Download or read book Driven by Nature written by Peter H. Raven and published by . This book was released on 2021-04-15 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's safe to say that few people have lived lives as thoroughly devoted to plants as Peter H. Raven has. The longtime director--now president emeritus--of the Missouri Botanical Garden, author of numerous leading textbooks and several hundred scholarly articles, Raven has been a tireless champion of sustainability and biodiversity, earning him the plaudit of "Hero for the Planet" from Time. Driven by Nature is the first chronicle of this prominent scientist and conservationist's life. Moving from his idyllic childhood in the San Francisco of the 1940s to his four decades leading the Missouri Botanical Garden, Raven's autobiography take readers across multiple continents and decades. Driven by Nature follows the globetrotting botanist from China to the American Midwest as he works to foster concern for a changing planet, further the cause of biological education, and build the Missouri Botanical Garden into the world-renowned haven for plant life it is today. Raven brings his story into the twenty-first century with a timely epilogue that reinforces the crucial importance of scientific learning, active conservation, and committed activism in the face of a rapidly changing natural world. Featuring an introduction by the Pulitzer Prize-winning naturalist E. O. Wilson, this beautifully illustrated book should thrill nature lovers, plant enthusiasts, and environmentally-conscious readers looking to take action to preserve our planet's biodiversity.
Download or read book Driven by Nature written by Georg Cadisch and published by Cabi. This book was released on 1997 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Biological management of nutrient supply to plants is intrinsically more complex than the provision of nutrients as inorganic fertilizers. We need to know whether the nutrients released are retained or lost from the system, whether rates of decomposition can be manipulated to improve nutrient use efficiency, and how the various fractions of plant residues translate into pools of organic matter in soil. Only then can predictive models for nutrient release, plant uptake and soil organic matter dynamics be truly tested and validated. This book brings together contemporary ideas on the characterization and manipulation of plant quality and especially its role in soil organic matter formation and nutrient cycling. It contains work from the leading workers in both temperate and tropical systems. There are also contributions describing work outside decomposition in soil ecosystems, such as the work of plant biochemists and animal nutritionists, as research in these areas has provided many ideas and concepts used in plant quality analysis. A wide range of topics is covered from investigations at the molecular level through to management options for farmers in relation to optimising biological management of crop residues. The work presented in this volume is valuable to all those researching and managing the supply of nutrients to plants. It is important reading for soil scientists, plant physiologists and crop scientists.
Download or read book Nature Driven Urbanism written by Rob Roggema and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2019-10-03 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book discusses the way that a nature-driven approach to urbanism can be applied at each of the urban scales; architectural design, urban design of neighborhoods, city planning and landscape architecture, and at the city and regional scales. At all levels nature-driven approaches to design and planning add to the quality of the built structure and furthermore to the quality of life experienced by people living in these environments. To include nature and greening to built structures is a good starting point and can add much value. The chapter authors have fiducia in giving nature a fundamental role as an integrated network in city design, or to make nature the entrance point of the design process, and base the design on the needs and qualities of nature itself. The highest existence of nature is a permanent ecosystem which endures stressors and circumstances for a prolonged period. In an urban context this is not always possible and temporality is an interesting concept explored when nature is not a permanent feature. The ecological contribution to the environment, and indirect dispersion of species, from a temporary location will, overall add biodiversity to the entire system.
Download or read book Driven to Extinction written by Richard Pearson and published by Union Square + ORM. This book was released on 2011-03-01 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A primer on one of the most contentious topics in modern ecology . . . an effective counter to misinformation elsewhere.” —Frontiers of Biogeography Could more than a million species disappear in the twenty-first century? Written by a leading scientist in the field, Driven to Extinction draws upon fascinating case studies from around the world, providing balanced and well-reasoned insight into the potential impacts of climate change on the diversity of life. Richard Pearson focuses on the science of the issue, revealing what has happened––as well as what is likely to happen––to some of the world’s weirdest and most wonderful species as global temperatures continue to rise. “A nuanced and fascinating book about the interrelationship of two of the greatest challenges humanity will face in this century—holding climate change within manageable bounds and preserving biodiversity in the face of rapidly changing habitat and a changing climate.” —John Topping, President of the Climate Institute “The ideal resource for citizens concerned about the dangers of climate change and the future of biodiversity.” —Spirituality & Practice “A carefully crafted and highly readable analysis . . . devoid of jargon and excessive technical terminology, Pearson’s work is highly recommended to anyone with interest in nature conservation or broader climate change issues.” —Biological Conservation “A wonderfully written revelation of how nature is stirring in response to climate change—and a wake-up call to what could happen to our fellow inhabitants on the living planet. Required reading for every citizen.” —Thomas E. Lovejoy, Biodiversity Chair, the Heinz Center, and Senior Advisor to the United Nations Foundation
Download or read book The Republic of Nature written by Mark Fiege and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2012-03-20 with total page 601 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the dramatic narratives that comprise The Republic of Nature, Mark Fiege reframes the canonical account of American history based on the simple but radical premise that nothing in the nation's past can be considered apart from the natural circumstances in which it occurred. Revisiting historical icons so familiar that schoolchildren learn to take them for granted, he makes surprising connections that enable readers to see old stories in a new light. Among the historical moments revisited here, a revolutionary nation arises from its environment and struggles to reconcile the diversity of its people with the claim that nature is the source of liberty. Abraham Lincoln, an unlettered citizen from the countryside, steers the Union through a moment of extreme peril, guided by his clear-eyed vision of nature's capacity for improvement. In Topeka, Kansas, transformations of land and life prompt a lawsuit that culminates in the momentous civil rights case of Brown v. Board of Education. By focusing on materials and processes intrinsic to all things and by highlighting the nature of the United States, Fiege recovers the forgotten and overlooked ground on which so much history has unfolded. In these pages, the nation's birth and development, pain and sorrow, ideals and enduring promise come to life as never before, making a once-familiar past seem new. The Republic of Nature points to a startlingly different version of history that calls on readers to reconnect with fundamental forces that shaped the American experience. For more information, visit the author's website: http://republicofnature.com/
Download or read book Driven Wild written by Paul S. Sutter and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2009-11-23 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In its infancy, the movement to protect wilderness areas in the United States was motivated less by perceived threats from industrial and agricultural activities than by concern over the impacts of automobile owners seeking recreational opportunities in wild areas. Countless commercial and government purveyors vigorously promoted the mystique of travel to breathtakingly scenic places, and roads and highways were built to facilitate such travel. By the early 1930s, New Deal public works programs brought these trends to a startling crescendo. The dilemma faced by stewards of the nation's public lands was how to protect the wild qualities of those places while accommodating, and often encouraging, automobile-based tourism. By 1935, the founders of the Wilderness Society had become convinced of the impossibility of doing both. In Driven Wild, Paul Sutter traces the intellectual and cultural roots of the modern wilderness movement from about 1910 through the 1930s, with tightly drawn portraits of four Wilderness Society founders--Aldo Leopold, Robert Sterling Yard, Benton MacKaye, and Bob Marshall. Each man brought a different background and perspective to the advocacy for wilderness preservation, yet each was spurred by a fear of what growing numbers of automobiles, aggressive road building, and the meteoric increase in Americans turning to nature for their leisure would do to the country�s wild places. As Sutter discovered, the founders of the Wilderness Society were "driven wild"--pushed by a rapidly changing country to construct a new preservationist ideal. Sutter demonstrates that the birth of the movement to protect wilderness areas reflected a growing belief among an important group of conservationists that the modern forces of capitalism, industrialism, urbanism, and mass consumer culture were gradually eroding not just the ecology of North America, but crucial American values as well. For them, wilderness stood for something deeply sacred that was in danger of being lost, so that the movement to protect it was about saving not just wild nature, but ourselves as well.
Download or read book States and Nature written by Joshua Busby and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-03-24 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Busby explains how climate change can affect security outcomes, including violent conflict and humanitarian emergencies. Through case studies from sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, the book develops a novel argument explaining why climate change leads to especially bad security outcomes in some places but not in others.
Download or read book After Nature written by Jedediah Purdy and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2015-09 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nature no longer exists apart from humanity. The world we will inhabit is the one we have made. Geologists call this epoch the Anthropocene, Age of Humans. The facts of the Anthropocene are scientific—emissions, pollens, extinctions—but its shape and meaning are questions for politics. Jedediah Purdy develops a politics for this post-natural world.
Download or read book Green Growth That Works written by Lisa Ann Mandle and published by . This book was released on 2019-09-12 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rapid economic development has been a boon to human well-being, but comes at a significant cost to the fertile soils, forests, coastal marshes, and farmland that support all life on earth. If ecosystems collapse, so eventually will human civilization. One solution is inclusive green growth--the efficient use of natural resources. 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. 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.
Download or read book Natura Urbana written by Matthew Gandy and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2022-03-08 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of urban nature that draws together different strands of urban ecology as well as insights derived from feminist, posthuman, and postcolonial thought. Postindustrial transitions and changing cultures of nature have produced an unprecedented degree of fascination with urban biodiversity. The “other nature” that flourishes in marginal urban spaces, at one remove from the controlled contours of metropolitan nature, is not the poor relation of rural flora and fauna. Indeed, these islands of biodiversity underline the porosity of the distinction between urban and rural. In Natura Urbana, Matthew Gandy explores urban nature as a multilayered material and symbolic entity, through the lens of urban ecology and the parallel study of diverse cultures of nature at a global scale. Gandy examines the articulation of alternative, and in some cases, counterhegemonic, sources of knowledge about urban nature produced by artists, writers, scientists, as well as curious citizens, including voices seldom heard in environmental discourse. The book is driven by Gandy’s fascination with spontaneous forms of urban nature ranging from postindustrial wastelands brimming with life to the return of such predators as wolves and leopards on the urban fringe. Gandy develops a critical synthesis between different strands of urban ecology and considers whether "urban political ecology," broadly defined, might be imaginatively extended to take fuller account of both the historiography of the ecological sciences,and recent insights derived from feminist, posthuman, and postcolonial thought.
Download or read book Describing Nature Through Visual Data written by Ursyn, Anna and published by IGI Global. This book was released on 2020-07-03 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: People have described nature since the beginning of human history. They do it for various purposes, including to communicate about economic, social, governmental, meteorological, sustainability-related, strategic, military, and survival issues as well as artistic expression. As a part of the whole world of living beings, we use various types of senses, known and unknown, labeled and not identified, to both communicate and create. Describing Nature Through Visual Data is a collection of impactful research that discusses issues related to the visualization of scientific concepts, picturing processes, and products, as well as the role of computing in advancing visual literacy skills. Organized into four sections, the book contains descriptions, theories, and examples of visual and music-based solutions concerning the selected natural or technological events that are shaping present-day reality. The chapters pertain to selected scientific fields, digital art, computer graphics, and new media and confer the possible ways that visuals, visualization, simulation, and interactive knowledge presentation can help us to understand and share the content of scientific thought, research, artistic works, and practice. Featuring coverage on topics that include mathematical thinking, music theory, and visual communication, this reference is ideal for instructors, professionals, researchers, and students keen on comprehending and enhancing the role of knowledge visualization in computing, sciences, design, media communication, film, advertising, and marketing.
Download or read book Mutation Driven Evolution written by Masatoshi Nei and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2013-05-02 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The purpose of this book is to present a new theory of mutation-driven evolution, which is based on recent advances in genomics and evolutionary developmental biology. This theory asserts that the driving force of evolution is mutation and natural selection is of secondary importance.
Download or read book Driven from Home written by David Silkenat and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cover -- Half Title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Chapter 1: Gwine to Liberty -- Chapter 2: Crowded with Refugees -- Chapter 3: Driven into Exile -- Chapter 4: Confederacy of Refugees -- Chapter 5: In Good Hands, in a Safe Place -- Chapter 6: A Home for the Rest of the War -- Epilogue -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y
Download or read book The Better Angels of Our Nature written by Steven Pinker and published by Penguin Books. This book was released on 2012-09-25 with total page 834 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Faced with the ceaseless stream of news about war, crime, and terrorism, one could easily think this is the most violent age ever seen. Yet as bestselling author Pinker shows in this startling and engaging new work, just the opposite is true.
Download or read book As a Driven Leaf written by Milton Steinberg and published by Jason Aronson. This book was released on 1987 with total page 486 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A spirited classic of American Jewish literature, a historical novel about ancient sage-turned-apostate Elisha ben Abuyah in the late first century C.E. At the heart of the tale are questions about faith and the loss of faith and the repression and rebellion of the Jews of Palestine. Elisha is a leading scholar in Palestine, elected to the Sanhedrin, the highest Jewish court in the land. But two tragedies awaken doubt about God in Elisha's mind, and doubt eats away at his faith. Declared a heretic and excommunicated from the Jewish community, he journeys to Antioch in nearby Syria to begin a quest through Greek and Roman culture for some fundamental irrefutable truth. The pace of the narrative picks up as Elisha directly encounters the full force of the ancient Romans' all-consuming culture. Ultimately, Elisha is forced by the power of Rome to choose between loyalty to his people, who are rebelling against the emperor's domination, and loyalty to his own quest for truth.--Publishers Weekly
Download or read book Contemporary Urban Design Thinking written by Rob Roggema and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-12-29 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is oriented on cities and their role in society, from the public places created in cities to the visionary and more abstract views on large scale developments. The chapter authors argue, each in their own way, how urban design can produce an answer to these questions. Furthermore, detailed insights are given into how current designers, architects, urbanists and landscape architects deal with the contemporary urban problems of our time: climate change, migration, resiliency, politics, environmental change This book includes chapters from leading thinkers in urban design, city development and landscape urbanism fields. The authors have included the most recent insights in urbanism ensuring that this book provides a state-of-the -art text which is both actual and timely.
Download or read book The Adventure Driven Life written by Brian Meier and published by . This book was released on 2019-03-29 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Awaken the Bear is a small book with a big message: The modern world has lulled us into a collective hibernation. To wake up, we need to stop the noise, activate our senses, and re-wild our daily patterns. We all know deep down that we are built for more than sameness and screens. But how do we get there? How do we live a life that is meaningful and adventurous? In Awaken the Bear, Meier introduces readers to another path--one that is primal, untamed, and wild. Blending groundbreaking research with compelling personal stories, he challenges us to rethink the way we view ourselves and the natural world around us. Laying out a blueprint for well-being informed equally by cutting-edge research and timeless wisdom, Meier urges us to tap into our wild inheritance, suggesting that as our modern lives shift increasingly indoors, recognizing the benefits of nature has become more urgent than ever. The goal for all of us should be to approach life with excitement and zest, to feel alive and activated, and to live a life that is rewarding and authentic. But none of this happens on its own. There are levers that we need to pull, and we need to ask the right questions: Why and where are we meant to roam? What animates us? What challenges us? What sustains us? Awaken the Bear is an invitation to consider these questions and to open the door to a wilder and more meaningful life.
