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Nature and the environment

  • Author:
    Weisman, Alan
    Summary:

    Most books 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 pages of this remarkable book. 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 book that sweeps through time from the moment of humanity’s future extinction to millions of years into the future. Drawing on interviews with experts and on real examples of places in the world that have already been abandoned by humans—Chernobyl, the Korean DMZ and an ancient Polish forest—Weisman shows both the shocking impact we’ve had on our planet and how impermanent our footprint actually is.

  • Author:
    Grambo, Rebecca L.
    Summary:

    Science, legend and personal observations blend together to tell the story of wolves and their relationships with humans.

  • Author:
    Hartson, Tamara
    Summary:

    Super Explorers brings you all the weird fish, mammals and other strange creatures that inhabit the deep, deep ocean: the Frilled Shark is a strange-looking prehistoric shark that swallows its prey whole,  the Japanese Spider Crab has the largest leg-span of any of its species, Vampire Squids are covered in light-producing organs that flash to confuse their prey, Fangtooth has impressive-looking teeth and really looks like a monster from the deep! And many more...

  • Author:
    Summary:

    Art about the climate crisis that calls for justice and systemic change while raising funds to help tackle the problem. We are in a climate emergency. The polar bears are starving, Australia is burning. Climate anxiety--like sea levels--is rising to unprecedented levels. In response to this, poet and editor Kathryn Mockler created a website where writers and artists could post creative works that respond to this crisis. Watch Your Head curates the best poems, stories, essays, and images related to our environmental crisis. The work is ranty, mourning, desperate, in-your-face, hopeful, healing, transformative, and radical. It calls out hypocrisy and injustice to inspire you to do whatever you can--volunteer for a climate justice organization, support land and water defenders, call out the media--and it'll make you feel less alone in your worry.

  • Author:
    Macdonald, Helen
    Summary:

    Animals don't exist in order to teach us things, but that is what they have always done, and most of what they teach us is what we think we know about ourselves. From the bestselling author of H is for Hawk comes Vesper Flights, a transcendent collection of essays about the human relationship to the natural world. Helen Macdonald brings together a collection of her best-loved writing along with new pieces covering a thrilling range of subjects. There are essays here on headaches, on catching swans, on hunting mushrooms, on twentieth century spies, on numinous experiences and high-rise buildings; on nests and wild pigs and the tribulations offarming ostriches. Vesper Flights is a book about observation, fascination, time, memory, love and loss and how we make the world around us. Moving and frank, personal and political, it confirms Helen Macdonald as one of this century's greatest nature writers.

  • Author:
    Koonin, Steven E.
    Summary:

    "Surging sea levels are inundating the coasts." "Hurricanes and tornadoes are becoming fiercer and more frequent." "Climate change will be an economic disaster." You've heard all this presented as fact. But according to science, all of these statements are profoundly misleading. When it comes to climate change, the media, politicians, and other prominent voices have declared that "the science is settled." In reality, the long game of telephone from research to reports to the popular media is corrupted by misunderstanding and misinformation. Core questions--about the way the climate is responding to our influence, and what the impacts will be--remain largely unanswered. The climate is changing, but the why and how aren't as clear as you've probably been led to believe. Now, one of America's most distinguished scientists is clearing away the fog to explain what science really says (and doesn't say) about our changing climate. In Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters, Steven Koonin draws upon his decades of experience--including as a top science advisor to the Obama administration--to provide up-to-date insights and expert perspective free from political agendas. Fascinating, clear-headed, and full of surprises, this book gives readers the tools to both understand the climate issue and be savvier consumers of science media in general. Koonin takes readers behind the headlines to the more nuanced science itself, showing us where it comes from and guiding us through the implications of the evidence. He dispels popular myths and unveils little-known truths: despite a dramatic rise in greenhouse gas emissions, global temperatures actually decreased from 1940 to 1970. What's more, the models we use to predict the future aren't able to accurately describe the climate of the past, suggesting they are deeply flawed. Koonin also tackles society's response to a changing climate, using data-driven analysis to explain why many proposed "solutions" would be ineffective, and discussing how alternatives like adaptation and, if necessary, geoengineering will ensure humanity continues to prosper. Unsettled is a reality check buoyed by hope, offering the truth about climate science that you aren't getting elsewhere--what we know, what we don't and what it all means for our future.

  • Author:
    Angus, Charlie
    Summary:

    For twenty-two years politicians and businessmen pushed for the Adams Mine landfill as a solution to Ontario's garbage disposal crisis. This plan to dump millions of tonnes of waste into the fractured pits of the Adams Mine prompted five separate civil resistance campaigns by a rural region of 35,000 in Northern Ontario. Unlikely Radicals traces the compelling history of the First Nations people and farmers, environmentalists and miners, retirees and volunteers, Anglophones and Francophones who stood side by side to defend their community with mass demonstrations, blockades, and non-violent resistance.

  • Author:
    Attenborough, David
    Summary:

    La véritable tragédie de notre époque se déroule sous nos yeux, à l'échelle de la planète tout entière : la disparition de notre milieu naturel. Notre mode de vie actuel précipite la biodiversité vers un déclin certain. David Attenborough, grand producteur de films naturalistes à la BBC, nous livre son témoignage et sa vision de l'avenir. Comment nous en sommes arrivés là et comment, si l'on agit maintenant, il est encore temps de sauver la vie sur Terre. Le livre a fait l'objet d'une adaptation filmée diffusée sur Netflix.

  • Author:
    Kolbert, Elizabeth
    Summary:

    That man should have dominion "over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth" is a prophecy that has hardened into fact. So pervasive are human impacts on the planet that it's said we live in a new geological epoch: the Anthropocene. In Under a White Sky, Elizabeth Kolbert takes a hard look at the new world we are creating. She meets scientists who are trying to preserve the world's rarest fish, which lives in a single, tiny pool in the middle of the Mojave. She visits a lava field in Iceland, where engineers are turning carbon emissions to stone; an aquarium in Australia, where researchers are trying to develop "super coral" that can survive on a hotter globe; and a lab at Harvard, where physicists are contemplating shooting tiny diamonds into the stratosphere in order to reflect sunlight back to space and cool the earth. One way to look at human civilization, says Kolbert, is as a ten-thousand-year exercise in defying nature. In The Sixth Extinction, she explored the ways in which our capacity for destruction has reshaped the natural world. Now she examines how the very sorts of interventions that have imperiled our planet are increasingly seen as the only hope for its salvation. By turns inspiring, terrifying, and darkly comic, Under a White Sky is an utterly original examination of the challenges we face.

  • Author:
    Duchesne, Christiane
    Summary:

    Le souvenir restait imprécis, pas net du tout, c'était très vague. Ça n'avait pas de contours, ça se dessinait à peine, mais ce souvenir-là tentait vraiment de remonter à la surface. Clara le savait, il y avait une histoire de tête de cheval qui traînait quelque part. Ça se sent, ces choses-là. Ce jour-là, Mad disait que les tresses de Clara sentaient le secret. Elle avait raison : Clara avait fait une incroyable découverte dans le petit bois?! Elle ne voulait en parler à personne, sauf à son ami Bab qui, par malheur, se faisait opérer samedi. Découvrir un crâne, ce n'est pas banal. Le mystère allait conduire Clara dans les méandres des mémoires de sa famille.

  • Author:
    Silver, Akiva
    Summary:

    The organic grower's guide to planting, propagation, culture, and ecology Trees are our allies in healing the world. Partnering with trees allows us to build soil, enhance biodiversity, increase wildlife populations, grow food and medicine, and pull carbon out of the atmosphere, sequestering it in the soil. Trees of Power explains how we can work with these arboreal allies, specifically focusing on propagation, planting, and individual species. Author Akiva Silver is an enthusiastic tree grower with years of experience running his own commercial nursery. In this book he clearly explains the most important concepts necessary for success with perennial woody plants. It's broken down into two parts: the first covering concepts and horticultural skills and the second with in-depth information on individual species. You'll learn different ways to propagate trees: by seed, grafting, layering, or with cuttings. These time-honored techniques make it easy for anyone to increase their stock of trees, simply and inexpensively. Ten chapters focus on the specific ecology, culture, and uses of different trees, ones that are common to North America and in other temperate parts of the world: Chestnut: The Bread Tree Apples: The Magnetic Center Poplar: The Homemaker Ash: Maker of Wood Mulberry: The Giving Tree Elderberry: The Caretaker Hickory: Pillars of Life Hazelnut: The Provider Black Locust: The Restoration Tree Beech: The Root Runner Trees of Power fills an urgent need for up-to-date information on some of our most important tree species, those that have multiple benefits for humans, animals, and nature. It also provides inspiration for new generations of tree stewards and caretakers who will not only benefit themselves, but leave a lasting legacy for future generations. Trees of Power is for everyone who wants to connect with trees. It is for the survivalist, the gardener, the homesteader, the forager, the permaculturist, the environmentalist, the parent, the schoolteacher, the farmer, and anyone who feels a deep kinship with these magnificent beings.

  • Author:
    Klein, Naomi
    Summary:

    The most important book yet from the author of the international bestseller The Shock Doctrine, a brilliant explanation of why the climate crisis challenges us to abandon the core “free market” ideology of our time, restructure the global economy, and remake our political systems.

    In short, either we embrace radical change ourselves or radical changes will be visited upon our physical world. The status quo is no longer an option.

    In This Changes Everything Naomi Klein argues that climate change isn’t just another issue to be neatly filed between taxes and health care. It’s an alarm that calls us to fix an economic system that is already failing us in many ways. Klein meticulously builds the case for how massively reducing our greenhouse emissions is our best chance to simultaneously reduce gaping inequalities, re-imagine our broken democracies, and rebuild our gutted local economies. She exposes the ideological desperation of the climate-change deniers, the messianic delusions of the would-be geoengineers, and the tragic defeatism of too many mainstream green initiatives. And she demonstrates precisely why the market has not—and cannot—fix the climate crisis but will instead make things worse, with ever more extreme and ecologically damaging extraction methods, accompanied by rampant disaster capitalism.

    Klein argues that the changes to our relationship with nature and one another that are required to respond to the climate crisis humanely should not be viewed as grim penance, but rather as a kind of gift—a catalyst to transform broken economic and cultural priorities and to heal long-festering historical wounds. And she documents the inspiring movements that have already begun this process: communities that are not just refusing to be sites of further fossil fuel extraction but are building the next, regeneration-based economies right now.

    Can we pull off these changes in time? Nothing is certain. Nothing except that climate change changes everything. And for a very brief time, the nature of that change is still up to us.

  • Author:
    Debbink, Andrea
    Summary:

    The wonder of the natural world surrounds us--from the Amazon rainforest to the snowy peaks of Mount Everest to the green spaces in big cities. And as the threat of climate change grows, it's more important than ever to show appreciation for our planet by taking action. Packed with advice and true-adventure accounts, this is an inspiring guide for youth.

  • Author:
    Forsyth, Scott
    Summary:

    An astounding collection of photographs and essays celebrating the grandeur of Canada's most remote regions located along the three ocean coastlines. Divided into three main sections - the Atlantic (Newfoundland and Labrador), the Arctic (Nunavut and The Northwest Passage), and the Pacific (Haida Gwaii and The Great Bear Rainforest) - the book will highlight features of geographical and cultural significance using glorious full-colour photographs and personal reflections written by some of Canada's most honoured writers, including Wade Davis, Ken McGoogan, Terry Fallis, and Douglas Gibson. These stunning photographs and warm-hearted stories will inspire the reader to embark on their own journey to explore places still unfamiliar to them in this vast and magnificent landscape of Canada.

  • Author:
    Casey, Susan
    Summary:

    From Susan Casey, bestselling author of The Devil's Teeth, an astonishing book about colossal, ship-swallowing rogue waves and the surfers who seek them out. For centuries, mariners have spun tales of gargantuan waves, 100-feet high or taller. Until recently scientists dismissed these stories--waves that high would seem to violate the laws of physics ...

  • Author:
    Wallace-Wells, David
    Summary:

    "The Uninhabitable Earth hits you like a comet, with an overflow of insanely lyrical prose about our pending Armageddon."--Andrew Solomon, author of The Noonday DemonIt is worse, much worse, than you think. If your anxiety about global warming is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible. In California, wildfires now rage year-round, destroying thousands of homes. Across the US, "500-year" storms pummel communities month after month, and floods displace tens of millions annually. This is only a preview of the changes to come. And they are coming fast. Without a revolution in how billions of humans conduct their lives, parts of the Earth could become close to uninhabitable, and other parts horrifically inhospitable, as soon as the end of this century. In his travelogue of our near future, David Wallace-Wells brings into stark relief the climate troubles that await--food shortages, refugee emergencies, and other crises that will reshape the globe. But the world will be remade by warming in more profound ways as well, transforming our politics, our culture, our relationship to technology, and our sense of history. It will be all-encompassing, shaping and distorting nearly every aspect of human life as it is lived today. Like An Inconvenient Truth and Silent Spring before it, The Uninhabitable Earth is both a meditation on the devastation we have brought upon ourselves and an impassioned call to action. For just as the world was brought to the brink of catastrophe within the span of a lifetime, the responsibility to avoid it now belongs to a single generation

  • Author:
    Lights, Zion
    Summary:

    The Ultimate Guide to Green Parenting is the first book of its kind. Journalist, science writer and mother Zion Lights has researched all those questions that beset new or expecting parents, not just about environmental issues but also on approaches to parenting. She focuses on the scientific evidence rather than on the latest fad or personal anecdote and the result is a book that will help you adjust your lifestyle in practical ways that work for you and your child. From birth to nutrition and from diapers to travel, advice based on research and evidence can guide the way. And the good news is that going green will not only help to save the planet and help to protect your child's health, it will also result in a happier and more fulfilling family life.

  • Author:
    Haigh, J. C.
    Summary:

    The trouble with lions is that while you are conducting a pregnancy test, you need to be equally, if not more, aware of what you can learn from the lion's other end. That is one lesson that Jerry Haigh brings home in this fascinating collection of stories about working with wild animals in Africa. Conversational in tone, conservational in theme - you will be right beside Jerry, wife Jo, and a colourful cast of vets, guides, and wardens as they scour Africa - sprawling vistas - troubleshooting - lions, rhinos, humans, and other indigenous mammals. Conservationists, veterinarians, and fans of real-life adventure tales will want to keep this memoir handy on the dashboards of their Land Cruisers.

  • Author:
    Rawlence, Ben
    Summary:

    For the last fifty years, the trees of the boreal forest have been moving north. The Treeline takes us along this critical frontier of our warming planet from Norway to Siberia, Alaska to Greenland, to meet the scientists, residents and trees confronting huge geological changes. Only the hardest species survive at these latitudes including the ice-loving Dahurian larch of Siberia, the antiseptic Spruce that purifies our atmosphere, the Downy birch conquering Scandinavia, the healing Balsam poplar that Native Americans use as a cure-all and the noble Scots Pine that lives longer when surrounded by its family. It is a journey of wonder and awe at the incredible creativity and resilience of these species and the mysterious workings of the forest upon which we rely for the air we breathe. Blending reportage with the latest science, The Treeline is a story of what might soon be the last forest left and what that means for the future of all life on earth.

  • Author:
    Finkel, Michael
    Summary:

    Many people dream of escaping modern life, but most will never act on it. This is the remarkable true story of a man who lived alone in the woods of Maine for 27 years, making this dream a reality--not out of anger at the world, but simply because he preferred to live on his own. In 1986, a shy and intelligent twenty-year-old named Christopher Knight left his home in Massachusetts, drove to Maine, and disappeared into the forest. He would not have a conversation with another human being until nearly three decades later, when he was arrested for stealing food. Living in a tent even through brutal winters, he had survived by his wits and courage, developing ingenious ways to store edibles and water, and to avoid freezing to death. He broke into nearby cottages for food, clothing, reading material, and other provisions, taking only what he needed but terrifying a community never able to solve the mysterious burglaries. Based on extensive interviews with Knight himself, this is a vividly detailed account of his secluded life--why did he leave? what did he learn?--as well as the challenges he has faced since returning to the world. It is a gripping story of survival that asks fundamental questions about solitude, community, and what makes a good life, and a deeply moving portrait of a man who was determined to live his own way, and succeeded.

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