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After the Fires: The Ecology of Change in Yellowstone National Park

Linda L. Wallace (ed.)

This book presents the history and aftereffects of the fires of 1988 that swept through the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem (GYE) describes the chronology of the fires, the areas burned, and the extent ... More

This book presents the history and aftereffects of the fires of 1988 that swept through the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem (GYE) describes the chronology of the fires, the areas burned, and the extent of fire in those regions. One of the biggest concerns of the public was how individual plants and animals fared. Thinking hierarchically, we know that the patterns seen at the community and ecosystem levels are the result of mechanistic responses at the individual and population levels. It is important to know how forest trees and grass-land species responded. Some of the greatest public concern was for large animals, particularly Elk. Elk mortality and population responses after the fires took some surprising turns. The GYE is an extremely heterogeneous environment. Plant communities provide essential habitat for the megaherbivores of the GYE as well. Although we know numbers and how the populations of these animals have changed since the fires, it is difficult to determine the mechanisms behind these changes. Using simulation models and comparing their results with reality can yield important insights as to the mechanisms governing ungulate response to fire. The sediments of Yellowstone's lakes provide an opportunity to reconstruct the vegetation and fire history of the region back to the time of late-Pleistocene deglaciation.Less

The Baltimore School of Urban Ecology: Space, Scale, and Time for the Study of Cities

J. Morgan Grove, Mary Cadenasso, Steward Pickett, and Gary Machlis

The first “urban century” in history has arrived: a majority of the world's population now resides in cities and their surrounding suburbs. Urban expansion marches on, and the planning and design of ... More

The first “urban century” in history has arrived: a majority of the world's population now resides in cities and their surrounding suburbs. Urban expansion marches on, and the planning and design of future cities requires attention to such diverse issues as human migration, public health, economic restructuring, water supply, climate and sea-level change, and much more. This book draws on two decades of pioneering social and ecological studies in Baltimore to propose a new way to think about cities and their social, political, and ecological complexity that will apply in many different parts of the world. The aim is to give fresh perspectives on how to study, build, and manage cities in innovative and sustainable ways.Less

Banned: A History of Pesticides and the Science of Toxicology

Frederick Rowe Davis

Rachel Carson's eloquent book Silent Spring stands as one of the most important books of the twentieth century and inspired important and long-lasting changes in environmental science and government ... More

Rachel Carson's eloquent book Silent Spring stands as one of the most important books of the twentieth century and inspired important and long-lasting changes in environmental science and government policy. This text sets Carson's study in the context of the twentieth century, reconsiders her achievement, and analyzes its legacy in light of toxic chemical use and regulation today. The book examines the history of pesticide development alongside the evolution of the science of toxicology and tracks legislation governing exposure to chemicals across the twentieth century. It affirms the brilliance of Carson's careful scientific interpretations drawing on data from university and government toxicologists. Although Silent Spring instigated legislation that successfully terminated DDT use, other warnings were ignored. Ironically, we replaced one poison with even more toxic ones. The book concludes that we urgently need new thinking about how we evaluate and regulate pesticides in accounting for their ecological and human toll.Less

Belonging on an Island: Birds, Extinction, and Evolution in Hawai'i

Daniel Lewis

A lively, rich natural history of Hawaiian birds that challenges existing ideas about what constitutes biocultural nativeness and belonging, this natural history takes readers on a thousand-year ... More

A lively, rich natural history of Hawaiian birds that challenges existing ideas about what constitutes biocultural nativeness and belonging, this natural history takes readers on a thousand-year journey as it explores the Hawaiian Islands' beautiful birds and a variety of topics including extinction, evolution, survival, conservationists and their work, and, most significantly, the concept of belonging. The text is built around the stories of four species: the Stumbling Moa-Nalo, the Kauaʻi ʻŌʻō, the Palila, and the Japanese White-Eye. The book offers innovative ways to think about what it means to be native and proposes new definitions that apply to people as well as to birds. Being native, the book argues, is a relative state influenced by factors including the passage of time, charisma, scarcity, utility to others, short-term evolutionary processes, and changing relationships with other organisms. This book also describes how bird conservation started in Hawaiʻi, and the naturalists and environmentalists who did extraordinary work.Less

The Carbon Crunch

Dieter Helm

This book explains the causes of climate change and who is responsible for it. It shows that the emissions keep going up, and that nothing of substance has yet been achieved after more than two ... More

This book explains the causes of climate change and who is responsible for it. It shows that the emissions keep going up, and that nothing of substance has yet been achieved after more than two decades of effort. It is claimed that the energy sector can be converted from an overwhelmingly carbon-based one to almost zero carbon in the space of half a century, all at just a small cost, or even a profit, based on simplistic assumptions about economic growth and a new industrial revolution. The current industrial structures of all developed and most developing economies are overwhelmingly carbon-based. Decarbonizing requires the coordinated replacement of almost all of the capital stock of the world. Tackling climate change does mean lowering standard of living from its current unsustainable levels, even after the economic crisis. A border carbon tax has one other great virtue: it provides a bottom-up way of getting global action, and avoids the tortuous Kyoto-style top-down negotiations. Applying border adjustments is bound to take time and cause transitional difficulties. Carbon pricing is necessary, but it is not sufficient. By considering climate change mitigation in the context of a limited ability to pay, a very different strategy emerges. For the amounts currently spent, carbon emissions could be cut by much more in the short run, and the possibility of a series of breakthroughs could be husbanded through a major international R&D programme.Less

Climate Cultures: Anthropological Perspectives on Climate Change

Jessica Barnes and Michael R Dove (eds)

Climate change is one of the most pressing issues of our times, yet also seemingly intractable. This book draws together the state-of-the-art thinking in anthropology, approaching climate change as a ... More

Climate change is one of the most pressing issues of our times, yet also seemingly intractable. This book draws together the state-of-the-art thinking in anthropology, approaching climate change as a nexus of nature, culture, science, politics, and belief. The book reveals new ways of thinking about the complex relationships between society and climate, science and the state, certainty and uncertainty, global and local that are manifested in climate change debates. The contributors address three major areas of inquiry: how climate change issues have been framed in previous times compared to the present; how knowledge about climate change and its impacts is produced and interpreted by different groups; and how imagination plays a role in shaping conceptions of climate change.Less

The Crowded Greenhouse: Population, Climate Change, and Creating a Sustainable World

John Firor and Judith Jacobsen

This book presents the strongest possible arguments about human population, climate change, and the relationship between Earth and human beings, discussing how people on Earth should act to stabilize ... More

This book presents the strongest possible arguments about human population, climate change, and the relationship between Earth and human beings, discussing how people on Earth should act to stabilize human population, and why and how they should act to stabilize the composition of the atmosphere. Three arguments are offered in service of the ultimate goal that is to strike a new balance in which the scale of human activities is in keeping with the scale of natural systems. The book describes the approach to population issues that prevailed from the time population became a widespread public concern in the 1960s, and the shift in approach which took place as women's health organizations and other feminist groups weighed in on population at the Cairo conference in 1994. It outlines the current knowledge about the science of climate change, recapitulates the development of the science in the past hundred years, and describes the history and content of the negotiations, including the Rio and Berlin meetings and the Kyoto Protocol. The book explains the difficult equity issues involved, continued resistance to the negotiations, and the economic models on which much of this resistance is based. It focuses on the policy agenda that is believed to be most powerful for stemming climate change: a revenue-neutral tax shift. The book also covers the scale of emission reductions required to stabilize the climate, and the importance of energy and materials efficiency.Less

Dancing with the River: People and Life on the Chars of South Asia

Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt and Gopa Samanta

This book discusses chars as uniquely fluid environments where the demarcation between land and water is neither well defined nor permanent. Chars form a fluid and problematic category, as much of ... More

This book discusses chars as uniquely fluid environments where the demarcation between land and water is neither well defined nor permanent. Chars form a fluid and problematic category, as much of politics and history as of the environment; both of these social and natural elements are products of control. Within the Gangetic plains, the focus in this book is on the Bengal delta, and specifically the bagri, or the western part of the delta. Lying outside or at the margins of the land revenue system, the complex and fluid environment of chars presents opportunities to some people. Understanding the transition to British rule is explained in this book. The livelihoods of people who neither benefited from rehabilitation programs nor were able to fully merge with the mainstream life are also explored. To study women-headed households, broadly ethnographic qualitative methods are employed. The livelihoods linked to the hybrid hydraulic regimes of tropical rivers are also intrinsically hybrid. On chars, water remains the most important source of wealth as well as the biggest threat to a secure life. No conventional ways of understanding security and vulnerability apply to the lives that are defined by water; people do the best they can on an everyday basis, either individually or collectively.Less

Disconnected Rivers: Linking Rivers to Landscapes

Ellen Wohl

This book focuses on how rivers function, how those functions have changed through time, and the role of humans in those changes. A river continually responds to changes in its environment and is ... More

This book focuses on how rivers function, how those functions have changed through time, and the role of humans in those changes. A river continually responds to changes in its environment and is never static. The type of river response depends on the magnitude and persistence of changes in water and sediment entering the river. The movements of water and sediment within a sand-bed channel adjust readily over a period of minutes to hours. The book discusses rivers of the Northeast and East-Central region of the United States, which drain east to the Atlantic Ocean. The single largest drainage basin in this region is the St. Lawrence, which delivers an average of 65,000 billion gallons of water to the ocean each year. The book examines the river systems in America, explains how the earliest human inhabitants reached America and modified the physical and biological environments of the rivers, and reveals that sedentary agricultural communities first appeared in the archeological record of North America more than 2,000 years ago. As with agricultural peoples elsewhere in the world, these first farmers affected rivers more than their hunter-gatherer predecessors. The book discusses the impact of industrialization on the health of rivers in United States, also focusing on the restoration and rehabilitation of rivers.Less

Ensuring Greater Yellowstone's Future: Choices for Leaders and Citizens

Susan G. Clark

Yellowstone, one of America's most special places, has a special responsibility for its people to whom its management is entrusted. The federal government manages the park itself and much of the ... More

Yellowstone, one of America's most special places, has a special responsibility for its people to whom its management is entrusted. The federal government manages the park itself and much of the greater Yellowstone ecosystem, while the rest is managed by the individual landowners, businesses, and state and tribal governments. This book assesses the leadership and policy process of greater Yellowstone through which leaders seek to work together to chart a course toward sustainability. Specifically, the Greater Yellowstone Coordinating Committee (GYCC), a high-level federal committee that influences management policy and which is made up of the heads of the area's national parks, forests, and wildlife refuges, is considered at large for leadership purposes. The intent is to see the issues that arise in greater Yellowstone through the eyes of decision makers who are subject to real deadlines and policy constraints. The analysis accomplished in this book is meant to encourage greater reflection and attention to the higher-order tasks as well as to the basic tasks required for effective leadership, not only by the region's leaders, but also by all the other organizations and individuals who live there and care about the future of America's natural heritage.Less

Escaping the Dark, Gray City: Fear and Hope in Progressive-Era Conservation

Benjamin Heber Johnson

This book is an exploration of the Progressive-era conservation movement, and its lasting effects on American culture, politics, and contemporary environmentalism. The turn of the twentieth century ... More

This book is an exploration of the Progressive-era conservation movement, and its lasting effects on American culture, politics, and contemporary environmentalism. The turn of the twentieth century caught America at a crossroads, shaking the dust from a bygone era and hurtling toward the promises of modernity. Factories, railroads, banks, and oil fields all reshaped the American landscape and people. In the gulf between growing wealth and the ills of an urbanizing nation, the spirit of Progressivism emerged. Promising a return to democracy and a check on concentrated wealth, Progressives confronted this changing relationship to the environment, not only in the countryside but also in dense industrial cities and leafy suburbs. Drawing on extensive work in urban history and Progressive politics, this book weaves together environmental history, material culture, and politics to reveal the successes and failures of the conservation movement and its lasting legacy. By following the efforts of a broad range of people and groups—women's clubs, labor advocates, architects, and politicians—the book shows how conservation embodied the ideals of Progressivism, ultimately becoming one of its most important legacies.Less

Every Farm a Factory: The Industrial Ideal in American Agriculture

Deborah Fitzgerald

This book traces the diffusion of industrial agriculture by looking closely at the main components of this process in its first generation, between 1918 and 1930. The story begins in 1918 because a ... More

This book traces the diffusion of industrial agriculture by looking closely at the main components of this process in its first generation, between 1918 and 1930. The story begins in 1918 because a number of new, large-scale farms began operation then and were described in the national press as bellwethers of a new industrial farming era. The number of these farms continued to grow through the 1920s, peaking in 1929. The book examines the contextual gridwork on which the transformation from traditional to industrial agriculture hung, and discusses the great diversity of American rural landscapes and the farm products that came from them, as well as their amenability to the industrializing push. It also examines the role of World War I in destabilizing both farm production and rural expectations. After exploring the intriguing and ultimately irresistible attraction of new factories and businesses that promoted rational management and mechanization, and which seemed a fitting model for agriculture, the book discusses the development of two metrics that were used to frame and maintain the industrializing impulse: quantification and mechanization. It also explores the emergence of agricultural economics as an academic discipline, and its practical application in farm communities and federal agencies.Less

Farmers' Bounty: Locating Crop Diversity in the Contemporary World

Stephen B. Brush

This book defines the dimensions of crop diversity and questions surrounding it. Understanding the nature of crop diversity and its fate in the modern world is an international scientific enterprise ... More

This book defines the dimensions of crop diversity and questions surrounding it. Understanding the nature of crop diversity and its fate in the modern world is an international scientific enterprise that draws scientists from many different disciplines—archaeology, geography, botany, genetics, anthropology, and economics. Since the mid-nineteenth century, many investigators have dealt with this topic and have defined an array of scientific, industrial, and political issues that reach far beyond the original investigations of botanists and natural historians. Geneticists and social scientists study diversity in agriculture for different reasons—for instance, to understand gene flow or the effect of the industrial seed industry. This book explains how human ecology came to the study of crop diversity, and describes the ways it has been used to address larger issues about human and agricultural evolution. It examines various ways of defining and measuring crop diversity, and introduces the three crops and farming regions: potatoes in the Peruvian Andes, maize in Mexico, and wheat in Turkey. The book describes the ethnobiology of Andean potatoes as an example of how anthropological research can contribute to an overall understanding of the ecology and evolution of a crop in its center of origin, and also examines the nature of farmer selection, using material from research on wheat diversity in Turkey.Less

The First Domestication: How Wolves and Humans Coevolved

Raymond Pierotti and Brandy R Fogg

This book changes the narrative about how wolves became dogs and in turn, humanity's best friend. Rather than describe how people mastered and tamed an aggressive, dangerous species, the authors ... More

This book changes the narrative about how wolves became dogs and in turn, humanity's best friend. Rather than describe how people mastered and tamed an aggressive, dangerous species, the authors describe coevolution and mutualism. Wolves, particularly ones shunned by their packs, most likely initiated the relationship with Paleolithic humans, forming bonds built on mutually recognized skills and emotional capacity. This interdisciplinary study draws on sources from evolutionary biology as well as tribal and indigenous histories to produce an intelligent, insightful, and often unexpected story of cooperative hunting, wolves protecting camps, and wolf–human companionship. This fascinating assessment is a must-read for anyone interested in human evolution, ecology, animal behavior, anthropology, and the history of canine domestication.Less

A Golden Weed: Tobacco and Environment in the Piedmont South

Drew A Swanson

This book presents an “environmental” history about a crop of great historical and economic significance: American tobacco. A preferred agricultural product for much of the South, the tobacco plant ... More

This book presents an “environmental” history about a crop of great historical and economic significance: American tobacco. A preferred agricultural product for much of the South, the tobacco plant would ultimately degrade the land that nurtured it, but as the book provocatively argues, the choice of crop initially made perfect agrarian as well as financial sense for southern planters. This book explores how one attempt at agricultural permanence went seriously awry. It weaves together social, agricultural, and cultural history of the Piedmont region and illustrates how ideas about race and landscape management became entangled under slavery and afterward. Challenging long-held perceptions, this study examines not only the material relationships that connected crop, land, and people but also the justifications that encouraged tobacco farming in the region.Less

The Grid and the Village: Losing Electricity, Finding Community, Surviving Disaster

Stephen Doheny-Farina

This book focuses on electric grids and tells the stories about two villages separated by time, connected by proximity, and united by the challenges of maintaining a community under duress. The story ... More

This book focuses on electric grids and tells the stories about two villages separated by time, connected by proximity, and united by the challenges of maintaining a community under duress. The story of one village presents an insider's view of a natural disaster, describing the destruction of the electric grid in January 1998 and the emergence of a community that filled the resulting void. It begins with moments in the lives of people in the village of Potsdam, New York and expands to cover the breadth of the disaster. The book concludes with a timeline of events that traces the disaster from the storm's origins in the Gulf of Mexico to the lethal flooding it caused as it moved slowly up the eastern seaboard to the icy devastation it brought to the Northeast. The story of the other village begins nearly 200 years before the ice storm in a place called Louisville Landing, about twenty miles from Potsdam on the border between the United States and Canada. This narrative provides a glimpse of what it took to build the kind of grids that made America, the grids which connect people to one another, and is told through the experiences of some of the people who sacrificed the most to build the grids.Less

Hemlock: A Forest Giant on the Edge

Anthony D'Amato and Benjamin Baiser

David R. Foster (ed.)

The Eastern Hemlock, massive and majestic, has played a unique role in structuring northeastern forest environments, from Nova Scotia to Wisconsin and through the Appalachian Mountains to North ... More

The Eastern Hemlock, massive and majestic, has played a unique role in structuring northeastern forest environments, from Nova Scotia to Wisconsin and through the Appalachian Mountains to North Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama. A “foundation species” influencing all the species in the ecosystem surrounding it, this iconic North American tree has long inspired poets and artists as well as naturalists and scientists. Five thousand years ago, the hemlock collapsed as a result of abrupt global climate change. Now this iconic tree faces extinction once again because of an invasive insect, the hemlock woolly adelgid. Drawing from a century of studies at Harvard University's Harvard Forest, one of the most well-regarded long-term ecological research programs in North America, the authors explore what the hemlock's decline can tell us about the challenges facing nature and society in an era of habitat changes and fragmentation, as well as global change.Less

High and Dry: Meeting the Challenges of the World's Growing Dependence on Groundwater

William M Alley and Rosemarie Alley

Groundwater is the primary source of drinking water for half of the world’s population and is critical for global food security. Simultaneously, groundwater provides enormous environmental benefits ... More

Groundwater is the primary source of drinking water for half of the world’s population and is critical for global food security. Simultaneously, groundwater provides enormous environmental benefits by sustaining rivers, lakes, and wetlands, especially during droughts. A growing global population, widespread use of industrial chemicals, and climate change now threaten this vital resource. Groundwater depletion and contamination has spread from isolated areas to many countries throughout the world. Groundwater is shared among many users and effective groundwater governance is hard to achieve. Solutions require active community engagement and collaboration of diverse stakeholders. External pressure is usually also required to achieve necessary changes and accountability. Groundwater depletion and contamination are prime examples of how many of the world’s most pressing environmental problems require cooperation and collective action. Drawing on examples from around the world, this book examines groundwater from key scientific and socioeconomic perspectives. Major themes woven throughout the book are: (1) the importance of integrating groundwater into overall water and land management, (2) how to achieve sustainable long-term yields from aquifers, (3) protection of groundwater quality, (4) groundwater and surface water as a single resource, (5) preservation of groundwater-dependent ecosystems, (6) measures to address the delayed effects of groundwater pumping, and (7) the role of groundwater in the face of climate change. While addressing the serious nature of groundwater problems, the book includes stories of people who are making a difference in protecting this critical resource.Less

Keeping Faith with Nature: Ecosystems, Democracy, and America's Public Lands

Robert Keiter

This book, which analyzes the contemporary public land policy debates with a view to bringing some perspective and coherence to a newly emerging era, addresses public land policy in its entirety, ... More

This book, which analyzes the contemporary public land policy debates with a view to bringing some perspective and coherence to a newly emerging era, addresses public land policy in its entirety, focusing on the interconnections between the diverse lands, resources, agencies, and communities that occupy so much of the western landscape. The alarming rate of species decline has pushed biodiversity conservation into the limelight; and the amorphous concept of ecosystem management has taken hold within the federal bureaucracy. Long-standing preservation notions—whether of entire landscapes, river corridors, wetlands, or species—have assumed new urgency in the face of the growing extinction crisis, burgeoning urban sprawl, and widespread environmental deterioration. These developments have profoundly influenced public land policy and shifted its focus toward ecological management, preservation, and ecosystem restoration. This book chronicles the changes that forecast a new direction in public land policy, examines the institutional forces driving those changes, and offers tentative observations on what the future may hold. To do so, it highlights key examples of the new ecological management movement: the Pacific Northwest's spotted owl controversy; the Yellowstone wolf reintroduction; fire as an agent of ecological change; the new wilderness debates; the transformation of southern Utah's Colorado Plateau; and the Quincy Library Group's forest management initiative. Drawing upon these examples, the book focuses on the ideas, forces, and institutions that are effecting—or resisting—change on the public lands.Less

Life Under the Sun

Peter A. Ensminger

Which fungus is as sensitive to light as the human eye? What are the myths and facts about the ozone hole, tanning, skin cancer, and sunscreens? What effect does light have on butterfly copulation? ... More

Which fungus is as sensitive to light as the human eye? What are the myths and facts about the ozone hole, tanning, skin cancer, and sunscreens? What effect does light have on butterfly copulation? This book explores how various organisms—including archaebacteria, slime molds, fungi, plants, insects, and humans—sense and respond to sunlight. The chapters cover vision, photosynthesis, and phototropism, as well as such unusual topics as the reason that light causes beer to develop a “skunky” odor. The book introduces us to the types of eyes that have evolved in different animals, including those in a species of shrimp that is ostensibly eyeless; the book gives us a better appreciation of color vision; explains how plowing fields at night may be used to control weeds; and tells us about variegate porphyria, a metabolic disease that makes people very sensitive to sunlight and that may have afflicted King George III of England.Less