Natural Science

A dozen years into his dream job keeping watch over the Gila National Forest of New Mexico, Philip Connors bore witness to the blaze he had always feared: a megafire that forced him off his mountain by helicopter and forever changed the forest and watershed he loved. It was one of many transformations that arrived in quick succession, not just fire and flood, but the death of a fellow lookout in a freak accident and a tragic plane crash that rocked the community he called home.

Di che cosa abbiamo paura, quando parliamo di catastrofi? Quali sono le nostre paure ataviche rispetto alla Terra? E perché abbiamo paura quando non dovremmo e non ne abbiamo quando dovremmo? Questo audiolibro va al fondo delle nostre paure collettive, dalle alluvioni agli asteroidi, dalle eruzioni vulcaniche alle epidemie, con speciale attenzione ai terremoti, drammaticamente attuali. Il problema è che le catastrofi naturali non esistono, esistono gli eventi naturali che trasformiamo in tragedia, spesso grazie al linguaggio iperbolico dei media.

Finally, a practical, realistic plan to rescue, preserve and enhance nature. This is an economist's approach to environmentalism, including a summary of Britain's green assets, a look towards possible futures and an achievable 25-year plan to a green and prosperous world. News about Britain’s wildlife and ecosystems tends to be grim. In Green and Prosperous Land, Dieter Helm, a member of the Department of Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and advisor to the government, shares a radical but tangible plan for positive change.

On May 2, 2008, an enormous tropical cyclone made landfall in Burma, wreaking untold havoc and leaving an official toll of 138,300 dead and missing. In the days that followed, the sheer scale of the disaster became apparent as information began to seep out from the hard-hit delta area.

Americans have been shocked in the past few years to discover how vulnerable our nation is to disaster, be it terrorist attack or act of God. But what's truly shocking, argues leading security expert Stephen Flynn, is how little we have learned from the cataclysms of September 11 and Hurricane Katrina. When it comes to catastrophe, America is living on borrowed time and squandering it. But it doesn't have to be this way.

In Americans at Risk, Dr. Irwin Redlener draws on his broad experience as a pediatrician working with mobile emergency units both for children and adults, his time making recommendations to legislators about the vulnerabilities of children to biological and chemical agents and his regular meetings with Tom Ridge of the office of Homeland Security over a period of four years to write this urging a plan for a coordinated plan between government and the private sector.

On the scorching February day in 2009 that became known as Black Saturday, a man lit two fires in Victoria's Latrobe Valley, then sat on the roof of his house to watch the inferno. In the Valley, where the rates of crime were the highest in the state, more than thirty people were known to the police as firebugs. But the detectives soon found themselves on the trail of a man they didn't know.

Kendra Atleework grew up in Swall Meadows, in the Owens Valley of the Eastern Sierra Nevada, where annual rainfall averages five inches and in drought years measures closer to zero. Kendra's family raised their children to thrive in this harsh landscape, forever at the mercy of wildfires, blizzards, and gale-force winds. Most of all, the Atleework children were raised on unconditional love and delight in the natural world. But it came at a price.

Den 26. december 2004 sidder de på en lille café og har netop bestilt morgenmad, da en mand kommer farende ind i caféen, mens han råber og vifter febrilsk med armene. I de efterfølgende minutter oplever Rikke sit livs mareridt – en kamp om liv og død. Tsunamien er fortællingen om den naturkatastrofe, som ramte store dele af Asien, fortalt af Rikke Wang, der oplevede katastrofen helt tæt på.

Average, plain-bodied Amelia Hoffman has resigned herself to a life of mediocrity, unable to escape the shadows cast by her all-too-perfect siblings. Worse, her feelings for her brother's best friend are getting stronger. Everything changes after the brutal murder of her close friend. Suddenly, Amelia's life is transformed and she is thrust into a wondrous and frightening new world of myths and legends. As she explores this new world hidden within the layers of her own, secrets are revealed.

For Irwin Shapiro, science starts with questions. This book provides a broad and entertaining survey of major scientific discoveries that have changed our views of nature and, in turn, spawned further questions. Shapiro, an award-winning scientist and beloved teacher, separates his inquiry into three parts: looking up at the universe; looking down at the earth and its fossils; and looking in at the story of life. His framework encourages listeners to view science as a detective story—to observe and question nature and natural phenomena, and to base all conclusions on scientific evidence.

Natural disasters bedevil our planet, and each appears to be a unique event. Leading geologist Susan W. Kieffer shows how all disasters are connected. In 2011 there were fourteen natural calamities that each destroyed over a billion dollars' worth of property in the United States alone. In 2012 Hurricane Sandy ravaged the East Coast and major earthquakes struck in Italy, the Philippines, Iran, and Afghanistan.

A month ago, twenty-four-year-old Clark Crane would have attested his new job as an assistant to fashion titan Charisma Saintly was a dream come true. But he soon found himself ensnared in an honest-to-goddess coven in which power is currency, spilled blood is routine, and failure means death. Now, Clark must help his celebrity clients—an A-list popstar and a scandal-ridden comedienne—escape a witch's contract, a supernatural conservatorship, and a fate that demands their lives (or his) as sacrifices.

Before becoming America's first-ever female network chief meteorologist or appearing on Dancing with the Stars, ABC News's Ginger Zee checked herself into a mental health hospital.

Natural Disaster: I Cover Them. I Am One. is Ginger's heartbreaking, hilarious, and harshly honest life story - from Dickhead's (you won't soon forget that name) deck on Lake Michigan to her storm-chasing dream at ABC News.

From the big bang to the origin and evolution of intelligent life in a search for the meaning of human existence, Why Are We Here?, by author Bruce Brodie, offers a look at evolution and the future of life on the planet.

Rethinking Evolution links Darwin's early insights to the molecular realm inside living cells. This updated evolutionary synthesis provides an accessible explanation for biological complexity that cuts through the confusion surrounding evolutionary theory in a practical way. In addition to a wide-ranging survey of proposed updates to the modern synthesis, this title provides extraordinary new insights, including emergent evolutionary potential and the generative phenotype.

Roy was instrumental in returning the osprey, red kite and golden eagle to the British Isles, but the road to reintroduction isn’t an easy one. In what will surely be the seminal book on British reintroductions, Roy details the painstaking process of returning the Goldeneye to Scotland, one duckling at a time, the die-hard determination needed to make a dazzling success of the red kite reintroduction and the leap of faith we will all need to make to accept sharing our forests and skies with large carnivores again.

For most San Franciscans, April 18, 1906 started at 5:12 a.m. with 65 seconds of violent quaking followed by a relentless, raging fire that left 98% of the structures in the most populated part of the city in ruins. However, while everyone felt the earthquake equally, they did not all suffer to the same degree. In Saving San Francisco, Andrea Rees Davies, a former firefighter, tells a new story of the 1906 catastrophe. Saving San Francisco challenges the long-lived myth that the fire brought out altruism and leveled class distinctions among residents.

Every spring, billions of birds sweep north, driven by ancient instincts to return to their breeding grounds. This vast parade often goes unnoticed, except in a few places where these small travelers concentrate in large numbers. One such place is along Lake Erie in northwestern Ohio. There, the peak of spring migration is so spectacular that it attracts bird watchers from around the globe, culminating in one of the world’s biggest birding festivals. Now climate change threatens to disrupt patterns of migration and the delicate balance between birds, seasons, and habitats.

Nature on the brink? Maybe not. With so much bad news in the world, we forget how much environmental progress has been made. In a narrative that reaches from Native American tribal practices to public health and commercial hunting, Wild at Heart shows how western attitudes towards nature have changed dramatically in the last five hundred years. Humans can learn from the past, and our choices today will determine whether nature survives.