Social Ecology

In its 2001 report on global climate, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of the United Nations prominently featured the "Hockey Stick", a chart showing global temperature data over the past 1,000 years. The Hockey Stick demonstrated that temperature had risen with the increase in industrialization and use of fossil fuels. The inescapable conclusion was that worldwide human activity since the industrial age had raised CO2 levels, trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and warming the planet.

These modern dispatches from an ancient landscape tell the story of a deep-rooted attachment to place, describing a way of life that is little noticed and yet has profoundly shaped this landscape. In evocative and lucid prose, James Rebanks takes us through a shepherd's year, offering a unique account of rural life and a fundamental connection with the land that most of us have lost.

The Future We Choose is a passionate call to arms from former UN Executive Secretary for Climate Change, Christiana Figueres, and Tom Rivett-Carnac, senior political strategist for the Paris Agreement. We are still able to stave off the worst and manage the long-term effects of climate change, but we have to act now. We know what we need to do, and we have everything we need to do it.

The world is desperate for cobalt. It drives the proliferation of digital and clean technologies. But this "demon metal" has a horrific present and a troubled history. The modern search for cobalt has brought investors back to a small town in Northern Canada, a place called Cobalt. Like the demon metal, this town has a dark and turbulent history.

How functional medicine leverages systems biology and epigenetic science to treat the microbiome and reverse chronic disease. Each body is a system within a system—an ecology within the larger context of social, political, economic, cultural, and environmental factors. This is one of the lessons of epigenetics, whereby structural inequalities are literally encoded in our genes.

"With its concept of the 'viral editor' (now transformed, in our harsher decade, into 'viral inquisitor'), 'Human as Media' remains mandatory reading for anyone wishing to understand the disruptions of the digital." – Martin Gurri, author of "The Revolt of the Public." "Terrific book! Miroshnichenko is a media ecologist in the truest sense, analyzing the effect of technology on what it means to be human. This is an important book in a world where our apps are learning about us every time we touch a screen, and it is essential reading for anyone who has come to suspect that our ...

In this young readers edition of the New York Times bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning The Sixth Extinction, Elizabeth Kolbert tells us why and how human beings have altered life on the planet in a way no species has before.

American engineers have done astounding things to bend the Mississippi River to their will: forcing one of its tributaries to flow uphill, transforming over 1000 miles of roiling currents into a placid staircase of water, and wresting the lower half of the river apart from its floodplain. American law has aided and abetted these feats. But despite our best efforts, so-called "natural disasters" continue to strike the Mississippi basin as raging floodwaters decimate waterfront communities and abandoned towns literally crumble into the Gulf of Mexico.

Peak Everything addresses many of the cultural, psychological and practical changes we will have to make as nature rapidly dictates our new limits. This latest book from Richard Heinberg, author of three of the most important books on Peak Oil, touches on the most important aspects of the human condition at this unique moment in time.

A combination of wry commentary and sober forecasting on subjects as diverse as farming and industrial design, this book tells how we might make the transition from The Age of Excess to the Era of Modesty with grace and satisfaction....

In May 2022, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences released a paper that measured fourteen European countries on three factors: biodiversity, wellbeing, and nature connectedness. Britain came last in every single category. The findings are clear. We are suffering, and nature is too. Enter ‘Wild Service’ – a visionary concept crafted by the pioneers of the Right to Roam campaign, which argues that humanity’s loss and nature’s need are two sides of the same story. Blending science, nature writing and indigenous philosophy, this groundbreaking book calls for mass reconnection to the land.

Yes, the world faces substantial environmental challenges - climate change, pollution, and extinction. But the surprisingly good news is that we have solutions to these problems. In the past 50 years, a remarkable number of environmental problems have been solved while substantial progress is ongoing on others. The Optimistic Environmentalist chronicles these remarkable success stories. Endangered species - from bald eagles to gray whales - pulled back from the precipice of extinction.

In this brave and provocative work, former US Vice President Al Gore asserts that only a radical rethinking of our relationship with nature will save the Earth's ecology for future generations. Gore's analysis of where we've gone wrong ranges across politics, history, science, economics, psychology, and religion. He argues that only a worldwide mobilization can save us from disaster and presents a brilliant and comprehensive plan for action that encompasses not only the Earth's ecology, but also population trends, appropriate technology, and environmental education.

"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)

Et si on arrêtait de se voiler la face ? On ne sauvera pas le monde avec des pailles en bambou, du café équitable ou des sprays au vinaigre. À force d'en entendre parler, on croirait presque à une transition écologique... Pourtant, ce n'est pas en remplaçant la consommation classique par des achats "responsables" que l'on va stopper les catastrophes en cours ! Depuis des décennies, l'écologie produit des discours tièdes, habilement récupérés par le capitalisme.

Most works about the environment build on dire threats warning of the possible extinction of humanity. Alan Weisman avoids frightening off readers by disarmingly wiping out our species in the first few minutes. He then continues with an astounding depiction of how Earth will fare once we're no longer around. The World Without Us is a one-of-a-kind work that sweeps through time from the moment of humanity's future extinction to millions of years into the future.

In brave and unforgettable terms, Al Gore, the passionate and lifelong defender of the environment, describes how human actions and decisions can endanger or safeguard the vulnerable ecosystem that sustains us.

Humans take more than their geological share of water, but they do not benefit from it equally. This imbalance has created an era of intense water scarcity that affects the security of individuals, states, and the global economy. For many, this brazen water grab and the social inequalities it produces reflect the lack of a coherent philosophy connecting people to the planet. Challenging this view, Jeremy Schmidt shows how water was made a “resource” that linked geology, politics, and culture to American institutions.

Why spend countless hours indoors in front of screens when being in nature feels so good? In learning why and how to nurture our emotional connection with nature, we can also regenerate the ecosystems on which we depend for our survival. Renewal explores the science behind why being in nature makes us feel alive and helps us thrive.

Our civilisation is no longer run by humans, but by profit. Society has become a money machine with no blood, no pulse, and no other preoccupation than to monetize itself and the original humans who created it. Within this dystopian context, even humans themselves have become products: they need to be bought and sold so that they can exist. They need to be used to have a purpose. And they need to lie about themselves in order to be loved. As witnessed during the industrial revolution, aggressive commoditisation across manufacturing resulted in inferior quality consumer goods, significant ...

The Blue Communities Project is dedicated to three primary things: that access to clean, drinkable water is a basic human right; that municipal and community water will be held in public hands; and that single-use plastic water bottles will not be available in public spaces. The movement has been growing around the world for a decade. In Whose Water Is It, Anyway?, renowned water justice activist Maude Barlow recounts her own education in water issues as she and her fellow grassroots water warriors woke up to the immense pressures facing water in a warming world.