The Journeys of Trees: A Story about Forests, People, and the Future PDF Download

Author: Zach St. George
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 1324001615
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
An urgent and illuminating portrait of forest migration, and of the people studying the forests of the past, protecting the forests of the present, and planting the forests of the future. Forests are restless. Any time a tree dies or a new one sprouts, the forest that includes it has shifted. When new trees sprout in the same direction, the whole forest begins to migrate, sometimes at astonishing rates. Today, however, an array of obstacles—humans felling trees by the billions, invasive pests transported through global trade—threaten to overwhelm these vital movements. Worst of all, the climate is changing faster than ever before, and forests are struggling to keep up. A deft blend of science reporting and travel writing, The Journeys of Trees explores the evolving movements of forests by focusing on five trees: giant sequoia, ash, black spruce, Florida torreya, and Monterey pine. Journalist Zach St. George visits these trees in forests across continents, finding sequoias losing their needles in California, fossil records showing the paths of ancient forests in Alaska, domesticated pines in New Zealand, and tender new sprouts of blight-resistant American chestnuts in New Hampshire. Everywhere he goes, St. George meets lively people on conservation’s front lines, from an ecologist studying droughts to an evolutionary evangelist with plans to save a dying species. He treks through the woods with activists, biologists, and foresters, each with their own role to play in the fight for the uncertain future of our environment. An eye-opening investigation into forest migration past and present, The Journeys of Trees examines how we can all help our trees, and our planet, survive and thrive.

Author: Jill Jonnes
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143110446
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 418

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Book Description
“Far-ranging and deeply researched, Urban Forests reveals the beauty and significance of the trees around us.” —Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sixth Extinction “Jonnes extols the many contributions that trees make to city life and celebrates the men and women who stood up for America’s city trees over the past two centuries. . . . An authoritative account.” —Gerard Helferich, The Wall Street Journal “We all know that trees can make streets look prettier. But in her new book Urban Forests, Jill Jonnes explains how they make them safer as well.” —Sara Begley, Time Magazine A celebration of urban trees and the Americans—presidents, plant explorers, visionaries, citizen activists, scientists, nurserymen, and tree nerds—whose arboreal passions have shaped and ornamented the nation’s cities, from Jefferson’s day to the present As nature’s largest and longest-lived creations, trees play an extraordinarily important role in our cities; they are living landmarks that define space, cool the air, soothe our psyches, and connect us to nature and our past. Today, four-fifths of Americans live in or near urban areas, surrounded by millions of trees of hundreds of different species. Despite their ubiquity and familiarity, most of us take trees for granted and know little of their fascinating natural history or remarkable civic virtues. Jill Jonnes’s Urban Forests tells the captivating stories of the founding mothers and fathers of urban forestry, in addition to those arboreal advocates presently using the latest technologies to illuminate the value of trees to public health and to our urban infrastructure. The book examines such questions as the character of American urban forests and the effect that tree-rich landscaping might have on commerce, crime, and human well-being. For amateur botanists, urbanists, environmentalists, and policymakers, Urban Forests will be a revelation of one of the greatest, most productive, and most beautiful of our natural resources.

Author: Françoise Besson
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527513009
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
Travel writing presents stories of human journeys and can guide us towards a better perception of our connections with the nonhuman world. This book is a collection of essays by writers and scholars from China, England, France, India, Tunisia and the United States of America. It discusses sustainable travels and travel writing, and explores the sense of connection with nature. From travels around one’s home to mountain hikes and bicycle rides, it also reminds us that planes can be used in a responsible way. It discusses conscious travelling and shows the important role texts play in educating us on this issue. This multidimensional book encompasses several literary genres: essays, autobiographies, mountain reports, novels, poetry, journals, graphic novels and scientific reports. It is aimed at all those who have some interest in travel, ecology, and the philosophy of place.

Author: Anthony D. Fredericks
Publisher: Smithsonian Institution
ISBN: 1588347478
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
An extraordinary journey to visit the oldest trees in the United States that beautifully reveals the connection between humans and natural history— a perfect read for nature lovers and fans of The Hidden Life of Trees. Follow award-winning author Anthony D. Fredericks's adventures across the United States to uncover the remarkable secrets and lives of ancient trees. He introduces some of the oldest trees in the country using up-to-date research, interviews with scientists, captivating storytelling, and a contagious wonder for the natural world. Fredericks's visits to the trees turn readers into fellow travelers. Through firsthand accounts and scientific detail, these enduring trees come to life off the page. Each chapter begins with a time-travel story that immerses readers in Earth's past, as early as ~58,000 BCE, for a sweeping view of what was happening during human history when the ancient tree took root. It then zooms into present-day to investigate the tree in all its mature glory and the changed world around it. Some of the featured trees include: A 13,000-year-old Palmer's oak in California that survives by cloning itself The 1,200-year-old Seven Sisters Oak in Louisiana that has survived in the path of at least ten major hurricanes 2,000-year-old redwoods (the tallest trees in the world) on the California coast The 2,628 year old bald cypress in the Black River of North Carolina Marvelously detailed and deeply passionate, In Search of the Old Ones will transform your perspective of the trees and forests around you.

Author: Katie Holten
Publisher: Tin House Books
ISBN: 1953534759
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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Book Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER "Inspiring. . . . insights that are scientific, intimate and surprising. . . . a call to action for those who still care."—The Washington Post Inspired by forests, trees, leaves, roots, and seeds, The Language of Trees: A Rewilding of Literature and Landscape invites readers to discover an unexpected and imaginative language to better read and write the natural world around us and reclaim our relationship with it. In this gorgeously illustrated and deeply thoughtful collection, Katie Holten gifts readers her tree alphabet and uses it to masterfully translate and illuminate beloved lost and new, original writing in praise of the natural world. With an introduction from Ross Gay, and featuring writings from over fifty contributors including Ursula K. Le Guin, Ada Limón, Robert Macfarlane, Zadie Smith, Radiohead, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, James Gleick, Elizabeth Kolbert, Plato, and Robin Wall Kimmerer, Holten illustrates each selection with an abiding love and reverence for the magic of trees. She guides readers on a journey from creation myths and cave paintings to the death of a 3,500-year-old cypress tree, from Tree Clocks in Mongolia and forest fragments in the Amazon to the language of fossil poetry, unearthing a new way to see the natural beauty all around us and an urgent reminder of what could happen if we allow it to slip away. The Language of Trees considers our relationship with literature and landscape, resulting in an astonishing fusion of storytelling and art and a deeply beautiful celebration of trees through the ages.

Author: Jared Farmer
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465097855
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 438

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Book Description
The epic story of the planet’s oldest trees and the making of the modern world Humans have always revered long-lived trees. But as historian Jared Farmer reveals in Elderflora, our veneration took a modern turn in the eighteenth century, when naturalists embarked on a quest to locate and precisely date the oldest living things on earth. The new science of tree time prompted travelers to visit ancient specimens and conservationists to protect sacred groves. Exploitation accompanied sanctification, as old-growth forests succumbed to imperial expansion and the industrial revolution. Taking us from Lebanon to New Zealand to California, Farmer surveys the complex history of the world’s oldest trees, including voices of Indigenous peoples, religious figures, and contemporary scientists who study elderflora in crisis. In a changing climate, a long future is still possible, Farmer shows, but only if we give care to young things that might grow old.

Author: Tom Riley
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1663242127
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 177

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Book Description
Sarah and JanetM are a human/Artificial Intelligence pair who do private investigations in the near future where our climate crisis has hit and hit hard. Sarah turned down a job offer from Jackson Winestead. He is an ex-executive apparently interested in hiring Sarah to promote his I’m-a-good-guy-now image. Sarah does not trust him and has no patience for such monsters. Soon after, two policemen arrive at Sarah’s house to inform her that Winestead was found dead not twenty minutes after they met. The next day, Winestead’s wife Venessa approaches Sarah to offer her a quite different job. Winestead has left money for Sarah to find his killer and report privately to his family. Sarah and JanetM take on the murder investigation. What first appeared simple a case of greenwashing grows within the international environmental crisis. Sarah and JanetM are in the thick of it, surrounded by secrets and lies, as they seek the killer of a man with a thousand enemies in a world with a million problems. The IPCC report, “Climate Change 2022, Impacts, Adaption and Vulnerability summary contains: C5.3 Enhancing knowledge A wide range of ... processes ... can deepen climate knowledge and sharing, including ... using the arts ... (high confidence). This story is a response to this clarion call. It is a story of young people in effective action on our historic problems.

Author: Tessa Hill
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231553250
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Book Description
The world’s oceans are changing at a drastic pace. Beneath the waves and along the coasts, climate change and environmental degradation have spurred the most radical transformations in human history. In response, the people who know the ocean most intimately are taking action for the sake of our shared future. Community scientists track species in California tidepools. Researchers dive into the waters around Sydney to replant kelp forests. Scientists and First Nations communities collaborate to restore clam gardens in the Pacific Northwest. In At Every Depth, the oceanographer Tessa Hill and the science journalist Eric Simons profile these and other efforts to understand and protect marine environments, taking readers to habitats from shallow tidepools to the deep sea. They delve into the many human connections to the ocean—how people live with and make their living from the waters—journeying to places as far-flung as coral reefs, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and the Arctic and Antarctic poles. At Every Depth shares the stories of people from all walks of life, including scientists, coastal community members, Indigenous people, shellfish farmers, and fisheries workers. It brings together varied viewpoints, showing how scientists’ research and local and Indigenous knowledge can complement each other to inform a more sustainable future. Poignantly written and grounded in science, this book offers a narrative perspective on the changing oceans, letting us see how our relationships to the oceans are changing too.

Author: Raymond Noble
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009277367
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 195

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Book Description
Life is definitively purposive and creative. Organisms use genes in controlling their destiny and evolution. Genes do not control life.

Author: Suzanne Simard
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 0525656103
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • From the world's leading forest ecologist who forever changed how people view trees and their connections to one another and to other living things in the forest—a moving, deeply personal journey of discovery Suzanne Simard is a pioneer on the frontier of plant communication and intelligence; her TED talks have been viewed by more than 10 million people worldwide. In this, her first book, now available in paperback, Simard brings us into her world, the intimate world of the trees, in which she brilliantly illuminates the fascinating and vital truths--that trees are not simply the source of timber or pulp, but are a complicated, interdependent circle of life; that forests are social, cooperative creatures connected through underground networks by which trees communicate their vitality and vulnerabilities with communal lives not that different from our own. Simard writes--in inspiring, illuminating, and accessible ways—how trees, living side by side for hundreds of years, have evolved, how they learn and adapt their behaviors, recognize neighbors, compete and cooperate with one another with sophistication, characteristics ascribed to human intelligence, traits that are the essence of civil societies--and at the center of it all, the Mother Trees: the mysterious, powerful forces that connect and sustain the others that surround them. And Simard writes of her own life, born and raised into a logging world in the rainforests of British Columbia, of her days as a child spent cataloging the trees from the forest and how she came to love and respect them. And as she writes of her scientific quest, she writes of her own journey, making us understand how deeply human scientific inquiry exists beyond data and technology, that it is about understanding who we are and our place in the world.