Showing titles in Environment

Isaac's Storm meets The Age of Wonder in Lee Sandlin's Storm Kings, a riveting tale of the weather's most vicious monster - the super cell tornado - that recreates the origins of meteorology, and the quirky, pioneering, weather-obsessed scientists who helped change America.

The Pentagon, unsentimental and politically conservative, might not seem likely to be worried about climate change - still linked, for many people, with polar bears and coral reefs. Yet, of all the major institutions in American society, none take climate change as seriously as the US military. Drawing on previously obscure reports and government documents, renowned security expert Michael Klare shows that the US military sees the climate threat as imperiling the country on several fronts at once.

The Carbon Footprint of Everything breaks items down by the amount of carbon they produce, creating a calorie guide for the carbon-conscious. With engaging writing, leading carbon expert Mike Berners-Lee shares new carbon calculations based on recent research. He considers the impact of the pandemic on the carbon battle—especially the embattled global supply chain—and adds items we didn't consider a decade ago, like bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. With solid research, expert sources, and Berners-Lee's trademark sense of humor, this should be on everyone's bookshelf.

Oil is a curse, it is often said, that condemns the countries producing it to an existence defined by war, corruption, and enormous inequality. Carbon Democracy tells a more complex story, arguing that no nation escapes the political consequences of our collective dependence on oil. It shapes the body politic both in regions such as the Middle East, which rely upon revenues from oil production, and in the places that have the greatest demand for energy.

In this poetic audiobook, hear the words of legendary outdoorsman John Muir's entreaty to the American people imploring them to develop, as he did, a connection to their national parks. An ardent outdoorsman, a gifted writer, a dedicated preservationist, and a spiritual beacon, John Muir worked in his life and in his writing to inspire everyone to find a love for the wilderness and to become invested in its preservation.

Return of the Bison is the story of how this symbol of the American West was once almost lost to history and of the continuing journey to bring bison back from the brink. Author and naturalist Roger Di Silvestro explores the complex history of the bison's decimation and how a rising awareness of their possible extinction formed the roots of many modern wildlife conservation approaches. Weaving in natural history and fascinating historical context, Di Silvestro traces the decades it took to begin to save the bison, often with little hope and plagued by discouraging setbacks.

In The Enduring Genius of Frederick Law Olmsted, you’ll learn about the iconic landscape architect’s incredible life—and ponder his incredible legacy. You’ll explore his work as a designer of some breathtaking natural landscapes (as well as some of the painful failures he had to endure along the way). You’ll also consider Olmsted’s efforts to address the momentous challenges of his century, including the Civil War, and the vital role he played in the most transformative period in American history.

Warmth is a new kind of book about climate change: not what it is or how we solve it, but how it feels to imagine a future - and a family - under its weight. In a fiercely personal account written from inside the climate movement, Sherrell lays bare how the crisis is transforming our relationships to time, to hope, and to each other. At once a memoir, a love letter, and an electric work of criticism, Warmth goes to the heart of the defining question of our time: how do we go on in a world that may not?

A pioneering urban farmer and MacArthur "Genius Award" winner points the way to building a new food system that can feed - and heal - broken communities. An eco-classic in the making, The Good Food Revolution is the story of Will's personal journey, the lives he has touched, and a grassroots movement that is changing the way our nation eats.

We prefer not to talk about it, but we should. Disease spread by waste kills more people worldwide every year than any other single cause of death. Even in America, nearly two million people have no access to an indoor toilet. Yet the subject remains unmentionable. Moving from the underground sewers of Paris, London, and New York (an infrastructure disaster waiting to happen) to an Indian slum where ten toilets are shared by 60,000 people, The Big Necessity breaks the silence, revealing everything that matters about how people do - and don't - deal with their own waste.

A lover, not a fighter. That was wolf 302. A renegade with an eye for the ladies, 302 was anything but Yellowstone’s perfect alpha male. For starters, he fled from danger. He begged for food from other wolves, ditched females he’d gotten pregnant, and even napped during a heated battle with a rival pack! But this is not the story of 302’s failures. This is the story of his dramatic transformation. And legendary wolf writer Rick McIntyre witnessed it all from the sidelines.

The viruses keep coming, the climate is warming, and the Earth is rewilding. Our human family has no playbook to address the mayhem unfolding around us. If there is a change to reckon with, argues the renowned economic and social theorist Jeremy Rifkin, it’s that we are beginning to realize that the human race never had dominion over the Earth and that nature is far more formidable than we thought, while our species seems much smaller and less significant in the bigger picture of life on Earth, undermining our long-cherished worldview.

People talk a lot about the problems with intensive farming. But the problem isn't the adjective. It's the noun. Around the world, farming has been wiping out vast habitats, depleting freshwater, polluting oceans, and accelerating global heating, while leaving millions undernourished and unfed. Increasingly, there are signs that the system itself is beginning to flicker. But, as George Monbiot shows us in this brilliant, bracingly original new book, there is another way.

Humans depend on soil for 95 percent of global food production, yet let it erode at unsustainable rates. In the United States, China, and India, vast tracts of farmland will be barren of topsoil within this century. The combination of intensifying erosion caused by climate change and the increasing food needs of a growing world population is creating a desperate need for solutions to this crisis.

River of Lakes weaves together the biological, cultural, anthropological, archaeological, and ecological aspects of the St. Johns, capturing the essence of its remarkable history and intrinsic value as a natural wonder.

The restoration agriculture system described in this award-winning book works! It is possible for humans to produce staple foods using perennial agricultural ecosystems that actually improve the quality of the environment. This can be done on a backyard, farm, or ranch scale and is needed right now - on a global scale. Restoration Agriculture explains how we can have all of the benefits of natural, perennial ecosystems and create agricultural systems that imitate nature in form and function while still providing for our food, building, fuel, and many other needs.

As our civilization careens towards a precipice of climate breakdown, ecological destruction and gaping inequality, people are losing their existential moorings. Our dominant worldview of disconnection, which tells us we are split between mind and body, separate from each other and at odds with the natural world, has passed its expiration date. Yet another world is possible. Award-winning author Jeremy Lent investigates humanity's age-old questions - who am I? why am I? how should I live? - from a fresh perspective.

In Seven Dirty Words, journalist and cultural critic James Sullivan tells the story of Alternative America from the 1950s to the present, from the singular vantage point of George Carlin, the Catholic boy for whom nothing was sacred.

In The Elements We Live By, physicist and award-winning author Anja Røyne takes us on an astonishing journey through chemistry and physics, introducing the building blocks from which we humans - and the world - are made. Not only does Røyne explain why our bodies need iron, phosphorus, silicon, potassium, and many more elements in just the right amounts in order to function, she also leads us around the world to where these precious elements are found (some of them in ever-shrinking quantities).

This is Wasserman's sixth book about his encounters with animal poachers in the wilds of Pennsylvania. Join him as he patrols four hundred square miles of rural mountain terrain in search of some of the most unpredictable--and interesting--characters you'll ever meet. Wasserman relates the dangers of his job with pulse-pounding clarity. He is a wonderful storyteller. His crisp use of dialog makes his characters come alive throughout the book. Poacher Hunter contains seven of his best tales to date.