Environment Food

Imagine a world in which the excess energy from one business would be used to heat another. Where buildings need less and less energy around the world, and where “regenerative” commercial buildings – ones that create more energy than they use – are being designed. A world in which...

What's causing our current high food prices? Is organic food really better for us? Do we care about Fairtrade or food miles? Should we buy locally or from the supermarket?

Eating has been described as the "most political act we do on a daily basis", with our choices affecting our health, landscape, climate, and economy. Food: What Are We Really Eating? lifts the lid on food production and the dizzying array of food choices we face each time we shop.

Listeners will go deep into a Vermont sugar bush and its web of plastic tubes, mainline valves, and collection tanks. They will visit sugarhouses crammed with gas evaporators and reverse-osmosis machines. And they will witness encounters between sugar makers and the tourists eager to invest Vermont with mythological fantasies of rural simplicity.

By favoring mostly plant-based foods, we can actually save the world – and live longer, healthier lives. A shift to mostly plant-based diets and new food technologies could solve our most important and pressing global problems. Issues like climate change, hunger, freshwater shortages, the Sixth Extinction, antibiotic resistance, and the threat of new pandemics might just melt away with the new food revolution. According to official estimates, meat and other animal-based products account for around 20% of human-generated greenhouse gas emissions.

Biotechnology crop production area increased from 1.7 million hectares to 148 million hectares worldwide between 1996 and 2010. While genetically modified food is a contentious issue, the debates are usually limited to health and environmental concerns, ignoring the broader questions of social control that arise when food production methods become corporate-owned intellectual property.

The vivid account of a world-leading conservationist’s efforts to find, study, and protect snow leopards, revealing the challenges facing a beautiful, fragile world in the midst of a major transition Snow leopards have a special grip on the human imagination, a symbol of the mysteries that...

The Meaty Truth is an eye-opening look at the massive problems caused by the American population's food supply. Water, meat, and milk and other dairy products are filled with toxins, antibiotics, untested growth hormones, ammonia, and animal pus and manure. The current conditions of the food production industry must drastically improve, and until they do, it is absolutely vital to monitor what you eat.

Low level radiation is all around us. Based on years of research, the author has gathered medical data that clearly shows that certain foods and supplements have protective properties, which can safeguard you from low level radiation. The author presents theories on how these foods stave off the effects of radiation and suggests recipes that maximize their protective powers in our increasingly toxic post-Fukushima world.

As industry and technology proliferate in modern society, sustainability has jumped to the forefront of contemporary political and environmental discussions. The balance between progress and the Earth's ability to provide for its inhabitants grows increasingly precarious as we attempt to achieve sustainable development.

The book is a firsthand account of Dr. Hannah Jaicks’ journey through western Montana's ranching landscapes to showcase the stories of ranchers and affiliated groups who are pioneering strategies for reducing conflicts with wildlife, while also stewarding the landscape.

Nutrition scientist and gastronome Dr. P. K. Newby provides a sweeping overview of the many interrelationships between humans, land, and food. Newby examines topics including key nutrition concepts behind good eating; the technology, biology, and psychology of food choices; how diet affects our health and environment; and evidence-based tips for creating lasting behavior change. At the same time, Newby debunks popular myths and food folklore, challenging listeners to "learn, unlearn, and relearn" the fundamentals of nutrition at the heart of a health-giving diet.

An expert on otters dives into their wild and wondrous world You’ve heard of a murder of crows and a pride of lions—but what about a romp of otters? In this informative and entertaining book, animal behaviorist Heide Island takes readers on an odyssey through otterdom, focusing on a family...

Taking its title from a chilling warning made by the United Nations that the world’s soils could be lost within a lifetime, Sixty Harvests Left uncovers how the food industry is threatening the planet. Put simply, without soils there will be no food: game over. And time is running out.

Drawing on twenty-five years of research, programming, and advocacy efforts, Mariana Chilton compellingly demonstrates that food insecurity is created and maintained by people in power. Taking the listener back to the original wounds in the United States caused by its history of colonization, genocide, and enslavement, she forces us to reckon with hard questions about why people in the US allow hunger to persist. The Painful Truth about Hunger in America reinvigorates our commitment to uprooting the causes of poverty and discrimination, and points to a more generative and humane world.

Bottled water is on the verge of becoming the most popular beverage in the country. But what's the cost of all this water for us and for the environment? In this eye-opening book, Elizabeth Royte does for water what Michael Pollan did for food: She examines the people, machines, economies, and cultural trends that surround it on its journey from distant aquifers to our supermarkets and homes.

In Eating the Ocean Elspeth Probyn investigates the profound importance of the ocean and the future of fish and human entanglement. On her ethnographic journey around the world's oceans and fisheries, she finds that the ocean is being simplified in a food politics that is overwhelmingly land based and preoccupied with buzzwords like "local" and "sustainable."

Many people will remember that Rachel Carson predicted a silent spring, but she also warned of a fruitless fall, a time with no pollination and no fruit. The fruitless fall nearly became a reality when, in 2007, beekeepers watched 30 billion bees mysteriously die. And they continue to disappear. The remaining pollinators, essential to the cultivation of a third of American crops, are now trucked across the country and flown around the world, pushing them ever closer to collapse.

In this darkly comical look at the sinister side of our relationship with the natural world, Stewart has tracked down over one hundred of our worst entomological foes - creatures that infest, infect, and generally wreak havoc on human affairs. From the world's most painful hornet, to the flies that transmit deadly diseases, to millipedes that stop traffic, to the Japanese beetles munching on your roses, Wicked Bugs delves into the extraordinary powers of many-legged creatures

Winner of the 2024 George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language, given by the National Council of Teachers of English "Making Americans shines a light on the barriers that immigrant students in the US face—and shares some inspiring stories about...

One of the largest consumer markets of the world, India is made up of lots and lots of small consumers―each earning and spending just a little bit that adds up to a lot. It is served by millions of small suppliers oozing innovation and customer intimacy, and is powered by digital...