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Atoms and ashes : a global history of nuclear disasters / by Plokhy, Serhii,1957-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."A chilling account of seventy years of nuclear catastrophes, by the author of the "definitive" (Economist) Cold War history, Nuclear Folly. Nuclear energy was embraced across the globe at the height of the nuclear industry in the 1960s and 1970s; today, there are 440 nuclear reactors operating throughout the world, with nuclear power providing 10 percent of world electricity. Yet as the world seeks to reduce carbon emissions to combat climate change, the question arises: Just how safe is nuclear energy? Atoms and Ashes recounts the dramatic history of nuclear accidents that have dogged the industry in its military and civil incarnations since the 1950s. Through the stories of six terrifying major incidents--Bikini Atoll, Kyshtym, Windscale, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima--Cold War expert Serhii Plokhy explores the risks of nuclear power, both for military and peaceful purposes, while offering a vivid account of how individuals and governments make decisions under extraordinary circumstances. Atoms and Ashes provides a crucial perspective on the most dangerous nuclear disasters of the past, in order to safeguard our future"--
Subjects: Nuclear accidents; Nuclear engineering; Nuclear engineering; Nuclear weapons;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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On fire : the burning case for a green new deal / by Klein, Naomi,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."For more than twenty years, Naomi Klein has been the foremost chronicler of the economic war waged on both people and planet--and the champion of a sweeping environmental agenda with stability and justice at its center. In lucid dispatches from the frontlines--from the ghostly Great Barrier Reef, to the annual smoke-choked skies of the Pacific Northwest, to post-hurricane Puerto Rico, to a Vatican attempting an unprecedented "ecological conversion"--she has penned surging, indispensable lectures and essays for a wide public, with prescient, clarifying information about the future that awaits us and our children if we stick our heads in the sand. They show Klein at her most thoughtful, tracing the evolution of the climate crisis as the key issue of our time, not only as an immediate political challenge but as a spiritual and imaginative one too. Delving into topics ranging from the clash between ecological time and our culture of "perpetual now," to the soaring history of humans' ability to change rapidly in the face of grave threat, to rising white supremacy and fortressed borders as a form of "climate barbarism," this is a rousing call to action for a planet on the brink. Above all, she underscores how we can still rise to the existential challenge of the crisis if we are willing to transform our systems that are producing it, making clear how the battle for a greener world is indistinguishable from the fight for our lives. On Fire is a critical book: it captures the burning urgency of this moment, the fiery energy of a rising movement demanding change now, and lays out an inspiring vision for a sustainable future."--
Subjects: Human ecology.; Climatic changes.; Social change.; Sustainable living.; Environmental justice.; Environmental policy.; Political culture.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Power metal : the race for the resources that will shape the future / by Beiser, Vince,1965-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."How the metals we need to power technology and energy are spawning environmental havoc, political upheaval, and murder -- and how we can do better. An Australian multimillionaire's plan to mine the ocean floor. Garbage pickers in Nigeria risking their lives to salvage e-waste amid nightmarish pollution. A Bill Gates-backed entrepreneur harnessing artificial intelligence to find metals in the Arctic. Train-robbing copper thieves in Chile. These are some of the people in the intensifying global competition to locate and extract the minerals essential for two critical technologies that will shape humanity's future: the internet and renewable energy. It's a race that will create new industries, generate enormous wealth, and destabilize the global balance of power. It could propel us to a more sustainable future -- or plunge us into an environmental nightmare. In Power Metal, journalist and author Vince Beiser explores the Achilles' heel of green power and digital technology: that the manufacturing of our computers, cell phones, electric cars, solar panels, and wind turbines requires enormous amounts of increasingly rare materials -- lithium, cobalt, copper, and others -- the demand for which is skyrocketing. Around the world, businesses and governments are scrambling for new places and new ways to get those metals, at enormous cost to people and the planet. Beiser crisscrossed the world to witness this race, reporting on the damage it is already inflicting, the ways it could get worse, and the ways in which we can minimize that damage. The result is a book that is both a gripping read and a sobering account of the battle between what civilization demands and what the planet can withstand. Power Metal is a compelling and important glimpse into this new, disturbing, and exciting world"--
Subjects: Mineral industries; Mines and mineral resources; Rare earth metals; Strategic materials; Sustainable development;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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While you were out : an intimate family portrait of mental illness in an era of silence / by Kissinger, Meg,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."From award-winning journalist Meg Kissinger, a searing memoir of a family besieged by mental illness, as well as an incisive exploration of the systems that failed them and a testament to the love that sustained them. Growing up in the 1960s in the suburbs of Chicago, Meg Kissinger's family seemed to live a charmed life. With eight kids and two loving parents, the Kissingers radiated a warm, boisterous energy. Whether they were spending summer days on the shores of Lake Michigan, barreling down the ski slopes, or navigating the trials of their Catholic school, the Kissingers always knew how to live large and play hard. But behind closed doors, a harsher reality was unfolding. A heavily-medicated mother hospitalized for anxiety and depression, a manic father prone to violence, and children in the throes of bipolar disorder and depression, two of whom would take their own lives. Through it all, the Kissingers faced the world with their signature dark humor and the unspoken family rule--never talk about it. While You Were Out begins as the personal story of one family's struggles, then opens outward as Kissinger details how childhood tragedy catalyzed a journalism career focused on exposing our country's flawed mental health care. Combining the intimacy of memoir with the rigor of investigative reporting, the book explores the consequences of shame, the havoc of botched public policy, and the hope offered by new treatment strategies. This is a story of one family's love and devotion in the face of relentless struggle. It is a book for anyone who cares about someone with mental illness. In other words, it is a book for everyone"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Kissinger, Meg.; Kissinger, Meg; Kissinger family.; Families of the mentally ill; Mental illness; Mentally ill; Photography of families.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Capitalism in America : a history / by Greenspan, Alan,1926-author.; Wooldridge, Adrian,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."In Capitalism in America, Greenspan distills a lifetime of grappling with these questions into a thrilling and profound master reckoning with the decisive drivers of the US economy over the course of its history. In partnership with the celebrated Economist journalist and historian Adrian Wooldridge, he unfolds a tale involving vast landscapes, titanic figures, triumphant breakthroughs, enlightenment ideals as well as terrible moral failings. Every crucial debate is here -- from the role of slavery in the antebellum Southern economy to the real impact of FDR's New Deal to America's violent mood swings in its openness to global trade and its impact. But to read Capitalism in America is above all to be stirred deeply by the extraordinary productive energies unleashed by millions of ordinary Americans that have driven this country to unprecedented heights of power and prosperity. At heart, the authors argue, America's genius has been its unique tolerance for the effects of creative destruction, the ceaseless churn of the old giving way to the new, driven by new people and new ideas. Often messy and painful, creative destruction has also lifted almost all Americans to standards of living unimaginable to even the wealthiest citizens of the world a few generations past. A sense of justice and human decency demands that those who bear the brunt of the pain of change be protected, but America has always accepted more pain for more gain, and its vaunted rise cannot otherwise be understood, or its challenges faced, without recognizing this legacy. For now, in our time, productivity growth has stalled again, stirring up the populist furies. There's no better moment to apply the lessons of history to the most pressing question we face"--
Subjects: Capitalism; Economic history.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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