A Future with Natural Wood

Author: Erwin Thoma
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780987317285
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 184

Book Description
Bestselling Austrian author Dr. Erwin Thoma reveals a wealth of knowledge regarding trees, forests and wood. Through the illness of their sons, his family discovered that some modern building materials can cause serious health problems. On their quest to establish a healthy home environment, Erwin tried out his grandfather's traditional methods. He replaced all plywood and chipboard in their home with natural timber and the boys regained their health. In this, his first book translated into English, you will find interesting and amusing stories that reveal Erwin's wealth of knowledge regarding trees, forests and wood. Perhaps, for some readers, this book will contain more information than they imagined possible for such subjects. For others, this will be a welcome introduction to wood-related subjects and an inspiration for a future using natural wood. Written in a colloquial style, it offers an insight into his humble genius.

Wood

Author: Joachim Radkau
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745683614
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 591

Book Description
Ötzi the iceman could not do without wood when he was climbing his Alpine glacier, nor could medieval cathedral-builders or today's construction companies. From time immemorial, the skill of the human hand has developed by working wood, so much so that we might say that the handling of wood is a basic element in the history of the human body. The fear of a future wood famine became a panic in the 18th century and sparked the beginnings of modern environmentalism. This book traces the cultural history of wood and offers a highly original account of the connection between the raw material and the human beings who benefit from it. Even more, it shows that wood can provide a key for a better understanding of history, of the pecularities as well as the varieties of cultures, of a co-evolution of nature and culture, and even of the rise and fall of great powers. Beginning with Stone Age hunters, it follows the twists and turns of the story through the Middle Ages and the Industrial Revolution to the global society of the twenty-first century, in which wood is undergoing a varied and unexpected renaissance. Radkau is sceptical of claims that wood is about to disappear, arguing that such claims are self-serving arguments promoted by interest groups to secure cheaper access to, and control over, wood resources. The whole forest and timber industry often strikes the outsider as a world unto itself, a hermetically sealed black box, but when we lift the lid on this box, as Radkau does here, we will be surprised by what we find within. Wide-ranging and accessible, this rich historical analysis of one of our most cherished natural resources will find a wide readership.

Surrounded by Wood

Author: Agata Toromanoff
Publisher: Braun Publishing
ISBN: 9783037682661
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Book Description
Introducing the diversity of contemporary timber architecture for residential buildings to architects, interior designers, and builders.

The Age of Wood

Author: Roland Ennos
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982114754
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 336

Book Description
A “smart and surprising” (Booklist) “expansive history” (Publishers Weekly) detailing the role that wood and trees have played in our global ecosystem—including human evolution and the rise and fall of empires—in the bestselling tradition of Yuval Harari’s Sapiens and Mark Kurlansky’s Salt. As the dominant species on Earth, humans have made astonishing progress since our ancestors came down from the trees. But how did the descendants of small primates manage to walk upright, become top predators, and populate the world? How were humans able to develop civilizations and produce a globalized economy? Now, in The Age of Wood, Roland Ennos shows for the first time that the key to our success has been our relationship with wood. “A lively history of biology, mechanics, and culture that stretches back 60 million years” (Nature) The Age of Wood reinterprets human history and shows how our ability to exploit wood’s unique properties has profoundly shaped our bodies and minds, societies, and lives. Ennos takes us on a sweeping journey from Southeast Asia and West Africa where great apes swing among the trees, build nests, and fashion tools; to East Africa where hunter gatherers collected their food; to the structural design of wooden temples in China and Japan; and to Northern England, where archaeologists trace how coal enabled humans to build an industrial world. Addressing the effects of industrialization—including the use of fossil fuels and other energy-intensive materials to replace timber—The Age of Wood not only shows the essential role that trees play in the history and evolution of human existence, but also argues that for the benefit of our planet we must return to more traditional ways of growing, using, and understanding trees. A brilliant blend of recent research and existing scientific knowledge, this is an “excellent, thorough history in an age of our increasingly fraught relationships with natural resources” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).

Wood is Good

Author: Krishna K. Pandey
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9811031150
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 460

Book Description
This book is a compilation of selected papers presented in the International Conference on the theme ‘Wood is Good: Current Trends and Future Prospects in Wood’. The contents of the book deal with recent innovations, trends and challenges in wood science and are grouped in five distinct sections. They cover a wide range of topics like wood variability, processing and utilization, wood protection, wood-based composites, wood energy and the role of wood in mitigating climate change. With the ever increasing human population and growing demand for wood, this book offers valuable insights for better understanding and efficient utilization of this wonderful gift of nature. This book will be useful to researchers, professionals, and policy makers involved in forestry and wood related areas.

The Cure for Catastrophe

Author: Robert Muir-Wood
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465096476
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 370

Book Description
We can't stop natural disasters but we can stop them being disastrous. One of the world's foremost risk experts tells us how. Year after year, floods wreck people's homes and livelihoods, earthquakes tear communities apart, and tornadoes uproot whole towns. Natural disasters cause destruction and despair. But does it have to be this way? In The Cure for Catastrophe, global risk expert Robert Muir-Wood argues that our natural disasters are in fact human ones: We build in the wrong places and in the wrong way, putting brick buildings in earthquake country, timber ones in fire zones, and coastal cities in the paths of hurricanes. We then blindly trust our flood walls and disaster preparations, and when they fail, catastrophes become even more deadly. No society is immune to the twin dangers of complacency and heedless development. Recognizing how disasters are manufactured gives us the power to act. From the Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755 to Hurricane Katrina, The Cure for Catastrophe recounts the ingenious ways in which people have fought back against disaster. Muir-Wood shows the power and promise of new predictive technologies, and envisions a future where information and action come together to end the pain and destruction wrought by natural catastrophes. The decisions we make now can save millions of lives in the future. Buzzing with political plots, newfound technologies, and stories of surprising resilience, The Cure for Catastrophe will revolutionize the way we conceive of catastrophes: though natural disasters are inevitable, the death and destruction are optional. As we brace ourselves for deadlier cataclysms, the cure for catastrophe is in our hands.

Wetland, Woodland, Wildland

Author: Elizabeth Hathaway Thompson
Publisher: University Press of New England
ISBN:
Category : Biotic communities
Languages : en
Pages : 472

Book Description
The first field guide to all of Vermont's natural communities

In Caddis Wood

Author: Mary François Rockcastle
Publisher: Graywolf Press
ISBN: 1555970354
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 219

Book Description
A tender, nuanced portrait of a timeworn marriage Told from the alternating perspectives of a husband and wife, In Caddis Wood explores the competing rhythms of romantic love, family life, and professional ambition, refracted through the changing seasons of a long marriage. Beneath the surface, affecting their collective future, beats the resilient and endangered heart of nature. Hallie's career as a poet has always come second to her family, while Carl's life has been defined by his demanding and internationally acclaimed work as an architect. The onset of a debilitating illness and the discovery of Hallie's cache of letters from another man set Carl reeling and cause him to question not only his previously unshakable belief in himself but also his faith in Hallie's devotion. As the memories multiply and the family gathers at their longtime summerhouse in the woods of Wisconsin, Hallie and Carl's grown-up daughters offer unexpected avenues toward forgiveness and healing. With warmth and generosity, Mary François Rockcastle captures the way that the aging mind imbues the present with all the many layers of the past as she illuminates the increasingly unbreakable bonds borne of a shared life.

The Flavor of Wood

Author: Artur Cisar-Erlach
Publisher: Abrams
ISBN: 1468316737
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 315

Book Description
“Part travelogue and part culinary adventure . . . a quirky, entertaining ramble through the many ways wood lends its flavor to food” (Bob Holmes, author of Flavor). Most people don’t expect wood to flavor their food beyond the barbecue, and gastronomists rarely discuss the significance of wood in the realm of taste. But trees have a far greater influence over our plate and palate than you might think. Over the centuries, it has been used in cooking, distilling, fermenting, and even perfume creation to produce a unique flavor and smell. In The Flavor of Wood, food communications expert Artur Cisar-Erlach embarks on a global journey to understand how trees infuse the world’s most delectable dishes through their smoke, sap, roots, and bark. His exploration covers everything from wooden barrels used to age scotch in Austria to the wood-burning pizza ovens of Naples to Canadian maple syrup producers—as well as cheese, tea, wine, blue yogurt, and more. Brimming with fascinating characters, unexpected turns, beautiful landscapes, scientific discoveries, and historic connections, The Flavor of Wood is the story of a passionate flavor hunter, and offers readers unparalleled access to some of the world’s highest quality cuisine and unknown tree flavors.

The Natural Way of Things

Author: Charlotte Wood
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1609453638
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 188

Book Description
“A Handmaid’s Tale for the 21st century” (Prism Magazine), Wood’s dystopian tale about a group of young women held prisoner in the Australian desert is a prescient feminist fable for our times. As the Guardian writes, “contemporary feminism may have found its masterpiece of horror.” Drugged, dressed in old-fashioned rags, and fiending for a cigarette, Yolanda wakes up in a barren room. Verla, a young woman who seems vaguely familiar, sits nearby. Down a hallway echoing loudly with the voices of mysterious men, in a stark compound deep in the Australian outback, other captive women are just coming to. Starved, sedated, the girls can't be sure of anything—except the painful episodes in their pasts that link them. Drawing strength from the animal instincts they're forced to rely on, the women go from hunted to hunters, along the way becoming unforgettable and boldly original literary heroines that readers will both relate to and root for. The Natural Way of Things is a lucid and illusory fable and a brilliantly plotted novel of ideas that reminds us of mankind's own vast contradictions—the capacity for savagery, selfishness, resilience, and redemption all contained by a single, vulnerable body. Winner 2016 Stella Prize 2016 Prime Minister’s Literary Award in Fiction An Australian Indie Best Fiction Book & Overall Book of the Year Winner Finalist 2017 International Dublin Literary Award 2016 Voss Literary Prize 2016 Victorian Premier's Award 2016 The Miles Franklin Award