Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

The Great Lakes are the largest collection of fresh surface water on earth, and more than 40 million Americans and Canadians live in their basin. Will we divert water from the Great Lakes, causing them to end up like Central Asia's Aral Sea, which has lost 90 percent of its surface area and 75 percent of its volume since 1960? Or will we come to see that unregulated water withdrawals are ultimately catastrophic? ... (more)

High Tech Trash: Digital Devices, Hidden Toxics, and Human Health

High Tech Trash: Digital Devices, Hidden Toxics, and Human Health

by Elizabeth Grossman

The Digital Age was expected to usher in an era of clean production, an alternative to smokestack industries and their pollutants. But as environmental journalist Elizabeth Grossman reveals in this penetrating analysis of high tech manufacture and disposal, digital may be sleek, but it’s anything but clean. Deep within every electronic device lie toxic materials that make up the bits and bytes, a complex ... (more)

The World's Water 2006-2007: The Biennial Report on Freshwater Resources (World's Water (Paperback))

The World's Water 2006-2007: The Biennial Report on Freshwater Resources (World's Water (Paperback))

by Peter H. Gleick, Heather Cooley, David Katz, Emily Lee

Produced biennially, The World's Water provides a timely examination of the key issues surrounding freshwater resources and their use. Each new volume identifies and explains the most significant current trends worldwide, and offers the best data available on a variety of water-related topics. The 2006-2007 volume features overview chapters on: * water and terrorism * business risks of water * water and... (more)

The Western Confluence: A Guide To Governing Natural Resources

The Western Confluence: A Guide To Governing Natural Resources

by Matthew McKinney

From Back Cover: Shaped by 150 years of persistent conflicts over natural resources, the American West has endured a succession of strategies for resolving disputes. This book is designed to help us navigate through the gridlock by reframing natural resource disputes and the strategies for resolving them. (Description by http-mart)

The Global Carbon Cycle: Integrating Humans, Climate, and the Natural World (Scope Series)

The Global Carbon Cycle: Integrating Humans, Climate, and the Natural World (Scope Series)

Ecoagriculture: Strategies To Feed The World And Save Wild Biodiversity

Ecoagriculture: Strategies To Feed The World And Save Wild Biodiversity

by Jeffrey A. McNeely

Although food-production systems for the world's rural poor typically have had devastating effects on the planet's wealth of genes, species, and ecosystems, that need not be the case in the future. In Ecoagriculture, two of the world's leading experts on conservation and development examine the idea that agricultural landscapes can be designed more creatively to take the needs of human populations into account... (more)

Science Magazine's State of the Planet 2006-2007

Science Magazine's State of the Planet 2006-2007

How often in today’s environmental debates have you read that “the science is in dispute”—even when there is overwhelming consensus among scientists? Too often, the voice of science is diminished or diluted for the sake of politics, and the public is misled. Now, the most authoritative voice in U.S. science, Science magazine, brings you current scientific knowledge on today’s most pressing environmental... (more)

National Parks and Rural Development: Practice and Policy in the United States

National Parks and Rural Development: Practice and Policy in the United States

Protecting land in parks is often seen as coming at the expense of rural economic development. Yet recent events such as the contentious debate over the development of Canyon Forest Village on the south rim of the Grand Canyon suggest just the opposite: healthy natural systems can be enormously valuable to rural economies. National Parks and Rural Development offers a thorough examination of the interdependent... (more)

Ecological Economics: Principles And Applications

Ecological Economics: Principles And Applications

by Joshua C. Farley, Herman E. Daly

Ecological economics addresses one of the fundamental flaws in conventional economics--its failure to consider biophysical and social reality in its analyses and equations. Ecological Economics: Principles and Applications is an introductory-level textbook that offers a pedagogically complete examination of this dynamic new field. As a workbook accompanying the text, this volume breaks new ground in applying the... (more)

On the Brink: The Great Lakes in the 21st Century

On the Brink: The Great Lakes in the 21st Century

by Dave Dempsey

In recent decades the Great Lakes have served as an early warning system for many emerging environmental problems. The author revisits the wonder of the Lakes and the perils that plague them, urging us to take action to protect this majestic ecosystem.

One With Nineveh: Politics, Consumption, and the Human Future

One With Nineveh: Politics, Consumption, and the Human Future

by Paul Ehrlich

"Here, between the covers of one book, you can find out about the major problems facing the world today, and how to fix them. It all comes sprinkled with the deliciously surprising examples, and wrapped in the alternately gripping and humorous prose, for which Paul and Anne Ehrlich have long been famous. This is a book to savor and from which to learn."-JARED DIAMOND, AUTHOR OF COLLAPSE: HOW SOCIETIES CHOOSE TO... (more)

The Endangered Species Act at Thirty: Vol. 1: Renewing the Conservation Promise

The Endangered Species Act at Thirty: Vol. 1: Renewing the Conservation Promise

The Endangered Species Act at Thirty is a comprehensive, multidisciplinary review of issues surrounding the Endangered Species Act, with a specific focus on the act's actual implementation record over the past thirty years. The result of a unique, multi-year collaboration among stakeholder groups from across the political spectrum, the two volumes offer a dispassionate consideration of a highly polarized topic. ... (more)

The Ocean and Coastal Conservation Guide 2005-2006

The Ocean and Coastal Conservation Guide 2005-2006

A new environmental movement is emerging to help combat threats to America's oceans and coasts, with hundreds of local and regional groups as well as dozens of national and international organizations being formed. The Ocean and Coastal Conservation Guide represents a comprehensive guide to this new "Blue Movement." This one-of-a-kind new reference details more than 2,000 organizations and institutions that are... (more)

Plastics: America'S Packaging Dilemma (Island Press Critical Issues Eries, No. 3)

Plastics: America'S Packaging Dilemma (Island Press Critical Issues Eries, No. 3)

by Nancy Wolf

Tells what plastics are, how they are made, how they are used, and the problems and opportunities they bring.

Ecotourism and Certification: Setting Standards in Practice

Ecotourism and Certification: Setting Standards in Practice

The idea of "ecotourism" has taken off in recent years, but a crucial detail is often neglected: how do we know that an enterprise truly meets the goals and standards of ecotourism? Certification?the rating of lodges, resorts, tour operators, and other sectors of the tourism industry by independent auditors who verify environmental and social impacts?has emerged as the most promising answer. Ecotourism and... (more)

Restoring the Pacific Northwest: The Art and Science of Ecological Restoration in Cascadia (Science Practice Ecological Restoration)

Restoring the Pacific Northwest: The Art and Science of Ecological Restoration in Cascadia (Science Practice Ecological Restoration)

The Pacific Northwest is a global ecological “hotspot”because of its relatively healthy native ecosystems, a high degree of biodiversity, and the number and scope of restoration initiatives that have been undertaken there. Restoring the Pacific Northwest gathers and presents the best examples of state-of-the-art restoration techniques and projects. It is an encyclopedic overview that will be an invaluable... (more)

Water Follies: Groundwater Pumping And The Fate Of America'S Fresh Waters

Water Follies: Groundwater Pumping And The Fate Of America'S Fresh Waters

by Robert Jerome Glennon

"...a book as rich in detail as it is devastating in its argument." -SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN "Water Follies deserves a place alongside the late Marc Reisner's classic Cadillac Desert." -ENVIRONMENT "a lively account of hydrology" -NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS "if you want to scare yourself silly, read Water Follies, by Robert Glennon. In it you'll learn how America is irrigating itself to death-just like the... (more)

Positive Impact Forestry: A Sustainable Approach To Managing Woodlands

Positive Impact Forestry: A Sustainable Approach To Managing Woodlands

by Thomas J. McEvoy

Marine Reserves: A Guide to Science, Design, and Use

Marine Reserves: A Guide to Science, Design, and Use

by Jack Sobel, Craig Dahlgren

Conventional fishery management practices have failed to prevent the collapse of numerous fish stocks around the world. Amid growing concern about our ability to protect marine biodiversity and ecosystem integrity, scientists and managers alike are seeking alternative management tools. One of the most promising of those is no-take marine reserves - areas of the sea where all consumptive use of natural resources is... (more)

Marine Conservation Biology: The Science of Maintaining the Sea's Biodiversity

Marine Conservation Biology: The Science of Maintaining the Sea's Biodiversity

Humans are terrestrial animals, and our capacity to see and understand the importance and vulnerability of life in the sea has trailed our growing ability to harm it. While conservation biologists are working to address environmental problems humans have created on land, loss of marine biodiversity, including extinctions and habitat degradation, has received much less attention. At the same time, marine sciences... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: environmental science & ecosystems

The Great Lakes Water Wars

by Peter Annin