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Chase the Wind
by Matt SimsThree people are out camping over the weekend to chase a storm and record its statistics. What happens when their anticipations and calculations of the storm's trajectory go wrong?
Rebel McKenzie
by Candice RansomWhen feisty twelve-year-old Rebel McKenzie, an aspiring paleontologist, goes to spend the summer taking care of her older sister's seven-year-old son at the mobile home park in Frog Level, Virginia, she never expects to enter a beauty pageant or meet a hand model.
Camp Cook (Sound Out Chapter Books - Set B-2)
by Matt SimsMark was at Camp Cook. He did not like it a bit. He did not like to hike or swim. He did not like to play sports. He did not like to sing. He did not like to make things.
Fun in the Hills (Sound Out Chapter Books - Set A-2)
by Matt Sims"The sun came up at six," said Ted. "With luck we can get to the top by ten." "Can we sit for a bit?" said Sam. "Can you get this pack off my back?"
Shell Beach (Sound Out Chapter Books - Set B-2)
by Matt SimsThe bus ride to Shell Beach was long. Rain beat on the glass by our side. We could not see past the gray haze.
The Lightning Catcher: The Storm Tower Thief
by Anne CameronThe funny, fast-paced second book in The Lightning Catcher series! Science, weather, and the fantastical combine for a school adventure story, part Storm Chasers and part Percy Jackson, about twelve-year-old Angus and his dangerous gift of predicting catastrophic weather.Angus has a lot on his plate. He's attending the Perilous Exploratorium for Violent Weather and Vicious Storms, learning how to battle all sorts of extreme weather. He's a Storm Prophet--one of the rare people with the ability to predict catastrophic weather. His parents--world renowned Lightning Catchers themselves--have been kidnapped. And now Perilous has been slammed by a ferocious winter storm, artifacts from the Great Fire of 1666 have been stolen, and the evil Scabious Dankheart has released deadly spores called Ice Diamonds to plague the population. Angus and his friends must find the legendary Lightning Heart--a bloodred, heart-shaped stone of great power--in order to put everything right. Action-packed, lighthearted, and perfect for reluctant readers!
The Maine Woods
by Henry David Thoreau Edward Hoagland"What a wilderness walk for a man to take alone!...Here was traveling of the old heroic kind over the unaltered face of nature." Henry David Thoreau Over a period of three years, Thoreau made three trips to the largely unexplored woods of Maine. He climbed mountains, paddled a canoe by moonlight, and dined on cedar beer, hemlock tea and moose lips. Taking notes constantly, Thoreau was just as likely to turn his observant eye to the habits and languages of the Abnaki Indians or the arduous life of the logger as he was to the workings of nature. He acutely observed the rivers, lakes, mountains, wolves, moose, and stars in the dark sky. He also told of nights sitting by the campfire, and of meeting men who communicated with each other by writing on the trunks of trees. In The Maine Woods, Thoreau captured a wilder side of America and revealed his own adventurous spirit.
Still Life with Brook Trout
by John GierachIn Still Life with Brook Trout, John Gierach demonstrates once again that fishing, when done right, is as much a philosophical pursuit as a sport. Gierach travels to Wyoming and Maine and points in between, searching out new fly-fishing adventures and savoring familiar waters with old friends. Along the way he meditates on the importance of good guides ("Really, the only thing a psychiatrist can do that a good guide can't is write prescriptions"), the challenge of salmon fishing ("Salmon prowl. If they're not here now, they could be here in half an hour. Or tomorrow. Or next month"), and the zen of fishing alone ("I also enjoy where my mind goes when I'm fishing alone, which is usually nowhere in particular and by a predictable route"). On a more serious note, he ponders the damaging effects of disasters both natural and man-made: drought, wildfires, and the politics of dam-building, among others. Reflecting on a trip to a small creek near his home, Gierach writes, "In my brightest moments, I think slowing down...has opened huge new vistas on my old home water. It's like a friendship that not only lasts, but gets better against the odds." Similarly, Still Life with Brook Trout proves that Gierach, like fly-fishing itself, becomes deeper and richer with time.
A Sea Within a Sea: Secrets of the Sargasso
by Ruth HellerThis 32-page hardcover book is fully illustrated in Heller's signature style -- elaborate details, bright colors, and bold pictures. The Sargasso Sea is a natural mystery. It is a warm "sea within a sea" in the midst of the cold Northern Atlantic Ocean where whirlpool-like currents have been said to becalm ships forever. Underneath huge tangles of seaweed are Men-O-War, jellyfish, turtles, fish, and eels. Each spread elaborately describes and depicts a characteristic of this complex and exciting watery habitat.
Evolution of International Environmental Regimes
by Simone SchieleDrawing specifically on the international climate regime, Simone Schiele examines international environmental regimes from a legal perspective and analyses a core feature of international regimes – their ability to evolve over time. In particular, she develops a theoretical framework based on general international law which allows for a thorough examination of the understanding of international law and the options for law-creation in international environmental regimes. The analysis therefore provides both a coherent understanding of the international climate regime and a starting point for further research in other regimes.
The Night Before Summer Camp
by Natasha WingThe first day of summer camp is almost here, and one little camper doesn't know what to expect. For a while everything is hunkydory ... until rest time rolls around and he gets a bad case of nervous butterflies. But an unlikely friend appears out of the crowd and reassures him that the best cure for the summertime blues is tons of summertime fun! A sweetly reassuring story, once again told in verse to the meter of Clement Moore's classic. .
Whiskey Gulf
by Clyde FordAfter a sailboat drifts into a "live-fire" naval exercise area known as Whiskey Gulf, it's never heard from again. Maritime private investigator Charlie Noble is asked to discover what happened to the couple abroad. But he's stonewalled by the American and Canadian military. Then he learns that a Middle Eastern agent has been dispatched to find the couple as well-an agent with an old score to settle from his days as a Coast Guard intelligence officer.Ultimately, Noble and his partner, Native American salvage diver Raven, head north along the Inside Passage, where a hidden cove harbors answers about what really happened in Whiskey Gulf. But in order to return with the truth they must first survive a vicious attack and escape the clutches of a deadly whirlpool. Set in the stunning wilderness of the Pacific Northwest, Whiskey Gulf is a story about unlocking secrets from the past that some people would rather keep concealed.
Race, Place, and Environmental Justice After Hurricane Katrina
by Robert D. Bullard Beverly WrightOn August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall near New Orleans leaving death and destruction across the Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama Gulf Coast counties. The lethargic and inept emergency response that followed exposed institutional flaws, poor planning, and false assumptions that are built into the emergency response and homeland security plans and programs. Questions linger: What went wrong? Can it happen again? Is our government equipped to plan for, mitigate, respond to, and recover from natural and manmade disasters? Can the public trust government response to be fair? Does race matter? Racial disparities exist in disaster response, cleanup, rebuilding, reconstruction, and recovery. Race plays out in natural disaster survivors' ability to rebuild, replace infrastructure, obtain loans, and locate temporary and permanent housing. Generally, low-income and people of color disaster victims spend more time in temporary housing, shelters, trailers, mobile homes, and hotels--and are more vulnerable to permanent displacement. Some "temporary" homes have not proved to be that temporary. In exploring the geography of vulnerability, this book asks why some communities get left behind economically, spatially, and physically before and after disasters strike.
Doing Environmental Ethics
by Robert TraerDoing Environmental Ethics offers a way to face our ecological crisis that draws on environmental science, economic theory, international law, and religious teachings, as well as philosophical arguments. It engages readers in constructing ethical presumptions based on our duty (to other persons and species and also to ecosystems), our character (personal virtues), our relationships (with other persons and nature), and our rights (to sustainable development and a healthy environment). Then it tests these moral presumptions by predicting the likely consequences of acting on them. Readers apply what they have learned to specific policy issues discussed in the final part of the book: sustainable consumption, environmental policy, clean air and water, agriculture, managing public lands, urban ecology, and climate change. Questions after each chapter and a worksheet aid readers in deciding how to live more responsibly as consumers and as citizens. "What you do matters," Robert Traer writes, "and the person you are also matters. In ethics we look for reasons to explain why this is so.
Medical Anthropology in Ecological Perspective
by Ann Mcelroy Patricia K TownsendWidespread awareness of emerging infectious diseases and global environmental change makes the ecological perspective of this premier teaching text for medical anthropology as relevant as ever. Integrating biocultural, environmental, and evolutionary approaches to the study of human health, this fifth edition is now thoroughly revised to reflect new developments in the field. Research by human biologists and paleopathologists illuminates the history and prehistory of disease, while the work of cultural and applied anthropologists addresses contemporary health issues. The fifth edition features five new profiles by guest contributors, all leading researchers on health and environment. New topics include community health and disease prevention in urban America; water-borne disease in Ecuador; iodine deficiency in the Himalaya; stress and demographic change in northern Siberia; and participatory action research in Costa Rica. Also included is updated and expanded consideration of refugee health, global aspects of HIV/AIDS, and careers in applied medical anthropology.
Flight Ways
by Thom Van DoorenA leading figure in the emerging field of extinction studies, Thom van Dooren puts philosophy into conversation with the natural sciences and his own ethnographic encounters to vivify the cultural and ethical significance of modern-day extinctions. Unlike other meditations on the subject, Flight Ways incorporates the particularities of real animals and their worlds, drawing philosophers, natural scientists, and general readers into the experience of living among and losing biodiversity.Each chapter of Flight Ways focuses on a different species or group of birds: North Pacific albatrosses, Indian vultures, an endangered colony of penguins in Australia, Hawaiian crows, and the iconic whooping cranes of North America. Written in eloquent and moving prose, the book takes stock of what is lost when a life form disappears from the world -- the wide-ranging ramifications that ripple out to implicate a number of human and more-than-human others. Van Dooren intimately explores what life is like for those who must live on the edge of extinction, balanced between life and oblivion, taking care of their young and grieving their dead. He bolsters his studies with real-life accounts from scientists and local communities at the forefront of these developments. No longer abstract entities with Latin names, these species become fully realized characters enmeshed in complex and precarious ways of life, sparking our sense of curiosity, concern, and accountability toward others in a rapidly changing world.
Lost in the Dunes
by Matt SimsThis book is about Jean and her brother Sam, who are camping in the dunes collecting specimens for their Sea Lab.
An Amateur's Guide to Observing and Imaging the Heavens
by Ian MorisonAn Amateur's Guide to Observing and Imaging the Heavens is a highly comprehensive guidebook that bridges the gap between the beginners' and hobbyists' books and the many specialised and subject-specific texts for more advanced amateur astronomers. Written by an experienced astronomer and educator, the book is a one-stop reference providing extensive information and advice about observing and imaging equipment, with detailed examples showing how best to use them. In addition to providing in-depth knowledge about every type of astronomical telescope and highlighting their strengths and weaknesses, two chapters offer advice on making visual observations of the Sun, Moon, planets, stars and galaxies. All types of modern astronomical imaging are covered, with step-by-step details given on the use of DSLRs and web-cams for solar, lunar and planetary imaging and the use of DSLRs and cooled CCD cameras for deep sky imaging.
The Predator Paradox
by John ShivikAn expert in wildlife management tells the stories of those who are finding new ways for humans and mammalian predators to coexist. Stories of backyard bears and cat-eating coyotes are becoming increasingly common--even for people living in non-rural areas. Farmers anxious to protect their sheep from wolves aren't the only ones concerned: suburbanites and city dwellers are also having more unwanted run-ins with mammalian predators. And that might not be a bad thing. After all, our government has been at war with wildlife since 1914, and the death toll has been tremendous: federal agents kill a combined ninety thousand wolves, bears, coyotes, and cougars every year, often with dubious biological effectiveness. Only recently have these species begun to recover. Given improved scientific understanding and methods, can we continue to slow the slaughter and allow populations of mammalian predators to resume their positions as keystone species? As carnivore populations increase, however, their proximity to people, pets, and livestock leads to more conflict, and we are once again left to negotiate the uneasy terrain between elimination and conservation. In The Predator Paradox, veteran wildlife management expert John Shivik argues that we can end the war while still preserving and protecting these key species as fundamental components of healthy ecosystems. By reducing almost sole reliance on broad scale "death from above" tactics and by incorporating nonlethal approaches to managing wildlife--from electrified flagging to motion-sensor lights--we can dismantle the paradox, have both people and predators on the landscape, and ensure the long-term survival of both. As the boundary between human and animal habitat blurs, preventing human-wildlife conflict depends as much on changing animal behavior as on changing our own perceptions, attitudes, and actions. To that end, Shivik focuses on the facts, mollifies fears, and presents a variety of tools and tactics for consideration. Blending the science of the wild with entertaining and dramatic storytelling, Shivik's clear-eyed pragmatism allows him to appeal to both sides of the debate, while arguing for the possibility of coexistence: between ranchers and environmentalists, wildlife managers and animal-welfare activists, and humans and animals.
Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice
by Mark J. PlotkinFor thousands of years, healers have used plants to cure illness. Aspirin, the world's most widely used drug, is based on compounds originally extracted from the bark of a willow tree, and more than a quarter of medicines found on pharmacy shelves contain plant compounds. Now Western medicine, faced with health crises such as AIDS, Alzheimer's disease, and cancer, has begun to look to the healing plants used by indigenous peoples to develop powerful new medicines. Nowhere is the search more promising than in the Amazon, the world's largest tropical forest, home to a quarter of all botanical species on this planet--as well as hundreds of Indian tribes whose medicinal plants have never been studied by Western scientists. In Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice, ethnobotanist Mark J. Plotkin recounts his travels and studies with some of the most powerful Amazonian shamans, who taught him the plant lore their tribes have spent thousands of years gleaning from the rain forest. For more than a decade, Dr. Plotkin has raced against time to harvest and record new plants before the rain forests' fragile ecosystems succumb to overdevelopment--and before the Indians abandon their own culture and learning for the seductive appeal of Western material culture. Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice relates nine of the author's quests, taking the reader along on a wild odyssey as he participates in healing rituals; discovers the secret of curare, the lethal arrow poison that kills in minutes; tries the hallucinogenic snuff epena that enables the Indians to speak with their spirit world; and earns the respect and fellowship of the mysterious shamans as he proves that he shares both their endurance and their reverence for the rain forest. Mark Plotkin combines the Darwinian spirit of the great writer-explorers of the nineteenth century--curious, discursive, and rigorously scientific--with a very modern concern for the erosion of our environment and the vanishing culture of native peoples.
I am Mr. Ellie Pooh, the world's only living paper mill.
by Thusitha RanasingheMr. Ellie Pooh, the elephant, lives in Sri Lanka, but the situation is not good for elephants. There is little to eat, but eventually he is told that there is a way fo help people and elephants live together -- making paper out of his poop.
The Plover
by Brian DoyleDeclan O Donnell has sailed out of Oregon and deep into the vast, wild ocean, having had just finally enough of other people and their problems. He will go it alone, he will be his own country, he will be beholden to and beloved of no one. No man is an island, my butt, he thinks. I am that very man.... <P> But the galaxy soon presents him with a string of odd, entertaining, and dangerous passengers, who become companions of every sort and stripe. The Plover is the story of their adventures and misadventures in the immense blue country one of their company calls Pacifica. Hounded by a mysterious enemy, reluctantly acquiring one new resident after another, Declan O Donnell’s lonely boat is eventually crammed with humor, argument, tension, and a resident herring gull.<P> Brian Doyle's The Plover is a sea novel, a maritime adventure, the story of a cold man melting, a compendium of small miracles, an elegy to Edmund Burke, a watery quest, a battle at sea---and a rapturous, heartfelt celebration of life’s surprising paths, planned and unplanned.
Day of the Blizzard
by Stephen Gammell Marietta D. MoskinA brave little girl named Katie goes through a lot of trouble to get her mama's brooch back from the pawn shop.
Wild Places (Earth And Space, It's All True! Level #1)
by Lisa BenjaminThere are a lot of wild places in the world. Some places are so hot that few plants can grow. Other places are so cold that people die if they're outside too long.
One Day in the Alpine Tundra
by Jean Craighead George"An hour after sunrise on August 16th, a huge slab of rock slipped. It lay at 10,000 feet on the top of Rendezvous Mountain in the Teton Mountains of Wyoming. It had been cracking in the heat and cold for centuries, and now on August 16th at 7:20 A.M. was poised to fall. ... Below, on the fall line of the slab of rock, Johnny Moore was sleeping in his mountain tent in the grass of a meadow. ..." Other books by this author are available in this library.