Science Ecology

This book shows that the quantitative mathematical models policy makers and government administrators use to form environmental policies are seriously flawed. Based on unrealistic and sometimes false assumptions, these models often yield answers that support unwise policies. Writing for the general, nonmathematician reader, the authors begin with a riveting account of the extinction of the North Atlantic cod on the Grand Banks of Canada.

In Monarchs and Milkweed, Anurag Agrawal presents a vivid investigation into how the monarch butterfly has evolved closely alongside the milkweed - a toxic plant named for the sticky white substance emitted when its leaves are damaged - and how this inextricable and intimate relationship has been like an arms race over the millennia, a battle of exploitation and defense between two fascinating species.

Capybara (Young Zoologist) features sound design and special effects to enhance your listening enjoyment. Listen out for the sounds of South America and capybara barking! A first guide to cute capybaras from expert Dr. Julia Mata. You might know that capybaras are totally adorable and are...

How do we understand nature? Benevolent and supportive? Wild and threatening? Reassuring or unpredictable? We all have a different experience of, and relationship with, nature. This audiobook includes immersive sound design to further ground the listener in nature and complement the lessons explored in the narration.

Among scientists who write, no one illuminates as well as Stephen Jay Gould does the wonderful workings of the natural world. Now in a new volume of collected essays—his sixth since Ever Since Darwin—Gould speaks of the importance of unbroken connections within our own lives and to our ancestral generations. Along with way, he opens to us the mysteries of fish tails, frog calls, and other matters, and shows once and for all why we must take notice when a seemingly insignificant creature is threatened, like the land snail Partula from Moorea, whose extinction he movingly relates.

Master naturalist Nancy Lawson takes listeners on a fascinating tour of the vibrant web of nature outside our back door—where animals and plants perceive and communicate using marvelous sensory abilities we are only beginning to understand. Organized into chapters investigating each of their five senses, Lawson's exploration reveals a remarkable world of interdependent creatures with amazing capabilities.

Christopher Wills's claim has its roots in an insight from Charles Darwin: the interactions between species in an ecosystem are a powerful driver of evolution. In this book Wills describes how, by using the latest genetic techniques, we are probing ecosystems and discovering that even the most apparently barren of them are rich in variety, especially of microbes.

The Carbon Footprint of Everything breaks items down by the amount of carbon they produce, creating a calorie guide for the carbon-conscious. With engaging writing, leading carbon expert Mike Berners-Lee shares new carbon calculations based on recent research. He considers the impact of the pandemic on the carbon battle—especially the embattled global supply chain—and adds items we didn't consider a decade ago, like bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. With solid research, expert sources, and Berners-Lee's trademark sense of humor, this should be on everyone's bookshelf.

David Christian is renowned for pioneering the emerging discipline of Big History, which surveys the whole of the past. With Future Stories, he casts his sharp analytical eye forward, offering an introduction to the strange world of the future, and a guide to what we think we know about it at all scales, from the individual to the cosmological. Christian consults theologians, philosophers, scientists, statisticians, and scholars as he explores how we prepare for uncertain futures, including the future of human evolution, artificial intelligence, interstellar travel, and more.

Despite their cultural influence, the grand narrative of the dinosaur story is rarely told. Most of us have heard of Stegosaurus and Tyrannosaurus, but these two dinosaurs lived more than eighty million years apart—a greater span of time than the entire post-T. rex history of the planet. Furthermore, we often know even less about the environments these animals lived in. The Shortest History of the Dinosaurs tells the full story, a 230-million-year epic of small beginnings, spectacular golden periods, and eventual global domination.

It is difficult to conceive of the vast scale of the history of life on Earth, from the very first living organisms sparking into life in hydrothermal deep-sea vents to the dizzying diversity of life today. The evolution of life is a sweeping epic of a tale, with twists and turns, surprising heroes and unlikely survivors. The Earth beautifully distils this complex story into a meaningful scale. In taking a closer look at 47 carefully selected organisms over 15 periods in our planetary history, this audiobook tells the whole story of life on Earth.

À l’heure des mutations écologiques, de la remise en cause des idéaux de progrès continu et d’abondance, de la défiance à l’égard du savoir scientifique, la célèbre question tripartite d’Emmanuel Kant (Que puis-je savoir ? Que dois-je faire ? Que m’est-il permis d’espérer ?) semble recouvrer sa vertigineuse pertinence. Une question que le philosophe et sociologue des sciences Bruno Latour - en compagnie de Nicolas Truong - reprend en quelque sorte à son compte.

Bees are small, yet their impact on the world is enormous. They may weigh less than a paperclip and live only a matter of weeks, but they hold the power to shape ecosystems, economies, and even the food on our plates. Without them, fields would fall silent, harvests would collapse, and the dazzling diversity of life we so often take for granted would fade into memory. This book is a journey into the remarkable world of bees, exploring their hidden importance and why our future is so closely tied to theirs.

The Galápagos archipelago is often viewed as a last foothold of pristine nature. For 60 years, conservationists have worked to restore this evolutionary Eden after centuries of exploitation at the hands of pirates, whalers, and island settlers. This book tells the story of the islands' namesakes - the giant tortoises - as coveted food sources, objects of natural history, and famous icons of conservation and tourism. By doing so, it brings into stark relief the paradoxical, and impossible, goal of conserving species by trying to restore a past state of prehistoric evolution.

Yellowstone is America's premier national park. Today Yellowstone is often a byword for conservation, natural beauty, and a way for everyone to enjoy the great outdoors. But it was not always this way. Wonderlandscape presents a new perspective on Yellowstone, the emotions that various natural wonders and attractions evoke, and how this explains the park's relationship to America as a whole.

With this audiobook, you will be able to learn how to cope and be ready to face such catastrophes as storms, civil unrest, and even unemployment. I particularly hope to impart with this audiobook a sense of urgency that might help you to not only ride out the current disaster but to anticipate and prepare for the next one. As you will see, being prepared doesn't mean just stockpiling food, water, and all the necessities of life.

Roderick Nash's classic study of changing attitudes toward wilderness during American history, as well as the origins of the environmental and conservation movements, has received wide acclaim since its initial publication in 1967. For the fifth edition, Nash has written a new preface and epilogue that brings Wilderness and the American Mind into dialogue with contemporary debates about wilderness.

Rivers, more than any road, technology, or political leader, have shaped the course of human civilization. They have opened frontiers, founded cities, settled borders, and fed billions. They promote life, forge peace, grant power, and can capriciously destroy everything in their path. Even today, rivers remain a powerful global force - one that is more critical than ever to our future. In Rivers of Power, geographer Laurence C. Smith explores the timeless yet underappreciated relationship between rivers and civilization as we know it.

An entertaining and accessible listen with profound implications for the future, Teeming takes us on a journey through nature’s most ancient and successful R&D labs, and gives practical prescriptions for redesigning organizations to flourish far into the future. Evolutionary biologist and anthropologist Dr. Woolley-Barker weaves poetic vision and deep scientific expertise to illustrate how flat, agile, and adaptive societies like ants, termites, and underground fungal networks self-organize for resilience and value.

Bottled & Sold shows how water went from being a free natural resource to one of the most successful commercial products of the last 100 years - and why we are poorer for it. It's a big story and water is big business. Every second of every day in the United States, a thousand people buy a plastic bottle of water, and every second of every day a thousand more throw one of those bottles away. That adds up to more than 30 billion bottles a year and tens of billions of dollars of sales. Are there legitimate reasons to buy all those bottles?