Entangled life : how fungi make our worlds, change our minds & shape our futures by
Living at the border between life and non-life, fungi use diverse cocktails of potent enzymes and acids to disassemble some of the most stubborn substances on the planet, turning rock into soil and wood into compost, allowing plants to grow. Fungi not only help create soil, they send out networks of tubes that enmesh roots and link plants together in the "Wood Wide Web." Fungi also drive many long-standing human fascinations: from yeasts that cause bread to rise and orchestrate the fermentation of sugar into alcohol; to psychedelic fungi; to the mold that produces penicillin and revolutionized modern medicine. And we can partner with fungi to heal the damage we've done to the planet. Fungi are already being used to make sustainable building materials and wearable leather, but they can do so much more. Fungi can digest many stubborn and toxic pollutants from crude oil to human-made polyurethane plastics and the explosive TNT. They can grow food from renewable sources: edible mushrooms can be grown on anything from plant waste to cigarette butts. And some fungi's antiviral compounds might be able to ease the colony collapse of bees. Merlin Sheldrake's revelatory introduction to this world will show us how fungi, and our relationships with them, are more astonishing than we could have imagined. Bringing to light science's latest discoveries and ingeniously parsing the varieties and behaviors of the fungi themselves, he points us toward the fundamental questions about the nature of intelligence and identity this massively diverse, little understood kingdom provokes.
Ginkgo by
Perhaps the world's most distinctive tree, ginkgo has remained stubbornly unchanged for more than two hundred million years. A living link to the age of dinosaurs, it survived the great ice ages as a relic in China, but it earned its reprieve when people first found it useful about a thousand years ago. Today ginkgo is beloved for the elegance of its leaves, prized for its edible nuts, and revered for its longevity. This engaging book tells the full and fascinating story of a tree that people saved from extinction--a story that offers hope for other botanical biographies that are still being written. Â Inspired by the historic ginkgo that has thrived in London's Kew Gardens since the 1760s, renowned botanist Peter Crane explores the evolutionary history of the species from its mysterious origin through its proliferation, drastic decline, and ultimate resurgence. Crane also highlights the cultural and social significance of the ginkgo: its medicinal and nutritional uses, its power as a source of artistic and religious inspiration, and its importance as one of the world's most popular street trees. Readers of this extraordinarily interesting book will be drawn to the nearest ginkgo, where they can experience firsthand the timeless beauty of the oldest tree on Earth.
Plants and Empire by
Plants seldom figure in the grand narratives of war, peace, or even everyday life yet they are often at the center of high intrigue. In the eighteenth century, epic scientific voyages were sponsored by European imperial powers to explore the natural riches of the New World, and uncover the botanical secrets of its people. Bioprospectors brought back medicines, luxuries, and staples for their king and country. Risking their lives to discover exotic plants, these daredevil explorers joined with their sponsors to create a global culture of botany. But some secrets were unearthed only to be lost again. In this moving account of the abuses of indigenous Caribbean people and African slaves, Schiebinger describes how slave women brewed the "peacock flower" into an abortifacient, to ensure that they would bear no children into oppression. Yet, impeded by trade winds of prevailing opinion, knowledge of West Indian abortifacients never flowed into Europe. A rich history of discovery and loss, Plants and Empire explores the movement, triumph, and extinction of knowledge in the course of encounters between Europeans and the Caribbean populations.
Trees, Truffles, and Beasts by
In today's world of specialization, people are attempting to protect the Earth's fragile state by swapping limousines for hybrids and pesticide-laced foods for organic produce. At other times, environmental awareness is translated into public relations gimmicks or trendy commodities. Moreover, simplistic policies, like single-species protection or planting ten trees for every tree cut down, are touted as bureaucratic or industrial panaceas. Because today's decisions are tomorrow's consequences, every small effort makes a difference, but a broader understanding of our environmental problems is necessary to the development of sustainable ecosystem policies. In Trees, Truffles, and Beasts, Chris Maser, Andrew W. Claridge, and James M. Trappe make a compelling case that we must first understand the complexity and interdependency of species and habitats from the microscopic level to the gigantic. Comparing forests in the Pacific Northwestern United States and Southeastern mainland of Australia, the authors show how easily observable species, trees and mammals are part of a complicated infrastructure that includes fungi, lichens, and organisms invisible to the naked eye, such as microbes. Eminently readable, this important book shows that forests are far more complicated than most of us might think, which means simplistic policies will not save them. Understanding the biophysical intricacies of our life-support systems just might.
Zapotec Science by
Zapotec farmers in the northern sierra of Oaxaca, Mexico, are highly successful in providing their families with abundant, nutritious food in an ecologically sustainable fashion, although the premises that guide their agricultural practices would be considered erroneous by the standards of most agronomists and botanists in the United States and Europe. In this text, Roberto Gonzalez convincingly argues that in fact Zapotec agricultural and dietary theories and practices constitute a valid local science, which has had a reciprocally beneficial relationship with European and United States farming and food systems since the 16th century.
American Earth: Environmental Writing since Thoreau (LOA #182) by
As America and the world grapple with the consequences of global environmental change, writer and activist Bill McKibben offers this unprecedented, provocative, and timely anthology, gathering the best and most significant American environmental writing from the last two centuries. Classics of the environmental imagination, the essays of Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, and John Burroughs; Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac; Rachel Carson's Silent Spring - are set against the inspiring story of an emerging activist movement, as revealed by newly uncovered reports of pioneering campaigns for conservation, passages from landmark legal opinions and legislation, and searing protest speeches. Here are some of America's greatest and most impassioned writers, taking a turn toward nature and recognizing the fragility of our situation on earth and the urgency of the search for a sustainable way of life. Thought-provoking essays on overpopulation, consumerism, energy policy, and the nature of nature, join ecologists - memoirs and intimate sketches of the habitats of endangered species. The anthology includes a detailed chronology of the environmental movement and American environmental history, as well as an 80-page color portfolio of illustrations.
Bio Design: Nature + Science + Creativity by
The first book to address thrilling new developments in biological design, now fully revised and expanded Bio Design examines thrilling new ways in which biology is being applied outside the lab, showcasing some seventy projects that cover a range of fields--from architecture and industrial design to fashion and medicine. This revised and expanded edition celebrates the most innovative and often radical approaches to biological design in recent years, and includes 12 new projects, among them Hy-Fi by David Benjamin, a biodegradable tower; Guard from Above by Sjoerd Hoogendoorn, a company that trains birds of prey to intercept hostile drones; Zoa by Modern Meadow, the first biofabricated leather material brand; and Circumventive Organs by Agi Haines, which uses animal cells to print new types of organs. It also features a new how-to section with tips for collaboration between designers and scientists, FAQs and further resources, as well as a fully revised introduction. Combining cutting-edge science with the utility of popular design, these projects represent the first steps toward a sustainable revolution.
Borne by
Named one of the best books of 2017 by The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, PopSugar, Financial Times, Chicago Review of Books, Huffington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Thrillist, Book Riot, National Post (Canada), Kirkus and Publishers Weekly From the author of the Southern Reach Trilogy comes Jeff VanderMeer's Borne, a story about two humans and two creatures. "Am I a person?" Borne asked me. "Yes, you are a person," I told him. "But like a person, you can be a weapon, too." In Borne, a young woman named Rachel survives as a scavenger in a ruined city half destroyed by drought and conflict. The city is dangerous, littered with discarded experiments from the Company--a biotech firm now derelict--and punished by the unpredictable predations of a giant bear. Rachel ekes out an existence in the shelter of a run-down sanctuary she shares with her partner, Wick, who deals his own homegrown psychoactive biotech. One day, Rachel finds Borne during a scavenging mission and takes him home. Borne as salvage is little more than a green lump--plant or animal?--but exudes a strange charisma. Borne reminds Rachel of the marine life from the island nation of her birth, now lost to rising seas. There is an attachment she resents: in this world any weakness can kill you. Yet, against her instincts--and definitely against Wick's wishes--Rachel keeps Borne. She cannot help herself. Borne, learning to speak, learning about the world, is fun to be with, and in a world so broken that innocence is a precious thing. For Borne makes Rachel see beauty in the desolation around her. She begins to feel a protectiveness she can ill afford. "He was born, but I had borne him." But as Borne grows, he begins to threaten the balance of power in the city and to put the security of her sanctuary with Wick at risk. For the Company, it seems, may not be truly dead, and new enemies are creeping in. What Borne will lay bare to Rachel as he changes is how precarious her existence has been, and how dependent on subterfuge and secrets. In the aftermath, nothing may ever be the same.
Building an Archaeology of Maya Urbanism by
Building an Archaeology of Maya Urbanism tears down entrenched misconceptions of Maya cities to build a new archaeology of Maya urbanism by highlighting the residential dynamics that underwrote one of the most famous and debated civilizations of the ancient Americas. Exploring the diverse yet interrelated agents and processes that modified Maya urban landscapes over time, this volume highlights the adaptive flexibility of urbanization in the tropical Maya lowlands. Integrating recent lidar survey data with more traditional excavation and artifact-based archaeological practices, chapters in this volume offer broadened perspectives on the patterns of Maya urban design and planning by viewing bottom-up and self-organizing processes as integral to the form, development, and dissolution of Classic lowland cities alongside potentially centralized civic designs. Full of innovative examples of how to build an archaeology of urbanism that can be applied not just to the lowland Maya and across the region, Building an Archaeology of Maya Urbanism simultaneously improves interpretations of lowland Maya culture history and contributes to empirical and comparative discussions of tropical, non-Western cities worldwide. Contributors: Divina Perla Barrera, Arianna Campiani, Cyril Castanet, Adrian S. Z. Chase, Lydie Dussol, Sara Dzul Góngora, Keith Eppich, Thomas Garrison, María Rocio González de la Mata, Timothy Hare, Julien Hiquet, Takeshi Inomata, Eva Lemonnier, José Francisco Osorio León, Marilyn Masson, Elsa Damaris Menéndez, Timothy Murtha, Philippe Nondédéo, Keith M. Prufer, Louise Purdue, Francisco Pérez Ruíz, Julien Sion, Travis Stanton, Rodrigo Liendo Stuardo, Karl A. Taube, Marc Testé, Amy E. Thompson, Daniela Triadan
Evolution of a Movement by
Despite living and working in California, one of the county's most environmentally progressive states, environmental justice activists have spent decades fighting for clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and safe, healthy communities. Evolution of a Movement tells their story--from the often-raucous protests of the 1980s and 1990s to activists' growing presence inside the halls of the state capitol in the 2000s and 2010s. Tracy E. Perkins traces how shifting political contexts combined with activists' own efforts to institutionalize their work within nonprofits and state structures. By revealing these struggles and transformations, Perkins offers a new lens for understanding environmental justice activism in California. Drawing on case studies and 125 interviews with activists from Sacramento to the California-Mexico border, Perkins explores the successes and failures of the environmental justice movement in California. She shows why some activists have moved away from the disruptive "outsider" political tactics common in the movement's early days and embraced traditional political channels of policy advocacy, electoral politics, and working from within the state's political system to enact change. Although some see these changes as a sign of the growing sophistication of the environmental justice movement, others point to the potential of such changes to blunt grassroots power. At a time when environmental justice scholars and activists face pressing questions about the best route for effecting meaningful change, this book provides insight into the strengths and limitations of social movement institutionalization.
A Field Guide to the Mushrooms of Georgia by
Welcome to the world of mushrooms! A Field Guide to the Mushrooms of Georgia is the first highly illustrated, comprehensive mushroom field guide dedicated to the entire state of Georgia. Written in a relaxed style and using terminology that is easily accessible for both beginners and more experienced mushroom enthusiasts, this book emphasizes identification based primarily on macroscopic field characters, including observational data based on the authors' years of experience. The authors provide a step-by-step identification process that makes mushroom foraging fun and informative, and the guide's 750+ color photographs make fungi species identification easy. Each species description contains information on edibility and/or toxicity, which is essential for foragers interested in eating wild mushrooms. Additionally, the descriptions provide enough detailed information to be of use for advanced students and professional mycologists. The highest quality documentary color images, as well as black-and-white illustrations by Anthoni Goodman, further assist in the identification process. This is the definitive guide for mushroom identification in the state of Georgia.
The Forest Unseen by
Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award "Injects much-needed vibrancy into the stuffy world of nature writing."-Outside,"The Outdoor Books That Shaped the Last Decade" The biologist and author of Sounds Wild and Broken combines elegant writing with scientific expertise to reveal the secret world hidden in a single square meter of old-growth forest In this wholly original book,biologist David Haskell uses a one-square-meter patch of old-growth Tennessee forest as a window onto the entire natural world. Visiting it almost daily for one year to trace nature's path through the seasons, he brings the forest and its inhabitants to vivid life. Each of this book'sshort chapters begins with a simple observation- a salamander scuttling across the leaf litter; the first blossom of spring wildflowers. From these, Haskell spins a brilliant web of biology and ecology, explaining the science that binds together the tiniest microbes and the largest mammals and describing the ecosystems that have cycled for thousands- sometimes millions-of years. Each visit to the forest presents a nature story in miniature as Haskell elegantly teases out the intricate relationships that order the creatures and plants that call it home. Written withremarkable grace and empathy, The Forest Unseen is a grand tour of nature in all its profundity. Haskell is a perfect guide into the world that exists beneath our feet and beyond our backyards.
Freshwater Mussels of Alabama and the Mobile Basin in Georgia, Mississippi, and Tennessee by
Alabama rivers and waterways are home to the largest and most diverse population of freshwater mussel species in the nation, roughly 60% of U.S. mussel fauna. The Mobile River Basin, which drains portions of Tennessee, Georgia, and Mississippi waterways, also contains diverse mussel populations. However, many of these species have been significantly depleted in the last century due to habitat alteration (river damming, channelization, siltation), pollution, and invasive species, and many more are in imminent danger of extinction. The authors offer encyclopedic entries on each of the 178 mussel species currently identified in Alabama and the Mobile River Basin--the scientific and common names; a morphological description as well as color photographs of the shell appearance; analysis of the soft anatomy; information about ecology, biology, and conservation status; and a color distribution map. With an extensive glossary of terms and full index, plus additional material on the archaeological record, a history of commercial uses of mussels, and the work of significant biologists studying these species, this volume is a long overdue and invaluable resource, not only for scholars of aquatic biology and zoology but also conservationists interested in the preservation of ecological diversity and protection of inland environments.
Half-Earth by
In order to stave off the mass extinction of species, including our own, we must move swiftly to preserve the biodiversity of our planet, says Edward O. Wilson in his most impassioned book to date. Half-Earth argues that the situation facing us is too large to be solved piecemeal and proposes a solution commensurate with the magnitude of the problem: dedicate fully half the surface of the Earth to nature. If we are to undertake such an ambitious endeavor, we first must understand just what the biosphere is, why it's essential to our survival, and the manifold threats now facing it. In doing so, Wilson describes how our species, in only a mere blink of geological time, became the architects and rulers of this epoch and outlines the consequences of this that will affect all of life, both ours and the natural world, far into the future. Half-Earth provides an enormously moving and naturalistic portrait of just what is being lost when we clip "twigs and eventually whole braches of life's family tree." In elegiac prose, Wilson documents the many ongoing extinctions that are imminent, paying tribute to creatures great and small, not the least of them the two Sumatran rhinos whom he encounters in captivity. Uniquely, Half-Earth considers not only the large animals and star species of plants but also the millions of invertebrate animals and microorganisms that, despite being overlooked, form the foundations of Earth's ecosystems. In stinging language, he avers that the biosphere does not belong to us and addresses many fallacious notions such as the idea that ongoing extinctions can be balanced out by the introduction of alien species into new ecosystems or that extinct species might be brought back through cloning. This includes a critique of the "anthropocenists," a fashionable collection of revisionist environmentalists who believe that the human species alone can be saved through engineering and technology. Despite the Earth's parlous condition, Wilson is no doomsayer, resigned to fatalism. Defying prevailing conventional wisdom, he suggests that we still have time to put aside half the Earth and identifies actual spots where Earth's biodiversity can still be reclaimed. Suffused with a profound Darwinian understanding of our planet's fragility, Half-Earth reverberates with an urgency like few other books, but it offers an attainable goal that we can strive for on behalf of all life.
The Last Great Plant Hunt by
As humans adapt to a changing climate and planet, there is a pressing need for wild plant seed banks, and an urgent effort to conserve all plant diversity. Kew's Millennium Seed Bank is a unique, global asset. The largest seed bank of its kind in the world dedicated to wild plant species, it contains the world's most diverse seed collections. Over the past 10 years more than 3.5 billion seeds from nearly 25,000 species have been collected and stored in seed banks both in their country of origin and in Kew's Millennium Seed Bank. In October 2009 Kew's Millennium Seed Bank celebrated collecting, banking and conserving 10% of the world's wild plant species and the partnership now spans more than 120 institutions in 54 countries. The Last Great Plant Hunt describes the importance of seed collecting and the work of Kew's Millennium Seed Bank, the process of collecting and taking care of seeds, the uses of banked seed, and the future of seed conservation worldwide. Beautifully illustrated and engagingly written.
A New Environmental Ethics by
This Second Edition ofA New Environmental Ethics: The Next Millennium for Life on Earth offers clear, powerful, and often moving thoughts from Holmes Rolston III, one of the first and most respected philosophers to write on the environment and often called the "father of environmental ethics." Rolston surveys the full spectrum of approaches in the field of environmental ethics and offers critical assessments of contemporary academic accounts. He draws on a lifetime of research and experience to suggest an outlook, and even hope, for the future. This forward-looking analysis, focused on the new millennium, will be a necessary complement to any balanced textbook or anthology in environmental ethics. The First Edition guaranteed "to put you in your place." Beyond that, the Second Edition asks whether you want to live a "de-natured life on a de-natured planet." Key Updates in the Second Edition Covers the worsening environmental situation due to actions of the Trump administration, including withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and from the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change Includes information on legislation in key U.S. states (e.g., California and New York) aimed to ameliorate the damage done at the federal level Increases coverage of group knowledge, group agreement and disagreement, and group action in collective environmental ethics, as distinguished from individual knowledge and action Examines the deleterious effects of online consumer behavior Explains how a loss of solidarity among a nation's citizens and even a larger solidary among humanity leads to environmental degradation Offers new analysis of the effects of epistemic bubbles, echo chambers, and fake news on the behavior of voters and consumers Provides an extended critique of the Anthropocene Epoch, and the prospect of geo-engineering Earth to become a synthetic environment.
Oglethorpe Plan by
The statesman and reformer James Oglethorpe was a significant figure in the philosophical and political landscape of eighteenth-century British America. His social contributions?all informed by Enlightenment ideals?included prison reform, the founding of the Georgia Colony on behalf of the "worthy poor," and stirring the founders of the abolitionist movement. He also developed the famous ward design for the city of Savannah, a design that became one of the most important planning innovations in American history. Multilayered and connecting the urban core to peripheral garden and farm lots, the Oglethorpe Plan was intended by its author to both exhibit and foster his utopian ideas of agrarian equality. In his new book, the professional planner Thomas D. Wilson reconsiders the Oglethorpe Plan, revealing that Oglethorpe was a more dynamic force in urban planning than has generally been supposed. In essence, claims Wilson, the Oglethorpe Plan offers a portrait of the Enlightenment, and embodies all of the major themes of that era, including science, humanism, and secularism. The vibrancy of the ideas behind its conception invites an exploration of the plan's enduring qualities. In addition to surveying historical context and intellectual origins, this book aims to rescue Oglethorpe?s work from its relegation to the status of a living museum in a revered historic district, and to demonstrate instead how modern-day town planners might employ its principles. Unique in its exclusive focus on the topic and written in a clear and readable style, The Oglethorpe Plan explores this design as a bridge between New Urbanism and other more naturally evolving and socially engaged modes of urban development.
The Peregrine by
This extraordinary, poetic portrait of two peregrine falcons is one of the most beloved works of nature writing ever published. From fall to spring, J.A. Baker set out to track the daily comings and goings of a pair of peregrine falcons across the flat fen lands of eastern England. He followed the birds obsessively, observing them in the air and on the ground, in pursuit of their prey, making a kill, eating, and at rest, activities he describes with an extraordinary fusion of precision and poetry. And as he continued his mysterious private quest, his sense of human self slowly dissolved, to be replaced with the alien and implacable consciousness of a hawk. It is this extraordinary metamorphosis, magical and terrifying, that these beautifully written pages record.
Trees, Truffles, and Beasts by
In today's world of specialization, people are attempting to protect the Earth's fragile state by swapping limousines for hybrids and pesticide-laced foods for organic produce. At other times, environmental awareness is translated into public relations gimmicks or trendy commodities. Moreover, simplistic policies, like single-species protection or planting ten trees for every tree cut down, are touted as bureaucratic or industrial panaceas. Because today's decisions are tomorrow's consequences, every small effort makes a difference, but a broader understanding of our environmental problems is necessary to the development of sustainable ecosystem policies. In Trees, Truffles, and Beasts, Chris Maser, Andrew W. Claridge, and James M. Trappe make a compelling case that we must first understand the complexity and interdependency of species and habitats from the microscopic level to the gigantic. Comparing forests in the Pacific Northwestern United States and Southeastern mainland of Australia, the authors show how easily observable speciesùtrees and mammalsùare part of a complicated infrastructure that includes fungi, lichens, and organisms invisible to the naked eye, such as microbes. Eminently readable, this important book shows that forests are far more complicated than most of us might think, which means simplistic policies will not save them. Understanding the biophysical intricacies of our life-support systems just might.
Zapotec Science by
How Zapotec agricultural and dietary theories and practices constitute a valid local science. Zapotec farmers in the northern sierra of Oaxaca, Mexico, are highly successful in providing their families with abundant, nutritious food in an ecologically sustainable fashion, although the premises that guide their agricultural practices would be considered erroneous by the standards of most agronomists and botanists in the United States and Europe. In this book, Roberto González convincingly argues that in fact Zapotec agricultural and dietary theories and practices constitute a valid local science, which has had a reciprocally beneficial relationship with European and United States farming and food systems since the sixteenth century. González bases his analysis upon direct participant observation in the farms and fields of a Zapotec village. By using the ethnographic fieldwork approach, he is able to describe and analyze the rich meanings that campesino families attach to their crops, lands, and animals. González also reviews the history of maize, sugarcane, and coffee cultivation in the Zapotec region to show how campesino farmers have intelligently and scientifically adapted their farming practices to local conditions over the course of centuries. By setting his ethnographic study of the Talea de Castro community within a historical world systems perspective, he also skillfully weighs the local impact of national and global currents ranging from Spanish colonialism to the 1910 Mexican Revolution to NAFTA. At the same time, he shows how, at the turn of the twenty-first century, the sustainable practices of "traditional" subsistence agriculture are beginning to replace the failed, unsustainable techniques of modern industrial farming in some parts of the United States and Europe.
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After Man by
Dougal Dixon's work of speculative anthropology blends science and fantasy in a stunning zoology of the future. Looking 50 million years into the future, this text explores the possible development or extinction of the animal world through the eyes of the time-traveller.
Wild Migrations by
Wild Migrations: Atlas of Wyoming's Ungulates tells the story of the long-distance migrations that elk, mule deer, moose, pronghorn, bighorn sheep, bison, and mountain goats make each spring and fall across the landscapes of the American West. This book is the definitive synthesis of these epic journeys as seen through the eyes of the biologists and wildlife managers who have studied the ungulates, or hoofed mammals, of Wyoming. A century and a half ago, the push of western expansion persecuted these great herds, and some were lost. In the early twentieth century, a new ethic of wildlife conservation helped big game populations recover as the West was settled. Today many of these herds again roam Wyoming's mountains and plains. Now for the first time, scientists armed with new satellite technology are discovering and describing ungulate migrations in detail never seen before. Each spread in this full color book investigates an ecological, historical, or conservation aspect of migration through clear and compelling maps, graphics, and photos. Using a narrative style that is both accessible and scientifically rigorous, this atlas tells the nuanced story of wildlife migration, the scientists who are studying it, and the conservationists who are working to keep wild migrations flowing across western landscapes. Wild Migrations is the perfect library addition for any reader interested in wildlife and landscapes of the American West, including hunters, students, biologists, land managers, decision-makers, and outdoor enthusiasts.