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Dandelion Adventures
by L. Patricia KiteThe wind blows, and several tiny dandelion seed parachutes fly into the air. One lands in a sidewalk crack, another at the edge of a forest, while three others land in a garden, a park, and on a muddy shore. One seed lands on a ship and sails off to a foreign land. The last one lands in a schoolyard, where it takes root and matures. A child puffs on the feathery white ball and seventy little seed parachutes fly away--where might they land? In simple words and beautiful pictures, the story of how this most widespread of weeds regenerates is unfolded for young readers.
Curious George A Winter's Nap (CGTV Reader)
by H. A. ReyAfter learning about hibernation, George decides that the best way to spend the cold winter months is the way that bears do it--fast asleep! But first it's too bright in his room; then it's not cave-like enough; and then it's too loud. When George finally does get to sleep, he wakes up to discover that he slept only one night, not the whole winter! Will George be convinced that winter can be a wonderland of fun after all? Includes a question-and-answer activity on hibernation as well as a craft project to make your own teddy bear cave.
The Land Grabbers
by Fred PearceAn unprecedented land grab is taking place around the world. Fearing future food shortages or eager to profit from them, the world’s wealthiest and most acquisitive countries, corporations, and individuals have been buying and leasing vast tracts of land around the world. The scale is astounding: parcels the size of small countries are being gobbled up across the plains of Africa, the paddy fields of Southeast Asia, the jungles of South America, and the prairies of Eastern Europe. Veteran science writer Fred Pearce spent a year circling the globe to find out who was doing the buying, whose land was being taken over, and what the effect of these massive land deals seems to be. The Land Grabbersis a first-of-its-kind exposé that reveals the scale and the human costs of the land grab, one of the most profound ethical, environmental, and economic issues facing the globalized world in the twenty-first century. The corporations, speculators, and governments scooping up land cheap in the developing world claim that industrial-scale farming will help local economies. But Pearce’s research reveals a far more troubling reality. While some mega-farms are ethically run, all too often poor farmers and cattle herders are evicted from ancestral lands or cut off from water sources. The good jobs promised by foreign capitalists and home governments alike fail to materialize. Hungry nations are being forced to export their food to the wealthy, and corporate potentates run fiefdoms oblivious to the country beyond their fences. Pearce’s story is populated with larger-than-life characters, from financier George Soros and industry tycoon Richard Branson, to Gulf state sheikhs, Russian oligarchs, British barons, and Burmese generals. We discover why Goldman Sachs is buying up the Chinese poultry industry, what Lord Rothschild and a legendary 1970s asset-stripper are doing in the backwoods of Brazil, and what plans a Saudi oil billionaire has for Ethiopia. Along the way, Pearce introduces us to the people who actually live on, and live off of, the supposedly “empty” land that is being grabbed, from Cambodian peasants, victimized first by the Khmer Rouge and now by crony capitalism, to African pastoralists confined to ever-smaller tracts. Over the next few decades, land grabbing may matter more, to more of the planet’s people, than even climate change. It will affect who eats and who does not, who gets richer and who gets poorer, and whether agrarian societies can exist outside corporate control. It is the new battle over who owns the planet.
The End of Growth
by Jeff RubinIn an urgent follow-up to his best-selling Why Your World Is About To Get A Whole Lot Smaller, Jeff Rubin argues that the end of cheap oil means the end of growth. What it will be like to live in a world where growth is over? Economist and resource analyst Jeff Rubin is certain that the world's governments are getting it wrong. Instead of moving us toward economic recovery, measures being taken around the globe right now are digging us into a deeper hole. Both politicians and economists are missing the fact that the real engine of economic growth has always been cheap, abundant fuel and resources. But that era is over. The end of cheap oil, Rubin argues, signals the end of growth--and the end of easy answers to renewing prosperity. Rubin's own equation is clear: with China and India sucking up the lion's share of the world's ever more limited resources, the rest of us will have to make do with less. But is this all bad? Can less actually be more? Rubin points out that there is no research to show that people living in countries with hard-charging economies are happier, and plenty of research to show that some of the most contented people on the planet live in places with no-growth or slow-growth GDPs. But it doesn't matter whether it's bad or good, it's the new reality: our world is not only about to get smaller, our day-to-day lives are about to be a whole lot different.
The Little Data Book on Financial Inclusion 2012
by World BankThe Little Data Book on Financial Inclusion 2012 is a pocket edition of the Global Financial Inclusion Index ("Global Findex") database providing country-level indicators on the use of formal bank accounts, payments behavior, savings patterns, credit patterns, and insurance decisions. It provides data on financial inclusion by key demographic characteristics--gender, age, education, income, and rural or urban residence. The book includes summary pages for 147 economies and regional and income group averages.
Watch Apple Trees Grow (Watch Plants Grow)
by Mary Ann HoffmanApples aren't just good for keeping doctors at bay, they also make for a tasty snack. Readers will explore the life of apple trees from their beginnings as seeds to the fruit they produce. Colorful photographs show the growth of an apple tree in perfect detail. Readers even learn how bees play an important part in growing apples.
Gardening at Ginger
by James RaimesSeven years ago, James Raimes and his wife bought a country home on nine acres in upstate New York. In the tradition of their family, who once owned a cottage named Fred, this larger property became "Ginger." Inspired by the natural beauty of the land and a desire to learn how to be a gardener, Raimes found himself obsessed with such questions as why gardeners keep moving plants around, what the names of the lawn grasses are, and how one can impose order in a garden and at the same time make it look natural. What, in fact, defines a garden?Gardening at Ginger is full of successes and failures, aches and pains, frustrations and delights. But more than that, it's the story of a great discovery: as we try to shape a landscape to reflect who we are, we find that who we are has been reshaped in the process.
My Life as a Book
by Janet TashjianSummer's finally here, and Derek Fallon is looking forward to pelting the UPS truck with water balloons, climbing onto the garage roof, and conducting silly investigations. But when his parents decide to send him to Learning Camp, Derek's dreams of fun come to an end. Ever since he's been labeled a "reluctant reader," his mom has pushed him to read "real" books - something other than his beloved Calvin & Hobbes. As Derek forges unexpected friendships and uncovers a family secret involving himself (in diapers! no less), he realizes that adventures and surprises are around the corner, complete with curve balls. My Life as a Book is a 2011 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.
The Ripple Effect
by Alex Prud'HommeNow in paperback from the bestselling coauthor with Julia Child of My Life in France "a balanced and insightful assessment of what could emerge as the dominant issue in decades ahead" (Associated Press)--the fate of fresh water in the twenty-first century.With The Ripple Effect, Alex Prud'homme has changed the way we think about the water we drink. Inspired by an interest in our worldwide obsession with bottled water, Prud'homme undertook an ambitious quest to understand the evolving story of freshwater. What he found was shocking: as the climate warms and world population grows, demand for water has surged, but supplies of fresh water are static or dropping, and new threats to water quality appear every day. The questions he sought to answer were urgent: Will there be enough water to satisfy demand? What are the threats to its quality? What is the state of our water infrastructure--both the pipes that bring us fresh water and the levees that keep it out? How secure is our water supply from natural disasters and terrorist attacks? Can we create new sources for our water supply through scientific innovation? Is water a right like air or a commodity like oil--and who should control the tap? Like Daniel Yergin's seminal classic The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, & Power, The Ripple Effect is a masterwork of investigation and a dramatic narrative, spanning from the alleged murder of a water scientist in New Jersey to the epic confrontation between salmon fishermen and copper miners in Alaska. The Ripple Effect is a major achievement and will change our understanding of the importance of water forever. el Pollan has changed the way we think about the food we eat; Alex Prud'homme will change the way we think about the water we drink. Informative and provocative, The Ripple Effect is a major achievement.
The Hardy Boys Handbook: Seven Stories of Survival
by Franklin W. Dixon Sheila Link Leslie H. MorrillFrank and Joe Hardy could get out of any tough situations. After taking a survival course, the young detectives are forced to put their training to the test in seven terrifying situations.
Twenty Lessons in Environmental Sociology
by Tammy L. Lewis Kenneth A. GouldThe most student-oriented book available for environmental sociology courses, Twenty Lessons in Environmental Sociology introduces undergraduates to the subject in a groundbreaking new way. Instead of compiling articles from professional journals, this innovative reader presents twenty classroom-tested "lessons" from dedicated, experienced teachers. These diverse readings examine key topics in the field, from the social construction of nature to the growing influence of global media on our understanding of the environment. Building this collection on the model of a successful undergraduate classroom experience, coeditors Kenneth A. Gould and Tammy L. Lewis asked the contributors to choose a topic, match it with their favorite class lecture, and construct a lesson to reflect the way they teach it in the classroom. The result is an engaging, innovative, and versatile volume that presents the core ideas of environmental sociology in concise, accessible chapters. Each brief lesson is designed as a stand-alone piece and can be easily adapted into an existing course syllabus. Ideal for any course that looks at the environment from a sociological perspective, Twenty Lessons in Environmental Sociology offers an insightful introduction to this dynamic subject.
The City and the Coming Climate: Climate Change and the Places We Live
by Brian Stone Jr.This book is the first to explore the dramatic amplification of global warming underway in cities and the range of actions that individuals and governments can undertake to slow the pace of warming. A core thesis of the book is that the principal strategy currently advocated to mitigate climate change - the reduction of greenhouse gases - will not prove sufficient to measurably slow the rapid pace of warming in urban environments. Brian Stone explains the science of climate change in terms accessible to the nonscientist and with compelling anecdotes drawn from history and current events. The book is an ideal introduction to climate change and cities for students, policy makers, and anyone who wishes to gain insight into an issue critical to the future of our cities and the people who live in them.
Singing Wilderness
by Sigurd F. OlsonThe book has to do with the calling of loons, with northern lights, and the great silences of land lying northwest of Lake Superior. It is concerned with the simple joys, the timelessness and perspective found in a way of life which is close to the past. I have heard the singing in many places, but I seem to hear it best in the wilderness lake country of the Quetico-Superior, where travel is still by pack and canoe over the ancient trails of the Indians and voyageurs. Thus the author sets the theme and tone of this enthralling book of discovery about one of the few great primitive areas in our country which have withstood the pressures of civilization.Acute natural perceptivity and a profound knowledge of the relationships to be found in nature combine here in vivid evocations of the sights, the sounds, the vast stillnesses, and the events of the wilderness as the seasons succeed each other. But Mr. Olson is not content merely to "describe; he probes for meanings that will lead the reader to a different and more revealing way of looking at the out-of-doors and to a deeper sense of its eternal values. In each of the thirty-four chapters of The Singing Wilderness he has sought to capture an essential quality of our magnificent lake and forest heritage. He shows us what can be read from the rocks of the great Canadian Shield; he offers a delightful essay on the virtues of pine knots as fuel; he writes of the ways of a canoe, of flashing trout in the pools of the Isabella, of tamarack bogs, caribou moss, the flight of wild geese, timber wolves, and the birds of the ski trails. And much more, with something to satisfy every taste for wilderness experience. The Singing Wilderness is a book that no lover of nature will want to be without. To anyone who contemplates a vacation in the lake country of northern Minnesota and adjoining Canada, it is the perfect vade mecum.
Touch The Top Of The World: A Blind Man's Journey To Climb Farther Than The Eye Can See
by Erik WeihenmayerThe incredible, inspiring story of world-class climber Erik Weihenmayer, from the terrible diagnosis that foretold of the loss of his eyesight, to his dream to climb mountains, and finally his quest to reach each of the Seven Summits. Erik Weihenmayer was born with retinoscheses, a degenerative eye disorder that would progressively unravel his retinas. Erik learned from doctors that he was destined to lose his sight by age thirteen. Yet from early on, he was determined to rise above this devastating disability and lead a fulfilling, exciting life. In Touch the Top of the World, Erik recalls his struggle to push past the limits placed on him by his visual impairment--and by a seeing world. He speaks movingly of the role his family played in his battle to break through the barriers of blindness: the mother who prayed for the miracle that would restore her son's sight; the father who encouraged him to strive for that unreachable mountaintop. Erik was the first blind man to summit McKinley. Soon he became the first blind person to scale the infamous 3000-foot rock wall of El Capitan and then Argentina's Aconcagua, the highest peak outside of Asia. He was married to his longtime sweetheart at 13,000 feet on the Shira Plateau on his way to Kilimanjaro's summit, and recently Erik scaled Polar Circus, the 30,000-foot vertical ice wall in Alberta, Canada. Erik's story is about having the vision to dream big; the courage to reach for near impossible goals; and the grit, determination, and ingenuity to transform our lives into "something miraculous. "To download an audio excerpt from Touch the Top of the World, visit the American Foundation for the Blind Web site.
Year on the Wing
by Tim DeeBirds--those "upgiven ghosts" who shape our skies--and their many styles of flying have inspired us for centuries. Enthralled with birds since he was a young boy, Tim Dee describes their allure in compelling, poetic prose as he follows these magnificent creatures on land, at sea, and in the air over the course of a year. A memoir of the author's life as well as a stirring account of bird migrations and the enticements of flight, the book explores the ideas and feelings that birds awaken by their flying. A Year on the Wing is also a significant chronicle of Dee's rich reading of a gorgeous literary and naturalist tradition about birds, and achieves a marvelous commingling of nature and language, finding meaning and a fascinating beauty in the quiver of a redstart's tail, in the thrilling skydiving stoop of the once-endangered now resurgent peregrine falcon, and the nocturnal restlessness of migrant woodcocks. Watching birds instills a renewed sense of wonder in us all, and this beautifully written memoir celebrates birds and the inspiration they give as it expands our horizons.e inspiration they provide through their twice-yearly winged migrations.
The Little Data Book 2012
by The World BankThis pocket-sized reference on key development data for over 200 countries provides profiles of each country with 54 development indicators about people, environment, economy, technology and infrastructure, trade, and finance.
How Did That Get to My Table? Salad (Community Connections)
by Emily J. DolbearYoung readers will gain an understanding on how salad is grown and how it ends up on their table. Picture descriptions added.
Black Dawn, Bright Day: Indian Prophecies for the Millennium That Reveal the Fate of the Earth
by Wabun Wind Sun BearThe sacred teacher and author of The Medicine Wheel offers a compelling and prophetic work that details the environmental future of every major landmass in the world. Through his own visions and dreams, and the visions of other Native American peoples, Sun Bear has seen the future of our Earth, and here he explicitly details which parts of the world will be most affected.
Within Reach: My Everest Story
by Mark Pfetzer Jack GalvinThe author describes how he spent his teenage years climbing mountains in the United States, South America, Africa, and Asia, with an emphasis on his two expeditions up Mount Everest.
Panda
by Heather AngelGiant Pandas inspire affection and instant recognition with their distinctive white faces and black ears and eye patches. Meet China's national treasure, pictured in a natural, protected mountain habitat where we have the chance to follow on photographer Heather Angel's shoulder as she reveals pandas as we have never seen them: playing in the snow, a mother with baby, leading their lives, apparently oblivious of one another.
Principles of International Environmental Law
by Jacqueline Peel Philippe Sands Adriana Fabra Ruth MackenzieThe third edition of this classic textbook offers comprehensive and critical commentary on international environmental law. It fully covers the key topics of the course and is clearly structured to include the history and framework in which international environmental law exists, key areas of regulation and implementation, links to other areas of law and future developments. It has been updated to incorporate all the latest developments in treaty and case law. Extensive feedback on previous editions results in a restructuring of material, including a new part focused on linkage to other areas of international law including human rights, international trade and foreign investment. There is also a new chapter on future developments charting the directions in which the subject is moving. Specialist authors writing on oceans, seas and fisheries and biodiversity add to the expertise of the two principal authors for an authoritative overview of the subject.
Volatile Places: A Sociology of Communities and Environmental Controversies
by Steve Kroll-Smith Valerie J. GunterVolatile Places: A Sociology of Communities and Environmental Controversies is a thoughtful guide to the spirited public controversies that inevitably occur when environments and human communities collide. The movie "An Inconvenient Truth" based on the environmental activism of Al Gore and the devastation of Hurricane Katrina are specifically highlighted. Authors Valerie Gunter and Steve Kroll-Smith begin with a simple observation and offer a provocative case study approach to the investigation of community and environmental controversies.
The Fungal Pharmacy
by Robert Rogers Solomon P. WasserIn The Fungal Pharmacy, noted herbalist Robert Rogers introduces readers to more than 300 species of medicinal mushrooms and lichens found in North America. These fungi, Rogers explains, have the capacity to heal both the body and, through the process of myco-remediation, the planet itself. Throughout the book, he documents their success in optimizing the immune system and treating a wide range of acute and chronic diseases, including cardiovascular, respiratory, and liver problems, blood sugar disorders, cancer, and obesity.Entries discuss the mushroom or lichen's medicinal traits and properties, including active chemical components, preparation methods (including extracts, essences, and essential oils), and historical as well as modern-day usage. Two hundred full-color photos and thorough descriptions make identification easy for the reader. Rogers also delves into the cultural, religious, and literary significance of each mushroom, featuring fascinating tidbits about each one's etymology and history.