Conservation Environment

In 1994, Patagonia invited representatives from 75 grassroots nonprofit organizations to gather and learn from active experts how to be more effective at what they do. In 2016, Patagonia published Tools for Grassroots Activists, a compilation of presentations from the Tools conferences, accompanied by case studies and inspiring essays from environmental leaders. The world since then has changed in profound ways, and this new edition reflects the world we now occupy.

In Storms of My Grandchildren, James Hansen - the nation's leading scientist on climate issues - speaks out for the first time with the full truth about global warming: the planet is hurtling even more rapidly than previously acknowledged to a climatic point of no return. Although Hansen was Al Gore's science adviser for the 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth, his recent data shows that our situation is even more dire today.

While politicians, entrepreneurs, and even school children could tell you that sustainability is an important and nearly universal value, many of them, and many of us, may struggle to define the term, let alone trace its history. What is sustainability? Is it always about the environment? What science do we need to fully grasp what it requires? What does sustainability mean for business? How can governments plan for a sustainable future?

Former President of Ireland Mary Robinson's mission to bring together the fight against climate change and the global struggle for human rights has taken her all over the world. It also brought her to a heartening revelation: that that an irrepressible driving force in the battle for climate justice could be found at the grassroots level, mainly among women, many of them mothers and grandmothers like herself.

Part odyssey, part pilgrimage, this epic personal narrative follows the author’s exploration of coasts, islands, reefs, and the sea’s abyssal depths. Scientist and fisherman Carl Safina takes readers on a global journey of discovery, probing for truth about the world’s changing seas, deftly weaving adventure, science, and political analysis.

Lying in the remote hills of southwest Uganda, Bwindi Impenetrable Forest harbors elephants, chimpanzees, monkeys, and half the world’s population of endangered mountain gorillas. For two years, Thor Hanson called that forest home, working with local guides and trackers to develop an ecotourism program for the newly-formed Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. Thoroughly researched and beautifully told, Hanson’s story blends natural history with cultural insight to place the forest and the gorillas in the context of modern Africa.

When Kinari Webb first traveled to Indonesian Borneo at 21 to study orangutans, she was both awestruck by the beauty of her surroundings and heartbroken by the rain forest destruction she witnessed. As she got to know the local communities, she realized that their need to pay for expensive health care led directly to the rampant logging, which in turn imperiled their health and safety even further. Webb realized her true calling was at the intersection of medicine and conservation.

Bjorn Lomborg argues that many of the elaborate and expensive actions now being considered to stop global warming will cost hundreds of billions of dollars, are often based on emotional rather than strictly scientific assumptions, and may very well have little impact on the world’s temperature for hundreds of years. Rather than starting with the most radical procedures, Lomborg argues that we should first focus our resources on more immediate concerns, such as fighting malaria and HIV/AIDS and assuring and maintaining a safe, fresh water supply....

Transporting listeners into the field with scientists tackling these profound challenges, Emma Marris tells the affecting and inspiring stories of animals around the globe - from Peruvian monkeys to Australian bilbies, rare Hawai'ian birds to majestic Oregon wolves. And she offers a companionable tour of the philosophical ideas that may steer our search for sustainability and justice in the non-human world. Revealing just how intertwined animal life and human life really are, Wild Souls will change the way we think about nature-and our place within it.

Prize-winning poet and journalist Eliza Griswold’s Amity and Prosperity is an expose on how fracking shattered a rural Pennsylvania town, and how one lifelong resident brought the story into the national spotlight. This is an incredible true account of investigative journalism and a devastating indictment of energy politics in America.

The term "guerrilla" may bring to mind a small band of armed soldiers, moving in the dead of night on a stealth mission. In the case of guerilla gardening, the soldiers are planters, the weapons are shovels, and the mission is to transform an abandoned lot into a thing of beauty. Once an environmentalist's nonviolent direct action for inner-city renewal, this approach to urban beautification is spreading to all types of people in cities around the world.

Captain Guyan March had spent his entire professional career aboard Windjammer Barefoot Cruises’ fleet of extravagant tall ships that carry passengers on weeklong fantasy cruises spiced with rum and sun. When he agreed to command the Fantome, Windjammer’s marquee ship, a beautiful 282-foot schooner that “sailed like a pig” in the Gulf of Honduras, he knew that a storm would leave him little space to run. In the southern reaches of the Caribbean, Tropical Storm Mitch whirled to life like a nebula and became Captain March’s worst nightmare.

Palila v Hawaii. New Zealand's Te Urewera Act. Sierra Club v Disney. These legal phrases hardly sound like the makings of a revolution, but beyond the headlines portending environmental catastrophes, a movement of immense import has been building - in courtrooms, legislatures, and communities across the globe. Cultures and laws are transforming to provide a powerful new approach to protecting the planet and the species with whom we share it.

Sullivan's classic account of his 65 day, 1,361-mile solo backpacking trek across Oregon has been chosen by the Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission as one of Oregon's "100 Books", the most significant literary works in state history. Sullivan recounts adventures with blizzards, bears, and poisonous mushrooms, but he also spices his journal with notes on history, geology, and the people he meets along the way.

The story of the ocean is as old as the earth itself. Overfishing, pollution, and oil spills have highlighted the need to take better care of our oceans so that the story can continue to be told.

Before reality TV, GPS devices, and dashboard computers, there was a coming of age for the Maine Warden Service. It was a time when a compass, map, and one's wits were what mattered most in the field. Every day offered the potential for an exciting new adventure, many of which endangered the wardens' lives. Open Season includes 20 stories from two former colonels, two lieutenants, two sergeants, four district wardens, a warden pilot, and one currently active-duty corporal. Altogether, their cumulative experiences account for more than 300 years of North Woods law.

Particles of Truth is a riveting account of the discovery of the critical health effects of air pollution told by Arden Pope and Douglas Dockery, who have been at the forefront of air pollution and health research for four decades. With an insightful foreword by former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, this compelling book provides an inside look at groundbreaking scientific research and ensuing political and public-policy battles. It presents evidence that air pollution is a major contributor to disease and death and that reducing air pollution saves lives.

The biggest “tragedy of the commons” is the misconception that commons are failures - relics from another era rendered unnecessary by the market and state. Think Like a Commoner dispels such prejudices by explaining the rich history and promising future of the commons - an ageless paradigm of cooperation and fairness that is re-making our world.

There is no animal in the world that can run faster than a cheetah. Yet, no matter how quickly they run from trouble, cheetahs may not roam the African plains forever. They have lost much of their habitat to farmland, and some are killed by farmers who worry about their livestock. But cheetahs have important friends - like Dr. Laurie Marker and the Cheetah Conservation Fund in Namibia. Rosanna Hansen - who spent time working at the CCF - shares the fascinating story of cheetah preservation in this book young listeners will find irresistible.

In Net Zero the economist Professor Dieter Helm addresses the action we would all need to take, whether personal, local, national or global, if we really wanted to stop causing climate change. Net Zero is Professor Dieter Helm’s measured, balanced view of how we stop causing climate change by adopting a net-zero strategy of reducing carbon emissions and increasing carbon absorption. It is a rational look at why the past 30 years' efforts have failed and why and how the next 30 years can succeed.