The Sahel is a critical zone of convergence. Geographically, it links two oceans and three seas. Itself a semi-arid corridor, it functions as a giant dry river that traverses the central-north of Africa from coast to coast, demarcating the transition between the Sahara desert and the savannah. Across the land and the water came traders and adventurers seeking goods and power, bringing ideas, opportunities and challenges, sometimes, as with slavery, inflicting heavy damage upon flourishing institutions. Always rich in human diversity, bringing into contact North Africans and sub-Saharan Africans, West Africans and East Africans long before others came from outside the continent, in the Sahel cultures mixed, not always comfortably. And so they continue to mix even now. Indigenous religions met Islam, imported from the Arabian Peninsula, and Christianity from the Middle East by way of Europe.Often violent encounters across the Sahara between the largely animist indigenous Africans and MuslimArabs from North Africa, the Mediterranean and the Arabian Peninsula significantly shaped and still animate the socio-political landscape of the region. The Sahel has been the focus of dreams of wealth and power for centuries, during which the objective of overthrowing existing forms of governance to usher out the invader or colonizer and usher in a new order that is solicitous of the welfare of the people has served as the motive for many revolutions and rebellions and is the case of many Sahel countries today.Against a background of seemingly unending encounters, from the Fossatum Africae (the African Trench) in time of the Roman Emperor Hadrian to today's Mali, with powerful global currents which have often convulsed and created unwelcome dislocations in their society, the people of the Sahara-Sahel have found ways to adapt and cohere their indigenous systems to the new. This volume's contributors illuminate the past with conscientious scholarship while bringing the reader's pinpoint focus clearly into the present. Their work seeks new solutions to ongoing Sahelian problems that neither neglect the past nor are strictly limited to Sahelian applications. The chapters balance fear against hope: Fear that defenses against the ravages of climate change will be too little and too late; fear that help offered to former colonies will lead only to re-colonization; fear of lawlessness and exploitation by international criminal elements; fear of religious strife of heretofore unknown intensity on the African continent.And hope: Hope that African governments will work in unity to solve shared problems; hope that past indigenous methods of conflict resolution and agriculture, for example, can be brought to bear on present problems; hope that international cooperation with former colonizers and current investors can be achieved without domination and rebuild, as in the best of the past, a tolerant and flourishing society.

New York Times bestselling author Douglas Adams and zoologist Mark Carwardine take off around the world in search of exotic, endangered creatures.

Join them as they encounter the animal kingdom in its stunning beauty, astonishing variety, and imminent peril: the giant Komodo dragon of Indonesia, the helpless but loveable Kakapo of New Zealand, the blind river dolphins of China, the white rhinos of Zaire, the rare birds of Mauritius island in the Indian Ocean. Hilarious and poignant—as only Douglas Adams can be—Last Chance to See is an entertaining and arresting odyssey through the Earth’s magnificent wildlife galaxy.
 
Praise for Last Chance to See
 
“Lively, sharply satirical, brilliantly written . . . shows how human care can undo what human carelessness has wrought.”—The Atlantic

“These authors don’t hesitate to present the alarming facts: More than 1,000 species of animals (and plants) become extinct every year. . . . Perhaps Adams and Carwardine, with their witty science, will help prevent such misadventures in the future.”—Boston Sunday Herald
 
“Very funny and moving . . . The glimpses of rare fauna seem to have enlarged [Adams’s] thinking, enlivened his world; and so might the animals do for us all, if we were to help them live.”—The Washington Post Book World
 
“[Adams] invites us to enter into a conspiracy of laughter and caring.”—Los Angeles Times
 
“Amusing . . . thought-provoking . . . Its details on the heroic efforts being made to save these animals are inspirational.”—The New York Times Book Review

This key text brings together a team of leading contributors to address the complex issues of security reconciliation and reconstruction in post conflict societies.

Security, Reconstruction and Reconciliation is organized into four main sections:

the social, political, and economic dimensions of conflict

the impact of conflict on women and children

reconstruction and past human rights violations

disarmament, demobilization, reintegration, post-war reconstruction and the building of a capable state and the role of the international community in the peace process.

The chapters offer a detailed and succinct exposition of the challenges facing post conflict societies by articulating the vision of a new society. With a foreword by Francis Deng, the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative on Internally Displaced Persons, the authors discuss the issues in the context of possible solutions and lessons learnt in the field.

This new book is a valuable resource for researchers, policy makers and students in the fields of conflict resolution, security studies, law and development.

DIVRoderick Nash’s classic study of changing attitudes toward wilderness during American history, as well as the origins of the environmental and conservation movements, has received wide acclaim since its initial publication in 1967. The Los Angeles Times listed it among the one hundred most influential books published in the last quarter century, Outside Magazine included it in a survey of “books that changed our world,” and it has been called the “Book of Genesis for environmentalists.”
 
For the fifth edition, Nash has written a new preface and epilogue that brings Wilderness and the American Mind into dialogue with contemporary debates about wilderness. Char Miller’s foreword provides a twenty-first-century perspective on how the environmental movement has changed, including the ways in which contemporary scholars are reimagining the dynamic relationship between the natural world and the built environment./div

China, in the past five years, has developed a proactive global policy and is emerging as a new global power with particular focus on developing countries in Central Asia, Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa. What is the role of Africa in China's emerging global foreign policy? In 1998, China's aid to Africa was $107 million. By 2004, it had reached $2.7 billion, 26% of its international assistance that year. In 2005, Africa-China trade reached $40 billion, 35% up from the previous year. China is interested mainly in four sectors: infrastructure projects, regional banks such as the African Development Bank, training of African professionals particularly in economic management, and institutions of higher education with the goal of establishing Chinese language programs. The human factor is also important. Chinese Diaspora is fast increasing. For example, in Zambia, it grew from 3,000 to 30,000 in ten years and, in South Africa, from practically none to 300,000. African countries constitute a new market for Chinese products. They also provide a source of raw materials. Today, the continent supplies 30% of China's import of oil and gas, Angola being the largest supplier with 522,000 barrels of oil per day to China. The last five years, Chinese oil companies spent $15 billion acquiring oil fields and local companies. The appetite for raw materials goes beyond oil and gas and China's foreign political strategy is primarily to solve its own domestic problems and protect its interests in the global arena. Will Africa be a pawn or a player in this emerging geopolitical game? Will China's deepening relations with the continent represent a new opportunity for African countries to negotiate a new partnership and skillfully use it to the best advantage of their citizens? These are some of the questions contributors to the volume have tried to answer by examining various facets of these deepening relations and underlining areas of concerns as well as the opportunities for mutually rewarding relations.

A classic exposé in company with An Inconvenient Truth and Silent Spring, The Story of Stuff expands on the celebrated documentary exploring the threat of overconsumption on the environment, economy, and our health. Leonard examines the “stuff” we use everyday, offering a galvanizing critique and steps for a changed planet.

The Story of Stuff was received with widespread enthusiasm in hardcover, by everyone from Stephen Colbert to Tavis Smiley to George Stephanopolous on Good Morning America, as well as far-reaching print and blog coverage. Uncovering and communicating a critically important idea—that there is an intentional system behind our patterns of consumption and disposal—Annie Leonard transforms how we think about our lives and our relationship to the planet.

From sneaking into factories and dumps around the world to visiting textile workers in Haiti and children mining coltan for cell phones in the Congo, Leonard, named one of Time magazine’s 100 environmental heroes of 2009, highlights each step of the materials economy and its actual effect on the earth and the people who live near sites like these.

With curiosity, compassion, and humor, Leonard shares concrete steps for taking action at the individual and political level that will bring about sustainability, community health, and economic justice. Embraced by teachers, parents, churches, community centers, activists, and everyday readers, The Story of Stuff will be a long-lived classic.

All new text, some re-use images, but no disclaimer needed.

This is a new, fresh series of Nature Guides with all-new content. With a clean, modern design, these books are perfect for the beginner naturalist and family reference.

From trees to rocks and minerals, and birds to stars and planets, each volume provides a thorough introduction and detailed, clearly illustrated profiles of hundreds of examples from within that subject area. Each book is packed with stunning photography, and key information is provided by expert contributors. The books are carefully structured, with catalog entries organized into easily understood groups that the newcomer will have no difficulty in navigating and the more experienced reader will appreciate. Each profile centers on a high-impact commissioned image of the subject, allowing instant identification, and is accompanied by concise, authoritative text. Additional images provide context, while a data panel summarizes key facts about each example.

Each title opens with an introductory section that explains each subject in detail. This is followed by a comprehensive illustrated catalog. A glossary of key terms and a detailed index complete each volume.

About the Imprimatur: The Smithsonian Institution is the largest museum complex in the world and a research center for research dedicated to public education and scholarship in the arts, sciences, and history.

In light of the opportunities and the challenges facing African economies in the 21st century, this edited volume traces the evolution of poverty in the course of economic development in sub-Saharan Africa over the recent decades. By engaging with, and seeking to develop on, the work of Professor Erik Thorbecke, it examines the evolving dynamics of poverty in multiple dimensions. It also discusses how to lay down foundations for improved governance and institutions that will realize inclusive development in sub-Saharan Africa. Thus, the volume contributes to our understanding of dynamics of pro-poor growth and pro-growth poverty reduction, and to the on-going policy and academic debates on how to overcome fragility and vulnerability and secure inclusive development through socio-economic transformation in sub-Saharan Africa. The volume is divided into four parts; two overview chapters in Part 1 set out a common theme running through the volume. Four chapters in Part II examine an evolution of the poverty profile in different dimensions in sub-Saharan Africa since the new millennium. Part III presents three country case studies of tracing poverty dynamics under a country-specific institutional and policy environment. Part IV consists of three chapters, each of which addresses the question of how to advance an inclusive development agenda in sub-Saharan Africa, but from three different perspectives: structural changes, a governance framework, and an institutional foundation.

The Pacific Northwest offers a veritable feast for foragers. The forests, meadows, streambanks, and even the weedy margins of neighborhoods are home to an abundance of delicious wild edible plants. Discover wild lilies with their peppery flowers, buds, and seeds and use them in your spring salads. Select sweet, succulent thistles or the shoots of invasive Himalayan blackberries and Japanese knotweed to add wonderful flavor to hearty soups.

This book is an anthology of essays contributing new scholarship to the contemporary discourse on the concept of aid. It provides an interdisciplinary investigation of the role of aid in African development, compiling the work of historians, political scientists, legal scholars, and economists to examine where aid has failed and to offer new perspectives on how aid can be made more effective.

Questions regarding the effectiveness of aid are addressed here using specific case studies. The question of ownership is examined in the context of two debates: 1) to what extent should aid be designed by the recipient country itself? and 2) should aid focus on “need” or “performance”? That is, should donors direct aid to the poorest countries, regardless of their policies and governance, or should aid “reward” countries for doing the right thing? The future of aid is also addressed: should aid continue to be a part of the development agenda for countries in sub-Saharan Africa? If so, how much and what type of aid is needed, and how it can be made most effective?

The major criticism against aid is that it cripples the recipient country’s economic growth by turning it into a passive receiver; in addition, it has been noted that aid is mostly supply-driven, depending upon donors rather than the actual needs of recipients. For this reason, aid may not meet the goals for which it was intended.

To meet the needs of the communities they want to help, donors should work through consultation and a measure of recipient ownership. Donors need to understand context, to protect human rights, and to be guided by principles of social and environmental justice. Other suggested strategies for making aid more effective include peer review; self-assessment; the empowerment of women; encouraging accountability; investing in agriculture; helping smallholder subsistence farmers; introducing ethical and professional standards for civil service; and raising the competence of civil servants.

The Northeast offers a veritable feast for foragers. The woods, meadows, seashore, and even city neighborhoods are home to an abundance of delicious wild edible plants. Learn how to find spicy peppergrass seedpods in a sunny meadow to replace store-bought peppercorns. You can gather delicious cattail shoots for a spring salad and even tame some weedy, pungent garlic mustard in your next stir-fry.

Gender plays a hugely significant and too often under-considered role in predicting how accessible resources such as education, wage-based employment, physical and mental health care, adequate nutrition and housing will be to an individual or community.

According to a 2001 World Bank report titled Engendering Development—Through Gender Equality in Rights, Resources, and Voice, enormous disparities exist between men and women in terms of basic rights and the power to determine the future, both in Africa and around the globe. A better understanding of the links between gender, public policy and development outcomes would allow for more effective policy formulation and implementation at many levels. This book, through its discussion of the challenges, achievements and lessons learned in efforts to attain gender equality, sheds light on these important issues.

The book contains chapters from an interdisciplinary group of scholars, including sociologists, economists, political scientists, scholars of law, anthropologists, historians and others. The work includes analysis of strategic gender initiatives, case studies, research, and policies as well as conceptual and theoretical pieces.

With its format of ideas, resources and recorded experiences as well as theoretical models and best practices, the book is an important contribution to academic and political discourse on the intricate links between gender, power, and social change in Africa and around the world.

From seashores and riverbanks to mountains, valleys, and overgrown fields, the beautiful Southeast is rich in wild edibles.
 
Forager, farmer, teacher, and chef Chris Bennett helps you find the most delicious plants—from delectable wild greens, like the often-overlooked sweet, fan-shaped leaves of common mallow to wild hazelnuts, hickory nuts, and fruity black walnuts. Try making syrup from summer’s honeysuckle blooms, simmer a rosehip jam, or pickle some blackberries in vinegar to spark up a savory dish. Whether you venture out on the water for cattail corndogs and wild rice or stay close to home for the candy-crunch of hackberry fruits, this book will help you find an abundance of wild plants right outside your door.

What is the state of governance in sub-Saharan Africa? Is it possible to identify the best practices and approaches to establishing political systems that promote accountability, transparency, peace, and civic space for all? These are the questions addressed in this book.

While the concept of governance is considered to be central to political science, our understanding of it is still imprecise, with extant studies focused primarily either on think-tank indicators, economic management, or political studies of democratization. This book critically examines the record on democratization in Africa thus far, and seeks a new, integrated, focused approach to the study of governance.

Such an approach requires revisiting the concept of governance itself, with emphasis on certain decisive components and critical issues. Considered in a democratic framework, the concept of governance can be employed to cast light on accountability issues in several arenas, four of which are considered in detail in this volume: institutions and the rule of law; constitution-making, elections, and political conflict settlement; distribution of power and citizenship; and political economy and corruption. Each contribution offers particular insights in one of these arenas.

With a huge and varied continent in rapid flux to study, the sheer amount and variety of interesting new research is enormous. It is expected that the discussions contained herein and the various challenges, achievements, and lessons outlined will contribute to research, inform teaching, and lead to a greater understanding of the issues of democratic consolidation and economic development in Africa.

The Tree Faller’s Manual is an essential handbook for forest operators and others who need to fell trees manually using a hand-held chainsaw. This manual builds on the information provided by the Chainsaw Operator’s Manual. Tree felling is a high risk activity. Many fatalities and serious injuries have occurred as a result of being struck by falling trees, dislodged tree limbs or other dangers in the area. Most of these accidents are caused by using unsafe felling techniques and not following safe work procedures. This manual will guide the faller to safer work techniques. The manual is based on the national competency standards for the forest and forest products industry where tree-felling is covered using three categories: basic, intermediate and advanced. Basic tree felling applies to trees that are relatively small, with a single stem and no defects. Intermediate tree felling covers trees with single or multiple stems, limited defects, and lean and weight distribution that can be adapted to felling direction. Advanced tree felling applies to larger and more complex trees and includes trees deemed to be more hazardous. Workplace safety, risk assessment and site preparation are included along with the theory, techniques and tools for each of the tree-felling categories.

In light of the opportunities and the challenges facing African economies in the 21st century, this edited volume traces the evolution of poverty in the course of economic development in sub-Saharan Africa over the recent decades. By engaging with, and seeking to develop on, the work of Professor Erik Thorbecke, it examines the evolving dynamics of poverty in multiple dimensions. It also discusses how to lay down foundations for improved governance and institutions that will realize inclusive development in sub-Saharan Africa. Thus, the volume contributes to our understanding of dynamics of pro-poor growth and pro-growth poverty reduction, and to the on-going policy and academic debates on how to overcome fragility and vulnerability and secure inclusive development through socio-economic transformation in sub-Saharan Africa. The volume is divided into four parts; two overview chapters in Part 1 set out a common theme running through the volume. Four chapters in Part II examine an evolution of the poverty profile in different dimensions in sub-Saharan Africa since the new millennium. Part III presents three country case studies of tracing poverty dynamics under a country-specific institutional and policy environment. Part IV consists of three chapters, each of which addresses the question of how to advance an inclusive development agenda in sub-Saharan Africa, but from three different perspectives: structural changes, a governance framework, and an institutional foundation.

From fields to woodlands, riverbeds, and lakesides—and even in our own neighborhoods—the beautiful Midwest is rich in delicious wild edibles. Herbalist, forager, and urban farmer Lisa M. Rose helps you find peppery watercress and delectable nettles at a nearby lake in the spring and nutritious burdock roots from sunny fields in the fall. Try brewing chai from roasted hickory or beech nuts, or capturing the citrus notes of pine needles in a lightly fermented, aromatic ale. Savor the delicate snow-pea flavor of rampant kudzu greens in the southern part of the region, or, in cool-running northern marsh waters, gather nutty wild rice for a foraged feast. 

This book derives from a symposium held at Cornell University in April 2014. The symposium explored development financing, which has become an important area of policy discussion in Africa and other developing areas in recent years. Using multifaceted and multidisciplinary analytical approaches, it considers the role of the banking system, the stock market, credit access, external aid, and sovereign wealth funds in the evolving development finance architecture. Further, the volume looks at China’s role as an aid donor, the impact of BRICs partnerships in South Africa, the role of NEPAD in mobilizing resources for infrastructure development, and the links between law, trade, and regional integration. The study concurs with previous analyses that greater access to credit by the poor represents the most effective way of fighting poverty and raising the standards of living in Africa. Cornell’s Institute for African Development and the African Development Bank were cosponsors of the 2014 symposium.

Forage the flavors of the west!
 
Southwest Foraging helps new and experienced foragers find the most flavorful wild plants the region has to offer, including barrel cactus, chickweed, Indian tea, and saguaro. This savvy, accessible, full-color guide shows you what to look for, when and where to look, and how to gather in a responsible way. It profiles 117 plants, with detailed information for safe identification, advice on sustainable harvesting, and tips on preparation and use.
 

The central role that good, effective and capable governance plays in the economic and social development of a country is now widely recognised. Using the Commonwealth countries of eastern and southern Africa, this book analyses some of the key constitutional issues in the process of developing, strengthening and consolidating the capacity of states to ensure the good governance of their peoples. Utilising comparative material, the book seeks to draw lessons, both positive and negative, about the problems of constitutionalism in the region and, in doing so, critically addresses the legal issues involved in seeking to make constitutions 'work' in practice.

Unleash the healing power of wild plants

Pacific Northwest Medicinal Plants is an accessible introduction to finding and using wild plants for health and wellness. Beginners seeking reliable advice and experienced practitioners on the hunt for new information alike will delight in the plant profiles, color photographs, step-by-step instruction for essential herbal remedies, and seasonal foraging tips. This indispensable guide to finding, harvesting, and using wild plants is for wildcrafters in Alaska, Oregon, Washington, northern California, and British Columbia.

Africa faces serious challenges in the world of globalisation. One of the most serious and basic of these challenges is that of information and communication technologies. Meeting the range of social, economic and political goals in the contemporary world requires the meeting of the information challenge. This volume - primarily the product of a specialist meeting at Cornell University - provides both overview and detail on how this challenge can be and is being met.

The Everglades was once reviled as a liquid wasteland, and Americans dreamed of draining it. Now it is revered as a national treasure, and Americans have launched the largest environmental project in history to try to save it. The Swamp is the stunning story of the destruction and possible resurrection of the Everglades, the saga of man's abuse of nature in southern Florida and his unprecedented efforts to make amends. Michael Grunwald, a prize-winning national reporter for The Washington Post, takes readers on a riveting journey from the Ice Ages to the present, illuminating the natural, social and political history of one of America's most beguiling but least understood patches of land.

The Everglades was America's last frontier, a wild country long after the West was won. Grunwald chronicles how a series of visionaries tried to drain and "reclaim" it, and how Mother Nature refused to bend to their will; in the most harrowing tale, a 1928 hurricane drowned 2,500 people in the Everglades. But the Army Corps of Engineers finally tamed the beast with levees and canals, converting half the Everglades into sprawling suburbs and sugar plantations. And though the southern Everglades was preserved as a national park, it soon deteriorated into an ecological mess. The River of Grass stopped flowing, and 90 percent of its wading birds vanished.

Now America wants its swamp back. Grunwald shows how a new breed of visionaries transformed Everglades politics, producing the $8 billion rescue plan. That plan is already the blueprint for a new worldwide era of ecosystem restoration. And this book is a cautionary tale for that era. Through gripping narrative and dogged reporting, Grunwald shows how the Everglades is still threatened by the same hubris, greed and well-intentioned folly that led to its decline.

Compact and easy-to-use, Nature Guide: Gems provides a thorough introduction and detailed, clearly illustrated profiles of hundreds of examples of precious metals, cut stones, and organics. This Smithsonian guide is packed with stunning photography and key information provided by expert contributors. Nature Guide: Gems is carefully structured, with catalog entries organized into easily understood groups that the newcomer will have no difficulty in navigating and the more experienced reader will appreciate.

In this lavishly illustrated book well-known environmental historian Alfred Runte, a prominent figure on the Ken Burns documentary The National Parks: America's Best Idea, tells the highly engaging story of the development of our national parks, from the first national park, Yellowstone, to the more recent decision to set aside vast tracts of Alaska for preservation.

Los Llanos—the rain-leached, eastern savannas of war-ravaged Colombia—are among the most brutal environments on Earth and an unlikely setting for one of the most hopeful environmental stories ever told. Here, in the late 1960s, a young Colombian development worker named Paolo Lugari wondered if the nearly uninhabited, infertile llanos could be made livable for his country’s growing population. He had no idea that nearly four decades later, his experiment would be one of the world’s most celebrated examples of sustainable living: a permanent village called Gaviotas.

In the absence of infrastructure, the first Gaviotans invented wind turbines to convert mild breezes into energy, hand pumps capable of tapping deep sources of water, and solar collectors efficient enough to heat and even sterilize drinking water under perennially cloudy llano skies. Over time, the Gaviotans’ experimentation has even restored an ecosystem: in the shelter of two million Caribbean pines planted as a source of renewable commercial resin, a primordial rain forest that once covered the llanos is unexpectedly reestablishing itself.

Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez has called Paolo Lugari “Inventor of the World.” Lugari himself has said that Gaviotas is not a utopia: “Utopia literally means ‘no place.’ We call Gaviotas a topia, because it’s real.”

Relive their story with this special 10th-anniversary edition of Gaviotas, complete with a new afterword by the author describing how Gaviotas has survived and progressed over the past decade.

Moral Ground brings together the testimony of over eighty visionaries—theologians and religious leaders, scientists, elected officials, business leaders, naturalists, activists, and writers—to present a diverse and compelling call to honor our individual and collective moral responsibility to our planet. In the face of environmental degradation and global climate change, scientific knowledge alone does not tell us what we ought to do. The missing premise of the argument and much-needed center piece in the debate to date has been the need for ethical values, moral guidance, and principled reasons for doing the right thing for our planet, its animals, its plants, and its people.

Contributors from throughout the world (including North America, Africa, Australia, Asia, and Europe) bring forth a rich variety of heritages and perspectives. Their contributions take many forms, illustrating the rich variety of ways we express our moral beliefs in letters, poems, economic analyses, proclamations, essays, and stories. In the end, their voices affirm why we must move beyond a scientific study and response to embrace an ongoing model of repair and sustainability. These writings demonstrate that scientific analysis and moral conviction can work successfully side-by-side.

This is a book that can speak to anyone, regardless of his or her worldview, and that also includes a section devoted to “what next” thinking that helps the reader put the words and ideas into action in their personal lives. Thanks to generous support from numerous landmark organizations, such as the Kendeda Fund and Germeshausen Foundation, the book is just the starting point for a national, and international, discussion that will be carried out in a variety of ways, from online debate to “town hall” meetings, from essay competitions for youth to sermons from pulpits in all denominations. The “Moral Ground movement” will result in a newly discovered, or rediscovered, commitment on a personal and community level to consensus about our ethical obligation to the future.

In the middle of the Mojave Desert, Las Vegas casinos use billions of gallons of water for fountains, pirate lagoons, wave machines, and indoor canals. Meanwhile, the town of Orme, Tennessee, must truck in water from Alabama because it has literally run out.

Robert Glennon captures the irony—and tragedy—of America’s water crisis in a book that is both frightening and wickedly comical. From manufactured snow for tourists in Atlanta to trillions of gallons of water flushed down the toilet each year, Unquenchable reveals the heady extravagances and everyday inefficiencies that are sucking the nation dry.

The looming catastrophe remains hidden as government diverts supplies from one area to another to keep water flowing from the tap. But sooner rather than later, the shell game has to end. And when it does, shortages will threaten not only the environment, but every aspect of American life: we face shuttered power plants and jobless workers, decimated fi sheries and contaminated drinking water.

We can’t engineer our way out of the problem, either with traditional fixes or zany schemes to tow icebergs from Alaska. In fact, new demands for water, particularly the enormous supply needed for ethanol and energy production, will only worsen the crisis. America must make hard choices—and Glennon’s answers are fittingly provocative. He proposes market-based solutions that value water as both a commodity and a fundamental human right.

One truth runs throughout Unquenchable: only when we recognize water’s worth will we begin to conserve it.

New York Times and Los Angeles Times Bestseller!

As every day brings urgent reports of growing water shortages around the world, there is no time to lose in the search for solutions.

The U.S. government predicts that forty of our fifty states-and 60 percent of the earth's land surface-will soon face alarming gaps between available water and the growing demand for it. Without action, food prices will rise, economic growth will slow, and political instability is likely to follow.

Let There Be Water illustrates how Israel can serve as a model for the United States and countries everywhere by showing how to blunt the worst of the coming water calamities. Even with 60 percent of its country made of desert, Israel has not only solved its water problem; it also had an abundance of water. Israel even supplies water to its neighbors-the Palestinians and the Kingdom of Jordan-every day.

Based on meticulous research and hundreds of interviews, Let There Be Water reveals the methods and techniques of the often offbeat inventors who enabled Israel to lead the world in cutting-edge water technology.
Let There Be Water also tells unknown stories of how cooperation on water systems can forge diplomatic ties and promote unity. Remarkably, not long ago, now-hostile Iran relied on Israel to manage its water systems, and access to Israel's water know-how helped to warm China's frosty relations with Israel.

Beautifully written, Seth M. Siegel's Let There Be Water is and inspiring account of the vision and sacrifice by a nation and people that have long made water security a top priority. Despite scant natural water resources, a rapidly growing population and economy, and often hostile neighbors, Israel has consistently jumped ahead of the water innovation-curve to assure a dynamic, vital future for itself. Every town, every country, and every reader can benefit from learning what Israel did to overcome daunting challenges and transform itself from a parched land into a water superpower.

The latest Scandinavian publishing phenomenon is not a Stieg Larsson–like thriller; it’s a book about chopping, stacking, and burning wood that has sold more than 200,000 copies in Norway and Sweden and has been a fixture on the bestseller lists there for more than a year. Norwegian Wood provides useful advice on the rustic hows and whys of taking care of your heating needs, but it’s also a thoughtful attempt to understand man’s age-old predilection for stacking wood and passion for open fires. An intriguing window into the exoticism of Scandinavian culture, the book also features enough inherently interesting facts and anecdotes and inspired prose to make it universally appealing. The U.S. edition is a fully updated version of the Norwegian original, and includes an appendix of U.S.-based resources and contacts.
 

"The genius of Hanson's fascinating, inspiring, and entertaining book stems from the fact that it is not about how all kinds of things grow from seeds; it is about the seeds themselves." --Mark Kurlansky, New York Times Book Review
We live in a world of seeds. From our morning toast to the cotton in our clothes, they are quite literally the stuff and staff of life: supporting diets, economies, and civilizations around the globe. Just as the search for nutmeg and pepper drove the Age of Discovery, coffee beans fueled the Enlightenment and cottonseed sparked the Industrial Revolution. Seeds are fundamental objects of beauty, evolutionary wonders, and simple fascinations. Yet, despite their importance, seeds are often seen as commonplace, their extraordinary natural and human histories overlooked. Thanks to this stunning new book, they can be overlooked no more. This is a book of knowledge, adventure, and wonder, spun by an award-winning writer with both the charm of a fireside story-teller and the hard-won expertise of a field biologist. A fascinating scientific adventure, it is essential reading for anyone who loves to see a plant grow.

Turn on the faucet, and water pours out. Pull out the drain plug, and the dirty water disappears. Most of us give little thought to the hidden systems that bring us water and take it away when we’re done with it. But these underappreciated marvels of engineering face an array of challenges that cannot be solved without a fundamental change to our relationship with water, David Sedlak explains in this enlightening book. To make informed decisions about the future, we need to understand the three revolutions in urban water systems that have occurred over the past 2,500 years and the technologies that will remake the system.div /DIVdivThe author starts by describing Water 1.0, the early Roman aqueducts, fountains, and sewers that made dense urban living feasible. He then details the development of drinking water and sewage treatment systems—the second and third revolutions in urban water. He offers an insider’s look at current systems that rely on reservoirs, underground pipe networks, treatment plants, and storm sewers to provide water that is safe to drink, before addressing how these water systems will have to be reinvented. For everyone who cares about reliable, clean, abundant water, this book is essential reading./DIV

From iron to uranium, titanium to silicon, this is “a wide-ranging look at scientific progress. It’s also a lot of fun” (The Wall Street Journal).

Iron. Carbon. Gold. Silver. Uranium. Titanium. Silicon. These elements of the periodic table have shaped our lives and our world, in ways both good and bad. Combining history, science, and politics, this “lively, educational examination of civilization’s building blocks” reveals the fascinating story (Publishers Weekly).

With carbon, we can access heat, light, and mobility at the flick of a switch. Silicon enables us to communicate across the globe in an instant. Uranium is both productive (nuclear power) and destructive (nuclear bombs). Iron is the bloody weapon of war, but also the economic tool of peace. And our desire for alluring gold is the foundation of global trade—but it has also led to the death of millions.

Explaining how titanium pervades modern consumer culture and how an innovative new form of carbon could be starting a technology revolution, Seven Elements That Changed the World is an adventure in human passion, ingenuity, and discovery—and the latest chapter in a journey that is far from over. 

In a book hailed by Publishers Weekly as a “passionate plea for access to water activism,” Blue Covenant addresses an environmental crisis that—together with global warming—poses one of the gravest threats to our survival.

How did the world’s most vital resource become imperiled? And what must we do to pull back from the brink? In “stark and nearly devastating prose” (Booklist ), world-renowned activist and bestselling author Maude Barlow—who is featured in the acclaimed documentary Flow —discusses the state of the world’s water. Barlow examines how water companies are reaping vast profits from declining supplies, and how ordinary people from around the world have banded together to reclaim the public’s right to clean water, creating a grassroots global water justice movement. While tracing the history of international battles for the right to water, she documents the life-and-death stakes involved in the fight and lays out the actions that we as global citizens must take to secure a water-just world for all.

As people around the world turn their attention to the effects of climate change, Blue Covenant is a timely and important reminder for us to take heed of the global water crisis’s impact on humans and the natural world.

A grand, sweeping saga of sacrifice and struggle, this epic tale recaptures the world of Norwegian homesteaders at the turn of the twentieth century. Isak and Inger, an idealistic young couple, reject modern society to raise their family on a back country farm. Isak's embrace of outdoor life reflects author Knut Hamsun's attitude of rugged individualism and his back-to-nature philosophy. Rich in symbolism, this moving tale of peasant life and the search for spiritual fulfillment in nature continues to resonate with modern readers.
First published in Norwegian in 1917, Growth of the Soil created an international sensation and led to the author's 1920 Nobel Prize in Literature. The New Yorker noted that "the list of those who loved [Hamsun's] sly, anarchic voice is long," naming Ernest Hemingway, Hermann Hesse, and André Gide as fans. "I am not usually lavish with my praise," remarked H. G. Wells, "but indeed the book impresses me as among the very greatest novels I have ever read."

Unleash the healing power of wild plants

Midwest Medicinal Plants is a comprehensive guide for foraging and natural medicine that is accessible to everyone, from beginners seeking reliable advice to experienced practitioners on the hunt for new information. You’ll find plant profiles, color photographs, step-by-step instruction for essential herbal remedies, and seasonal foraging tips. This must-have resource to finding, harvesting, and using wild plants covers Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, and Ontario.

Everyone who has ever dreamed of getting back to the soil will derive from Maurice Grenville Kains' practical and easy-to-understand discussions a more complete view of what small-scale farming means. Countless readers of Five Acres and Independence have come away with specific projects to begin and moved closer to the fulfillment of their dreams of independence on a small farm.
Whether you already own a suitable place or are still looking, Five Acres and Independence will help you learn to evaluate land for both its total economic and its specific agricultural possibilities. There are methods of calculating costs of permanent improvements — draining the land, improving soil, planting wind breaks, putting in septic tanks, cellars, irrigation systems, greenhouses, etc. — and methods of carrying out those improvements. There are suggestions for specific crops — strawberries, grapes, vegetables, orchards, spring, summer, and fall crops, transplanting, timing, repairing what already exists — with methods of deciding what is best for your land and purposes and techniques for making each of them pay. There are suggestions for animals for the small-scale farmer — goats, chickens, bees — and means of working them into your overall farm design. And there are suggestions for keeping your small farm in top production condition, methods of continually increasing the value of your farm, methods of marketing your produce and of accurately investing in improvements — virtually everything a small-scale farmer needs to know to make his venture economically sound.
Some things, of course, have changed since 1940 when M. G. Kains revised Five Acres and Independence. But the basic down-to-earth advice of one of the most prominent men in American agriculture and the methods of farming the small-scale, pre-DDT farm are still essentially the same. Much of the information in this book was built on USDA and state farm bureau reports; almost all of it was personally tested by M. G. Kains, either on his own farms or on farms of the people who trusted him as an experienced consultant. His book went through more than 30 editions in the first 10 years after its original publication. It has helped countless small farmers attain their dreams, and it continues today as an exceptional resource for those who want to make their first farming attempt.

How much of global warming is due to human activities? How far will it be possible to adapt to changes of climate? Sir John Houghton's definitive, full colour guide to climate change answers these questions and more by providing the best and latest information available, including the latest IPCC findings. The simple, logical flow of ideas gives an invaluable grounding in the science, as well as the physical and human impacts of climate change for undergraduate students across a wide range of disciplines. Accessible to both scientists and non-scientists, the text avoids mathematical equations and includes more technical material in boxes, while simple figures help students to understand the conclusions the science leads to without being overwhelmed by vast amounts of data. Questions for students to consider and test their understanding are included in each chapter, along with carefully selected further reading to expand their knowledge.

This textbook is written for first-year graduate students and senior level undergraduates in economics. . . Graduate students in geography, water resources, and environmental management should also be interested. The well done helpful diagrams and charts

Through lively, engaging narrative, Understories demonstrates how volatile politics of race, class, and nation animate the notoriously violent struggles over forests in the southwestern United States. Rather than reproduce traditional understandings of nature and environment, Jake Kosek shifts the focus toward material and symbolic “natures,” seemingly unchangeable essences central to formations of race, class, and nation that are being remade not just through conflicts over resources but also through everyday practices by Chicano activists, white environmentalists, and state officials as well as nuclear scientists, heroin addicts, and health workers. Drawing on two years of ethnographic fieldwork and extensive archival research, he shows how these contentious natures are integral both to environmental politics and the formation of racialized citizens, politicized landscapes, and modern regimes of rule.

Kosek traces the histories of forest extraction and labor exploitation in northern New Mexico, where Hispano residents have forged passionate attachments to place. He describes how their sentiments of dispossession emerged through land tenure systems and federal management programs that remade forest landscapes as exclusionary sites of national and racial purity. Fusing fine-grained ethnography with insights gleaned from cultural studies and science studies, Kosek shows how the nationally beloved Smokey the Bear became a symbol of white racist colonialism for many Hispanos in the region, while Los Alamos National Laboratory, at once revered and reviled, remade regional ecologies and economies. Understories offers an innovative vision of environmental politics, one that challenges scholars as well as activists to radically rework their understandings of relations between nature, justice, and identity.

Water scarcity is on everyone's mind. Long taken for granted, water availability has entered the realm of economics, politics, and people's food and lifestyle choices. But as anxiety mounts - even as a swath of California farmland has been left fallow and extremist groups worldwide exploit the desperation of people losing livelihoods to desertification - many are finding new routes to water security with key implications for food access, economic resilience, and climate change.

Water does not perish, nor require millions of years to form as do fossil fuels. However, water is always on the move. In this timely, important book, Judith D. Schwartz presents a refreshing perspective on water that transcends zero-sum thinking. By allying with the water cycle, we can revive lush, productive landscapes. Like the river in rural Zimbabwe that, thanks to restorative grazing, now flows miles further than in living memory. Or the food forest of oranges, pomegranates, and native fruit-bearing plants in Tucson, grown through harvesting urban wastewater. Or the mini-oasis in West Texas nourished by dew.

Animated by stories from around the globe, Water In Plain Sight is an inspiring reminder that fixing the future of our drying planet involves understanding what makes natural systems thrive.

Energy sustainability and climate change are two of the greatest challenges facing humankind. Unraveling these complex and interconnected issues demands careful and objective assessment. Fact and Fiction in Global Energy Policy aims to change the prevailing discourse by examining fifteen core energy questions from a variety of perspectives, demonstrating how, for each of them, no clear-cut answer exists.

Is industry the chief energy villain? Can we sustainably feed and fuel the planet at the same time? Is nuclear energy worth the risk? Should geoengineering be outlawed? Touching on pollution, climate mitigation and adaptation, energy efficiency, government intervention, and energy security, the authors explore interrelated concepts of law, philosophy, ethics, technology, economics, psychology, sociology, and public policy.

This book offers a much-needed critical appraisal of the central energy technology and policy dilemmas of our time and the impact of these on multiple stakeholders.

-- Elizabeth Shove, Lancaster University

The world of veterinary medicine is changing. People are realizing that if alternative medicine is better for them, it's better for their pets, too. Dogs are visiting acupuncturists, chiropractic doctors, and homeopaths. Still, many dog owners are unaware that such simple measures as changing their pet's diet and using vitamins, herbs, and other natural cures can help prevent or heal ailments ranging from excessive scratching to depression to a host of serious diseases.

The Veterinarians' Guide to Natural Remedies for Dogs is both an introduction and a guide to the vast world of natural healing methods, treatments, and foods now available for dogs. Author Martin Zucker offers advice from dozens of holistic practitioners and licensed veterinarians, who share their recipes, insights, and "prescriptions." Here dog owners will find information on everything from nutritional supplements to massage therapy, as well as how these treatments can be used alone or in conjunction with traditional medications and surgical techniques.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

The Golden State is home to an abundance of delicious wild edible plants. From woodlands to wetlands, grasslands to mountains, and coast to desert, delectable and unique wild foods beckon the curious forager. Consider the delights of blending wild borage leaves into a pungent pesto and decorating a salad with the blue, star-shaped flowers. If you’re in the desert, sample the sweet-tasting blooms and pea-like seeds of blue palo verde. In wetlands gather cattail pollen for golden pancakes. Plan a foraged feast. 

WE KNOW, from repeated failures to predict and prevent catastrophes ranging from the Great Tohoku Earthquake to the global financial crisis of 2008, that complex adaptive systems, such as those found in nature or in economies, are actually very hard to predict, much less influence. Today, we face environmental degradation caused in large part by the use of fossil fuels, ever-declining efficiencies in extracting them, a pace of development for renewable energy insufficient for replacement of the fossil fuels we are burning through, and population growth that is likely to add two billion people globally by 2045. Despite partial recovery since the financial crisis of 2008, growth remains sluggish, and large budget deficits persist across much of the developed world. Meanwhile, developing states face their own challenges, stemming from unbalanced growth. Against this backdrop, and in light of the urgent need to pay closer heed to our environment, the last thing the world needs is an energy crisis triggered not merely by recurrent scares over supply, but by more lasting structural changes in our ability to use fossil fuels with reckless abandon. Buying Time applies lessons learned the hard way from the global economic crisis of the past decade, to offer an overview of the state of the environment and our energy future. Grounded in subtle thinking about complex systems, including the economy, energy, and the environment, this book underscores the connections linking them all. Kaz Makabe is a veteran financial systems expert who lived through the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. He nevertheless concludes that nuclear energy is the bridge than can help us cross over the abyss we face.

Imagine you are first in line at a potluck buffet. The spread includes not just food and water, but all the materials needed for shelter, clothing, healthcare, and education. How do you know how much to take? How much is enough to leave for your neighbors behind you—not just the six billion people, but the wildlife, and the as-yet-unborn?

In the face of looming ecological disaster, many people feel the need to change their own lifestyles as a tangible way of transforming our unsustainable culture. Radical Simplicity is the first book that guides the reader to a personal sustainability goal, then offers a process to monitor progress to a lifestyle that is equitable amongst all people, species, and generations. It employs three tools to help readers begin their customized journey to simplicity:

It uses refined tools from Our Ecological Footprint so readers can measure how much nature is needed to supply all they consume and absorb their waste.
Combining lyrical narrative, compassionate advocacy, and absorbing science, Radical Simplicity is a practical, personal answer to twenty-first century challenges that will appeal as much to Cultural Creatives and students as to spiritual seekers, policy makers, and sustainability professionals.

A new form of strip mining has caused a state of emergency for the Appalachian wilderness and the communities that depend on it-a crisis compounded by issues of government neglect, corporate hubris, and class conflict. In this powerful call to arms, Erik Reece chronicles the year he spent witnessing the systematic decimation of a single mountain and offers a landmark defense of a national treasure threatened with extinction.

In the scramble to claim water rights in the West during the fevered days of early emigration and expansion, running out of water was rarely a concern, and the dam building fever that transformed the West in the 19th and 20th centuries created a map of the region that may be unsustainable. Throughout the arid American West, metropolitan areas such as Los Angeles, Phoenix, Las Vegas and Denver need water. These cities are growing, but water supplies are dwindling. Scientists agree that the West is heating up and drying out, leading to future water shortages that will pose a challenge to existing laws.

 

Dam Nation looks first to the past, to the stories of the California gold rush and the earliest attempts by men to shape the landscape and tame it, takes us to the “Great American Desert” and the settlement of the west under the theory that "rain follows the plow," and then takes on the ongoing legal and moral battles in the West. Author Stephen Grace, is a novelist, a storyteller, and the author of several non-fiction books on Colorado. He weaves the facts into a compelling narrative that informs, entertains, and tells an important story.

Whether the prospective buyer is a farmer or rancher looking to expand operations, a sportsman seeking to preserve habitat for wildlife, or a nature enthusiast trying to conserve native flora and fauna, acquiring rural land can be a rollercoaster of exciting and stressful experiences. In Buying Rural Land in Texas: Taking the Right Risk, Charles E. Gilliland demonstrates that buyers can and should arm themselves with knowledge—of the land-buying process, of the potential problems involved, and of the resources available to them—to ensure a successful and satisfying outcome.

In this practical guide, Gilliland outlines four phases of buying rural land: identifying what you want, in terms of both land and property rights; locating a suitable property; valuing the property; and completing the transaction. He then covers everything the potential landowner should know while progressing through these steps: how to identify and manage risk, plan an “exit strategy,” interpret present and future land prices, find the “perfect spot,” evaluate the property’s physical attributes, gauge economic trends, understand legal rights and limitations, protect natural resources, and, finally, close the deal.

Incorporating real life examples from a career spent in land sales, Gilliland takes readers step-by-step through the process, also providing checklists, maps, professional tips, and information about how to tap additional sources of information and advice. With the knowledge gained from Buying Rural Land in Texas, new landowners will find themselves not at the end of a journey but at the beginning, as they learn to manage their land and to deliver it intact to future generations.

The history of Alaska is filled with stories of new land and new riches -- and ever present are new people with competing views over how the valuable resources should be used: Russians exploiting a fur empire; explorers checking rival advances; prospectors stampeding to the clarion call of "Gold!"; soldiers battling out a decisive chapter in world war; oil wildcatters looking for a different kind of mineral wealth; and always at the core of these disputes is the question of how the land is to be used and by whom.

While some want Alaska to remain static, others are in the vanguard of change. Alaska: Saga of a Bold Land shows that there are no easy answers on either side and that Alaska will always be crossing the next frontier.

**Finalist for the Oregon Book Award**

Gulf Wild — the first seafood brand in America to trace each fish from the sea to the table — emerged after grouper, the star of fried fish sandwiches, fell off menus due to overfishing. The brand was born when the government privatized the rights to fish to fix the problem. Through traceability, Gulf Wild has met burgeoning consumer demand for domestic, sustainable seafood, selling in boutique grocers and catapulting grouper from the hamburger bun to the white tablecloth.

But the property rights that saved grouper also shifted control of the fish from public to private, forever changing the relationship between wild seafood and the people that eat it.

Aboard fishing vessels from Alaska to Maine, inside restaurants of top chefs, and from the halls of Congress, in The Fish Market, journalist Lee van der Voo tells the story of the people and places left behind in this era of ocean privatization—a trend that now controls more than half of American seafood. Following seafood money from U.S. docks to Wall Street, she explains the methods that investors, equity firms, and seafood landlords have used to capture the upside of the sustainable seafood movement, and why many people believe in them. She also goes behind the scenes of the Slow Fish movement—among holdouts against privatization of the sea— to show why they argue consumers don’t have to buy sustainability from Wall Street, or choose between the environment and their fisherman.

Sustainable development is becoming the guiding principle for the twenty-first century. This textbook - based on the author's course and rigorously class-tested by his students - provides an introduction into patterns of past and present (un)sustainable development and into the emergence of the notion of sustainable development. It systematically surveys the key concepts, models and findings of the various scientific disciplines with respect to the major sustainability issues: energy, nature, agro-food and resource systems, and economic growth. System analysis and modelling is introduced and used as an integrating tool. Stories and worldviews are used to connect the quantitative and the qualitative and to offer the reader an understanding of relevant trends and events in context. Sustainability Science is an ideal textbook for advanced undergraduate and graduate level courses in sustainable development and in environmental and resource science and policy.

Forage for wild edible plants in the mountain west!

From alpine meadows to high deserts and lush forests, the mountain states are rich with wild edibles. Forager and herbalist Briana Wiles helps you find delicious plants for the picking—treats like spicy wild onion flowers, tender spring asparagus, and sweet late-summer blueberries. Back in the kitchen, infuse vinegars with spruce tips or make stinging nettle pesto with freshly foraged piñon nuts.

In the years following World War II, Americans visited the national parks in unprecedented numbers, yet Congress held funding at prewar levels and park conditions steadily declined. Elimination of the Civilian Conservation Corps and other New Deal programs further reduced the ability of the federal government to keep pace with the wear and tear on park facilities.

To address the problem, in 1956 a ten-year, billion-dollar initiative titled "Mission 66" was launched, timed to be completed in 1966, the fiftieth anniversary of the National Park Service. The program covered more than one hundred visitor centers (a building type invented by Mission 66 planners), expanded campgrounds, innumerable comfort stations and other public facilities, new and wider roads, parking lots, maintenance buildings, and hundreds of employee residences. During this transformation, the park system also acquired new seashores, recreation areas, and historical parks, agency uniforms were modernized, and the arrowhead logo became a ubiquitous symbol. To a significant degree, the national park system and the National Park Service as we know them today are products of the Mission 66 era.

Mission 66 was controversial at the time, and it continues to incite debate over the policies it represented. Hastening the advent of the modern environmental movement, it transformed the Sierra Club from a regional mountaineering club into a national advocacy organization. But Mission 66 was also the last systemwide, planned development campaign to accommodate increased numbers of automotive tourists. Whatever our judgment of Mission 66, we still use the roads, visitor centers, and other facilities the program built.

Ethan Carr's book examines the significance of the Mission 66 program and explores the influence of midcentury modernism on landscape design and park planning. Environmental and park historians, architectural and landscape historians, and all who care about our national parks will enjoy this copiously illustrated history of a critical period in the development of the national park system.

Published in association with Library of American Landscape History: http://lalh.org/

A scarcity of natural resources. The challenge to protect biodiversity and the global climate. Rapid economic growth and urbanisation in Asia and the developing world. Changing demographics and an ageing population. The impact of new digital technologies. Consumer expectations for services, experiences and social interaction. An imperative to innovate. Megatrends are gradual yet powerful trajectories of change that have the potential to throw companies, individuals and societies into freefall. In Global Megatrends author Stefan Hajkowicz identifies these seven patterns of global change and tells a story about how the world will change over the next 20 years. The book captures the thinking of many dedicated scientists and researchers who have devoted their careers to exploring and understanding change. The change heralded by megatrends lies beyond our direct control but not beyond our influence. By getting a picture of how the world is changing and what these megatrends are, we can alter our destiny.

This dirt-under-the-fingernails portrait of a small-time farmer follows Zack Killebrew over a single year as he struggles to defend his cotton against weeds, insects, and drought, as well as 21st-century threats such as globalization. Over the course of the season, Helferich details how this singular crop has stamped American history and culture like no other. Then, as Killebrew prepares to harvest his cotton, two hurricanes named Katrina and Rita devastate the Gulf Coast and head toward the Mississippi Delta.

In recent years, scientists have begun to focus on the idea that healthy, functioning ecosystems provide essential services to human populations, ranging from water purification to food and medicine to climate regulation. Lacking a healthy environment, these services would have to be provided through mechanical means, at a tremendous economic and social cost.Nature and the Marketplace examines the controversial proposition that markets should be designed to capture the value of those services. Written by an economist with a background in business, it evaluates the real prospects for various of nature's marketable services to "turn profits" at levels that exceed the profits expected from alternative, ecologically destructive, business activities. The author: describes the infrastructure that natural systems provide, how we depend on it, and how we are affecting it explains the market mechanism and how it can lead to more efficient resource use looks at key economic activities -- such as ecotourism, bioprospecting, and carbon sequestration -- where market forces can provide incentives for conservation examines policy options other than the market, such as pollution credits and mitigation banking considers the issue of sustainability and equity between generations .Nature and the Marketplace presents an accessible introduction to the concept of ecosystem services and the economics of the environment. It offers a clear assessment of how market approaches can be used to protect the environment, and illustrates that with a number of cases in which the value of ecosystems has actually been captured by markets.The book offers a straightforward business economic analysis of conservation issues, eschewing romantic notions about ecosystem preservation in favor of real-world economic solutions. It will be an eye-opening work for professionals, students, and scholars in conservation biology, ecology, environmental economics, environmental policy, and related fields.

Let Master Photographer Lisa Crayford guide you to the top-ranked waterfalls in the state, as well as her "secret waterfalls." Your bucket list should definitely include these 117 gorgeous locales that decorate Minnesota's landscape, including bridge views, short hikes, secluded waterfalls in urban areas and hidden gems along the North Shore.

With this book in hand, you can easily plan to see them all. The waterfalls are organized geographically and ranked by beauty. Start with the ones nearby, then get away to discover those farther afield. All the information you need--directions, distance, hike difficulty and more--is right at your fingertips. These natural wonders prove that the Land of 10,000 Lakes is also home to some of the most picturesque waterfalls in America!

For anyone who is trying to keep up with the extremely rapid developments in the biodiesel industry, the second edition of Biodiesel: Growing a New Energy Economy is an invaluable aid. The breathtaking speed with which biodiesel has gained acceptance in the marketplace in the past few years has been exceeded only by the proliferation of biodiesel production facilities around the United States--and the world--only to confront new social and environmental challenges and criticisms.

The international survey of the biodiesel industry has been expanded from 40 to more than 80 countries, reflecting the spectacular growth of the industry around the world. This section also tracks the dramatic shifts in the fortunes of the industry that have taken place in some of these nations. The detailed chapters that cover the industry in the United States have also been substantially rewritten to keep abreast of its many new developments and explosive domestic growth.

An expanded section on small-scale, local biodiesel production has been added to better represent this small but growing part of the industry. Another new section has been added to more fully explore the increasingly controversial issues of deforestation and food versus fuel, as well as GMO crops. The second edition concludes with updated views on where the industry is headed in the years to come from some of its key players.

The story of the worst environmental disaster in American history and its enduring consequences

BP Blowout is the first comprehensive account of the legal, economic, and environmental consequences of the disaster that resulted from the April 2010 blowout at a BP well in the Gulf of Mexico. The accident, which destroyed the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, killed 11 people. The ensuing oil discharge–the largest ever in U.S. waters—polluted much of the Gulf for months, wreaking havoc on its inhabitants and the environment.

A management professor and former award-winning Justice Department lawyer responsible for enforcing environmental laws, Daniel Jacobs tells the story that neither BP nor the federal government wants heard: how the company and the government fell short, both in terms of preventing and responding to the disaster.

Critical details about the cause and aftermath of the disaster have emerged through court proceedings and with time. The key finding of the federal judge who presided over the civil litigation was that the blowout resulted from BP’s gross negligence.

BP has paid tens of billions of dollars to settle claims and lawsuits. The company also has pled guilty to manslaughter in a separate criminal case, but no one responsible for the tragedy is going to prison.

BP Blowout provides new and disturbing details in a definitive narrative that takes the reader inside BP, the White House, Congress and the courthouse. This is an important book for readers interested in the environment, sustainability, public policy, leadership, and risk management.