Environmentalist thought and ideology Books

Book SynopsisFully updated fifth edition of the classic introduction to social and cultural anthropologyTrade Review'A masterful introduction to the wide range of subjects studied by anthropologists as well as to the distinctive perspectives they bring to bear on these matters.' -- Vered Amit, Professor Emerita of Anthropology, Concordia University'In almost three decades since it was first published, this book has evolved with its subject, magnificently corroborating its author’s thesis, that the best anthropology addresses timeless themes of the human condition through a relentless focus on the contemporary. In a novelty-obsessed age, Eriksen’s encyclopaedic tour of comparative anthropology teaches us to build on classical foundations. This is not just another book in the library of anthropology; it is an entire anthropological library in one book.' -- Tim Ingold, Emeritus Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Aberdeen'Remains among the most brilliant summaries of key ideas animating anthropology. In his famously accessible writing style, Eriksen introduces fundamental questions that shape human life, and provides an overview of the discipline’s contribution to the pressing issues of our times. The new version will not only appeal to beginners, but is also a must-read for established professionals.' -- Ursula Rao, Director, Anthropology of Politics and Governance, Max-Planck-Institute for Social Anthropology'Draws students into exploring our human diversity in all its intriguing manifestations, offering a wonderful way to grasp the excitement of anthropology and its focus on what it means to be human.' -- Rob Borofsky, Center for a Public Anthropology'Authoritative, challenging, accessible, up-to-date, this is a splendid introduction to modern social anthropology. I would press it on anyone who wants a better grasp of the diversity of human ways of living. And it is a must-read for students.' -- Adam Kuper, Centennial Professor of Anthropology, London School of Economics'This classic volume is quite simply the best introduction there is to social and cultural anthropology. Deeply grounded in the history of anthropological thought, it is also thoroughly up to date. More than that, it is unfailingly engaging, clear and accurate. There is no better place to go to begin to learn why anthropology has been and remains a vital discipline in the contemporary world.' -- Joel Robbins, Sigrid Rausing Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge'Small Places, Large Issues shows us Thomas Hylland Eriksen in his admirable triple capacity as an anthropologist: the scholar, with depth and breadth of knowledge, and with a critical sense; the statesman, negotiating with fairness between anthropological camps; and the journalist, with a sense of what is new, zooming between close-up and Big Picture, and writing clearly about it all.' -- Ulf Hannerz'This wonderfully lucid introduction to social and cultural anthropology readily captures students' attention. By delineating the past and present development of the discipline, Eriksen underscores continuities and challenges that inform the practice of anthropology in today's world. In presenting anthropology as a means for elucidating large issues through the analysis of small places, the book speaks eloquently to anthropology's intellectual vibrance and practical value.' -- Noel Dyck, Professor of Social Anthropology, Simon Fraser UniversityTable of ContentsSeries Preface Preface to the fifth edition 1. Anthropology: Comparison and Context 2. A Brief History of Anthropology 3. Fieldwork and Ethnography 4. The Social Person 5. Local Organisation 6. Person and Society 7. Kinship as Descent 8. Marriage and Relatedness 9. Social differentiation 1: Gender and Age 10. Social differentiation 2: Caste and Class 11. Religion and Ritual 12. Language and Cognition 13. Politics and Power 14. Political identity 1: Ethnicity and the Politics of Identity 15. Political identity 2: Nationalism and Minorities 16. Economic Anthropology 1: Exchange and Consumption 17. Economic Anthropology 2: Production and Technology 18. Humanity and the Biosphere 19. Complexity and Change 20. Medical Anthropology 21. Anthropology and the Paradoxes of Globalisation 22. The Anthropology of Climate Change Epilogue: Making Anthropology Matter Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThis is a beautiful, full illustrated edition of `Walden’, an American classic about seeking `the essential facts of life’.

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Book Synopsis'A hugely useful and fascinating resume of rewilding - what it means, where it came from, why it's important and where it's going. Jepson and Blythe have done a masterly job, explaining the science behind rewilding in an accessible, honest and compelling way. It deserves to be widely read and become a book of great influence.' Isabella Tree, author of Wilding 'Compelling ... [a] succinct and objective account' Financial TimesRewilding is the first popular book on the ground-breaking science behind the restoration of wild nature.As ecologists Paul Jepson and Cain Blythe show, rewilding is a new and progressive approach to conservation, blending radical scientific insights with practical innovations to revive ecological processes, benefiting people as well as nature. Its goal is to restore lost interactions between animals, plants and natural disturbance that are the essence of thriving ecosystems.With its sense of hope and purpose, rewilding is breathing new life into the conservation movement, and enabling a growing number of people - even urban-dwellers - to enjoy thrilling wildlife experiences previously accessible only in remote wilderness reserves. 'De-domesticated' horses galloping across a Dutch 'Serengeti'; beavers creating wetlands in the British countryside; giant tortoises restoring the wildlife of the Mauritian islands; perhaps one day even rhinos roaming the Australian outback - rewilding is full of exciting and inspirational possibilities.Trade ReviewStraightforward and useful ... In offering hope rather than pessimism for humanity's care of the environment, Jepson and Blythe's well-explained primer will strike a chord with conservation-minded readers -- Publishers WeeklyCompelling ... [a] succinct and objective account * Financial Times *A hugely useful and fascinating resume of rewilding - what it means, where it came from, why it's important and where it's going. Jepson and Blythe have done a masterly job, explaining the science behind rewilding in an accessible, honest and compelling way. It deserves to be widely read and become a book of great influence. * Isabella Tree, author of Wilding *Rewilding ... makes a compelling case for the need to re-evaluate how we treat the planet and its natural resources. -- Stephen Moss

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Book Synopsis''One of the most influential books about the natural world ever published'' Paul Kingsnorth, Guardian''There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot,'' begins Aldo Leopold''s totemic work of ecological thought. Ranging from lyrical observations of the changing seasons over a year on his Wisconsin farm to his hugely influential idea of a ''land ethic'' signifying moral equilibrium between humans and all other life on earth, A Sand County Almanac changed perceptions of the natural world and helped give birth to the modern conservation movement.''An unequivocal statement of conscience that will carry down the generations ... his argument seems more urgently true now than ever'' The New York TimesTrade ReviewWise and lyrical meditations on environmental ethics, human and natural history, and the passage of time. Some measure of how fiercely good it is: a well-read, retired U.S. Army colonel once told me that he considered Leopold to be better than Shakespeare * Helen Macdonald *These beautiful essays, based on the restoration of an exhausted 80-acre farm in the sand country of central Wisconsin, are full of insights rooted in intelligent humility that inform naturalists to this day * Isabella Tree *A classic ... there are moments of soft beauty [and] his epigrams are whipcrack smart -- Robert Macfarlane * Wall Street Journal *A trenchant book, full of vigor and bite * The New York Times *One of the seminal works of the environmental movement * Boston Globe *

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Book SynopsisThis book must not be ignored. It really is our final warning.Mark Lynas delivers a vital account of the future of our earth, and our civilisation, if current rates of global warming persist. And it's only looking worse.We are living in a climate emergency. But how much worse could it get? Will civilisation collapse? Are we already past the point of no return? What kind of future can our children expect? Rigorously cataloguing the very latest climate science, Mark Lynas explores the course we have set for Earth over the next century and beyond. Degree by terrifying degree, he charts the likely consequences of global heating and the ensuing climate catastrophe. At one degree the world we are already living in vast wildfires scorch California and Australia, while monster hurricanes devastate coastal cities. At two degrees the Arctic ice cap melts away, and coral reefs disappear from the tropics. At three, the world begins to run out of food, threatening millions with starvation. At fouTrade Review‘Mark Lynas…has time-travelled into our terrifying collective future…Go with him on this breathtaking, beautifully told journey…I promise that you will come back…determined to alter the course of history.’ Naomi Klein, author of This Changes Everything ‘Scientists predict that global temperatures will rise by between one and six degrees over the course of this century and Mark Lynas paints a chilling, degree-by-degree picture of the devastation likely to ensue unless we act now … a rousing and vivid plea to choose a different future' Daily Mail 'Buy this book for everyone you know: if it makes them join the fight to stop the seemingly inexorable six degrees of warming and mass death, it might just save their lives' New Statesman 'An apocalyptic primer of what to expect as the world heats up…it's sobering stuff and shaming too. Despite its sound scientific background, the book resembles one of those vivid medieval paintings depicting sinners getting their just desserts' Financial Times 'The saga of how, in the world as imagined by thousands of computer-modelling studies, global warming kicks in degree by degree. Six Degrees, I tell you now, is terrifying' Sunday Times ‘Those looking for more clarity would do well to read Our Final Warning by Mark Lynas, a campaigner controversial among his fellow environmentalists for supporting nuclear power and GM crops. This book is the clearest account I have come across of what climate change will look like, depending on what we do about it.’ The Times 'A chilling read’ Socialist Review

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewOne of the few life-changing books I have ever read. I wish everyone would read it. * Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul *Satish Kumar’s unique story is stranger than fiction. * Hazel Henderson, Author, Ecologist and Creator of TV series Ethical Markets *Reading this book, you will have the rare pleasure of meeting a warm and witty, thoroughly genuine man, and one whose inspiration will not fail to move you. * Kirkpatrick Sale, Author of The Collapse of 2020 *Table of ContentsMother Guru Ashram Benares Wanderer Escape Floating Mukti Maya Hartland The Small School Pilgrimage: Iona Pilgrimage Return Japan Founding Schumacher College Mount Kailas Schumacher College Worldwide Shared Values and Collaboration Influence Realisation

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Book SynopsisThroughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.Thoreau''s account of his solitary and self-sufficient home in the New England woods remains an inspiration to the environmental movement - a call to his fellow men to abandon their striving, materialistic existences of ''quiet desperation'' for a simple life within their means, finding spiritual truth through awareness of the sheer beauty of their surroundings.

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Book SynopsisThe climate crisis is not primarily a problem of 'believing science' or individual 'carbon footprints' - it is a class problem rooted in who owns, controls and profits from material production. As such, it will take a class struggle to solve. In this ground breaking class analysis, Matthew T. Huber argues that the carbon-intensive capitalist class must be confronted for producing climate change. Yet, the narrow and unpopular roots of climate politics in the professional class is not capable of building a movement up to this challenge. For an alternative strategy, he proposes climate politics that appeals to the vast majority of society: the working class. Huber evaluates the Green New Deal as a first attempt to channel working class material and ecological interests and advocates building union power in the very energy system we so need to dramatically transform. In the end, as in classical socialist movements of the early 20th Century, winning the climate struggle will need to be internationalist based on a form of planetary working class solidarity.Trade ReviewHuber has written a 'What Is To Be Done?' for all of us who are vexed by the failure of progressive climate activism to produce a blueprint for a national action with clear strategic goals. In a blazing critique, he skewers 'radical' as well as liberal environmentalists who advocate market solutions to a crisis whose very cause is the cost-and-profit logic of energy markets. Equally he shows that the electoral road to a Green New Deal is a dead-end without a massive public struggle, integrally involving labor, for public ownership of the power industry. The shelves groan with books on the coming apocalypse , but here, at long last, is a concrete strategy for socialists. -- Mike DavisMore and more people recognize capitalism as a primary driver of climate change. Matt Huber takes the crucial next step. He powerfully demonstrates not just why working class power is indispensable to a just transition but how we build it. -- Jodi DeanThe most powerful missile yet hurled against bourgeois climate politics. With a laser-sharp focus, it strikes at the central fortress: the sphere of production, where one class dominates another and wrecks the planet in the process. A book for every union organiser and every climate activist and everyone who wishes for the two to join forces - to be read, studied, debated, aimed and fired. -- Andreas MalmThis book represents an important and timely contribution to the climate fight. -- Jonathan Rosenblum * Jacobin *We know we need to challenge the power of fossil capital to preserve a habitable planet - but how? Climate Change as Class War injects a necessary dose of strategic thinking into debates about the way forward, arguing for a mass climate politics rooted in the decommodification of basic needs and an organizing strategy focused on workers who can exert power at the point of electricity production. Huber's sharp analysis and challenging arguments open up debates that climate, labor, and socialist movements badly need to have. -- Alyssa BattistoniClimate Change as Class War is an audacious argument, particularly in its unabashed revitalization of Marxism. -- Ryne Clos * Spectrum Culture *

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Book SynopsisIn Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm, Stephen Harrod Buhner reveals that all life forms on Earth possess intelligence, language, a sense of I and not I, and the capacity to dream. He shows that by consciously opening the doors of perception, we can reconnect with the living intelligences in Nature as kindred beings, become again wild scientists, nondomesticated explorers of a Gaian world just as Goethe, Barbara McClintock, James Lovelock, and others have done. For as Einstein commented, "We cannot solve the problems facing us by using the same kind of thinking that created them." Buhner explains how to use analogical thinking and imaginal perception to directly experience the inherent meanings that flow through the world, that are expressed from each living form that surrounds us, and to directly initiate communication in return. He delves deeply into the ecological function of invasive plants, bacterial resistance to antibiotics, psychotropic plants and fungi, and, most importantly, the human species itself. He shows that human beings are not a plague on the planet, they have a specific ecological function as important to Gaia as that of plants and bacteria. Buhner shows that the capacity for depth connection and meaning-filled communication with the living world is inherent in every human being. It is as natural as breathing, as the beating of our own hearts, as our own desire for intimacy and love. We can change how we think and in so doing begin to address the difficulties of our times.Trade Review“This is a rare and splendid book that takes you right into the heart and soul of the world. Read it and be transformed.” * Stephan Harding, Ph.D., head of Holistic Science, Schumacher College, UK, and author of Animate Eart *“The twentieth century was the great age of physics, and the twenty-first is the age of biology. According to Stephen Harrod Buhner, we must interact empathically with the biosphere by opening our perceptual gates to perceive through all body sensations. He deliciously explores music, writing, art, and plants as tools for reclaiming our feeling sense of nature. Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm is a work of heartfelt wisdom written so exquisitely that it took my breath away, a must read for anyone who wants to achieve keystone intelligence--empathic immersion within Earth’s dreaming.” * Barbara Hand Clow, author of Awakening the Planetary Mind: Beyond the Trauma of the Past to a New Er *“Stephen Harrod Buhner’s The Lost Language of Plants and The Secret Teaching of Plants taught a generation of herbalists to trust our sense that the world was alive and speaking to us. Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm takes us further down that path of remembering and re-enchantment, awakening our capacity to tap directly in to the Gaian mind. Be warned: if you read this book, you will never be the same again.” * Sean Donahue, traditional herbalist and instructor, School of Western Herbal Medicine at Pacific Rim *“There is much magic, and a wealth of wisdom in this book. It is a wisdom that anyone can come, not only to understand, but to live within. To take this journey is to embrace a great healing, and to release a great burden. The healing answers your deepest longing, I won't say what the burden is, but you will know it when you let it go.” * The Fall Buyers MetaGuide, September 2014 *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments A Note to the Reader ~ First Movement ~Touching the Foundations of the WorldPrelude The Soft Flutter of Butterflies 1 Reclaiming the Invisible 2 “The Doors of Perception” 3 “And the Doorkeeper Obeys When Spoken To” 4 “Everything Is Intelligent” 5 We Want Braaaaains 6 Gaia and “the Pattern That Connects” 7 “Molecular Veriditas” 8 The Function of Psychotropics in the Ecosystem 9 Inextricable Intertangling ~ Second Movement ~Gaia’s Mind and the Dreaming of Earth10 “A Certain Adjustment of Consciousness” 11 The Sea of Meaning 12 Following Golden Threads 13 The Naturalist’s Approach The Beginnings of Deep Earth Perception14 The Imaginal World 15 The Dreaming of Earth 16 Reemergence into Classical Newtonian Space ~ Bridge ~Bifurcation17 The Ecological Function of the Human Species 18 “The Road Not Taken” 19 Becoming Barbarian ~ Coda ~A Different Kind of ThinkingEpilogue To See the Shimmer of Infinity in the Face of the Other DiminuendoAl Niente The Movement of Great Things Appendix 1 Sensory Overload and Self-Caretaking Appendix 2 On the Healing of Schizophrenia Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisHumanity stands at the threshold of a new phase of Earth's planetary evolution. Breathtaking possibilities - in tune with the evolutionary path of the universe - are now available. Yet the question arises: Does humanity have the ideas, foresight and potential for action that could create a culture that corresponds to the planet's transformation? In the midst of distressing ecological crises, Marko Pogacnik offers fresh hope. Having worked intensively in the fields of holistic ecology (geomancy) and Earth-healing for four decades, he now formulates a vision of a culture based on co-creation with Gaia (the Earth), her elemental worlds and beings from parallel evolutions. Creating Gaia Culture is also a workbook, featuring dozens of drawings and meditative exercises to help transcend mental obstacles by cultivating the quality of living imagination. Pogacnik - UNO Goodwill Ambassador and UNESCO Artist for Peace - presents numerous ways to collaborate with the process of creating Gaia culture. He allows us to look into the primeval source of the future by interpreting the ancient book of the biblical Apocalypse - a text that holds the secret of Earth changes in a coded vision of a new human civilization - and uses his experiences, visions, dream stories and communications with beings from parallel worlds to trigger pictures that can enable a new human culture become a tactile reality.Table of ContentsPart 1: Introduction - Exercises 1 with Gaia messages and imaginations - Part 2: Gaia Culture-Individual aspects - Exercises 2 - Part 3: Apocalypse as a matrix of the future culture - Exercises 3 - Part 4: Recreating Human Society - Exercises 4 - Part 5: Cooperation with parallel worlds - Exercises 5 - Conclusion: Arriving at the threshold of Gaia Culture - Gaia Culture Manifesto

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Book SynopsisTwo Groundbreaking Scientists and Their Conflicting Visions of the Future of Our Planet'Does the earth’s finite carrying capacity mean economic growth has to stop? That momentous question is the subject of Charles Mann’s brilliant book.' Wall Street JournalIn forty years, the population of the Earth will reach ten billion. Can our world support so many people? What kind of world will it be? In this unique, original and important book, Charles C. Mann illuminates the four great challenges we face – food, water, energy, climate change – through an exploration of the crucial work and wide-ranging influence of two little-known twentieth-century scientists, Norman Borlaug and William Vogt.Vogt (the Prophet) was the intellectual forefather of the environmental movement, and believed that in our using more than the planet has to give, our prosperity will bring us to ruin. Borlaug’s research in the 1950s led to the development of modern high-yield crops that have saved millions from starvation. The Wizard of Mann’s title, he believed that science will continue to rise to the challenges we face.Mann tells the stories of these scientists and their crucial influence on today’s debates as his story ranges from Mexico to India, across continents and oceans and from the past and the present to the future. Brilliantly original in concept, wryly observant and deeply researched, The Wizard and the Prophet is essential reading for readers of Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens or Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel, for anyone interested in how we got here and in the future of our species.Trade ReviewMann’s storytelling skills are unmatched . . . [He] provides detail enough, and simplicity enough, that anyone who is struggling with these puzzles will be enlightened and informed. And entertained, which, given the subject matter, is no small feat. * New York Times *Does the earth’s finite carrying capacity mean economic growth has to stop? That momentous question is the subject of Charles Mann’s brilliant book . . . A treasure house of knowledge . . . Indispensable. * Wall Street Journal *Prophets say we must reduce consumption, Wizards say we must find more efficient means of production. This intense and carefully-researched book presents a balanced, scholarly and calm exploration of society’s most pressing problems. -- Ten Of The Best Books About Climate Change, Conservation And The Environment of 2018 * Forbes *Masterful . . . Mann’s most spectacular accomplishment is to take no sides . . . An insightful, highly significant account that makes no predictions but lays out the critical environmental problems already us. * Kirkus starred review *This unique, encompassing, clarifying, engrossing, inquisitive, and caring work of multifaceted research, synthesis and analysis humanizes the challenges and contradictions of modern environmentalism and and our struggle towards a viable future. * Booklist starred review *Fascinating . . . Mann offers a sympathetic, nuanced way to understand one of the fundamental debates of our time: How will 10 billion humans live sustainably on Earth, when our demands for energy and food are growing? -- Annalee Newitz, editor, Ars Technica11 Fantastic Science Books to Binge Over the Holidays. -- The Year in Review, 2018 * Wired *

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Book SynopsisThrough 140 drawings, thought experiments, recipes, activist instructions, gardening ideas, insurgences and personal revolutions, artists who spend their lives thinking outside the box guide you to a new worldview; where you and the planet are one.Everything here is new. We invite you to rip out pages, to hang them up at home, to draw and scribble, to cook, to meditate, to take the book to your nearest green space.Featuring Olafur Eliasson, Etel Adnan, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Jane Fonda & Swoon, Judy Chicago, Black Quantum Futurism Collective, Vivienne Westwood, Cauleen Smith, Marina Abramovic, Karrabing Film Collective, and many more.

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Book SynopsisWith the rise of coal power, the producers who oversaw its development acquired the ability to shut down energy systems, a threat they used to build the first mass democracies. Oil offered the West an alternative, and with it came a new form of politics. Oil created a denatured political life the central object of which-the economy-appeared capable of infinite growth. What followed was a Western democracy dependent on an undemocratic Middle East. We now live with the consequences: an impoverished political practice, incapable of addressing the crises that threaten to end the age of carbon democracy - namely, the disappearance of cheap energy and the carbon-fuelled collapse of the ecological order.For the updated edition of this classic title, Timothy Mitchell has written a new preface, reassessing its arguments in the light of recent political events.Trade ReviewA challenging, sophisticated, and important book that undermines expectations in the best kind of intellectual provocation. * Foreign Policy *It's a book that tackles a really big subject, in a sweeping but readable fashion, and after reading it, it's hard to imagine thinking about political power the same way again ... This book utterly blew me away. -- Matt Stoller * Naked Capitalism *Timothy Mitchell's Carbon Democracy examines the simultaneous rise of fossil-fuelled capitalism and mass democracy and asks very intelligent questions about the fate of democracy when oil production declines. -- Benjamin Kunkel * New Statesman *A brilliant, revisionist argument that places oil companies at the heart of 20th century history - and of the political and environmental crises we now face...If we're ever to curb such behaviour, and to regain some comprehension of our planet's preciousness, we need first to understand how it came about. Not a book for the season of indulgence, this one. But one that demands to be widely shared. -- Susanna Rustin * Guardian *Carbon Democracy is a sweeping overview of the relationship between fossil fuels and political institutions from the industrial revolution to the Arab Spring, which adds layers of depth and complexity to the accounts of how resource wealth and economic development are linked. * Financial Times *This study of the basis of modern democracy over the past century connects oil-producing states of the Middle East with industrial democracies of the West. Mitchell argues that carbon democracy in the West has been based on the assumption that unlimited oil will produce endless economic growth, and he concludes that this model cannot survive the exhaustion of these fuels and associated climate change. Tim Mitchell has written a remarkable book that deserves a wide audience. -- Mahmood Mamdani, author of Good Muslim, Bad MuslimA remarkable account of the politics of oil and nation building in the Middle East. * The Herald *An insightful historical account of how changes in energy production have expanded and restricted possibilities for democratic governance. Mitchell's provocative approach is a critical intervention into the study of the politics of energy. Recommended. * Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries *

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Book SynopsisA great, rhapsodic, urgent book full of joy, grief, rage and love . . . A must-read'' Helen Macdonald, author of H is for HawkNature has many gifts for us, but perhaps the greatest of them all is joy; the intense delight we can take in the natural world, in its beauty, in the wonder it can offer us, in the peace it can provide - feelings stemming ultimately from our own unbreakable links to nature, which mean that we cannot be fully human if we are separate from it. In The Moth Snowstorm Michael McCarthy, one of Britain''s leading writers on the environment, proposes this joy as a defence of a natural world which is ever more threatened, and which, he argues, is inadequately served by the two defences put forward hitherto: sustainable development and the recognition of ecosystem services.Drawing on a wealth of memorable experiences from a lifetime of watching and thinking about wildlife and natural landscapes, The Moth Snowstorm noTrade ReviewA great, rhapsodic, urgent book full of joy, grief, rage and love. The Moth Snowstorm is at once a deeply affecting memoir and a heartbreaking account of ecological impoverishment. It fights against indifference, shines with the deep magic and beauty of the non-human lives around us, and shows how their loss lessens us all. A must-read * Helen Macdonald, author of H is for Hawk *An important book about an important subject - the loss of biodiversity locally, nationally and internationally, what this means for humanity and how it could possibly be avoided . . . The main argument is that we all have in us the capacity to experience joy and wonder from nature . . . Michael McCarthy is a professional journalist and an accomplished and experienced writer who handles his themes skilfully * Irish Examiner *Impassioned, polemical and personal . . . In the autobiographical passages nature is a marvel and a solace. [McCarthy's] descriptions of the night-time clouds of moths - the moth snowstorms of the title - that we saw in the days before farming ruined so much natural habitat are unforgettable, and his recollections of boyhood bird-watching on the River Dee Bay a delight . . . At its heart, this is a book aiming to persuade those who are broadly sympathetic to think in a different way, and in that it is surely a success - and a joy * Independent *A fascinating and very readable book . . . full of joy and wonder and luminous moments . . . McCarthy is a man who remembers not only the Observer's Book of Birds but the set of Brooke Bond tea cards featuring Charles Tunnicliffe's beautiful bird pictures. But you don't have to be of a similar vintage to enjoy this expansive celebration of a subject too often overlooked in the ongoing discourse about man and nature - sheer joy * Dabbler *McCarthy has for years been the doyen of environmental correspondents . . . he is conversant with the hard facts, the political realities and the moral complexities of the conservation world. But he writes also as a man inspired by the beauty, diversity and abundance of the natural world that we are destroying. This combination of worldly wisdom and deeply felt personal experience makes this a highly original and refreshing account of our current predicament * TLS *Deserves to be widely read * Scotsman *Environmental correspondent Michael McCarthy makes an impassioned plea on behalf of the natural world in this inspiring book * Sunday Express *The natural world, whether birdsong, butterflies or wild flowers, can give us joy. It can bring us peace. The ability of nature to do this, through a sense of awe, is articulated beautifully in a book by Michael McCarthy, The Moth Snowstorm: Nature and Joy. His quest to track down every British butterfly as a tribute to his dead mother brought me to tears * Sunday Times *A deeply troubling book by one of Britain's foremost journalists on the politics of nature. The case he lays bare in the opening chapters is compelling stuff. Essentially he argues that the world of wild creatures, plants, trees and whole habitats - you name it - is going to Hell in a handcart . . . powerful, heartfelt and compelling * The Spectator *As much as joy, it's a beautiful book about love, damage, and the possibility of redemption * Press Association *You could do worse to catch up than to read a single chapter in Michael McCarthy's new book, The Moth Snowstorm . . . the one entitled 'The Great Thinning' . . . powerfully and succinctly summarises the unfolding national story * New Statesman *More than a simple paean to the glories of the wild world. It is also an impassioned protest against its destruction * Daily Mail *In his beautiful book . . . Michael McCarthy suggests that a capacity to love the natural world, rather than merely to exist within it, might be a uniquely human trait * Guardian *A mixture of memoir, elegy to nature, and a call to arms . . . this is a profound urgent book, among its strength an appreciation of the small things - the common precious treasures of birdsong, butterflies and moths that we all, whatever our stance, stand to lose * Country Life *I found joy following McCarthy's stories, particularly those of the futile attempts to return salmon to the Thames and the tragic loss of sparrows from London . . . His personal revelations are moving, and The Moth Snowstorm left me as grief-stricken as any environmental journalist must be after a career digesting facts such as that, by 2020, the volume of urban rubbish generated in China is expected to reach 400m tonnes - equivalent to the entire world's trash in 1997 * Guardian *A bold new defence of a natural world under great threat * BBC Countryfile Magazine *[A] moving memoir * New Statesman *Unquestionably my nature book of the year - an intensely moving and intelligent plea for 'joy' to be counted the most powerful reason for valuing the natural world. McCarthy's starting point is the vivid recollection of a veritable snowstorm of moths in car headlights when he was young. With glorious originality, he makes an unanswerable case for us to start proclaiming 'a new kind of love' from the rooftops. Can you attach a cost-benefit analysis to what a walk in fields listening to birdsong can do for the human spirit? No. That's why everybody should read this angry, beautiful and passionate book * Daily Mail *This is a book about the joy the natural world can engender - even in the face of its decline. McCarthy synthesises the two main literary reposnses to the current crisis, provoking shock at the scale of Britain's recent loss of abundance and a sense of awe and (most importantly) love that may prove nature's best defence. If you read one book from this selection make it The Moth Snowstorm * The Times, Books of the Year *Elegiac * Guardian *Offers a necessary corrective * Irish Times, Books of the Year *Compelling . . . The Moth Snowstorm is an inspiring book * New York Times Book Review *McCarthy's words ring out as a rallying cry which is not only a delight to hear but one we should all seek to follow * Conversation *

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Book SynopsisIt is easy to feel helpless in the face of the torrent of information about environmental catastrophes taking place all over the world. In this powerful and provocative book, Scottish writer and campaigner Alastair McIntosh shows how it is still possible for individuals and communities to take on the might of corporate power and emerge victorious. As a founder of the Isle of Eigg Trust, McIntosh helped the beleaguered residents of Eigg to become the first Scottish community ever to clear their laird from his own estate. And plans to turn a majestic Hebridean mountain into a superquarry were overturned after McIntosh persuaded a Native American warrior chief to visit the Isle of Harris and testify at the government inquiry. This extraordinary book weaves together theology, mythology, economics, ecology, history, poetics and politics as the author journeys towards a radical new philosophy of community, spirit and place. His daring and imaginative responses to the destruction of the natural world make Soil and Soul an uplifting, inspirational and often richly humorous read.Trade Review'Make no claim to know the world if you have not read this book' -- George Monbiot 'No Logo in a Fair Isle jumper' Sunday Herald

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Book SynopsisEconomic growth isn't working, and it cannot be made to work. Offering a counter-history of how economic growth emerged in the context of colonialism, fossil-fueled industrialization, and capitalist modernity, The Future Is Degrowth argues that the ideology of growth conceals the rising inequalities and ecological destructions associated with capitalism, and points to desirable alternatives to it. Not only in society at large, but also on the left, we are held captive by the hegemony of growth. Even proposals for emancipatory Green New Deals or postcapitalism base their utopian hopes on the development of productive forces, on redistributing the fruits of economic growth and technological progress. Yet growing evidence shows that continued economic growth cannot be made compatible with sustaining life and is not necessary for a good life for all. This book provides a vision for postcapitalism beyond growth. Building on a vibrant field of research, it discusses the political economy and the politics of a non-growing economy. It charts a path forward through policies that democratise the economy, "now-topias" that create free spaces for experimentation, and counter-hegemonic movements that make it possible to break with the logic of growth. Degrowth perspectives offer a way to step off the treadmill of an alienating, expansionist, and hierarchical system. A handbook and a manifesto, The Future Is Degrowth is a must-read for all interested in charting a way beyond the current crises.Trade ReviewA most comprehensive analysis of the different trends converging in the degrowth movement, showing its capacity to both subvert the logic of capitalism and project visions of social justice. A book that powerfully challenges any reductive views of degrowth. -- Silvia FedericiThe Future Is Degrowth: A Guide to a World beyond Capitalism offers a sober presentation of the futility of the ideology and pursuit of infinite growth on a finite planet. Current multiple crises, including the unfolding catastrophic global heating, ought to force humans to pull the brakes on current fatal pathways. However, myopia has locked humans in a fatal pursuit of wealth, power and externalizations built on the platform of oppression, colonial exploitation, ecological despoliation and barbaric economic supremacy made possible by militarism, cultural manipulations, delineation of sacrificial zones and acceptance of enforcement of sacred or untouchable zones to sustain unquenchable consumption and wasteful appetites. This book presents a call for a world in which, through sober acceptance of having toed highly destructive growth, consumption and developmental paths, human beings understand and respect the ecological limits of Mother Earth her and regain both their humanity and place in the communities of other beings. -- Nnimmo Bassey, author of To Cook a Continent, Destructive Extraction and the Climate Crisis in AfricaIn economics, 'growth' implies a malignancy absent in nature: perpetual expansion and extraction. This book rigorously demolishes a concept that is the intellectual foundation of today's economics profession, a central pillar of capitalism and the source of ecological depletion. -- Ann PettiforA radical critique of capitalist growth and a powerful vision for a more just and ecological future. Don't miss this book. -- Jason HickelThis book is to degrowth what the IPCC is to climate science: the best available literature review on the topic. -- Timothée ParriqueAn excellent introduction to the degrowth agenda written in plain language. It shifts the burden of proof concerning solutions to climate and social crises to optimist eco-modernists from all political backgrounds. -- Nick Trantas * Journal of Political Ecology *Degrowth gains ground. * Yes Magazine *Must-read. * Occupy.com *If you are looking for a clear, comprehensive, scholarly but practical overview, then I'd recommend The Future is Degrowth. -- Mark BurtonThis book is a great handbook of ideas to help spread the word. * Bookbuster *Magnificent. The Future is Degrowth is arguably one of the most complete works on the concept of degrowth. This book is essential reading for both actors within civil society movements and policymakers, as it manages to be extremely ambitious in its goals while remaining realistic. * Green European Journal *Behind this strategy to reclaim our world from the forces of collapse is the vision of a free people taking charge of their lives. -- Bernard Marszalek * Counterpunch *

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Book SynopsisHow does our economic system impact the way we live? Does it really affect what we truly care about? Oxford economist E. F. Schumacher provides an enlightening study of our economic system and its purpose, challenging the current state of excessive consumption in our society. Offering a crucial message for the modern world struggling to balance economic growth with the human costs of globalisation, Small Is Beautiful puts forward the revolutionary yet viable case for building our economies around the needs of communities, not corporations. One of the 100 most influential books published since World War II' The Times Literary SupplementTrade ReviewA book of heart and hope and downright common sense about the future. -- Peter Lewis * Daily Mail *

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Book SynopsisA source book for American culture in the 1960s and 1970s: “suggested reading” from the Last Whole Earth Catalog, from Thoreau to James Baldwin.The Whole Earth Catalog was a cultural touchstone of the 1960s and 1970s. The iconic cover image of the Earth viewed from space made it one of the most recognizable books on bookstore shelves. Between 1968 and 1971, almost two million copies of its various editions were sold, and not just to commune-dwellers and hippies. Millions of mainstream readers turned to the Whole Earth Catalog for practical advice and intellectual stimulation, finding everything from a review of Buckminster Fuller to recommendations for juicers. This book offers selections from eighty texts from the nearly 1,000 items of “suggested reading” in the Last Whole Earth Catalog.After an introduction that provides background information on the catalog and its founder, Stewart Brand (interesting fact: Brand go

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Book SynopsisThis is the first book to explore how to use permaculture design and principles for people - to restore personal, social and planetary well-being. People & Permaculture widens the definition of permaculture from being mainly about land-based systems to include our own lives, relationships and society. This book provides a framework to help each of us improve our ability to care for ourselves, our friends, families and for the Earth. It is also a clear guide for those who may be new to permaculture, who may not even have a garden, but who wish to be involved in making changes to their lives and living more creative, low carbon lives. People & Permaculture transforms the context of permaculture making it relevant to everyone. Including over 50 practical activities, People & Permaculture empowers readers with tried and tested tools to initiate positive change in their lives. It is a hands-on yet powerful guide to creating a sustainable world.Trade ReviewPicking up this book for the first time is to hold a route map to the future in the palm of your hand. Use what you learn from it and be warned your life will change forever. You will become a co-creator of a beautiful new world. People & Permaculture is a pathway to this new world. It will indeed change your life if you absorb its wisdom and apply its tools and techniques. It will enhance your personal and professional relationships and help you to design better projects. It is a big step forward in permaculture thinking and a valuable addition to any library. May it bring you balance and fulfilment and enable you to become an even more effective advocate for the Earth. Polly Higgins, Barrister, author of Eradicating Ecocide

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Book SynopsisThe climate crisis is here. Our chance to stop it has come and gone, but this doesn't have to mean the world is ending.If you care about the planet, and about the people and animals who live on it, there are two ways to think about this. You can keep on hoping that catastrophe is preventable, and feel ever more frustrated or enraged by the world's inaction. Or you can accept that disaster is coming, and begin to rethink what it means to have hope.'The honesty and realism of Jonathan Franzen's writings on climate have been widely denounced and just as widely celebrated. Here, in his definitive statement on the subject, Franzen confronts the world's failure to avert destabilising climate change and takes up the question: Now what?Trade Review Praise for The End of the End of the Earth: ‘… by refusing to hope for the impossible, Franzen, improbably, manages to produce a volume that feels, if not hopeful, then at least not hopeless. There’s nothing he can do – there’s probably nothing any of us can do – to avert or even alleviate the coming catastrophe. But for now, he’s here and he’s alive, and over the course of these essays he offers us a series of partial, tentative answers to the question he poses himself at the beginning: “ How do we find meaning in our actions when the world seems to be coming to an end?” Guardian ‘Can be read, in part, as a welcome alternative to the current, dominant American political tone of one-note belligerence’ Observer ‘Franzen shows himself to be the kind of unacademic critic who recognises and does not disapprove of the Common Reader’s natural tendency to feel for the characters the author has brought into being’ Scotsman

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Book SynopsisIn twenty short books, Penguin brings you the classics of the environmental movement.In this personal and wide-ranging exploration of how our collective imaginations fail to grasp the scale of environmental destruction, Amitav Ghosh summons writers and novelists to confront the most urgent story of our times.Over the past 75 years, a new canon has emerged. As life on Earth has become irrevocably altered by humans, visionary thinkers around the world have raised their voices to defend the planet, and affirm our place at the heart of its restoration. Their words have endured through the decades, becoming the classics of a movement. Together, these books show the richness of environmental thought, and point the way to a fairer, saner, greener world.

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Book SynopsisCurrowan is a portrait of tragedy, survival and the power of community. Bronwyn tells her story and those of many others - what they saw, thought and felt as they battled the most ferocious fire Australia has ever seen.

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Book Synopsis*A Times, Financial Times, Observer and Nature Book of the Year*We still have time to change the world. From Greta Thunberg, the world''s leading climate activist, comes the essential handbook for making it happen. You might think it''s an impossible task: secure a safe future for life on Earth, at a scale and speed never seen, against all the odds. There is hope - but only if we listen to the science before it''s too late.In The Climate Book, Greta Thunberg has gathered the wisdom of over one hundred experts - geophysicists, oceanographers and meteorologists; engineers, economists and mathematicians; historians, philosophers and indigenous leaders - to equip us all with the knowledge we need to combat climate disaster. Alongside them, she shares her own stories of demonstrating and uncovering greenwashing around the world, revealing how much we have been kept in the dark. This is one of our biggest challenges, she shows, buTrade ReviewWith The Climate Book, a stunning and essential new work, Greta Thunberg takes her mission to the next level ... [It is] an incredible and moving resource. There are chapters on almost everything you might need to know about ... the book is a curated, portable library of knowledge, full of classics. Everyone will get something different from reading this book ... It is an extraordinary body of work and I can't recommend it highly enough. You feel the passion as well as the intellectual heft of the authors, and that is what is so moving about it. It is time for all of us to rise up -- Rowan Hooper * New Scientist *I would hope it is the kind of book everyone feels they should buy, read and act on: if you've tried to recycle a coffee pod, bought an electric car or started using a reusable water bottle, this book knows the combination of fear, hope and duty that made you do it and has a million more suggestions. It should be a bookcase staple, like Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time or Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens -- Caitlin Moran * The Times *Spectacular ... The scope of this work is planetary in scale. It is a massive undertaking in which Greta Thunberg calls on the best people possible to help her make sense of the rapid trashing of the natural world and the ecosystems life depends on ... Ultimately, this is an unexpectedly uplifting volume, fizzing with the world's best science and analysis, and what we can now do with it -- Harry Cockburn * Independent *This book is superb at explaining the urgency and importance of preventing climate change... its writers weave messages with skill and beauty... this is a campaigning book of course, but much more than that -- Gaia Vince * Guardian *A compelling read... Thunberg has called upon some of the brightest minds in the fight against global warming * Herald *Important and stunningly handsome... this is a superb vademecum -- Steven Poole * Telegraph *Most of us don't know very much about climate science. More than a rallying call, what we need is a crash course. So [Thunberg] has gathered together an anthology of essays from more than a hundred scientists, journalists and activists-a kind of beginner's guide to global warming ... [It] looks fantastic, with beautifully rendered charts and haunting photographs... My copy is dotted with annotated exclamation marks -- Rhys Blakeley * The Times *As brave as it is accomplished and succeeds well beyond any reasonable expectation -- John Gibbons * Business Post *An admirable and monumental effort...[Thunberg] is a truly exceptional figure, fluent way beyond her years in grasping and communicating the complexity and connectedness of these crises * Irish Times *A valuable resource for anyone who wants an ironclad summary of the problems, combined with some credible remedies -- Dorian Lynskey * Observer *A compendious introduction to climate change's impacts and solutions by more than 100 writers, activists, and academics. Together, they break down the sometimes overwhelming complexity of climate change into manageable chunks -- Ben Cooke * The Times Books of the Year *I'll be giving Greta Thunberg's The Climate Book to everyone: for the way it urges us to refuse to acquiesce in the destruction of the living world. It offers real, rich hope: but only if that hope is active -- Katherine Rundell * Observer Books of the Year *Impressive... the cumulative impact on my understanding of the [climate] crisis through its data, cross-cultural reflections, and paths for step-by-step change became mesmerizing -- Barbara J. King * NPR *The Climate Book makes for sobering but compelling reading - the kind of book that, once you've finished, you cannot forget * Elle *

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Book SynopsisHow does Nature work? When one looks closely at the enormously complex web of life, it is impossible not to be caught by the wonder of how all living things - including rocks and crystals - are interconnected. Just as there is thought behind action, so there is energy behind matter. Schauberger is able to demonstrate how Nature works because he has been able to observe and describe how its energies manifest and produce the material world.

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Book SynopsisHistory is not a prerogative of the human species, Edward O. Wilson declares in Half-Earth. Demonstrating that we blindly ignore the histories of millions of other species, Wilson warns us that a point of no return is imminent. Refusing to believe that our extinction is predetermined, Wilson has written Half-Earth as a cri de coeur, proposing that the only solution to our impending “Sixth Extinction” is to increase the area of natural reserves to half the surface of the earth. Half-Earth is a resounding conclusion to the best-selling trilogy begun by the “splendid” (Financial Times) The Social Conquest of Earth (ISBN 978 0 87140 363 6) and “engaging and highly readable” (Times Higher Education) The Meaning of Human Existence (ISBN 978 0 87140 100 7).Trade Review"As an outline of our terrible ecological plight, it [Half-Earth] does a first-class job. Wilson is, if nothing else, a gifted wordsmith and Half-Earth is a much-needed antidote to the views of those who assert that our worldly woes are exaggerated and that everything is tickety-boo in the Garden of Eden." -- The Observer"...the conclusion to [Edward O. Wilson's] best-selling trilogy…" -- BBC Wildlife"... in his new, important work Half-Earth... Wilson's gauntlet has been thrown: let the revolution begin." -- Geographical"It's time to make protecting the biodiversity of our planet the next great cause of planetary health. If one text could ignite this movement for biodiversity, it might be E 0 Wilson's book, Half-Earth: Our Planet's Fight for Life." -- The Lancet"[Wilson's] book... is provocative in all the best ways..." -- The Guardian

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Book Synopsis______________''Remarkable ... Emma Marris explores a paradox that is increasingly vexing the science of ecology, namely that the only way to have a pristine wilderness is to manage it intensively'' The Wall Street Journal''Ms Marris''s book is an insightful analysis of the thinking that informs nature conservation'' - The Economist''What may be the most important book about the environment in a generation'' - Idaho Statesman______________A paradigm shift is roiling the environmental world. For decades people have unquestioningly accepted the idea that our goal is to preserve nature in its pristine, pre-human state. But many scientists have come to see this as an outdated dream that thwarts bold new plans to save the environment and prevents us from having a fuller relationship with nature. Humans have changed the landscapes they inhabit since prehistory, and climate change means even the remotest places now bear the fingerprints of humanity. Emma Marris argues convincingly that it is time to look forward and create the "rambunctious garden," a hybrid of wild nature and human management.In this optimistic book, readers meet leading scientists and environmentalists and visit imaginary Edens, designer ecosystems, and Pleistocene parks. Marris describes innovative conservation approaches, including rewilding, assisted migration, and the embrace of so-called novel ecosystems.Rambunctious Garden is short on gloom and long on interesting theories and fascinating narratives, all of which bring home the idea that we must give up our romantic notions of pristine wilderness and replace them with the concept of a global, half-wild rambunctious garden planet, tended by us.______________''Marris is a whip-smart writer . . . already being compared to the greatest environmental writers and thinkers of the past century, Rachel Carson and Aldo Leopold'' - San Francisco Chronicle______________

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Book SynopsisAnimals and plants are in constant communication with the world around them. To join the conversation, we need only to connect with our primal mind and recognize that we, too, are Nature. Once in this state, we can communicate with animals as effortlessly as talking with friends. The songs of birds and the calls of animals start to make sense. We begin to see the reasons for their actions and discover that we can feel what they feel. We can sense the hidden animals around us, then get close enough to look into their eyes and touch them. Immersed in Nature, we are no longer intruders, but fellow beings moving in symphony with the Dance of Life. In this guide to becoming one with Nature, Tamarack Song provides step-by-step instructions for reawakening the innate sensory and intuitive abilities that our hunter-gatherer ancestors relied upon--abilities imprinted in our DNA yet long forgotten. Through exercises and experiential stories, the author guides us to immerse ourselves in Nature at the deepest levels of perception, which allows us to sense the surrounding world and the living beings in it as extensions of our own awareness. The practices in this book strip away everything that separates us from the animals. They enable us to restore our kinship with the natural world, strengthen our spiritual relationships with the animals who share our planet, and discover the true essence of the wild within us.Trade Review“I love the way Tamarack explains that you must get away from thought to understand animals. He is referring to verbal thought with language and entering the animal’s sensory-based world that has no words. To understand animals, you have to get away from words and enter their realm of visual, auditory, and touch sensation, which are linked to emotions. Becoming Nature will help connect you to the natural world.” * Temple Grandin, author of Animals in Translation and Animals Make Us Human *“Do you often feel rushed and far removed from feeling the peace of delighting in the natural world around you? Tamarack Song gives a way to return to heightened sensory awareness and fulfilling kinship with wildlife. Enriched by his background in environmental education, wilderness survival, and wildlife conservation, the author guides readers with a variety of exercises to an active experience with Nature around and within us. Here are practical steps you can take to better know Nature and yourself.” * Penelope Smith, author of Animal Talk and When Animals Speak *“Tamarack Song teaches how Becoming Nature is our natural and innate state of being. Becoming Nature is beautifully written and filled with practices to help us reconnect with the natural world. This is an important and powerful book to help us improve our personal health as well as bring back balance and harmony to the planet and all in the web of life.” * Sandra Ingerman, coauthor of Speaking with Nature and author of Walking in Light: The Everyday Empow *“Following up on his successful book, Entering the Mind of the Tracker, Tamarack Song now offers readers 12 steps for learning to move from observing nature to becoming nature. His system teaches the intuitive skills of our hunter-gatherer Ancestors using story and experience rather than traditional study. He tells readers that we all have innate, though largely ignored, primal aptitudes for these skills which are imbedded in our DNA. This is a powerful call to leave the virtual/intellectual world and reclaim our roots in the natural world.” * Anna Jedrziewski, Spirit Connection New York, April 2016 *“Tamarack’s approach, as the title suggests, is founded primarily on the ideal of oneness, as in “becoming one with nature.” On the other hand, as suggested by the phrase in his subtitle, “learning the language of…” he teaches observational skills as the basis for the process of becoming one. The book is quite detailed and technical in its approach, even though it comes from a spiritual perspective of oneness.” * Intuitive Connections, Henry Reed, April 2016 *“The writing is personable, and Song’s generous inclusion of tales about his own journey to ‘become nature’ adds a loving quality to the text. Whether urban dweller or off-grid subsistence homesteader, anyone can benefit from the collected wisdom Song shares in this latest offering--these lessons from a lifetime of learning-by doing-inspire faith in the limitless potential of one who has truly become nature.” * Foreword Reviews, Patty Comeau, May 2016 *“As Song reminds us, we have innate sensory and intuitive capabilities inherited from our hunter-gatherer predecessors; it's just that in our modern world we've lost this perception, although it's still imprinted in our DNA. Song has designed a series of exercises, supported by experiential stories, to help us expand our awareness to include the world around us and the plants and animals within it. He also has solutions for leaving behind our precious electronic gadgets. Song encourages us to let our imaginations transform us into the animal we seek to become and enter Nature's silence invisibly. Most of us won't ever have the opportunity to interact with animals in the wild, yet Song's wisdom can help us discover that Nature resides within us all.” * Nexus, June 2016 *Table of ContentsIn Honor of My Teachers To Know Nature Is to Become Nature A Different Approach to Connecting with Nature Relearning the Old Way To Know Nature Is to Know Yourself Transformation through the Animal Mind Step 1 Remember Nature Speak, the First Language The Personality of Nature Speak Why We No Longer Talk with Animals How Nature Speak Works Where We Get Stuck Relearning Nature Speak Nature Speak and Domestic Animals What to Expect from Nature Speak Step 2 Learn the Silent Language of Birds How Birds Teach about Themselves A Bridge to Nature Speak How Birds Teach about Other Animals From Symbolic to Direct Communication How to Learn Their Silent Language Rock Dove Red-winged Blackbird Great Northern Loon The Anatomy of a Birdsong Step 3 Awakening the Animal Mind My Coming Out I, the Animal Our Two-Track Brain We, the Conflicted Species Thinking without Thought Beware of the Rational-Mind Trap Knowing the Experiential Mind Set Letting Go of Goal Orientation How to Live in the Now What It’s Like to Be in Animal Mind Step 4 The Time-Media Trap Leaving Tools, Entering Relationship A Fresh Perspective on Cultivating Relationship Our Brains on Media Media Creates Reality Re-attuning Our Ears to Nature Speak It’s All in the Mind Seeing Is Not Always Believing Audiovisual Material Meets the Animal Mind Time by Dictate Step 5 Be Where the Magic Happens How We Live Can Help Us Find Animals Dawn: The Place to Begin Next, Attune to Our Body’s Rhythms Step 6 Enter the Silence, Listen, and You Will See The Dynamic of Silence Learning to Listen Listening Beyond Words Honing Our Listening Skills with Shadowing Big Ears: A Deep Listening Example Deep Listening and Time Looking Versus Seeing The Problem with Seeing Too Much A Lesson in Listening Step 7 Energize and Attune Your Senses The Awareness Overcoming the Barriers The Stories The Exercises The Answers for Step 7 Step 8 Walk and Paddle Quiet as a Shadow Natural Walking Shadowing Canoeing Step 9 Turn Invisible and Instill No Fear Seeing through Our Biggest Blinders: Prejudice and Fear How to Become Invisible To Stand Out Is to Blend In Be the Landscape Visibility: A Survival Strategy Step 10 The Best Tricks for Seeing Animals What to Do When We See an Animal Step 11 Become the Animal Imagine Step 12 To Touch an Animal Counting Coup: The Concept Learning to Count Coup When Noble Fare Is Far Away To Touch the Soul Acknowledgments Appendix 1 List of Stories Appendix 2 List of Exercises Notes Glossary Bibliography Index About the Author About the Artists

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Book SynopsisFrom fishing villages in India to the tropics of North Queensland, the Adani company is building coal mines at the very time that people are demanding action on climate change. Why? Adani is planning to build Australia’s largest coal mine and the world’s largest coal terminal. Why, asks Lindsay Simpson, would an Australian Prime Minister, a State Premier and a handful of regional mayors back such a project, risking the future of the Great Barrier Reef and the vast underground water reservoirs in the Galilee Basin? Lindsay Simpson’s personal story reveals the truth behind this controversy. As a tourist operator in the Whitsunday Islands, she is determined to expose the contribution of coal mines to global warming, which is threatening the world’s largest living organism – the Great Barrier Reef – with extinction. With other activists, she travels from Adani’s Indian headquarters to Parliament House in Canberra to lobby politicians, demand answers, and question motivations.She investigates the power of the social movement, Stop Adani, which has captured the public imagination, and sheds light on the workings of the coal industry and its alliances with government. In this astute analysis Lindsay Simpson argues that while Adani might have gained the political will to build the mine, it has never gained the social will of the people. So will the people win this battle over a coal mine?Trade ReviewThis is an important book for every citizen concerned about dirty coal and climate change, theglobalisation of corruption and the destruction of our democracies, from India to Australia.It tells the global story of how a handful of billionaires are using politicians to make limitlessmoney while they destroy the planet, peoples lives, and our common future. Dr VandanaShiva, author of Making Peace with the Earth, Recipient of the Sydney Peace Prize and theRight Livelihood Award

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Book SynopsisAs ecological degradation continues to threaten permanent and dramatic changes for life on our planet, the question of how we can protect our imperiled Earth has become more pressing than ever before. In this book, Daniel Scheid draws on Catholic social thought as the foundation for a new type of interreligious ecological ethics, which he calls the cosmic common good, that sees humans as just a part of the greater whole of the cosmos. The cosmic common good emphasizes the instrumental and intrinsic value of nature and the integral connection between religious practice and the pursuit of the common good.Scheid begins his analysis by rooting his vision of the cosmic common good in the classical doctrines of creation found in the works of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas and in Thomas Berry''s interpretation of the evolutionary cosmic story. He goes on to explore conceptions of a cosmic common good in other traditions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and American Indian religion. Scheid demonstraTrade ReviewThe Cosmic Common Good will be a fine addition to academic libraries and highly appropriate for use in undergraduate courses on ethics, ecological studies, world religions, and comparative religions. The mix of primary and secondary sources Scheid engages competently provide excellent beginnings for scholarly research. Also helpful for advancing research are his informative endnotes, extensive bibliography, and index. * Jame Schaefer, Journal of Religion *This volume will be a valuable addition to the undergarduate, graduate, and seminary courses in ecological ethics, potentially opening the way towards more robust interreligious converstion about ecological concerns and providing the necessary methodological tools. * Margaret R. Pfeil, Journal of Catholic Social Thought *Scheid creates an innovative amalgam of ancient and modem theological insights and is to be lauded for attempting to overcome some of the inherent difficulties of hammering out a common interreligious ecological ethic by proposing a theoretical framework for a worldview that is centered on the cosmic common good. This kind of unity is precisely what the world needs if humanity is going to overcome the ecological crisis that threatens its existence. * Jeremiah Vallery, Religious Studies Review *Given the suffering caused by ecological degradation to humans and other creatures alike, theology is tasked in our day to bring the natural world back into view as a subject of religious and moral importance. In this broadly researched and clearly written book, Scheid sets out to do just that with one keystone element of Catholic social teaching: the common good. Not only does he rethink features of this principle, expanding it in an ecological direction, but he places this principle in dialogue with Hindu, Buddhist, and American Indian traditions. The point of arrival is an interreligious vision of the cosmic common good which can serve as a basis for ethical action to protect the planet, or 'to care for God's creation' in Catholic language... Toward that end this book makes a superb contribution. * Elizabeth A. Johnson, Theological Studies *Table of ContentsPreface ; Acknowledgements ; Chapter One: The Cosmic Common Good as a Ground for Interreligious Ecological Ethics ; Part I: A Catholic Cosmic Common Good ; Chapter Two: A Catholic Cosmic Common Good: Overview and Prospects ; Chapter Three: Classical Sources for a Catholic Cosmic Common Good: Augustine and Thomas Aquinas ; Chapter Four: Thomas Berry and an Evolutionary Catholic Cosmic Common Good ; Chapter Five: Earth Solidarity ; Chapter Six: Earth Rights ; Part II: The Cosmic Common Good and Interreligious Ecological Ethics ; Chapter Seven: Comparative Theology and Ecological Ethics ; Chapter Eight: Hindu Traditions: Dharmic Ecology ; Chapter Nine: Buddhist Traditions: Interdependence ; Chapter Ten: American Indian Traditions: Balance with All Our Relations ; Conclusion: An Interreligious Cosmic Common Good ; Notes ; Bibliography ; Index

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Book SynopsisThe emergence of modern sciences in the seventeenth century profoundly renewed our understanding of Nature. For the last three centuries new ideas of Nature have been continuously developed by theology, politics, economics, and science, especially the sciences of the material world.Trade ReviewListed as one of Resurgence & Ecologist's 2017 Book of the Year"Facing Gaia stands as a toolbox for many disciplines. It harbours crucial insights: we are witnessing a catastrophe in which we are all implicated… Latour argues that it matters what each of us thinks and does. It will be written in clouds, spelt in stone, legible in water."Australian Book ReviewTable of ContentsContents Introduction First Lecture: On the Instability of the (Notion of) Nature A mutation of the relation to the world ¥ Four ways to be driven crazy by ecology ¥ The instability of the nature/culture relation ¥ The invocation of human nature ¥ The recourse to the �natural world� ¥ On a great service rendered by the pseudo-controversy over the climate ¥ �Go tell your masters that the scientists are on the warpath!� ¥ In which we seek to pass from �nature� to the world ¥ How to face up Second Lecture: How Not to (De-)Animate Nature Disturbing �truths� ¥ Describing in order to warn ¥ In which we concentrate on agency ¥ On the difficulty of distinguishing between humans and nonhumans ¥ �And yet it moves!� ¥ A new version of natural law ¥ On an unfortunate tendency to confuse cause and creation ¥ Toward a nature that would no longer be a religion? Third Lecture: Gaia, a (Finally Secular) Figure for Nature Galileo, Lovelock: Two symmetrical discoveries ¥ Gaia, an exceedingly treacherous mythical name for a scientific theory ¥ A parallel with Pasteur�s microbes ¥ Lovelock too makes micro-actors proliferate ¥ How to avoid the idea of a system? ¥ Organisms make their own environment, they do not adapt to it ¥ On a slight complication of Darwinism ¥ Space, an offspring of history Fourth Lecture: The Anthropocene and the Destruction of (the Image of) the Globe The Anthropocene: an innovation ¥ Mente et Malleo ¥ A debatable term for an uncertain epoch ¥ An ideal opportunity to disaggregate the figures of Man and Nature ¥ Sloterdijk or the theological origin of the image of the Sphere ¥ Confusion between Science and the Globe ¥ Tyrrell against Lovelock ¥ Feedback loops do not draw a Globe ¥ Finally, a different principle of composition ¥ Melancholia, or the end of the Globe Fifth Lecture: How to Convene the Various Peoples (of Nature)? Two Leviathans, two cosmologies ¥ How to avoid war between the gods? ¥ A perilous diplomatic project ¥ The impossible convocation of a �people of nature� ¥ How to give negotiation a chance? ¥ On the conflict between science and religion ¥ Uncertainty about the meaning of the word �end� ¥ Comparing collectives in combat ¥ Doing without any natural religion Sixth Lecture: How (Not) to Put an End to the End of Times? The fateful date of 1610 ¥ Stephen Toulmin and the scientific counter-revolution ¥ In search of the religious origin of �disinhibition� ¥ The strange project of achieving Paradise on Earth ¥ Eric Voegelin and the avatars of Gnosticism ¥ On an apocalyptic origin of climate skepticism ¥ From the religious to the terrestrial by way of the secular ¥ A �people of Gaia�? ¥ How to respond when accused of producing �apocalyptic discourse� Seventh Lecture: The States (of Nature) between War and Peace The �Great Enclosure� of Caspar David Friedrich ¥ The end of the State of Nature ¥ On the proper dosage of Carl Schmitt ¥ �We seek to understand the normative order of the earth� ¥ on the difference between war and police work ¥ How to turn around and face Gaia? ¥ Human versus Earthbound ¥ Learning to identify the struggling territories Eighth Lecture: How to Govern Struggling (Natural) Territories? In the Theater of Negotiations, Les Amandiers, May 2015 ¥ Learning to meet without a higher arbiter ¥ Extension of the Conference of the Parties to Nonhumans ¥ Multiplication of the parties involved ¥ Mapping the critical zones ¥ Rediscovering the meaning of the State ¥ Laudato Si� ¥ Finally, facing Gaia ¥ �Earth, earth!� Works Cited

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Book SynopsisTakes you on a journey across the world in search of exotic, endangered creatures - animals that they may never get another chance to see. This book describes the giant Komodo dragon of Indonesia, the helpless but lovable Kakapo of New Zealand, the blind river dolphins of China, and the rare birds of Mauritius island in the Indian Ocean.Trade ReviewDescriptive writing of a high order ... this is an extremely intelligent book * The Times *In every case, the presence and personality of the endangered animals rise off the page - even when the authors don't manage to find them. The writing may be witty, but this book is a sobering reminder of what a very great deal we have to lose * Independent on Sunday *This is life or death stuff, but Adams is a writer who chooses not to shake his finger at the reader. He fails completely in the self-righteous-piety department. Instead he invites us to enter a conspiracy of laughter and caring * Los Angeles Times *It is a book one reads in a rush, always looking forward to the next perverse paragraph, wise insight or felicitous phrase * The Canberra Times *Last Chance to See brings out the best in Adams' writing ... constantly springing on the reader the kind of dizzying shift in perspective that was the stock in trade of Hitchhiker' * The Listener *

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Book SynopsisDavid Abram’s first book, The Spell of the Sensuous has become a classic of environmental literature. Now he returns with a startling exploration of our human entanglement with the rest of nature.  As the climate veers toward catastrophe, the innumerable losses cascading through the biosphere make vividly evident the need for a metamorphosis in our relation to the living land. For too long we’ve ignored the wild intelligence of our bodies, taking our primary truths from technologies that hold the living world at a distance. Abram’s writing subverts this distance, drawing readers ever closer to their animal senses in order to explore, from within, the elemental kinship between the human body and the breathing Earth. The shape-shifting of ravens, the erotic nature of gravity, the eloquence of thunder, the pleasures of being edible: all have their place in this book.

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Book SynopsisOffers an ecological critique to the history of sound media technologies in order to amplify the environmental undertones in sound studies and turn up the audio in discussions of greening the media. By looking at early and neglected forms of sound technology, the author seeks to create a revisionist, ecologically aware history of sound media.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction 1. Green Discs 2. Birdland Melodies 3. Subterranean Signals 4. Radio's Dark Ecology The Run-Out Groove Index

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Book SynopsisA sophisticated and subversive guide on how to make a difference … one day at a time.Trade Review‘If you want to make a difference then I can do no better than to recommend this book.’ Daily Telegraph ‘Michael Norton is a one-man “ideas factory” whose new book suggests some whacky ways in which, with a little bit of effort, people really can change the world for the better.’ Guardian ‘By far the most enticing and informative book…I finally stopped being a cynic.’ Daily Mail ‘If you want to help bring about change but don’t know where to start, this is the book for you…packed with ideas, information and useful websites.’ Woman and Home 'This book has something for every day of the year and makes you think about the state of the planet; pollution, corruption, aids, starvation, disease and the lack of freedom to name but a few.’ Impac News

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Book SynopsisJames Lovelock''s The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning is a prophetic message for mankind from one of the most influential scientists of our age. James Lovelock''s Gaia theory, the idea that our planet is a living, self-regulating system, has transformed the way we see our planet and what is now happening to it. In this book he distils a lifetime''s wisdom and observation of the Earth to reveal the rate at which our climate is altering, how conventional ''green'' measures are not working, and how life as we know it is going to change forever. Only Gaia, he shows, can help us fully understand this, and prepare us for the future. ''The most influential scientist and writer since Charles Darwin''   Irish Times ''Supremely life-affirming ... The definitive statement of the Gaia theory and its implications for the future''   John Gray, Literary Review ''Exhilarating ... Lovelo

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Book SynopsisJames Lovelock''s bestselling The Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth is Fighting Back - and How we can Still Save Humanity is a dire warning against the unchecked growth of civilization. ''Despite all our efforts to retreat sustainably, we may be unable to prevent a global decline into a chaotic world ruled by brutal warlords on a devastated Earth...'' For thousands of years, humans have exploited the planet without counting the cost. Now Gaia, the living Earth, is fighting back. As the polar icecaps shrink and the global temperature rises, we approach the point of no return. Sustainable development, Lovelock argues, is no longer possible, and the only open to us may be a ''sustainable retreat''. This is the one book you must read to find out what is happening, how bad it will get - and how we can survive. ''The most important book for decades''  Andrew Marr ''The most important book ever to be published on the environmen

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Book SynopsisIn the growing debate over eco-friendly living, it seems that everything is as bad as everything else. Do you do more harm by living in the country or the city? Is it better to drive a thousand miles or take an airplane? In NO IMPACT MAN, Colin Beavan tells the extraordinary story of his attempt to find some answers - by living for one year in New York City (with his wife and young daughter) without leaving any net impact on the environment. His family cut out all driving and flying, used no air conditioning, no television, no toilets. . .They went from making a few concessions to becoming eco-extremists. The goal? To determine what works and what doesn''t, and to fashion a truly ''eco-effective'' way of life. Beavan''s radical experiment makes for an unforgettable and humorous memoir in an attempt to answer perhaps the most important question of all: What is the sufficient individual effort that it would take to save the planet? And what is stopping us?Trade ReviewFrom their first baby steps (no takeout) to their giant leap (no toilet paper), the Beavan s' experiment in ecological responsibility was a daunting escapade in going green . . . So fervent as to make Al Gore look like a profligate wastrel, Beavan's commitment to the cause is, nonetheless, infectiously inspiring and uproariously entertaining * BOOKLIST ‘With thorough research, Beavan updates his blog (noimpactman.com) with convincing statistical evidence, while discovering new ways to reduce consumption and his family’s environmental footprint . . . An inspiring, persuasive argument that indivi *KIRKUS REVIEWS * ‘Beavan captures his own shortcomings with candor and wit and offers surprising revelations . . . [Readers] will mull over his thought-provoking reflections and hopefully reconsider their own lifestyles’ *PUBLISHERS WEEKLY * ‘No Impact Man is a deeply honest and riveting account of the year in which Colin Beavan and his wife attempted to do what most of us would consider impossible. What might seem inconvenient to the point of absurdity instead teaches lessons that all of us *Marion Nestle, author of WHAT TO EAT * ‘Colin Beavan has the disarming and uniquely remedial ability to make you laugh while he's making you feel like a swine, and what's more, to make you not only want to, but to actually do something, about it’ *

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