American Environment

Our lives are built around businesses that connect far-flung rural places to urban centers and global destinations. This "country capitalism" that proved successful in the US South has made it possible to satisfy our demands at the click of a button, but each click comes with hidden environmental costs.

Four decades ago, the areas around Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks sheltered the last few hundred surviving grizzlies in the lower 48 states. Protected by the Endangered Species Act, their population has surged to more than 1,500, and this burgeoning number of grizzlies now collides with the increasingly populated landscape of the 21st-century American West. Montana journalist Robert Chaney chronicles the resurgence of this charismatic species against the backdrop of the country's long history with the bear.

A turkey is the centerpiece of countless Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. Yet most of us know almost nothing about today's specially bred, commercially produced birds. In this brief book, bestselling author Peter Singer tells their story—and, unfortunately, it's not a happy one. Along the way, he also offers a brief history of the turkey and its consumption, ridicules the annual US presidential "pardon" of a Thanksgiving turkey, and introduces us to "a tremendously handsome, outgoing, and intelligent turkey" named Cornelius. Above all, Singer explains how we can improve our holiday tables.

Award-winning author Thom Hatch presents the definitive biography of George Bird Grinnell (1849-1938), who was recognized in his time as "The Father of American Conservation." This book chronicles not only Grinnell's life, but also offers a history of his accomplishments in saving the wildlife and natural resources of this country. A remarkable man, Grinnell was known as a model of intellectual diversity, integrity, and professional dedication.

As a changing climate threatens the whole country with deeper droughts and more furious floods that put ever more people and property at risk, Texas has become a bellwether state for water debates. Will there be enough water for everyone? Is there the will to take the steps necessary to defend ourselves against the sea? Is it in the nature of Americans to adapt to nature in flux?

While on their honeymoon in Cancun, Mexico, Blake and Cindy are confronted by a distraught mother whose 14-year-old daughter has just been grabbed off the street in her school uniform and whisked away. While Blake still hasn’t come up with a new tagline for his private investigation business, “We Find Stuff” will have to do for now as Cindy convinces him to sign on to find Isabella. His efforts will take him to Dallas, Texas, where he’ll find himself trying to outsmart and outplay the very dangerous Los Zetas Cartel.

In Before the Streetlights Come On, climate activist Heather McTeer Toney insists that those most affected by climate change are best suited to lead the movement for climate justice. McTeer Toney brings her background in politics, community advocacy, and leadership in environmental justice to this revolutionary exploration of why and how Black Americans are uniquely qualified to lead national and global conversations around systems of racial disparity and solutions to the climate crisis.

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.

For over 100 years, the Mockett family has owned a 7,000 acre wheat farm in Nebraska, where Marie Mutsuki Mockett’s father was raised. Mockett, who grew up in Carmel, California, with her father and her Japanese mother, knew little about farming when she inherited this land. Her father had all but foresworn it. At the invitation of Eric Wolgemuth, the conservative farmer who has cut her family’s fields for decades, Mockett accompanies a group of evangelical wheat harvesters through the heartland as they follow the trail of ripening wheat from Texas to Idaho.

More and more frequent extreme weather events occur each year, and wildlife everywhere is increasingly endangered. Science fiction or science fact, most climate experts see this as our world on climate change—and, according to polls, a majority of people around the globe agree. Climate Change for Dummies allows you to investigate this hottest of hotly debated issues for yourself—examining its causes, the way it affects our lives, and what we can all do to make a difference.

When Joe Biden attempted to compliment Barack Obama by calling him "clean and articulate", he unwittingly tapped into one of the most destructive racial stereotypes in American history. This book tells the history of the corrosive idea that whites are clean and those who are not white are dirty.

When Samuel de Champlain founded the colony of Quebec in 1608, he established elaborate gardens where he sowed French seeds he had brought with him and experimented with indigenous plants that he found in nearby fields and forests. In A Not-So-New World, Christopher Parsons observes how it was that French colonists began to learn about Native environments and claimed a mandate to cultivate vegetation that did not differ all that much from that which they had left behind.

The Little Green Book of Revolution is a pro-individual and anti-institutional look at the history of peaceful proactive revolution through the looking glass of original American Exceptionalism, native American Indian culture and The First Amendment. The Little Green Book is an exploration of the environmental destruction and the oligarchical design of the present energy distribution systems. Moreover The Little Green Book explores the consciousness behind the destruction and offers inner and outer revolutionary concepts. The Little Green Book of Revolution leads to understanding the NWO, ...

Many of the men and women doing today's most consequential environmental work - restoring America's grasslands, wildlife, soil, rivers, wetlands, and oceans - would not call themselves environmentalists; they would be too uneasy with the connotations of that word. What drives them is their deep love of the land - the iconic terrain where explorers and cowboys, pioneers, and riverboat captains forged the American identity. They feel a moral responsibility to preserve this heritage and natural wealth.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a wake-up call: The all-in stance in favor of renewables has rendered Europe's economy and national security vulnerable to Russian President Vladimir Putin. And America is in danger of making the same catastrophic energy mistake as Europe. Award-winning author Bill Herrington delivers the truth about U.S. energy, national security, and the environment—and exposes the misrepresentations of fossil fuels protestors and climate change activists.

Evocatively chronicled, Erickson tells what it is like trying to stop the unstoppable. Bad Smoke, Good Smoke gives voice to the particular pains that ranchers must face in our era of climate change and ever more powerful natural disasters.

Climate change is today's news, but it isn't a new phenomenon. Centuries-long cycles of heating and cooling are well documented for Europe and the North Atlantic. These variations in climate, including the Medieval Warm Period (MWP), AD 900 to 1300, and the early centuries of the Little Ice Age (LIA), AD 1300 to 1600, had a substantial impact on the cultural history of Europe.

America was built on white pine. From the 1600s through the Civil War and beyond, it was used to build the nation's ships and houses, barns, and bridges. Yet this popularity came at a cost: by the end of the nineteenth century, clear cutting had decimated much of America's white pine forests. In White Pine, ecologist and writer John Pastor takes listeners on walk through history, connecting the white pine forests that remain today to a legacy of destruction and renewal.

The Promise of Wilderness examines how the idea of wilderness has shaped the management of public lands since the passage of the Wilderness Act in 1964. Wilderness preservation has engaged diverse groups of citizens, from hunters and ranchers to wildlife enthusiasts and hikers, as political advocates who have leveraged the resources of local and national groups toward a common goal.

In the tradition of Peter Matthiessen's Wildlife in America or Aldo Leopold, Brenda Peterson tells the 300-year history of wild wolves in America. It is also our own history, seen through our relationship with wolves. The earliest Americans revered them. Settlers zealously exterminated them. Now, scientists, writers, and ordinary citizens are fighting to bring them back to the wild. Peterson, an eloquent voice in the battle for 20 years, makes the powerful case that without wolves, not only will our whole ecology unravel, but we'll lose much of our national soul.