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The Practical Astronomer: Explore the Wonders of the Night Sky
by Will GaterDiscover the wonders of the Universe with this complete introduction to observing and understanding the night sky.This practical guide explains and demystifies stargazing, teaching you to recognize different kinds of objects and showing you how they move through the sky over the course of the night and the year. It shows you how to understand and enjoy the cosmos, building your practical astronomy skills from the basics to more advanced techniques.Beginning with an explanation of the Universe itself - how big is it, what shape is it, how old is it, and will it end? - it then takes you on a tour around the night sky, building up your knowledge in simple stages. Practical advice begins with naked-eye observations, then illustrated step-by-step instructions show you how to set up and use binoculars and telescopes and how to take your own pictures of the night sky. It also lets you take a closer look at the different objects you can view in the night sky, telling you how to train your eye to recognize basic patterns of stars (constellations) and how to tell planets apart from other celestial bodies, showing you how to observe them in an innovative step-by-step way. An atlas of the night sky is also included, with charts that can be used in both the northern and southern hemispheres throughout the year.Accessible, inspirational, and authoritative, The Practical Astronomer will enthuse and inform anyone who wants to expand their knowledge of the night sky.
Practical Cactus and Succulent Book: The Definitive Guide to Choosing, Displaying, and Caring for more than 200 Cacti
by Fran Bailey Zia AllawayChoose the right plant from 200 varieties of cacti and succulents, and learn how to grow and show them off with help from this comprehensive guide.How can you encourage your bunny ear cactus to flower and flourish? What is the best method for propagating an Echeveria or Kalanchoe? What exactly are living stones, and where do they grow in the wild?Practical Cactus and Succulent Book is the ultimate reference book for cactus and succulent enthusiasts. An extensive illustrated plant directory profiles more than 200 succulent and cactus varieties, with instructions on how to grow each one, while information dashboards offer fascinating facts and quirky stats about different plant families, such as Euphorbia and Echinopsis. Show off your plants with inspirational display ideas and step-by-step projects. Follow the simple propagation instructions to increase your cacti and succulent collection without spending money. Keep your plants healthy with advice and tips for care and cultivation.Practical Cactus and Succulent Book is everything a cactus lover needs.
Practical Ecology for Planners, Developers, and Citizens
by Dan L. Perlman Jeffrey MilderPractical Ecology for Planners, Developers, and Citizens introduces and explains key ecological concepts for planners, landscape architects, developers, and others involved in planning and building human habitats. The book is tailored to meet the needs of busy land use professionals and citizens seeking a concise yet thorough overview of ecology and its applications. It offers clear guidelines and a wealth of information on how we can protect species and ecosystems while at the same creating healthy, sustainable human communities. Throughout the book, the authors make ecological concepts accessible to readers with little or no scientific background. They present key ideas and information in simple and pragmatic terms, and provide numerous graphics to help explain important concepts. They also offer exercises for the reader to practice ecologically-based planning and design, along with a list of resources for practical information on ecology and conservation. Practical Ecology for Planners, Developers, and Citizens will raise the level of ecological understanding among land use professionals and citizens, and is an invaluable new resource for anyone concerned with human land use and its environmental impacts.
Practical Environmental Ethics
by A. Pablo IannoneThis essential volume for professionals and academics proposes a new approach to environmental ethics and to environmental policymaking in particular. All too frequently, policy makers focus only on what ends should ideally be pursued, ignoring whether the means have any negative unintended consequences. Such approaches tend to have a focus on consequentialist, deontological, virtue-cantered, or care-based theories which makes them too singularly-minded. They are not suitable for dealing with the complexities of life and, especially, environmental policy making.Practical Environmental Ethics distinguishes between cases in which entire ecosystems are at risk, threatening entire societies where collective consequences take precedence and cases in which whole ecosystems are not at risk where individual rights or duties take precedence. In doing this, Iannone discusses environmental controversies not only philosophically, but in the complex contexts at work within policy-making and decision-making communities. This allows for consideration of crucial concepts used in morality, biology, technology, business, economics, politics, and philosophy.Relying on numerous actual environmental cases, Iannone helps formulate realistic ways of logically and ethically determining how environmental controversies should be addressed. Ultimately, he proposes solutions that policy makers and anyone interested in this topic may utilize to clarify environmental issues and determine how to best deal with them for the greater good.
A Practical Guide To Modern Gamekeeping: Essential information for part-time and professional gamekeepers
by J.C. Jeremy HobsonThis book is a comprehensive gamekeeping manual for those enthusiastic amateurs who spend their spare time running a small DIY syndicate shoot, and for those who are professionally employed on a full-time basis. It shows the reader how to perform all the tasks required of the modern gamekeeper, including how to rear and release game and advises on many aspects of habitat improvement and conservation. It also covers important and sometimes controversial issues, such as public access on private land, the need for predator and pest control, and many other aspects which need to be considered by keepers, be they part-time or professional. You'll discover important information about: - The gamekeeper's calendar - Rearing and releasing methods - Safe and sensible use of veterinary medicines - Legislation and the law - Health & safety requirements - How to become a qualified keeper and the training needed. Bang up to date, this book also incorporates fascinating and interesting snippets and pictures from the past in order to show how this most traditional of countryside occupations has evolved. 'Jeremy Hobson does much in this book to apprise us all of the modern approach to keepering, from raising birds and habitat management to choosing coats and boots and training dogs. It is all here, and a fascinating read it is - both for those in the know and those who are curious to learn all about it.' Alan Titchmarsh, patron of the National Gamekeeper's Organisation
A Practical Guide To Modern Gamekeeping: Essential Information For Part-time And Professional Gamekeepers
by Alan Titchmarsh J.C. Jeremy HobsonThis book is a comprehensive gamekeeping manual for those enthusiastic amateurs who spend their spare time running a small DIY syndicate shoot, and for those who are professionally employed on a full-time basis. <P><P>It shows the reader how to perform all the tasks required of the modern gamekeeper, including how to rear and release game and advises on many aspects of habitat improvement and conservation. It also covers important and sometimes controversial issues, such as public access on private land, the need for predator and pest control, and many other aspects which need to be considered by keepers, be they part-time or professional. You'll discover important information about: The gamekeeper's calendar - Rearing and releasing methods - Safe and sensible use of veterinary medicines - Legislation and the law - Health & safety requirements - How to become a qualified keeper and the training needed. <P>Bang up to date, this book also incorporates fascinating and interesting snippets and pictures from the past in order to show how this most traditional of countryside occupations has evolved.
A Practical Guide to Understanding, Managing, and Reviewing Environmental Risk Assessment Reports
by Sally L. Benjamin David A. BelluckA Practical Guide to Understanding, Managing and Reviewing Environmental Risk Assessment Reports provides team leaders and team members with a strategy for developing the elements of risk assessment into a readable and beneficial report. The authors believe that successful management of the risk assessment team is a key factor is quality repor
Practical Handbook of Earth Science
by Jane H. Hodgkinson Frank D. StaceyThis self-contained handbook provides a carefully researched, compact source of key earth science information and data, logically sorted by subject matter, and then cross-referenced. Appealing to both experts and non-experts alike, the book presents earth science and environmental science as closely intertwined. It includes tables of the global distributions of fossil fuels, contrasted by tables of the distribution of non-fossil energy sources. Concise explanations cover the subject matters of geology, geophysics, oceans, atmosphere with attention to environmental implications and resources.
Practical Handbook of Environmental Site Characterization and Ground-Water Monitoring
by David M. NielsenPublished in 1991, the first edition of The Practical Handbook of Ground-Water Monitoring quickly became the gold standard reference on the topic of ground-water monitoring. But, as in all rapidly evolving fields, regulations change, technology advances, methods improve, and research reveals flaws in prior thinking. As a consequence, books t
Practical Handbook of Remote Sensing
by Samantha Lavender Andrew LavenderThe number of Earth observation satellites launched in recent years is growing exponentially, along with the datasets they gather from free-to-access and commercial providers. The second edition of Practical Handbook of Remote Sensing is updated with new explanations and practical examples using the Copernicus satellite data and new versions of the open-source software. A new chapter and new applications have also been added. Thoroughly revised, the handbook continues to be a practical "how-to" remote sensing guide for those who want to use the technology, understand what is available, how to access it, and answer questions about our planet, but do not necessarily want to become scientific experts.
Practical Hints on Camping: An American Classic of Preparation, Shelter, Knots, Fishing, and More
by Vin T. Sparano Howard HendersonOriginally published in 1882, Practical Hints on Camping has offered readers logical and pragmatic knowledge so that they can have successful excursions in the great outdoors.This comprehensive book features hundreds of timeless tips and tricks to use when preparing for a camping trip, as well as what to do once it’s just you against the elements. Whether you want to learn how to properly gut a fish, cook over a fire, pitch a tent, boat, or tie a knot, this book provides loads of useful information and efficient techniques for campers. It also provides important survival information should an illness arise on your trip and medical care is not readily available as well as what is essential to pack to keep your load light. This book is a must-have for anyone venturing out into the wilderness.In addition to these tips, this new edition features multiple black-and-white illustrations as well as a new foreword by outdoors expert and former Editor of Outdoor Life, Vin Sparano. Pick up your copy of Practical Hints on Camping and prepare for your camping adventure with ease.
Practical Panarchy for Adaptive Water Governance
by Barbara Cosens Lance GundersonThis book presents the results of an interdisciplinary project that examined how law, policy and ecological dynamics influence the governance of regional scale water based social-ecological systems in the United States and Australia. The volume explores the obstacles and opportunities for governance that is capable of management, adaptation, and transformation in these regional social-ecological systems as they respond to accelerating environmental change. With the onset of the Anthropocene, global and regional changes in biophysical inputs to these systems will challenge their capacity to respond while maintaining functions of water supply, flood control, hydropower production, water quality, and biodiversity. Governance lies at the heart of the capacity of these systems to meet these challenges. Assessment of water basins in the United States and Australia indicates that state-centric governance of these complex and dynamic social-environmental systems is evolving to a more complex, diverse, and complex array public and private arrangements. In this process, three challenges emerge for water governance to become adaptive to environmental change. First, is the need for legal reform to remove barriers to adaptive governance by authorizing government agencies to prepare for windows of opportunity through adaptive planning, and to institutionalize the results of innovative solutions that arise once a window opens. Second, is the need for legal reform to give government agencies the authority to facilitate and participate in adaptive management and governance. This must be accompanied by parallel legal reform to assure that engagement of private and economic actors and the increase in governmental flexibility does not destabilize basin economies or come at the expense of legitimacy, accountability, equity, and justice. Third, development of means to continually assess thresholds and resilience of social-ecological systems and the adaptive capacity of their current governance to structure actions at multiple scales. The massive investment in water infrastructure on the river basins studied has improved the agricultural, urban and economic sectors, largely at the cost of other social and environmental values. Today the infrastructure is aging and in need of substantial investment for those benefits to continue and adapt to ongoing environmental changes. The renewal of institutions and heavily engineered water systems also presents the opportunity to modernize these systems to address inequity and align with the values and objectives of the 21st century. Creative approaches are needed to transform and modernize water governance that increases the capacity of these water-based social-ecological systems to innovate, adapt, and learn, will provide the tools needed to navigate an uncertain future.
Practical Pistol
by Ben StoegerA Straightforward, No-nonsense Instructional Guidebook on Pistol Shooting Practical Pistol holds nothing back, sharing the knowledge collected from a plethora of expert sources. Top shooters such as Bob Vogel, Dave Sevigny, and Matt Mink collaborated with Ben Stoeger to compile the so-called &“Grand Master Secrets&” into one easy-to-read location. This book answers the "how to" questions about shooting technique. How do you hold the gun? How do you shoot fast? The knowledge in Practical Pistol answers these questions and many more, spanning from marksmanship fundamentals to shooting on the move and competition skills such as stage breakdown and managing match pressure. Finally, this book contains many little tips, drills, and exercises to help improve any shooter&’s ability.
Practical Sustainability: A Guide to a More Sustainable Life
by Robert BrinkmannThis book will teach you everything you need to know about sustainable living—from reducing your greenhouse gas footprint to making sure that you are part of the green economy. Along the way, readers will learn about the field of sustainability and the “three E’s” of sustainable living—environment, economy, and equity. We are in the midst of great environmental change and all of us need to do everything we can to try to live more gently on the planet. Robert Brinkmann provides a range of options for readers as to what they can do to try to make a difference. Some involve simple lifestyle changes - but he also challenges all of us to commit to make more difficult and more meaningful changes to create a greener, more sustainable world. The book also delves into how we can create more sustainable communities, schools, and organizations. It showcases many examples of people and organizations that are making significant contributions to improving our planet’s sustainability that serve as inspiration and guidance for all of us trying to live more sustainably.
The Practice of Silviculture: Applied Forest Ecology (Ninth Edition)
by Mark S. Ashton Matthew J. Kelty Bruce C. Larson David M. SmithChapters in this hefty textbook will be of interest to those who live near forests especially when those forests become threatened by big industry and politicians. Why do Californians argue about controlled burns? Why are folks in heavily forested Western states protesting some methods of logging? Why do Alaskans fight to keep wildlife preserves from shrinking? Anyone fighting to save a forst, a waterway, or an animal and its habitat will find helpful information and clear explanations of procedures and their consequences.
Practice of Sustainable Community Development
by R. Warren FlintOrdinary people, community leaders, and even organizations and corporations still do not fully comprehend the interconnected, "big picture" dynamics of sustainability theory and action. In exploring means to become more sustainable, individuals and groups need a reference in which to frame discussions so they will be relevant, educational, and successful when implemented. This book puts ideas on sustainable communities into a conceptual framework that will promote striking, transformational effects on decision-making. In this book practitioners and community leaders will find effective, comprehensive tools and resources at their finger-tips to facilitate sustainable community development (SCD). The book content examines a diverse range of SCD methods; assessing community needs and resources; creating community visions; promoting stakeholder interest and participation; analyzing community problems; designing and facilitating strategic planning; carrying out interventions to improve
Practice Resurrection: And Other Essays
by Erik Reece"Erik Reece is obviously a writer to be reckoned with."—Bill McKibben, author of The End of NatureIn Erik Reece's stunning collection of essays, ideas are the main characters. Written over a period of ten years, and revealing Reece's continued obsession with religion, family, and the natural world, in many ways these essays represent a sequel to his stirring memoir, An American Gospel. In that book, Reece intimitately describes his conflicted relationship with Christianity in the context of the death of his father, and Reece's own journey since then to find meaning and balance in the material and spiritual worlds. Practice Resurrection continues that exploration through essays that take the reader to Norway, New England, London, the Adirondacks, Appalachia, and back to Reece's native Kentucky River. "With his singular wit and pith, environmental writer Reece explores issues such as God, Christianity, the environment (of course), and his father's suicide in essays rife with sentient turns of phrase and exceptionally insightful passages . . . Few are better than [Reece] is at discussing a personal crisis of faith." —Booklist (starred review)
Practices and Trends in Ground Improvement Techniques (Developments in Geotechnical Engineering)
by Hemanta Hazarika Juichi Nakazawa Iwao NakaharaThis book focuses on case studies from Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Thailand and the USA in various ground improvement projects. It highlights new applications and trends in ground improvement geo-system including recycling, geo-environmental consideration and preservation of world cultural heritage. The contents will be useful for researchers and engineers to understand how the principles of ground improvement methods are executed in the site, basis of selection of a particular ground improvement technique in a project, cost-benefits of such methods, etc. This volume will also be a useful guide for beginners and intermediate-level practitioners dealing with geotechnical construction projects or who have interest in the development and practical application of ground improvement techniques. Engineers and researchers will find it helpful in developing, advancing and applying their techniques in the field.
Practicing Sustainability
by David Green Barbara Oakley Penny Low Guru Madhavan David KoonSustainability applies to everybody. But everybody applies it differently, by defining and shaping it differently--much as water is edged and shaped by its container. It is conceived in absolute terms but underpinned by a great diversity of relatively "green"--and sometimes contradictory--practices that can each make society only more or less sustainable. In Practicing Sustainability, chefs, poets, music directors, evangelical pastors, skyscraper architects, artists, filmmakers, as well as scientific leaders, entrepreneurs, educators, business executives, policy makers, and the contrarians, shed light on our understanding of sustainability and the role that each of us can play. Each contributor addresses what sustainability means, what is most appealing about the concept, and what they would like to change to improve the perception and practice of sustainability. What emerges from their essays is a wide spectrum of views that confirm an important insight: Sustainability is pursued in different ways not only due to different interpretations, but also because of varying incentives, trade-offs, and altruistic motives. Practicing and achieving sustainability starts with a willingness to look critically at the concept. It also means enabling rich and vigorous discussion based on pragmatism and common sense to determine a framework for best ideas and practices. With time and the much needed critical thinking, sustainable development will become a more integral part of our culture. By sharing experiences and crisp insights from today's savants, Practicing Sustainability serves as a stepping stone to the future.
A Practitioner's Guide to Freshwater Biodiversity Conservation
by Kristine Ciruna Nicole SilkA Practitioner's Guide to Freshwater Biodiversity Conservation brings together knowledge and experience from conservation practitioners and experts around the world to help readers understand the global challenge of conserving biodiversity in freshwater ecosystems. More importantly, it offers specific strategies and suggestions for managers to use in establishing new conservation initiatives or improving the effectiveness of existing initiatives. The book: offers an understanding of fundamental issues by explaining how ecosystems are structured and how they support biodiversity; provides specific information and approaches for identifying areas most in need of protection; examines promising strategies that can help reduce biodiversity loss; and describes design considerations and methods for measuring success within an adaptive management framework. The book draws on experience and knowledge gained during a five-year project of The Nature Conservancy known as the Freshwater Initiative, which brought together a range of practitioners to create a learning laboratory for testing ideas, approaches, tools, strategies, and methods. For professionals involved with land or water management-including state and federal agency staff, scientists and researchers working with conservation organizations, students and faculty involved with freshwater issues or biodiversity conservation, and policymakers concerned with environmental issues-the book represents an important new source of information, ideas, and approaches.
Pragmatic Justifications for the Sustainable City: Acting in the common place (Routledge Equity, Justice and the Sustainable City series)
by Meg HoldenWhat can justice and sustainability mean, pragmatically speaking, in today’s cities? Can justice be the basis on which the practices of city building rely? Can this recognition constitute sustainability in city building, from a pragmatic perspective? Today, we are faced with a mountain of reasons to lose hope in any prospect of moving closer to justice and sustainability from our present position in civilization. Pragmatic Justifications for the Sustainable City: Acting in the Common Place offers a critical and philosophical approach to revaluating the way in which we think and talk about the "sustainable city" to ensure that we neither lose the thread of our urban history, nor the means to live well amidst diversity of all kinds. By building and rebuilding better habits of urban thinking, this book promotes the reconstruction of moral thinking, paving the way for a new urban sustainability model of justice. Utilizing multidisciplinary case studies and building upon anti-foundationalist principles, this book offers a pragmatic interpretation of sustainable development concepts within our emerging global urban context and will be a valuable resource for both undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as academics and professionals in the areas of urban and planning policy, sociology, and urban and environmental geography.
A Pragmatist Orientation for the Social Sciences in Climate Policy: How to Make Integrated Economic Assessments Serve Society (Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science #323)
by Martin KowarschThis book develops a new science-policy model for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other socio-economic assessments of climate policy options. The work presented in this volume is systematically based on John Dewey's philosophy and inevitable fact/value entanglement in economics, and this work adds to current debates on science in policy. The model developed here could also promote deliberative democracy as an alternative to value dogmatism or procedural liberalism. The "Pragmatic Enlightened Model" presented here shows that experts should, in a participatory process, map the entire solution space by exploring alternative political pathways and their manifold practical consequences. This would allow a rational consideration even of controversial, value-laden policy goals through a comparative evaluation of their consequences, potentially requiring a revision of said values or goals. This book provides orientation for both assessment practitioners and their critical observers. Policymakers, stakeholders and public officials in the field of climate policy will find this work of interest, as will scholars from various disciplines, especially economics. Furthermore, researchers working on deliberative democracy, philosophy of economics, pragmatist meta-ethics, models of PPA (public policy analysis), STS (science and technology studies) with a focus on scientific policy advice, RIA (regulatory impact assessment), as well as the history of global environmental assessments, will find this work particularly valuable.
Prairie
by Candace SavageThorough, detailed, and scientifically up-to-date, Prairies: A Natural History provides a comprehensive nontechnical guide to the biology and ecology of the prairies, or the Great Plains grasslands of North America, offering a view of the past, a vision for the future, and a clear focus on the present. With a total area of more than 3.5 million square kilometers (500,000 in Canada and the remainder in the United States), the prairies occupy the heartland of the continent, a vast, windswept plain that flows from Alberta south to Texas and from the Rockies east to the Mississippi River. This is big sky country-the largest ecosystem in North America and, until recently, one of the richest and most magnificent natural grasslands in the world. Today, however, the North American prairies are among the most altered environments on Earth.
A Prairie Boy's Winter
by William KurelekText and twenty color paintings depict the rigors and simple pleasures during the stark 1930s.
The Prairie Builders: Reconstructing America's Lost Grasslands
by Sneed B. CollardBarely a century ago a vast tallgrass prairie covered America's heartland. Bison, elk, coyotes, and bear roamed this wilderness. Hundreds of species of prairie plants supported an explosion of birds and insects, including hundreds of kinds of butterflies. By the early part of the twentieth century, however, the tallgrass prairie was gone, its rich soils converted to farms to feed a growing world population. Here, author Sneed B. Collard III tells the remarkable story of an effort to bring back part of the native tallgrass prairie. By following scientists who are working on the 8,000-acre Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge in Iowa, readers will learn where the vision for a new prairie came from and how a dedicated group of scientists and volunteers is working to turn this vision into reality, from locating seeds of native prairie plants to using fire to drive out weeds to "bringing home" bison, elk, and one of the prairie's most spectacular butterflies, the Regal Fritillary.