as writing, religion, government, and technology.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Compelling pre-history and emergent history
- By Doug on 08-25-11
By: Jared Diamond
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The Ocean of Life
- The Fate of Man and the Sea
- By: Callum Roberts
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 13 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 73
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 70
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 70
Who can forget the sense of wonder with which they discovered the creatures of the deep? In this vibrant hymn to the sea, Callum Roberts - one of the world’s foremost conservation biologists - leads listeners on a fascinating tour of mankind’s relationship to the sea, from the earliest traces of water on Earth to the oceans as we know them today. In the process, Roberts looks at how the taming of the oceans has shaped human civilization and affected marine life. Like Four Fish and The Omnivore’s Dilemma, The Ocean of Life takes a long view to tell a story in which each one of us has a role to play.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Immediate fan of Mr Roberts
- By Anna on 06-25-24
By: Callum Roberts
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Against the Grain
- A Deep History of the Earliest States
- By: James C. Scott
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 864
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 719
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 714
Why did humans abandon hunting and gathering for sedentary communities dependent on livestock and cereal grains and governed by precursors of today's states? Most people believe that plant and animal domestication allowed humans, finally, to settle down and form agricultural villages, towns, and states, which made possible civilization, law, public order, and a presumably secure way of living. But archaeological and historical evidence challenges this narrative.
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4 out of 5 stars
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World without Women
- By Paul Richards on 04-28-18
By: James C. Scott
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Silent Earth
- Averting the Insect Apocalypse
- By: Dave Goulson
- Narrated by: Dave Goulson
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 30
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 25
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Story5 out of 5 stars 25
In the tradition of Rachel Carson’s groundbreaking environmental classic Silent Spring, an award-winning entomologist and conservationist explains the importance of insects to our survival and offers a clarion call to avoid a looming ecological disaster of our own making.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Important book for all
- By Wren Jen on 03-24-24
By: Dave Goulson
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Changes in the Land
- Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England
- By: William Cronon
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 7 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 114
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 95
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 93
In this landmark work of environmental history, William Cronon offers an original and profound explanation of the effects European colonists' sense of property and their pursuit of capitalism had upon the ecosystems of New England. Reissued here with an updated afterword by the author and a new preface by the distinguished colonialist John Demos, Changes in the Land provides a brilliant interdisciplinary interpretation of how land and people influence one another.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent histgory and ecology
- By Eugene Gallagher on 09-26-20
By: William Cronon