Environmentalism has relentlessly warned about the dire consequences of abusing and exploiting the planet's natural resources, imagining future wastelands of ecological depletion and social chaos. But it has also generated rich new ideas about how humans might live better with nature. Green Utopias explores these ideas of environmental hope in the post-war period, from the environmental crisis to the end of nature. Using a broad definition of Utopia as it exists in Western policy, theory and literature, Lisa Garforth explains how its developing entanglement with popular culture and mainstream politics has shaped successive green future visions and initiatives. In the face of apocalyptic, despairing or indifferent responses to contemporary ecological dilemmas, utopias and the utopian method seem more necessary than ever. This distinctive reading of green political thought and culture will appeal across the social sciences and humanities to all interested in why green utopias continue to matter in the cultivation of ecological values and the emergence of new forms of human and non-human well-being.
A practical, bipartisan call to action from the world's leading thinkers on the environment and sustainability. Sustainability has emerged as a global priority over the past several years. The 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change and the adoption of the seventeen Sustainable Develpment Goals through the United Nations have highlighted the need to address critical challenges such as the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, water shortages, and air pollution. But in the United States, partisan divides, regional disputes, and deep disagreements over core principles have made it nearly impossible to chart a course toward a sustainable future. This book offers fresh thinking and forward-looking solutions from environmental thought leaders across the political spectrum. The book's forty essays cover such subjects as ecology, environmental justice, Big Data, public health, and climate change, all with an emphasis on sustainability. The book focuses on moving toward sustainability through actionable, bipartisan approaches based on rigorous analytical research.
An international corporate lawyer and environmental leader, with a clear understanding of past failures and a realistic view of the future, argues that progress on environmental issues is within reach and presents a pragmatic and non-ideological program that is rooted in the way America is, not in a utopian vision of what it could become.
1. The Role of Myths in Our Climate-Energy Challenge -- 2. The Art of Deluding Ourselves and Others -- 3. Climate Scientists Are Conspirators -- 4. All Countries Will Agree on Climate Fairness -- 5. This Fossil Fuel Project Is Essential -- 6. We Must Price Carbon Emissions -- 7. Peak Oil Will Get Us First Anyway -- 8. We Must Change Our Behavior -- 9. We Can Be Carbon Neutral -- 10. Energy Efficiency Is Profitable -- 11. Renewables Have Won -- 12. We Must Abolish Capitalism -- 13. The Simple Path to Success with Our Climate-Energy Challenge.
We live in unprecedented times - the Anthropocene - defined by far-reaching human impacts on the natural systems that underpin civilization. Planetary Health explores the many environmental changes that threaten to undermine progress in human health, and explains how these changes affect health outcomes, from pandemics to infectious diseases to mental health, from chronic diseases to injuries. It shows how people can adapt to those changes that are now unavoidable, through actions that both improve health and safeguard the environment. But humanity must do more than just adapt: we need transformative changes across many sectors - energy, housing, transport, food, and health care. The book discusses specific policies, technologies, and interventions to achieve the change required, and explains how these can be implemented. It presents the evidence, builds hope in our common future, and aims to motivate action by everyone, from the general public to policymakers to health practitioners.
From a writer and climate-change expert who has been at the center of the fight for more than thirty years, a brilliant big-picture reckoning with the reasons for our shocking failure to this point, focusing on the malign power of key business interests, and arguing that those same interests could flip this story very quickly, if a looming economic catastrophe doesn't happen first. Eugene Linden wrote his first big cover story on climate change, for Time magazine, in 1988. In the years since, he has written many more investigative pieces, for many outlets, as well as served as an advisor for nonprofits, insurance companies, and other businesses in the cross-hairs of the disastrous impact of global warming. Fire and Flood represents his definitive case for the prosecution as to how and why we have arrived at our current dire pass, closing with his argument that the same forces that have so confused the public's mind and slowed the policy response are poised to pivot with astonishing speed, as long-term risks have become present-day realities and the cliff's edge is now within view. Read more on our library website!
It 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.
It's the pesticide on our dinner plates, a chemical so pervasive it's in the air we breathe, our water, our soil, and even found increasingly in our own bodies. Known as Monsanto's Roundup by consumers, and as glyphosate by scientists, the world's most popular weed killer is used everywhere from backyard gardens to golf courses to millions of acres of farmland. For decades it's been touted as safe enough to drink, but a growing body of evidence indicates just the opposite, with research tying the chemical to cancers and a host of other health threats. In Whitewash, veteran journalist Carey Gillam uncovers one of the most controversial stories in the history of food and agriculture, exposing new evidence of corporate influence. Gillam introduces readers to farm families devastated by cancers which they believe are caused by the chemical, and to scientists whose reputations have been smeared for publishing research that contradicted business interests. Read more on our library website!.
In the tradition of Elizabeth Kolbert and Barry Lopez, a powerful, poetic and deeply absorbing account of the "lung" at the top of the world. For the last fifty years, the trees of the boreal forest have been moving north. Ben Rawlence's 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 hardiest 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.
A vivid tour of Earth's Big Five mass extinctions, the past worlds lost with each, and what they all can tell us about our not-too-distant future. Was it really an asteroid that killed the dinosaurs? Or carbon dioxide-driven climate change? In fact, scientists now suspect that climate change played a major role not only in the end of the age of dinosaurs, but also in each of the five most deadly mass extinctions in the history of the planet. Struck by the implications of this for our own future, Peter Brannen, along with some of the world's leading paleontologists, dives into deep time, exploring each of Earth's five dead ends, and in the process, offers us a glimpse of what's to come. Using the visible clues these extinctions have left behind in the fossil record, The Ends of the World takes us inside the "scenes of the crime," from South Africa's Karoo Desert to the New York Palisades, to tell the story of each extinction. Read more on our library website!
What if Atlantis wasn't a myth, but an early precursor to a new age of great flooding? Across the globe, scientists and civilians alike are noticing rapidly rising sea levels, and higher and higher tides pushing more water directly into the places we live, from our most vibrant, historic cities to our last remaining traditional coastal villages. With each crack in the great ice sheets of the Arctic and Antarctica, and each tick upwards of Earth's thermometer, we are moving closer to the brink of broad disaster. By century's end, hundreds of millions of people will be retreating from the world's shores as our coasts become inundated and our landscapes transformed. From island nations to the world's major cities, coastal regions will disappear. Engineering projects to hold back the water are bold and may buy some time. Yet despite international efforts and tireless research, there is no permanent solution-no barriers to erect or walls to build-that will protect us in the end from the drowning of the world as we know it. The Water Will Come is the definitive account of the coming water, why and how this will happen, and what it will all mean. Read more on our library website!
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Humorous, approachable guide for aspiring backpackers, part critique of modern backpacking culture and part how-to guide.
The complete guide to growing, procuring, and preparing local and seasonal foods for the home cook. The Field to Table Cookbook brings 175 family pleasing, nutritious, and accessible recipes to home cooks who want to increase their familiarity with procuring and cooking clean, organic meat, fish, fruits, and vegetables. Susan L. Ebert's seasonal tips and recipes for game, fish, wild foods, and garden produce translate well to different regions and climes. Ebert, an experienced hunter, angler, and gardener, pairs her straightforward recipes with more than one hundred illustrative photos of procuring food in the field and presenting it on the table, along with tips on dressing, deboning, preparing, drying, curing, and preserving nature's bounty. Field notes about wild game, fish, foraged foods, and home garden favorites complete the experience. Read more on our library website!
No soil? No sunlight? No problem. A hydroponic growing system gives you the power to grow plants anywhere. Simply suspend your essential nutrients in a water-based solution and circulate them to the plant roots in a contained network of vessels and tubes. Sound easy? In a way, it is. But it also requires plenty of solid information to succeed, which is why you need DIY Hydroponic Gardens. With practical information aimed at home do-it-youselfers, author Tyler Baras (Farmer Tyler to his fans) shows exactly how to build, plant, and maintain over a dozen unique hydroponic systems, some costing just a few dollars to make. Farmer Tyler shows you, with detailed step-by-step photos, precisely how to create these systems, and how to plant and maintain them. Read more on our library website!
It may seem counterintuitive to want bugs in a garden, but insects are indeed valuable garden companions. Especially those species known for eating the bugs that eat plants. Assassin bugs, damsel bugs, and predatory stink bugs are all carnivores that devour the bugs that dine on a garden. Attracting Beneficial Bugs to Your Garden is a book about bugs and plants, and how to create a garden that benefits from both. In addition to information on companion planting and commercial options for purchasing bugs, there are 19 detailed bug profiles and 39 plant profiles. The bug profiles include a description, a photograph for identification, an explanation of what they do for the garden, and the methods gardeners can use to attract them. Read more on our library website!
This colorful guide shows the almost endless possibilities of growing homegrown produce in pots, from raising fresh salads in a matter of days and growing your own salsa mix, to harvesting juicy exotic fruits to savor. Packed with creative ideas and easy to follow techniques, this book offers expert growing advice for every crop--from arugula to zucchini.
A unique and personal insight into the ecology and evolution of pollinators, their relationships with flowers, and their conversation in a rapidly changing world. The pollination of flowers by insects, birds and other animals is a crucial interaction that supports both the natural world and human society. Without pollinators to facilitate the sexual reproduction of plants, the world would be a biologically poorer place in which to live, there would be an impact on food security, and human health would suffer. Written by one of the world's leading pollination ecologists, this book provides an introduction to what pollinators are, how their interactions with flowers have evolved, and the fundamental ecology of these relationships. Read more on our library website!
A rich and surprising exploration of the intelligence of bees. Most of us are aware of the hive mind--the power of bees as an amazing collective. But do we know how uniquely intelligent bees are as individuals? In The Mind of a Bee, Lars Chittka draws from decades of research, including his own pioneering work, to argue that bees have remarkable cognitive abilities. He shows that they are profoundly smart, have distinct personalities, can recognize flowers and human faces, exhibit basic emotions, count, use simple tools, solve problems, and learn by observing others. They may even possess consciousness. Taking readers deep into the sensory world of bees, Chittka illustrates how bee brains are unparalleled in the animal kingdom in terms of how much sophisticated material is packed into their tiny nervous systems. Read more on our library website!
This book takes you through the initial stages of clearing ground and planting a new vegetable garden, regardless of the state of the ground you're working on. Drawing on his years of experience as an expert gardener, Charles Dowding illustrates the simplicity of starting a new vegetable garden with tales and pictures from his first year on his latest plot of land. Filled with labour-saving ideas and insights into the processes that Charles uses to garden so successfully, this practical book is a must-read for anyone who has unused land and doesn't know where to start.
The Tarrant County College District Libraries are pleased to provide a wide assortment of digital displays and online exhibits designed to educate, inform, entertain, and engage our entire community, and to help support the learning experience outside of the traditional classroom environment. To view more of these web-based displays, visit our Digital Display Archive page.