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Author: Tall Timbers Research Station
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Ecological research
Languages : en
Pages : 160
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Book Description
Author: Tall Timbers Research Station
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Ecological research
Languages : en
Pages : 160
Get Book Here
Book Description
Author: James A. Estes
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520377494
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 294
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Book Description
"Many of the findings in the book . . . are classics of ecology. . . . A rare and delightful insight into timely science."—Jane Lubchenco, Nature "Estes's refreshing narrative deftly weaves rigorous science with personal reflection to create an absorbing and introspective read that is equal parts memoir, ecological textbook, and motivational guidebook for young ecologists."—Science To newly minted biologist James Estes, the sea otters he was studying in the leafy kelp forests off the coast of Alaska appeared to have an unbalanced relationship with their greater environment. Gorging themselves on the sea urchins that grazed among the kelp, these small charismatic mammals seemed to give little back in return. But as Estes dug deeper, he unearthed a far more complex relationship between the otter and its underwater environment, discovering that otters play a critical role in driving positive ecosystem dynamics. While teasing out the connective threads, he began to question our assumptions about ecological relationships. These questions would ultimately inspire a lifelong quest to better understand the surprising complexity of our natural world and the unexpected ways we discover it. Serendipity tells the story of James Estes’s life as a naturalist and the concepts that have driven his interest in researching the ecological role of top-level predators. Using the relationships between sea otters, kelp, and sea urchins as a touchstone, Estes retraces his investigations of numerous other species, ecosystems, and ecological processes in an attempt to discover why ecologists can learn so many details about the systems in which they work and yet understand so little about the broader processes that influence these systems. Part memoir, part natural history, and deeply inquisitive, Serendipity will entertain and inform readers as it raises thoughtful questions about our relationship with the natural world.
Author: Steward T.A. Pickett
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 0080504973
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 221
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Book Description
Ecology is an historical science in which theories can be as difficult to test as they are to devise. This volume, intended for ecologists and evolutionary biologists, reviews ecological theories, and how they are generated, evaluated, and categorized. Synthesizing a vast and sometimes labyrinthine literature, this book is a useful entry into the scientific philosophy of ecology and natural history. The need for integration of the contributions to theory made by different disciplines is a central theme of this book. The authors demonstrate that only through such integration will advances in ecological theory be possible. Ecologists, evolutionary biologists, and other serious students of natural history will want this book.
Author: Ian L. McHarg
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 9780471086284
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 456
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Book Description
"Show me any civilization that believes that reality exists only because man can perceive it, that the cosmos was erected to support man on its pinnacle, that man is exclusively divine, and then I will predict the nature of his cities and its landscapes, the hot dog stands, the neon shill, the ticky-tacky houses, the sterile core, the mined and ravaged countryside. This is the image of anthropocentric man. He seeks not unity with nature but conquest, yet unity he finds, when his arrogance and ignorance are stilled and he lies dead under the greensward." Ian L. McHarg Multiply and Subdue the Earth, 1969 "No living American has done more to usher the gentle science of ecology out of oblivion and into mainstream thought than Ian McHarg—a teacher, philosopher, designer, and activist who changed the way we view and shape our environment." From the foreword by Stewart L. Udall Published in cooperation with the Center for American Places, Harrisonburg, Virginia A Quest for Life is the autobiography of a man who stands alongside Rachel Carson, Lewis Mumford, and Aldo Leopold as one of the giants of the environmental movement. In a robust and singular voice, Ian McHarg recounts the story of a life that has foreshadowed and eventually shaped environmental consciousness in the twentieth century. Along the way we meet prominent figures in the environmental movement, the design fields, and the government, from Walter Gropius to Lady Bird Johnson, all presented in rich and telling anecdotes. Early in A Quest for Life McHarg presents us with an arresting image. Describing the view from his boyhood home on the outskirts of Glasgow, he tells us that in one direction he could see the industrial miasma of smokestacks, tenements, and treeless streets, and, in another, the glories of the Scottish countryside. "I was born and bred," he writes, "on a fulcrum with two poles, city and countryside." Confronted with such a stark contrast, the man who was to become "the founder of ecological planning" began at an early age to turn literally from inhumane urban development and toward the beauty and power of Nature. Each chapter of this book illuminates key stages in McHarg's life and in the evolution of his environmental awareness. We see him as a youth standing on a hillside beside the impressive Donald Wintersgill who, with the wave of his cane, lays out an entire village complete with lakes and forests, and thus introduces the astonished McHarg to the profession of landscape architecture. In some of the bloodiest battles of the Second World War he witnesses the magnitude of human destructive capability. Later, when he faces a crisis of conscience over his religious training and its exhortation to gain dominion over life and subdue the earth, he begins to develop a deep spiritual appreciation for the sanctity of Nature itself. His training as a designer and planner in the Modernist Bauhaus tradition, with its neglect of the environment; his bouts with tuberculosis that showed him the link between public health and city planning; his famous "Man—The Planetary Disease" speech before powerful industrialists—all stand as emblematic of battles that are still being fought today. A Quest for Life also chronicles the many triumphs in McHarg's career. It offers fresh insight into the revolutionary design method behind his groundbreaking book, Design with Nature, and explores the development of geographical information systems. We learn firsthand about his work on the celebrated regional plans for Denver and the Twin Cities, as well as the Woodlands new town project. His most enduring contribution, however, may prove to be his four decades of teaching at the University of Pennsylvania. Through the generations of landscape architects, designers, and planners he taught there, his influence has spread around the world and into the future. As the compelling, first-person story of a remarkable individual who not only manned the barricades against environmental destruction, but helped lay the foundation for the barricades themselves, A Quest for Life is must reading for landscape architects, designers, conservationists, planners, and others concerned with the preservation of our communities and the natural environment.
Author: Sean B. Carroll
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691264287
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 197
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Book Description
One of today's most accomplished biologists and gifted storytellers reveals the rules that regulate all life How does life work? How does nature produce the right numbers of zebras and lions on the African savanna, or fish in the ocean? How do our bodies produce the right numbers of cells in our organs and bloodstream? In The Serengeti Rules, award-winning biologist and author Sean Carroll tells the stories of the pioneering scientists who sought the answers to such simple yet profoundly important questions, and shows how their discoveries matter for our health and the health of the planet we depend upon. One of the most important revelations about the natural world is that everything is regulated—there are rules that regulate the amount of every molecule in our bodies and rules that govern the numbers of every animal and plant in the wild. And the most surprising revelation about the rules that regulate life at such different scales is that they are remarkably similar—there is a common underlying logic of life. Carroll recounts how our deep knowledge of the rules and logic of the human body has spurred the advent of revolutionary life-saving medicines, and makes the compelling case that it is now time to use the Serengeti Rules to heal our ailing planet. Bold and inspiring, The Serengeti Rules illuminates how life works at vastly different scales. Read it and you will never look at the world the same way again.
Author: Yossi Turner
Publisher: Academic Studies PRess
ISBN: 164469378X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 197
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Book Description
A.D. Gordon was one of the most interesting and original Jewish thinkers of the twentieth century. Quest for Life presents Gordon’s philosophy, which was developed in Hebrew at the beginning of the twentieth century, to the English reading public. It discusses the role played by the early Land of Israel pioneering labor community in the development of his thought, and offers a new understanding of its major themes, including: the relation of humanity to nature, human freedom, ethnicity, religion, and ethics. In addition, the book discusses the repercussions of Gordon’s thought with respect to contemporary civilization while suggesting its implicit ‘quest for life’ as the basis for a re-evaluation of such topics as the meaning of human life, Jewish peoplehood and the idea of a Jewish homeland.
Author: Gerald Robert Visgilio
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742523630
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 256
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Book Description
This collection of essays by local activists and nationally recognized scholars deals with the history, status, and dilemmas of environmental justice. These essays provide a comprehensive overview of social and political aspects associated with environmental injustices in minority and poor communities. It will provide a solid platform for dialogue between activists and policymakers or between teachers and students.
Author: David Lowenthal
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429876432
Category : Design
Languages : en
Pages : 233
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Book Description
Is unity of knowledge possible? Is it desirable? Two rival visions clash. One seeks a single way of explaining everything known and knowable about ourselves and the universe. The other champions diverse modes of understanding served by disparate kinds of evidence. Contrary views pit science against the arts and humanities. Scientists generally laud and seek convergence. Artists and humanists deplore amalgamation as a threat to humane values. These opposing perspectives flamed into hostility in the 1950s "Two Cultures" clash. They culminate today in new efforts to conjoin insights into physical nature and human culture, and new fears lest such syntheses submerge what the arts and humanities most value. This book, stemming from David Lowenthal’s inaugural Stockholm Archipelago Lectures, explores the Two Cultures quarrel’s underlying ideologies. Lowenthal shows how ingrained bias toward unity or diversity shapes major issues in education, religion, genetics, race relations, heritage governance, and environmental policy. Aimed at a general academic audience, Quest for the Unity of Knowledge especially targets those in conservation, ecology, history of ideas, museology, and heritage studies.
Author: Thomas R Dunlap
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 9780295983974
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 236
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Book Description
A thoughtful and engaging discussion of the intellectual and spiritual underpinnings of modern American environmentalism
Author: Steward T.A. Pickett
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 0080546048
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 244
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Book Description
This widely anticipated revision of the groundbreaking book, Ecological Understanding, updates this crucial sourcebook of contemporary philosophical insights for practicing ecologists and graduate students in ecology and environmental studies. The second edition contains new ecological examples, an expanded array of conceptual diagrams and illustrations, new text boxes summarizing important points or defining key terms, and new reference to philosophical issues and controversies. Although the first edition was recognized for its clarity, this revision takes the opportunity to make the exposition of complex topics still clearer to readers without a philosophical background. Readers will gain an understanding of the goals of science, the structure of theory, the kinds of theory relevant to ecology, the way that theory changes, what constitutes objectivity in contemporary science, and the role of paradigms and frameworks for synthesis within ecology and in integration with other disciplines. Finally, how theory can inform and anchor the public use of ecological knowledge in civic debates is laid out. This new edition refines the understanding of how the structure and change of theory can improve the growth and application of one of the 21st century's key sciences. - Explains the philosophical basis of ecology in plain English - Contains chapter overviews and summaries - Text boxes highlight key points, examples, or controversies - Diagrams explain structure and development of theory, and integration - Evaluates and relates paradgims in ecology - Illustrates philosophical issues with classic and new ecological research
