Working with Nature

Author: Jeremy Purseglove
Publisher: Profile Books
ISBN: 1782834966
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 271

Book Description
From cocoa farming in Ghana to the orchards of Kent and the desert badlands of Pakistan, taking a practical approach to sustaining the landscape can mean the difference between prosperity and ruin. Working with Nature is the story of a lifetime of work, often in extreme environments, to harvest nature and protect it - in effect, gardening on a global scale. It is also a memoir of encounters with larger-than-life characters such as William Bunting, the gun-toting saviour of Yorkshire's peatlands and the aristocratic gardener Vita Sackville-West, examining their idiosyncratic approaches to conservation. Jeremy Purseglove explains clearly and convincingly why it's not a good idea to extract as many resources as possible, whether it's the demand for palm oil currently denuding the forests of Borneo, cottonfield irrigation draining the Aral Sea, or monocrops spreading across Britain. The pioneer of engineering projects to preserve nature and landscape, first in Britain and then around the world, he offers fresh insights and solutions at each step.

The Work of Nature

Author: Yvonne Baskin
Publisher: Shearwater Books
ISBN:
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 296

Book Description
The lavish array of organisms known as "biodiversity" is an intricately linked web that makes the Earth a uniquely habitable plane. In this book, a noted science writer examines the threats posed to humans by the loss of biodiversity and explains key findings from the ecological sciences. It is the first book of its kind to clearly explains the practical consequences of declining biodiversity of ecosystem hjealth and function and, consequently, on human society.

Nature of Work

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781838142209
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

Book Description

Nature As Teacher

Author: Viktor Schauberger
Publisher: Gill Books
ISBN: 9781858600567
Category : Conservation of natural resources
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Nature as teacher details Schauberger's thinking about environmental catastrophe.

How Nature Works

Author: Per Bak
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1475754264
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 229

Book Description
Self-organized criticality, the spontaneous development of systems to a critical state, is the first general theory of complex systems with a firm mathematical basis. This theory describes how many seemingly desperate aspects of the world, from stock market crashes to mass extinctions, avalanches to solar flares, all share a set of simple, easily described properties. "...a'must read'...Bak writes with such ease and lucidity, and his ideas are so intriguing...essential reading for those interested in complex systems...it will reward a sufficiently skeptical reader." -NATURE "...presents the theory (self-organized criticality) in a form easily absorbed by the non-mathematically inclined reader." -BOSTON BOOK REVIEW "I picture Bak as a kind of scientific musketeer; flamboyant, touchy, full of swagger and ready to join every fray... His book is written with panache. The style is brisk, the content stimulating. I recommend it as a bracing experience." -NEW SCIENTIST

Working with Nature

Author: Heide Hermary
Publisher: Gaia College Incorporated
ISBN: 9780973568769
Category : Gardening
Languages : en
Pages : 244

Book Description
Working with Nature - Shifting Paradigms, brings together the science and research supporting an organic, holistic approach to horticulture. This book is a journey into the garden and the world as a whole in ways never likely seen or considered. The author has layed out many of the connections and processes at work when light, air, water, soil and life interact and transform the environment. When working in alignement with nature, many common problems never occur because one is not trying to go outside the natural laws that constrain us all. Instead of struggling to build and control a synthetic environment, one can now identify the existing environmental envelope and work with the natural forces to create and realize horticultural objectives. Once these relationships are seen, so many puzzles will disappear and many mysteries will now "just make sense."

Nature in Mind

Author: Roger Duncan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 042977575X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 209

Book Description
Nature in Mind explores a kind of madness at the core of the developed world that has separated the growth of human cultural systems from the destruction of the environment on which these systems depend. It is now becoming increasingly clear that the contemporary Western lifestyle not only has a negative impact on the ecosystems of the earth but also has a detrimental effect on human health and psychological wellbeing. The book compares the work of Gregory Bateson and Henry Corbin and shows how an understanding of the "imaginal world" within the practice of systemic psychotherapy and ecopsychology could provide a language shared by both nature and mind. This book argues the case for bringing nature-based work into mainstream education and therapy practice. It is an invitation to radically reimagine the relationship between humans and nature and provides a practical and epistemological guide to reconnecting human thinking with the ecosystems of the earth.

Green Growth That Works

Author: Lisa Ann Mandle
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1642830038
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 334

Book Description
Rapid economic development has been a boon to human well-being. It has lifted millions out of poverty, raised standards of living, and increased life expectancies. But economic development comes at a significant cost to natural capital—the fertile soils, forests, coastal marshes, farmland—that support all life on earth, including our own. The dilemma of our times is to figure out how to improve the human condition without destroying nature’s. If ecosystems collapse, so eventually will human civilization. One answer is inclusive green growth—the efficient use of natural resources. Inclusive green growth minimizes pollution and strengthens communities against natural disasters while reducing poverty through improved access to health, education, and services. Its genius lies in working with nature rather than against it. Green Growth That Works is the first practical guide to bring together pragmatic finance and policy tools that can make investment in natural capital both attractive and commonplace. The authors present six mechanisms that demonstrate a range of approaches used around the globe to conserve and restore earth’s myriad ecosystems, including: Government subsidies Regulatory-driven mitigation Voluntary conservation Water funds Market-based transactions Bilateral and multilateral payments Through a series of real-world case studies, the book addresses questions such as: How can we channel economic incentives to make conservation and restoration desirable? What approaches have worked best? How can governments, businesses, NGOs, and individuals work together successfully? Pioneered by leading scholars from the Natural Capital Project, this valuable compendium of proven techniques can guide agencies and organizations eager to make green growth work anywhere in the world.

The Cambridge Handbook of the Changing Nature of Work

Author: Brian J. Hoffman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108417639
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 643

Book Description
This handbook provides an overview of the research on the changing nature of work and workers by marshalling interdisciplinary research to summarize the empirical evidence and provide documentation of what has actually changed. Connections are explored between the changing nature of work and macro-level trends in technological change, income inequality, global labor markets, labor unions, organizational forms, and skill polarization, among others. This edited volume also reviews evidence for changes in workers, including generational change (or lack thereof), that has accumulated across domains. Based on documented changes in work and worker behavior, the handbook derives implications for a range of management functions, such as selection, performance management, leadership, workplace ethics, and employee well-being. This evaluation of the extent of changes and their impact gives guidance on what best practices should be put in place to harness these developments to achieve success.

Urban Green

Author: Colin Fisher
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469619962
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 249

Book Description
In early twentieth-century America, affluent city-dwellers made a habit of venturing out of doors and vacationing in resorts and national parks. Yet the rich and the privileged were not the only ones who sought respite in nature. In this pathbreaking book, historian Colin Fisher demonstrates that working-class white immigrants and African Americans in rapidly industrializing Chicago also fled the urban environment during their scarce leisure time. If they had the means, they traveled to wilderness parks just past the city limits as well as to rural resorts in Wisconsin and Michigan. But lacking time and money, they most often sought out nature within the city itself--at urban parks and commercial groves, along the Lake Michigan shore, even in vacant lots. Chicagoans enjoyed a variety of outdoor recreational activities in these green spaces, and they used them to forge ethnic and working-class community. While narrating a crucial era in the history of Chicago's urban development, Fisher makes important interventions in debates about working-class leisure, the history of urban parks, environmental justice, the African American experience, immigration history, and the cultural history of nature.