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- Twelve trees : the deep roots of our future / by Lewis, Daniel,1959-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."A compelling global exploration of nature and survival as seen via a dozen species of trees that represent the challenges facing our planet, and the ways that scientists are working urgently to save our forests and our future.The world today is undergoing the most rapid environmental transformation in human history--from climate change to deforestation. Scientists, ethnobotanists, indigenous peoples, and collectives of all kinds are closely studying trees and their biology to understand how and why trees function individually and collectively in the ways they do. In Twelve Trees, Daniel Lewis, curator and historian at one of the world's most renowned research libraries, travels the world to learn about these trees in their habitats. Lewis takes us on a sweeping journey to plant breeding labs, botanical gardens, research facilities, deep inside museum collections, to the tops of tall trees, underwater, and around the Earth, journeying into the deserts of the American west and the deep jungles of Peru, to offer a globe-spanning perspective on the crucial impact trees have on our entire planet. When a once-common tree goes extinct in the wild but survives in a botanical garden, what happens next? How can scientists reconstruct lost genomes and habitats? How does a tree store thousands of gallons of water, or offer up perfectly preserved insects from millions of years ago, or root itself in muddy swamps and remain standing? How does a 5,000-year-old tree manage to live, and what can we learn from it? And how can science account for the survival of one species at the expense of others? To study the science of trees is to study not just the present, but the story of the world, its past, and its future."--- Subjects: Trees; Trees;
- Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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- Rat city : overcrowding and urban derangement in the rodent universes of John B. Calhoun / by Adams, Jon,author.; Ramsden, Edmund,author.;
"How a landmark experiment in rat behavior changed the way we think about cities. In the decades following WWII, the American metropolis was in peril. Modern high rises hastily erected to replace slums became incubators of criminality, while civic unrest erupted across the nation. Enter John B. Calhoun, an ecologist employed by the National Institute of Mental Health to study the effects of overcrowding. Calhoun decided to focus his study on rats. From 1947 to 1977, Calhoun built a series of sprawling habitats in which a rat's every need was met -- except space. As the enclosures became ever more crowded, resident rats began to react to social stress, culminating in the terrifying world of Universe 25: a rodent habitat where escalating social disorder collapsed to violent extinction. Did a similar fate await our own teeming cities? Jon Adams and Edmund Ramsden's Rat City is the first book to tell the story of maverick scientist Calhoun and his now-viral experiments. Following the rats from the baiting pits of Victorian London to the laboratories of NIMH, and Calhoun from rural Tennessee to inner-city Baltimore, Rat City is an enthralling mix of dystopian science and urban history. Social design, housing infrastructure, a burgeoning current of racism in city planning: Calhoun influenced them all, and Rat City connects Calhoun's work to the politics of personal space, the looming threat of global overpopulation, and the eclipsing of environmental psychology by pharmaceutical psychiatry. As the "war on rats" continues to be waged around the world, and our post-pandemic society reevaluates the necessity of urban living, the riveting story of Rat City is more relevant than ever"--- Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Calhoun, John B.; Ethologists; Human beings; Human ecology.; Overpopulation.; Rats; Rats; Urban ecology (Sociology);
- Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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- The quickening : creation and community at the ends of the Earth / by Rush, Elizabeth A.,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."An astonishing, vital book about Antarctica, climate change, and motherhood from the author of Rising, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction. In 2019, fifty-seven scientists and crew set out onboard the Nathaniel B. Palmer. Their destination: Thwaites Glacier. Their goal: to learn as much as possible about this mysterious place, never before visited by humans, and believed to be both rapidly deteriorating and capable of making a catastrophic impact on global sea-level rise. In The Quickening, Elizabeth Rush documents their voyage, offering the sublime--seeing an iceberg for the first time; the staggering waves of the Drake Passage; the torqued, unfamiliar contours of Thwaites--alongside the workaday moments of this groundbreaking expedition. A ping-pong tournament at sea. Long hours in the lab. All the effort that goes into caring for and protecting human life in a place that is inhospitable to it. Along the way, she takes readers on a personal journey around a more intimate question: What does it mean to bring a child into the world at this time of radical change? What emerges is a new kind of Antarctica story, one preoccupied not with flag planting but with the collective and challenging work of imagining a better future. With understanding the language of a continent where humans have only been present for two centuries. With the contributions and concerns of women, who were largely excluded from voyages until the last few decades, and of crew members of color, whose labor has often gone unrecognized. The Quickening teems with their voices--with the colorful stories and personalities of Rush's shipmates--in a thrilling chorus. Urgent and brave, absorbing and vulnerable, The Quickening is another essential book from Elizabeth Rush."--- Subjects: Climatic changes.; Explorers; Motherhood.; Nature; Women and the environment.;
- Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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- Denial / by Raymond, Jonathan,author.;
"A futuristic thriller about climate change by the acclaimed screenwriter of First Cow, Meek's Cutoff, and HBO's Mildred Pierce. The year is 2052. Climate change has had a predictably devastating effect: Venice submerged, cyclones in Oklahoma, megafires in South America. Yet it could be much worse. Two decades earlier, the global protest movement known as the Upheavals helped break the planet's fossil fuel dependency, and the subsequent Nuremberg-like Toronto Trials convicted the most powerful oil executives and lobbyists for crimes against the environment. Not all of them. A few executives escaped arrest and went into hiding, including pipeline mastermind Robert Cave. Now, a Pacific Northwest journalist named Jack Henry who works for a struggling media company has received a tip that Cave is living in Mexico. Hoping the story will save his job, he travels south and, using a fake identity, makes contact with the fugitive. The two men strike up an unexpected friendship, leaving Jack torn about exposing Cave--an uncertainty further compounded by the diagnosis of a life-threatening illness and a new romance with an old acquaintance. Who will really benefit from the unmasking? What is the nature of justice and punishment? How does one contend with mortality when the planet itself is dying? Denial is both a page-turning speculative suspense novel and a powerful existential inquisition about the perilous moment in which we currently live."--- Subjects: Thrillers (Fiction); Dystopian fiction.; Political fiction.; Novels.; Climatic changes; Fugitives from justice; Interpersonal relations; Journalists;
- Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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- Billion dollar burger : inside big tech's race for the future of food / by Purdy, Chase,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."The riveting story of the entrepreneurs and renegades fighting to bring lab-grown meat to the world. The trillion-dollar meat industry is one of our greatest environmental hazards; it pollutes more than all the world's fossil-fuel-powered cars. Global animal agriculture is responsible for deforestation, soil erosion, and more emissions than air travel, paper mills, and coal mining combined. It also, of course, depends on the slaughter of more than 60 billion animals per year, a number that is only increasing as the global appetite for meat swells. But a band of doctors, scientists, activists, and entrepreneurs have been racing to end animal agriculture as we know it, hoping to fulfill a dream of creating meat without ever having to kill an animal. In the laboratories of Silicon Valley companies, Dutch universities, and Israeli startups, visionaries are growing burgers and steaks from microscopic animal cells and inventing systems to do so at scale--allowing us to feed the world without slaughter and environmental devastation. Drawing from exclusive and unprecedented access to the main players, from polarizing activist-turned-tech CEO Josh Tetrick to lobbyists and regulators on both sides of the issue, Billion Dollar Burger follows the people fighting to upend our food system as they butt up against the entrenched interests fighting viciously to stop them. The stakes are monumentally high: cell-cultured meat is the best hope for sustainable food production, a key to fighting climate change, a gold mine for the companies that make it happen, and an existential threat for the farmers and meatpackers that make our meat today. Are we ready?"--- Subjects: Meat; Meat industry and trade; Meat substitutes.;
- Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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- Ultra-processed people : why we can't stop eating food that isn't food / by Tulleken, Chris van,1978-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."The Omnivore's Dilemma meets Fast Food Nation from a global perspective in this game-changing look at the science, economics, and history of ultra-processed food and the industry's effect on our health and planet. It's not you, it's the food. How much of our daily caloric intake comes from ingesting substances that, technically speaking, do not meet traditional definitions of "food"? Chances are, if you're eating something that came wrapped in plastic and contains a funky ingredient you don't have in your kitchen, it's most likely--almost definitely--ultra-processed food, or UPF. More than the principal obstacle to "eating right," UPF has been linked to metabolic disease, depression, inflammation, anxiety, and cancer, while the production, distribution, and disposal of UPF and related products globally is known to cause devastating environmental damage. At the same time, UPF represents the dominant, nigh-unavoidable food culture for millions upon millions of eaters. Medical doctor and broadcaster Chris van Tulleken has spent his career trying to reframe the conversation around eating right, balancing the hard (and sometimes shocking) facts about what we're putting into our bodies with empathy for the natural desire to keep eating what we like, have time for, and can afford. As he argues in this book, we are all participants in an experiment we didn't consent to, one to determine how to get us to buy as much ultra-processed food as possible. It's not as simple as stumbling across the right diet trend, finding time to meal plan, or avoiding over-indulging in sugar, fat, or carbs or any other culprit. Nor is it a matter of individual will. It's about learning to live in "the third age of eating"--defined by the overwhelming abundance of ultra-processed eating options--and arming yourself with the simple and not-so-simple facts that will help you make the choices that are right for you."--- Subjects: Diet.; Food additives.; Processed foods.;
- Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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- The last resort : a chronicle of paradise, profit, and peril at the beach / by Stodola, Sarah,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."With its promise of escape from the strains of everyday life, the beach has a hold on the popular imagination as the ultimate paradise. In The Last Resort, Sarah Stodola dives into the psyche of the beachgoer and gets to the heart of what drives humans to seek out the sand. At the same time, she grapples with the darker realities of resort culture: strangleholds on local economies, reckless construction, erosion of beaches, weighty carbon footprints, and the inevitable overdevelopment and decline that comes with a soaring demand for popular shorelines. The Last Resort weaves Stodola's firsthand travel notes with her exacting journalism in an enthralling report on the past, present, and future of coastal travel. She takes us from Monte Carlo, where the pursuit of pleasure first became part of the beach resort experience, to a village in Fiji that was changed irrevocably by the opening of a single resort; from the overdevelopment that stripped Acapulco of its reputation for exclusivity to Miami Beach, where extreme measures are underway to prevent the barrier island from vanishing into the ocean. In the twenty-first century, beach travel has become central to our globalized world-its culture, economy, and interconnectedness. But with sea levels likely to rise at least 1.5 to 3 feet by the end of this century, beaches will become increasingly difficult to preserve, and many will disappear altogether. What will our last resort be when water begins to fill the lobbies?"--- Subjects: Stodola, Sarah; Beaches; Outdoor recreation; Outdoor recreation; Seaside resorts.; Outdoor recreation;
- Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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- How the world really works : the science behind how we got here and where we're going / by Smil, Vaclav,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."An essential analysis of the modern science and technology that makes our twenty-first century lives possible--a scientist's investigation into what science really does, and does not, accomplish. We have never had so much information at our fingertips and yet most of us don't know how the world really works. This book explains seven of the most fundamental realities governing our survival and prosperity. From energy and food production, through our material world and its globalization, to risks, our environment and its future, How the World Really Works offers a much-needed reality check--because before we can tackle problems effectively, we must understand the facts. In this ambitious and thought-provoking book we see, for example, that globalization isn't inevitable--the foolishness of allowing 70 per cent of the world's rubber gloves to be made in just one factory became glaringly obvious in 2020--and that our societies have been steadily increasing their dependence on fossil fuels, such that any promises of decarbonization by 2050 are a fairy tale. For example, each greenhouse-grown supermarket-bought tomato has the equivalent of five tablespoons of diesel embedded in its production, and we have no way of producing steel, cement or plastics at required scales without huge carbon emissions. Ultimately, Smil answers the most profound question of our age: are we irrevocably doomed or is a brighter utopia ahead? Compelling, data-rich and revisionist, this wonderfully broad, interdisciplinary guide finds faults with both extremes. Looking at the world through this quantitative lens reveals hidden truths that change the way we see our past, present and uncertain future"--- Subjects: Science and civilization.; Technology and civilization.; Science; Technological innovations;
- Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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