- Table View
- List View
Undecidability, Uncomputability, and Unpredictability (The Frontiers Collection)
by Anthony Aguirre Zeeya Merali David SloanFor a brief time in history, it was possible to imagine that a sufficiently advanced intellect could, given sufficient time and resources, in principle understand how to mathematically prove everything that was true. They could discern what math corresponds to physical laws, and use those laws to predict anything that happens before it happens. That time has passed. Gödel’s undecidability results (the incompleteness theorems), Turing’s proof of non-computable values, the formulation of quantum theory, chaos, and other developments over the past century have shown that there are rigorous arguments limiting what we can prove, compute, and predict. While some connections between these results have come to light, many remain obscure, and the implications are unclear. Are there, for example, real consequences for physics — including quantum mechanics — of undecidability and non-computability? Are there implications for our understanding of the relations between agency, intelligence, mind, and the physical world? This book, based on the winning essays from the annual FQXi competition, contains ten explorations of Undecidability, Uncomputability, and Unpredictability. The contributions abound with connections, implications, and speculations while undertaking rigorous but bold and open-minded investigation of the meaning of these constraints for the physical world, and for us as humans.
Under a Crimson Sun: Prospects for Life in a Red Dwarf System
by David S. StevensonGliese 581 is a red dwarf star some 20.3 light years from Earth. Red dwarfs are among the most numerous stars in the galaxy, and they sport diverse planetary systems. At magnitude 10, Gliese 581 is visible to amateur observers but does not stand out. So what makes this star so important? It is that professional observers have confirmed that it has at least four planets orbiting it, and in 2009, Planet d was described in the letters of The Astrophysical Journal as "the first confirmed exoplanet that could support Earth-like life." Under a Crimson Sun looks at the nature of red dwarf systems such as Gliese as potential homes for life. Realistically, what are prospects for life on these distant worlds? Could life evolve and survive there? How do these planetary surfaces and geology evolve? How would life on a red dwarf planet differ from life on Earth? And what are the implications for finding further habitable worlds in our galaxy? Stevenson provides readers with insight into the habitability of planets and how this changes as time progresses and the central star evolves. Explore with him in this engaging, fascinating book the possibilities for finding life, from bacteria to more complex and even intelligent organisms, on red dwarf system planets.
Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future
by Elizabeth KolbertThe Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sixth Extinction returns to humanity&’s transformative impact on the environment, now asking: After doing so much damage, can we change nature, this time to save it? That man should have dominion &“over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth&” is a prophecy that has hardened into fact. So pervasive are human impacts on the planet that it&’s said we live in a new geological epoch: the Anthropocene. In Under a White Sky, Elizabeth Kolbert takes a hard look at the new world we are creating. Along the way, she meets biologists who are trying to preserve the world's rarest fish, which lives in a single tiny pool in the middle of the Mojave; engineers who are turning carbon emissions to stone in Iceland; Australian researchers who are trying to develop a "super coral" that can survive on a hotter globe; and physicists who are contemplating shooting tiny diamonds into the stratosphere to cool the earth.One way to look at human civilization, says Kolbert, is as a ten-thousand-year exercise in defying nature. In The Sixth Extinction, she explored the ways in which our capacity for destruction has reshaped the natural world. Now she examines how the very sorts of interventions that have imperiled our planet are increasingly seen as the only hope for its salvation. By turns inspiring, terrifying, and darkly comic, Under a White Sky is an utterly original examination of the challenges we face.
Under Corporate Skies: A Struggle Between People, Place, and Profit
by Erin Brockovich Martin Brueckner Dyann RossRelating the story of a tiny town pitted against a strong corporation, this account strives to voice the concerns of local communities when they come into conflict with corporate profits. With the help of Erin Brockovich, the small town of Yarloop in Western Australia is fighting its powerful neighbor, Alcoa World Alumina. Their struggle is over social, health, and environmental concerns surrounding Alcoa’s Wagerup alumina refinery. The stories told here are shared by communities around the world amidst ongoing industrialization and resultant collisions between social and economic interests. Depicting life under corporate influence, this study explicitly illustrates that profits matter—but not more than people and place.
Under Michigan: The Story of Michigan's Rocks and Fossils (Great Lakes Books Series)
by Charles Ferguson BarkerMost people recognize Michigan by its mitten-shaped Lower Peninsula and the Great Lakes embracing the state. Underneath the earth's surface, however, is equally distinctive evidence of an exciting history. Michigan rests on sedimentary rocks that reach down into the earth's crust more than fourteen thousand feet--a depth three-and-a-half times deeper than the Grand Canyon. Within these layers of rock rest all sorts of ancient fossils and minerals that date back to the eras when tropical seas spread across Michigan and hot volcanoes flung molten rock into its skies--long before mile-thick glaciers bulldozed over Michigan and plowed through ancient river valleys to form the Great Lakes.Under Michigan is the first book for young readers about the geologic history of the state and the structure scientists call the Michigan Basin. A fun and educational journey, Under Michigan explores Earth's geological past, taking readers far below the familiar sights of Michigan and nearby places to explain the creation of minerals and fossils and show where they can be found in the varying layers of rock. Readers will learn about the hard rock formations surrounding Michigan and also discover the tall mountain ridges hidden at the bottom of the Great Lakes. With beautiful illustrations by author Charles Ferguson Barker, a glossary of scientific terms, and charming page to keep field notes, Under Michigan is a wonderful resource for young explorers to use at home, in school, or on a trip across Michigan.
Under Michigan: The Story of Michigan's Rocks and Fossils
by Charles Ferguson BarkerMost people recognize Michigan by its mitten-shaped Lower Peninsula and the Great Lakes embracing the state. Underneath the earth's surface, however, is equally distinctive evidence of an exciting history. Michigan rests on sedimentary rocks that reach down into the earth's crust more than fourteen thousand feet-a depth three-and-a-half times deeper than the Grand Canyon. Within these layers of rock rest all sorts of ancient fossils and minerals that date back to the eras when tropical seas spread across Michigan and hot volcanoes flung molten rock into its skies-long before mile-thick glaciers bulldozed over Michigan and plowed through ancient river valleys to form the Great Lakes. Under Michigan is the first book for young readers about the geologic history of the state and the structure scientists call the Michigan Basin. A fun and educational journey, Under Michigan explores Earth's geological past, taking readers far below the familiar sights of Michigan and nearby places to explain the creation of minerals and fossils and show where they can be found in the varying layers of rock. Readers will learn about the hard rock formations surrounding Michigan and also discover the tall mountain ridges hidden at the bottom of the Great Lakes. With beautiful illustrations by author Charles Ferguson Barker, a glossary of scientific terms, and charming page to keep field notes, Under Michigan is a wonderful resource for young explorers to use at home, in school, or on a trip across Michigan.
Under Osman's Tree: The Ottoman Empire, Egypt, and Environmental History
by Alan MikhailOsman, the founder of the Ottoman Empire, had a dream in which a tree sprouted from his navel. As the tree grew, its shade covered the earth; as Osman’s empire grew, it, too, covered the earth. This is the most widely accepted foundation myth of the longest-lasting empire in the history of Islam, and offers a telling clue to its unique legacy. Underlying every aspect of the Ottoman Empire’s epic history—from its founding around 1300 to its end in the twentieth century—is its successful management of natural resources. Under Osman’s Tree analyzes this rich environmental history to understand the most remarkable qualities of the Ottoman Empire—its longevity, politics, economy, and society. The early modern Middle East was the world’s most crucial zone of connection and interaction. Accordingly, the Ottoman Empire’s many varied environments affected and were affected by global trade, climate, and disease. From down in the mud of Egypt’s canals to up in the treetops of Anatolia, Alan Mikhail tackles major aspects of the Middle East’s environmental history: natural resource management, climate, human and animal labor, energy, water control, disease, and politics. He also points to some of the ways in which the region’s dominant religious tradition, Islam, has understood and related to the natural world. Marrying environmental and Ottoman history, Under Osman’s Tree offers a bold new interpretation of the past five hundred years of Middle Eastern history.
Under Pressure
by Jennifer Peeples Peter K. Bsumek Steve Schwarze Jen SchneiderThis book examines five rhetorical strategies used by the US coal industry to advance its interests in the face of growing economic and environmental pressures: industrial apocalyptic, corporate ventriloquism, technological shell game, hypocrite's trap, and energy utopia. The authors argue that these strategies appeal to and reinforce neoliberalism, a discourse and set of practices that privilege market rationality and individual freedom and responsibility above all else. As the coal industry has become the leading target and leverage point for those seeking more aggressive action to mitigate climate change, their corporate advocacy may foreshadow rhetorical strategies available to other fossil fuel industries as they manage similar economic and cultural shifts. The authors' analysis of coal's corporate advocacy also identifies contradictions and points of vulnerability in the organized resistance to climate action as well as the larger ideological formation of neoliberalism.
Under the Map of Germany: Nationalism and Propaganda 1918 - 1945
by Guntram Henrik HerbAt the close of the First World War, propaganda mapping played a crucial role in the creation of a consensus about German national territory.Under the Map of Germany provides a detailed and vivid analysis of the history and techniques of nationalist mapping in inter-war Germany. Using extensive archival documentation - including many previously undiscovered maps - the author charts the development of new concepts of national territory and the establishment of an effective propaganda mapping network. His research demonstrates that a consensus about the extent of the Greater German nation was not created by skillful Nazi propagandists, but by the collaborate efforts of respected scholars and nationalist activists during the Weimar Republic. Challenging the belief that national self-determination is a just cause, Under the Map of Germany reveals that national territories are not tangible entities that can be clearly delimited, but are artificial constructs open to a wide range of interpretations.
Under the Sea: Archaeology and Palaeolandscapes of the Continental Shelf
by Geoffrey N. Bailey Jan Harff Dimitris SakellariouThis book focuses on issues of method and interpretation in studies of submerged landscapes, concentrating on illustrations and case studies from around Europe with additional examples from other parts of the world. Such landscapes were once exposed as dry land during the low sea levels that prevailed during the glacial periods that occupied most of the past million years and provided extensive new territories for human exploitation. Their study today involves underwater investigation, using techniques and strategies which are clearly set out in these chapters. The underwater landscape provides a rich source of information about the archaeology of human settlement and long-term changes in environment, climate and sea-level. This book highlights how such information can be revealed and interpreted. The examples presented here and the focus on techniques make this book of worldwide relevance. Chapters describe examples of underwater archaeological investigation as well as collaboration with offshore industries and legal, management and training issues relating to underwater cultural heritage. Such studies point to the significance of this drowned landscape, and readers are invited to consider its human impact in terms of past settlement and population dispersal through palaeolandscape reconstruction and interpretation in relation to broader themes in human prehistory. This volume is based on work from COST Action SPLASHCOS, a four-year multi-disciplinary and multi-national research program supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) and has something to benefit all those with an interest in the sea floor of the continental shelf and the archaeological and social impact of sea-level change, including archaeologists, marine scientists, geographers, cultural-heritage managers, commercial and governmental organisations, policy makers and interested members of the public.
Under the Sea Wind
by Rachel CarsonThis New York Times bestseller by the author of the environmental classic Silent Spring beautifully details the coastal ecosystem of birds and the sea. In her first book, preeminent nature writer Rachel Carson tells the story of the sea creatures and birds that dwell in and around the waters along North America&’s eastern coast—and the delicately balanced ecosystem that sustains them. Following the life cycles of a pair of sanderlings, a mackerel, and an eel, Carson gracefully weaves scientific observation with imaginative prose to educate and inspire, creating one of the finest wildlife narratives in American literature. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Rachel Carson including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.
Under the Sky We Make: How to Be Human in a Warming World
by Kimberly NicholasIt's warming. It's us. We're sure. It's bad. But we can fix it.After speaking to the international public for close to fifteen years about sustainability, climate scientist Dr. Nicholas realized that concerned people were getting the wrong message about the climate crisis. Yes, companies and governments are hugely responsible for the mess we're in. But individuals CAN effect real, significant, and lasting change to solve this problem. Nicholas explores finding purpose in a warming world, combining her scientific expertise and her lived, personal experience in a way that seems fresh and deeply urgent: Agonizing over the climate costs of visiting loved ones overseas, how to find low-carbon love on Tinder, and even exploring her complicated family legacy involving supermarket turkeys.In her astonishing book Under the Sky We Make, Nicholas does for climate science what Michael Pollan did more than a decade ago for the food on our plate: offering a hopeful, clear-eyed, and somehow also hilarious guide to effecting real change, starting in our own lives. Saving ourselves from climate apocalypse will require radical shifts within each of us, to effect real change in our society and culture. But it can be done. It requires, Dr. Nicholas argues, belief in our own agency and value, alongside a deep understanding that no one will ever hand us power--we're going to have to seize it for ourselves.
Under the Snow
by Melissa StewartA cozy look at the amazing ways animals behave and interact with their environments on a snowy day.When snow falls, we go home where it is warm and safe. But what about all those animals out there in the forests and fields? What do they do when snow blankets the ground? Award-winning science writer Melissa Stewart offers a lyrical tour of a variety of habitats, providing young readers with vivid glimpses of animals as they live out the winter beneath the snow and ice. Constance R. Bergum's glowing watercolors perfectly capture the wonder and magic that can happen under the snow.
Under the Surface: Fracking, Fortunes, and the Fate of the Marcellus Shale, Updated Edition
by Tom WilberRunning from southern West Virginia through eastern Ohio, across central and northeast Pennsylvania, and into New York through the Southern Tier and the Catskills, the Marcellus Shale formation underlies a sparsely populated region that features striking landscapes, critical watersheds, and a struggling economic base. It also contains one of the world's largest supplies of natural gas, a resource that has been dismissed as inaccessible—until recently. Technological developments that combine horizontal drilling with hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") have removed physical and economic barriers to extracting hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of gas from bedrock deep below the Appalachian basin. Beginning in 2006, the first successful Marcellus gas wells by Range Resources, combined with a spike in the value of natural gas, spurred a modern-day gold rush—a "gas rush"—with profound ramifications for environmental policy, energy markets, political dynamics, and the lives of the people living in the Marcellus region. Under the Surface is the first book-length journalistic overview of shale gas development and the controversies surrounding it. Control over drilling rights is at stake in the heart of Marcellus country—northeast Pennsylvania and central New York. The decisions by landowners to work with or against the companies—and the resulting environmental and economic consequences—are scrutinized by neighbors faced with similar decisions, by residents of cities whose water supply originates in the exploration area, and by those living across state lines with differing attitudes and policies concerning extraction industries. Wilber's evenhanded treatment gives a voice to all constituencies, including farmers and landowners tempted by the prospects of wealth but wary of the consequences, policymakers struggling with divisive issues, and activists coordinating campaigns based on their respective visions of economic salvation and environmental ruin. Wilber describes a landscape in which the battle over the Marcellus ranges from the very local—yard signs proclaiming landowners' allegiances for or against shale gas development—to often conflicting municipal, state, and federal legislation intended to accelerate, delay, or discourage exploration. For millions of people with a direct stake in shale gas exploration in the Marcellus or any number of other emerging shale resources in the United States and worldwide, or for those concerned about the global energy outlook, Under the Surface offers a worthwhile and engaging look at the issues.
UNDER THE WEATHER: Climate, Ecosystems, and Infectious Disease
by National Research CouncilSince the dawn of medical science, people have recognized connections between a change in the weather and the appearance of epidemic disease. With today's technology, some hope that it will be possible to build models for predicting the emergence and spread of many infectious diseases based on climate and weather forecasts. However, separating the effects of climate from other effects presents a tremendous scientific challenge.Can we use climate and weather forecasts to predict infectious disease outbreaks? Can the field of public health advance from "surveillance and response" to "prediction and prevention?" And perhaps the most important question of all: Can we predict how global warming will affect the emergence and transmission of infectious disease agents around the world?Under the Weather evaluates our current understanding of the linkages among climate, ecosystems, and infectious disease; it then goes a step further and outlines the research needed to improve our understanding of these linkages. The book also examines the potential for using climate forecasts and ecological observations to help predict infectious disease outbreaks, identifies the necessary components for an epidemic early warning system, and reviews lessons learned from the use of climate forecasts in other realms of human activity.
Under the Weather: Reimagining Mobility in the Climate Crisis (McGill-Queen's/Brian Mulroney Institute of Government Studies in Leadership, Public Policy, and Governance)
by Stephanie SoderoHumans and human mobility, including driving and flying, are entangled with the climate emergency. Fossil-fuelled mobility worsens severe weather, and in turn, severe weather disrupts human mobility. A shift to zero-emission vehicles is critical but insufficient to repair the damage or prepare communities for the coming disruptions severe weather will bring. In Under the Weather Stephanie Sodero explores the intersection between human mobility and severe weather. Anchored in two Atlantic Canadian hurricane case studies, Hurricane Juan in Mi'kma'ki/Nova Scotia in 2003 and Hurricane Igor in Ktaqmkuk/Newfoundland in 2010, the book contributes to contemporary cultural and policy discussions by offering five practical recommendations – revolutionize mobility, prioritize vital mobility of medical goods and services, embrace ecological mobilities, rebrand redundancy, and think flexibly – for how mobility can be reimagined to work with, rather than against, the climate in ways that also benefit the health, education, and economy of local communities. This ecological approach to mobilities sheds light on extreme mobility dependency and the impact of mobility disruptions on the ground in Canadian communities.Focusing on the entangled relationship between human mobility and the climate, Under the Weather examines how communities can transform their relationship with mobility to enable greater resilience.
Under Your Feet... Soil, Sand and Everything Underground (Underground and All Around)
by Wenjia TangDown where worms wriggle and microbes squirm, there's a whole world waiting to be discovered...Under Your Feet delves beneath the Earth's surface and explores the diverse wonders hidden there. Encounter creatures of the deep and marvel at the mind-boggling size of the humongous fungus - the biggest organism in the world. Learn how one handful of ordinary soil contains more organisms than there are people on Earth, and carry out experiments using dirt from your own back garden.Under Your Feet offers you the opportunity to expand your knowledge of the natural world and soil-dwelling creatures big and small. Bursting with colorful illustrations and photography, this is the perfect book for budding young plant experts, animal fanatics, and geologists, and anyone who is curious about the ground we walk on.
Underground: A Human History of the Worlds Beneath Our Feet
by Will HuntWhen Will Hunt was sixteen years old, he discovered an abandoned tunnel that ran beneath his house in Providence, Rhode Island. His first tunnel trips inspired a lifelong fascination with exploring underground worlds, from the derelict subway stations and sewers of New York City to the sacred caves, catacombs, and tombs, from bunkers to ancient underground cities in more than twenty countries around the world. Underground is both a personal exploration of Hunt’s obsession and a panoramic study of how we are all connected to the underground, how caves and other dark hollows have frightened and enchanted, repelled and captivated, us through the ages. <p><p> In a narrative spanning continents and epochs, Hunt follows a cast of subterranea-philes who have dedicated themselves to investigating underground worlds. He tracks the origins of life with a team of NASA microbiologists a mile beneath the Black Hills, camps out for three days with urban explorers in the catacombs and sewers of Paris, descends with an Aboriginal family into a 35,000-year-old sacred mine in the Australian outback, follows a ghostlike graffiti artist writing stories in the subway tunnels of New York, and glimpses a sacred sculpture molded by Paleolithic artists in the depths of a cave in the Pyrenees. <p> Each adventure is woven with findings in mythology and anthropology, natural history and neuroscience, literature and philosophy. In elegant and graceful prose, Hunt cures us of our “surface chauvinism,” opening our eyes to the planet’s hidden dimension. He reveals how the subterranean landscape gave shape to our most basic beliefs, including how we think about ourselves as humans. At bottom, Underground is a meditation on the allure of darkness, the power of mystery, and our eternal desire to connect with what we cannot see.
Underground Engineering for Sustainable Urban Development
by Committee on Underground Engineering for Sustainable DevelopmentFor thousands of years, the underground has provided humans refuge, useful resources, physical support for surface structures, and a place for spiritual or artistic expression. More recently, many urban services have been placed underground. Over this time, humans have rarely considered how underground space can contribute to or be engineered to maximize its contribution to the sustainability of society. As human activities begin to change the planet and population struggle to maintain satisfactory standards of living, placing new infrastructure and related facilities underground may be the most successful way to encourage or support the redirection of urban development into sustainable patterns. Well maintained, resilient, and adequately performing underground infrastructure, therefore, becomes an essential part of sustainability, but much remains to be learned about improving the sustainability of underground infrastructure itself. At the request of the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Research Council (NRC) conducted a study to consider sustainable underground development in the urban environment, to identify research needed to maximize opportunities for using underground space, and to enhance understanding among the public and technical communities of the role of underground engineering in urban sustainability. Underground Engineering for Sustainable Urban Development explains the findings of researchers and practitioners with expertise in geotechnical engineering, underground design and construction, trenchless technologies, risk assessment, visualization techniques for geotechnical applications, sustainable infrastructure development, life cycle assessment, infrastructure policy and planning, and fire prevention, safety and ventilation in the underground. This report is intended to inform a future research track and will be of interest to a broad audience including those in the private and public sectors engaged in urban and facility planning and design, underground construction, and safety and security.
Underground Thermal Energy Storage
by Kun Sang LeeUnderground thermal energy storage (UTES) provide us with a flexible tool to combat global warming through conserving energy while utilizing natural renewable energy resources. Primarily, they act as a buffer to balance fluctuations in supply and demand of low temperature thermal energy. Underground Thermal Energy Storage provides an comprehensive introduction to the extensively-used energy storage method. Underground Thermal Energy Storage gives a general overview of UTES from basic concepts and classifications to operation regimes. As well as discussing general procedures for design and construction, thermo-hydro geological modeling of UTES systems is explained. Finally, current real life data and statistics are include to summarize major global developments in UTES over the past decades. The concise style and thorough coverage makes Underground Thermal Energy Storage a solid introduction for students, engineers and geologists alike.
Underground Ventilation: Proceedings of the 19th North American Mine Ventilation Symposium ((NAMVS 2023, 17-22 June 2023, Rapid City, South Dakota, USA)
by Purushotham TukkarajaUnderground Ventilation contains the proceedings of the 19th North American Mine Ventilation Symposium held at the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology (South Dakota Mines) in Rapid City, South Dakota, June 17-22, 2023. South Dakota Mines organized this symposium in collaboration with the Underground Ventilation Committee (UVC) of the Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration (SME). The Mine Ventilation Symposium series has always been a premier forum for ventilation experts, practitioners, educators, students, regulators, and suppliers from around the world to exchange knowledge, ideas, and opinions. Underground Ventilation features sixty-seven selected technical papers in a wide range of ventilation topics including: auxiliary and primary systems, mine fans, case studies, computational fluid dynamics applications, diesel particulate control, electric machinery, mine cooling and refrigeration, mine dust monitoring and control, mine fires and explosion prevention, mine gases, mine heat, mine ventilation and automation, occupational health and safety, renewable/alternative energy, monitoring and measurement, network analysis and optimization, and planning and design.
Underland: A Deep Time Journey
by Robert MacfarlaneFrom the best-selling, award-winning author of Landmarks and The Old Ways, a haunting voyage into the planet’s past and future. Hailed as "the great nature writer of this generation" (Wall Street Journal), Robert Macfarlane is the celebrated author of books about the intersections of the human and the natural realms. In Underland, he delivers his masterpiece: an epic exploration of the Earth’s underworlds as they exist in myth, literature, memory, and the land itself. In this highly anticipated sequel to his international bestseller The Old Ways, Macfarlane takes us on an extraordinary journey into our relationship with darkness, burial, and what lies beneath the surface of both place and mind. Traveling through “deep time”—the dizzying expanses of geologic time that stretch away from the present—he moves from the birth of the universe to a post-human future, from the prehistoric art of Norwegian sea caves to the blue depths of the Greenland ice cap, from Bronze Age funeral chambers to the catacomb labyrinth below Paris, and from the underground fungal networks through which trees communicate to a deep-sunk “hiding place” where nuclear waste will be stored for 100,000 years to come. “Woven through Macfarlane’s own travels are the unforgettable stories of descents into the underland made across history by explorers, artists, cavers, divers, mourners, dreamers, and murderers, all of whom have been drawn for different reasons to seek what Cormac McCarthy calls “the awful darkness within the world.” Global in its geography and written with great lyricism and power, Underland speaks powerfully to our present moment. Taking a deep-time view of our planet, Macfarlane here asks a vital and unsettling question: “Are we being good ancestors to the future Earth?” Underland marks a new turn in Macfarlane’s long-term mapping of the relations of landscape and the human heart. From its remarkable opening pages to its deeply moving conclusion, it is a journey into wonder, loss, fear, and hope. At once ancient and urgent, this is a book that will change the way you see the world.
Undermined in Coal Country: On the Measures in a Working Land
by Bill ConlogueA study of lives and landscapes in Pennsylvania’s Lackawanna Valley and “what the region’s history of mining reveals about human folly and endeavor” (The Chronicle of Higher Education).Deep mining ended decades ago in Pennsylvania’s Lackawanna Valley. The barons who made their fortunes have moved on. Low wages and high unemployment haunt the area, and the people left behind wonder whether to stay or seek their fortunes elsewhere.Bill Conlogue explores how two overlapping coal country landscapes—Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Marywood University—have coped with the devastating aftermath of mining. Examining the far-reaching environmental effects of mining, this beautifully written book asks bigger questions about what it means to influence a landscape to this extent—and then to live in it. In prose rivaling that of Annie Dillard and John McPhee, Conlogue argues that, if we are serious about solving environmental problems, if we are serious about knowing where we are and what happens there, we need to attend closely to all places—that is, to attend to the world in a cold, dark, and disorienting universe. Unearthing new ways of thinking about place, pedagogy, and the environment, this meditative text reveals that place is inherently unstable.
Underminers
by Keith FarnishA vibrant, growing movement of radical protest is sweeping North America in opposition to high-stakes capitalism and the appalling environmental desecration that accompanies it. <P><P>At once entertaining, shocking and inspiring, Underminers is the monkey-wrencher's guide to navigating and subverting the industrial machine, showing how symbolic protestors can become real activists; reconnected to one another, and co-creators of a viable future.
Undermining: A Wild Ride Through Land Use, Politics, and Art in the Changing West
by Lucy R. Lippard&“A marvelous slim book [that] weaves . . . ideas, facts, images, and histories into a whole about . . . the ecology of the manmade world.&” —Rebecca Solnit In Undermining, the award-winning author, art historian and social critic Lucy R. Lippard delivers &“another trademark work&” that combines text and full-color images to explore &“the intersection of art, the environment, geography and politics&” (Kirkus Reviews). Working from her own experience of life in a New Mexico village, and inspired by the gravel pits in the surrounding landscape, Lippard addresses a number of fascinating themes—including fracking, mining, land art, adobe buildings, ruins, Indian land rights, the Old West, tourism, photography, and water. In her meditations, she illuminates the relationship between culture, industry, and the land. From threatened Native American sacred sites to the history of uranium mining, she offers a skeptical examination of the &“subterranean economy.&” Featuring more than two hundred gorgeous color images, Undermining offers a provocative new perspective on the relationship between art and place in a rapidly shifting society. &“[Lippard&’s] strength lies in the depth of [her] commitment—her dual loyalty to tradition and modernity and her effort to restore the broken connection between the two.&” —Suzi Gablik, The New York Times Book Review