Environment and Nature Books

Living with the Changing California Coast was an interesting book to read, and I'm keeping it as a reference book. It provides explanation for some of the bad surprises that occur with coastal development.

The revised edition of this excellent book is a must for coastal dwellers in the Golden State who need an introduction to the harsh realities of what can be a very punishing shoreline. Since everyone and their grandma seems to want to build on the coast (more punishment!) this book will help you grasp the consequence--and cost--of siting your dream home on that lovely marine terrace that appears oh so solid.

Griggs has a sterling career in environmental and marine geology, and beach dynamics/sedimentation at UC Santa Cruz. He successfully brings together some of the best earth scientists in CA to cover, chapter by chapter (and almost step by step), the human impacts on the CHANGING geomorphology along segments of the CA coast. I have to mention that the line up includes the geographers A Orme who describes Morro Bay to Point Conception (see also the remarkable PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF NORTH AMERICA), and, Douglas Sherman out of USC who covers Santa Monica to Dana Point.

Packed with telling photos (see especially the impacts of El Nino years) and detailed line drawings, you can't beat this title if you intend to build and want to know the hazards, or you simply want to read a great introduction to CA coastal processes when you hit your favorite beach, and perhaps wonder why a particular County allowed something hideous to be built at all--like Pajaro Dunes (see page 98). An ugly, gated, high-end development which is constantly under wave attack.

The revised edition includes a chapter on sea-level and climate change as well.

Very informing information...Innovative, intuitive, interesting. -B. Baggins

This collection of essays explores how individuals view commonly-owned resources. The clear conclusion is that people are biologically selfish: each person sees his/her own interests as more important than the group's interests. Altruism doesn't work as a policy. This flies in the face of common wisdom. I wish this book could be made standard reading for all high-school students. It explains the population's apparently self-defeating habit of destroying their own habitat.

I received this book almost a month ago, and ever since I've been using it to write my paper on MPA. My masters thesis is about marine mammal management in Indonesia, and this book helps me put many things in perspective.

I even recommend this book to my supervisor (she will buy it from Amazon as well!) and the uni library for collection. My friend in the next room is borrowing the book for a while for her thesis as well.

I say Hoyt has done a good job. This might be the first comprehensive book about MPA for cetaceans, and it sure worth 5 stars!

In this excellent and definitive book, the author makes clear that Marine Protected Areas, even in the earliest stages of full evaluation, offer a realistic and informed approach to immediate and future marine conservation. Whilst the science and logisitcs are complex, the theory behind MPAs is simple. Its an holistic approach to conservation in which single factors are considered cumulatively, rather than individually. So for example, the effects of all human activities in one area (say, fishing, recreational boating and waste management) are considered all together, not just for one particular species but on the entire ecosystem in question, from whale to coral reef to microorganism. The emphasis is strongly on the management of human activities. Truly effective MPAs require difficult and unpopular decisions, such as the zoning of areas where human presence is limited and, in some cases, prohibited. We are accustomed to plundering the seas without thought, for economic and recreational benefit. For the world in general to embrace MPAs to their fullest extent will require a huge shift in thinking and greater cooperation between nations and understanding between cultures.
This book cuts through the multiplicity of labels attached to areas of protection for marine life and lays bare the precise meaning of each. Such labels generally make it easy for us to imagine that, in those protected sanctuaries at least, cetaceans are saved. But large whales being protected from commercial hunting in one area does not necessarily mean they will not be killed in the name of science or suffer a fatal strike from a ship, and goes absolutely nowhere towards protecting smaller cetaceans from dying in a fishing net.
Land-based conservation has the advantage of being relatively stable and focused on discreet areas. To paraphrase the author, one can't simply erect a fence at sea and put up a Keep Out sign. Marine protected areas need to be fluid to take into account the fact that critical habitats for cetaceans change with the season, their migratory movements and the dispersal of their prey. Further, our very definition of critical habitat must be questioned and expanded: what good a protected area for calving if there is no safe area for socialising and mating?
This is an exhaustively researched, fascinating, thought-provoking and hugely useful book. It is both reference and reading material in one. For those involved in the conservation of cetaceans it must already be a compulsory handbook and for the layreader it is a revealing and readable account of the considerable progress of our conservation experts and of the huge task still ahead. A massive achievement marking a milestone in marine protection.

Berkes has done it again with the highly anticipated Marsh Morning! Once again, her sequel to Marsh Music skillfully integrates music and nature while this time around focusing on various types of birds and musical terminology. Regardless of whether you are a bird watcher or music lover, Berkes's rhythmic language will engage anyone who reads her book. The artistic representations reveal a diversity of birds while exhibiting the most spectacular surroundings; these phenomenal watercolor illustrations allow the reader to truly experience the environment. The glossary of musical terms and descriptions of birds lend to this book's informative nature. The story and pictures are sure to delight both the young and old alike!

To complement "Marsh Music", "Marsh Morning" talks in a poetic form about bird songs in the marsh. This picture book combines music, poetry and "bird watching." The illustrations go fabulously with the text. The glossary explains each of the 15 birds, its physical description and its voice. The bibliography of bird books adds to its worth. A wonderful addition in many ways.

I recommend this book because it is a thrilling kindadventure. I didn't want to put it down, as it was an excitingbook.The greatest thing is that I'am doing a book report on this book. The ages I recommend are 8yrs and above.I'm in fourth grade and I'm 10 years old.

I recommend this book because it is a thrilling kind adventure. I didn't want to put it down, as it was an exciting book.The greatest thing is that I'am doing a book report on this book. The ages I recommend are 8yrs and above.I'm in fourth grade and I'm 10 years old.

How on earth can you call a book about sustainability 'Mindful Conservatism', you might ask. Please don't let your preconceptions and the current usage of the term 'conservatism' make you turn away from this important and timely book.
C. A. Bowers opens up one of the most crucial debates that we should lead if we are serious about an ecologically sustainable future. We generally shy away from this discussion because of its potential pitfalls, misunderstandings and a tradition of abuse of the term 'conservatism'.
I believe that Bowers' book is hugely important because it emphasises throughout the concept of mindfulness, as opposed to preconceived convictions. It challenges us 'to rethink our traditional political categories' and to question what the media and politicians want to make us believe. We have to learn to step out of the box because the traditional political vocabulary simply is not fit to cope with the sustainability challenge.
The central question of the book is 'What do we need to conserve in order to have a more sustainable future and just world order?' This clearly calls for a complex answer and is also arguably the most important question to be asked if we want to turn our destructive, exploitative, overdeveloped and overconsuming global world order into something which can sustain itself within the limits of the ecosphere.

How on earth can you call a book about sustainability 'Mindful Conservatism', you might ask. Please don't let your preconceptions and the current usage of the term 'conservatism' make you turn away from this important and timely book.
C. A. Bowers opens up one of the most crucial debates that we should lead if we are serious about an ecologically sustainable future. We generally shy away from this discussion because of its potential pitfalls, misunderstandings and a tradition of abuse of the term 'conservatism'.
I believe that Bowers' book is hugely important because it emphasises throughout the concept of mindfulness, as opposed to preconceived convictions. It challenges us 'to rethink our traditional political categories' and to question what the media and politicians want to make us believe. We have to learn to step out of the box because the traditional political vocabulary simply is not fit to cope with the sustainability challenge.
The central question of the book is 'What do we need to conserve in order to have a more sustainable future and just world order?' This clearly calls for a complex answer and is also arguably the most important question to be asked if we want to turn our destructive, exploitative, overdeveloped and overconsuming global world order into something which can sustain itself within the limits of the ecosphere.

Dispite the pretty cover to this work, this is not a "coffee table book" about pretty butterflys. This is an indepth collection of scientific articles addressing all aspects of the Monarch Butterfly. Sections include Breeding Biology, Migration Biology, Overwintering Biology and Integrated Biology. The collection of articles and monographs is very extensive and very technical. The reader should be warned that this is in no way a light read. On the other hand, if you want information on the monarch Butterfly, I cannot think of a single volume which will deliver more information that you have here. Recommend this speciality book quite highly. It is well worth the price.

Each fall millions of the orange and black butterflies fly south to Mexico for the winter, then return to the United States and Canada in the spring. These butterflies, which make up the entire breeding stock of monarchs for the Midwest and Eastern United States and Canada, form one of the best-known spectacles to nature lovers.

This book includes essays by 46 contributors from three continents. The essays fit well together because they document the 2001 Monarch Population Dynamics Conference, which aimed "to understand the annual dynamics of a migratory insect with a continental distribution."

The book is divided into four sections: Breeding, Migration, Overwintering and Integrated Biology. Each section begins with an overview chapter followed by more detailed chapters. A third of the book is dedicated to overwintering biology. Wintering populations are very compact (up to 60 million individuals per hectare) and vulnerable to winter storms and land use change. The book contains a chapter on monarch conservation policy in the Mexican wintering grounds. That description of the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve is a highlight of the book.

The book encouraged me contribute to the Reserve through the WWF. That's a great way to keep current on new findings about these beautiful insects. It also encouraged me to plant milkweeds in our garden, a beautiful plant made more beautiful by making it possible to observe all phases of the Monarch's summer life span. The book offers other suggestions on how to learn more about Monarchs.

The articles are science based although aimed at "citizen scientists". I would have liked an introductory chapter covering essential features of the insect and its life in order to be better prepared for the more detailed analysis later in the book. (Milkweed, Monarchs and More: A Field Guide to the Invertebrate Community in the Milkweed Patch by by Ba Rea makes an excellent choice.) Even without such an introduction, this is an excellent study on this beautiful butterfly.

Robert C. Ross 2008

The Money Tree offers an alternative view of what is really important in life. Money begets greed is juxtaposed with the enduring rhythms of nature. What is true comfort? What has lasting value? The story spins an answer by following the main character through a calendar year and illustrating her simple pleasures against the backgroud of a strange tree.
The illustrations are magical and the story is timely. One of my very favorites- every 'child' should read it.

This is a great book for putting things in perspective. The main character has a tree in her yard which produces money. She becomes the most popular person in town. Everyone comes to her house to gather it's leaves. By winter she is becoming tired of her greedy neighbors. She cuts the tree down and uses it for something purposeful: to keep warm.

The enchanting tale of Miss McGillicuddy and the unusual tree that grew in her yard. It has a such a strange shape,and grew so fast. One day she realizes that the leaves are dollar bills, how strange! Miss McGillicuddy seems strangely unaffected by the money in the tree, she goes about her normal life. She is relieved that strangers come to pick the dollars off the branches, saving them from breaking from under the weight of the bills. As the seasons change, people are still trying to find money from the tree, which bemused the woman. As winter comes, she has the tree chopped down for firewood. Miss McGillicuddy is jusy as happy and content as she was before the magical tree grew. This book will spark any child's imagination. A wonderful story by Sarah Stewart, matched with delightful illustrations by David Small.

The book represents a summary of the experience and knowledge amassed by authors in total of over ninety years of research on foraminifera and thecamoebians. They pioneered the use of fossil testate rhizopods for reconstructing pollution history, storminess and others which constitute the aim of this book. It is worth mentioning chapter five because it is very original as it summarizes some of the relevant general information about thecamoebians. They have been domain of geneticists, biologists, taxonomists and the literature concerning them is mainly in nongeological journals, not always readily available; no attempt has been made to use them as geological proxies until very recently. This book is simply-written, easy to understand and the illustrations and diagrams are very clear. It is, on the whole, a readable book. It is intended for the non-specialist, but since it deliberately emphasizes on continental margin areas where over 50% of the world's people live, where most contemporary marine environmental stress problems occur, specialists in the subject will be able to make good use of it as well.

Sara Ballent
Museo de Ciencias Naturales de La Plata, Argentina

This is an excellent book for Environmental Managers and Junior Scientists who are involved with the monitoring of coastal and estuarine environments; and is also an excellent guide for graduate students who are learning how to utilize Foraminifera and Thecamoebians.

I dare not review this book. Not because of its content, but because of the weather. Semken's latest book of essays and short stories is about the weather. And it seems, in accordance with the surrealism that surrounds, grabs a hold of and fully digests the reader, that the moment I finished _Moving With The Elements_, lightning started to flash outside like an airport search light, sweeping the darkness at regular intervals. If my hair stands on end, if I feel light-headed or if my laptop starts to turn blue and crackle, I can only blame the enchantment placed upon Semken's grimoire, his book of magic. To begin with, Semken's drifting line reminds me of Jim Harrison, "I watch as loose snow whirls up into the air, then falls gently to form a snowdrift, into what I call the wind's footprint." It is fluid, descriptive and gives name to the unnamable. His essays could be compared to those of Sigurd Olson, if not for the shamanistic element in each. ! His stories remind me of Richard Braughtigan's _In Watermelon Sugar_: gentle, with a child-like sense of wonder, and a big heaping glass of surrealism. "How that man had spent two months eating an electric fence. That he had taken a metal file and made a pile of electric dust which he added to his coffee each day." Some of his stories, like Flannery O'Connor, are allegorical. But to compare Semken's work to these other authors would be to overlook the fact that Steve Semken writes like Steve Semken. His voice, style, and command of words are his own. With characters named Levi Toughskin, Rico Rembrandt and Decker Tab, the reader sees that the author is not only being true to his work, he is having a little fun. He also works with themes important to him: being at one with the natural world; being able to look into the lifetime of a tree or a rain cloud; small towns trying to survive; fighting between the monoculture of the established locals and the odd! ity of the rare individual; and finally, a community makin! g contact with the unexplainable (I'm talking weather phenomena, not Roswell!) Some of the four star pieces found in this work include: "Backdoor Painting", a gothic tale that would make Rod Serling and Washington Irving sit up in their graves simultaneously; "Winter Air - Stone Beating", a must read nature essay for those who enjoy winter camping and stargazing; "Slow Rain Birth", a spring evocation appropriate for readings by both naturalists and pagans; and "Broom Totem", a story of a witch-woman who finds a way of becoming one with the landscape of the Great Plains. In this last piece, Semken transcends himself as a writer, being able to take on the female perspective in both the main character and the broomstick vantage he gives the reader. _Moving With The Elements_ is a surrealist venture of the landscape. Semken's stories and essays stroll in the prairie wind that breathes life into them In his work, we find out wh! y astronauts primarily come from the prairie states, what medicine cabinets are found in the trunks of the Osage Orange, and why homemade vanilla ice cream stirs the gravity of a family gathering. As for me, the lightning outside has stopped and, as Semken has put it, "The stars drop another spring hatch of lightning bugs for summer."

Fantasy and Nature play main roles in Semken's "Moving with the Elements"

In a journey through the Great Plains and into Texas, Steve Semken's introspective characters have the ability to show up in trees, paintings and even water. It is a roller coaster ride through realism and fantasy that one can be taken into to escape the doldrums of everyday life that most of us allow ourselves to slip into without ever realizing. Throughout this naturalist handbook, Semken weaves far fetching excursions of characters like Levi Toughskin and Rico Rembrandt in "Bright Dynamite Creek." Toughskin and Rembrandt discover a whirlpool in a nearby creek. Through experimentation with firecrackers, feathers, seeds and eventually themselves they find a place where things change shape under water allowing them to find out what or who they really are. It may sound silly here, but the reader must actually go to this place and experience it as an individual to fully understand reality and to see things from the other side. In another essay, "Vanilla Ice Cream," Semken allows the reader to return to innocent childhood memories where a younger you could be content making ice cream for everybody gathered at a family reunion. Semken writes, "Now I am beginning to realize that this is what real life is about. Collecting the good stuff together a few days a year and being able to smile in a group without doubt. That life is about storing away good memories that give you a sense of time and community and pride." "Backdoor Painting" focuses on Mr. Lystroder and Aunt Mar, characters who have the ability to create paintings with people alive in them. They control the outcome of the victims' painted lives. Lystroder and Mar decide to make a painting of the main character, Aunt Mar's nephew, his wife and child who try to leave the town of Doorall to experience the rest of the world. Lystroder and Mar believe that things shrink when they leave D! oorall. Try to imagine what happens next. The nephew finds himself in one of his Aunt's paintings with no backdoor painted in for him to escape out through. It is a winding ride between reality and fantasy that Semken takes the reader through his essays. He brings enough realistic detail to his stories that the reader thinks, "I've been there before, I know the place he is talking about . . . " only to find out a few sentences later that when you were there things happened differently and maybe you should have let your imagination go a little. Although the characters in Moving with the Elements are not all strongly linked together from one essay to another there is a constant theme of nature and man needing to live harmoniously. I touched the bark on my flowering crab last week and wanted to pull off a little piece that was beginning to curl away from itself. I remembered at the last moment the essay "The Sycamore Throne" with Peron Beet and decided not to pull off the bark just in case Semken's on the right track and the rest of us are all wrong. You'll have to read the book to see what I mean