Enriching the Earth

Author: Vaclav Smil
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262693134
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 372

Book Description
Dr. Smil is the world's authority on nitrogenous fertilizer. The industrial synthesis of ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen has been of greater fundamental importance to the modern world than the invention of the airplane, nuclear energy, space flight, or television. The expansion of the world's population from 1.6 billion people in 1900 to today's six billion would not have been possible without the synthesis of ammonia. In Enriching the Earth, Vaclav Smil begins with a discussion of nitrogen's unique status in the biosphere, its role in crop production, and traditional means of supplying the nutrient. He then looks at various attempts to expand natural nitrogen flows through mineral and synthetic fertilizers. The core of the book is a detailed narrative of the discovery of ammonia synthesis by Fritz Haber—a discovery scientists had sought for over one hundred years—and its commercialization by Carl Bosch and the chemical company BASF. Smil also examines the emergence of the large-scale nitrogen fertilizer industry and analyzes the extent of global dependence on the Haber-Bosch process and its biospheric consequences. Finally, it looks at the role of nitrogen in civilization and, in a sad coda, describes the lives of Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch after the discovery of ammonia synthesis.

Enriching the Earth

Author: Vaclav Smil
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262693135
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 359

Falling to Earth

Author: Kate Southwood
Publisher: Europa Editions
ISBN: 1609451104
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 220

Book Description
A “poignant [and] powerful” novel about a 1920s Midwestern community in the aftermath of a devastating tornado (The New Yorker). In March 1925, the worst tornado in the nation’s history will descend without warning on the small town of Marah, Illinois. By nightfall, hundreds will be homeless and hundreds more will lie in the streets, dead or grievously injured. Only one man, Paul Graves, will still have everything he started the day with—his family, his home, and his business, all miraculously intact. This “absolutely gorgeous” novel follows Paul Graves and his young family in the year after the storm as they struggle to comprehend their own fate and that of their devastated town (The New York Times). They watch helplessly as Marah tries to resurrect itself from the ruins and as their friends and neighbors begin to wonder how one family, and only one, could be exempt from terrible misfortune. As the town begins to recover, the family miscalculates the growing resentment and hostility around them with tragic results, in an “extraordinarily moving” portrayal of survivor’s guilt and the frenzy of bereavement following a disaster (Financial Times). “All the big themes are here—chance, fate, loyalty, revenge, guilt, jealousy . . . Inspired by actual events surrounding the 1925 Tri-State tornado, the worst in U.S. history, Southwood’s poignantly penetrating examination of the psychic cost of survival is breathtaking in its depth of understanding.” —Booklist (starred review) “What’s most exciting about Southwood’s debut is her prose, which is reminiscent of Willa Cather’s in its ability to condense the large, ineffable melancholy of the plains into razor-sharp images.” —The Daily Beast

Love Letter to the Earth

Author: Thich Nhat Hanh
Publisher: Parallax Press
ISBN: 1937006409
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 146

Book Description
The world-renowned Zen monk argues for a more mindful, spiritual approach to environmental protection and activism—one that recognizes people and planet as one and the same While many experts point to the enormous complexity in addressing issues ranging from the destruction of ecosystems to the loss of millions of species, Thich Nhat Hanh identifies one key issue as having the potential to create a tipping point. He believes that we need to move beyond the concept of the “environment,” as it leads people to experience themselves and Earth as two separate entities and to see the planet only in terms of what it can do for them. Thich Nhat Hanh points to the lack of meaning and connection in peoples’ lives as being the cause of our addiction to consumerism. He deems it vital that we recognize and respond to the stress we are putting on the Earth if civilization is to survive. Rejecting the conventional economic approach, Nhat Hanh shows that mindfulness and a spiritual revolution are needed to protect nature and limit climate change. Love Letter to the Earth is a hopeful book that gives us a path to follow by showing that change is possible only with the recognition that people and the planet are ultimately one and the same.

Healing Grounds

Author: Liz Carlisle
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1642832227
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 242

Book Description
A powerful movement is happening in farming today—farmers are reconnecting with their roots to fight climate change. For one woman, that’s meant learning her tribe’s history to help bring back the buffalo. For another, it’s meant preserving forest purchased by her great-great-uncle, among the first wave of African Americans to buy land. Others are rejecting monoculture to grow corn, beans, and squash the way farmers in Mexico have done for centuries. Still others are rotating crops for the native cuisines of those who fled the “American wars” in Southeast Asia. In Healing Grounds, Liz Carlisle tells the stories of Indigenous, Black, Latinx, and Asian American farmers who are reviving their ancestors’ methods of growing food—techniques long suppressed by the industrial food system. These farmers are restoring native prairies, nurturing beneficial fungi, and enriching soil health. While feeding their communities and revitalizing cultural ties to land, they are steadily stitching ecosystems back together and repairing the natural carbon cycle. This, Carlisle shows, is the true regenerative agriculture – not merely a set of technical tricks for storing CO2 in the ground, but a holistic approach that values diversity in both plants and people. Cultivating this kind of regenerative farming will require reckoning with our nation’s agricultural history—a history marked by discrimination and displacement. And it will ultimately require dismantling power structures that have blocked many farmers of color from owning land or building wealth. The task is great, but so is its promise. By coming together to restore these farmlands, we can not only heal our planet, we can heal our communities and ourselves.

The Wretched of the Earth

Author: Frantz Fanon
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
ISBN: 0802198856
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 328

Book Description
The sixtieth anniversary edition of Frantz Fanon’s landmark text, now with a new introduction by Cornel West First published in 1961, and reissued in this sixtieth anniversary edition with a powerful new introduction by Cornel West, Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth is a masterfuland timeless interrogation of race, colonialism, psychological trauma, and revolutionary struggle, and a continuing influence on movements from Black Lives Matter to decolonization. A landmark text for revolutionaries and activists, The Wretched of the Earth is an eternal touchstone for civil rights, anti-colonialism, psychiatric studies, and Black consciousness movements around the world. Alongside Cornel West’s introduction, the book features critical essays by Jean-Paul Sartre and Homi K. Bhabha. This sixtieth anniversary edition of Fanon’s most famous text stands proudly alongside such pillars of anti-colonialism and anti-racism as Edward Said’s Orientalism and The Autobiography of Malcolm X.

Project Hail Mary

Author: Andy Weir
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0593135202
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 497

Book Description
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of The Martian, a lone astronaut must save the earth from disaster in this “propulsive” (Entertainment Weekly), cinematic thriller full of suspense, humor, and fascinating science—in development as a major motion picture starring Ryan Gosling. HUGO AWARD FINALIST • ONE OF THE YEAR’S BEST BOOKS: Bill Gates, GatesNotes, New York Public Library, Parade, Newsweek, Polygon, Shelf Awareness, She Reads, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal • “An epic story of redemption, discovery and cool speculative sci-fi.”—USA Today “If you loved The Martian, you’ll go crazy for Weir’s latest.”—The Washington Post Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company. His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species. And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone. Or does he? An irresistible interstellar adventure as only Andy Weir could deliver, Project Hail Mary is a tale of discovery, speculation, and survival to rival The Martian—while taking us to places it never dreamed of going.

Harvesting the Biosphere

Author: Vaclav Smil
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 026201856X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 317

Book Description
An interdisciplinary and quantitative account of human claims on the biosphere's stores of living matter, from prehistoric hunting to modern energy production. The biosphere—the Earth's thin layer of life—dates from nearly four billion years ago, when the first simple organisms appeared. Many species have exerted enormous influence on the biosphere's character and productivity, but none has transformed the Earth in so many ways and on such a scale as Homo sapiens. In Harvesting the Biosphere, Vaclav Smil offers an interdisciplinary and quantitative account of human claims on the biosphere's stores of living matter, from prehistory to the present day. Smil examines all harvests—from prehistoric man's hunting of megafauna to modern crop production—and all uses of harvested biomass, including energy, food, and raw materials. Without harvesting of the biomass, Smil points out, there would be no story of human evolution and advancing civilization; but at the same time, the increasing extent and intensity of present-day biomass harvests are changing the very foundations of civilization's well-being. In his detailed and comprehensive account, Smil presents the best possible quantifications of past and current global losses in order to assess the evolution and extent of biomass harvests. Drawing on the latest work in disciplines ranging from anthropology to environmental science, Smil offers a valuable long-term, planet-wide perspective on human-caused environmental change.

@earth

Author: Peter Kennard
Publisher: Tate
ISBN: 9781854379849
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 192

Book Description
This book contains no words: instead it tells its story in the universal language of photomontage, long the favoured medium of radical artists. The author is one such, whose work has consistently questioned power structures and injustice, from his anti-nuclear works of the 1980s to his powerful works in response to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This photo-essay in seven chapters, combining new works, made together with Tarek Salhany, with iconic images from throughout the author's 40-year career. It makes a powerful statement about the impending eco-crisis, the arms race and the injustices of the power structures dominating today's world.

"Arise Ye Wretched of the Earth": The First International in a Global Perspective

Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004335463
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 417

Book Description
“Arise Ye Wretched of the Earth” provides a fresh account of the International Working Men’s Association. Founded in London in 1864, the First International gathered trade unions, associations, co-operatives, and individual workers across Europe and the Americas. The IWMA struggled for the emancipation of labour. It organised solidarity with strikers. It took sides in major events, such as the 1871 Paris Commune. It soon appeared as a threat to European powers, which vilified and prosecuted it. Although it split up in 1872, the IWMA played a ground-breaking part in the history of working-class internationalism. In our age of globalised capitalism, large labour migration, and rising nationalisms, much can be learnt from the history of the first international labour organisation. Contributors are: Fabrice Bensimon, Gregory Claeys, Michel Cordillot, Nicolas Delalande, Quentin Deluermoz, Marianne Enckell, Albert Garcia Balaña, Samuel Hayat, Jürgen Herres, François Jarrige, Mathieu Léonard, Carl Levy, Detlev Mares, Krzysztof Marchlewicz, Woodford McClellan, Jeanne Moisand, Iorwerth Prothero, Jean Puissant, Jürgen Schmidt, Antje Schrupp, Horacio Tarcus, Antony Taylor, Marc Vuilleumier.