Conservation Science

An icon of the environmental movement outlines a provocative approach for reclaiming our planet. According to Stewart Brand, a lifelong environmentalist who sees everything in terms of solvable design problems, three profound transformations are under way on Earth right now. Climate change is real and is pushing us toward managing the planet as a whole. Urbanization - half the world's population now lives in cities, and 80 percent will by midcentury - is altering humanity's land impact and wealth.

Through stories that bring people, policy, and technology together, Akshat Rathi reveals how the green economy is not only possible, but profitable. This inspiring blend of business, science, and history provides the framework for ensuring that future generations can live in prosperity and that the wheels of progress don't falter.

A riveting, urgent account of the explorers and scientists racing to understand the rapidly melting ice sheet in Greenland, a dramatic harbinger of climate change “Jon Gertner takes readers to spots few journalists or even explorers have visited. The result is a gripping and important book...

In The Nation of Plants, the most important, widespread, and powerful nation on Earth finally gets to speak. Like attentive parents, plants, after making it possible for us to live, have come to our aid once again, giving us their rules: the first Universal Declaration of Rights of Living Beings written by the plants. A short charter based on the general principles that regulate the common life of plants, it establishes norms applicable to all living beings.

Palila v Hawaii. New Zealand's Te Urewera Act. Sierra Club v Disney. These legal phrases hardly sound like the makings of a revolution, but beyond the headlines portending environmental catastrophes, a movement of immense import has been building - in courtrooms, legislatures, and communities across the globe. Cultures and laws are transforming to provide a powerful new approach to protecting the planet and the species with whom we share it.

In Secondhand, Adam Minter delves into the vast, multibillion-dollar industry that resells used stuff around the world. He follows the trail of unwanted objects from the closets, garages, and storage units of Middle America to epic used-goods markets in Canada, Mexico, Japan, Ghana, India, Malaysia, and beyond. Secondhand takes us through the often painful and heartbreaking process of cleaning out a lifetime’s worth of possessions and shows that used stuff still has a place in a world that values the new and shiny.

Over the past seventy years, McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, and other consumer goods makers have harnessed single-use plastics to turbocharge their profits. They've poured billions of dollars into convincing us we need disposable diapers, cups, bags, bottles, shampoo in sachets, and plastic-packaged ultra-processed foods. We were never clamoring for any of these items, but this shift towards disposability has fundamentally transformed our daily habits.

Five Times Faster is an inside story from Simon Sharpe, who has spent ten years at the forefront of climate change policy and diplomacy. In our fight to avoid dangerous climate change, science is pulling its punches, diplomacy is picking the wrong battles, and economics has been fighting for the other side. This provocative and engaging book sets out how we should rethink our strategies and reorganize our efforts in the fields of science, economics, and diplomacy, so that we can act fast enough to stay safe.

Clearing the Air tells the full story of air pollution for the first time: what it is, which pollutants are harmful, where they come from and - most importantly - what we can do about them. Air pollution is a problem that can be solved. The stories uncovered on this journey show us how. Clearing the Air is essential listening for anyone who cares about the air they breathe. And this much becomes clear: in the fight against air pollution, we all have a part to play. The fightback has begun.

Warden Force is a collection of award-winning short stories currently spanning seven volumes. Each story reveals the true adventures of California Fish and Game Wardens and the wildlife-destroying outlaws they pursue. These stories illustrate the wide variety of wildlife-related problems wardens face in California, which has a greater diversity of wildlife and wildlife habitat than any other state and is second only to Alaska in its vast expanses of wilderness.

Following five generations of female wolves—including the famous 06—this gripping family saga set in Yellowstone National Park reveals the pivotal role that female wolves play in pack life.

Why throw away used snack packages when you can reuse them? These fun and informative science experiments and projects will keep listeners entertained as they learn about scientific principles.

This classic is an essential handbook for anyone who studies, surfs, protects, or is fascinated by the ocean, with a wealth of information based on theory and statistics, but also anecdotal observation and personal experience. It brought to the general public understanding of the awesome and complex power of the waves. This revision from Kim McCoy updates the book's relevance in the time of climate change. One of the most significant effects of global warming will be sea-level rise. What will this mean to waves and beaches, and what effects are we already seeing?

In this groundbreaking epic biography, Douglas Brinkley draws on never-before-published materials to examine the life and achievements of our "naturalist president." By setting aside more than 230 million acres of wild America for posterity between 1901 and 1909, Theodore Roosevelt made conservation a universal endeavor. This crusade for the American wilderness was perhaps the greatest U.S. presidential initiative between the Civil War and World War I.

From bestselling author, long-time former National Geographic Explorer, and anthropologist Wade Davis comes the story of America's Nile: how it once flowed freely and how human intervention has left it near exhaustion, altering the water temperature, volume, local species, and shoreline of the river Theodore Roosevelt once urged us to "leave it as it is."

Bright Green Lies exposes the hypocrisy and bankruptcy of leading environmental groups and their most prominent cheerleaders. The best-known environmentalists are not in the business of speaking truth, or even holding up rational solutions to blunt the impending ecocide, but instead indulge in a mendacious and self-serving delusion that provides comfort at the expense of reality. They fail to state the obvious: We cannot continue to wallow in hedonistic consumption and industrial expansion and survive as a species.

The grizzly is one of North America's few remaining large predators. Their range is diminished, but they're spreading across the West again. Descending into valleys where once they were king, bears find the landscape they'd known for eons utterly changed by the new most dominant animal: humans. In searing detail, award-winning writer, Montana rancher, and conservationist Bryce Andrews tells us about one such grizzly. Millie is a typical mother: strong, cunning, fiercely protective of her cubs. But raising those cubs becomes ever harder as the climate warms and people crowd the valleys.

Captain Guyan March had spent his entire professional career aboard Windjammer Barefoot Cruises’ fleet of extravagant tall ships that carry passengers on weeklong fantasy cruises spiced with rum and sun. When he agreed to command the Fantome, Windjammer’s marquee ship, a beautiful 282-foot schooner that “sailed like a pig” in the Gulf of Honduras, he knew that a storm would leave him little space to run. In the southern reaches of the Caribbean, Tropical Storm Mitch whirled to life like a nebula and became Captain March’s worst nightmare.

Part memoir, part critique, and paean to the value of national parks, American Covenant distills the experience and insights from two long careers in conservation. Soukup and Machlis show how the national parks are essential to maintaining the essence of our national heritage, and key to America's future in a changing climate and political landscape. Sharing real-world examples of both victories and defeats in protecting national parks, this candid, thoughtful book reminds us that the national parks are a promise - a covenant - within and between generations of Americans.

The second volume of William T. Vollmann's epic book about the factors and human actions that have led to global warming begins in the coal fields of West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky. Over the course of four years, Vollmann finds hollowed out towns with coal-polluted streams and acidified drinking water; makes covert visits to mountaintop removal mines; and offers documented accounts of unpaid fines for federal health and safety violations and of miners who died because their bosses cut corners to make more money.