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Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Development in Africa
by Paschal AnosikeHigh foreign aid dependence, poor human capital, rising high youth unemployment and poverty are just some of the reasons that Africa represents such a striking symbol of global inequality today. In this book, the author draws on his research and experience of working with key stakeholders to explore how Africa can take advantage of the knowledge economy and 4th Industrial Revolution opportunities to rebuild from the Covid-19 pandemic and empower its people and encourage entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Development in Africa is a book the African political class, economic policy and development experts, the donor community, academic researchers and students of business and international development can rely on for a better understanding and solutions to Africa’s historical and contemporary socio-economic problems. Paschal Anosike is Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation and the founding Director of Centre for African Entrepreneurship and Leadership (CAEL) at the University of Wolverhampton.
Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Development in Africa
by Paschal Anosike<p>High foreign aid dependence, poor human capital, rising high youth unemployment and poverty are just some of the reasons that Africa represents such a striking symbol of global inequality today.<p> <p>In this book, the author draws on his research and experience of working with key stakeholders to explore how Africa can take advantage of the knowledge economy and 4th Industrial Revolution opportunities to rebuild from the Covid-19 pandemic and empower its people and encourage entrepreneurship.<p> <p>Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Development in Africa is a book the African political class, economic policy and development experts, the donor community, academic researchers and students of business and international development can rely on for a better understanding and solutions to Africa’s historical and contemporary socio-economic problems.<p> <p>Paschal Anosike is Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation and the founding Director of Centre for African Entrepreneurship and Leadership (CAEL) at the University of Wolverhampton.<p>
The Queen's Green Canopy: Ancient Woodlands and Trees
by Adrian Houston Charles Sainsbury-PlaiceStunning photographs of the United Kingdom's most spectacular trees - with a foreword by His Majesty the King.The Queen's Green Canopy is a beautiful photography book showcasing 70 ancient trees and 70 ancient woodlands dedicated by the QGC initiative in honour of Her Majesty's Platinum Jubilee.The book features extraordinary photographs of the United Kingdom's best-loved trees, many of which inspired historic figures, artists and writers through the centuries.Alongside these photographs are short written pieces from contributors including Dame Judi Dench, Alan Titchmarsh, Dame Joanna Lumley, Adam Henson, Archbishop Justin Welby and Danny Clarke, as well as conservation experts from the Woodland Trust and the Duchy of Cornwall. In these pieces they reflect on the trees that have made a mark on their lives and the importance of protecting Britain's woodlands for future generations.Selected trees include yews at a Cotswold's church which inspired JRR Tolkien; the apple tree believed to have inspired Sir Isaac Newton's theory of gravity; the Five Hundred Acre Wood in East Sussex immortalised in AA Milne's Winnie the Pooh books; and the 2,500-year-old tree where Henry VIII may have proposed to Anne Boleyn.So far 3 million trees have been planted by communities, schools and businesses across the country as part of the QGC initiative. Through incredible imagery and joyful pieces of writing, The Queen's Green Canopy celebrates Her Majesty's extraordinary life and the amazing legacy she leaves behind.
Grit, Rigour & Humour: The INEOS Story
by Sir Jim Ratcliffe Dominic O'Connell Quentin Willson Patrick Barclay Sebastian Coe Andrew Likierman Sean Keach Steph McGovern'Manual for success' The AthleticWith an opening chapter by Sir Jim RatcliffeTo mark the 25th Anniversary of the founding of INEOS in 1998, seven leading specialist authors explore the main strands of INEOS's business, including its core chemical business to its ventures into sport, automotive, consumer goods, sustainability, next generation and philanthropy.* Dominic O'Connell on INEOS' core petrochemicals and energy business* Patrick Barclay on INEOS's involvement in sport from the America's Cup to cycling, athletics to Formula 1 and football* Quentin Willson on the building of the Grenadier from scratch in response to the demise of the Land Rover Defender* Steph McGovern on INEOS' move into the consumer goods sector with brands such as Belstaff and INEOS Hygienics, so vital during the pandemic* Sean Keach on INEOS' journey to Net Zero and sustainable investment* Lord Sebastian Coe on the vital importance of exercise for the next generation, with a particular focus on INEOS's worldwide children's exercise initiative, 'The Daily Mile', and the 'Forgotten 40', the 40% of the UK's young who are affected by a lack of basic resources to remain fit and healthy* Sir Andrew Likierman on INEOS' philanthropic projects and investmentsGrit, Rigour & Humour offers an extraordinary and balanced insight into the rise of one of the world's most successful companies, which produces the essential building blocks used in most of the products you use daily from medical products and packaging to electronics and transport, and has expanded rapidly over the past decade into one with interests in many diverse walks of life.
How AI Thinks: How we built it, how it can help us, and how we can control it
by Nigel ToonTHE #2 TIMES BESTSELLER'Artificial intelligence is going to have a massive impact on everyone’s lives... an accessible and sensible read that helps demystify AI' Deborah Meaden, entrepreneur and star of Dragon's Den'Nigel Toon is a visionary leader in the field of artificial intelligence... a must-read' Marc Tremblay, Distinguished Engineer, MicrosoftThose who understand how AI thinks are about to win big.We are used to thinking of computers as being a step up from calculators - very good at storing information, and maybe even at playing a logical game like chess. But up to now they haven't been able to think in ways that are intuitive, or respond to questions as a human might. All that has changed, dramatically, in the past few years.Our search engines are becoming answer engines. Artificial intelligence is already revolutionising sectors from education to healthcare to the creative arts. But how does an AI understand sentiment or context? How does it play and win games that have an almost infinite number of moves? And how can we work with AI to produce insights and innovations that are beyond human capacity, from writing code in an instant to unfolding the elaborate 3D puzzles of proteins?We stand at the brink of a historic change that will disrupt society and at the same time create enormous opportunities for those who understand how AI thinks. Nigel Toon shows how we train AI to train itself, so that it can paint images that have never existed before or converse in any language. In doing so he reveals the strange and fascinating ways that humans think, too, as we learn how to live in a world shared by machine intelligences of our own creation.
In the Adirondacks: Dispatches from the Largest Park in the Lower 48
by Matt DallosAn immersive journey into the past, present, and future of a region many consider the Northeast’s wilderness backyard. Out of all the rural areas of the United States, including those in the West, which are bigger and propped up by more pervasive myths about adventure and nation and wilderness and freedom, the Adirondacks has accumulated a well-known identity beyond its boundaries. Untouched, unspoiled, it is defined by what we haven’t done to it. Combining author Matt Dallos’s personal observations with his thorough research of primary and secondary documents, In the Adirondacks rambles through the region to understand its significance within American culture and what lessons it might offer us for how we think about the environment. In vivid prose, Dallos digs through the region’s past and present to excavate a series of compelling stories and places: a moose named Harold, a hot dog mogul’s rustic mansion, an ecological restoration on an alpine summit, a hermit who demanded a helicopter ride, and a millionaire who dressed up as a Native American to rob a stagecoach. Along the way, Dallos listens to locals and tourists, visits wilderness areas and souvenir shops, and digs through archives in museums and libraries.In the Adirondacks blends lively history and immersive travel writing to explore the Adirondacks that captivated Dallos’s childhood imagination while presenting a compelling and entertaining story about America’s largest park outside of Alaska. The result is an inquisitive journey through the region’s bogs and lakes and boreal forests and the lives of residents and tourists. Dallos turned toward the region to understand why he couldn’t shake it from his mind. What he learned is that he’s not the only one.In the Adirondacks explores the history and future of the most complicated, contested park in North America, raising important questions about the role of environmental preservation and the great outdoors in American history and culture.
In Quest of a Shared Planet: Negotiating Climate from the Global South
by Naveeda KhanBased on the author’s eight years of fieldwork with the United Nations-led Conference of Parties (COP), In Quest of a Shared Planet offers an illuminating first-person ethnographic perspective on climate change negotiations. Focusing on the Paris Agreement, anthropologist Naveeda Khan introduces readers to the only existing global approach to the problem of climate change, one that took nearly thirty years to be collectively agreed upon. She shares her detailed descriptions of COP21 to COP25 and growing understanding of the intricacies of the climate negotiation process, leading her to ask why countries of the Global South invested in this slow-moving process and to explore how they have maneuvered it.With a focus on the Bangladeshi delegation at the COPs, Khan draws out what it means to be a small, poor, and dependent country within the negotiation process. Her interviews with negotiators within country delegations uncover their pathways to the negotiating tables. Through observations of training sessions of negotiators of the Global South, Khan seeks to reveal understandings of what is or is not achievable within negotiated texts and the power of deal-making and deferrals. She profiles individuals who had committed themselves to the climate negotiation process, moving between the Secretariat, Parties, activists, and the wider UN system to bring their principles, strategies, emotions, and visions into view. She explores how the newest pillar of climate action, loss and damage, emerged historically and how developed countries attempted to control it in the process. Khan suggests that we understand the Global South’s pursuit of loss and damage not only as a politics of forcing the issue of a conjoined future upon the Global North, but as a gift to the youth of the world to secure that future.With this book Khan hopes to rekindle an older way of doing politics through the tenets of diplomacy upheld by the UN that have been overshadowed of late by the politics of confrontation. She stresses that while the tension between efforts of equity and solidarity and global economic competition, which have run through the negotiation process, might undercut the urgency to carry out climate mitigation, it needs to be addressed for meaningful and sustainable climate action.Deeply insightful and highly readable, In Quest of a Shared Planet is a stirring call to action that highlights the key role responsive and active youth have in climate negotiations. It is an invitation not only to understand the climate negotiation process, but also to navigate it (for those planning to attend sessions themselves) and to critique it—with, the author hopes, sympathy and an eye to viable alternatives.In Quest of a Shared Planet: Negotiating Climate from the Global South is available from the publisher on an open-access basis.
On the Ground: Terrestrial Theopoetics and Planetary Politics
by O'neil Van HornA bold, theoretical, and pragmatic book that looks to soil as a symbol for constructive possibilities for hope and planetary political action in the Anthropocene.Climate change is here. Its ravaging effects will upend our interconnected ecosystems, and yet those effects will play out disproportionately among the planet’s nearly 8 billion human inhabitants. On the Ground explores how one might account for the many paradoxical tensions posed by the Anthropocene: tensions between planetarity and particularity, connectivity and contextuality, entanglement and exclusion. Using the philosophical and theological idea of “ground,” Van Horn argues that ground—when read as earth-ground, as soil—offers a symbol for conceiving of the effects of climate change as collective and yet located, as communal and yet differential. In so doing, he offers critical interventions on theorizations of hope and political action amid the crises of climate change.Drawing on soil science, theopoetics, feminist ethics, poststructuralism, process philosophy, and more, On the Ground asks: In the face of global climate catastrophe, how might one theorize this calamitous experience as shared and yet particular, as interconnected and yet contextual? Might there be a way to conceptualize our interconnected experiences without erasing critical constitutive differences, particularly of social and ecological location? How might these conceptual interventions catalyze pluralistic, anti-racist planetary politics amid the Anthropocene? In short, the book addresses these queries: What philosophical and theological concepts can soil create? How might soil inspire and help re-imagine forms of planetary politics in the midst of climate change? On the Ground thus roots us in a robust theoretical symbol in the hopes of producing and proliferating intersectional responses to climate change.
Sailing without Ahab: Ecopoetic Travels
by Steve MentzJourney through uncharted literary waters and explore Melville’s epic in bold new lightCome sail with I.We’re not taking the same trip, though you might recognize the familiar course. This time, the Pequod’s American voyage steers its course across the curvature of the Word Ocean without anyone at the helm. We are leaving one man and his madness on shore. Our ship overflows with glorious plurality—multiracial, visionary, queer, conflicted, polyphonic, playful, violent. But on this voyage something is different. Today we sail headless without any Captain. Instead of binding ourselves to the dismasted tyrant’s rage, the ship’s crew seeks only what we will find: currents teeming with life, a blue-watered alien globe, toothy cetacean smiles from vasty deeps. Treasures await those who sail without.This cycle of one hundred thirty-eight poems—one for each chapter in Moby-Dick, plus the Etymology, Extracts, and Epilogue—launches into oceanic chaos without the stabilizing mad focus of the Nantucket captain. Guided by waywardness and curiosity, these poems seek an alien ecopoetics of marine depths, the refraction of light, the taste of salt on skin. Directionless, these poems reach out to touch oceanic expanse and depth. It’s not an easy voyage, and not a certain one. It lures you forward. It has fixed its barbed hook in I.Sailing without means relinquishing goals, sleeping at the masthead, forgetting obsessions. I welcome you to trace wayward ways through these poems. Read them any way you can—back to front, at random, sideways, following the obscure promptings of your heart. It’s the turning that matters. It’s a blue wonder world that beckons.
Rising Water: The Story of the Thai Cave Rescue
by Marc AronsonThe incredible true story of the twelve boys trapped with their coach in a flooded cave in Thailand and their inspiring rescue—as seen in Ron Howard's Thirteen Lives.On June 23, 2018, twelve members of the Wild Boars soccer team and their coach were exploring the Tham Luang cave complex in northern Thailand when disaster struck. A rainy season downpour flooded the tunnels, trapping them as they took shelter on a shelf of the dark cave. Eight days of searching yielded no signs of life, but on July 2 they were discovered by two British divers. The boys and their coach were eventually rescued in an international operation that took three days. What could have been a terrible tragedy became an amazing story of survival.Award-winning author Marc Aronson brings us the backstory behind how this astounding rescue took place. Rising Water highlights the creative thinking and technology that made a successful mission possible by examining the physical, environmental, and psychological factors surrounding the rescue. From the brave Thai Navy SEAL who lost his life while placing oxygen tanks along the passageways of the cave, to the British divers that ultimately swam the boys to safety, to the bravery of the boys and their coach, this is the breathtaking rescue that captivated the entire world.
Greta's Story: The Schoolgirl Who Went on Strike to Save the Planet
by Valentina CameriniThe inspiring true story of Greta Thunberg, a young eco-activist whose persistence sparked a global movement. <P><P>You are never too young to make a difference. Ever since she learned about climate change, Greta Thunberg couldn’t understand why politicians weren’t treating it as an emergency. <P><P> In August 2018, temperatures in Sweden reached record highs, fires raged across the country, and fifteen-year-old Greta decided to stop waiting for political leaders to take action. Instead of going to school on Friday, she made a sign and went on strike in front of Stockholm&’s parliament building. Greta&’s solo protest grew into the global Fridays for Future—or School Strike 4 Climate—movement, which millions have now joined. She has spoken at COP24 (the UN summit on climate change) and has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. This timely, unofficial biography is her story, but also that of many others around the world willing to fight against the indifference of the powerful for a better future.
How to Change Everything: The Young Human's Guide to Protecting the Planet and Each Other
by Naomi KleinAn empowering, engaging young readers guide to understanding and battling climate change from the expert and bestselling author of This Changes Everything and On Fire, Naomi Klein.Warmer temperatures. Fires in the Amazon. Superstorms. These are just some of the effects of climate change that we are already experiencing. The good news is that we can all do something about it. A movement is already underway to combat not only the environmental effects of climate change but also to fight for climate justice and make a fair and livable future possible for everyone. And young people are not just part of that movement, they are leading the way. They are showing us that this moment of danger is also a moment of great opportunity—an opportunity to change everything. Full of empowering stories of young leaders all over the world, this information-packed book from award-winning journalist and one of the foremost voices for climate justice, Naomi Klein, offers young readers a comprehensive look at the state of the climate today and how we got here, while also providing the tools they need to join this fight to protect and reshape the planet they will inherit.
Earth Science
by Utah Oer DoeWritten by a group of Utah teachers, this book focuses on the Utah State Science Standards for Earth science.
Environmental Sociology: From Analysis to Action (G - Reference, Information and Interdisciplinary Subjects Series)
by Leslie King Deborah McCarthy AuriffeilleEnvironmental Sociology: From Analysis to Action illustrates how sociological perspectives can help us better understand the causes and consequences of environmental problems and provides examples of efforts to ameliorate these problems. <p><p>The fourth edition of this environmental sociology reader includes 22 edited excerpts (10 of them new to this edition) that address, among other things, environmental inequalities, knowledge creation, media, and perspectives on disaster. The selected pieces use a variety of sociological perspectives, including environmental justice, power structure research, ecological modernization, ecological footprint, and more, to examine a wide range of environment-related topics.
The Origins Of The Modern World: A Global And Environmental Narrative From The Fifteenth To The Twenty-first Century
by Robert B. MarksThe Origins of the Modern World: A Global and Environmental Narrative from the Fifteenth to the Twenty-First Century (World Social Change)
Disruption Proof: Empower People, Create Value, Drive Change
by Brant CooperCEO and founder of Moves the Needle and New York Times bestselling author of The Lean Entrepreneur Brant Cooper teaches leaders how to ensure their organizations are resilient, agile, and dynamic enough to endure long-term, weathering the storms of disruption and uncertainty. One thing in life is certain: change is constant. Thanks to the rapid pace of technological innovation in the digital age—and further accelerated by the global COVID-19 pandemic—massive structural change is happening on a greater scale than ever before. Faced with unprecedented complexity and uncertainty, most business leaders struggle to see the way forward. Company organization, systems, and management are still largely based on what was most effective in the Industrial Age. Disruption Proof offers a new approach that addresses our current reality. Through powerful case studies of notable corporations like Intuit, 3M, Cargill, and more, Cooper demonstrates how, with the right mindset and practical strategies, companies that focus on creating value for customers can thrive in the 21st century. Disruption Proof provides readers with detailed methods for progressing through four stages of implementation to embrace a new way of working company-wide, including how to: develop an understanding of customers and colleagues that lead to insights (empathy)run tests to challenge assumptions (exploration)leverage data and insights to breakthrough biases (evidence)balance operational execution with learning (equilibrium)manage behavior to match corporate values (ethics) By adopting these 5Es, company leaders can empower employees to become creative problem solvers, ensuring their company&’s ability to navigate moments of crisis and find transformative opportunities. Cooper explains how reimagining work at every level is the key to organic and sustainable growth, and guides leaders to create lasting value in the world. With Cooper's action-oriented advice and tools, anyone can help steer their company towards durable success.
Consumed: The Need for Collective Change: Colonialism, Climate Change, and Consumerism
by Aja BarberA call to action for consumers everywhere, Consumed asks us to look at how and why we buy what we buy, how it's created, who it benefits, and how we can solve the problems created by a wasteful system. We live in a world of stuff. We dispose of most of it in as little as six months after we receive it. The byproducts of our quest to consume are creating an environmental crisis. Aja Barber wants to change this--and you can, too. In Consumed, Barber calls for change within an industry that regularly overreaches with abandon, creating real imbalances in the environment and the lives of those who do the work—often in unsafe conditions for very low pay—and the billionaires who receive the most profit. A story told in two parts, Barber exposes the endemic injustices in our consumer industries and the uncomfortable history of the textile industry, one which brokered slavery, racism, and today&’s wealth inequality. Once the layers are peeled back, Barber invites you to participate in unlearning, to understand the truth behind why we consume in the way that we do, to confront the uncomfortable feeling that we are never quite enough and why we fill that void with consumption rather than compassion. Barber challenges us to challenge the system and our role in it. The less you buy into the consumer culture, the more power you have. Consumed will teach you how to be a citizen and not a consumer.
A Life on Our Planet: My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future
by Sir David AttenboroughIn this scientifically informed account of the changes occurring in the world over the last century, award-winning broadcaster and natural historian shares a lifetime of wisdom and a hopeful vision for the future.See the world. Then make it better.I am 93. I've had an extraordinary life. It's only now that I appreciate how extraordinary. As a young man, I felt I was out there in the wild, experiencing the untouched natural world - but it was an illusion. The tragedy of our time has been happening all around us, barely noticeable from day to day -- the loss of our planet's wild places, its biodiversity. I have been witness to this decline. A Life on Our Planet is my witness statement, and my vision for the future. It is the story of how we came to make this, our greatest mistake -- and how, if we act now, we can yet put it right.We have one final chance to create the perfect home for ourselves and restore the wonderful world we inherited.All we need is the will do so.
Inconspicuous Consumption: The Environmental Impact You Don't Know You Have
by Tatiana SchlossbergFrom a former New York Times science writer, this urgent call to action will empower you to stand up to climate change and environmental pollution by making simple but impactful everyday choices.With urgency and wit, Tatiana Schlossberg explains that far from being only a distant problem of the natural world created by the fossil fuel industry, climate change is all around us, all the time, lurking everywhere in our convenience-driven society, all without our realizing it. By examining the unseen and unconscious environmental impacts in four areas-the Internet and technology, food, fashion, and fuel - Schlossberg helps readers better understand why climate change is such a complicated issue, and how it connects all of us: How streaming a movie on Netflix in New York burns coal in Virginia; how eating a hamburger in California might contribute to pollution in the Gulf of Mexico; how buying an inexpensive cashmere sweater in Chicago expands the Mongolian desert; how destroying forests from North Carolina is necessary to generate electricity in England. Cataloging the complexities and frustrations of our carbon-intensive society with a dry sense of humor, Schlossberg makes the climate crisis and its solutions interesting and relevant to everyone who cares, even a little, about the planet. She empowers readers to think about their stuff and the environment in a new way, helping them make more informed choices when it comes to the future of our world. Most importantly, this is a book about the power we have as voters and consumers to make sure that the fight against climate change includes all of us and all of our stuff, not just industry groups and politicians. If we have any hope of solving the problem, we all have to do it together.
Beaverland: How One Weird Rodent Made America
by Leila PhilipAn intimate and revelatory dive into the world of the beaver—the wonderfully weird rodent that has surprisingly shaped American history and may save its ecological future. From award-winning writer Leila Philip, Beaverland is a masterful work of narrative science writing, a book that highlights, though history and contemporary storytelling, how this weird rodent plays an oversized role in American history and its future. She follows fur trappers who lead her through waist high water, fur traders and fur auctioneers, as well as wildlife managers, PETA activists, Native American environmental vigilantes, scientists, engineers, and the colorful group of activists known as beaver believers. Beginning with the early trans-Atlantic trade in North America, Leila Philip traces the beaver&’s profound influence on our nation&’s early economy and feverish western expansion, its first corporations and multi-millionaires. In her pursuit of this weird and wonderful animal, she introduces us to people whose lives are devoted to the beaver, including a Harvard scientist from the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana, who uses drones to create 3-dimensional images of beaver dams; and an environmental restoration consultant in the Chesapeake whose nickname is the &“beaver whisperer&”. What emerges is a poignant personal narrative, a startling portrait of the secretive world of the contemporary fur trade, and an engrossing ecological and historical investigation of these heroic animals who, once trapped to the point of extinction, have returned to the landscape as one of the greatest conservation stories of the 20th century. Beautifully written and impeccably researched, Beaverland reveals the profound ways in which one odd creature and the trade surrounding it has shaped history, culture, and our environment. The New York Times Editors' Choice NPR Science Friday Book Club Selection
Diet for a Changing Climate: Food for Thought
by Christy Mihaly Sue HeavenrichThe United Nations supports a compelling solution to world hunger: eat insects! Explore the vast world of unexpected foods that may help solve the global hunger crisis. Weeds, wild plants, invasive and feral species, and bugs are all food for thought. Learn about the nutritional value of various plant and animal species; visit a cricket farm; try a recipe for dandelion pancakes, kudzu salsa, or pickled purslane; and discover more about climate change, sustainability, green agriculture, indigenous foods, farm-to-table restaurants, and how to be an eco-friendly producer, consumer, and chef. Meet average folks and experts in the field who will help you stretch your culinary imagination!
Pandemic: How Climate, the Environment, and Superbugs Increase the Risk
by Connie GoldsmithThroughout history, several deadly pandemics brought humanity to its knees, killing millions, and recent outbreaks of Ebola and Zika took coordinated international efforts to prevent them from spreading. Learn about factors that contribute to the spread of disease by examining past pandemics and epidemics, including the Bubonic Plague, smallpox Ebola, HIV/AIDS, and Zika. Examine case studies of potential pandemic diseases, like SARS and cholera, and find out how pathogens and antibiotics work. See how human activities such as global air travel and the disruption of animal habitats contribute to the risk of a new pandemic. And discover how scientists are striving to contain and control the spread of disease, both locally and globally.
Forest Talk: How Trees Communicate
by Melissa KochTrees are essential. They provide water, shelter, and food for millions of plant and animal species, including humans. They deliver proven health benefits, and they capture and store carbon, which combats climate change. Yet trees are in trouble. Forests are struggling to adapt to climate change, and deforestation is a major threat. Recently, researchers and citizen scientists made the surprising revelation that trees communicate with each other through an underground system of soil fungi and other methods. Complex social networks help trees survive and thrive by transferring resources to each other, sending defense signals, communicating with their kin, and more. Meet the tree scientists and learn more of their fascinating discoveries.
Solutions for a Cleaner, Greener Planet: Environmental Chemistry
by Marc ZimmerMany of the most toxic materials on Earth—from arsenic to plutonium—occur naturally, but manufacturers have also used them in products such as paints, plumbing, pesticides, nuclear fuel, and weaponry. Without careful management, toxins can leach into groundwater or pollute our environment. Exposure to toxins leads to various cancers, impairment of the immune and reproductive systems, as well as cognitive problems. What can be done? Solutions include a wide range of infrastructure approaches, such as better water filtration, governmental and manufacturing regulations, outright bans on certain chemicals, careful monitoring, and the use of alternative fuels. Learn more about key contaminants and their impact on health, as well as solutions on a global and individual level.
American Jaguar: Big Cats, Biogeography, and Human Borders
by Elizabeth WebbIn the borderlands between the United States and Mexico, America's largest cat—the jaguar—is fighting to regain its kingdom. Added to the endangered species list in 1997, the jaguar has declined in population mainly due to habitat fragmentation created by roads, farms, mines, and most controversially, the border wall. Such human-made barriers prevent free movement of many wild animals for predation and mating, thereby threatening their reproduction, DNA transfer, and overall survival. Author and wildlife biologist Elizabeth Webb examines the jaguar's predicament and highlights the work of field scientists who are searching for solutions. "Conservation Connection" features throughout the book underscore the importance of protecting this keystone species of the Americas.