Social Environment

Burned-out after years of doing development work around the world, William Powers spent a season in a 12-foot-by-12-foot cabin off the grid in North Carolina, as recounted in his award-winning memoir Twelve by Twelve. Could he live a similarly minimalist life in the heart of New York City? To find out, Powers and his wife jettisoned 80 percent of their stuff, left their 2,000-square-foot Queens townhouse, and moved into a 350-square-foot "micro-apartment" in Greenwich Village.

Many fantasize about dramatically changing their lives - living in accordance with their ideals rather than the exigencies of job, bills, and possessions. William Powers actually does it. Here, his family, with baby in tow, searches for balance, community, and happiness in a small town in Bolivia. They build an adobe house, plant a prolific orchard and organic garden, and weave their life into a community of permaculturists, bio-builders, artists, and creative businesspeople. Can this Transition Town succeed in the face of encroaching North American capitalism?

Perpetually covered in ice and snow, the mountainous Antarctic Peninsula stretches southward toward the South Pole where it merges with the largest and coldest mass of ice anywhere on the planet. Yet far from being an otherworldly "Pole Apart", the region has the most contested political history of any part of the Antarctic Continent. In Frozen Empires, Adrian Howkins argues that there has been a fundamental continuity in the ways in which imperial powers have used the environment to support their political claims in the Antarctic Peninsula region.

Shale gas extraction - commonly known as fracking - is often portrayed as an energy revolution that will transform the American economy and geopolitics. But in greater Williamsport, Pennsylvania, fracking is personal. Up to Heaven and Down to Hell is a vivid and sometimes heartbreaking account of what happens when one of the most momentous decisions about the well-being of our communities and our planet - whether or not to extract shale gas and oil from the land beneath our feet - is largely a private choice that millions of ordinary people make without the public's consent.

Jeremy “JB” Barnes is looking forward to spending the summer before seventh grade hanging on the beach. But his mother, a scientist, has called for him to join her aboard a research ship, where, instead, he’ll spend his summer seasick and bored as he stares out at the endless plastic, microbeads, and other floating debris, both visible and not, that make up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Miles and miles away, 12-year-old Sidney Miller is trying to come up with an alternate activity worthy of convincing her overprotective parents that she can skip summer camp.

Mit kühlem Kopf durch heiße Zeiten! Während die Temperaturen im Sommer immer weiter in die Höhe schießen, müssen wir uns diesen Winter verdammt warm anziehen. Eine Situation, in die wir uns durch viele falsche Entscheidungen in der Vergangenheit selbst gebracht haben. Wussten Sie, dass in Finnland die Grünen auf Kernenergie setzen? Und dass, würden wir ganz auf Wind und Sonne setzen, in einer windstillen Nacht schon nach 40 Minuten unsere Energiespeicher leer sind? Aber was erwartet man von einer Nation, die schon mit dem Bau eines Flughafens überfordert ist.

Fred Rogers was an international celebrity, a pioneer in children's television, an advocate for families, and a multimedia artist and performer. He wrote the television scripts and music, performed puppetry, sang, hosted, and directed Mister Rogers' Neighborhood for more than thirty years. The Green Mister Rogers centers on the show's environmentalism. Ultimately, Rogers cultivates a practical wisdom that provides a way for children to confront the environmental crisis through action and hope and, in doing so, develop into adults with greater care for the environment.

The true story of a resilient circle of shrimp boat captains who faced and withstood the wreckage of Katrina but now find their courage tested by a greater threat: the disappearance of their livelihood and their centuries-old bayou culture.

While reporting just outside of Darfur, Stephan Faris discovered that climate change was at the root of that conflict, and he began to wonder what current and impending - and largely unanticipated - crises such changes have in store for the world. Forecast provides the answers. Global warming will spur the spread of many diseases. Italy has already experienced its first climate-change epidemic of a tropical disease, and malaria is gaining ground in Africa.

From St. Louis to New Orleans, from Baltimore to Oklahoma City, there are poor and minority neighborhoods so beset by pollution that just living in them can be hazardous to your health. Due to entrenched segregation, zoning ordinances that privilege wealthier communities, or because businesses have found the "paths of least resistance", there are many hazardous waste and toxic facilities in these communities, leading residents to experience health and wellness problems on top of the race and class discrimination most already experience.

One cannot turn on the news today without a report on an extreme-weather event or the latest update on Antarctica. But while our politicians argue, the truth is that climate change is already here. Nobody knows this better than Indigenous peoples, who, having developed an intimate relationship with ecosystems over generations, have observed these changes for decades. For them, climate change is not an abstract concept or policy issue, but the reality of daily life.

In Extreme Cities, Ashley Dawson argues that cities are ground zero for climate change, contributing the lion's share of carbon to the atmosphere, while also lying on the frontlines of rising sea levels. Today, the majority of the world's megacities are located in coastal zones, yet few of them are adequately prepared for the floods that will increasingly menace their shores. Instead, most continue to develop luxury waterfront condos for the elite and industrial facilities for corporations. These not only intensify carbon emissions, but also place coastal residents at greater risk.

The last thirteen years of Conservative rule has seen turbulence at the centre of politics that is perhaps unique in British history. From coalition to Brexit, Covid to Partygate, Trussonomics to this year's election, our government has never felt so fractured. And as Prime Ministers have come and gone, one man has been at the heart of every leadership challenge, seeing all, but saying nothing. Until now.

As global warming accelerates, droughts last longer, floods rise higher, and super-storms become more frequent. With increasing numbers of people on the move as a result, the business of containing them - border fortification - is booming. In Storming the Wall, Todd Miller travels around the world to connect the dots between climate-ravaged communities, the corporations cashing in on border militarization, and emerging movements for environmental justice and sustainability.

Aquí se reúnen algunas de las inquietudes de Fedro Carlos Guillén, científico y escritor, cuya intención es compartir su curiosidad con los oyentes de una manera fresca y personal. Al tiempo que nos informa sobre los avances y algunas ideas curiosas de los procesos científicos, toma la palabra para pronunciarse sobre temas polémicos, invitando al oyente a formar su propia opinión. Los hechos y posibilidades de la genética, la urgencia del cambio climático, el problema de las seudociencias, así como los aciertos y desaciertos de la propia ciencia, son algunos de ellos.

Want to cut carbon emissions in your city, improve transportation safety, and boost accessibility? Think small. Tiny Transit for Cities is a how-to guide for Councils of Governments (COGs) and Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) searching for practical ways for their cities to cut carbon emissions. Susan Engelking, founder of Tiny Transit Strategies, describes an innovative, proven solution: Protected networks for small, low speed, low cost, low emission vehicles.

Building a Resilient Tomorrow does not dwell on overhyped descriptions of apocalyptic climate scenarios, nor does it travel down well-trodden paths surrounding the politics of reducing carbon emissions. Instead, it starts with two central facts: Climate impacts will continue to occur, and we can make changes now to mitigate their effects.

If you're a person who wants to know the secrets of humankind, nature, and evolution, then you're about to discover how to increase sensitivity to the problems of our planet right now! If you're serious about increase sensitivity to the problems of our planet and you really want to know the answers to these great life's questions, then you need to get a copy of A World without Humans: Pros & Cons of Our Eventual Extinction right now.

February 5, 1898. Witnesses report a giant orange fireball reflected in the glacial waters of Alaska's Lynn Canal. At the height of Klondike gold fever, the Clara Nevada disappeared into an epic storm - taking passengers and priceless cargo with it. Was the explosion an accident or a robbery gone wrong? Did Captain C.H. Lewis make off with $165,000 ($13.6 million in today's currency) in raw gold? Or was the sinking a case of a sea-weary steamer meeting an untimely end?

Hot subjects in business, politics (and much more) untangled with easy-to-understand prose and smart graphics, from the world's leading financial media company. This volume of Bloomberg QuickTake has a special section titled "Disruption's Fallout" that focuses on the unintended consequences of innovations in technology. Other sections include Economy & Finance; World Affairs; Energy & Environment; and Health & Society.