The Moth Snowstorm

Author: Michael McCarthy
Publisher: New York Review of Books
ISBN: 1681370417
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Book Description
The moth snowstorm, a phenomenon Michael McCarthy remembers from his boyhood when moths “would pack a car’s headlight beams like snowflakes in a blizzard,” is a distant memory. Wildlife is being lost, not only in the wholesale extinctions of species but also in the dwindling of those species that still exist. The Moth Snowstorm is unlike any other book about climate change today; combining the personal with the polemical, it is a manifesto rooted in experience, a poignant memoir of the author’s first love: nature. McCarthy traces his adoration of the natural world to when he was seven, when the discovery of butterflies and birds brought sudden joy to a boy whose mother had just been hospitalized and whose family life was deteriorating. He goes on to record in painful detail the rapid dissolution of nature’s abundance in the intervening decades, and he proposes a radical solution to our current problem: that we each recognize in ourselves the capacity to love the natural world. Arguing that neither sustainable development nor ecosystem services have provided adequate defense against pollution, habitat destruction, species degradation, and climate change, McCarthy asks us to consider nature as an intrinsic good and an emotional and spiritual resource, capable of inspiring joy, wonder, and even love. An award-winning environmental journalist, McCarthy presents a clear, well-documented picture of what he calls “the great thinning” around the world, while interweaving the story of his own early discovery of the wilderness and a childhood saved by nature. Drawing on the truths of poets, the studies of scientists, and the author’s long experience in the field, The Moth Snowstorm is part elegy, part ode, and part argument, resulting in a passionate call to action.

Riding with the Blue Moth

Author: Bill Hancock
Publisher: Sports Publishing LLC
ISBN: 1596701633
Category : Bicycle touring
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Book Description
After the death of his son, Will, in the 2001 airplane crash that took the lives of nine additional members of the Oklahoma State basketball team and support staff, Hancock's 2,747-mile journey from the Pacific to the Atlantic became more than just a distraction. It became a pilgrimage. Photos.

The Moth Snowstorm

Author: Michael McCarthy
Publisher: New York Review of Books
ISBN: 1681372428
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Rainbow Dust

Author: Peter Marren
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022639588X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 329

Book Description
"First published by Square Peg, an imprint of Vintage"--Title page verso.

In Pursuit of Butterflies

Author: Matthew R. Oates
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472924509
Category : Butterflies
Languages : en
Pages : 497

Book Description
The butterflies of Britain, in the words of one of their greatest championsMatthew Oates has led a butterflying life. Naturalist, conservationist and passionate lover of poetry, he has devoted himself to these exalted creatures: to their observation, to singing their praises, and to ensuring their survival. Based on fifty years of detailed diaries, In Pursuit of Butterflies is the chronicle of this life. Oates leads the reader through a lifetime of butterflying, across the mountain tops, the peat bogs, sea cliffs, meadows, heaths, the chalk downs and great forests of the British Isles. Full of humour, zeal, digression, expertise and anecdote, this book provides a profound encounter with one of our great butterfly lovers, and with a half-century of butterflies in Britain.

Rebirding

Author: Benedict Macdonald
Publisher: Pelagic Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 1784271888
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 372

Book Description
WINNER OF THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR WRITING ON GLOBAL CONSERVATION Winner of the Richard Jefferies Society and White Horse Book Shop Literary Prize ‘splendid’ —Guardian ‘visionary’ —New Statesman Rebirding takes the long view of Britain’s wildlife decline, from the early taming of our landscape and its long-lost elephants and rhinos, to fenland drainage, the removal of cornerstone species such as wild cattle, horses, beavers and boar – and forward in time to the intensification of our modern landscapes and the collapse of invertebrate populations. It looks at key reasons why species are vanishing, as our landscapes become ever more tamed and less diverse, with wildlife trapped in tiny pockets of habitat. It explores how Britain has, uniquely, relied on modifying farmland, rather than restoring ecosystems, in a failing attempt to halt wildlife decline. The irony is that 94% of Britain is not built upon at all. And with more nature-loving voices than any European country, we should in fact have the best, not the most impoverished, wildlife on our continent. Especially when the rural economics of our game estates, and upland farms, are among the worst in Europe. Britain is blessed with all the space it needs for an epic wildlife recovery. The deer estates of the Scottish Highlands are twice the size of Yellowstone National Park. Snowdonia is larger than the Maasai Mara. The problem in Britain is not a lack of space. It is that our precious space is uniquely wasted – not only for wildlife, but for people’s jobs and rural futures too. Rebirding maps out how we might finally turn things around: rewilding our national parks, restoring natural ecosystems and allowing our wildlife a far richer future. In doing so, an entirely new sector of rural jobs would be created; finally bringing Britain’s dying rural landscapes and failing economies back to life.

When the Killing's Done

Author: T.C. Boyle
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 140882616X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 385

Book Description
'How can you talk about being civil when innocent animals are being tortured to death? Civil? I'll be civil when the killing's done.' The island of Anacapa, off the coast of California, is overrun with black rats which are threatening the ancient population of ground-nesting birds. Alma Boyd Takesue of the National Park Service is the spokesperson for a campaign to exterminate these man-introduced rodents once and for all. Alma, highly self-disciplined with a stubborn streak, speaks as a conservationist, though the fact that her grandmother was once stranded on Anacapa for three weeks with nothing but thousands of crawling rats for company might explain some of her zeal. With days to go before the aerial rat-poisoning, Alma's plan is in danger of sabotage. Dave LaJoy and Anise Reed, a pair of notorious environmental activists, are recognisable from a distance by his knotted dreadlocks and her flame-red cyclone of hair. Dave is an electronics salesman with barely-controlled rages, for whom the plight of the rats is yet another of life's many injustices, along with lazy tramps and second-rate wine. Anise is a struggling folk singer with her own, terrible reasons for getting involved in 'the cause'. From the outset, Alma, Dave and Anise are at ideological loggerheads. But when Alma's sights turn to the infestation of non-native pigs on Santa Cruz - where Anise was brought up by her single mother and a clan of ranchers - the stakes are raised, and the debate threatens to boil over into something much more real... When the Killing's Done is T.C. Boyle's blistering new novel, a sweeping epic of family, ecology and the right to life - no matter what the fallout.

United We Are Unstoppable

Author: Akshat Rathi
Publisher: John Murray
ISBN: 1529335965
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Book Description
From Asia to Africa, Oceania to Europe, the Americas and Antarctica, see the world through the eyes of 60 young people who are fighting for their homes and their futures in the face of climate change. The stories in this book are devastating, defiant, inspiring and moving - but, above all, they are full of hope. The climate crisis can feel overwhelming but, as this book shows, for every problem there are young voices raising awareness, creating solutions and demanding that things change. It's not too late to save the world. United we really are unstoppable. Aditya Mukarji (16) stopped 26 million straws from polluting the oceans. Cecilia La Rose (15) filed a lawsuit against the Canadian federal government for contributing to global warming. Delphin Kaze (19) founded a company that produces eco-charcoal from organic waste in Burundi. And more inspiring stories from . . . Htet Myet Min Tun; Tatyana Sin; Iman Dorri; Howey Ou; Theresa Rose Sebastian; Nasreen Sayed; Liyana Yamin; Albrecht Arthur N. Arevalo; Akari Tomita; Karel Lisbeth Miranda Mendoza; Emma-Jane Burian; Anya Sastry; Ricardo Andres Pineda Guzman; Cricket Guest; Lia Harel; Shannon Lisa; Khadija Usher; Brandon Nguyen; Vivianne Roc; Octavia Shay Muñoz-Barton; Payton Mitchell; Ashley Torres; Eyal Weintraub; Daniela Torres Perez; Catarina Lorenzo; Juan José Martín-Bravo; João Henrique Alves Cerqueira; Gilberto Cyril Morishaw; Holly Gillibrand; Stamatis Psaroudakis; Lilith Electra Platt; Anna Taylor; Raina Ivanova; Federica Gasbarro; Laura Lock; Agim Mazreku; Adrian Toth; Kaluki Paul Mutuku; Nche Tala; Sebenele Rodney Carval; Jeremy Raguain; Lesein Mathenge Mutunkei; Toiwiya Hassane; Koku Klutse; Tsiry Nantenaina Randrianavelo; Ruby Sampson; Tafadzwa Chando; Elizabeth Wanjiru Wathuti; Ndèye Marie Aida Ndieguene; Zoe Buckley Lennox; Lourdes Faith Auhura Parehuia; Alexander Whitebrook; Komal Narayan; Kailash Cook; Madeleine Keitilani Elceste Lavemai; Freya May Mimosa Brown; and Carlon Zackhras 25p from the sale of physical copies of the book will go to a charity advocating for the protection of children's rights.

Human Origins

Author: New Scientist
Publisher: Nicholas Brealey
ISBN: 147367042X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 244

Book Description
Where did we come from? Where are we going? Homo sapiens is the most successful, the most widespread and the most influential species ever to walk the Earth. In the blink of an evolutionary eye we have spread around the globe, taken control of Earth's biological and mineral resources, transformed the environment, discovered the secrets of the universe and travelled into space. Yet just 7 million years ago, we were just another species of great ape making a quiet living in the forests of East Africa. We do not know exactly what this ancestor was like, but it was no more likely than a chimpanzee or gorilla to sail across the ocean, write a symphony, invent a steam engine or ponder the meaning of existence. How did we get from there to here? The Story of Human Origins recounts the most astonishing evolutionary tale ever told. Discover how our ancestors made the first tentative steps towards becoming human, how we lost our fur but gained language, fire and tools, how we strode out of Africa, invented farming and cities and ultimately created modern civilization - perhaps the only one of its kind in the Universe. Meet your long-lost ancestors, the other humans who once shared the planet with us, and learn where the story might end.

Rambunctious Garden

Author: Emma Marris
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 160819454X
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 226

Book Description
"Some of the material in this book appeared previously, in a different form, in the journal Nature"--T.p. verso.