Showing titles in Conservation

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.

When pioneering marine biologist Dr. Ha Nguyen is offered the chance to travel to the remote Con Dao Archipelago to investigate a highly intelligent, dangerous octopus species, she doesn't pause long enough to look at the fine print. DIANIMA—a transnational tech corporation best known for its groundbreaking work in artificial intelligence—has purchased the islands, evacuated their population and sealed the archipelago off from the world so that Nguyen can focus on her research.

In a world filled with breathtaking beauty, we have often overlooked the elusive charm and magic of certain landscapes. A cloudy river flows into a verdant Arctic wetland where sandhill cranes and muskoxen dwell. Further south, cypress branches hang low over dismal swamps. Places like these - collectively known as swamplands or peatlands - often go unnoticed for their ecological splendor. They are as globally significant as rainforests, and function as critical carbon sinks for addressing our climate crisis.

Historic Yellowstone National Park captures the most interesting moments in the park’s history, the slices of life in Montana and Wyoming that provide an idea of what life was like for those who chose to explore this gloriously beautiful corner of the United States. There’s the presence of Native Americans in the early years of the area’s history, the early explorers and expeditions, its debut as the very first national park, the explosive growth of tourism, and the people who made history in this astonishing and mysterious Rocky Mountain landscape.

The big media have spoken on the question of global warming, and the debate is officially over. "Be afraid, be very afraid", warns Time magazine. But have Al Gore and his environmentalist allies really proven their case? Not even close, says Christopher C. Horner.

Sharks are some of the most fascinating and ecologically important, yet most threatened and misunderstood animals on Earth. More often feared than revered, their role as predators of the deep has earned them a reputation as a major threat to humans. But the truth is that sharks are not a danger to us—they’re in danger from us. In Why Sharks Matter, marine conservation biologist Dr. David Shiffman urges us to overcome our misconceptions and embrace sharks as the imperiled and elegant ocean guardians they really are.

In "Hydrogen Power: The Next Generation of Automotive Fuel," author Stephen Kingery brings forth a comprehensive guide to understanding the potential of hydrogen power as an automotive fuel. Starting with an Introduction to Hydrogen Power, readers are taken on a journey through the History of Hydrogen Power in Automobiles, tracing its roots from early experiments to its current state. The book explores the Advantages and Disadvantages of Hydrogen Fuel Cells, providing an unbiased analysis of its potential as an alternative fuel source. With a focus on the Science behind Hydrogen Fuel Cells,...

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.

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.

It seems like an impossible task: secure a safe future for life on Earth, at a scale and speed that the world has never seen, in the face of vast and powerful forces-not just oil tycoons and governments, but the changing climate system itself. The odds are against us, and we are running out of time. But it doesn't have to be this way. Around the world, geophysicists and mathematicians, oceanographers and meteorologists, engineers, economists, psychologists and philosophers have been using their expertise to develop a deep understanding of the crises we face.

As indigenous scientist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. How, she asks, can we learn from indigenous wisdom and the plant world to reimagine what we value most? The Serviceberry is an antidote to the broken relationships and misguided goals of our times, and a reminder that “hoarding won’t save us, all flourishing is mutual.”

Friedman brings a fresh outlook to the crises of destabilizing climate change and rising competition for energy - both of which could poison our world if we do not act quickly and collectively. His argument speaks to all of us who are concerned about the state of America in the global future.

In Once and Future Giants, science writer Sharon Levy digs through the evidence surrounding Pleistocene large animal ("megafauna") extinction events worldwide, showing that understanding this history - and our part in it - is crucial for protecting the elephants, polar bears, and other great creatures at risk today. These surviving relatives of the Ice Age beasts now face an intensified replay of that great die-off, as our species usurps the planet's last wild places while driving a warming trend more extreme than any in mammalian history.

Ancient trees stand as sentinels against all odds while Earth and its people have changed around them. Award-winning author Anthony D. Fredericks examines their awe-inspiring longevity and evolutionary intelligence, drawing on expert interviews, scientific research, and a remarkable reverence for the environment. Fredericks focuses on ten of the oldest trees in the United States and marvels at the complexity of roots, the determination of growth, and the wisdom of forests.

From the 1992 Rio Earth Summit to the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Conference there was a concerted international effort to stop climate change. Yet greenhouse gas emissions increased, atmospheric concentrations grew, and global warming became an observable fact of life. In this book, philosopher Dale Jamieson explains what climate change is, why we have failed to stop it, and why it still matters what we do.

For most of us, traveling means visiting the most beautiful places on Earth - Paris, the Taj Mahal, the Grand Canyon. It’s rare to book a plane ticket to visit the lifeless moonscape of Canada’s oil sand strip mines, or to seek out the Chinese city of Linfen, legendary as the most polluted in the world. But in Visit Sunny Chernobyl, Andrew Blackwell embraces a different kind of travel, taking a jaunt through the most gruesomely polluted places on Earth.

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.

Finding herself in a new home in Brighton, Kate Bradbury sets about transforming her barren backyard into a beautiful wildlife garden. But while she's doing this Kate's neighbours continue to pave their gardens, the wildlife she tries to save is further threatened and she feels she's fighting an uphill battle. Is there any point in gardening for wildlife when everyone else is drowning the land in poison and cement? If the dead could return, what would they say about the land we have taken, the ancient routes we have carved up, the wildlife we have lost?

In Nature’s Fortune, Mark Tercek, CEO of The Nature Conservancy and former investment banker, and science writer Jonathan Adams argue that nature is not only the foundation of human well-being, but also the smartest commercial investment any business or government can make. The forests, floodplains, and oyster reefs often seen simply as raw materials or as obstacles to be cleared in the name of progress are, in fact as important to our future prosperity as technology or law or business innovation.

A follow-up to Ohlson’s previous book, The Soil Will Save Us (Rodale 2014), Sweet in Tooth and Claw extends the concept of cooperation in nature to the life-affirming connections among microbes, plants, fungi, insects, birds, and animals—including humans—in ecosystems around the globe.