Empire of the Beetle

Empire of the Beetle PDF Author: Andrew Nikiforuk
Publisher: Greystone Books Ltd
ISBN: 1553655109
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 240

Get Book Here

Book Description
Beginning in the late 1980s, a series of improbable bark beetle outbreaks unsettled iconic forests and communities across western North America. An insect the size of a rice kernel eventually killed more than 30 billion pine and spruce trees from Alaska to New Mexico. Often appearing in masses larger than schools of killer whales, the beetles engineered one of the world's greatest forest die-offs since the deforestation of Europe by peasants between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. The beetle didn't act alone. Misguided science, out-of-control logging, bad public policy, and a hundred years of fire suppression created a volatile geography that released the world's oldest forest manager from all natural constraints. Like most human empires, the beetles exploded wildly and then crashed, leaving in their wake grieving landowners, humbled scientists, hungry animals, and altered watersheds. Although climate change triggered this complex event, human arrogance assuredly set the table. With little warning, an ancient insect pointedly exposed the frailty of seemingly stable manmade landscapes. And despite the billions of public dollars spent on control efforts, the beetles burn away like a fire that can't be put out. Drawing on first-hand accounts from entomologists, botanists, foresters, and rural residents, award-winning journalist Andrew Nikiforuk investigates this unprecedented beetle plague, its startling implications, and the lessons it holds.

Empire of the Beetle

Empire of the Beetle PDF Author: Andrew Nikiforuk
Publisher: Greystone Books Ltd
ISBN: 1553658949
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 240

Get Book Here

Book Description
Beginning in the late 1980s, a series of improbable bark beetle outbreaks unsettled iconic forests and communities across western North America. An insect the size of a rice kernel eventually killed more than 30 billion pine and spruce trees from Alaska to New Mexico. Often appearing in masses larger than schools of killer whales, the beetles engineered one of the world's greatest forest die-offs since the deforestation of Europe by peasants between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. The beetle didn't act alone. Misguided science, out-of-control logging, bad public policy, and a hundred years of fire suppression created a volatile geography that released the world's oldest forest manager from all natural constraints. Like most human empires, the beetles exploded wildly and then crashed, leaving in their wake grieving landowners, humbled scientists, hungry animals, and altered watersheds. Although climate change triggered this complex event, human arrogance assuredly set the table. With little warning, an ancient insect pointedly exposed the frailty of seemingly stable manmade landscapes. Drawing on first-hand accounts from entomologists, botanists, foresters, and rural residents, award-winning journalist Andrew Nikiforuk, investigates this unprecedented beetle plague, its startling implications, and the lessons it holds.

Empire in Black and Gold

Empire in Black and Gold PDF Author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 1616143398
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 574

Get Book Here

Book Description
The city states of the Lowlands have lived in peace for decades, bastions of civilization, prosperity and sophistication, protected by treaties, trade and a belief in the reasonable nature of their neighbors. But meanwhile, in far-off corners, the Wasp Empire has been devouring city after city with its highly trained armies, its machines, it killing Art . . . And now its hunger for conquest and war has become insatiable. Only the aging Stenwold Maker, spymaster, artificer and statesman, can see that the long days of peace are over. It falls upon his shoulders to open the eyes of his people, before a black-and-gold tide sweeps down over the Lowlands and burns away everything in its path. But first he must stop himself from becoming the Empire's latest victim.

The Complete Book of Classic Volkswagens

The Complete Book of Classic Volkswagens PDF Author: John Gunnell
Publisher: Motorbooks International
ISBN: 0760349878
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 275

Get Book Here

Book Description
See the entire chronology of air-cooled Volkswagens in The Complete Book of Classic Volkswagens, a beautifully illustrated overview of one of the oldest and best-known foreign car brands in America.

The Battle of the Beetles 2: Beetle Queen

The Battle of the Beetles 2: Beetle Queen PDF Author: M.G. Leonard
Publisher: Chicken House
ISBN: 1911077376
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 268

Get Book Here

Book Description
Cruel beetle fashionista, Lucretia Cutter, is at large with her yellow ladybird spies - and she has a devious plan. Darkus, Virginia and Bertolt are determined to stop her, but Darkus's dad is dead set against their involvement. Hope rests on Novak, Lucretia's daughter and a Hollywood actress, but the beetle diva is always one scuttle ahead ...

A Perfect Red

A Perfect Red PDF Author: Amy Butler Greenfield
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061980897
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 354

Get Book Here

Book Description
“You’ll finish [Greenfield’s] book with new respect for color, especially for red. With A Perfect Red, she does for it what Mark Kurlansky in Salt did for that common commodity.”—Houston Chronicle Interweaving mystery, empire, and adventure, Amy Butler Greenfield’s masterful popular history offers a window onto a world far different from our own: a world in which the color red was rare and precious—a source of wealth and power for those who could unlock its secrets. And in this world nothing was more prized than cochineal, a red dye that produced the brightest, strongest red the Old World had ever seen. A Perfect Red recounts the story of this legendary red dye, from its cultivation by the ancient Mexicans and discovery by 16th-century Spanish conquistadors to the European pirates, explorers, alchemists, scientists, and spies who joined in the chase to unlock its secrets, a chase that lasted more than three centuries. It evokes with style and verve this history of a grand obsession, of intrigue, empire, and adventure in pursuit of the most desirable color on earth.

The Insect Crisis: The Fall of the Tiny Empires That Run the World

The Insect Crisis: The Fall of the Tiny Empires That Run the World PDF Author: Oliver Milman
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 1324006609
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Get Book Here

Book Description
A devastating examination of how collapsing insect populations worldwide threaten everything from wild birds to the food on our plate. From ants scurrying under leaf litter to bees able to fly higher than Mount Kilimanjaro, insects are everywhere. Three out of every four of our planet’s known animal species are insects. In The Insect Crisis, acclaimed journalist Oliver Milman dives into the torrent of recent evidence that suggests this kaleidoscopic group of creatures is suffering the greatest existential crisis in its remarkable 400-million-year history. What is causing the collapse of the insect world? Why does this alarming decline pose such a threat to us? And what can be done to stem the loss of the miniature empires that hold aloft life as we know it? With urgency and great clarity, Milman explores this hidden emergency, arguing that its consequences could even rival climate change. He joins the scientists tracking the decline of insect populations across the globe, including the soaring mountains of Mexico that host an epic, yet dwindling, migration of monarch butterflies; the verdant countryside of England that has been emptied of insect life; the gargantuan fields of U.S. agriculture that have proved a killing ground for bees; and an offbeat experiment in Denmark that shows there aren’t that many bugs splattering into your car windshield these days. These losses not only further tear at the tapestry of life on our degraded planet; they imperil everything we hold dear, from the food on our supermarket shelves to the medicines in our cabinets to the riot of nature that thrills and enlivens us. Even insects we may dread, including the hated cockroach, or the stinging wasp, play crucial ecological roles, and their decline would profoundly shape our own story. By connecting butterfly and bee, moth and beetle from across the globe, the full scope of loss renders a portrait of a crisis that threatens to upend the workings of our collective history. Part warning, part celebration of the incredible variety of insects, The Insect Crisis is a wake-up call for us all.

In the Valleys of the Noble Beyond

In the Valleys of the Noble Beyond PDF Author: John Zada
Publisher: Greystone Books Ltd
ISBN: 1771645199
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 240

Get Book Here

Book Description
This evocative work of nature writing traverses the world’s largest temperate rainforest to uncover the legend of the Sasquatch. Canada’s Great Bear Rainforest is home to trees as tall as skyscrapers and moss as thick as carpet. According to the people who live there, another giant may dwell in these woods. For centuries, locals have reported encounters with the Sasquatch—a species of hairy man-ape that could inhabit this pristine wilderness. Driven by his childhood obsession with the Sasquatch, yet trying to remain objective, journalist John Zada seeks out the people and stories surrounding this enigmatic creature. He speaks with local Indigenous peoples and a Sasquatch-studying scientist. He hikes with a former bear hunter. Soon, he finds himself on quest for something infinitely more complex, cutting across questions of human perception, scientific inquiry, Indigenous traditions, the environment, and the power of the human imagination to believe in—or to outright dismiss—one of nature’s last great mysteries.

The Water Beetles

The Water Beetles PDF Author: Michael Kaan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 364

Get Book Here

Book Description
Winner, 2018 Amazon Canada First Novel Award, 2018 McNally Robinson Book of the Year, and 2018 Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction Shortlisted, 2017 Governor General's Award for Fiction and 2018 Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book A National Post Best Book of 2017 A Walter Scott Prize Academy Recommended Historical Novel of 2017 On CBC Books' list of writers to watch in 2018 The Leung family leads a life of secluded luxury in Hong Kong. But in December 1941, the Empire of Japan invades the colony. The family is quickly dragged into a spiral of violence, repression, and starvation. To survive, they entomb themselves and their friends in the Leung mansion. But this is only a temporary reprieve, and the Leungs are forced to send their children away. The youngest boy, Chung-Man, escapes with some of his siblings, and together they travel deep into the countryside to avoid the Japanese invaders. Thrown into a new world, Chung-Man befriends a young couple who yearn to break free of their rural life. But their friendship ends when the Japanese arrive, and Chung-Man is once again taken captive. Unwittingly and willingly, he enters a new cycle of violence and punishment, until he finally breaks free from his captors and returns to Hong Kong. Deeply scarred, Chung-Man drifts along respectfully and dutifully, enveloped by the unspoken vestiges of war. It is only as he leaves home once again -- this time for university in America -- that he finally glimpses a way to keep living with his troubled and divided self. Written in restrained, yet beautiful and affecting prose, The Water Beetles is an engrossing story of adventure and survival. Based loosely on the diaries and stories of the author's father, this mesmerizing story captures the horror of war, through the eyes of a child, with unsettling and unerring grace.

Bugs and the Victorians

Bugs and the Victorians PDF Author: John F. M. Clark
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300150911
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 337

Get Book Here

Book Description
This text explores how science became increasingly important in 19th century British culture and how the systematic study of insects permitted entomologists to engage with the most pressing questions of Victorian times: the nature of God, mind, and governance, and the origins of life.