Author: California. Department of Natural Resources
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Natural resources
Languages : en
Pages : 24

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Book Description

Author: Andrew C. Isenberg
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 0374707200
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
An environmental History of California during the Gold Rush Between 1849 and 1874 almost $1 billion in gold was mined in California. With little available capital or labor, here's how: high-pressure water cannons washed hillsides into sluices that used mercury to trap gold but let the soil wash away; eventually more than three times the amount of earth moved to make way for the Panama Canal entered California's rivers, leaving behind twenty tons of mercury every mile—rivers overflowed their banks and valleys were flooded, the land poisoned. In the rush to wealth, the same chain of foreseeable consequences reduced California's forests and grasslands. Not since William Cronon's Nature's Metropolis has a historian so skillfully applied John Muir's insight—"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe"—to the telling of the history of the American West. Beautifully told, this is western environmental history at its finest.

Author: Robert Joseph McNeill
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Mines and mineral resources
Languages : en
Pages : 872

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Author: M. Kat Anderson
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520933109
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 560

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Book Description
A complex look at California Native ecological practices as a model for environmental sustainability and conservation. John Muir was an early proponent of a view we still hold today—that much of California was pristine, untouched wilderness before the arrival of Europeans. But as this groundbreaking book demonstrates, what Muir was really seeing when he admired the grand vistas of Yosemite and the gold and purple flowers carpeting the Central Valley were the fertile gardens of the Sierra Miwok and Valley Yokuts Indians, modified and made productive by centuries of harvesting, tilling, sowing, pruning, and burning. Marvelously detailed and beautifully written, Tending the Wild is an unparalleled examination of Native American knowledge and uses of California's natural resources that reshapes our understanding of native cultures and shows how we might begin to use their knowledge in our own conservation efforts. M. Kat Anderson presents a wealth of information on native land management practices gleaned in part from interviews and correspondence with Native Americans who recall what their grandparents told them about how and when areas were burned, which plants were eaten and which were used for basketry, and how plants were tended. The complex picture that emerges from this and other historical source material dispels the hunter-gatherer stereotype long perpetuated in anthropological and historical literature. We come to see California's indigenous people as active agents of environmental change and stewardship. Tending the Wild persuasively argues that this traditional ecological knowledge is essential if we are to successfully meet the challenge of living sustainably.

Author: Norris Hundley Jr.
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520925298
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 830

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Book Description
The story of "the great thirst" is brought up to date in this revised edition of Norris Hundley's outstanding history, with additional photographs and incisive descriptions of the major water-policy issues facing California now: accelerating urbanization of farmland and open spaces, persisting despoliation of water supplies, and demands for equity in water allocation for an exploding population. People the world over confront these problems, and Hundley examines them with clarity and eloquence in the unruly laboratory of California. The obsession with water has shaped California to a remarkable extent, literally as well as politically and culturally. Hundley tells how aboriginal Americans and then early Spanish and Mexican immigrants contrived to use and share the available water and how American settlers, arriving in ever-increasing numbers after the Gold Rush, transformed California into the home of the nation's preeminent water seekers. The desire to use, profit from, manipulate, and control water drives the people and events in this fascinating narrative until, by the end of the twentieth century, a large, colorful cast of characters and communities has wheeled and dealed, built, diverted, and connived its way to an entirely different statewide waterscape. The story of "the great thirst" is brought up to date in this revised edition of Norris Hundley's outstanding history, with additional photographs and incisive descriptions of the major water-policy issues facing California now: accelerating urbanization

Author: American Geographical Society of New York
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Geography
Languages : en
Pages : 608

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Book Description

Author: American Geographical Society of New York
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Geography
Languages : en
Pages : 610

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Book Description

Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309157498
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 599

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Book Description
In the last 20 years, there has been a remarkable emergence of innovations and technological advances that are generating promising changes and opportunities for sustainable agriculture, yet at the same time the agricultural sector worldwide faces numerous daunting challenges. Not only is the agricultural sector expected to produce adequate food, fiber, and feed, and contribute to biofuels to meet the needs of a rising global population, it is expected to do so under increasingly scarce natural resources and climate change. Growing awareness of the unintended impacts associated with some agricultural production practices has led to heightened societal expectations for improved environmental, community, labor, and animal welfare standards in agriculture. Toward Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century assesses the scientific evidence for the strengths and weaknesses of different production, marketing, and policy approaches for improving and reducing the costs and unintended consequences of agricultural production. It discusses the principles underlying farming systems and practices that could improve the sustainability. It also explores how those lessons learned could be applied to agriculture in different regional and international settings, with an emphasis on sub-Saharan Africa. By focusing on a systems approach to improving the sustainability of U.S. agriculture, this book can have a profound impact on the development and implementation of sustainable farming systems. Toward Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century serves as a valuable resource for policy makers, farmers, experts in food production and agribusiness, and federal regulatory agencies.

Author: Ellen Hanak
Publisher: Public Policy Instit. of CA
ISBN: 1582131414
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 500

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Book Description

Author: William A. Selby
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119493145
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 576

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Book Description
Now in its fourth edition, Rediscovering the Golden State: California Geography examines this unique state’s incredibly diverse landscapes, and how geography and geographic change influences everything from the state’s natural systems and cycles, to its agriculture and more advanced industries, to human migration, cultures, and urban planning. Exploring California through a geographic lens reveals how the field has evolved to cross traditional boundaries, connect local and global issues, and provide the insights that lead to practical solutions to problems new and old. Challenging the reader to look beyond stereotypes and assumptions, this book encourages active participation in planning the state’s dynamic future. And this project makes teaching and learning about the geography of California more convenient, exciting, and rewarding for instructors and students. Going beyond a scientific analysis of natural features and environmental processes, this book illustrates how social, political, and economic divides can be bridged through the study of geography and the connections it brings to light. From geology, weather and climate, biogeography, and hydrology, we cover the state’s physical geography. And from demography and migration, to cultures and economies, to rural and urban geography, we monitor the state’s human geography pulse and then make the vital connections. California continues to lead the nation in population, economics (5th largest in the world), agriculture, natural and cultural diversity, and a host of other categories. This powerful state has earned this powerful publication. This timely and versatile book will prove useful to Californians in business, education, government, and to concerned citizens and curious readers seeking to learn more about the Golden State.