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A Thinking Person's Guide to America's National Parks

by Robert Manning Rolf Diamant Nora Mitchell David Harmon

The book delves into issues affecting an array of parks: the iconic western national parks like Yellowsto≠ the urban parks such as Golden Gate National Recreation Area; historic sites including the Statue of Liberty National Monument and Gettysburg National Military Park; and cultural areas like Mesa Verde National Park that are among America's over 400 national parks. Twenty-three essays from contributing authors with deep personal and professional connections to the national parks serve as expert guides to places in the park system where: much of the nation's biological and cultural diversity is represented;ideas such as freedom, civil rights, and conservation were conceived;vast wilderness offers solitude and reflection;storied landscapes preserve a sense of place;the balance between recreation and preservation is tested;research and learning engage the next generation;the dynamics of nature are being shaped by a changing climate; and innovations in technology, sustainability, and stewardship provide a sense of purpose and hope.

A Thirsty Land: The Fight for Water in Texas (Natural Resources Management and Conservation)

by Seamus McGraw

“An important story not just about [Texas’s] water history, but also about its social, economic, and political identity” (Western Historical Quarterly).As a changing climate threatens the whole country with deeper droughts and more furious floods that put ever more people and property at risk, Texas has become a bellwether state for water debates. Will there be enough water for everyone? Is there the will to take the steps necessary to defend ourselves against the sea? Is it in the nature of Americans to adapt to nature in flux?The most comprehensive—and comprehensible—book on contemporary water issues, A Thirsty Land delves deep into the challenges faced not just by Texas but also by the nation, as we struggle to find a way to balance the changing forces of nature with our own ever-expanding needs. Part history, part science, part adventure story, and part travelogue, this book puts a human face on the struggle to master that most precious and capricious of resources, water. Seamus McGraw goes to the taproots, talking to farmers, ranchers, businesspeople, and citizen activists, as well as to politicians and government employees. Their stories provide chilling evidence that Texas—and indeed the nation—is not ready for the next devastating drought, the next catastrophic flood. Ultimately, however, A Thirsty Land delivers hope. This deep dive into one of the most vexing challenges facing Texas and the nation offers glimpses of the way forward in the untapped opportunities that water also presents.“A hard look at a hard problem: finding sufficient water to live in a place without much of it. . . . McGraw’s fine book serves as a useful guide. Observers of Western waterways will want to have this on their shelves alongside the likes of Marc Reisner and Charles Bowden.” —Kirkus Reviews“In stark prose that often gleams like a bone pile bleached in the sun, McGraw travels back and forth across Texas to give a free-ranging but deadeye view of the crisis on the horizon.” —Texas Monthly“It’s hard to write about the slow creep of environmental crises like drought without resorting to shock tactics or getting lost in the weeds . . . [McGraw] draws out the conflicts in compelling ways by drilling into the plight of individual water users. Even if you feel no connection to Texas, these stories are relevant to every part of the country.” —Outside“Interviewing both scientific experts and everyday water users, [McGraw] clearly delineates the competing interests, describes political and geological reality, and makes a compelling argument for statewide water policy that utilizes modern technology and fairly weighs parochial needs against the good of the whole.” —Arizona Daily Star, Southwest Books of the Year

A Thirsty Land: The Fight for Water in Texas (Natural Resources Management and Conservation)

by Seamus McGraw

“An important story not just about [Texas’s] water history, but also about its social, economic, and political identity” (Western Historical Quarterly).As a changing climate threatens the whole country with deeper droughts and more furious floods that put ever more people and property at risk, Texas has become a bellwether state for water debates. Will there be enough water for everyone? Is there the will to take the steps necessary to defend ourselves against the sea? Is it in the nature of Americans to adapt to nature in flux?The most comprehensive—and comprehensible—book on contemporary water issues, A Thirsty Land delves deep into the challenges faced not just by Texas but also by the nation, as we struggle to find a way to balance the changing forces of nature with our own ever-expanding needs. Part history, part science, part adventure story, and part travelogue, this book puts a human face on the struggle to master that most precious and capricious of resources, water. Seamus McGraw goes to the taproots, talking to farmers, ranchers, businesspeople, and citizen activists, as well as to politicians and government employees. Their stories provide chilling evidence that Texas—and indeed the nation—is not ready for the next devastating drought, the next catastrophic flood. Ultimately, however, A Thirsty Land delivers hope. This deep dive into one of the most vexing challenges facing Texas and the nation offers glimpses of the way forward in the untapped opportunities that water also presents.“A hard look at a hard problem: finding sufficient water to live in a place without much of it. . . . McGraw’s fine book serves as a useful guide. Observers of Western waterways will want to have this on their shelves alongside the likes of Marc Reisner and Charles Bowden.” —Kirkus Reviews“In stark prose that often gleams like a bone pile bleached in the sun, McGraw travels back and forth across Texas to give a free-ranging but deadeye view of the crisis on the horizon.” —Texas Monthly“It’s hard to write about the slow creep of environmental crises like drought without resorting to shock tactics or getting lost in the weeds . . . [McGraw] draws out the conflicts in compelling ways by drilling into the plight of individual water users. Even if you feel no connection to Texas, these stories are relevant to every part of the country.” —Outside“Interviewing both scientific experts and everyday water users, [McGraw] clearly delineates the competing interests, describes political and geological reality, and makes a compelling argument for statewide water policy that utilizes modern technology and fairly weighs parochial needs against the good of the whole.” —Arizona Daily Star, Southwest Books of the Year

A Thousand Ways Denied: The Environmental Legacy of Oil in Louisiana

by John T. Arnold

From the hill country in the north to the marshy lowlands in the south, Louisiana and its citizens have long enjoyed the hard-earned fruits of the oil and gas industry’s labor. Economic prosperity flowed from pioneering exploration as the industry heralded engineering achievements and innovative production technologies. Those successes, however, often came at the expense of other natural resources, leading to contamination and degradation of land and water. In A Thousand Ways Denied, John T. Arnold documents the oil industry’s sharp interface with Louisiana’s environment. Drawing on government, corporate, and personal files, many previously untapped, he traces the history of oil-field practices and their ecological impacts in tandem with battles over regulation. Arnold reveals that in the early twentieth century, Louisiana helped lead the nation in conservation policy, instituting some of the first programs to sustain its vast wealth of natural resources. But with the proliferation of oil output, government agencies splintered between those promoting production and others committed to preventing pollution. As oil’s economic and political strength grew, regulations commonly went unobserved and unenforced. Over the decades, oil, saltwater, and chemicals flowed across the ground, through natural drainages, and down waterways. Fish and wildlife fled their habitats, and drinking-water supplies were ruined. In the wetlands, drilling facilities sat like factories in the midst of a maze of interconnected canals dredged to support exploration, manufacture, and transportation of oil and gas. In later years, debates raged over the contribution of these activities to coastal land loss.Oil is an inseparable part of Louisiana’s culture and politics, Arnold asserts, but the state’s original vision for safeguarding its natural resources has become compromised. He urges a return to those foundational conservation principles. Otherwise, Louisiana risks the loss of viable uses of its land and, in some places, its very way of life.

A Toolkit for Effective Everyday Activism

by Alison Rogers Leanne Kelly

This book examines how everyday activists can enhance their effectiveness.Leanne Kelly and Alison Rogers unpack theories from the social sciences to help find meaning, explain these feelings of inertia, and provide strategies to overcome them. Through lessons learned over their careers as evaluators in non-profit organisations, Kelly and Rogers provide tools and strategies for measuring, improving, and sharing the effectiveness of planet-saving activities. They draw upon interviews with everyday people who are contributing to change in their homes, community groups, workplaces, and social settings to understand how they motivate and encourage others. The book concludes with a realistic look at individual expectations and focuses on how to prioritise self-care to ensure that activists can keep contributing in a way that maintains their wellbeing and balance.A Toolkit for Effective Everyday Activism empowers people to use theory, research, and practical tools to leverage their power so they can make the maximum contribution possible and sustain their efforts over the long term. It will be a great resource for individuals working and volunteering in community groups, NGOs, and non-profit and corporate organisations with an environmental focus.The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www. taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 international license.The electronic version of this book was funded to publish Open Access through Taylor & Francis’ Pledge to Open, a collaborative funding open access books initiative. The full list of pledging institutions can be found on the Taylor & Francis Pledge to Open webpage

A Tour of Mont Blanc: And other circuitous adventures in Italy, France and Switzerland

by David Le Vay

On New Year's Day, David makes a pact to tackle Western Europe's highest mountain, Mont Blanc. With his only daughter leaving for university and his fiftieth birthday approaching, walking 170 kilometres across a mountain range seems the perfect antidote. Humorous, reflective and poignant, this journey is full to bursting with stories to remember.

A Trail Called Home: Tree Stories from the Golden Horseshoe

by Paul O'Hara

An exploration of trees in the Golden Horseshoe and the stories they tell. Trees define so much of Canadian life, but many people, particularly in the Golden Horseshoe area of Ontario, don’t know that much about them. Granted, it is harder here: there are more trees that are native to this area than anywhere else in Canada. The great storytellers of the landscape, trees are looking glasses into the past. They speak of biology, ecology, and geology, as well as natural and human history. Through a greater understanding of trees, we can become more rooted to the land beneath our feet, and our place in it.

A Trajectory Description of Quantum Processes. II. Applications: A Bohmian Perspective (Lecture Notes in Physics #831)

by Ángel S. Sanz Salvador Miret-Artés

Trajectory-based formalisms are an intuitively appealing way of describing quantum processes because they allow the use of "classical" concepts. Beginning as an introductory level suitable for students, this two-volume monograph presents (1) the fundamentals and (2) the applications of the trajectory description of basic quantum processes. This second volume is focussed on simple and basic applications of quantum processes such as interference and diffraction of wave packets, tunneling, diffusion and bound-state and scattering problems. The corresponding analysis is carried out within the Bohmian framework. By stressing its interpretational aspects, the book leads the reader to an alternative and complementary way to better understand the underlying quantum dynamics.

A Transdisciplinary Introduction to the World of Cybernetics: Basics, Models, Theories and Practical Examples

by E. W. Küppers

This introduction to the world of cybernetics provides the basics and discusses the most important thought leaders, models as well as theories. Practical examples from the fields of biology, ecology, technology, society, and politics are used to illustrate the theoretical material. Questions at the end of the chapters stimulate reflection, and the author does not owe the answers. A central theme in all cybernetic considerations and a guiding theme of the book are information exchange and communication.

A Transition to Sustainable Housing: Progress and Prospects for a Low Carbon Housing Future

by Trivess Moore Andréanne Doyon

This open access book explores the environmental, social, and financial challenges of housing provision, and the urgent need for a sustainable housing transition. The authors explore how market failures have impacted the scaling up of sustainable housing and the various policy attempts to address this. Going beyond an environmental focus, the book explores a range of housing-related challenges including social justice and equity issues. Sustainability transitions theory is presented as a framework to help facilitate a sustainable housing transition and a range of contemporary case studies are explored on issues including high performing housing, small housing, shared housing, neighbourhood-scale housing, circular housing, and innovative financing for housing. It is an important new resource that challenges policy makers, planners, housing construction industry stakeholders, and researchers to rethink what housing is, how we design and construct it, and how we can better integrate impacts on households to wider policy development.

A Trash-Free Future?

by Alison Pearce Stevens

What happens to trash after the garbage truck picks it up? Where does it go? The problem of too much trash is hurting the planet. Recycling, reusing, composting and creating new ways to make less trash is a start! Learn to recycle old furniture, and how safer materials are being developed that can easily decompose. People are working hard every day on new ways to have a trash-free future! Are you?

A Treatise of Indian and Tropical Soils

by D. K. Pal

This book discusses how to apply the basic principles of pedology to the tropical soils of the Indian subcontinent, with an emphasis on ways to enhance crop productivity. The book showcases the research contributions on pedology, geomorphology, mineralogy, micromorphology and climate change collected from the literature on three major soil types: shrink-swell soils, red ferruginous (RF) soils and the soils that occur in the tropical environments of the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP). It also provides insights into several aspects of five pedogenetically important soil orders like Alfisols, Mollisols, Ultisols, Vertisols and Inceptisols found in tropical Indian environments. Documenting the significance of minerals in soils and their overall influence in soil science in terms of pedology, paleopedology, polygenesis and edaphology, it provides a knowledge base that is critical when attempting to bridge the gap between food production and population growth.

A Tree In A Forest

by Jan Thornhill

Describes the life of a maple tree that is over 200 years old.

A Tree Is a Community (Books for a Better Earth)

by David L. Harrison

One tree supports an ecosystem of life–insects, mammals, and even humans. Discover the surprising biodiversity of trees in this science picture book from award-winning creators of And the Bullfrogs Sing and The Dirt Book.A tree is more than just a plant, but a whole ecosystem hiding in plain sight, on street corners and in backyards everywhere. Discover how one tree provides shelter, food, and clean air to a host of animals and insects. Robins build their nest in the branches and bees gather nectar from flowers. The tree keeps its neighborhood clean, healthy, and safe. Leaves clean the air and roots keep the dirt from washing away. The tree&’s residents are safe through thunderstorms and changing seasons. This home is built to last!Those buds POP openand bees BUZZand rain SPLASHESand sun SIZZLESAuthor David L. Harrison&’s lively, rhythmic text informs and excites readers about the ecosystem of trees. Illustrator Kate Cosgrove&’s lush and dynamic illustrations color a charming world aglow with life. This award-winning team, from And the Bullfrogs Sing and The Dirt Book, are back with another picture book that invites young readers into the natural world around them. A Tree Is a Community is perfect for the budding naturalist. The Books for a Better Earth™ collection is designed to inspire young people to become active, knowledgeable participants in caring for the planet they live on. Focusing on solutions to climate change challenges and human environmental impacts, the collection looks at how scientists, activists, and young leaders are working to safeguard Earth&’s future.

A Tsunami Unfolds

by Susan Korman Kimiko Kajikawa

NIMAC-sourced textbook

A Tutorial on the WKB Approximation for Innovative Dirac Materials: Graphene and Beyond (Springer Tracts in Modern Physics #292)

by Andrii Iurov

This textbook serves to supplement existing quantum mechanics courses with the WKB (Wentzel–Kramers–Brillouin) theory for recently discovered Dirac materials, such as graphene, a dice lattice, and alpha-T3 materials. This includes finding the semiclassical wave function, coordinate-dependent momentum, semiclassical action, the complete set of transport equations, and applicability conditions for the approximation. The discovery of graphene and its unique electronic behavior has transformed research in condensed matter physics over the last 10-15 years, but core curriculum in standard graduate-level physics courses still does not reflect these new developments and this book intends to close this gap. With a clear focus on various types of Dirac Hamiltonians, the multidimensional theory is only a small part of the book. The derivation of the WKB equations for novel Dirac materials and their applications to electron tunneling, turning points and classically forbidden regions, resonances and localized states, and many other crucial physical problems are methodically presented. This textbook aims to expand the existing approach to presenting the WKB approximation and covers recent developments in its applications. This book also includes many informative graphics, as well as problems and exercises with hints at the end of each chapter. Additional detailed mathematical derivations, as well as code in Mathematica, are added throughout the whole book. Ideal for graduate students and researchers in condensed matter physics, this textbook serves as a modern guide for learning the WKB theory.

A U-Turn to the Future: Sustainable Urban Mobility since 1850 (Explorations in Mobility #4)

by Ruth Oldenziel Martin Emanuel Frank Schipper

From local bike-sharing initiatives to overhauls of transport infrastructure, mobility is one of the most important areas in which modern cities are trying to realize a more sustainable future. Yet even as politicians and planners look ahead, there remain critical insights to be gleaned from the history of urban mobility and the unsustainable practices that still impact our everyday lives. United by their pursuit of a “usable past,” the studies in this interdisciplinary collection consider the ecological, social, and economic aspects of urban mobility, showing how historical inquiry can make both conceptual and practical contributions to the projects of sustainability and urban renewal.

A Unified Grand Tour of Theoretical Physics

by Ian D. Lawrie

A Unified Grand Tour of Theoretical Physics invites its readers to a guided exploration of the theoretical ideas that shape our contemporary understanding of the physical world at the fundamental level. Its central themes, comprising space-time geometry and the general relativistic account of gravity, quantum field theory and the gauge theories of

A United Kingdom?: Economic, Social and Political Geographies

by John Mohan

The human geography of the UK is currently being reshaped by a number of forces - such as globalisation, transition in the organisations of production, the changing character of state intervention, and changing relationships with Europe. A consideration of the impacts of these forces on economic, social and political landscapes is, therefore, an urgent task. At the same time, enduring institutional features of the British economy and polity are also having important influences on socio-economic processes. The result is a complex mosaic of uneven development, which belies the notion of simplistic regional contrasts.Rather than simply mapping spatial inequality, 'A United Kingdom?' charts the processes underpinning uneven development at a range of scales and for a number of key topics. The book draws upon and synthesises the latest contemporary research findings and places emphasis on the interrelated nature of economic, social and political geographies. It treats the human geographies of the UK in a coherent and integrated way, and asks whether contemporary processes of change are tending towards the reduction of socio-spatial divisions or their reproduction in new forms.

A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming (Infrastructures)

by Paul N. Edwards

The science behind global warming, and its history: how scientists learned to understand the atmosphere, to measure it, to trace its past, and to model its future.Global warming skeptics often fall back on the argument that the scientific case for global warming is all model predictions, nothing but simulation; they warn us that we need to wait for real data, “sound science.” In A Vast Machine Paul Edwards has news for these skeptics: without models, there are no data. Today, no collection of signals or observations—even from satellites, which can “see” the whole planet with a single instrument—becomes global in time and space without passing through a series of data models. Everything we know about the world's climate we know through models. Edwards offers an engaging and innovative history of how scientists learned to understand the atmosphere—to measure it, trace its past, and model its future.

A View of the Sea: A Discussion between a Chief Engineer and an Oceanographer about the Machinery of the Ocean Circulation

by Henry M. Stommel

The description for this book, A View of the Sea: A Discussion between a Chief Engineer and an Oceanographer about the Machinery of the Ocean Circulation, will be forthcoming.

A Vision For The National Weather Service: Road Map For The Future

by Panel on the Road Map for the Future National Weather Service

A report on A Vision For The National Weather Service

A Visit to the Recycling Center

by Tracy Vonder Brink

Travel through Rumpke’s recycling center to find a plastic jug? Trash that can be recycled takes a ride on the conveyor belt to become something new! Try to find the milk jug on the conveyor belt! Trash at the factory goes through many machines to make sure it can be recycled. Can you guess what the milk jug will help make once it leaves the factory? What other types of trash go on the conveyor belt?

A Visual Atlas for Soil Micromorphologists

by Eric P. Verrecchia Luca Trombino

This open access atlas is an up-to-date visual resource on the features and structures observed in soil thin sections, i.e. soil micromorphology. The book addresses the growing interest in soil micromorphology in the fields of soil science, earth science, archaeology and forensic science, and serves as a reference tool for researchers and students for fast learning and intuitive feature and structure recognition. The book is divided into six parts and contains hundreds of images and photomicrographs. Part one is devoted to the way to sample properly soils, the method of preparation of thin sections, the main tool of soil micromorphology (the microscope), and the approach of soil micromorphology as a scientific method. Part two focuses on the organisation of soil fragments and presents the concept of fabric. Part three addresses the basic components, e.g. rocks, minerals, organic compounds and anthropogenic features. Part four lists all the various types of pedogenic features observed in a soil, i.e. the imprint of pedogenesis. Part five gives interpretations of features associated with the main processes at work in soils and paleosols. Part six presents a view of what the future of soil micromorphology could be. Finally, the last part consists of the index and annexes, including the list of mineral formulas. This atlas will be of interest to researchers, academics, and students, who will find it a convenient tool for the self-teaching of soil micromorphology by using comparative photographs.

A Voyage Across an Ancient Ocean: A Bicycle Journey Through the Northern Dominion of Oil

by David Goodrich

In the face of widespread misinformation and misunderstanding, a climate scientist ventures into the vast heart of America&’s new oil country on just two wheels.Recently recovered from his epic bicycle journey that took him from the Delaware shore to the Oregon coast, distinguished climate scientist David Goodrich sets out on his bike again to traverse the Western Interior Seaway—an ancient ocean that once spread across half of North America. When the waters cleared a geologic age ago, what was left behind was vast, flat prairie, otherworldly rock formations, and oil shale deposits. As Goodrich journeys through the Badlands and Theodore Roosevelt National Park and across the prairies of the upper Midwest and Canada, we get a raw and ground-level view of where the tar sands and oil reserves are being opened up at an incredible and unprecedented pace. Extraordinary and unregulated, this &“black goldrush&” is boom and bust in every sense. In a manner reminiscent of John McPhee and Rachel Carson, combined with Goodrich&’s wry self-deprecation and scientific expertise, A Voyage Across an Ancient Ocean is a galvanizing and adventure-filled read that gets to the heart of drilling on our continent.

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