Environmental Engineering

When most Americans think of environmentalism, they think of the political left, of vegans dressed in organic-hemp fabric, lofting protest signs. In reality, writes Jacob Darwin Hamblin, the movement - and its dire predictions - owe more to the Pentagon than the counterculture.

This gripping, deeply thoughtful book considers the future of civilization in the light of what we know about climate change and related threats. David Orr, an award-winning, internationally recognized leader in the field of sustainability and environmental education, pulls no punches: Even with the Paris Agreement of 2015, Earth systems will not reach a new equilibrium for centuries.

"Our Choice gathers in one place all of the most effective solutions that are available now and that, together, will solve this crisis. It is meant to depoliticize the issue as much as possible and inspire readers to take action - not only on an individual basis but as participants in the political processes by which every country, and the world as a whole, makes the choice that now confronts us." (Al Gore, from the Introduction)

How serious are the threats to our environment? Here is one measure of the problem: if we continue to do exactly what we are doing, with no growth in the human population or the world economy, the world in the latter part of this century will be unfit to live in. Of course human activities are not holding at current levels—they are accelerating, dramatically—and so, too, is the pace of climate disruption, biotic impoverishment, and toxification.

Minding the Climate investigates this problem in the neuroscience of decision-making. Ann-Christine Duhaime, MD, points to the evolution of the human brain during eons of resource scarcity. The brain adapted to prioritize short-term survival over more uncertain long-term outcomes. But the resulting behavioral architecture is poorly suited to the present, when scarcity is a lesser concern and slow-moving challenges like environmental issues present the greatest danger.

Conventional wisdom has North America entering a new era of energy abundance thanks to shale gas. But has industry been honest? Cold, Hungry and in the Dark argues that declining productivity combined with increasing demand will trigger a crisis that will cause prices to skyrocket, damage the economy, and have a profound impact on the lives of nearly every North American.

At a time when countless communities are resisting powerful corporations - from Flint, Michigan, to the Standing Rock Reservation, to Didipio in the Philippines, to the Gualcarque River in Honduras - The Water Defenders tells the inspirational story of a community that took on an international mining corporation at seemingly insurmountable odds and won not one but two historic victories.

Oil and Honey is McKibben's account of two necessary and mutually reinforcing sides of the global climate fight - from the center of the maelstrom and from the growing hive of small-scale local answers. With empathy and passion he makes the case for a renewed commitment on both levels, telling the story of raising one year’s honey crop and building a social movement that’s still cresting.

His story is now legend. In 1994, after reading The Ecology of Commerce by Paul Hawken, Ray Anderson felt a "spear in the chest." The founder of Interface, Inc., a billion-dollar carpeting manufacturer, realized that his company was plundering the environment and he needed to steer it on a new course. Since then, Interface has cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 82 percent, and the goal is to reach a zero environmental footprint by 2020.

Die Nutzung fossiler Energieträger wie Kohle und Öl verschärft den Klimawandel, und wir müssen sie so schnell wie möglich ersetzen. Nur, was sind gute Alternativen? Und schaffen erneuerbare Energien es, unseren Energiehunger in Zukunft zu stillen? Sind sie so verlässlich wie die alten Energielieferanten? In diesem gemeinsam mit Studierenden gestalteten Hörbuch untersuchen die Autoren kurz, anschaulich und verständlich, was erneuerbare Energien aus Sonne, Wasser oder Erdwärme energietechnisch schaffen und wie sie sich im Vergleich untereinander bewerten lassen.

As global warming accelerates, droughts last longer, floods rise higher, and super-storms become more frequent. With increasing numbers of people on the move as a result, the business of containing them - border fortification - is booming. In Storming the Wall, Todd Miller travels around the world to connect the dots between climate-ravaged communities, the corporations cashing in on border militarization, and emerging movements for environmental justice and sustainability.

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.

The Copernican view of the universe is mistaken. The Earth continues to be the center of the universe, because here there is life, and plenty of it. From the very limited exploration of our solar system, we have learned that there is no complex meaningful life. For humanity to survive in this century, we need to change the paradigm back to the Earth is the center of the universe. The nearest star system, Proxima Centuri, is at least 4.2 light years, (over 20 trillion miles) and unreachable. It would take approximately 70,000 years with present technology to get there.

What did 19th-century cities smell like? And how did odors matter in the formation of a modern environmental consciousness? Smell Detectives follows the 19th-century Americans who used their noses to make sense of the sanitary challenges caused by rapid urban and industrial growth.

We are using up the planet at almost double the rate it can regenerate. To support our economies, we're told we must shop now like we've never shopped before. And whilst we can do it more responsibly, the scale of our consumption remains the biggest factor in the ruination of the planet. Yet our reliance on stuff continues to grow. But what would our world look like if we stopped? Would civilisation collapse? Would the planet's ecology be reborn? What would happen to the way we think, make products, use time, express our individuality? Would life be better - or worse?

Gaia Wakes presents a compelling new framework for understanding the past, present, and future of our planet. Starting from a strong foundation in economics and drawing on a vast range of multidisciplinary scholarship, Topher McDougal explores the possibility of a fifth transition towards an upgraded Earth: the development of a technologically enabled planetary brain capable of coordinating ecological functions and peering far into the future and universe.

We are facing a climate catastrophe. A plethora of studies describe the damage we’ve already done. Many people understand that we are facing a climate emergency, but may be fuzzy on technical, policy, and social justice aspects. In Is Science Enough?, Aviva Chomsky breaks down the concepts, terminology, and debates for activists, students, and anyone concerned about climate change. She argues that science is not enough to change course: we need put social, racial, and economic justice front and center and overhaul the global growth economy.

Each day, headlines warn that baby bottles are leaching dangerous chemicals, nonstick pans are causing infertility, and plastic containers are making us fat. What if green chemistry could change all that? What if rather than toxics, our economy ran on harmless, environmentally-friendly materials? Elizabeth Grossman, an acclaimed journalist who brought national attention to the contaminants hidden in computers and other high tech electronics, now tackles the hazards of ordinary consumer products.

The pandemic, climate change, poverty, conflict and violence, and the refugee emergency: global crises that have an unsuspected silver lining. They bring us to a tipping point where we can choose our destiny. This book outlines the nature of that crucial point and suggests what you—as each and every conscious and responsible human being—can and must do to choose a future of thriving for the human family, rather than one of crises and chaos.

Rejecting the old Left/Right ideologies, Rand develops a more pragmatic view capable of delivering practical solutions to this critical problem. A renewed capitalism harnessed to the task is the only way we might replace fossil fuels fast enough to mitigate severe climate risk. If we leave our dogma at the door, Rand argues, we might just build an economy that survives the century.