SHOPPING HOME
      >  The Books Store   >  Science   >  Nature & Ecology   >  Natural Resources   >  General   <<<   YOU ARE HERE

Shopper's Delight

General in The Books Store


 
Search Results:

Displaying records 1 through 10 of 4000
First      Previous
Next      Last

 

  The Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience

 
The Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience under General in The Books Store
Price: $24.95
Sale: $14.32
 
Manufacturer: Chelsea Green
Number of Items: 1
 
 
Binding: Paperback
Author: Rob Hopkins
Publisher: Chelsea Green
Dewey Decimal Number: 333.7913
Publication Date: 2008-09-15
Reading Level: 240
 
Description: We live in an oil-dependent world, arriving at this level of dependency in a very short space of time by treating petroleum as if it were in infinite supply. Most of us avoid thinking about what happens when oil runs out (or becomes prohibitively expensive), but The Transition Handbook shows how the inevitable and profound changes ahead can have a positive outcome. These changes can lead to the rebirth of local communities that will grow more of their own food, generate their own power, and build their own houses using local materials. They can also encourage the development of local currencies to keep money in the local area.

There are now over 30 “transition towns” in the UK, Australia and New Zealand with more joining as the idea takes off. They provide valuable experience and lessons-learned for those of us on this side of the Atlantic. With little proactive thinking at the governmental level, communities are taking matters into their own hands and acting locally. If your town is not a transition town, this upbeat guide offers you the tools for starting the process.

 

  Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century

 
Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century under General in The Books Store
Price: $19.95
Sale: $7.48
 
Manufacturer: Abrams
Number of Items: 1
 
 
Binding: Paperback
Author: Alex Steffen
Publisher: Abrams
Dewey Decimal Number: 333.7
Publication Date: 2008-03-01
Reading Level: 600
 
Description:
Worldchanging is packed with information, resources, reviews, and ideas that give readers access to the tools they need to build a better future. Written by a diverse collaborative of innovators, Worldchanging demonstrates that the means for making a difference lie all around us.

This team of top-notch writers, brought together by Worldchanging.com founder Alex Steffen, includes Cameron Sinclair, founder of Architecture for Humanity, Geekcore founder Ethan Zuckerman, and sustainable food expert Anne Lappé, among many others.

Each chapter offers practical answers to important questions, such as: Why does buying locally produced food make sense? What steps can we take to influence our workplace toward sustainability? How can we travel, live, work, and learn in world-changing ways? How, in short, can we participate in building a better future locally and globally?

Worldchanging proves that a life that is sustainably prosperous, thoughtful and democratic, dynamic and peaceful, is not just possible, it’s here.

 

  The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability

 
The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability under General in The Books Store
Price: $28.00
Sale: $16.50
 
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
Number of Items: 1
 
 
Binding: Hardcover
Author: James Gustave Speth
Publisher: Yale University Press
Dewey Decimal Number: 333.7
Publication Date: 2008-03-28
Reading Level: 320
 
Description:

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. In this book Gus Speth, author of Red Sky at Morning and a widely respected environmentalist, begins with the observation that the environmental community has grown in strength and sophistication, but the environment has continued to decline, to the point that we are now at the edge of catastrophe.

 

Speth contends that this situation is a severe indictment of the economic and political system we call modern capitalism. Our vital task is now to change the operating instructions for today’s destructive world economy before it is too late. The book is about how to do that.

(20080129)

 

  When the Rivers Run Dry: Water--The Defining Crisis of the Twenty-first Century

 
When the Rivers Run Dry: Water--The Defining Crisis of the Twenty-first Century under General in The Books Store
Price: $16.00
Sale: $9.00
 
Manufacturer: Beacon Press
Number of Items: 1
 
 
Binding: Paperback
Author: Fred Pearce
Publisher: Beacon Press
Edition: 1
Dewey Decimal Number: 333
Publication Date: 2007-03-07
Reading Level: 324
 
Description: In this groundbreaking book, veteran science correspondent Fred Pearce travels to more than thirty countries to examine the current state of crucial water sources. Deftly weaving together the complicated scientific, economic, and historic dimensions of the world water crisis, he provides our most complete portrait yet of this growing danger and its ramifications for us all.

"A strong—and scary—case that a worldwide water shortage is the most fearful looming environmental crisis. With a drumbeat of facts both horrific (thousands of wells in India and Bangladesh are poisoned by fluoride and arsenic) and fascinating (it takes 20 tons of water to make one pound of coffee), the former New Scientist news editor documents a 'kind of cataclysm' already affecting many of the world's great rivers."
—Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Oil we can replace. Water we can't—which is why this book is both so ominous and so important."
—Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature

"An enriching and farsighted work."
—Jai Singh, San Francisco Chronicle

"Pearce cogently presents the alarming ways in which this ecological emergency is affecting population centers, human health, food production, wildlife habitats, and species viability. Having crisscrossed the globe to research the economic, scientific, cultural, and political causes and ramifications of this under publicized tragedy, Pearce's powerful imagery, penetrating analyses, and passionate advocacy make this required reading for environmental proponents and civic leaders everywhere."
—Booklist

"If you want to quickly get up to date on climate change and its consequences, I recommend With Speed and Violence: Why Scientists Fear Tipping Points in Climate Change. If you can read only one book on climate change, this is it."
—Lester Brown, president, Earth Policy Institute

". . . perhaps it is time for you to spend some time with Fred Pearce and his wonderful When the Rivers Run Dry."
—Daily Kos, July Review

Fred Pearce has been writing about water issues for over twenty years. A former news editor at New Scientist and currently its environment and development consultant, he has also written for Audubon, Popular Science, Time, the Boston Globe, and Natural History. His books include With Speed and Violence, Turning Up the Heat, and Deep Jungle.

 

  Nature-Speak: Signs, Omens and Messages in Nature

 
Nature-Speak: Signs, Omens and Messages in Nature under General in The Books Store
Price: $22.95
Sale: $14.30
 
Manufacturer: Dragonhawk Publishing
Number of Items: 1
 
 
Binding: Paperback
Author: Ted Andrews
Publisher: Dragonhawk Publishing
Dewey Decimal Number: 133.25
Publication Date: 2004-03
Reading Level: 384
 

 

  The Art of the Snowflake: A Photographic Album

 
The Art of the Snowflake: A Photographic Album under General in The Books Store
Price: $30.00
Sale: $17.69
 
Manufacturer: Voyageur Press
Number of Items: 1
 
 
Binding: Hardcover
Author: Kenneth Libbrecht
Publisher: Voyageur Press
Edition: 1st
Dewey Decimal Number: 779.3
Publication Date: 2007-10-15
Reading Level: 156
 
Description:
The perfect geometry and exquisite beauty of nature is nowhere so clear to us as in the snowflake. But how have we been able to appreciate this infinitesimal wonder in all its crystalline glory? This book, as much a work of art as a testament to science, reveals how one of the snowflake’s most inspired photographers came to such intimate knowledge of his craft and its fleeting focus. Beautiful pictures illustrate Kenneth Libbrecht’s story of the microphotography of snow crystals, from the pioneering work of Wilson Bentley in the 1890s right up to Ken’s own innovations in our age of digital images. A breathtaking look at the works of art that melt in an instant, this is a book to page through and savor, season after season.

 

  The Secret Knowledge of Water : Discovering the Essence of the American Desert

 
The Secret Knowledge of Water : Discovering the Essence of the American Desert under General in The Books Store
Price: $14.99
Sale: $6.00
 
Manufacturer: Back Bay Books
Number of Items: 1
 
 
Binding: Paperback
Author: Craig Childs
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Edition: 1st Back Bay Pbk. Ed
Dewey Decimal Number: 553.70979
Publication Date: 2001-05-01
Reading Level: 304
 
Description: The "essence of the American desert," as the subtitle of Craig Childs's book has it, is water. A desert, by definition, lacks it, but when water does come, it comes in torrential, sometimes devastating abundance. Childs, a thirtysomething desert rat with a vast knowledge of the Southwest's remote corners, knows this fact well. "Most rain falling anywhere but the desert comes slow enough that it is swallowed by the soil without comment," he observes. "Desert rains, powerful and sporadic, tend to hit the ground, gather into floods, and are gone before the water can sink five inches into the ground."

The travels that Childs recounts in this vivid narrative take him from places sometimes parched, sometimes swimming, from the depths of the Grand Canyon to the dry limestone tanks of the lava-strewn Sonoran Desert. As he travels, Childs gives a close reading of the desert landscape ("the moral," he writes at one point, "is that if you know the land and its maps, you might live"), observing the rocks, plants, animals, and people that call it home. Some of his adventures will remind readers of Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire--save that Childs writes without Abbey's bluster, and with a measured lyricism that well suits the achingly lovely back canyons and cactus forests of the Southwest. By turns travelogue, ecological treatise, and meditative essay, Childs's book will speak to anyone who has spent time under desert skies, wondering when the next drop of rain might fall. --Gregory McNamee


 

  Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy

 
Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy under General in The Books Store
Price: $26.00
Sale: $14.48
 
Manufacturer: Metropolitan Books
Number of Items: 1
 
 
Binding: Hardcover
Author: Michael T. Klare
Publisher: Metropolitan Books
Dewey Decimal Number: 333.79
Publication Date: 2008-04-15
Reading Level: 352
 
Description:
From the author of the now-classic Resource Wars, an indispensable account of how the world’s diminishing sources of energy are radically changing the international balance of power Recently, an unprecedented Chinese attempt to acquire the major American energy firm Unocal was blocked by Congress amidst hysterical warnings of a Communist threat. But the political grandstanding missed a larger point: the takeover bid was a harbinger of a new structure of world power, based not on market forces or on arms and armies but on the possession of vital natural resources.
 
Surveying the energy-driven dynamic that is reconfiguring the international landscape, Michael Klare, the preeminent expert on resource geopolitics, forecasts a future of surprising new alliances and explosive danger. World leaders are now facing the stark recognition that all materials vital for the functioning of modern industrial societies (not just oil and natural gas but uranium, coal, copper, and others) are finite and being depleted at an ever-accelerating rate. As a result, governments rather than corporations are increasingly spearheading the pursuit of resources. In a radically altered world— where Russia is transformed from battered Cold War loser to arrogant broker of Eurasian energy, and the United States is forced to compete with the emerging “Chindia” juggernaut—the only route to survival on a shrinking planet, Klare shows, lies through international cooperation.

 

  Simple Prosperity: Finding Real Wealth in a Sustainable Lifestyle

 
Simple Prosperity: Finding Real Wealth in a Sustainable Lifestyle under General in The Books Store
Price: $14.95
Sale: $5.95
 
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Griffin
Number of Items: 1
 
 
Binding: Paperback
Author: David Wann
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Edition: 1st
Dewey Decimal Number: 306.0973
Publication Date: 2007-12-26
Reading Level: 304
 
Description:

In his bestseller Affluenza, David Wann and his co-authors diagnosed the debilitating disease of over-consumption.  In Simple Prosperity he shows readers how we can overcome this disease by investing in a variety of real wealth sources. To recapture a more abundant and sustainable lifestyle, try:

- Creating a richer life story through personal growth incentives
- Forming higher-yield friendships and stronger bonds through social capital
- Taking preventive healthcare measures to build up wellness reserves
- Balancing the biological budget through “greener” currency
- Caring for people, not just cars, to improve your neighborhood wealth index
- Resolving that pesky carbon conundrum through energy savings
- Celebrating instead of desecrating! Cultural prosperity futures value the earth as a sacred place

In our age of hedge fund hysteria, Simple Prosperity is a new way of investing that will save our sanity and the planet.


 

  Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource

 
Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource under General in The Books Store
Price: $16.00
Sale: $8.80
 
Manufacturer: Mariner Books
Number of Items: 1
 
 
Binding: Paperback
Author: Marq de Villiers
Publisher: Mariner Books
Edition: 1
Dewey Decimal Number: 333.91
Publication Date: 2001-07-12
Reading Level: 368
 
Description: Water is a curious thing, observed the economist Adam Smith: although it is vital to life, it costs almost nothing, whereas diamonds, which are useless for survival, cost a fortune. In Water, Canadian journalist de Villiers says the resource is still undervalued, but it is becoming more precious. It's not that the world is running out of water, he adds, but that "it's running out in places where it's needed most."

De Villiers examines the checkered history of humankind's management of water--which, he hastens to remind us, is not a renewable resource in many parts of the world. One of them is the Nile River region, burdened by overpopulation. Another is the Sahara, where Libyan ruler Muammar Qaddafi is pressing an ambitious, and potentially environmentally disastrous, campaign to mine deep underground aquifers to make the desert green. Another is northern China, where the damaging effects of irrigation have destroyed once-mighty rivers, and the Aral Sea of Central Asia, which was killed within a human lifetime. And still another is the American Southwest, where crops more fitting to a jungle than a dry land are nursed. De Villiers travels to all these places, reporting on what he sees and delivering news that is rarely good.

De Villiers has a keen eye for detail and a solid command of the scientific literature on which his argument is based. He's also a fine storyteller, and his wide-ranging book makes a useful companion to Marc Reisner's classic Cadillac Desert and other works that call our attention to a globally abused--and vital--resource. --Gregory McNamee


First      Previous
Next      Last
Displaying records 1 through 10 of 4000