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Author: George Monbiot
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022620555X
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 342
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Book Description
As an investigative journalist, Monbiot found a mission in his ecological boredom, that of learning what it might take to impose a greater state of harmony between himself and nature. He was not one to romanticize undisturbed, primal landscapes, but rather in his attempts to satisfy his cravings for a richer, more authentic life, he came stumbled into the world of restoration and rewilding. When these concepts were first introduced in 2011, very recently, they focused on releasing captive animals into the wild. Soon the definition expanded to describe the reintroduction of animal and plant species to habitats from which they had been excised. Some people began using it to mean the rehabilitation not just of particular species, but of entire ecosystems: a restoration of wilderness. Rewilding recognizes that nature consists not just of a collection of species but also of their ever-shifting relationships with each other and with the physical environment. Ecologists have shown how the dynamics within communities are affected by even the seemingly minor changes in species assemblages. Predators and large herbivores have transformed entire landscapes, from the nature of the soil to the flow of rivers, the chemistry of the oceans, and the composition of the atmosphere. The complexity of earth systems is seemingly boundless."
Author: George Monbiot
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022620555X
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 342
Get Book Here
Book Description
As an investigative journalist, Monbiot found a mission in his ecological boredom, that of learning what it might take to impose a greater state of harmony between himself and nature. He was not one to romanticize undisturbed, primal landscapes, but rather in his attempts to satisfy his cravings for a richer, more authentic life, he came stumbled into the world of restoration and rewilding. When these concepts were first introduced in 2011, very recently, they focused on releasing captive animals into the wild. Soon the definition expanded to describe the reintroduction of animal and plant species to habitats from which they had been excised. Some people began using it to mean the rehabilitation not just of particular species, but of entire ecosystems: a restoration of wilderness. Rewilding recognizes that nature consists not just of a collection of species but also of their ever-shifting relationships with each other and with the physical environment. Ecologists have shown how the dynamics within communities are affected by even the seemingly minor changes in species assemblages. Predators and large herbivores have transformed entire landscapes, from the nature of the soil to the flow of rivers, the chemistry of the oceans, and the composition of the atmosphere. The complexity of earth systems is seemingly boundless."
Author: Douglas S. Massey
Publisher: W. W. Norton
ISBN: 9780393927276
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 370
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Book Description
Massey argues that humans are genetically programmed to be physiologically, and socially adapted to life in small groups and to live in an organic natural environment. Despite this, most of us live in huge dense cities in a mostly artificial environment.
Author: Judy Ehlen
Publisher: Geological Society of America
ISBN: 0813741165
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 168
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Book Description
Author: Vaclav Smil
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 026201856X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 317
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Book Description
An interdisciplinary and quantitative account of human claims on the biosphere's stores of living matter, from prehistoric hunting to modern energy production. The biosphere—the Earth's thin layer of life—dates from nearly four billion years ago, when the first simple organisms appeared. Many species have exerted enormous influence on the biosphere's character and productivity, but none has transformed the Earth in so many ways and on such a scale as Homo sapiens. In Harvesting the Biosphere, Vaclav Smil offers an interdisciplinary and quantitative account of human claims on the biosphere's stores of living matter, from prehistory to the present day. Smil examines all harvests—from prehistoric man's hunting of megafauna to modern crop production—and all uses of harvested biomass, including energy, food, and raw materials. Without harvesting of the biomass, Smil points out, there would be no story of human evolution and advancing civilization; but at the same time, the increasing extent and intensity of present-day biomass harvests are changing the very foundations of civilization's well-being. In his detailed and comprehensive account, Smil presents the best possible quantifications of past and current global losses in order to assess the evolution and extent of biomass harvests. Drawing on the latest work in disciplines ranging from anthropology to environmental science, Smil offers a valuable long-term, planet-wide perspective on human-caused environmental change.
Author: Emily O'Gorman
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295749040
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 284
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Book Description
In the name of agriculture, urban growth, and disease control, humans have drained, filled, or otherwise destroyed nearly 87 percent of the world’s wetlands over the past three centuries. Unintended consequences include biodiversity loss, poor water quality, and the erosion of cultural sites, and only in the past few decades have wetlands been widely recognized as worth preserving. Emily O’Gorman asks, What has counted as a wetland, for whom, and with what consequences? Using the Murray-Darling Basin—a massive river system in eastern Australia that includes over 30,000 wetland areas—as a case study and drawing on archival research and original interviews, O’Gorman examines how people and animals have shaped wetlands from the late nineteenth century to today. She illuminates deeper dynamics by relating how Aboriginal peoples acted then and now as custodians of the landscape, despite the policies of the Australian government; how the movements of water birds affected farmers; and how mosquitoes have defied efforts to fully understand, let alone control, them. Situating the region’s history within global environmental humanities conversations, O’Gorman argues that we need to understand wetlands as socioecological landscapes in order to create new kinds of relationships with and futures for these places.
Author: National Academy of Sciences
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309046327
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 209
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Book Description
Written for nonscientists, One Earth, One Future can help individuals understand the basic science behind changes in the global environment and the resulting policy implications that the population of the entire planet must face. The volume describes the earth as a unified systemâ€"exploring the interactions between the atmosphere, land, and water and the snowballing impact that human activity is having on the systemâ€"and presents perspectives on policies and programs that can both develop and protect our natural resources. One Earth, One Future discusses why such seemingly diverse issues as historical climate change, species diversity, and sea-level rise are part of a single pictureâ€"and how human activity is the critical element in that picture. The book concludes with practical examinations of economic, security, and development questions, with a view toward achieving improvements in quality of life without further environmental degradation. One Earth, One Future is must reading for anyone interested in the interrelationship of environmental matters and public policy issues.
Author: Kai N. Lee
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393930726
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 8
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Book Description
This is the first textbook to fully synthesize all key disciplines of environmental studies. Humans in the Landscape draws on the biophysical sciences, social sciences, and humanities to explore the interactions between cultures and environments over time, and discusses classic environmental problems in the context of the overarching conflicts and frameworks that motivate them.
Author: Daniel R. Headrick
Publisher:
ISBN: 0190864710
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 625
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Book Description
Since the appearance of Homo sapiens on the planet hundreds of thousands of years ago, human beings have sought to exploit their environments, extracting as many resources as their technological ingenuity has allowed. As technologies have advanced in recent centuries, that impulse has remained largely unchecked, exponentially accelerating the human impact on the environment. Humans versus Nature tells a history of the global environment from the Stone Age to the present, emphasizing the adversarial relationship between the human and natural worlds. Nature is cast as an active protagonist, rather than a mere backdrop or victim of human malfeasance. Daniel R. Headrick shows how environmental changes--epidemics, climate shocks, and volcanic eruptions--have molded human societies and cultures, sometimes overwhelming them. At the same time, he traces the history of anthropogenic changes in the environment--species extinctions, global warming, deforestation, and resource depletion--back to the age of hunters and gatherers and the first farmers and herders. He shows how human interventions such as irrigation systems, over-fishing, and the Industrial Revolution have in turn harmed the very societies that initiated them. Throughout, Headrick examines how human-driven environmental changes are interwoven with larger global systems, dramatically reshaping the complex relationship between people and the natural world. In doing so, he roots the current environmental crisis in the deep past.
Author: William Cronon
Publisher: Hill and Wang
ISBN: 142992828X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288
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Book Description
The book that launched environmental history, William Cronon's Changes in the Land, now revised and updated. Winner of the Francis Parkman Prize In this landmark work of environmental history, William Cronon offers an original and profound explanation of the effects European colonists' sense of property and their pursuit of capitalism had upon the ecosystems of New England. Reissued here with an updated afterword by the author and a new preface by the distinguished colonialist John Demos, Changes in the Land, provides a brilliant inter-disciplinary interpretation of how land and people influence one another. With its chilling closing line, "The people of plenty were a people of waste," Cronon's enduring and thought-provoking book is ethno-ecological history at its best.
Author: Munyaradzi Mawere
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443884332
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 235
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Book Description
Humans, Other Beings and the Environment is an ethnographic study of the possibilities for the mutual, symbiotic co-existence of human beings, a unique species of forest insects and natural forests. The result of extensive fieldwork conducted over a period of thirteen months, the book highlights the continuum among humans, wild insects and environmental conservation outcomes in a specific environment of southeastern Norumedzo in rural Zimbabwe. In this respect, it describes interactions and relationships between humans, other beings and the natural forests to demonstrate how some aspects of the emerging body of literature in the posthumanities and relational ontologies can work to grasp the collaborative interactional space for different social actors in the cosmos, through which cognitive and knowledge communities can be extended. Furthermore, the book raises critical questions for conservation sciences, political ecology and environmental anthropology, as it demonstrates the extent of relevance and application of the Norumedzo conservation case study, with particular regard to conservational problems and asymmetrical relations between humans and other beings in other scenarios in Zimbabwe and beyond. Complicating many assumptions about knowledge production, nature and culture, the book offers independent and critical insights into the interpretation of modernist science, posthumanist ideas and indigenous epistemologies, and relates these to existing studies. As such, it will be of interest not only to anthropologists, but also to political scientists, environmentalists and policy makers in Zimbabwe, southern Africa and beyond.
