Nature

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  • In a Special Light
    In a Special Light

    $11.69

    $11.69

    From:Perseus Books Group 0

    Document Overview:
    Elroy Bode's books on nature and life have made him a favorite of readers and critics. Here he explores his home city of El Paso, the land and people of Central Texas, and his roles as teacher, father, and writer. These sharply observed, beautifully written pieces find the universal in the particular — a young boy in a barbershop, plaza life, a young couple in Smokey's Barbecue. In a Special Light discovers pleasure in the lives of ordinary people, and joy in the worlds in which they live.
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  • The Cryosphere
    The Cryosphere

    $22.46

    Document Overview:
    The cryosphere encompasses the Earth's snow and ice masses. It is a critical part of our planet's climate system, one that is especially at risk from climate change and global warming. The Cryosphere provides an essential introduction to the subject, written by one of the world's leading experts in Earth-system science.In this primer, glaciologist Shawn Marshall introduces readers to the cryosphere and the broader role it plays in our global climate system. After giving a concise overview, he fully explains each component of the cryosphere and how it works—seasonal snow, permafrost, river and lake ice, sea ice, glaciers, ice sheets, and ice shelves. Marshall describes how snow and ice interact with our atmosphere and oceans and how they influence climate, sea level, and ocean circulation. He looks at the cryosphere's role in past ice ages, and considers the changing cryosphere's future impact on our landscape, oceans, and climate.Accessible and authoritative, this primer also features a glossary of key terms, suggestions for further reading, explanations of equations, and a discussion of open research questions in the field.
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  • The Great Basin
    The Great Basin

    $67.50

    Document Overview:
    Covering a large swath of the American West, the Great Basin, centered in Nevada and including parts of California, Utah, and Oregon, is named for the unusual fact that none of its rivers or streams flow into the sea. This fascinating illustrated journey through deep time is the definitive environmental and human history of this beautiful and little traveled region, home to Death Valley, the Great Salt Lake, Lake Tahoe, and the Bonneville Salt Flats. Donald K. Grayson synthesizes what we now know about the past 25,000 years in the Great Basin—its climate, lakes, glaciers, plants, animals, and peoples—based on information gleaned from the region's exquisite natural archives in such repositories as lake cores, packrat middens, tree rings, and archaeological sites. A perfect guide for students, scholars, travelers, and general readers alike, the book weaves together history, archaeology, botany, geology, biogeography, and other disciplines into one compelling panorama across a truly unique American landscape.
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  • The Failure of Environmental Education (and How We Can Fix It)
    The Failure of Environmental Education (and How We Can Fix It)

    $22.46

    Document Overview:
    At a time when wild places everywhere are vanishing before our eyes, Charles Saylan and Daniel T. Blumstein offer this passionate indictment of environmental education—along with a new vision for the future. Writing for general readers and educators alike, Saylan and Blumstein boldly argue that education today has failed to reach its potential in fighting climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental degradation. In this forward-looking book, they assess the current political climate, including the No Child Left Behind Act, a disaster for environmental education, and discuss how education can stimulate action—including decreasing consumption and demand, developing sustainable food and energy sources, and addressing poverty. Their multidisciplinary perspective encompasses such approaches as school gardens, using school buildings as teaching tools, and the greening of schoolyards. Arguing for a paradigm shift in the way we view education as a whole, The Failure of Environmental Education demonstrates how our education system can create new levels of awareness and work toward a sustainable future.
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  • Defending the Defenseless
    Defending the Defenseless

    $30.59

    Document Overview:
    Do you love cats, dogs and other pets? Do you want to do more to help protect and advocate for these pets, but don't know where to start? Defending the Defenseless is for anyone who wants to join a growing crusade to bring animal protection to its rightful place in a civilized society, to protect animals from harm inflicted by humans, and allow them to live happily in an environment that appreciates their unique qualities. Regardless of career or lifestyle, anyone can become an advocate for pets ina growing movement to defend the defenseless. This book guides readers through the variety of ways they can help companion animals and offers practical tips to get involved, from donating money to volunteering at animal shelters, from opposing animal experimentation to raising children to protect animals. Defending the Defenseless is perfect for anyone who loves animals and is seeking guidance on how to get involved.
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  • The Grand Array
    The Grand Array

    $13.49

    $13.49

    From:Perseus Books Group 0

    Document Overview:
    The Grand Array is a stunning collection of 18 essays by widely published and highly acclaimed poet Pattiann Rogers. Written over a span of 25 years, these essays show Rogers daringly yet delicately laying out her vision of the essential unity and interdependence of science, spirituality, the arts, and the sensual experience of the physical world. Composed in an anecdotal and lyrical — but never dogmatic — style, The Grand Array takes us on a journey that both celebrates human existence and questions many of our basic concepts about nature, god, and the importance of faith. Regard for the awe-inspiring but sometimes raw mysteries of nature underlies Roger's writing. At its heart, her message is celebratory und unifying — and as such it's particularly relevant in today's fractured world. Rogers calls on us to understand and move beyond the limitations of our knowledge in order to embrace the vastness of the cosmos and the place of humans in its "grand array."
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  • Basic Bird ID in Southern Africa
    Basic Bird ID in Southern Africa

    $8.09

    Document Overview:
    This clear, concise book offers a down-to-earth system for newcomers to the field of birding, using a proven formula that remains valid even among experienced birders. It trains the reader, step by step, in the art of observing birds, from assessing their general size and shape to pinpointing their diagnostic features, habitats and idiosyncrasies. Mastering these observation skills will help beginners use a field guide more effectively, thus launching them into the captivating world of birds and birding. The clear, concise text is supported by full-colour photographs, making this book an excellent introduction for beginners of all ages.
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  • The Sacred Earth
    The Sacred Earth

    $11.66

    $11.66

    From:New World Library

    Document Overview:
    Drawn from the great works of contemporary American nature writing, this profound and beautiful collection celebrates the earth and explores our spiritual relationship with nature.
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  • Deadly Beautiful
    Deadly Beautiful

    $8.99

    Document Overview:
    Did you know that the humble marmot is responsible for more than one billion human deaths? Or that it's possible to be bitten by a snake's head for up to an hour after it's been decapitated? On the flip side, for every person bitten by a shark each year, 25 people are bitten by New Yorkers. It seems that truth sometimes 'is' stranger than fiction! These facts and many more appear in this fascinating tribute to our world's 'deadly' wildlife. At its heart, however, 'Deadly Beautiful' makes a passionate plea for us to learn to better cohabit with our fellow residents of planet Earth. Ever-increasing concern for the fate of the environment and the world's endangered wildlife means that this book is a particularly timely addition to the world of natural history publishing. Dr Liana Joy Christensen, one of Australia's foremost nature writers, takes a fresh and entertaining look at the 'deadly' animals with which humans have for so long enjoyed a love–hate relationship. These animals are generally not the aggressors nor the lethal killing machines that mythology and tradition would have us believe. Most also serve vital roles in maintaining the ecological balance of their habitats, while their fascinating behaviour and often striking beauty make them worthy of close study, particularly as so many of them are facing the worst death of all — extinction. Beautifully illustrated, 'Deadly Beautiful' is certain to foster a new understanding and appreciation of these incredible animals and their importance on a global scale.
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  • Generation Us
    Generation Us

    $7.19

    Document Overview:
    In clear and accessible language, Generation Us explains the phenomenon of global warming, outlines the threat it presents to future generations and offers a path toward solutions to the problem. The reality of global warming has long been accepted within the scientific community, yet it remains a hotly debated topic at the political and social level. Why is this? Is it the fact that the ultimate effects of global warming will not be felt in our lifetimes? Do we really feel no moral responsibility for future generations? Dr. Weaver, one of the world's leading experts in the field, contends that, just as humans have been responsible for creating the problem of global warming, we must also be the solution.
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  • The World's Beaches
    The World's Beaches

    $26.96

    Document Overview:
    Take this book to the beach; it will open up a whole new world. Illustrated throughout with color photographs, maps, and graphics, it explores one of the planet's most dynamic environments—from tourist beaches to Arctic beaches strewn with ice chunks to steaming hot tropical shores. The World's Beaches tells how beaches work, explains why they vary so much, and shows how dramatic changes can occur on them in a matter of hours. It discusses tides, waves, and wind; the patterns of dunes, washover fans, and wrack lines; and the shape of berms, bars, shell lags, cusps, ripples, and blisters. What is the world's longest beach? Why do some beaches sing when you walk on them? Why do some have dark rings on their surface and tiny holes scattered far and wide? This fascinating, comprehensive guide also considers the future of beaches, and explains how extensively people have affected them—from coastal engineering to pollution, oil spills, and rising sea levels.
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  • First Life
    First Life

    $22.46

    Document Overview:
    This pathbreaking book explores how life can begin, taking us from cosmic clouds of stardust, to volcanoes on Earth, to the modern chemistry laboratory. Seeking to understand life's connection to the stars, David Deamer introduces astrobiology, a new scientific discipline that studies the origin and evolution of life on Earth and relates it to the birth and death of stars, planet formation, interfaces between minerals, water, and atmosphere, and the physics and chemistry of carbon compounds. Deamer argues that life began as systems of molecules that assembled into membrane-bound packages. These in turn provided an essential compartment in which more complex molecules assumed new functions required for the origin of life and the beginning of evolution. Deamer takes us from the vivid and unpromising chaos of the Earth four billion years ago up to the present and his own laboratory, where he contemplates the prospects for generating synthetic life. Engaging and accessible, First Life describes the scientific story of astrobiology while presenting a fascinating hypothesis to explain the origin of life.
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  • Serious Fun
    Serious Fun

    $13.50

    Document Overview:
    Creative and innovative solutions to difficult issues are presented in this practical guidebook for environmentally friendly living. Low-tech exercises for saving water, reducing waste, and preparing food help readers take communal actions to benefit their own neighborhoods, and the world at large, while having fun. By stressing that what is most essential is for human beings to relax, work, and play together, this humorous yet important resource shows that an attitude of creativity and abundance will transform environmental challenges into opportunities for personal and collective growth.
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  • Nature as Measure
    Nature as Measure

    $15.26

    $15.26

    From:Perseus Books Group 0

    Document Overview:
    Wes Jackson can teach us many things about the land, soil, and conservation, but what most resonates is this: The ecosphere is self-regulating, and as often as we attempt to understand it, we are not its builders, and our manuals will often be faulty. The only responsible way to learn the nuances of the land is to study the soil and vegetation in their natural state and pass this knowledge on to future generations.In Nature as Measure, a collection of Jackson's essays from Altars of Unhewn Stone and Becoming Native to This Place, these ideas of land conservation and education are written from the point of view of a man who has practiced what he's preached and proven that it is possible to partially restore much of the land that we've ravaged. Wes Jackson lays the foundation for a new farming economy, grounded in nature's principles and located in dying small towns and rural communities. Exploding the tenets of industrial agriculture, Jackson seeks to integrate food production with nature in a way that sustains both.
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  • A Buffalo in the House
    A Buffalo in the House

    $22.46

    $22.46

    From:Perseus Books Group 0

    Document Overview:
    A sprawling suburban house in Santa Fe is not the kind of home where a buffalo normally roams, but Veryl Goodnight and Roger Brooks are not your ordinary animal lovers. Over a hundred years after Veryl's ancestors, Charles and Mary Ann Goodnight, hand-raised two baby buffalo to help save the species from extinction, the sculptor and her husband adopt an orphaned buffalo calf of their own. Against a backdrop of the old American West, A Buffalo in the House tells the story of a household situation beyond any sitcom writer's wildest dreams.Charlie has no idea he's a buffalo and Roger has no idea just how strong the bond between man and buffalo can be. In the historical shadow of the near-extermination of a majestic and misunderstood animal, Roger sets out to save just one buffalo.Written in the tradition of Ian Frazier's Great Plains and the work of Garrison Keillor and Bill Bryson, A Buffalo in the House tells an important, uplifting story about one animal's ability to touch human lives and reconnect people of all ages to the vanished past.
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