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data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Sand_County_Almanac-0.md

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+title: "A Sand County Almanac"
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+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Sand_County_Almanac"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
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+---
+
+A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There is a 1949 non-fiction book by American ecologist, forester, and environmentalist Aldo Leopold.  Describing the land around the author's home in Sauk County, Wisconsin, the collection of essays advocate Leopold's idea of a "land ethic", or a responsible relationship existing between people and the land they inhabit.  Edited and published by his son, Luna, a year after Leopold's death, the book is considered a landmark in the American conservation movement. Interspersed throughout the book are illustrations by American wildlife artist Charles W. Schwartz.
+The book has had over two million copies printed and has been translated into at least fourteen languages. It has informed and changed the environmental movement and stimulated a widespread interest in ecology as a science.
+
+
+== Overview ==
+A Sand County Almanac is a combination of natural history, scene painting with words, and philosophy.  It is perhaps best known for the following quote, which defines Leopold's land ethic: "A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community.  It is wrong when it tends otherwise." The original publication format was issued by Oxford University Press in 1949. It incorporated a number of previously published essays that Leopold had been contributing to popular hunting and conservation magazines, along with a set of longer, more philosophical essays. The final format was assembled by Luna Leopold shortly after his father's death, but based closely on notes that presumably reflected Aldo Leopold's intentions. Subsequent editions have changed both the format and the content of the essays included in the original.
+In the original publishing, the book begins with a set of essays under the heading "Sand County Almanac," which is divided into twelve segments, one for each month. These essays mostly follow the changes in the ecology on Leopold's farm near Baraboo, Wisconsin. (There is, in fact, no "Sand County" in Wisconsin. The term "sand counties" refers to a section of the state marked by sandy soils).  There are anecdotes and observations about flora and fauna reactions to the seasons as well as mentions of conservation topics.
+The second section of the book, "Sketches Here and There," shifts the rhetorical focus from time to place. The essays are thematically organized around farms and wildernesses in Canada, Mexico and the United States. Some of these essays are autobiographical. "Red Legs Kicking," for example, recounts Leopold's boyhood experience of hunting in Iowa. The seminal essay "Thinking Like a Mountain" recalls another hunting experience later in life that was formative for Leopold's later views. Here Leopold describes the death of a she-wolf killed by his party during a time when conservationists were operating under the assumption that elimination of top predators would make game plentiful.  The essay provides a non-technical characterization of the trophic cascade where the removal of single species carries serious implications for the rest of the ecosystem.
+The book ends with a section of philosophical essays grouped together under the heading "The Upshot". Here Leopold explores ironies of conservation: in order to promote wider appreciation of wild nature and engender necessary political support, one encourages recreational usage of wilderness that ultimately destroys it. Musings on "trophies" contrasts the way that some need a physical specimen to prove their conquest into the wilderness, though photographs may be less damaging than a trophy head to be mounted on the wall. He suggests that the best trophy is the experience of wilderness itself, along with its character-building aspects. Leopold also rails against the way that policy makers need to find an economic motive for conservation. In the concluding essay, "The Land Ethic", Leopold delves into a more appropriate rationale for conservation. In "The Ecological Conscience" section, he wrote: "Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land."  Leopold felt it was generally agreed that more conservation education was needed; however quantity and content were up for debate. He believed that land is not a commodity to be possessed; rather, humans must have mutual respect for Earth in order not to destroy it. He philosophizes that humans will cease to be free if they have no wild spaces in which to roam.
+
+
+== Importance and influence ==
+In a 1990 poll of the membership by the American Nature Study Society, A Sand County Almanac and Rachel Carson's Silent Spring stand alone as the two most venerated and significant environmental books of the 20th century. The book was little noticed when published but, during the environmental awakening of the 1970s, a paperback edition turned into a surprise bestseller.
+The book has had immense popular influence and has been described as: "one of the benchmark titles of the ecological movement", "a major influence on American attitudes toward our natural environment", "recognized as a classic piece of outdoor literature, rivaling Thoreau's Walden".
+The book has also had great influence on environmental thinkers: "along with Walden and Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, one of the main intellectual underpinnings of environmentalism in America".  The book has "attracted such overwhelming attention from environmental philosophers as a source of inspiration and ideas".
+Leopold's home, Aldo Leopold Shack and Farm, was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1978, and was uplisted to National Historic Landmark status in 2009.
+
+
+== See also ==
+Conservation in the United States
+Environmental history of the United States
+Environmental ethics
+
+
+== Notes ==
+
+
+== Further reading ==
+Callicott, J. Baird. Companion to a Sand County Almanac: Interpretive and critical essays (Univ of Wisconsin Press, 1987)
+Knight, Richard L. and Suzanne Riedel. Aldo Leopold and the Ecological Conscience. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-19-514944-0.
+
+
+== External links ==
+The Aldo Leopold Foundation

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Science_on_the_Scales-0.md

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data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Short_History_of_Progress-0.md

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+title: "A Short History of Progress"
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+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
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+---
+
+A Short History of Progress is a non-fiction book and lecture series by Ronald Wright about societal collapse. The lectures were delivered as a series of five speeches, each taking place in different cities across Canada as part of the 2004 Massey Lectures which were broadcast on the CBC Radio program, Ideas. The book version was published by House of Anansi Press and released at the same time as the lectures. The book spent more than a year on Canadian best-seller lists, won the Canadian Book Association's Libris Award for Non-Fiction Book of the Year, and was nominated for the British Columbia's National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction. It has since been reprinted in a hardcover format with illustrations and also in Kindle and EPUB
+digital formats.
+Wright, an author of fiction and non-fiction works, uses the fallen civilisations of Easter Island, Sumer, Rome, and Maya, as well as examples from the Stone Age, to see what conditions led to the downfall of those societies. He examines the meaning of progress and its implications for civilizations—past and present—arguing that the twentieth century was a time of runaway growth in human population, consumption, and technology that has now placed an unsustainable burden on all natural systems.
+In his analysis of the four cases of fallen civilizations, he notes that two (Easter Island and Sumer) failed due to depletion of natural resources—"their ecologies were unable to regenerate". The other two failed in their heartlands, "where ecological demand was highest", but left remnant populations that survived. He asks the question: "Why, if civilizations so often destroy themselves, has the overall experiment of civilization done so well?" For the answer, he says, we must look to natural regeneration and human migration.  While some ancient civilizations were depleting their ecologies and failing, others were rising. Large expanses of the planet were unsettled. The other factor, evident in both Egypt and China, was that due to abundant resources (e.g., topsoil), farming methods (ones that worked with, rather than against, natural cycles), and settlement patterns, these civilizations had greater longevity.
+Changes brought on by the exponential growth of human population (at the time of the book's publication, over six billion and adding more than 200 million people every three years) and the worldwide scale of resource consumption, have altered the picture, however.  Ecological markers indicate that human civilization has now surpassed (since the 1980s) nature's capacity for regeneration.  We are now using more than 125 percent of nature's yearly output.  "If civilization is to survive, it must live on the interest, not the capital of nature".  He concludes that "now is our chance to get the future right"—the collapse of human civilization is imminent if we do not act now to prevent it.
+
+== Background ==
+Prior to being selected to deliver the Massey Lectures, Wright had written award-winning fiction and non-fiction books that deal with anthropology and civilizations. His 1992 non-fiction book Stolen Continents was awarded the 1993 Gordon Montador Award from the Writers' Trust of Canada and his 1998 novel A Scientific Romance, about a museum curator who travels into the future and investigates the fate of the human race, won the David Higham Prize for Fiction for first-time novelists. Wright traces the origins of the ideas behind A Short History of Progress to the material he studied while writing A Scientific Romance and his 2000 essay for The Globe and Mail titled "Civilization is a Pyramid Scheme" about the fall of the ninth-century Mayan civilisation.
+
+== Synopsis ==
+The first chapter, "Gauguin's Questions", poses the questions that provide a framework for the book. Referring to Paul Gauguin's painting of the same name the questions are: Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? Wright defines progress using Victorian terms "the assumption that a pattern of change exists in the history of [hu]mankind...that it consists of irreversible changes in one direction only, and that this direction is towards improvement". Despite the extended period of the Stone Age, Wright places the first sign of progress as being the ability to create fire. The competition between Cro-Magnon and Neanderthals is examined concerning the conditions that allowed one to out-compete the other.
+
+The second chapter, "The Great Experiment", continues the examination of Stone Age progress by looking at the advancements in hunting. Wright uses the term "progress trap" to refer to innovations that create new problems for which the society is unable or unwilling to solve, or inadvertently create conditions that are worse than what existed before the innovation. For example, innovations in hunting during the Stone Age, specifically during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition, allowed for more successful hunts and consequently more free time during which culture and art were created (e.g., cave paintings, bone carvings, etc.), but also led to extinctions, most notably of megafauna. As smaller and smaller game were hunted to replace larger extinct animals, the hunts became less successful and culture declined. Agriculture, and subsequently civilisations, independently arising in multiple regions at about the same time, about 10,000 years ago, indicates to Wright that "given certain broad conditions, human societies everywhere will move towards greater size, complexity and environmental demand". The chapter title refers to the human experience which Wright sees as a large experiment testing what conditions are required for human civilisation to succeed.
+In the third chapter, "Fools' Paradise", the rise and fall of two civilisations are examined: Easter Island and Sumer. Both flourished, but collapsed as a result of resource depletion; both were able to visually see their land being eroded but were unwilling to reform. On Easter Island logging, to erect statues and build boats, destroyed their ecosystem and led to wars over the last planks of wood on the island. In Sumer, a large irrigation system, as well as over-grazing, land clearing, and lime-burning led to desertification and soil salination.

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+title: "A Short History of Progress"
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+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
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+---
+
+In the fourth chapter, "Pyramid Schemes", the fates of the Roman and Mayan civilisations are compared; both peaked with centralised empires but ended with power being diffused to their periphery as the center collapsed and ultra-conservative leadership refused reformations. Anthropologist Joseph Tainter's explanation for the fall of the Roman Empire is invoked, that "complex systems inevitably succumb to diminishing returns" so that the costs of operating an empire are so high that alternatives are implemented. Two examples of civilisations that have been sustainable are described: China and Egypt. Both had an abundance of resources, particularly topsoil, and used farming methods that worked with, rather than against, natural cycles, and settlement patterns that did not exceed, or permanently damage, the carrying capacity of the local environment.
+The final chapter, "The Rebellion of the Tools", seeks to answer the final Gauguin question, "where are we going?", by applying these past examples to modern society. Wright sees needed reforms being blocked by vested interests who reject multi-lateral organisations, and support laissez-faire economics and transfers of power to corporations as leading to the social and environmental degradations that led to the collapse of previous civilisations. Necessary reforms are, in Wright's view, being blocked by vested interests who are hostile to change, including U.S. market extremists. Wright concludes that "our present behaviour is typical of failed societies at the zenith of their greed and arrogance" and calls for a shift towards long-term thinking:
+
+The great advantage we have, our best chance for avoiding the fate of past societies, is that we know about those past societies. We can see how and why they went wrong. Homo sapiens has the information to know itself for what it is: an Ice Age hunter only half-evolved towards intelligence; clever but seldom wise.
+We are now at the stage when the Easter Islanders could still have halted the senseless cutting and carving, could have gathered the last trees' seeds to plant out of reach of the rats. We have the tools and the means to share resources, clean up pollution, dispense basic health care and birth control, set economic limits in line with natural ones. If we don't do these things now, while we prosper, we will never be able to do them when times get hard. Our fate will twist out of our hands.
+
+== Style ==
+The contents of the book were originally written and delivered as a set of five speeches for the 2004 Massey Lectures with each speech presented in the book as one chapter. The writing reflects Wright's oratorical speech and use of high rhetoric. Patrick Parrinder notes that Wright sometimes uses "the rhetorical armoury of a rationalistic lay preacher." Wright takes a broad, philosophical approach, not focusing on individual people or specific politics or religions, but rather focusing on civilisations including "the elites and the masses". Wright's tone was described as "rarely depressing...[and that] he remains surprisingly upbeat and even entertaining." The use of the word progress is intended to be ironic: what is viewed as technological or social advancement has, in the historical narratives he provides, led to the fall of civilizations. Wright coins the term "progress trap" to describe the phenomenon of turning "cleverness into recklessness."
+Comparisons have been made between this book and Jared Diamond's Collapse which both cover similar subject matter with "a cautious problem-solving approach" and come to similar conclusions. Writing in Alternatives Journal, philosophy professor Kent Peacock notes that "both are well-written" but that Diamond includes examples of societies that had achieved sustainability for centuries, whereas Wright has "a stronger grasp of the dark side of human nature", like impatience, aggressiveness, and obstinacy. Author and journalist Brian Brett described Collapse as "a slow, rich feast" while "the compact A Short History of Progress is an arrow loosed from a powerful bow, a lyric dart into the heart of human behaviour."

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+title: "A Short History of Progress"
+chunk: 3/3
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Short_History_of_Progress"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
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+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+== Publication and reception ==
+The book, published by House of Anansi Press, was released at the same time the Massey Lectures were being delivered. In early November 2004, one lecture was given by Wright in each of the following cities: Ottawa, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Halifax, and Toronto. Their recording was broadcast on CBC Radio's Ideas during the week of 22 November. The book was named the Canadian Booksellers Association's 2005 Non-Fiction Book of the Year at their annual Libris Awards and short-listed for the first annual British Columbia Award for Canadian Non-Fiction. A hardcover edition title An Illustrated Short History of Progress was released with a print run of 15,000 copies in 2006.
+In The Globe and Mail, Canadian author Paul William Roberts praised the book, calling it "... the most important use of printed word and post-consumer recycled fibres I have seen since Jérôme Deshusses's Délivrez Prométhée, 25 years ago." Roberts explains, "[Wright] has such a firm grasp of his goal that scarcely a word is extraneous... You feel you've read volumes, though, not just because of the density of Wright's thoughts, but due to the crushing weight of the burden they carry. In prose that is balefully evocative and irreducibly precise..." On the other hand, in the National Post review, Peter Foster gave a negative review, chiding Wright for "not having the slightest clue about how economies work, or how, by their fundamental nature, markets are both moral and sustainable." Foster ended his review by insulting Wright's intellect, "What really needs some psychological excavation is Ronald Wright's mind, which carries a set of inflated, emotionally based moralistic assumptions derived from the structure of his primitive ignorance about markets and economics."
+Other reviews were encouraging. In Maclean's magazine, Brian Bethune wrote it was "an elegant and learned discussion" on the topic. The review in The Times said it was "an eminently readable account... written with an incredible lightness of touch that belies the very serious issues." In the Montreal Gazette, Bryan Demchinsky called Wright eloquent and the book "a brief, trenchant essay." Diane Barlee in Skeptic magazine said Wright is a "remarkably gifted wordsmith whose talent makes turgid facts not only digestible, but also generates a hunger for more" and commented, "A Short History of Progress is an important, well-crafted book, however, I can't promise that it will change your life."
+
+== Film ==
+
+The film rights were sold to Cinémaginaire in 2008. It was filmed as a documentary, Surviving Progress directed by Mathieu Roy and co-directed by Harold Crooks with Daniel Louis and Denise Robert as producers for Cinémaginaire and Gerry Flahive as producer for NFB. Martin Scorsese was attached to the project as executive producer as were Mark Achbar and Betsy Carson (Big Picture Media Corporation) and Silva Basmajian (NFB). The film premiered at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival. It was also shown as part of Festival Atmospheres on 31 March 2012 in Paris, France.
+While the book focused on ancient civilizations, the majority of the film addresses the environmental impacts of our current "global civilization", including the impact of concentrating wealth in the hands of the "financial class". It is filmed as a mixture of interviews with individuals, from Wright himself to Jane Goodall and Margaret Atwood, interspersed with striking footage from all over the world. Mathieu Roy and Harold Crooks gave an interview in early 2012 on the challenges of adapting Ronald Wright's book into a succinct film.
+
+== See also ==
+Deforestation
+Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence
+Ecosystem
+Erosion
+Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
+Our Final Hour
+Plows, Plagues and Petroleum: How Humans Took Control of Climate
+
+== References ==
+
+== External links ==
+House of Anansi Press – A Short History of Progress
+CBC Radio, Ideas – 2004 Massey Lectures
+Cinémaginaire – Theatrical Feature Documentary
+Stu's Notes Archived 7 February 2021 at the Wayback Machine – Summary of selected passages
+Podcast – Chapter I: Gauguin's Questions
+Podcast – Chapter II: The Great Experiment
+Podcast – Interview with Ronald Wright, 10 April 2005, EcoTalk on Air America
+Civilization is a Pyramid Scheme – The earlier The Globe and Mail newspaper article by Ronald Wright, Saturday, 5 August 2000
+YouTube – An Illustrated Short History of Progress Book Review
+Surviving Progress website for the documentary film.

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Temperate_Empire-0.md

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+title: "A Temperate Empire"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Temperate_Empire"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:41:56.236357+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+A Temperate Empire: Making Climate Change in Early America is a 2016 book by historian Anya Zilberstein.
+
+
+== Contents ==
+A Temperate Empire explores perceptions of climate among colonists and colonial scientists in New England and Nova Scotia during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This time span corresponded with the Little Ice Age, a period of lower average global temperatures. Zilberstein examines how the harsh but varied climates of the "New World" challenged popular conceptions of the global climate being latitudinal, or the idea that arctic, temperate, and tropical climates surrounded the globe at particular latitudes. Although such conceptions proved to be false, they were considered integral to attracting European settlers to New World colonies. Moreover, Zilberstein documents how scientists and officials reacted to this challenge by advancing an understanding that emphasized the ability of humans to affect and improve the climate, primarily through agricultural cultivation. Colonists argued that settlers could create a warmer and more hospitable climate by "improving" the land, making the region suitable for further settlement. As such, A Temperate Empire demonstrates that debates about climate change and humanity's role in changing the climate extend back well before the modern era.
+The book also examines the ways in which colonial ideas about race and climate were considered to be intertwined. Colonists held to the notion that different races were suited to different climates, for example that white bodies were better suited to colder climates. However, the difficulty of attracting settlers due in part to the harsh climate led some to revise such arguments. When Jamaican Maroons were relocated to Nova Scotia in the late eighteenth century, for instance, it became integral to argue that the climate was in fact temperate enough for black bodies. Such episodes reveal further how colonial ideas and climatic realities seemed to shape each other in this period.
+
+
+== Awards and recognition ==
+A Temperate Empire was awarded the 2016's Berkshire Conference of Women Historians Book Prize. Dagomar Degroot, the founder of the Climate History Network, calls A Temperate Empire "one of the most intriguing climate history books ever published."
+
+
+== See also ==
+Little Ice Age
+History of climate change science
+
+
+== References ==
+
+
+== External links ==
+A Temperate Empire on Google Books

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth's_Deep_History-0.md

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+title: "Earth's Deep History"
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+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth's_Deep_History"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:42:29.456627+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Earth's Deep History is a 2014 book by historian and geologist Martin J. S. Rudwick about advances in geological time and deep history, a term for the development of Earth's history and the distant past of the human species.  Reviews were largely positive although some criticized Rudwick's minimalism in relation to the conflict between science and religion and the rejection of evolution by religious groups.
+
+
+== Synopsis ==
+From a geologist's perspective where everything has a history, Earth's Deep History explains how the discovery of the Earth's old age progressively moved humans from the center.  It focuses on details of the difficult and slow path to knowledge, the difference between law-like and physical history and the interplay of science and religion.  It explains how scholars gradually discovered and came to understand the mechanisms that shaped the Earth, rather than remaining limited by event reconstructions.  Earth's Deep History is considered to be a more condensed and approachable overview than Rudwick's previous works like Worlds Before Adam.
+
+
+== Reviews ==
+Editor Ted Nield, writing for the Geoscientist, praised the book and Rudwick's elegant prose, and added that Earth's Deep History is a more approachable summary of Rudwick's voluminous previous works, notably Bursting the Limits of Time and Worlds Before Adam. He concluded that "Our species' relegation to time's fringes surely merits, as a scientific revolution, proper respect.  I didn't need convincing.  This wonderful book will leave many more in no doubt."
+Assistant professor of philosophy Joyce Havstad praised the book for its summary of the long and difficult path of knowledge that led to what we know, but also criticized it for unpersuasively downplaying the conflict between science and religion and for focusing on the difference between law-like and historical sciences.  "The fact that there are many instances—which Rudwick has described, and in which such religious and scientific viewpoints do not conflict with one another—does not establish that there are few such instances then or now in which they do conflict with one another. ... I am afraid that dealing with [creationism]—and with the challenge it poses to successful scientific communication, education, investigation, and policy-making—is a daunting task that I face on a nearly daily basis, as a philosopher of science and a professor who teaches evolutionary theory, Earth science, and more to US undergraduates."  She otherwise found persuasive how Earth's Deep History makes the distinction between "(a) theorizing historically that an event has happened, and (b) theorizing physically about how an event was caused". Her conclusion was "it's a very good book and I enjoyed reading it everywhere".
+Professor and lecturer in Earth and Environmental Science Education Alison Stokes wrote for Times Higher Education magazine: "[Rudwick] succeeds in weaving together a compelling account of how Earth's timescale expanded to magnitudes far beyond those imagined by early scholars, and of the individuals responsible for advancing scientific thinking through their ideas and actions." She added "Although dismissed by Rudwick as a 'bizarre sideshow', the re-emergence of Young Earth creationism in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary is nonetheless a frustrating state of affairs."
+Christian apologetic group The BioLogos Foundation republished a review by paleontologist Ralph Stearley with a foreword by its vice-president Jim Stump.  Stearley's review was originally written for journal Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith published by evolutionary creationist and Christian fellowship organization American Scientific Affiliation.  Stearley praised Rudwick for expanding on the contributions of Christian scholars in the advancement of science in his works.  He added: "It is written in an accessible style and sparkles with nearly one hundred illustrations, mostly reproductions of original illustrations or text pages from significant individuals ranging from James Ussher to contemporary astrogeologists. Along the way, the geological time-scale develops until it reaches its current scope and detail ... Rudwick cleanly narrates the step-by-step realization that Earth was an object with a long history".  He also praised the book for presenting the view that faith and science never were at war.  He concluded: "For its comprehensive scope, intelligibility, delightful illustrations, and at times bluntly personal approach, this volume is a treat. I highly recommend it as a solitary read or as an introduction to Martin Rudwick's other authoritative works."
+
+
+== References ==
+
+
+== External links ==
+Rudwick, Martin J. S. (2014). Earth's Deep History: How It Was Discovered and Why It Matters. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-20409-3.

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echoes_of_Life-0.md

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data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geological_Evidences_of_the_Antiquity_of_Man-0.md

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+title: "Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geological_Evidences_of_the_Antiquity_of_Man"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:42:31.782958+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man is a book written by British geologist, Charles Lyell in 1863.  The first three editions appeared in February, April, and November 1863, respectively.  A much-revised fourth edition appeared in 1873.  Antiquity of Man, as it was known to contemporary readers, dealt with three scientific issues that had become prominent in the preceding decade: the age of the human race, the existence of ice ages, and Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection.  Lyell used the book to reverse or modify his own long-held positions on all three issues.  The book drew sharp criticism from two of Lyell's younger colleagues – paleontologist Hugh Falconer and archaeologist John Lubbock – who felt that Lyell had used their work too freely and acknowledged it too sparingly.  It sold well, however, and (along with Lubbock's 1865 book Prehistoric Times) helped to establish the new science of prehistoric archaeology in Great Britain.
+
+
+== Background ==
+Lyell had been consistently skeptical of evidence for high human antiquity since the early 1830s, and distanced himself from the theory of ice ages after a brief flirtation with it in the early 1840s.  He attacked the evolutionary ideas of Lamarck in detail in his book Principles of Geology.  New developments in all three areas forced him to reconsider these positions in the late 1850s and early 1860s, and became the subject matter for Antiquity of Man.
+
+
+== Content ==
+The section about man summed up the evidence for human antiquity that had been brought to light by British geologists in 1858-59, and integrated it with archaeological evidence from the Paleolithic, Neolithic, and Bronze Age.
+The section about glaciation integrated continental ice ages into the larger picture of the  Quaternary Period that Lyell had built up in his earlier works.
+The section about evolution recapitulated Darwin's arguments and endorsed them, though not enthusiastically.  It acknowledged that human bodies might have evolved, but left open the possibility of divine intervention in the origins of human intellect and moral sense.
+
+
+== Controversy ==
+Hugh Falconer, a key player in the establishment of human antiquity, charged that Lyell – a minor player in the process – had misleadingly cast himself in the lead while ignoring the contributions of others.  He raised his charges in the pages of the weekly journal The Athenaeum, and pressed them with a vehemence that some of his colleagues found distasteful.
+John Lubbock, a young but rising scientific star and a member of Darwin's inner circle, charged that Lyell had incorporated large amounts of material that Lubbock had published in articles and was then reworked into a book of his own.  His criticism was largely private, but well known in the scientific circles in which both moved.
+Lyell gradually changed the text of Antiquity of Man to blunt some of their criticisms, but throughout the process held that he had been wrongly accused. Lyell's response is recorded in his archive, held at the University of Edinburgh's Heritage Collections, who have also created a dedicated website to Lyell's work. 
+
+
+== Impact ==
+Antiquity of Man had its greatest impact in the years immediately after its publication.  Lyell's presentation and endorsement of the new evidence for human antiquity firmly established the theory as scientific orthodoxy.  His integration of both ice ages and a very old human race into the (geologically) recent history of the Earth was novel for its time, as was his presentation of archaeological data that from continental Europe.  Until the early 1860s, "archaeology" had been synonymous, in England, with the study of antiquity and the Middle Ages through artifacts.  Antiquity of Man expanded it to include the study of prehistory.
+The book's three-part structure meant, however, that it was quickly supplanted by more detailed works that followed in its wake.  Lubbock's Prehistoric Times (1865), Darwin's The Descent of Man (1871), James Archibald Geike's The Great Ice Age (1874) and William Boyd Dawkins' Early Man in Britain (1880) became the standard works on the fields to which Lyell had introduced a generation of mid-Victorian readers.
+
+
+== See also ==
+Comparison with Huxley's Man's Place in Nature
+
+
+== References ==
+
+
+== External links ==
+ The full text of Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man at Wikisource
+
+4th edition of Antiquity of man at Google books
+
+ The Antiquity of Man at Project Gutenberg
+Special Publication of the Geological Society of London by Claudine Cohen that discusses the development and impact of The Antiquity of Man.

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geological_Observations_on_South_America-0.md

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+---
+title: "Geological Observations on South America"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geological_Observations_on_South_America"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:42:33.022242+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Geological Observations on South America is a book written by the English naturalist Charles Darwin.  The book was published in 1846 and is based on his travels during the second voyage of HMS Beagle, commanded by captain Robert FitzRoy. HMS Beagle arrived in South America to map out the coastlines and islands of the region for the British Navy. On the journey, Darwin collected fossils and plants and recorded the continent's geological features.
+It is the third book in a series of geology books written by Darwin, which also includes The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs, published in 1842, and Geological Observations on the Volcanic Islands visited during the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, published in 1844. It took Darwin four years to write and complete the entire series, from 1842 to 1846. According to his diaries, Geological Observations of South America was written between July 1844 to April 1845.
+The text contains eight chapters along with appendices on Darwin's Mesozoic and Tertiary fossils. It describes his travels through the regions of modern Chile, Brazil, and Argentina, including the Pampas, Patagonia, and the Andes. With this book Darwin became the first to describe and name Navidad Formation, the reference unit for the marine Neogene in Chile. Darwin established relatives ages for rock units in the high Andes near Portillo. Metamorphic rocks were older than intruding red granites found in the area. By establishing, with aid of fossils, a Cretaceous age for some strata in the high Andes Darwin set time constrains for uplift of the Andes. He did further posited that the western part of the Andes (hinterland) rose before the eastern part, an idea later verified to be correct not only for the part of the Andes he visited but for orogenic mountains in general.
+Darwin, in a letter to the geologist Charles Lyell, wrote that the book was "dreadfully dull, yet much condensed." He put a great deal of effort into writing the book, but sardonically commented that "geologists never read each other's works, and that the only object in writing a book is a proof of earnestness, and that you do not form your opinions without undergoing labour of some kind."
+In the book, Darwin voiced sceptical support for the "crater of elevation" theory. The theory proposed that volcanoes were not the product of lavas, but are pushed up from within. Darwin later rejected the theory when sufficient evidence was demonstrated by the geologist Charles Lyell to disprove it.
+
+Francis Darwin, a botanist and the son of Charles Darwin, wrote that the book was significant for the "evidence which it brought forward to prove the slow interrupted elevation of the South American continent during a recent geological period." Darwin's geological work is not considered as notable as his work is biology, but nevertheless was important in advancing "the general reception of Lyell's teaching."
+
+
+== References ==
+
+
+== External links ==
+Geological Observations on South America. Being the third part of the geology of the voyage of the Beagle, under the command of Capt. Fitzroy, R.N. during the years 1832 to 1836

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geological_Observations_on_the_Volcanic_Islands-0.md

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+---
+title: "Geological Observations on the Volcanic Islands"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geological_Observations_on_the_Volcanic_Islands"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:42:34.243818+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Geological Observations on the Volcanic Islands, visited during the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle is a book written by the English naturalist Charles Darwin.  The book was published in 1844 and is based on his travels during the second voyage of HMS Beagle, commanded by captain Robert FitzRoy. It is the second book in a series of geology books written by Darwin that also includes The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs (published in 1842) and Geological Observations on South America (published in 1846).
+The text contains seven chapters, and includes observations made during Darwin's travels to the volcanic island of St. Jago in Cape Verde, the Fernando de Noronha archipelago, Ascension Island, the island of Saint Helena, the Galápagos Islands, James Island, New Zealand, Australia, Van Diemen's Land, and the Cape of Good Hope.
+The book includes one of the earliest accounts of the process of magmatic differentiation. While observing a basaltic lava flow in the Galápagos Islands, Darwin observed that "crystals sink from their weight" and that this "throws light on the separation of the high silica versus low silica series of rocks." This was the first proposal of the fractional crystallization hypothesis of magma differentiation that was further developed and demonstrated in the 20th century. 
+
+The geologist Archibald Geikie praised the book, calling it "the best authority on the general geological structure of most of the regions it describes," and that Darwin was "one of the earliest writers to recognize the magnitude of denudation to which even recent geological accumulations have been subjected." 
+A second edition of the book, published in 1876, combines Geological Observations on the Volcanic Islands with Geological Observations on South America.
+
+
+== References ==
+
+
+== External links ==
+Geological Observations on the Volcanic Islands at Project Gutenberg
+
+
+== Notes ==

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_Underfoot-0.md

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+---
+title: "Geology Underfoot"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_Underfoot"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:42:35.432462+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Geology Underfoot is a series of geology guidebooks published by Mountain Press Publishing Company.
+
+
+== Books ==
+There is currently a Geology Underfoot book available for 10 regions (Colorado Western Slope, Southern California, Western Washington, Death Valley & Eastern California, Colorado Front Range, Northern Arizona, Southern Utah, Yellowstone Country, Southern Idaho, Yosemite National Park). A list of the books is below:
+
+Schroder, Jack; Ellwein, Amy; Englemann, George; Englemann, Carol (2022). Geology Underfoot on Colorado's Western Slope. Illustrated by Beth Waldron Yuhas and Chelsea M. Feeney. Mountain Press. ISBN 978-0-87842-708-6.
+Sylvester, Arthur Gibbs; Sharp, Robert P.; Glazner, Allen F. (2020). Geology Underfoot in Southern California. Illustrated by Elizabeth O'Black Gans. Mountain Press. ISBN 978-0-87842-698-0.
+Tucker, Dave (2015). Geology Underfoot in Western Washington. Mountain Press. ISBN 978-0-87842-640-9.
+Glazner, Allen F.; Sylvester, Arthur Gibbs; Sharp, Robert P. (2022). Geology Underfoot in Death Valley and Eastern California. Illustrated by Chelsea M. Feeney. Mountain Press. ISBN 978-0-87842-707-9.
+Abbott, Lon; Cook, Terri (2012). Geology Underfoot Along Colorado's Front Range. Mountain Press. ISBN 978-0-87842-595-2.
+Abbott, Lon; Cook, Terri (2007). Geology Underfoot in Northern Arizona. Mountain Press. ISBN 978-0-87842-528-0.
+Orndorff, Richard L.; Wieder, Robert W.; Futey, David G. (2006). Geology Underfoot in Southern Utah. Mountain Press. ISBN 978-0-87842-517-4.
+Hendrix, Marc S. (2011). Geology Underfoot in Yellowstone Country. Mountain Press. ISBN 978-0-87842-576-1.
+Willsey, Shawn (2017). Geology Underfoot in Southern Idaho. Mountain Press. ISBN 978-0-87842-678-2.
+Glazner, Allen F.; Stock, Greg M. (2010). Geology Underfoot in Yosemite National Park. Mountain Press. ISBN 978-0-87842-568-6.
+More books have been published in this series, but are now out of print and no longer listed on the publisher's website. These include:
+
+Orndorff, Richard L.; Weider, Robert W.; Filkorn, Harry F. (2001). Geology Underfoot in Central Nevada. Mountain Press. ISBN 978-0-87842-418-4.
+Wiggers, Raymond (1997). Geology Underfoot in Illinois. Mountain Press. ISBN 978-0-87842-346-0.
+
+
+== Reception ==
+
+
+=== Geology Underfoot in Western Washington ===
+One of the books, Geology Underfoot in Western Washington, by Bellingham geologist Dave Tucker received media attention from multiple outlets upon its release. He spoke about the book at multiple events, including at Western Washington University, the Whatcom Museum, and the Whatcom County Library System branch in Lynden. The book features 22 locations in Western Washington.
+
+
+=== Geology Underfoot in Northern Arizona ===
+Another book in the series, Geology Underfoot in Northern Arizona, was reviewed in multiple academic journals.
+
+
+=== Geology Underfoot in Death Valley and Eastern California ===
+Geology Underfoot in Death Valley and Eastern California was written by UC Santa Barbara emeritus faculty Arthur Sylvester in collaboration with UNC-Chapel Hill emeritus faculty Allen Glazner.
+
+
+== Roadside Geology ==
+The Geology Underfoot series is often compared to the Roadside Geology series by the same publisher as they are both series of guidebooks for accessible geological sites of interest.
+
+
+== References ==

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_Energy_Sources_and_Climate_Change_Mitigation-0.md

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+---
+title: "Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_Energy_Sources_and_Climate_Change_Mitigation"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:41:12.457068+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published a special report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation (SRREN) on May 9, 2011. The report developed under the leadership of Ottmar Edenhofer evaluates the global potential for using renewable energy to mitigate climate change. This IPCC special report provides broader coverage of renewable energy than was included in the IPCC's 2007 climate change assessment report, as well as stronger renewable energy policy coverage.
+In the present time, there is an obvious trend to have more renewable energy sources and therefore to overcome life crisis that can go when oil and gas expire. Renewable energy can contribute to "social and economic development, energy access, secure energy supply, climate change mitigation, and the reduction of negative environmental and health impacts". Under favourable circumstances, cost savings in comparison to non-renewable energy use exist.
+
+
+== History ==
+Previously the IPCC examined both renewable energy and energy efficiency in its fourth assessment report, published in 2007, but members decided that renewable energy commercialization merits additional in-depth coverage because of its importance in reducing carbon emissions.
+The outline of the IPCC WG III's Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation (SRREN) was approved at the IPCC Plenary in Budapest in April, 2008. The final report was approved at the 11th session of the IPCC Working Group III, May 2011, in Abu Dhabi. The SRREN addresses the information needs of policy makers, private sector and civil society in a comprehensive way and will provide valuable information for further IPCC publications, including the upcoming IPCC 5th Assessment Report. The SRREN was released for publication on May 9, 2011.
+The Special Report "aims to provide a better understanding and broader information on the mitigation potential of renewable energy sources: technological feasibility, economic potential and market status, economic and environmental costs&benefits, impacts on energy security, co-benefits in achieving sustainable development, opportunities and synergies, options and constraints for integration into the energy supply systems and in the societies".
+
+
+== Main findings ==
+Renewable energy can contribute to "social and economic development, energy access, secure energy supply, climate change mitigation, and the reduction of negative environmental and health impacts".
+In the report, the IPCC said "as infrastructure and energy systems develop, in spite of the complexities, there are few, if any, fundamental technological limits to integrating a portfolio of renewable energy technologies to meet a majority share of total energy demand in locations where suitable renewable resources exist or can be supplied". Under favourable circumstances, cost savings in comparison to non-renewable energy use exist. IPCC scenarios "generally indicate that growth in renewable energy will be widespread around the world". The IPCC said that if governments were supportive, and the full range of renewable technologies were deployed, renewable energy could account for almost 80% of the world's energy supply within four decades. Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, said the necessary investment in renewables would cost only about 1% of global GDP annually. This approach could keep greenhouse gas concentrations to less than 450 parts per million, the safe level beyond which climate change becomes catastrophic and irreversible.
+
+
+== See also ==
+IPCC 4th Assessment Report (AR4)
+IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5)
+IPCC Summary for Policymakers
+IRENA
+Renewable energy commercialization
+REN21
+List of books about renewable energy
+
+
+== References ==
+
+
+== External links ==
+Report (in English)
+IPCC SRREN: Full Report (In German)

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Requiem_for_a_Species-0.md

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+---
+title: "Requiem for a Species"
+chunk: 1/2
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Requiem_for_a_Species"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:41:13.631063+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth about Climate Change is a 2010 non-fiction book by Australian academic Clive Hamilton which explores climate change denial and its implications. It argues that climate change will bring about large-scale, harmful consequences for habitability for life on Earth including humans, which it is too late to prevent. Hamilton explores why politicians, corporations and the public deny or refuse to act on this reality. He invokes a variety of explanations, including wishful thinking, ideology, consumer culture and active lobbying by the fossil fuel industry. The book builds on the author's fifteen-year prior history of writing about these subjects, with previous books including Growth Fetish and Scorcher: The Dirty Politics of Climate Change.
+Requiem for a Species has been reviewed in Resurgence magazine, Socialist Review, Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Common Review, and Times Higher Education, which named it "Book of the Week". Extracts of the book have appeared in The Guardian and Geographical magazine. The book won a 2010 Queensland Premier's Literary Award.
+
+== Themes ==
+Hamilton points out that there have been many reports and books over the years explaining the climate change problem and just how ominous the future looks for humanity. He says Requiem for a Species is primarily about why those warnings have been ignored.
+Hamilton considers that sometimes an inconvenient truth may be too difficult to bear:
+
+Sometimes facing up to the truth is just too hard. When the facts are distressing it is easier to reframe or ignore them. Around the world only a few have truly faced up to the facts about global warming... It's the same with our own deaths; we all "accept" that we will die, but it is only when our death is imminent that we confront the true meaning of our mortality.
+
+The most immediate reason for the failure to act on global warming is seen to be the "sustained and often ruthless exercise of political power by the corporations who stand to lose from a shift to low- and zero-carbon energy systems". Hamilton cites numerous journalists and authors who have documented the influence of large companies such as ExxonMobil, Rio Tinto Group and General Motors. Hamilton makes his argument in three stages:
+
+Firstly, he reviews the evidence about how serious the situation is already and how much worse it will get. Secondly, he examines the roots of denial, both in terms of resistance to the evidence and in relation to the actors and agencies motivated to deny climate change. Lastly, he looks at some future scenarios and explains what people should do.
+
+Hamilton suggests that the foundations of climate change denial lie in the reaction of American conservatism to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. He argues that as the "red menace" receded, conservatives who had put energy into opposing communism sought other outlets. Hamilton contends that the conservative backlash against climate science was led by three prominent physicists – Frederick Seitz, Robert Jastrow, and William Nierenberg. In 1984 Seitz, Jastrow and Nierenberg founded the George C. Marshall Institute, and in the 1990s the Marshall Institute's main activity was attacking climate science.
+When describing climate science, Hamilton says that official numbers published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are highly cautious, and so the real effects of climate change will likely be even more severe. His conclusion is that it will not be possible to stabilise emissions:
+
+... even with the most optimistic set of assumptions – the ending of deforestation, a halving of emissions associated with food production, global emissions peaking in 2020 and then falling by 3 per cent a year for a few decades – we have no chance of preventing emissions rising well above a number of critical tipping points that will spark uncontrollable climate change. The Earth's climate would enter a chaotic era lasting thousands of years before natural processes eventually establish some sort of equilibrium. Whether human beings would still be a force on the planet, or even survive, is a moot point. One thing seems certain: there will be far fewer of us. 
+
+In terms of Australia, Hamilton says that "Australians in 2050 will be living in a nation transformed by a changing climate, with widespread doubt over whether we will make it to the end of the century in a land that is recognisably Australian".
+
+== Reception ==
+Michael Lynn in The Common Review says that Requiem for a Species explores the gulf between acknowledgment and acceptance of climate change.  Lynn explains that the gulf has two main origins and no easy solution: 
+
+Hamilton ... argues that the gulf has two primary origins: the enormity of its consequences and the way it challenges how we as individuals and as societies have constructed our identities over the past three centuries. In doing so, he suggests that meeting the challenge of climate change requires far more than implementing the right policies and making minor adjustments in our lifestyles. Instead, it implies remaking our psyches and societies on a scale unseen since the dawn of the modern age.

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Requiem_for_a_Species-1.md

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+---
+title: "Requiem for a Species"
+chunk: 2/2
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Requiem_for_a_Species"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:41:13.631063+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+The Times Higher Education listed Requiem for a Species as "Book of the week" for 3 June 2010. Steven Yearley's review calls it a "provocative and sobering book". He says the heart of the book are the many explanations that Hamilton puts forward for the everyday, regular denial of the danger of changing climate. Yearley says this is also the most frustrating aspect of Requiem for a Species, because Hamilton proposes so many different explanations but does not make their relative significance clear.
+David Shearman, in a review for Doctors for the Environment Australia, says that "Clive Hamilton is one of Australia's most notable public intellectuals, his work is careful and balanced, he presents the facts as they are and has written a book which is uncomfortable for all". According to Shearman, Hamilton's treatment of the topic of denial is one of the best available.
+Mike Hulme, in Resurgence magazine, agrees with the "consumption fetish" and "spiritual malaise" of humanity that Hamilton describes. But, according to Hulme, Hamilton has underestimated the "innovative and creative potential of collective humanity" and he has put too much faith in the infallibility of science's predictions about future climate risks. Hulme believes that Hamilton "is placing too much weight on the foresight of science to provide his desired revolution, rather than calling for it more honestly and directly through political, psychological or spiritual engagement".
+Kelsey Munro reviewed the book in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, suggesting that it is pessimistic and does not present any false hope. But he says pessimism is not the same thing as fatalism, and Hamilton believes there is still an urgent need for government intervention to avoid worst-case scenarios by reducing emissions. Munro also points out that some eminent climate scientists, like Princeton University's Michael Oppenheimer, remain optimistic that humanity will act before it is too late.
+Camilla Royle reviewed Requiem for a Species in Socialist Review and recommends it for those who want to get a clearer idea of climate change science. She says that Hamilton is understandably angry at the corporate lobbyists who have encouraged climate change denial. Royle suggests that Hamilton accepts that "we should at least try to do something about climate change", but he "doesn't give much idea of what that something is".
+There was a book launch for Requiem for a Species on 24 March 2010 at The University of Queensland and another on 29 March 2010 at the Australian National University (ANU). An extract of the book appeared in The Guardian on 16 April 2010. Geographical magazine published another extract in August 2010. The book won the 2010 "Queensland Premier's Literary Award for a work Advancing Public Debate".
+
+== Author ==
+At the time of publication, Clive Hamilton was Professor of Public Ethics at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics (CAPPE) at Australia. Before taking up his position at CAPPE, he was executive director and founder of The Australia Institute, a forward-looking think tank.
+
+== Publishing information ==
+Hamilton, Clive (2010). Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth about Climate Change. Earthscan. ISBN 978-1-84971-081-7.
+The book is available as an eBook document as well as a paper publication.
+
+== See also ==
+
+An Inconvenient Truth
+Climate Code Red: The Case for Emergency Action
+Greenhouse Mafia
+Greenhouse Solutions with Sustainable Energy
+Low-carbon economy
+Merchants of Doubt
+Why We Disagree About Climate Change
+Global catastrophic risk
+Scientific consensus on climate change
+Willful blindness
+
+== References ==
+
+== External links ==
+Clive Hamilton – Facing up to Climate Change, YouTube, 26 May 2010.

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Residual_Governance-0.md

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+---
+title: "Residual Governance"
+chunk: 1/3
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Residual_Governance"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:41:14.807569+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Residual Governance: How South Africa Foretells Planetary Futures is a 2023 book by historian and anthropologist Gabrielle Hecht that traces the environmental and social impacts of gold and uranium mining in South Africa's Witwatersrand region. The book introduces the concept of "residual governance"—defined as the governance of waste and discards, minimalist governance using simplification and delay, and governance that treats people and places as waste—arguing that this framework represents a primary instrument of racial capitalism and a major driver of environmental destruction in the Anthropocene. Based on two decades of fieldwork and archival research, Hecht documents how mining waste continues to affect millions of South Africans despite the end of apartheid in 1994, concentrating on acid mine drainage, radioactive dust, and the experiences of communities living near mine dumps. The work centers the perspectives of activists, scientists, and affected residents rather than state and corporate actors, incorporating 87 illustrations as primary sources. The book was published by Duke University Press as an open-access monograph, and it received the 2024 PROSE Award in Government and Politics, Association of American Publishers, the 2024 PROSE Award for Excellence in Social Science, the E. Ohnuki Tierney Award for Historical Anthropology, and the African Studies Association's Best Book Award. It was a finalist for the Fleck prize from the Social Studies of Science, and received a third place Victor Turner Award for excellence in ethnographic writing.
+The book was translated into Spanish by Jaime Landinez Aceros and published in open access by Qillqa under the title Gobernanza residual: Como Sudáfrica presagia futuros planetarios.
+
+== Background ==
+In a 2024 interview with JoburgTodayTV, Hecht explained that the book investigates how Johannesburg's long history of mining has affected the city and its inhabitants, focusing on what she calls "the after lives of mining." She noted that over 50 kilometers of mine waste bisect the city, combining with what she termed "more metaphorical waste" from apartheid and racism to shape not only Johannesburg's layout but also "the air that people breathe, the dust that they inhale, the water that they drink." Hecht emphasized that even mines closed decades ago continue to have violent effects on people's lives and health. Hecht emphasized that achieving environmental and infrastructural justice requires holding both mining companies and the state accountable, all while acknowledging that the problem has persisted across both apartheid and post-1994 governments. She criticized "solutionism" and argued that addressing these issues requires embracing the problem's complexity rather than seeking simplified engineering or policy solutions.

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Residual_Governance-1.md

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+---
+title: "Residual Governance"
+chunk: 2/3
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Residual_Governance"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:41:14.807569+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+== Summary ==
+Hecht traces the environmental and social legacy of gold and uranium mining in South Africa's Witwatersrand region, where over one-third of all gold ever mined on Earth was extracted across more than a century. The book develops the concept of "residual governance," defined as a deadly trifecta: the governance of waste and discards; minimalist governance that employs simplification, ignorance, and delay as core tactics; and governance that treats people and places as waste and wastelands. Hecht argues that residual governance functions as a technopolitical instrument of racial capitalism—where technology deliberately enacts political goals—and serves as a major accelerant of the Anthropocene epoch.
+The book's introduction, "The Racial Contract is Technopolitical," builds on philosopher Charles Mills's theory of the racial contract to demonstrate how mining in South Africa exemplifies the intersection between racial capitalism and environmental destruction. Hecht shows how apartheid's racial contract guaranteed value extraction at minimal cost through the exploitation of hundreds of thousands of male mineworkers from across southern Africa, while simultaneously contaminating their bodies and communities with toxic residues. The narrative deliberately eschews chronological ordering, instead employing a palimpsest-like structure where geological time, colonial history, apartheid, and the post-apartheid present layer upon one another.
+Chapter 1, "You Can See Apartheid from Space," provides the broadest temporal perspective, traversing three billion years from the meteor strike that created the Witwatersrand's gold-bearing geology through human habitation, imperialism, apartheid, and contemporary South Africa. The massive mine dumps visible from space serve as monuments to racial capitalism's environmental violence, with apartheid literally etched into the landscape.
+Chapter 2, "The Hollow Rand," examines acid mine drainage—the toxic water that decants from abandoned mine shafts when groundwater fills the voids and reacts with exposed pyrite, turning acidic and dissolving heavy metals like arsenic, lead, and uranium. The chapter follows activist Mariette Liefferink's fearsome persistence in confronting this crisis, which contaminated water sources for over 400,000 people along the Wonderfonteinspruit catchment and became a focal point in post-apartheid South Africa's crisis of democratic legitimacy.
+Chapter 3, "The Inside-Out Rand," addresses the staggering volumes of often radioactive dust and sand generated by mining operations, examining how photographers, artists, and scientists have documented this form of volumetric violence. The chapter engages with visual artists like Ernest Cole, Peter Abrahams, and David Goldblatt, demonstrating how images serve as both primary sources and forms of resistance that communicate aspects of environmental injustice beyond what words can capture.
+Chapter 4, "South Africa's Chernobyl?," provides a detailed micro-history of the Tudor Shaft informal settlement in Kagiso township, where residents lived atop uraniferous mine tailings for over two decades while awaiting promised post-apartheid housing. The chapter follows community leader Jeffrey Ramoruti and his neighbors as they fought against their treatment as human waste, engaging municipal, provincial, national, and international governance scales in their ultimately successful struggle for relocation.
+Chapter 5, "Land Mines," examines the metropolitan scale to demonstrate how the sheer volume and spatial extent of mine residues fundamentally constrains possibilities for spatially just urban planning throughout the Gauteng City-Region. The chapter reveals how mine dumps continue to shape patterns of segregation and inequality, with remediation efforts repeatedly thwarted by the scale of contamination, corporate shuffling that enables companies to evade rehabilitation responsibilities, and the Byzantine complexities of residual governance. The conclusion, "Living in a Future Way Ahead of Our Time," connects South Africa's mining waste crisis to planetary futures, arguing that the country's struggles offer essential insights for confronting global challenges in the Anthropocene—an epoch characterized by the accumulation of residues in many forms, from mine tailings to greenhouse gas emissions.
+Hecht centers the perspectives of those who have resisted residual governance: activists like Mariette Liefferink and Jeffrey Ramoruti, community organizations, scientists, journalists, urban planners, and artists who have fought to make residual waste visible and to resist its dehumanizing effects. The book draws on two decades of archival work and fieldwork, incorporating extensive visual materials—87 illustrations including photographs, maps, and artworks—as primary sources that reveal the toxic beauty of mining landscapes and the human struggles within them. By documenting how decades of research, hundreds of studies, and major political upheavals have failed to adequately address mining's toxic legacy, the book demonstrates that residual governance gains traction through accretion: each layer of waste, each Byzantine regulation, and each instance of bureaucratic delay puts meaningful remediation further out of reach. The work ultimately argues that South Africa's experience reveals how racial capitalism's logic of infinite growth on a finite planet relies on treating certain people and places as disposable, offering a stark warning about emerging planetary politics in an age defined by the accumulation of toxic residues.

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Residual_Governance-2.md

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+---
+title: "Residual Governance"
+chunk: 3/3
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Residual_Governance"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:41:14.807569+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+== Critical reception ==
+Academic reviewers have analyzed the book's theoretical framework, particularly its development of "residual governance" as a concept linking waste management, bureaucratic minimalism, and the treatment of people and places as disposable. Iva Peša in the American Historical Review notes that Hecht "masterfully combines two vastly different scales" in showing connections between state and mining actors while documenting effects on residents. Tracy-Lynn Field and Michael Hennessy Picard in the European Journal of International Law describe it as "a gripping account of the mine wastes of the Rand, viewed from the perspective of activists and community leaders," and praised Hecht for honoring activists who "refuse to allow residual waste to escape unnoticed."
+The book's use of Charles Mills's racial contract theory has drawn scholarly attention. Mikhail Moosa (African Studies Review) observes that the work "expands on her earlier work on technopolitics in France and West Africa, while drawing substantively on Charles Mills's critique of liberal social contract theory." Ivan Evans (Contemporary Sociology) analyzed how Hecht builds on Mills's framework to demonstrate what she terms a "deadly trifecta" of policies that expose South Africans to mining byproducts, official reliance on misleading information, and an administrative approach that "treats people and places as waste and wastelands." Evans noted that while some scholars might view the book's passionate tone as polemical, "the fierce tone of the book is appropriate to the Anthropocene."
+Tholithemba Lorenzo Ndaba (South African Journal of Science) traces how Hecht connects environmental problems to "a racial contract functioning as a technopolitical entity, deliberately designing residues like mine dumps to achieve political objectives." While praising Hecht's writing style and use of primary sources including archival materials and photographs, Ndaba identified limitations including the book's tendency to generalize Johannesburg's issues to all of South Africa and what he views as insufficient incorporation of community voices through interviews, particularly regarding the Tudor Shaft settlement.
+Anne Heffernan (British Journal for the History of Science) reviews the book alongside Faeeza Ballim's work on South Africa's electricity sector, and notes that both books address "the enduring communal and environmental impacts" of extractive industries. Mariaelena De Stefano's review in L'Uomo Società Tradizione Sviluppo characterizes the book as combining narrative and visual media, with images, maps, and photographs by local artists transforming the reader from "simple observer to conscious explorer." De Stefano points out that the work "is not a manual with easy solutions" and lauds Hecht for recognizing that "knowledge alone is not sufficient to generate change or promote reparative interventions." De Stefano emphasizes the book's call to "humanize where others—decision makers, politicians, bureaucrats, technicians—dehumanize" and to "not remain calm just to continue as always."
+Nancy Jacobs describes the work as "a ferocious book about Gauteng's mine dumps as sacrifice zones of racial capitalism" and "an essential exposé of the depredations that define our current epoch, the Anthropocene." Jacobs explains the multiple layers of the title's meaning—from state regulation of waste, to minimized regulation, to the management of places and people as wastelands. She stresses Hecht's use of the term "wicked problems" for issues with contested definitions and no single optimal solutions, and praised her ability to make "technological complexity manageable for a humanities audience". Jacobs also emphasized the author's effectiveness as "a voice against obfuscation," and the book's attention to artists including Peter Abrahams, Ernest Cole, and contemporary photographer Potšišo Phasha, as well as its centering of activists like Jeffrey Ramoruti and Mariette Liefferink. She describes Hecht's voice as "by turns witty, unbelieving, impatient, and outraged" and says that the book offers important lessons: "Community matters. Knowledge matters. Storytelling matters. There is no alternative to perseverance, struggle, and honest thought."
+Lorenzo Olivieri and Alessio Gerola in Tecnoscienza describe the book as "a marvelous work that focuses on the strategies used by mining companies and South Africa's governments to (not) manage the various kinds of waste and hazardous substances produced by mining activities."
+
+=== Africa roundtable ===
+Africa published a roundtable of the book, with three reviews and a response by Hecht. Lorenzo D'Angelo characterizes the narrative structure as one that "loops and spirals through time," creating what he describes as a work "written in honest anger, with stunning vehemence and exquisite one-liners." D'Angelo notes the book's extensive visual materials, including photographs from South African artists, and questiones why Hecht didn't adopt a more explicitly transnational approach, though he acknowledges the need for detailed empirical engagement. While, Jan-Bart Gewald describes reading the book as being "pummelled by a heavyweight," and says that "it is difficult not to walk away despondent and despairing, the issues she describes are so enormous, the damage so extensive." Despite this, Gewald argues that "such work has to be written, and it has to be read if we are ever to right the wrongs of the past." Melusi Nkomo situates the work within existing scholarship on post-apartheid South Africa, observing that while the story of apartheid's persistence has been told before, Hecht "carved her own niche out of the story" by focusing on residual governance in Gauteng Province. Nkomo credits Hecht for "organizing so many aspects into a coherent and captivating analysis" and for "painting a generous picture of the continuing struggle for social justice in the rubble of capitalism," though he suggests the book implies rather than directly presents answers to why mining residues remain such a persistent problem.
+The author responded to reviews by Nkomo, D'Angelo, and Gewald. Hecht defends her methodological choices, explaining that "refusing to produce a short, quotable response is my way of resisting the solutionism sought by so-called sustainability studies." She clarifies that residual governance "gains traction through accretion" with each layer of waste and regulation putting "resistance and repair further out of reach." Regarding D'Angelo's question about geographic scope, she acknowledges originally intending a transnational approach but explained that "challenging the fictions of 'sustainable development' required detailed empirical engagement."
+
+== Awards ==
+2024 PROSE Award in Government and Politics, Association of American Publishers
+2024 PROSE Award for Excellence in Social Science, Association of American Publishers
+2024 E. Ohnuki Tierney Award for Historical Anthropology, American Anthropological Association
+2024 Best Book Award, African Studies Association
+Third Place, Victor Turner Award for Ethnographic Writing, Society For Humanistic Anthropoloy
+Finalist, Fleck Prize, Society for the Social Studies of Science
+
+== References ==

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_of_Renewal-0.md

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+---
+title: "River of Renewal"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_of_Renewal"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:41:18.316449+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+River of Renewal: Myth and History in the Klamath Basin is a 2006 book by Stephen Most detailing the challenges in balancing economic and ecological concerns in the Klamath Basin region of the United States. The book shows clashes between federal and state government agencies, American Indian tribes, hydroelectric dam operators, and the farming and commercial fishery industries, detailing challenges and controversies around the irrigation of farmland and the preservation of the wild salmon population.
+The book traces the history of the Klamath Basin, including the Yurok, Hupa, and Karuk tribal populations, the secessionist State of Jefferson movement, and regional Bigfoot legends. The second edition tells the story of the revival of cultural fire by the Klamath River tribes and recounts how the largest dam removal and watershed restoration project in history came about.
+
+
+== 2008 film ==
+It was adapted into a 2008 non-fiction film, River of Renewal, that received the Best Documentary Award at the American Indian Film Festival. The film was also broadcast on PBS.
+
+
+== References ==
+
+
+== External links ==
+River of Renewal at IMDb
+River of Renewal film website

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_to_Survival-0.md

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+---
+title: "Road to Survival"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_to_Survival"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:41:20.598596+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Road to Survival is a 1948 book by William Vogt.  It was a major inspiration for a certain strand of modern environmentalism as well as for the revival of Malthusianism—the so-called neo-Malthusianism—in the post-war era.
+
+
+== Summary ==
+Road to Survival is a summary of the ecological status of the world. Vogt documented the negative effects of an expanding global population on the environment. He gathered reports of deforestation, gullying, overgrazing, soil erosion, and many forms of destruction of fundamental resources which he believed had arisen from the greed and ignorance of humankind.
+Vogt contended that global population growth surpasses the capacity of food production to sustain it, thereby advocating for the necessity of universal birth control measures. Vogt also critiqued capitalism, characterizing it as a flawed system, and portrayed the historical trajectory of the United States as a continuous series of destructive events and actions.
+The book is filled with scientific data, and its worldwide scope was unusual at the time.  Ultimately, the book advocates population control as the only way to prevent environmental disaster.  Human population could not exceed the planet's carrying capacity without disaster. According to Hampshire College's Betsy Hartmann, Vogt is the founder of what she calls "apocalyptic environmentalism".
+
+
+== Reception ==
+The book was commercially successful, with a condensed version published in the January 1949 edition of Reader's Digest. Numerous educational institutions adopted it as a primary instructional material. Nevertheless, the core message encountered criticism from various ideological groups, drawing opposition from conservatives who disapproved of its anti-capitalist stance and endorsement of birth control, while liberals perceived it as indicative of science's inadequacy in addressing contemporary societal challenges.
+In a 1949 assessment published in the Geography journal, it was determined that the examination of the origins and outcomes of soil erosion across various global regions held significant merit. While acknowledging potential disagreements with the author's political and ethical stances, the thesis was regarded as a thought-provoking and stimulating contribution. This work was perceived to offer a valuable challenge, inciting contemplation on substantial and pertinent issues within the field.
+Later on, the book would inspire the modern environmental movement, with both Rachel Carson and Paul Ehrlich being inspired by it.
+Charles C. Mann highlighted Vogt's pivotal role in laying the foundation for the modern environmental movement. Betsy Hartmann, a population researcher at Hampshire College, characterized Vogt's groundbreaking contributions as 'apocalyptic environmentalism.' This school of thought is predicated on the belief that the human race will cause irreparable harm to Earth's ecosystems if it does not reduce its consumption and population growth. Vogt effectively communicated this message through widely acclaimed books and compelling speeches, contending that our affluence, as opposed to being a source of pride, is our most pressing challenge. "Cut back!" was his repeated mantra and is a poignant call to action, highlighting the imperative need for sustainable practices to prevent global devastation.
+
+
+== See also ==
+Our Plundered Planet
+
+
+== References ==

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robots_Will_Steal_Your_Job,_but_That's_OK-0.md

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+---
+title: "Robots Will Steal Your Job, but That's OK"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robots_Will_Steal_Your_Job,_but_That's_OK"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:41:21.742782+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Robots Will Steal Your Job, but That's OK: How to Survive the Economic Collapse and Be Happy is a book by Federico Pistono that was published in 2012. Initially self-published by the author, it was later picked up by publishers internationally and translated in six languages. It became a best-seller on Amazon.com, and was covered in various publications such as the BBC, the Financial Times and Época.
+
+
+== Themes ==
+The book's four points are:
+
+Technology is improving at an exponential rate, robots and algorithms will soon be able to replace most human labor;
+There is no need for the emergence of artificial general intelligence to create structural technological unemployment and destabilize the economy as we know it;
+Work and happiness have a correlation, but not necessarily a causation. What drives happiness is having a sense of purpose and being in a state of flow, which may come from activities outside of traditional work;
+While it is theoretically possible to replace lost jobs, the book suggests that it would be impractical and it represents a missed opportunity for society, challenging the reader to think of a system where automation allows to break the labor-by-income, income-for-survival cycle, scaling back on conspicuous consumption.
+
+
+== Synopsis ==
+The book is divided into three parts: Automation and Unemployment, Work and Happiness, and Solution. It contains 21 chapters, two appendices, titled "How a Family Can Live Better by Spending Smart" and "Growth", a Notes section for further reading, and a Bibliography.
+
+
+== Reception ==
+The Financial Times noted that the book is Johann Rupert's favorite, who stated "How is society going to cope with structural unemployment? ... Because the next wave of unemployment will be even bigger than the current one ... You don't believe me? I urge you to look at this [book]."
+Piero Scaruffi in the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies said: "The book's breadth is impressive: its chapters touch on Economics, Sociology, Philosophy, Morality and Artificial Intelligence, and sometimes within the same paragraph. ... Pistono is trying to construct a future society in which humans will be happy even though they will be less necessary. Instead of an apocalyptic view of the future, Pistono is the rare prophet with a Panglossian view of the future."
+Peter Diamandis, in a conversation with Robert Reich at The Wall St. Journal CIO Network said, "I love the book ... the notion is that we're moving into a world where there's going to be a disconnect between work and living and I think society is going to have to find some new balance points ... we're going to be fundamentally changing society, and the question is, maybe people don't have jobs."
+In a review in the Socialist Standard, the book is described as "[a]t best, this book is a useful primer to introduce people to the concept of incoming and widespread technological unemployment. It is hampered by its lack of detail in explaining the debates around the issue and its abject failure to present anything like a sensible response. At its best, it is a heartfelt tract, with some useful facts and bibliography."
+
+
+== See also ==
+
+Post-scarcity economy
+Technological unemployment
+
+
+== References ==

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_Under_Siege-0.md

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+---
+title: "Science Under Siege"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_Under_Siege"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:41:26.429696+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Science Under Siege: The Politicians' War on Nature and Truth is a 1998 book by journalist Todd Wilkinson. Wilkinson describes the careers of a variety of publicly employed scientists who, in the course of their work for government agencies, found habitat degradation, threatened species, or other decline in availability of a natural resource. When they expressed their views that certain activities must be scaled back or areas protected, they met with poor job performance ratings, hostility from their supervisors, transfers out of the region, and in many cases a severely damaged career.  Science is "under siege" in these cases because many of the researchers were told to modify their scientific reports so that commercial uses or environmentally destructive activities could continue.
+
+
+== See also ==
+List of books about the politics of science
+
+
+== References ==
+
+
+== External links ==
+The Politics of Science

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secrets_and_Lies_(book)-0.md

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+---
+title: "Secrets and Lies (book)"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secrets_and_Lies_(book)"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:41:29.902024+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Secrets and Lies: The Anatomy of an Anti-Environmental PR Campaign is a 1999 book by Nicky Hager and Bob Burton.
+
+
+== The book ==
+The book documents the public relations information put out by Timberlands West Coast Limited in order to win public support for logging of native forests on the West Coast of New Zealand.
+The material is based on a large amount of documentation leaked by a staff member from the local branch of Shandwick (now Weber Shandwick Worldwide), a global public relations company, which had been hired by Timberlands to run a secret campaign against environmental groups such as Native Forest Action between 1997 and 1999.
+The book describes its tactics of surveillance of meetings, monitoring the press and responding to every letter to the editor, greenwashing, the use of SLAPPs, cleaning anti-logging graffiti and blotting out campaign posters in public places, and managing to install its pro-logging educational materials into schools.
+The book alleges that almost every pro-logging letter or article was organized by this campaign.
+
+
+== Reception and responses ==
+In 2000, a press council complaint was made against a letter to the editor in The Press, which argued that Hager had lied in the book. The complaint was not upheld, because the Press Council ruled that it was responsible for vetting robust debate in the letter pages.
+During a general Parliamentary debate in November 2006, when the book The Hollow Men had an injunction against its publication, the MP Gerry Brownlee said of the author and the book:
+
+This is the same Nicky Hager who wrote the book [Secrets and Lies] in 1999, in which he spoke about the Timberlands scandal. None of it was true. Not one of the pages in that book carried a single truth. It was roundly discredited. He is a man who indulges in intrigue and in the activities of scurrilously besmirching any individual he does not like, without any care whatsoever.
+The Hollow Men documents behind the scenes activities of the National Party, of which Brownlee was deputy leader at the time.
+In 2009, Kerry Tankard looked back at the book in a review for Salient. She concluded that: "As a study of how PR firms help corporations to spin and manipulate public opinion, I’ve seen none better."
+
+
+== References ==
+
+
+== External links ==
+Detailed rebuttal of the book by Chris Perley a New Zealand forestry and agriculture consultant.

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selling_Solar-0.md

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+---
+title: "Selling Solar"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selling_Solar"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:41:31.097548+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Selling Solar: The Diffusion of Renewable Energy in Emerging Markets is a 2009 Earthscan book by Damian Miller.  Miller argues that, in order to solve the climate crisis, the world must immediately and dramatically accelerate the commercialization of renewable energy technology. This needs to happen in the industrialized world, as well as in the emerging markets of the developing world where most future greenhouse gas emissions will occur.
+Author Damian Miller holds a doctorate from the Judge School of Business, Cambridge. He is the founder and CEO of Orb Energy, which is based in India.
+
+
+== See also ==
+List of books about renewable energy
+Clean Tech Nation
+
+
+== References ==

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense_of_place-0.md

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-title: "Sense of place"
+title: "Sense of Place"
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-source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense_of_place"
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense_of_Place"
 category: "reference"
 tags: "science, encyclopedia"
-date_saved: "2026-05-05T07:21:24.143517+00:00"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:41:32.242519+00:00"
 instance: "kb-cron"
 ---
 
-The term sense of place refers to a multidimensional, complex construct used to characterize the relationship between people and spatial settings. It is a characteristic that some geographic places have and some do not, while to others it is a feeling or perception held by people (not by the place itself). It is often used in relation to those characteristics that make a place special or unique, as well as to those that foster a sense of authentic human attachment and belonging.  Others, such as geographer Yi-Fu Tuan, have pointed to senses of place that are not "positive," such as fear.  
+Sense of place: a response to an environment: the Swan Coastal Plain, Western Australia is a 1972 book by George Seddon. It documents Seddon's struggle to understand the Swan Coastal Plain, a biogeographic region that he initially found harsh and unwelcoming. It includes information on landforms, climate, geology, soils, flora, the Swan River, the coast, offshore islands, wetlands, and urban areas. This information is, however, essentially presented in a literary style; in the words of Mark Tredinnick: "This is the kind of geography an essayist writes. This is the kind of essay a literate scientist writes. This is a literary natural history."
-Some students and educators engage in "place-based education" in order to improve their "sense(s) of place," as well as to use various aspects of place as educational tools in general. The term is used in urban and rural studies in relation to place-making and place-attachment of communities to their environment or homeland. The term sense of place is used to describe how someone perceives and experiences a place or environment. Anthropologists Steven Feld and Keith Basso define sense of place as: 'the experiential and expressive ways places are known, imagined, yearned for, held, remembered, voiced, lived, contested and struggled over […]’. Many indigenous cultures are losing their sense of place because of climate change and "ancestral homeland, land rights and retention of sacred places".
+In Australia it is considered a landmark environmental publication. Among its claims to influence is having given modern currency to the term sense of place. Although Seddon did not coin the phrase, it was this book that introduced the phrase into the fields of landscape and environmental design.
 
-== Geographic place ==
-Cultural geographers, anthropologists, sociologists and urban planners study why certain places hold special meaning to particular people or animals. Places said to have a strong "sense of place" have a strong identity that is deeply felt by inhabitants and visitors. Sense of place is a social phenomenon. Codes aimed at protecting, preserving and enhancing places felt to be of value include "World Heritage Site" designations, the British "Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty" controls and the American "National Historic Landmark" designation.
 
-== Placelessness ==
+== References ==
-
-Places that lack a "sense of place" are sometimes referred to as "placeless" or "inauthentic". Edward Relph, a cultural geographer, investigates the "placelessness" of these locations. Anthropologist Marc Augé calls these locations "non-places". In Internet culture, non-places are sometimes called liminal spaces.
-Stepping against the kind of reductive thinking that placelessness can lead to, in his book, The Practice of Everyday Life, Jesuit philosopher Michel de Certeau uses the term "space" (French: espace) to refer to these placeless locations as opposed to "place" (lieu). For de Certeau, "space is merely composed of intersections of mobile elements" that are not in stasis. Place, on the other hand, is space that has been ordered in some way to serve some human need. A park, for instance, is a place that has been constructed "in accord with which elements are distributed in relationships of coexistence" and therefore "implies an indication of stability". de Certeau's ideas became instrumental in understanding the intersections of power and social relations in the construction of place. For de Certeau, placelessness, or "space" was a site for freedom or at least it is the site for what Timotheus Vermeulen sees as "potentially anarchic movement"
-Placeless landscapes are seen as those that have no special relationship to the places in which they are located—they could be anywhere; roadside strip shopping malls, gas/petrol stations and convenience stores, fast food chains, and chain department stores have been cited as examples of placeless landscape elements.  Some historic sites or districts that have been heavily commercialized for tourism and new housing estates are defined as having lost their sense of place. Gertrude Stein's "there is no there there" has been used as a description of such places.
-
-== Development of sense of place ==
-Human geographers, social psychologists and sociologists have studied how a sense of place develops. Their approaches include comparisons between places, learning from elders and observing natural disasters and other events. Environmental psychologists have emphasized the importance of childhood experiences and have quantified links between exposure to natural environments in childhood and environmental preferences later in life. Learning about surrounding environments during childhood is strongly influenced by the direct experience of playing, as well as through the role of family, culture, and community.  The special bond which develops between children and their childhood environments has been called a "primal landscape" by human geographers. This childhood landscape forms part of an individual's identity and constitutes a key point of comparison for considering subsequent places later in life. As people move around as adults, they tend to consider new places in relation to this baseline landscape experienced during childhood. In an unfamiliar environment, a sense of place develops over time and through routine practices, a process that can be undermined by disruptions in routines or abrupt changes in the environment.
-In the context of climate change, sense of place and then the awareness of the changes and disaster related destruction of place is leading to emotional experiences of grief and solastalgia. Research states that these emotional experiences that arise are inherently adaptive and recommends collective processing and reflecting on these in order to increase resilience and a sense of belonging. In post-disaster situations, some programs aim to re-establish a sense of place through a participatory approach.

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensing_Changes-0.md

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+---
+title: "Sensing Changes"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensing_Changes"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:41:33.341192+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Sensing Changes: Technologies, Environments, and the Everyday, 1953–2003 is a 2010 book by Canadian historian Joy Parr. The book examines the "embodied histories" of Canadians who were affected by Canadian megaprojects in the postwar period, assessing how such developments, which significantly altered local environments, affected people's senses of place and identity through their sensory experiences. The book features cases studies such as the damming of the Arrow Lakes in British Columbia, the relocation of the village of Iroquois as part of the Saint Lawrence Seaway project, and the construction of a NATO base in rural New Brunswick. The book also explores the E. coli outbreak that occurred in Walkerton, Ontario in 2000. Beyond just documenting the changes brought about by such developments, which were significant in remaking entire landscapes, Parr argues that these periods of sudden changes for local residents reveal important insights into embodied knowledge, or the ways in which we come to know our surroundings through sensory engagement. The book effectively demonstrates that "[t]he human body... becomes the fundamental archive of historical experience that is researchable through written and oral accounts of lived experience."
+
+
+== Contents ==
+Sensing Changes consists mainly of six case studies and the ways in which they affected local populations, producing disjuncture in their embodied history, or their local knowledge based on sensory experience. Parr notes that at the outset of the project her aim was more simply to chart the broad effects of megaproject development in postwar Canada, but that through her research it became clear that the modernization process enacted through such megaprojects had profound effects on the ways people sense: "the arrival and persistence of the megaprojects remade modes of dwelling and earning a living, the discernment of hazards, and the experience of pleasures at home and at work in time and place.” As such, the book goes on to demonstrate that human senses are serious sites of historical experience, and that they change over time.
+Five of the book's six case studies explicitly feature megaproject development: the construction of CFB Gagetown, which displaced residents of Gagetown, New Brunswick; the development of Ontario's nuclear power industry, focusing on the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station; the Saint Lawrence Seaway Project, focusing on the relocation of the village of Iroquois, Ontario; the damming of the Columbia River and its effect on British Columbia's Arrow Lakes; and the construction of a heavy water production plant near Inverhuron Provincial Park on the shores of Lake Huron. The 6th and final case study features the outbreak of E. coli in Walkerton, Ontario. In each of the cases Parr draws extensively on oral interviews with people who were directly affected by such developments, such as local residents and nuclear plant workers.
+The megaprojects explored in Sensing Changes were justified as being matters of national interest and security, and Parr highlights how therefore "inhabitants found their own needs divergent from the priorities of central planners at a time when economists and engineers, guided by professional commitments to the 'highest best use' of resources, made local needs axiomatically subsidiary to national goals." The book effectively re-asserts the importance of the local experience, and the ways in which humans inhabit and experience local spaces as habitats, even as "provincial, national, and continental politics ultimately relate to, and make demands on, individual human beings and their communities."
+
+
+== Megaprojects New Media ==
+To accompany the book, Parr, along with Jon van der Veen and Jessica van Horssen, also created a multimedia archive that features content related to each of the book's case studies, as well as an additional case study on the town of Asbestos, Quebec. Given that the book focuses on sensory experiences, this component of the project was designed to provide an opportunity to engage with the material in other ways than just textual, including imagery, audio clips, graphic representations, and more. It has been noted that this effort highlights how historians "can and should engage our students in multi-sensory ways and... must move beyond privileging the written word."
+
+
+== Awards and recognition ==
+Sensing Changes won the 2011 Canada Prize from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences for exceptional contribution to Canadian scholarship and the Edelstein Prize from the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) as the best book on the history of technology published in the preceding three years. The book was also short-listed for the Canadian Historical Association's 2015 François-Xavier Garneau Medal, which is awarded every five years to honour outstanding contributions in Canadian historical research. One historian has suggested that Sensing Changes "might be the work of Canadian history that has had the biggest effect outside of Canada since that of Harold Innis."
+
+
+== References ==
+
+
+== External links ==
+Megaprojects New Media

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpent_River_Resurgence-0.md

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+---
+title: "Serpent River Resurgence"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpent_River_Resurgence"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:41:34.482991+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Serpent River Resurgence: Confronting Uranium Mining at Elliot Lake is a 2022 book by Lianne C. Leddy, Associate Professor of History at Wilfrid Laurier University. The book documents the environmental history of uranium mining at Elliot Lake, Ontario, on Serpent River First Nation, including the advocacy of the Serpent River Anishinaabe to raise awareness about mining impacts on the community. Leddy grew up in Elliot Lake and is a member of Serpent River First Nation.
+
+
+== Contents ==
+Serpent River Resurgence characterizes the uranium industry at Elliot Lake as a form of "Cold War colonialism," given the connection between mining in the area and American nuclear weapons production and the impacts of the industry on the Serpent River First Nation. The main impacts that the book focuses on are those on the Serpent River watershed and those of a sulphuric acid production plant located on the Serpent River reserve. In addition to elucidating the impacts of the uranium industry on the local environment, the book documents the efforts of Serpent River residents, including elders, to be heard by government and industry officials. The book highlights how community members were not opposed to economic development, but resisted both the environmental consequences of the uranium industry and the colonial decision-making structures that enabled that development.
+In the book, Leddy draws on extensive archival material, evidence from newspapers, and Indigenous oral history research with Elders from the Serpent River community.
+
+
+== Awards ==
+Serpent River Resurgence won three awards from the Canadian Historical Association in 2023: the CHA Best Scholarly Book in Canadian History Prize as the best book in Canadian history; the Clio Prize for Ontario as the best book in Ontario History; and the Indigenous History Book Prize as the best book in Indigenous history, which was co-won by Annette W. de Stecher for the book Wendat Women’s Arts.
+
+
+== See also ==
+Serpent River First Nation
+Elliot Lake
+Uranium mining in the Elliot Lake area
+
+
+== References ==
+
+
+== External links ==
+Serpent River Resurgence at University of Toronto Press
+Author's webpage at Wilfrid Laurier University

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberia,_Siberia-0.md

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+---
+title: "Siberia, Siberia"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberia,_Siberia"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:41:37.964486+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Siberia, Siberia (Russian: Сибирь, Сибирь...) is a non-fiction book by the Russian writer Valentin Rasputin. It was originally published in Russian in 1991 by Molodaya Gvardiya (Young Guard). The second and third editions appeared in 2000 and 2006; an English translation is available as well.
+Rasputin is a Russian novelist based in Irkutsk in Eastern Siberia, and a master of the genre known as village prose. His fiction centers around the conflict of the traditional Siberian village lifestyle, characterized by its family values, unambiguous morality, and strong connection with one's ancestral culture and natural environment, with the modernizing developments of the post-World War II period. Since the mid-1970s, he has been increasingly involved in writing non-fiction essays and article, protesting against projects he views as environmentally destructive and advocating for the restoration of "Russian national consciousness".
+His Siberia, Siberia is both an excursion into the human history of the region, and a diatribe against the industrial developments and infrastructure projects "of the last three decades" (i.e. roughly 1960–1990) that he views as wrecking  not only the region's natural environments and the rural way of life, but also the very moral fibre of the nation.
+
+
+== Book summary ==
+Besides an introductory overview chapters and the conclusion, the book consists of several chapters which are dedicated to particular regions: Tobolsk, the old capital of Russian Siberia; Lake Baikal; Irkutsk, the city on the Angara which the author has long made his made home; Altai; Kyakhta, the 18–19th century entrepôt for China tea trade; and the isolated Arctic community of Russkoye Ustye with its archaic customs and dialect. Later Russian editions had additional chapters added.
+As usual in Rasputin's writing, his greatest ire is reserved for the masterminds of the river damming  and water export schemes, such as the Siberian river reversal project, which was shelved (not without Rasputin's contribution to its criticism) in 1986.
+
+[W]herever dams are put up and reservoirs swell, a river ceases to be a river and becomes a disfigured beast of burden with the life squeezed out of it. After that, the river contain no fish, no life, no beauty.
+
+
+== Translations into foreign languages ==
+An English translation by Margaret Winchell and Gerald Mikkelson was published by Northwestern University Press in 1996.
+
+
+== Awards ==
+The third Russian edition of the book, which appeared in 2006, earned the 2007 Book of the Year Award of the Moscow Book Fair in the "Literary Russian Language" ("Русский литературный") category.
+
+
+== Criticism ==
+Some Western critics claim that while Rasputin is vocal in defending the Siberia's long-established Russian community against Moscow's central planners and the carpetbaggers brought to the region by the development projects, he disregards the plight of the region's aboriginal people and their intrinsic property rights in the region's natural resources.
+
+
+== References ==

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_Club_Books-0.md

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+---
+title: "Sierra Club Books"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_Club_Books"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:41:39.142863+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Sierra Club Books was the publishing division, for both adults and children, of the Sierra Club, founded in 1960 by then club President David Brower. They were a United States publishing company located in San Francisco, California with a concentration on biological conservation. In 2014 the adult division of the organization was sold to Counterpoint LLC and the children's books division to Gibbs Smith.
+
+
+== History ==
+The Sierra Club started its book program in 1952, when David Brower, an editor with the University of California Press, became the club's executive director. In 1954, they published the first of its climbers’ and hikers’ guides. In 1960, when the Sierra Club Books began, they published the ‘Exhibit Format Book Series’, a collection of nature photography and in 1964 they published their first color volume, Elliot Porter's In Wilderness Is the Preservation of the World.
+Volumes intended for club members had been published prior to 1960. In addition, books under their name had been published before 1960, but done through already established publishers, as was the case with This Is Dinosaur, published by Alfred A. Knopf.
+Their first in-house book, volume 1 in the Exhibit Format series, was This is the American Earth, published in 1960. In 1962, they introduced color photography to the series with the publication of In Wildness Is the Preservation of the World with photographs by Eliot Porter and Island In Time: The Point Reyes Peninsula with photographs by Philip Hyde. The series won the 1964 Carey–Thomas Award for creative publishing, by Publishers Weekly. Fifty thousand copies were sold in the first four years, and by 1964 sales exceeded 10,000,000 United States dollars. The books were successful in introducing the public to wilderness preservation and to the Sierra Club. Paperback reprints of many of the Exhibit Format books were published by Ballantine Books.
+After Brower left the Club in 1969, the club came under the leadership of Jon Beckmann from 1979 (1979) to 1991 (1991).  During Beckmann's tenure the program expanded and diversified considerably, publishing books by established and emerging writers such as Wendell Berry, Robert Bly, Galen Rowell, and David Rains Wallace as well as field guides, fiction, poetry, and books on environmental activism, such as the Sierra Club Battlebooks. Many Sierra Club books were produced by the Yolla Bolly Press run by Jim and Carolyn Robertson in Covelo, California. The program continued for two decades after 1994, first under Peter Beren, the former marketing director, then under Helen Sweetland, the former children's books editor. The press closed in 2015 with the adult division of the organization being sold to Counterpoint LLC and the children's books division to Gibbs Smith.
+The Club continues to publish the Sierra Club Wilderness Calendar and the Sierra Club Engagement Calendar annually, which are perennial bestsellers. They are distributed to the book trade by Publishers Group West.
+
+
+== Partial bibliography ==
+
+
+=== Exhibit Format ===
+(1960) This is the American Earth, Ansel Adams and Nancy Newhall
+(1960) Words of the Earth, photographs by Cedric Wright
+(1960) Time and the River Flowing: Grand Canyon, Philip Hyde and Franćois Leydet
+(1962) These We Inherit: The Parklands of America, Ansel Adams
+(1962) In Wildness Is the Preservation of the World, Henry David Thoreau
+(1963) The Place No One Knew: Glen Canyon on the Colorado, Eliot Porter
+(1963) Ansel Adams: A Biography, Volume 1: The Eloquent Light, Nancy Newhall
+(1964) The Last Redwoods: Photographs and Story of a Vanishing Scenic Resource, Philip Hyde and Franćois Leydet
+(1964) Gentle Wilderness: The Sierra Nevada, John Muir and Richard Kauffman
+(1965) Not Man Apart: Photographs of the Big Sur Coast, Robinson Jeffers
+(1965) The Wild Cascades: Forgotten Parkland, Harvey Manning
+(1965) Everest: The West Ridge, Thomas F. Hornbein
+(1966) Summer Island: Penobscot Country, Eliot Porter
+(1966) Glacier Bay: The Land and the Silence, Dave Bohn
+(1969) Navajo Wildlands: As Long as The Rivers Shall Run, Stephen Jett
+(1969) Kauai and the Park Country of Hawaii, Robert Wenkam
+(1967) Baja California and the Geography of Hope, Joseph Wood Krutch
+(1968) Central Park Country: A Tune Within Us, Mireille Johnston
+(1968) Galápagos: The Flow of Wildness - Vol. 1: Discovery, Eliot Porter
+(1968) Galápagos: The Flow of Wildness - Vol. 2: Prospect, Eliot Porter
+
+
+=== Battlebooks ===
+(1971) Oil on Ice: Alaskan Wilderness at the Crossroads, Tom Brown
+(1971) Mercury: How Much Are We Eating?, Katherine and Peter Montague
+
+
+=== Yolla Bolly Press ===
+(1984) The Wilder Shore, David Rains Wallace
+(1989) The Yosemite, John Muir
+
+
+=== Material World ===
+(1994) Material World: A Global Family Portrait, Charles C. Mann
+(1996) Women in the Material World, Faith D'Aluisio
+
+
+=== Other ===
+(1962) Island in Time: The Point Reyes Peninsula, Philip Hyde (photographer)
+(1967) On the Loose, Terry and Renny Russell
+(1968) The Population Bomb, Paul R. Ehrlich
+(1973) On the Shore of the Sundown Sea, T.H. Watkins
+(1974) Starr's Guide to the John Muir Trail and the High Sierra Region, Walter A. Starr, Jr.
+(1977) The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture, Wendell Berry
+(1977) Nature's Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas, Donald Worster
+(1978) The Dark Range: A Naturalist's Night Notebook, David Rains Wallace
+(1979) Fifty Classic Climbs of North America, Steve Roper and Allen Steck
+(1980) Annapurna: A Woman's Place, Arlene Blum
+(1983) The Klamath Knot: Explorations in Myth and Evolution, David Rains Wallace
+(1983) The River Why, David James Duncan
+(1986) In a Grain of Sand: Exploring Design by Nature, Andreas Feininger
+(1990) Wild by Law: The Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund and the Places It Has Saved, Tom Turner
+(1990) California's Wild Heritage: Threatened and Endangered Animals in the Golden State, Peter Steinhart
+(1991) In the Absence of the Sacred: The Failure of Technology and the Survival of the Indian Nations, Jerry Mander
+(1992) Mother Earth: Through the Eyes of Women Photographers and Writers, Judith Boice, editor
+(1995) Ecopsychology: Restoring the Earth, Healing the Mind, Theodore Roszak, Allen D. Kanner and Mary E. Gomes
+(1997) The Monkey's Bridge: Mysteries of Evolution in Central America, David Rains Wallace
+(1997) Bay Area Wild: A Celebration of the Natural Heritage of the San Francisco Bay Area, Galen Rowell and  Michael Sewell
+(2001) The Winemaker's Marsh: Four Seasons in a Restored Wetland, Kenneth Brower
+(2006) Galen Rowell: A Retrospective, Andy Grundberg
+(2009) Gloryland: A Novel, Shelton Johnson
+
+
+== References ==

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silence_of_the_Songbirds-0.md

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+---
+title: "Silence of the Songbirds"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silence_of_the_Songbirds"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:41:40.314794+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Silence of the Songbirds (ISBN 978-0-8027-1609-5) is a book by bird lover and scientist Bridget Stutchbury about the rapid decline and loss of many species of songbirds. Some major threats covered include pesticides, sun-grown coffee, city lights, cowbirds, and global warming. The book was published by HarperCollins in 2007 and has 243 pages.
+Kirkus Reviews published a review of the book on June 1, 2007, and compared it to Silent Spring by Rachel Carson.  Stutchbury describes the link between Latin American deforestation and the loss of food for migratory birds, and the impact of large amounts of pesticides. However, deforestation is minimal for shade-grown coffee. She mentions additional threats to songbirds: light pollution, tall buildings, and wind farms.  Despite the diminishing populations of songbirds in recent decades, she provides advice for their survival.
+
+
+== Media ==
+
+
+=== Canadian Broadcasting Corporation ===
+CBC Radio, Quirks and Quarks, April 14, 2007 (fourth topic) (archived by the Wayback Machine)
+CBC.ca - Words at Large - Author Exclusives - Excerpt: Silence of the Songbirds, by Bridget Stutchbury
+
+
+=== Print media ===
+Tweet, tweet, you're dead, The Globe and Mail newspaper (archived by the Wayback Machine)
+
+
+== References ==
+
+
+== External links ==
+The Silence of the Songbirds - Bridget Stutchbury (archived by the Wayback Machine)
+SILENCE OF THE SONGBIRDS by Bridget Stutchbury | Kirkus

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Spring-0.md

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+---
+title: "Silent Spring"
+chunk: 1/6
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Spring"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:41:41.474877+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Silent Spring is an environmental science book by Rachel Carson. Published on September 27, 1962, the book documented the environmental harm caused by the indiscriminate use of DDT, a pesticide used by soldiers during World War II. Carson accused the chemical industry of spreading disinformation, and public officials of accepting the industry's marketing claims unquestioningly.
+In the late 1950s, Carson began to work on environmental conservation, especially environmental problems that she believed (and would later learn) were caused by synthetic pesticides. The result of her research was Silent Spring, which brought environmental concerns to the American public. The book was met with fierce opposition by chemical companies, but it swayed public opinion and led to a reversal in US pesticide policy, a nationwide ban on DDT for agricultural uses, and an environmental movement that led to the creation of the US Environmental Protection Agency.
+In 2006, Silent Spring was named one of the 25 greatest science books of all time by the editors of Discover magazine.
+
+== Research and writing ==
+
+In the mid-1940s, Carson became concerned about the use of synthetic pesticides, many of which had been developed through the military funding of science after World War II. The United States Department of Agriculture's 1957 fire ant eradication program, which involved aerial spraying of DDT and other pesticides mixed with fuel oil and included the spraying of private land, prompted Carson to devote her research, and her next book, to pesticides and environmental poisons. Landowners in Long Island filed a suit to have the spraying stopped, and many in affected regions followed the case closely. Though the suit was lost, the Supreme Court granted petitioners the right to gain injunctions against potential environmental damage in the future, laying the basis for later environmental actions.
+The impetus for Silent Spring was a letter written in January 1958 by Carson's friend, Olga Owens Huckins, to The Boston Herald, describing the death of birds around her property in Duxbury, Massachusetts, resulting from the aerial spraying of DDT to kill mosquitoes, a copy of which Huckins sent to Carson. Carson later wrote that this letter prompted her to study the environmental problems caused by the overuse of chemical pesticides.
+The Audubon Naturalist Society actively opposed chemical spraying programs and recruited Carson to help publicize the US government's spraying practices and related research. Carson began the four-year project of Silent Spring by gathering examples of environmental damage attributed to DDT. She tried to enlist essayist E. B. White and a number of journalists and scientists to her cause. By 1958, Carson had arranged a book deal, with plans to co-write with Newsweek science journalist Edwin Diamond. However, when The New Yorker commissioned a long and well-paid article on the topic from Carson, she began considering writing more than the introduction and conclusion as planned; soon it became a solo project. Diamond would later write one of the harshest critiques of Silent Spring.
+As her research progressed, Carson found a sizable community of scientists who were documenting the physiological and environmental effects of pesticides. She took advantage of her personal connections with many government scientists, who supplied her with confidential information on the subject. From reading the scientific literature and interviewing scientists, Carson found two scientific camps: those who dismissed the possible danger of pesticide spraying barring conclusive proof, and those who were open to the possibility of harm and willing to consider alternative methods, such as biological pest control.

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Spring-1.md

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+---
+title: "Silent Spring"
+chunk: 2/6
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Spring"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:41:41.474877+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+By 1959, the USDA's Agricultural Research Service responded to the criticism by Carson and others with a public service film, Fire Ants on Trial; Carson called it "flagrant propaganda" that ignored the dangers that spraying pesticides posed to humans and wildlife. That spring, Carson wrote a letter, published in The Washington Post, that attributed the recent decline in bird populations—in her words, the "silencing of birds"—to pesticide overuse. The same year, the 1957, 1958, and 1959 crops of US cranberries were found to contain high levels of the herbicide aminotriazole and the sale of all cranberry products was halted. Carson attended the ensuing FDA hearings on revising pesticide regulations; she was discouraged by the aggressive tactics of the chemical industry representatives, which included expert testimony that was firmly contradicted by the bulk of the scientific literature she had been studying. She also wondered about the possible "financial inducements behind certain pesticide programs".
+Research at the National Library of Medicine of the National Institutes of Health brought Carson into contact with medical researchers investigating the gamut of cancer-causing chemicals. Of particular significance was the work of National Cancer Institute researcher and founding director of the environmental cancer section Wilhelm Hueper, who classified many pesticides as carcinogens. Carson and her research assistant Jeanne Davis, with the help of NIH librarian Dorothy Algire, found evidence to support the pesticide-cancer connection; to Carson the evidence for the toxicity of a wide array of synthetic pesticides was clear-cut, though such conclusions were very controversial beyond the small community of scientists studying pesticide carcinogenesis.
+By 1960, Carson had sufficient research material and the writing was progressing rapidly. She had investigated hundreds of individual incidents of pesticide exposure and the resulting human sickness and ecological damage. In January 1960, she suffered an illness which kept her bedridden for weeks, delaying the book. As she was nearing full recovery in March, she discovered cysts in her left breast, requiring a mastectomy. By December that year, Carson discovered that she had breast cancer, which had metastasized. Her research was also delayed by revision work for a new edition of The Sea Around Us, and by a collaborative photo essay with Erich Hartmann. Most of the research and writing was done by the fall of 1960, except for a discussion of recent research on biological controls and investigations of some new pesticides. However, further health troubles delayed the final revisions in 1961 and early 1962.
+The work's title was inspired by a poem by John Keats, "La Belle Dame sans Merci", which contained the lines "The sedge is wither'd from the lake, And no birds sing." "Silent Spring" was initially suggested as a title for the chapter on birds. By August 1961, Carson agreed to the suggestion of her literary agent Marie Rodell: Silent Spring would be a metaphorical title for the entire book—suggesting a bleak future for the whole natural world—rather than a literal chapter title about the absence of birdsong. With Carson's approval, editor Paul Brooks at Houghton Mifflin arranged for illustrations by Louis and Lois Darling, who also designed the cover. The final writing was the first chapter, "A Fable for Tomorrow", which was intended to provide the fact that something like the story in the book could happen any time in the near future. By mid-1962, Brooks and Carson had largely finished the editing and were planning to promote the book by sending the manuscript to select individuals for final suggestions. In Silent Spring, Carson relied on evidence from two New York state organic farmers, Marjorie Spock and Mary Richards, and that of biodynamic farming advocate Ehrenfried Pfeiffer in developing her case against DDT.
+
+== Content ==
+The overarching theme of Silent Spring is the powerful—and often negative—effect humans have on the natural world. Carson's main argument is that pesticides have detrimental effects on the environment; she says these are more properly termed "biocides" because their effects are rarely limited to solely targeting pests. DDT is a prime example, but other synthetic pesticides—many of which are subject to bioaccumulation—are scrutinized. Carson accuses the chemical industry of intentionally spreading disinformation and public officials of accepting industry claims uncritically. Most of the book is devoted to pesticides' effects on natural ecosystems, but four chapters detail cases of human pesticide poisoning, cancer, and other illnesses attributed to pesticides. About DDT and cancer, Carson says only:
+
+In laboratory tests on animal subjects, DDT has produced suspicious liver tumors. Scientists of the Food and Drug Administration who reported the discovery of these tumors were uncertain how to classify them, but felt there was some "justification for considering them low grade hepatic cell carcinomas". Dr. Hueper [author of Occupational Tumors and Allied Diseases] now gives DDT the definite rating of a "chemical carcinogen".
+Carson predicts increased consequences in the future, especially since targeted pests may develop resistance to pesticides and weakened ecosystems fall prey to unanticipated invasive species. The book closes with a call for a biotic approach to pest control as an alternative to chemical pesticides.
+Carson never called for an outright ban on DDT. She said in Silent Spring that even if DDT and other insecticides had no environmental side effects, their indiscriminate overuse was counterproductive because it would create insect resistance to pesticides, making them useless in eliminating the target insect populations:

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Spring-2.md

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+---
+title: "Silent Spring"
+chunk: 3/6
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Spring"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:41:41.474877+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+No responsible person contends that insect-borne disease should be ignored. The question that has now urgently presented itself is whether it is either wise or responsible to attack the problem by methods that are rapidly making it worse. The world has heard much of the triumphant war against disease through the control of insect vectors of infection, but it has heard little of the other side of the story—the defeats, the short-lived triumphs that now strongly support the alarming view that the insect enemy has been made actually stronger by our efforts. Even worse, we may have destroyed our very means of fighting.
+Carson also said that "Malaria programmes are threatened by resistance among mosquitoes", and quoted the advice given by the director of Holland's Plant Protection Service: "Practical advice should be 'Spray as little as you possibly can' rather than 'Spray to the limit of your capacity'. Pressure on the pest population should always be as slight as possible."
+
+=== Politics ===
+At the time the book was written, environmental issues were excluded from mainstream political conversation in America. However, Carson believed that governments should consider what environmental impact a policy may have before implementing it; for example, in chapter 10 she describes a pesticide program from 1957 that was intended to control the spread of fire ants:With the development of chemicals of broad lethal powers, there came a sudden change in the official attitude towards the fire ant. In 1957 the United States Department of Agriculture launched one of the most remarkable publicity campaigns in its history. The fire ant suddenly became the target of a barrage of government releases, motion pictures, and government-inspired stories portraying it as a despoiler of southern agriculture and a killer of birds, livestock, and man. A mighty campaign was announced, in which the federal government in cooperation with the afflicted states would ultimately treat some 20,000,000 acres in nine southern states.Despite calls from experts to consider the damage using the pesticides could bring to the environment, the Agriculture Department dismissed the objections and continued on with the program:Urgent protests were made by most of the state conservation departments, by national conservation agencies, and by ecologists and even by some entomologists, calling upon the then Secretary of Agriculture, Ezra Benson, to delay the program at least until some research had been done to determine the effects of heptachlor and dieldrin on wild and domestic animals and to find the minimum amount that would control the ants. The protests were ignored and the program was launched in 1958. A million acres were treated the first year. It was clear that any research would be in the nature of a post mortem.After the program, an increased number of birds, cattle, horses and other wildlife were found dead in the areas where the pesticides had been sprayed. To make matters worse, the heptachlor and dieldrin sprayed accomplished nothing, instead creating more infested areas. Had the government researched the impact the chemicals could have on wildlife they could have prevented the deaths and environmental damage and saved the taxpayer's money. Overall, Silent Spring not only uncovered the many negative effects pesticides have on the environment but also asked for environmental issues to be discussed and treated seriously within the political sphere.

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Spring-3.md

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+---
+title: "Silent Spring"
+chunk: 4/6
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Spring"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:41:41.474877+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+== Promotion and reception ==
+Carson and the others involved with publication of Silent Spring expected fierce criticism and were concerned about the possibility of being sued for libel. Carson was undergoing radiation therapy for her cancer and expected to have little energy to defend her work and respond to critics. In preparation for the anticipated attacks, Carson and her agent attempted to amass prominent supporters before the book's release.
+Most of the book's scientific chapters were reviewed by scientists with relevant expertise, among whom Carson found strong support. Carson attended the White House Conference on Conservation in May 1962; Houghton Mifflin distributed proof copies of Silent Spring to many of the delegates and promoted the upcoming serialization in The New Yorker. Carson also sent a proof copy to Supreme Court Associate Justice William O. Douglas, a long-time environmental advocate who had argued against the court's rejection of the Long Island pesticide spraying case and had provided Carson with some of the material included in her chapter on herbicides.
+Though Silent Spring had generated a fairly high level of interest based on pre-publication promotion, this became more intense with its serialization, which began in the June 16, 1962, issue. This brought the book to the attention of the chemical industry and its lobbyists, as well as the American public. Around that time, Carson learned that Silent Spring had been selected as the Book of the Month for October; she said this would "carry it to farms and hamlets all over that country that don't know what a bookstore looks like—much less The New Yorker". Other publicity included a positive editorial in The New York Times and excerpts of the serialized version were published in Audubon Magazine. There was another round of publicity in July and August as chemical companies responded. The story of the birth defect-causing drug thalidomide had broken just before the book's publication, inviting comparisons between Carson and Frances Oldham Kelsey, the Food and Drug Administration reviewer who had blocked the drug's sale in the United States.
+In the weeks before the September 27, 1962, publication, there was strong opposition to Silent Spring from the chemical industry. DuPont, a major manufacturer of DDT and 2,4-D, and Velsicol Chemical Company, the only manufacturer of chlordane and heptachlor, were among the first to respond. DuPont compiled an extensive report on the book's press coverage and estimated impact on public opinion. Velsicol threatened legal action against Houghton Mifflin, and The New Yorker and Audubon Magazine unless their planned Silent Spring features were canceled. Chemical industry representatives and lobbyists lodged a range of non-specific complaints, some anonymously. Chemical companies and associated organizations produced brochures and articles promoting and defending pesticide use. However, Carson's and the publishers' lawyers were confident in the vetting process Silent Spring had undergone. The magazine and book publications proceeded as planned, as did the large Book-of-the-Month printing, which included a pamphlet by William O. Douglas endorsing the book.
+American Cyanamid biochemist Robert White-Stevens and former Cyanamid chemist Thomas Jukes were among the most aggressive critics, especially of Carson's analysis of DDT. According to White-Stevens, "If man were to follow the teachings of Miss Carson, we would return to the Dark Ages, and the insects and diseases and vermin would once again inherit the earth". Others attacked Carson's personal character and scientific credentials, her training being in marine biology rather than biochemistry. White-Stevens called her "a fanatic defender of the cult of the balance of nature". According to historian Linda Lear the former US Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson, asked in a letter to former President Dwight D. Eisenhower, "Why a spinster with no children was so concerned about genetics?" Benson's conclusion was Carson was "probably a Communist".
+Monsanto published 5,000 copies of a parody called "The Desolate Year" (1962) which projected a world of famine and disease caused by banning pesticides.
+Many critics repeatedly said Carson was calling for the elimination of all pesticides, but she had made it clear she was not advocating this but was instead encouraging responsible and carefully managed use with an awareness of the chemicals' impact on ecosystems. She concludes her section on DDT in Silent Spring with advice for spraying as little as possible to limit the development of resistance. Mark Hamilton Lytle writes, Carson "quite self-consciously decided to write a book calling into question the paradigm of scientific progress that defined postwar American culture".
+The academic community—including prominent defenders such as H. J. Muller, Loren Eiseley, Clarence Cottam and Frank Egler—mostly backed the book's scientific claims and public opinion backed Carson's text. The chemical industry campaign was counterproductive because the controversy increased public awareness of the potential dangers of pesticides, an early example of the Streisand Effect. Pesticide use became a major public issue after a CBS Reports television special, The Silent Spring of Rachel Carson, which was broadcast on April 3, 1963. The program included segments of Carson reading from Silent Spring and interviews with other experts, mostly critics including White-Stevens. According to biographer Linda Lear, "in juxtaposition to the wild-eyed, loud-voiced Dr. Robert White-Stevens in white lab coat, Carson appeared anything but the hysterical alarmist that her critics contended". Reactions from the estimated audience of ten to fifteen million were overwhelmingly positive and the program spurred a congressional review of pesticide hazards and the public release of a pesticide report by the President's Science Advisory Committee. Within a year of publication, attacks on the book and on Carson had lost momentum.
+In one of her last public appearances, Carson testified before President John F. Kennedy's Science Advisory Committee, which issued its report on May 15, 1963, largely backing Carson's scientific claims. Following the report's release, Carson also testified before a US Senate subcommittee to make policy recommendations. Though Carson received hundreds of other speaking invitations, she was unable to accept most of them because her health was steadily declining, with only brief periods of remission. She spoke as much as she could, and appeared on The Today Show and gave speeches at several dinners held in her honor. In late 1963, she received a flurry of awards and honors: the Audubon Medal from the National Audubon Society, the Cullum Geographical Medal from the American Geographical Society, and induction into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
+Of Carson, Maria Popova wrote, "Her lyrical writing rendered her not a mere translator of the natural world, but an alchemist transmuting the steel of science into the gold of wonder."

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Spring-4.md

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+---
+title: "Silent Spring"
+chunk: 5/6
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Spring"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:41:41.474877+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+== Translations ==
+The book was translated into many languages including German, French, Dutch, Japanese, Russian and Italian.
+
+German: Der stumme Frühling, first edition 1963.
+French: Printemps silencieux, first edition 1963.
+Dutch: Dode lente, first edition 1964 or 1962
+Japanese: 生と死の妙薬, first edition 1964. Successive prints post-2001 titled 沈黙の春
+Russian: Безмолвная весна, first edition 1965.
+Swedish: Tyst vår, first edition 1963.
+Chinese: 寂静的春天, first edition 1979.
+Italian: Primavera silenziosa.
+Spanish: Primavera silenciosa.
+Danish: Det Tavse Forår.
+Finnish: Äänetön kevät, first edition 1962, after parts of the book were published in an 8-part article series by the largest subscription newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat (Helsinki times/news), earlier that year.
+
+== Impact ==
+
+=== Grassroots environmentalism and the EPA ===
+Carson's work had a powerful impact on the environmental movement. Silent Spring became a rallying point for the new social movement in the 1960s. According to environmental engineer and Carson scholar H. Patricia Hynes, "Silent Spring altered the balance of power in the world. No one since would be able to sell pollution as the necessary underside of progress so easily or uncritically." Carson's work and the activism it inspired are partly responsible for the deep ecology movement and the strength of the grassroots environmental movement since the 1960s. It was also influential to the rise of ecofeminism and to many feminist scientists. Carson's most direct legacy in the environmental movement was the campaign to ban the use of DDT in the United States, and related efforts to ban or limit its use throughout the world. The 1967 formation of the Environmental Defense Fund was the first major milestone in the campaign against DDT. The organization brought lawsuits against the government to "establish a citizen's right to a clean environment", and the arguments against DDT largely mirrored Carson's. By 1972, the Environmental Defense Fund and other activist groups had succeeded in securing a phase-out of DDT use in the United States, except in emergency cases.
+The creation of the Environmental Protection Agency by the Nixon Administration in 1970 addressed another concern that Carson had written about. Until then, the USDA was responsible both for regulating pesticides and promoting the concerns of the agriculture industry; Carson saw this as a conflict of interest, since the agency was not responsible for effects on wildlife or other environmental concerns beyond farm policy. Fifteen years after its creation, one journalist described the EPA as "the extended shadow of Silent Spring". Much of the agency's early work, such as enforcement of the 1972 Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, was directly related to Carson's work. Contrary to the position of the pesticide industry, the DDT phase-out action taken by the EPA (led by William Ruckelshaus) implied that there was no way to adequately regulate DDT use. Ruckelshaus' conclusion was that DDT could not be used safely. History professor Gary Kroll wrote, "Rachel Carson's Silent Spring played a large role in articulating ecology as a 'subversive subject'—as a perspective that cuts against the grain of materialism, scientism, and the technologically engineered control of nature."
+In a 2013 interview, Ruckelshaus briefly recounted his decision to ban DDT except for emergency uses, noting that Carson's book featured DDT and for that reason the issue drew considerable public attention.
+Former Vice President of the United States and environmentalist Al Gore wrote an introduction to the 1992 edition of Silent Spring. He wrote: "Silent Spring had a profound impact ... Indeed, Rachel Carson was one of the reasons that I became so conscious of the environment and so involved with environmental issues  ...  [she] has had as much or more effect on me than any, and perhaps than all of them together."

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Spring-5.md

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+---
+title: "Silent Spring"
+chunk: 6/6
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Spring"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:41:41.474877+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+=== Debate over environmentalism and DDT restrictions ===
+Carson has been targeted by some organizations opposed to the environmental movement, including Roger Bate of the pro-DDT advocacy group Africa Fighting Malaria and the libertarian think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI); these sources oppose restrictions on DDT, attribute large numbers of deaths to such restrictions, and argue that Carson was responsible for them. These arguments have been dismissed as "outrageous" by former World Health Organization scientist Socrates Litsios. May Berenbaum, University of Illinois entomologist, says, "to blame environmentalists who oppose DDT for more deaths than Hitler is worse than irresponsible". Investigative journalist Adam Sarvana and others characterize this notion as a "myth" promoted principally by Bate.
+In the 1990s and 2000s, campaigns against the book intensified, in part due to efforts by the tobacco industry to cast larger doubt on science-driven policy as a way of contesting bans on smoking. In 2009, the heavily corporate-funded CEI set up a website falsely blaming Carson for deaths to malaria. This triggered a point-by-point rebuttal by biographer William Souder, who reviewed the distortions used by campaigners against Silent Spring.
+A 2012 review article in Nature by Rob Dunn commemorating the 50th anniversary of Silent Spring and summarizing the progressive environmental-policy changes made since then, prompted a response in a letter written by Anthony Trewavas and co-signed by 10 others, including Christopher Leaver, Bruce Ames and Peter Lachmann, who quote estimates of 60 to 80 million deaths "as a result of misguided fears based on poorly understood evidence".
+Biographer Hamilton Lytle believes these estimates are unrealistic, even if Carson can be "blamed" for worldwide DDT policies. John Quiggin and Tim Lambert wrote, "the most striking feature of the claim against Carson is the ease with which it can be refuted". DDT was never banned for anti-malarial use, and its ban for agricultural use in the United States in 1972 did not apply outside the US nor to anti-malaria spraying. The international treaty that banned most uses of DDT and other organochlorine pesticides—the 2001 Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (which became effective in 2004)—included an exemption for the use of DDT for malaria control until affordable substitutes could be found. Mass outdoor spraying of DDT was abandoned in poor countries subject to malaria, such as Sri Lanka, in the 1970s and 1980s; this was not because of government prohibitions but because the DDT had lost its ability to kill the mosquitoes. Because of insects' very short breeding cycle and large number of offspring, the most resistant insects survive and pass on their genetic traits to their offspring, which replace the pesticide-slain insects relatively rapidly. Agricultural spraying of pesticides produces pesticide resistance in seven to ten years.
+Some experts have said that restrictions placed on the agricultural use of DDT have increased its effectiveness for malaria control. According to pro-DDT advocate Amir Attaran, the result of the (activated in 2004) Stockholm Convention banning DDT's use in agriculture "is arguably better than the status quo ... For the first time, there is now an insecticide which is restricted to vector control only, meaning that the selection of resistant mosquitoes will be slower than before."
+
+=== Legacy ===
+Silent Spring has been featured in many lists of the best nonfiction books of the twentieth century. It was fifth in the Modern Library List of Best 20th-Century Nonfiction and number 78 in the National Review's 100 best non-fiction books of the 20th century. In 2006, Silent Spring was named one of the 25 greatest science books of all time by the editors of Discover Magazine. In 2012, the American Chemical Society designated the legacy of Silent Spring a National Historic Chemical Landmark at Chatham University in Pittsburgh.
+In 1996, a follow-up book, Beyond Silent Spring, co-written by H. F. van Emden and David Peakall, was published.
+In 1967, George Newson composed the tape composition Silent Spring using birdsong recorded at London Zoo as source material. It was premiered at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in January 1968.
+Silent Spring is mentioned in the 2008 science fiction novel The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin, as well as its Tencent 2023 and Netflix 2024 television series adaptations.
+In 2011, the American composer Steven Stucky wrote the eponymously titled symphonic poem Silent Spring to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the book's publication. The piece was given its world premiere in Pittsburgh on February 17, 2012, with the conductor Manfred Honeck leading the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.
+Naturalist David Attenborough has stated that Silent Spring was probably the book that had changed the scientific world the most, after the On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin.
+
+== See also ==
+
+== References ==
+
+== Sources and further reading ==
+
+== External links ==
+Silent Spring at Faded Page (Canada)
+The New York Times July 22, 1962 report of chemical industry's campaign against the 16 Archived July 3, 2014, at the Wayback Machine, 23 Archived May 27, 2014, at the Wayback Machine, 30 Archived May 27, 2014, at the Wayback Machine June 1962 serial in The New Yorker
+New York Times book review September 23, 1962
+Graham, Frank Jr.; Since Silent Spring: rebuttal to the attack by chemical-agribusiness companies Archived April 17, 2014, at the Wayback Machine; Audubon Magazine
+Doyle, Jack “Power in the Pen”: Silent Spring: 1962 (Publishing, Politics, Ecology) pophistorydig.com
+Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC): The Story of Silent Spring – NRDC
+Photos of the first edition of Silent Spring
+Silent Spring, A Visual History curated by the Michigan State University Museum
+Rachel Carson's Silent Spring Turns 50 – Elizabeth Grossman – The Atlantic
+Griswold, Eliza; How Silent Spring Ignited the Environmental Movement The New York Times September 21, 2012
+The Rachel Carson Council

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Is_Beautiful-0.md

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+---
+title: "Small Is Beautiful"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Is_Beautiful"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:41:45.150015+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered is a collection of essays published in 1973 by German-born British economist E. F. Schumacher. The title "Small Is Beautiful" came from a principle espoused by Schumacher's teacher Leopold Kohr (1909–1994) advancing small, appropriate technologies, policies, and polities as a superior alternative to the mainstream ethos of "bigger is better".
+Overlapping environmental, social, and economic forces such as the 1973 energy crisis and popularisation of the concept of globalisation helped bring Schumacher's Small Is Beautiful critiques of mainstream economics to a wider audience during the 1970s. In 1995 The Times Literary Supplement ranked Small Is Beautiful among the 100 most influential books published since World War II. A further edition with commentaries was published in 1999.
+Honoring the 50th anniversary of Small is Beautiful in 2023, the Schumacher Center for a New Economics commissioned an updated study guide from British author and Journalist David Boyle.
+
+
+== Synopsis ==
+Small Is Beautiful is divided into four parts: "The Modern World", "Resources", "The Third World", and "Organization and Ownership".
+
+Part I – summarizes the economic world of the early 1970s from Schumacher's perspective. In the first chapter, "The Problem of Production", Schumacher argues that the modern economy is unsustainable. Natural resources (like fossil fuels), are treated as expendable income, when in fact they should be treated as capital, since they are not renewable, and thus subject to eventual depletion. He further argues that nature's resistance to pollution is limited as well. He concludes that government effort must be concentrated on sustainable development, because relatively minor improvements, for example, technology transfer to Third World countries, will not solve the underlying problem of an unsustainable economy. Schumacher's philosophy is one of "enoughness", appreciating both human needs and limitations, and appropriate use of technology. It grew out of his study of village-based economics, which he later termed Buddhist economics, which is the subject of the book's fourth chapter.
+Part II – casts Education as the greatest resource, and discusses Land, Industry, Nuclear Energy and the human impact of Technology.
+Part III – discusses the gap between the center of the World System and the developing world as it existed then, with a focus on village culture and unemployment in India.
+Part IV – presents a sketch of a Theory of Large Scale Organization, takes issue with platitudes about capitalism as a social order and discusses alternatives. Chapter 3 of this part concludes with advice to socialists:
+"Socialists should insist on using the nationalised industries not simply to out-capitalise the capitalists – an attempt in which they may or may not succeed – but to evolve a more democratic and dignified system of industrial administration, a more humane employment of machinery, and a more intelligent utilization of the fruits of human ingenuity and effort. If they can do this, they have the future in their hands. If they cannot, they have nothing to offer that is worthy of the sweat of free-born men." (Part IV, Chapter 3 'Socialism')
+
+
+== See also ==
+
+
+== References ==
+
+
+== External links ==
+Full Text of Small is Beautiful at ditext.com
+The Schumacher Institute for Sustainable Systems home page

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Is_Profitable-0.md

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+---
+title: "Small Is Profitable"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Is_Profitable"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:41:46.277096+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Small Is Profitable: The Hidden Economic Benefits of Making Electrical Resources the Right Size is a 2002 book by energy analyst Amory Lovins and others.  The book describes 207 ways in which the size of "electrical resources"—devices that make, save, or store electricity—affects their economic value. It finds that properly accounting for the economic benefits of "distributed" (decentralized) electrical resources typically raises their value by a large factor, perhaps tenfold, through improved system planning, utility construction and operation (especially off the grid), and service quality, and by avoiding social costs.  This should change how distributed resources are marketed and used, and make policy and business opportunities explicit.
+Small Is Profitable was named 'Book of the Year' by The Economist magazine.
+
+
+== See also ==
+Brittle Power
+Soft energy technology
+List of books by Amory Lovins
+Small business
+V2G
+
+
+== References ==

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_the_World_(book_series)-0.md

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+---
+title: "State of the World (book series)"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_the_World_(book_series)"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:41:47.478711+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+The State of the World (SoW) was a series of books published annually from 1984 to 2017 by the U.S. based Worldwatch Institute, a thinktank that was founded in the 1970s by renowned environmentalist Lester R. Brown and ceased operations in 2017. The series attempted to identify the planet's most significant environmental challenges.
+The 2010 edition discussed different ways of changing current cultures such that it felt as natural to live sustainably as living as a consumer felt at the time. The 2011 edition looked at the global food crisis and surrounding environmental and social problems, with a particular emphasis on global innovations that could help solve that worldwide problem.  The 2012 edition showcased innovative projects, creative policies, and fresh approaches that were advancing sustainable development in the twenty-first century. The 2013 edition defined the term sustainability, and assessed attempts to cultivate it.
+
+
+== Editions ==
+State of the World 1984 ISBN 0-393-30176-1
+State of the World 1985 ISBN 0-393-30218-0
+State of the World 1986 ISBN 0-393-30255-5
+State of the World 1987 ISBN 0-393-30389-6
+State of the World 1988 ISBN 0-393-30440-X
+State of the World 1989 ISBN 0-393-30567-8
+State of the World 1990 ISBN 0-393-30614-3
+State of the World 1991 ISBN 0-393-30733-6
+State of the World 1992 ISBN 0-393-30834-0
+State of the World 1993 ISBN 0-393-30963-0
+State of the World 1994 ISBN 0-393-31117-1
+State of the World 1995 ISBN 0-393-31261-5
+State of the World 1996 ISBN 0-393-31339-5
+State of the World 1997 ISBN 0-393-31569-X
+State of the World 1998 ISBN 0-393-31727-7
+State of the World 1999 ISBN 0-393-31815-X
+State of the World 2000 ISBN 0-393-31998-9
+State of the World 2001 ISBN 0-393-04866-7
+State of the World 2002 ISBN 0-393-32279-3
+State of the World 2003 ISBN 0-393-05173-0
+State of the World 2004: Special Focus: The Consumer Society ISBN 0-393-32539-3
+State of the World 2005: Redefining Global Security ISBN 0-393-32666-7
+State of the World 2006: Special Focus: China and India ISBN 0-393-32666-7
+State of the World 2007: Our Urban Future ISBN 978-0-393-32923-0
+State of the World 2008: Innovations for a Sustainable Economy ISBN 978-0-393-33031-1
+State of the World 2009: Into a Warming World ISBN 978-0-393-33418-0
+State of the World 2010: Transforming Cultures: From Consumerism to Sustainability ISBN 978-0-393-33726-6
+State of the World 2011: Innovations that Nourish the Planet ISBN 978-0-393-33880-5
+State of the World 2012: Moving Toward Sustainable Prosperity  ISBN 978-1-61091-037-8
+The Path to Degrowth in Overdeveloped Countries, ch. 2.
+State of the World 2013: Is Sustainability Still Possible? ISBN 978-1-61091-449-9
+State of the World 2014: Governing for Sustainability ISBN 1610915410
+State of the World 2015: Confronting Hidden Threats to Sustainability ISBN 978-1-61091-610-3
+State of the World 2016: Can a City Be Sustainable? ISBN 9781610917551
+State of the World 2017: Earth ED: Rethinking Education on a Changing Planet ISBN 9781610918428
+
+
+== References ==
+
+
+== External links ==
+[1] archived link at the Worldwatch Institute, last present 2019.

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States_of_Nature-0.md

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+---
+title: "States of Nature"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States_of_Nature"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:41:48.636425+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+States of Nature: Conserving Canada's Wildlife in the Twentieth Century is a 2006 book by Canadian historian Tina Loo. The book analyzes the history of nature conservation in Canada throughout the 20th century, paying particular attention to the contributions of and interactions between both state and private actors, effectively tracing "shifting and conflicting attitudes toward the natural world" and the "roles of the state, urban sportsmen, and rural peoples, from resource workers to First Nations." Loo argues that over the course of the century wildlife conservation came increasingly under the purview of the state, yet had firm roots in informal, localized practices. She highlights this expanding bureaucratic and scientific state presence as being part of a larger process of "rural colonization," but also shows how private groups and individuals continued to play an important role in adapting and implementing conservation practices. Ultimately, Loo argues that wildlife conservation was shaped by, and ultimately shaped in turn, Canadians' values about their relationship with the natural world.
+
+
+== Contents ==
+The opening chapters of States of Nature document the legal and practical background and changing nature of conservation in Canada, highlighting the different roles and values of various actors as the centralized state took on an increasing role, extending its bureaucratic and scientific purview over rural landscapes across the country. Loo shows that this often brought the state and rural peoples, including Indigenous peoples, into conflict, particularly as the state's conservation regime increasingly sanctioned non-consumptive use of wildlife, for example "promoting sports hunting rather than hunting for the table." This, Loo argues, "deepened the divisions of class and race," and through extending state power "conservation was an instrument of colonization." However, many groups and individuals resisted and adapted under this changing regime.
+This is a major focus of the remaining chapters, which focus on case studies that highlight the various values informing conservation policy and practice throughout the period. These case studies include the career of Jack Miner, Canada's "first celebrity conservationist;" the cooperation of the Hudson's Bay Company with local Cree peoples in developing a program for beaver conservation; the emergence of population control as a central tenet of postwar conservation; lively debates about the roles of predators, including the work of Farley Mowat; and finally the development of habitat conservation through the efforts of groups like Ducks Unlimited Canada and of western Canadian outfitters.
+
+
+== Awards ==
+States of Nature was awarded the 2007 Sir John A. Macdonald Prize (now the CHA Best Scholarly Book in Canadian History Prize) for the best book in Canadian history from the Canadian Historical Association, and was short-listed for the Association's 2010 François-Xavier Garneau Medal. The book was also the winner of the 2008 Harold Adams Innis Prize for best English book in the Social Sciences from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences.
+
+
+== See also ==
+Wildlife conservation
+Wildlife of Canada
+
+
+== References ==
+
+
+== External links ==
+States of Nature on Google Books

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storm_World-0.md

@@ -0,0 +1,45 @@
+---
+title: "Storm World"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storm_World"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:41:49.775647+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle over Global Warming is a 2007 book by Chris Mooney. Mooney discusses tensions between two different approaches to analyzing global warming and its effect on hurricanes.
+
+
+== Overview ==
+After witnessing the devastation of his mothers house in Hurricane Katrina Mooney was concerned that government policy failed to consider worst-case scenarios when planning for the future even after that disaster. He explores whether global warming will affect hurricanes in general even if it cannot explain the specifics of any individual storm. Mooney found there were two camps in storm research one that felt the field should be based on data and another looking into deductions based on theories derived from physics. Surrounding this divide are politics, personalities and the drama of powerful storms. The question of the effect of global warming on storms and the difficulty reaching conclusions intensified the conflict. Mooney renders this into an accessible and compelling narrative with vivid portrayals of the scientists, accounts of new discoveries and their acceptance or denial by scientists and politicians. The integration of both research methods by some scientists gives Mooney hope and he concludes that in order to be effective scientists must be skilled communicators.
+Storm World chronicles the history of the field of storm research from "the American Storm Controversy" a running disagreement in the 1800s between William Redfield whose observations led him to conclude that hurricanes were whirlwinds and James Pollard Espy who theorized convection, with water rising up a chimney, was the cause of hurricanes. It covers the clash of ideas in the 1950s between observationalists including Robert Simpson comparing hurricanes to "heat engines" and theorists and early computer modelers who advocated a mathematical theory Conditional Instability of the Second Kind (CISK). These early disputes set the stage for the current debate. Mooney details William Gray's changing role from groundbreaking theorist to climate change denying anti-theorist set against the background of the increasing public spotlight and urgency to develop a working understanding of storms and global warming in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
+
+
+== Reception ==
+Lisa Margonelli, reviewing Storm World for the New York Times, describes it as "a well-researched, nuanced book that suffers from poor organization and a lack of pizazz."
+In a mixed review in the Los Angeles Times Thomas Hayden wrote that Mooney deftly handled the complexity of the questions surrounding global warming and its effect on hurricanes. He praised Mooney as a writer and the timeliness of publication while pointing to continuity problems, a lack of integration and repetition. In particular he describes a later chapter on the most recent developments in hurricane and climate science as "tacked on just before the conclusion, so we learn important matters of substance after we've heard all the arguments." While saying that, "Mooney has a talent for humanizing the science and scientists" he criticizes the author for focusing too much on the over the top behavior of William Gray rather than presenting other researchers critiques of the subject. He continues noting Mooney's research is apparent throughout and that, "he does a fine job of sifting through complexities and presenting the science in an engaging and readable package." Hayden concludes, "Mooney catches real science in the act and, in so doing, weaves a story as intriguing as it is important."
+It was selected as one of the best non-fiction books of year in 2007 by Publishers Weekly.
+
+
+== Publication ==
+Mooney, Chris C. (2007). Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle over Global Warming. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 9780151012879.
+
+
+== See also ==
+
+Antiscience
+Agnotology
+Climate change policy of the United States
+List of books about the politics of science
+Merchants of Doubt
+Politicization of science
+Tropical Cyclones and Global Warming
+
+
+== References ==
+
+
+== External links ==
+In the eye of the storm - James Elsner reviews Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle Over Global Warming by Chris Mooney, Nature 448, p. 648 (9 August 2007) doi:10.1038/448648a
+RealClimate » Storm World: A Review

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storms_of_My_Grandchildren-0.md

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+---
+title: "Storms of My Grandchildren"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storms_of_My_Grandchildren"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:41:50.920443+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity is climate scientist James Hansen's first book, published by Bloomsbury Press in 2009. The book is about threats to people and habitability for life on Earth from global warming.
+
+
+== Themes ==
+In the book, Hansen describes how the burning of fossil fuels is changing our climate and argues that this is putting Earth into imminent peril. He suggests that millions of species, and humanity itself, are threatened. The title of the book, Storms of My Grandchildren, refers to the ferocious and stormy weather events that will occur in the next generation if fossil fuel use continues in the way it has.
+In Hansen's evaluation, the response of politicians to this crisis has mainly been "greenwashing", where their proposals sound good but amount to little. Hansen says that we immediately need to cut back atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions such that atmospheric concentrations are stabilized at 350 ppm or less, in order to avoid environmental disasters for generations to come. He advocates prompt phaseout of coal plant emissions, plus improved forestry and agricultural practices. Hansen supports a carbon tax returned to citizens as a dividend and rejects cap and trade. He also supports nuclear power and rejects geoengineering.
+
+
+== Reception ==
+Storms of My Grandchildren has been reviewed in Nature, the Los Angeles Times, Science, and Cosmos. An excerpt from the book appeared in The Nation in 2009.
+
+
+== Author ==
+James Hansen was director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies from 1981 to 2013 and is often called the "father of global warming".
+
+
+== See also ==
+Global warming
+An Inconvenient Truth
+Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet
+The Weather of the Future
+The Weather Makers
+Requiem for a Species
+Whole Earth Discipline
+
+
+== References ==
+
+
+== Publishing information ==
+Hansen, J.E. (2009). Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity. New York: Bloomsbury Press. ISBN 978-1-60819-200-7. Archived from the original on 2016-02-25.
+
+
+== External links ==
+Official Book Website (archived) [1]

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straight_Up_(book)-0.md

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+---
+title: "Straight Up (book)"
+chunk: 1/3
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straight_Up_(book)"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:41:52.700139+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Straight Up: America's Fiercest Climate Blogger Takes on the Status Quo Media, Politicians, and Clean Energy Solutions is a book by author, blogger, physicist and climate expert Joseph J. Romm.  A Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and former Acting Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy, Romm writes about methods of reducing global warming and increasing energy security through energy efficiency, green energy technologies and green transportation technologies.
+Romm writes and edits the climate blog ClimateProgress.org for the Center for American Progress, where he is a Senior Fellow.  Time magazine named this blog one of the "Top 15 Green Websites" and called Romm "The Web's most influential climate-change blogger", naming him as one of its "Heroes of the Environment (2009)".
+Straight Up was released on April 19, 2010, by Island Press.  It is "largely a selection of [Romm]'s best blog postings over the past few years related to climate change issues".  TreeHugger describes the book as "a whirlwind tour through the state of climate change, the media that so badly neglects it, the politicians who attempt to address it (and those who obstruct their efforts and ignore [the] science), and the clean energy solutions that could help get us out of the mess."
+
+== Summary ==
+The title of the book's introduction, "Why I blog", is a play on the title of George Orwell's essay, "Why I Write".  Romm states, "I joined the new media because the old media have failed us.  They have utterly failed to force us to face unpleasant facts.  From this starting point, Romm posits that global warming is a bipartisan issue.  He writes, "Averting catastrophic global warming requires completely overturning the status quo, changing every aspect of how we use energy – and doing so in under four decades.  Failure to do so means humanity's self-destruction."  The book collects, reprints and updates postings from his blog, ClimateProgress.org, as the main part of his content, adding introductions and some new analysis.
+In his first chapter, Romm argues that the media perpetuates the status quo through laziness and a misunderstanding of how to present a "balanced" story.  For example, he believes that the media did a bad job of assessing the outcome of the Copenhagen summit in December 2009.  Romm comments that global warming is a science story, but that the traditional news media, which has scaled back on specialized reporting, has given the story to political reporters who don't understand, and have not time to research, the scientific consensus.  He next presents research concerning the science of climate change, as explained by what Romm calls "uncharacteristically blunt scientists".
+In the third chapter, Straight Up presents proposed solutions to reducing greenhouse gas emissions through the use of clean energy technologies and other currently available technologies.  For example, it describes what Romm believes are the advantages of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, generation of energy through wind and solar power, including concentrated solar power using mirrors to concentrate the sun's energy.  He writes that "A 20 percent reduction in global emissions might be possible in a quarter century with net economic benefits".  "Our plan", says Romm, must be "Deployment, deployment, deployment, R&D, deployment, deployment, deployment."  The next chapter discusses peak oil.
+The next chapters move into the politics of global warming and what Romm sees as a "right-wing disinformation machine" that confuses and misleads the public, by, for example, fostering what Romm calls "Anti-Scientific Syndrome".  The book says, "the economic cost of action is low, whereas the cost of inaction is incalculably greater – what exactly is the 'price' of 5 feet of sea level rise in 2100 ... and losing all of the inland glaciers that provide a significant fraction of water to a billion people?  Or the price of losing half the world's species? ... the bottom line is that the economic cost of action is low, whereas the cost of inaction is incalculably greater". Romm calculates that deployment of existing technologies on the massive scale that can save the climate can be accomplished at the cost of 0.12 percent of global GDP per year.
+Romm advocates citizen action to pressure Washington and industry to act quickly and decisively to reduce greenhouse emissions.  Otherwise, he argues, we will fall behind in the race to commercialize profitable technologies.  "China has a excellent track record of achieving gains in energy efficiency and has begun to ramp up its efficiency efforts and aggressively expand its carbon-free electricity targets (recently committing, for instance, to triple its wind goal to 100,000 MW by 2020). ... will the United States be a global leader in creating jobs and exports in clean energy technologies or will we be importing them from Europe, Japan, and the likely clean energy leader in our absence, China"?
+In the last chapter, Romm posits that progressives are "lousy" at educating the public, and he offers ways in which he thinks they can be more effective at messaging.  In his conclusion at the end of the book, Romm argues that the global economy is a sort of ponzi scheme, in which our failure to prevent the worst effects of climate change now could eventually cause the world economy to fall apart just like a ponzi scheme.
+
+== Reception ==

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straight_Up_(book)-1.md

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+---
+title: "Straight Up (book)"
+chunk: 2/3
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straight_Up_(book)"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:41:52.700139+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+=== Initial reviews ===
+A review in USA Today called the book "a gut-wrenching wakeup call".  Thomas L. Friedman, in his op-ed column in The New York Times, called the book "insightful", agreeing with Romm's arguments in the book that the proposed "cap and trade" climate bill "is a step in the right direction toward reducing greenhouse gases and expanding our base of clean power technologies".  Former US Vice-President Al Gore endorsed the book as "important" on his blog, writing, "If you are interested in the fight to solve the climate crisis, I recommend you read this book."
+The book has been reviewed by many of the "green" websites.  For example, the blog of the American Solar Energy Society, Solar Today, commented, "It's a collection of spirited and readable critiques of the delaying forces – the corporations and institutions who want to see no changes in national policies and tax codes that now work to make them rich.  In particular, Romm eviscerates the American news establishment for ignoring climate catastrophe issues". ...  It's full of solid fact-based arguments, properly referenced within the text (no footnotes!), along with a lot of low-carbon fire and brimstone.  Daily Kos commented, "Romm's forceful, impassioned blogging – and his book publishing – are a shining light in the confrontation of those 'misguided seals of approval'" being given out by the mainstream press to climate disinformers.  The review continues, "Romm is a tenacious fighter ... ready to take on all comers to the point that he can even rub 'friends' and allies the wrong way at times. ... Romm's knowledge, writing skills, and passion enable most to see past those conflicts since, on so many issues, Romm is simply – well – correct and laying out viable paths forward. ... Simply put, if the 'nation' would read Straight Up and follow Romm's prescriptions, we would find ourselves moving away from decline into a new era of prosperity."  The Green Energy Reporter stated that "Straight Up's indictment of "status-quo media" like The New York Times lays bare the inadequacies of traditional he-said-she-said media coverage when faced with a civilizational challenge like climate change. ...  Strong opinions, muscular writing."
+Reporter Tyler Hamilton calls the book "a stinging critique of how poorly the mainstream media has covered global warming" and says that the book, like Romm's blog, "cuts through the crap in a way no mainstream media outlet has or will."  A review in TreeHugger termed the book "an essential guide to climate, energy, and politics for the blog era."  It continued, "nobody knows the game like Romm – both in terms of ability to interpret and explain the latest science, and in boasting expertise on the politics and policy process that, whether you like it our not, is going to be instrumental in mitigating climate change on a large scale."  Even for readers of Romm's blog, the book "provides an important narrative flow, and condenses everything you need to know about the current state of climate science and politics into a nice, quick read.  While extremely thorough, it may make some beginners' head spin, and it can get combative and wonky in places.  But such is the nature of this beast – climate change should make a beginner's head spin, and as Romm makes clear, addressing it is going to be messy, politically charged, and a daunting battle."  The Environmental Defense Fund review opined, "Straight Up is well-researched, provides insightful political analysis, and showcases compelling data on the economic benefits of climate change solutions."
+Ross Gelbspan reviewed the book for Grist magazine, writing that Romm's "unfailing sense of priorities shines through his startlingly thoughtful and brutally blunt writing."  Gelbspan continues, "while one wishes Romm would have stitched the blog posts together into a more coherent narrative – and omitted a few that addressed transitory, fleeting events – his book is absolutely on point in its insistence that climate change long ago ceased to be a scientific issue and, instead, is most clearly a political one."  Gelbspan agrees with Romm that "a central reason that most political conservatives and libertarians deny the reality of human-induced climate change 'is that they simply cannot stand the solution.  So they attack both the solution and the science.'  I don't recall reading that simple truth in [traditional media,] virtually all of which treat the climate debate as though it actually had some legitimacy."  He also agrees with Romm that the major media "have failed, in the name of 'journalistic balance', to distinguish between legitimate, peer-reviewed scientific research and the deliberate obfuscation by a cadre of climate skeptics, many of whom have been funded by coal and oil companies.  As a result, the public has no idea that we are already at a point of no return in terms of staving off climate chaos."  Gelbspan notes, "Romm happens to favor both efficiency and concentrated solar thermal power.  But, his technological preferences aside, he's right on point when he describes the call for more R&D as a stalling tactic to avoid coming to grips with the threat.  As Romm writes, 'deployment completely trumps research'."  However, Gelbspan criticizes Romm for "wandering", at the end of the book, "into the question of why climate advocates are so bad at 'messaging.'  It may be a valid question. ... But I'm afraid the issue [is] a diversion from the real question facing all of us at this moment of history. ... We are already beginning to see crop failures, water shortages, increasing extinctions, migrations of environmental refugees, and all manner of potential breakdowns in our social lives.  Where Straight Up falls short is in its failure to deal with this reality head on."  Still, he says, "This is not at all to minimize the value of Romm's book.  To the contrary, if you think the most pressing task today is to limit the coming damage through a transition to non-carbon technologies, I can't think of a better place to start than by reading Straight Up."

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straight_Up_(book)-2.md

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+---
+title: "Straight Up (book)"
+chunk: 3/3
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straight_Up_(book)"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:41:52.700139+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+=== Later assessments ===
+In June 2010, FDL Book Salon said of the book, "the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. By pulling together the very best content from the blog and thoughtfully organizing it in a logical way, the book achieves ... cohesiveness. ... [What makes Romm's] writing on climate change and energy policy so valuable is his comprehensive knowledge of the subject matter."  A review the same month in the New Zealand climate blog Hot Topic contains a detailed summary of the book.  A July 2010 review in RenewableEnergyWorld.com agreed with Romm that "with the little time we have left to avert climate chaos, we must devote most of our resources to deploying existing technologies like solar, wind and geothermal that we know can bring atmospheric carbon back down down to safe levels."
+In July 2010, Bill McKibben wrote in Washington Monthly:
+
+Romm ... knows his climate science ... cold. Trained as a physicist, he is unintimidated by scholarly work, and is able to synthesize huge amounts of complex data. He has been a persuasive voice for the most important truth about global warming: that it is a far worse problem than either politicians or the general public understand.  In his posts and in his previous book Hell and High Water Romm has made the stakes clear. "If we stay anywhere near our current emissions path," he writes, the century will bring "staggeringly high temperature rise ... [and] sea level rise. ...  Dust bowls will cover the southwestern United States and many other heavily populated regions around the globe.  Massive species loss will occur on land and sea – affecting 50 percent or more of all life."  These changes ... are relatively uncontroversial middle-of-the-road projections. ... Romm's willingness to repeat these concerns ... has been essential in emboldening a few opinion writers – Tom Friedman, for instance – to keep this message in the mainstream media. ...  Romm has been consistent in insisting that we have much of the technology necessary to at least begin tackling the problem. He regularly documents the gains we could easily squeeze from commonsense efficiencies ... [and current technologies,] the plug-in hybrid car, for example. ...  Romm is very clear on the economics of climate change: any large-scale adjustment, while not cheap, is affordable, and neglecting the issue as we have done will prove to be very expensive in the long run.  Indeed, it's hard to read him without understanding just how disingenuous and shortsighted is the Republican argument that we should ignore global warming because it will cost us money. ...  The [2009] McKinsey report ... estimate[s that] most of the first few decades of carbon trimming will actually make us money. ...
+The second half of Straight Up ... covers the politics of climate.  [Romm has been] a tireless foil to the "right-wing disinformation machine" that has tried – with great success ... to delay action by confusing and disheartening Americans about global warming.  The right's basic message ... is not supported by the evidence.  It is, however, supported by both a good deal of fossil-fuel industry cash and a good deal of wishful thinking from all of us who are so used to the lifestyles underwritten by cheap fossil fuel.  It requires a thick skin to take on the daily task of dealing with the disinformers, but Romm has the taste for this kind of blood sport, and the talent as well.  He coined the term "anti-science syndrome" (and its rude acronym) for the campaign to undermine the scientific consensus.  He's waged memorable wars with, say, Lord Monckton ... who dropped his earlier campaign to quarantine all AIDS sufferers. ...   Romm is also stern with progressives, mostly for their poor messaging on climate issues. ...  In fact, my main dispute with Romm's work is his relentless focus on Washington. Since the advent of the Obama administration he has devoted a great deal of his fierceness to attacking anyone who questions the legislative solutions to climate change put forward by the Democrats in the White House and Congress. ...  It's not that his message is absurd.  We do desperately need action from Washington on climate change. ...  But Romm's hyper-realism may ignore more important political possibilities. He's paid less attention to the emerging popular movement on climate change than to the machinations of the Senate, but if we're actually going to get change on the scale we need, it's quite possible it won't happen without an aggressive, large, and noisy movement demanding that change. And Romm, who would have a good deal of useful things to say to such a movement, hasn't been very interested.
+
+== See also ==
+
+== References ==
+
+== External links ==
+Straight Up at Island Press
+Romm's climate blog

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_Dogs_(book)-0.md

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+---
+title: "Straw Dogs (book)"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_Dogs_(book)"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:41:53.867066+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals is a 2002 book by the philosopher John Gray. In the book, Gray attacks humanism and traces its origins back to Christianity. The book is divided into six chapters, which in turn are subdivided into short essays on different topics.
+Gray attacks humanism as a worldview in conflict with the view of humanity as part of the evolution of life on the planet. He sees humanism as a secular version of the Christian view of humans as differentiated from the natural world. Gray blames humanism, and its central view of humanity, for much of the destruction of the natural world, and sees technology as just a tool by which humans will continue destroying the planet and each other. He advocates James Lovelock's Gaia Hypothesis, whereby the natural world self-regulates to maintain the conditions of life in the planet, without any special place for humanity in it.
+
+
+== Reception ==
+Straw Dogs has received particular praise from English author J. G. Ballard, who wrote that the book "challenges most of our assumptions about what it means to be human, and convincingly shows that most of them are delusions" and described it "a powerful and brilliant book", "an essential guide to the new millennium" and "the most exhilarating book I have read since Richard Dawkins's The Selfish Gene." Another English author, Will Self called the book "a contemporary work of philosophy devoid of jargon, wholly accessible, and profoundly relevant to the rapidly evolving world we live in" and wrote "I read it once, I read it twice and took notes. I arranged to meet its author so I could publicize the book – I thought it that good."
+In 2002 Straw Dogs was named a book of the year by J. G. Ballard in The Daily Telegraph; by George Walden in The Sunday Telegraph; by Will Self, Joan Bakewell, Jason Cowley and David Marquand in the New Statesman; by Andrew Marr in The Observer; by Jim Crace in The Times; by Hugh Lawson Tancred in The Spectator; by Richard Holloway in the Glasgow Herald; and by Sue Cook in The Sunday Express.
+The book has been criticised by Terry Eagleton, who has written: "mixing nihilism and New Ageism in equal measure, Gray scoffs at the notion of progress for 150 pages before conceding that there is something to be said for anaesthetics. The enemy in his sights is not so much a straw dog as a straw man: the kind of starry-eyed rationalist who passed away with John Stuart Mill, but who he has to pretend still rules the world".
+The academic and author Danny Postel of the University of Denver also took issue with Straw Dogs. Postel stated that Gray's claim that environmental destruction was the result of humanity's flawed nature would be "welcome news to the captains of industry and the architects of the global economy; the ecological devastation they leave in their wake, according to Gray, has nothing to do with their exploits." Postel also claimed that too much of Straw Dogs rested on "blanket assertion", and criticised Gray's use of the term "plague of people" as an outdated "neo-Malthusian persiflage about overpopulation". Postel strongly condemned Gray for outlining "complete political passivity. There is no point whatsoever in our attempting to make the world a less cruel or more livable place."
+
+
+== References ==

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasmania's_Wilderness_Battles-0.md

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+---
+title: "Tasmania's Wilderness Battles"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasmania's_Wilderness_Battles"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:41:55.020197+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Tasmania's Wilderness Battles: A History is a 2008 book by environmentalist Greg Buckman, who has "spent [his life] fighting Tasmanian environmental battles." The book looks at the wilderness areas of Tasmania which have been the focus of extensive conflict over environmental issues. Buckman presents a record of some of the significant events in that conflict, primarily from the viewpoint of an environmentalist.
+
+
+== Overview ==
+The book has several primary themes, including:
+
+Hydro Tasmania, about the issues of the Franklin Dam and Lake Pedder
+Forestry, with the final section focusing on Gunns
+Mining, focusing on Mount Lyell
+National Parks
+The black and white photographs included capture the iconic characters of the major environmental battles of the era being examined, and include images of Eric Reece, Olegas Truchanas, Doug Lowe, and Bob Brown.
+Tasmania's Wilderness Battles is one of a number of books that were published in connection with the 25th anniversary of the halting of the Franklin Dam project, one of the campaigns which is described in the book, and in which Buckman was active. He has also been involved in campaigns to save Tasmania's forests. Since the early 1990s he has been associated with the Tasmanian and Australian Greens.
+The book was launched in Hobart on 12 June 2008 by a Green senator, Christine Milne, outside the Tasmanian State Parliament.
+The book was longlisted for the 2009 John Button Prize.
+
+
+== Critical reception ==
+Stephenie Cahalan, reviewing and contrasting Tasmania’s Wilderness Battles and Geoff Law's The River Runs Free, notes that environmental issues and the places over which the legal and political battles were fought "have played a huge part in shaping the Tasmanian parliament either by prompting the election of Green party candidates or featuring strongly in policy and debate." By including excerpts from the 1998 Labor Green Accord, Tasmania’s Wilderness Battles, Cahalan writes, "helps to detail an important feature of Tasmanian political history which is frequently referred to but seldom explained." Buckman "studies Tasmania’s three big industries — hydro-electricity, mining and forestry — and provides surprisingly easy reading for what is essentially a meticulous reference book." She praises its index and detailed timeline, thorough assemblage of facts and figures, combined with a light tone.
+Susan Austin, writing in GreenLeft, describes Buckman's section on national parks as "a little dry and detailed" but approves the way that, throughout the book, "time and time again Buckman exposes the 'development at all costs' attitudes of present and past state and federal governments".
+
+
+== Use in education ==
+The book is used for teaching Environmental Studies in Victoria, Australia, and in Washington State University, Vancouver's history program.
+
+
+== See also ==
+Franklin Dam controversy
+Tasmanian Wilderness Society
+List of Australian environmental books
+
+
+== References ==
+Notes
+
+Bibliography
+
+Buckman, Greg (2008) Tasmania's Wilderness Battles: A History, Sydney: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 978-1-74175-464-3

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Revenge_of_Gaia-0.md

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+---
+title: "The Revenge of Gaia"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Revenge_of_Gaia"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:41:15.990403+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+The Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth is Fighting Back – and How We Can Still Save Humanity (2006) is a book by James Lovelock. Some editions of the book have a different, less optimistic subtitle: Earth's Climate Crisis and the Fate of Humanity.
+The book introduces the concept of the anti-CLAW hypothesis. Lovelock proposed that instead of providing negative feedback in the climate system, the components of the CLAW hypothesis may act to create a positive feedback loop.
+Under future global warming, increasing temperature may stratify the world ocean, decreasing the supply of nutrients from the deep ocean to its productive euphotic zone. Consequently, phytoplankton activity will decline with a concomitant fall in the production of dimethyl sulfide (DMS). In a reverse of the CLAW hypothesis, this decline in DMS production will lead to a decrease in cloud condensation nuclei and a fall in cloud albedo.  The consequence of this will be further climate warming which may lead to even less DMS production (and further climate warming). The figure to the right shows a summarising schematic diagram.
+Evidence for the anti-CLAW hypothesis is constrained by similar uncertainties as those of the sulfur cycle feedback loop of the CLAW hypothesis.  However, researchers simulating future oceanic primary production have found evidence of declining production with increasing ocean stratification, leaving open the possibility that such a mechanism may exist.
+
+
+== See also ==
+Global catastrophic risk
+
+
+== References ==
+
+
+== External links ==
+Richard Mabey reviews The Revenge of Gaia (Times Online)
+No atom of doubt, edited extract from The Guardian, 24 March 2006

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Riverkeepers-0.md

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+---
+title: "The Riverkeepers"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Riverkeepers"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:41:19.496220+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+The Riverkeepers: Two Activists Fight to Reclaim Our Environment as a Basic Human Right is a 1997 book written by John Cronin and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
+The book documents its authors' activism and legal action against the corporate polluters of the Hudson River in New York.
+
+
+== Publication ==
+The Riverkeepers is a 1997 book written by John Cronin,  head of the Riverkeeper organization at the time, and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Riverkeeper's then chief litigator.
+The book was published in 1997, in New York by Charles Scribner's Sons.
+
+
+== Synopsis ==
+The book, with a foreword by Al Gore, documents the work by its authors in their legal battles with the corporate polluters of the Hudson River. The authors write about their 1983 founding of Riverkeeper non-profit organization and the almost-100 lawsuits they have started. Targets of the author's litigation include General Electric and Exxon. The authors are critical of the United States Congress.
+The book notes "right-wing stereotypes about environmental elitism" and recommends strategies to persuade political opponents. Recommended strategies are local action, linking environmentalism with preserving historical industry such as fishing, rather than as being against economic growth, and framing environmentalism as a struggle "against special interests who would monopolize, exclude, and liquidate [resources] for cash."
+
+
+== Critical reception ==
+Kirkus Reviews notes the book's lack of objectivity and describes the authors as "self-righteous" but praised the book as informative. Publishers Weekly described the book as "staunch and quietly passionate".
+
+
+== References ==

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sacred_Balance-0.md

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+---
+title: "The Sacred Balance"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sacred_Balance"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:41:22.930487+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+The Sacred Balance is a book by environmentalist David Suzuki, which is in its second edition as of 2007.  The book explores human society's impact on the natural world, both for the planet and the people living on it. Suzuki reveals how dependent humankind is upon the planet's water, soil, sunlight, and the breath of its vegetation.  Threats to the planet's balance, ranging from toxic pollution to global warming are also discussed.
+A series of documentary films, also called The Sacred Balance, is based on the book produced by Kensington Communications, Inc. Producer Robert Lang was the producer of the series.
+
+
+== References ==

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shamba_Raiders-0.md

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+---
+title: "The Shamba Raiders"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shamba_Raiders"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:41:35.667345+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+The Shamba Raiders: Memories of a Game Warden is Bruce Kinloch's account of his experiences in late colonial East Africa. The first edition, published in 1972 proved so successful that a second edition was published in 1988, and a third in 2004.
+The title refers to the marauding elephants destroying peasant crops, driven by heavy poaching pressure in wilderness areas, which formed the most urgent task for Kinloch.
+That his book is still in demand is a source of pride to him and his wife, Elizabeth, who accompanied him frequently and typed up the notes of his original book. "It is a book that never dies, its contents are as relevant now as ever," she said.
+The Shamba Raiders is an account of the struggle to preserve herds of game threatened by modern civilisation, poaching, war and the political and economic changes which have swept Africa in the middle of the last century.  As the Chief Game Warden in Uganda, Tanzania and Malawi, Kinloch walked the tight rope of retaining Africa's wildlife heritage while safeguarding crops and livelihood of the population, featuring ivory poachers and middlemen as well as uncaring and bigoted officials.
+In particular, the book describes Kinloch's management of the Uganda Game and Fisheries Department during the introduction of the Protectorate's first National Parks, the introduction of Nile Perch to the upper Victoria Nile, and the creation of the College of African Wildlife Management.
+
+
+== References ==

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+---
+title: "The Triumph of Doubt"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Triumph_of_Doubt"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:42:02.213180+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+The Triumph of Doubt: Dark Money and the Science of Deception is a book by David Michaels that was published in 2020.
+An adaptation of material from the book was published in January 2020 in Boston Review.
+
+
+== Overview ==
+Triumph of Doubt begins with an introductory first chapter and an overview chapter entitled "The Science of Deception." Most subsequent chapters then focus on ways that corporations have with greater or lesser success managed to obscure public understanding of scientific findings regarding specific types of products or concerns. For example, individual chapters focus on chemicals ("The Forever Chemicals," Chapter 3), concussions experienced by football players ("The NFL's Head Doctors," Chapter 4), opioids ("On Opioids," Chapter 7), climate change ("The Climate Denial Machine," Chapter 11), and sugar ("Sickeningly Sweet," Chapter 12).
+
+
+== Reviews and interviews ==
+Triumph of Doubt has been reviewed in Science Magazine, 
+Nature,
+Undark Magazine,
+by the Union of Concerned Scientists,
+and in the San Francisco Review of Books (blog).
+Interviews with Michaels about the book have been published in Salon,
+in the Chronicle of Higher Education,
+and in E&E News.
+
+
+== Editions ==
+Michaels, David (2020). The triumph of doubt: dark money and the science of deception. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-092266-5. OCLC 1089898755.
+
+
+== See also ==
+Doubt Is Their Product: How Industry's Assault on Science Threatens Your Health (2008) by David Michaels
+
+
+== References ==

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ultimate_Resource-0.md

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+---
+title: "The Ultimate Resource"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ultimate_Resource"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:42:04.586099+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+The Ultimate Resource is a 1981 book written by Julian Lincoln Simon challenging the notion that humanity was running out of natural resources. It was updated in 1996 as The Ultimate Resource 2.
+
+
+== Overview ==
+The overarching thesis on why there is no resource crisis is that as a particular resource becomes more scarce, its price rises. This price rise creates an incentive for people to discover more of the resource, ration and recycle it, and eventually, develop substitutes. The "ultimate resource" is not any particular physical object but the capacity for humans to invent and adapt.
+
+
+=== Scarcity ===
+The work opens with an explanation of scarcity, noting its relation to price; high prices denote relative scarcity and low prices indicate abundance. Simon usually measures prices in wage-adjusted terms, since this is a measure of how much labor is required to purchase a fixed amount of a particular resource. Since prices for most raw materials (e.g., copper) have fallen between 1800 and 1990 (adjusting for wages and adjusting for inflation), Simon argues that this indicates that those materials have become less scarce.
+
+
+=== Forecasting ===
+Simon makes a distinction between "engineering” and "economic" forecasting. Engineering forecasting consists of estimating the amount of known physical amount of resources, extrapolates the rate of use from current use and subtracts one from the other. Simon argues that these simple analyses are often wrong. While focusing only on proven resources is helpful in a business context, it is not appropriate for economy-wide forecasting. There exist undiscovered sources, sources not yet economically feasible to extract, sources not yet technologically feasible to extract, and ignored resources that could prove useful but are not yet worth trying to discover.
+To counter the problems of engineering forecasting, Simon proposes economic forecasting, which proceeds in three steps in order to capture, in part, the unknowns the engineering method leaves out (p 27):
+
+# Ask whether there is any convincing reason to think that the period for which you are forecasting will be different from the past, going back as far as the data will allow
+If there is no good reason to reject the past trend as representative of the future as well, ask whether there is a reasonable explanation for the observed trend
+If there is no reason to believe that the future will be different from the past, and if you have solid explanation for the trend—or even if you lack a solid theory, but the data are overwhelming—project the trend into the future
+
+
+=== Infinite resources ===
+Perhaps the most controversial claim in the book is that natural resources are infinite. Simon argues not that there is an infinite physical amount of, say, copper, but for human purposes that amount should be treated as infinite because it is not bounded or limited in any economic sense, because:
+
+known reserves are of uncertain quantity
+new reserves may become available, either through discovery or via the development of new extraction techniques
+recycling
+more efficient utilization of existing reserves (e.g., "It takes much less copper now to pass a given message than a hundred years ago." [The Ultimate Resource 2, 1996, footnote, page 62])
+development of economic equivalents, e.g., optic fibre in the case of copper for telecommunications
+The ever-decreasing prices, in wage-adjusted terms, indicate decreasing scarcity, in that it takes less time for the average worker to earn the money required to purchase a set amount of some commodity. This suggests, Simon claims, an enduring trend of increased availability that will not cease in the foreseeable future, despite continued population growth.
+
+
+== Evidence ==
+A plurality of the book consists of chapters showcasing the economics of one resource or another and proposing why this resource is, for human purposes, infinite.
+
+
+=== Historical precedent ===
+Simon argues that for thousands of years, people have always worried about the end of civilization brought on by a crisis of resources. Simon lists several past unfounded environmental fears in order to back his claim that modern fears are nothing new and will also be disproven.
+Some of the "crises" he notes are a shortage of tin in the 13th century BCE; disappearing forests in Greece in 550 BCE and in England in the 16th century to 18th century CE; food in 1798; coal in Great Britain in the 19th century; oil since the 1850s; and various metals since the 1970s.
+
+
+== Simon–Ehrlich wager ==
+
+Based on preliminary research for The Ultimate Resource, Simon and Paul Ehrlich made a famous wager in 1980, betting on a mutually agreed upon measure of resource scarcity over the decade leading up to 1990.
+Ehrlich was the author of a popular book, The Population Bomb, which argued that mankind was facing a demographic catastrophe with the rate of population growth quickly outstripping growth in the supply of food and resources. Simon was highly skeptical of such claims.
+Simon had Ehrlich choose five of several commodity metals. Ehrlich chose five metals: copper, chromium, nickel, tin, and tungsten. Simon bet that their prices would go down. Ehrlich bet they would go up.
+The basket of goods, costing US$1,000 in 1980, fell in price by over 57 percent over the following decade. As a result, in October 1990, Paul Ehrlich mailed Julian Simon a check for US$576.07 to settle the wager in Simon's favor.
+
+
+== Population ==
+A large section of the book is dedicated to showing how population growth ultimately creates more resources. The basic argument echoes the overarching thesis: as resources become more scarce, the price rises, creating an incentive to adapt. It suggests that the more a society has to invent and innovate, all else being equal, the more easily the society will raise its living standards and lower resource scarcity.
+
+
+== Criticism ==
+
+
+== See also ==
+Julian Lincoln Simon
+Thomas Malthus
+Paul R. Ehrlich
+Post scarcity
+
+
+== References ==
+
+
+== External links ==
+Full text of The Ultimate Resource 2
+Critique of 'The Ultimate Resource' by Herman Daly, 1991, originally in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January 1982
+Wikiversity:What is the ultimate resource?
+Julian Simons's response to critics from The Ultimate Resource 2

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+---
+title: "The Upside of Down (book)"
+chunk: 1/1
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+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:42:08.085761+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization (ISBN 0-676-97722-7) is a non-fiction book published in 2006 by Thomas Homer-Dixon, a professor who at the time was the director of the Trudeau Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at University of Toronto.
+The book sets out a theory of the growth, crisis, and renewal of societies. The world's converging energy, environmental, and political stresses could cause a breakdown of national and global order. Yet there are things we can do now to keep such a breakdown from being catastrophic. And some kinds of breakdown could even open up extraordinary opportunities for creative, bold reform of our societies, if we are prepared to exploit these opportunities when they arise.
+
+
+== Content and style ==
+The prologue of the book provides an overview of the main argument. It begins in San Francisco during the great 1906 fire that destroyed the city, then moves on to Rome, 2003, with some reflections on the remnants of a once powerful global empire. The prologue finishes with a perilously fast car ride along unfamiliar country roads in dense fog. These three seemingly unrelated accounts illustrate the basic premises of the book: our fate is uncertain, unpredictable devastation can happen at any time, and even the mightiest societies are susceptible to failure due to a variety of complex factors, but there is the hope of catagenesis—"renewal through breakdown."
+The ensuing twelve chapters expand on these theories, using many examples from general knowledge to maintain the book's accessibility and common understanding. Through this technique some very complex ideas and crucial terminology are introduced. In chapter one, for instance, we have the explanation of the "tectonic stresses" which could bring down society as we know it if "synchronous failure" were to occur. There is also reference to the "prospective mind", the quality required to help prevent/solve such crises.
+
+
+== Release and reception ==
+The book was released as a hardcover in Canada on October 31, 2006, by publisher Random House of Canada and as paperback, in 2007, under the Vintage Canada imprint. It was published by Island Press in the United States, Souvenir Press in the United Kingdom and by Text Publishing in Australia. To promote the book, Homer-Dixon went on a 22-city book tour, with events in Vancouver, Victoria, Calgary, Hamilton, and an interview on Fareed Zakaria's Foreign Exchange. The book reached number one on the Maclean's non-fiction bestsellers list and peaked at number five on The Globe and Mail list. The book was awarded the 2007 National Business Book Award and a Gold Award from ForeWord Magazine. In 2007, the book was named a best book for 2007 in the politics and religion category by the Financial Times.
+Reviewers found the writing clear and accessible, even though the content was not specifically new. Writing in The Globe and Mail, political philosopher Will Kymlicka called it a "clear and accessible overview" though "none of this is particularly new". Similarly, Harold Heft in The Montreal Gazette called Homer-Dixon a "master compiler" of information covered in magazines such as The New Yorker or Harper's. In the Quill & Quire, the reviewer noted, "Although none of the stresses Homer-Dixon speaks about are news, it is very rare to have all of them so deftly assembled and correlated." In the Toronto Star, the reviewer wrote that there "wasn't much in the book that I hadn't read in similarly themed books and articles, but Homer-Dixon's sheer thoroughness and level-headed tone somehow shredded the veil of cognitive dissonance".
+The book also received positive reviews, noting the quality of the writing, in Grist, The Ecologist, and Environment. Barbara Julian of the Victoria Times Colonist also addresses the issue of the seeming dearth of solutions in the book and rounds out the argument when she writes in her review: "Every resident of the planet should be capable of joining the discussion about remedies. Thomas Homer-Dixon does his part in providing entry points for readers who are interested, in the form of research sources and websites to consult and to communicate through, including his own." Providing a summary, John Ikenberry wrote in Foreign Affairs: "Homer-Dixon offers a striking vision of how to confront the world of risk and uncertainty, calling for 'resilience-enhancing' strategies that protect food—and energy—supply networks and that can better cope with surprise."
+Several reviewers identified the book's ending as its weakness. Kymlicka wrote that "his discussion of what we should do in response to these challenges...[is] disappointing". Heft wrote that the book's weakness was in guessing what Heft called "fictional doomsday scenario[s]" because there are ultimately "an infinite number of possible destinies".
+
+
+== See also ==
+Progress trap
+
+
+== References ==
+
+
+== External links ==
+Official website for the book
+Official website for Thomas Homer-Dixon
+Audio interview with THECOMMENTARY.CA
+Audio interview with Terrence McNally of Pacifica Radio in Los Angeles, March 24, 2009
+presentation at the World Affairs Council of Northern California, November 2009

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+---
+title: "The Weather Makers"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Weather_Makers"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:42:11.548828+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+The Weather Makers: The History and Future Impact of Climate Change is a 2005 book by Australian scientist Tim Flannery. It discusses climate change, its scientific basis and effects, and potential solutions.
+The book received critical acclaim. It won the major prize at the 2006 New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, and was short-listed for the 2010 Jan Michalski Prize for Literature. Flannery reflected in 2015 on its impact, after it was read by several high-profile decision makers.
+
+
+== Description ==
+The book includes 36 short essays predicting the consequences of global warming and has been translated into over twenty languages.  The book reviews evidence of historical climate change and attempts to compare this with the current era. The book argues that if atmospheric carbon dioxide levels continue to increase at current rates, the resulting climate change will cause mass species extinctions.  The book also asserts that global temperatures have already risen enough to cause the annual monsoon rains in the Sahel region of Africa to diminish, causing droughts and desertification.  This in turn, according to Flannery, has contributed to the conflict in the Darfur region through competition for disappearing resources. Further consequences, argued in the book, include increasing hurricane intensity, and decline in the health of coral reefs.
+The final third of the book discusses proposed solutions. Flannery advocates individual action as well as international and governmental actions.  He argues that a few industries such as the coal industry, currently responsible for 40% of the energy consumed in the U.S., remain opponents of needed action. The book retraces the evidence that the American administration , motivated by coal-industry donations to the Republican party, undermines political action by omitting mention of climate change from government documents.  The book cites evidence against the argument that conservation is bad for economies.
+
+
+== Impact ==
+In the introduction of Atmosphere of Hope: Solutions to the Climate Crisis (2015), Tim Flannery mention some people who were influenced by reading The Weather Makers (2005) He wrote that the book "alerted" Richard Branson, who recommended it to Arnold Schwarzenegger (Governor of California, who signed the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006) and established the Virgin Earth Challenge as well as the Carbon War Room. Gordon Campbell, Premier of British Columbia, said that he introduced a carbon tax in British Columbia after reading The Weather Makers. The book also alerted Zhou Ji, president of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, "to the extent of the climate problem".
+The book was cited as contributing to Flannery being named Australian of the Year in 2007 for his clear and accessible communication of climate change science and its likely consequences for a fragile planet.
+
+
+== See also ==
+An Inconvenient Truth
+An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power
+Hell and High Water
+Chasing Kangaroos
+List of Australian environmental books
+Storms of My Grandchildren
+The Weather of the Future
+Requiem for a Species
+
+
+== References ==
+
+
+== External links ==
+NPR review
+The Threat to the Planet July 13, 2006 by James Hansen in The New York Review of Books

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Weather_of_the_Future-0.md

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+---
+title: "The Weather of the Future"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Weather_of_the_Future"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:42:12.746063+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+The Weather of the Future: Heat Waves, Extreme Storms, and Other Scenes From a Climate-Changed Planet (ISBN 978-0-06-172688-0) is a 2010 book by climatologist Heidi Cullen. Cullen takes as her starting point the "clear and present dangers" posed by the greenhouse gases which result from the burning fossil fuels. She offers a vision of what life might be like in a warmer world. Cullen predicts "more frequent and more violent storms, more hot spells, cold spells, droughts, famines and huge waves of desperate refugees".
+
+
+== See also ==
+An Inconvenient Truth
+Climate refugee
+Effects of climate change
+Extreme weather
+Global warming controversy
+Storms of My Grandchildren
+The Weather Makers
+
+
+== References ==
+
+
+== External links ==
+Excerpt from the book

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Windward_Road-0.md

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+---
+title: "The Windward Road"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Windward_Road"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:42:23.318541+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+The Windward Road: Adventures of a Naturalist on Remote Caribbean Shores was written by Archie Carr and originally published in 1956.  It is an account of Carr's travels around the Caribbean to study sea turtles and their migratory and behavior patterns, especially Kemp's ridley, a species about which little was known at the time.  This book led to the formation of The Brotherhood of the Green Turtle, which later became the Caribbean Conservation Corporation, and is now known as the Sea Turtle Conservancy.  It was awarded the 1957 John Burroughs Medal for nature writing, which is awarded annually by the American Museum of Natural History.  The chapter entitled "The Black Beach", originally published in Mademoiselle, won a 1956 O. Henry Award.
+
+
+== References ==
+
+
+== External links ==
+The Windward Road. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. 2013. ISBN 978-0-307-83211-5; 256 pages{{cite book}}:  CS1 maint: postscript (link)

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+---
+title: "The World Without Us"
+chunk: 1/4
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Without_Us"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:42:27.961021+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+The World Without Us is a 2007 non-fiction book about what would happen to the natural and built environment if humans suddenly disappeared, written by American journalist Alan Weisman and published by St. Martin's Thomas Dunne Books. It is a book-length expansion of Weisman's own February 2005 Discover article "Earth Without People". Written largely as a thought experiment, it outlines, for example, how cities and houses would deteriorate, how long man-made artifacts would last, and how remaining lifeforms would evolve. Weisman concludes that residential neighborhoods would become forests within 500 years, and that radioactive waste, bronze statues, plastics and Mount Rushmore would be among the longest-lasting evidence of human presence on Earth.
+The author of four previous books and numerous articles for magazines, Weisman had traveled to interview academics, scientists and other authorities. He used quotations from these interviews to explain the effects of the natural environment and to substantiate predictions. The book has been translated and published in many countries. It was successful in the U.S., reaching #6 on the New York Times Best Seller list and #1 on the San Francisco Chronicle Best-Sellers list in September 2007. It ranked #1 on Time and Entertainment Weekly's top 10 non-fiction books of 2007.
+
+== Background ==
+Before writing The World Without Us, the author, Alan Weisman, had written four books, including, Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World, in 1998, about the eco-village of Gaviotas in Colombia; and An Echo In My Blood, in 1999, about his family's history immigrating from Ukraine to the United States. He has worked as an international journalist for American magazines and newspapers, and at the time of writing the book was an Associate Professor of Journalism and Latin American Studies at the University of Arizona. The position required him to teach only one class in the spring semester, and he was free to travel and conduct research the rest of the year.
+The idea for The World Without Us was suggested to Weisman in 2004 by Josie Glausiusz, an editor at Discover. She had pondered the idea for several years and asked Weisman to write a feature on the subject after she re-read "Journey through a Doomed Land", an article he published in 1994 in Harper's Magazine about the state of Chernobyl eight years after abandonment. His Discover article, "Earth Without People", published in the February 2005 issue and re-printed in The Best American Science Writing 2006 anthology, describes how nature has thrived in the abandoned Korean Demilitarized Zone and how nature would overwhelm the built environment of New York City.
+To expand this into a book, Weisman's agent found an editor and publisher at St. Martin's Press. Among the 23-page bibliography are two articles he wrote for the Los Angeles Times Magazine ("Naked Planet" on the Antarctic ozone hole, and "The Real Indiana Jones" on the Mayan civilization) and one published in the Condé Nast Traveler ("Diamond in the Wild" on diamond mining encroaching on North America's largest wildlife preserve), as well as Discover's "Earth Without People". Additional research saw Weisman travel to England, Cyprus, Turkey, Panama, and Kenya. Interviews with academics quoted in the book include biologist E. O. Wilson on the Korean Demilitarized Zone, archaeologist William Rathje on plastics in garbage, forest botanist Oliver Rackham on vegetative cover across Britain, anthropologist Arthur Demarest on the crash of Mayan civilization, paleobiologist Douglas Erwin on evolution, and philosopher Nick Bostrom on Transhumanism.
+
+== Synopsis ==
+The book is divided into 27 chapters, with a prelude, coda, bibliography and index. Each chapter deals with a new topic, such as the potential fates of plastics, petroleum infrastructure, nuclear facilities, and artworks. It is written from the point of view of a science journalist with explanations and testimonies backing his predictions. There is no unifying narrative, cohesive single-chapter overview, or thesis.
+Weisman's thought experiment pursues two themes: how nature would react to the disappearance of humans and what legacy humans would leave behind. To foresee how other life could continue without humans, Weisman reports from areas where the natural environment exists with little human intervention, like the Białowieża Forest, the Kingman Reef, and the Palmyra Atoll. He interviews biologist E. O. Wilson and visits with members of the Korean Federation for Environmental Movement at the Korean Demilitarized Zone where few humans have penetrated since 1953. He tries to conceive how life may evolve by describing the past evolution of pre-historic plants and animals, but notes Douglas Erwin's warning that "we can't predict what the world will be 5 million years later by looking at the survivors". Several chapters are dedicated to megafauna, which Weisman predicts would proliferate. He profiles soil samples from the past 200 years and extrapolates concentrations of heavy metals and foreign substances into a future without industrial inputs. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and implications for climatic change are likewise examined.

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+---
+title: "The World Without Us"
+chunk: 2/4
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Without_Us"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:42:27.961021+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+With material from previous articles, Weisman uses the fate of the Mayan civilization to illustrate the possibility of an entrenched society vanishing and how the natural environment quickly conceals evidence. To demonstrate how vegetation could compromise human-built infrastructure, Weisman interviewed hydrologists and employees at the Panama Canal, where constant maintenance is required to keep the jungle vegetation and silt away from the dams. To illustrate abandoned cities succumbing to nature, Weisman reports from Chernobyl, Ukraine (abandoned in 1986) and Varosha, Cyprus (abandoned in 1974). Weisman finds that their structures crumble as weather does unrepaired damage and other life forms create new habitats. In Turkey, Weisman contrasts the construction practices of the rapidly growing Istanbul, as typical for large cities in less developed countries, with the underground cities in Cappadocia. Due to a large demand for housing in Istanbul much of it was developed quickly with whatever material was available and could collapse in a major earthquake or other natural disaster. Cappadocian underground cities were built thousands of years ago out of volcanic tuff, and are likely to survive for centuries to come.
+Weisman uses New York City as a model to outline how an unmaintained urban area would deconstruct. He explains that sewers would clog, underground streams would flood subway corridors, and soils under roads would erode and cave in. From interviews with members of the Wildlife Conservation Society who developed the Mannahatta Project and with the New York Botanical Gardens Weisman predicts that native vegetation would return, spreading from parks and out-surviving invasive species. Without humans to provide food and warmth, rats and cockroaches would die off.
+
+Weisman explains that a common house would begin to fall apart as water eventually leaks into the roof around the flashings, erodes the wood and rusts the nails, leading to sagging walls and eventual collapse. After 500 years, all that would be left would be aluminum dishwasher parts, stainless steel cookware, and plastic handles. The longest-lasting evidence on Earth of a human presence would be radioactive materials, ceramics, bronze statues, and Mount Rushmore. In space, the Pioneer plaques, the Voyager Golden Record, and radio waves would outlast the Earth itself.
+Breaking from the theme of the natural environment after humans, Weisman considers what could lead to the sudden, complete demise of humans without serious damage to the built and natural environment. That scenario, he concludes, is extremely unlikely. He also considers transhumanism, the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, the Church of Euthanasia and John A. Leslie's The End of the World: the Science and Ethics of Human Extinction. Weisman concludes the book considering a new version of the one-child policy. While he admits it is a "draconian measure", he states, "The bottom line is that any species that overstretches its resource base suffers a population crash. Limiting our reproduction would be damn hard, but limiting our consumptive instincts may be even harder." He responded to criticism of this saying "I knew in advance that I would touch some people's sensitive spots by bringing up the population issue, but I did so because it's been missing too long from the discussion of how we must deal with the situation our economic and demographic growth have driven us too (sic)".
+
+== Publication ==
+
+The book was first published on July 10, 2007, as a hardback in the United States by St. Martin's Thomas Dunne Books, in United Kingdom by Virgin Books and in Canada by HarperCollins. The paperback was released in July 2008. It has been translated and published in Denmark by Borgen as Verden uden os, France by Groupe Flammarion as Homo disparitus, in Germany by Piper as Die Welt ohne uns, in Portugal by Estrela Polar as O Mundo Sem Nós, in Italy by Einaudi as Il mondo senza di noi, in Poland by CKA as Świat bez nas, and in Japan by Hayakawa Publishing as Jinrui ga kieta sekai (人類が消えた世界; "A World where the Human Race has Disappeared").
+Pete Garceau designed the cover art for the American release, which one critic said was "a thick layer of sugar-coated sweetness in an effort to not alarm potential readers. 'Yes, I am a book about the environment. But I'm harmless! No, really!'" The Canadian version, designed by Ellen Cipriano, is similar to the American version but with a photo illustration rather than the disarming cartoon illustration. Cover art for the international releases contrast the natural environment with a decaying built environment. Adam Grupper voiced the ten-hour-long, unabridged English-language audiobook which was published by Macmillan Audio and BBC Audiobooks, and released simultaneously with the hardcover book. AudioFile gave the audio presentation its Earphones Award, called Grupper's reading sincere and balanced, and wrote, "Never veering into sensationalism, always objective and phlegmatic, Grupper takes what could be a depressing topic and makes it a book you just can't stop listening to".

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Without_Us-2.md

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+---
+title: "The World Without Us"
+chunk: 3/4
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Without_Us"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:42:27.961021+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+== Reception ==
+As the book was released Weisman launched his book tour with stops throughout the United States, Canada and overseas to Lisbon and Brussels. Weisman did television interviews on The Daily Show and The Today Show and radio interviews on Weekend Edition, Talk of the Nation, The Diane Rehm Show, Living on Earth, Marketplace, and As It Happens. Meanwhile, the book debuted on the New York Times Best Seller list for non-fiction hardcovers at #10 on July 29 and spent nine weeks in the top ten, peaking at #6 on August 12 and September 9. In the Canadian market, it spent 10 weeks on The Globe and Mail's non-fiction best-seller list, peaking at #3 on August 11. The book reached #1 on the San Francisco Chronicle Best-Sellers list for non-fiction on September 23 and spent 11 weeks on the USA Today's Top 150 Best-Selling Books, peaking at #48. Reviewers at the Library Journal recommended the book for all environmental collections and the audiobook for most public and academic library audiobook collections. The book ranked #1 on Time and Entertainment Weekly's top 10 non-fiction books of 2007 and was listed in the Hudson Booksellers' "Best Books published in 2007". In the Amazon.com "Best Books of 2007", it placed #4 overall in the United States and #1 in the non-fiction category in Canada.
+The writing style was positively received as being vivid and well written, sometimes grim, but with appropriate language. Even an overall negative review by Michael Grunwald in The Washington Post remarked the writing was "always lucid, sometimes elegant". In The New York Times Book Review Jennifer Schuessler said Weisman has a "flirtation with religious language, his occasionally portentous impassivity giving way to the familiar rhetoric of eco-hellfire". Janet Maslin of The New York Times found the writing had "an arid, plain, what-if style" while being "strangely uniform in tone". On the reporting techniques, Kamiya wrote that "[Weisman's] science reporting, at once lucid and full of wonder ... is the heart and soul of this book" and that it is "written as if by a compassionate and curious observer on another planet". The Plain Dealer book editor Karen Long said Weisman "uses the precise, unhurried language of a good science writer and shows a knack for unearthing unexpected sources and provocative facts".
+Several critics found the lack of an anthropomorphic point of view hurt the book's relevance. Robert Braile in The Boston Globe wrote that it has "no real context ... no rationale for probing this fantasy other than [Weisman's] unsubstantiated premise that people find it fascinating". Michael Grunwald in The Washington Post also questioned the premise: "Imagining the human footprint on a post-human planet might be fun for dormitory potheads who have already settled the questions of God's existence and Fergie's hotness, but it's not clear why the rest of us need this level of documentary evidence". On the other hand, Alanna Mitchell in the Globe and Mail review found relevance in the context of society's passiveness to resource depletion combined with an anthropomorphic vanity. She writes the "book [is] designed to help us find the how of survival by shaking us out of our passive dance with death".
+The book's environmental focus was also criticized by some. Christopher Orlet of The American Spectator wrote that it is "a prime example of the wrongheaded, extremist views of the Greens". Braile agrees that the book could be "an environmentalist's nightmare, possibly fueling the cheap shots taken at the green movement ... by critics who say environmentalists care more about nature than people". Environmentalist Alex Steffen found the book presents nothing new, but that using the sudden and clean disappearance of humans provides a unique framework, although extremely unlikely and insensitive. Two critics who call the book a "Jeremiad" ultimately gave it a positive review. The Guardian says "we learn during the course of this book, to feel good about the disappearance of humanity from the Earth".
+Other critics hailed the environmental perspective. Chauncey Mabe of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel calls the book "one of the most satisfying environmental books of recent memory, one devoid of self-righteousness, alarmism or tiresome doomsaying". Tom Spears of the CanWest News Service concludes "it's more a portrait of ourselves, taken through an odd lens" and "[s]ometimes an obituary is the best biography".

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Without_Us-3.md

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+---
+title: "The World Without Us"
+chunk: 4/4
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Without_Us"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:42:27.961021+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+== Genre ==
+The book is categorized as non-fiction science but some commentators emphasize it may be better described as speculative fiction. The World Without Us is grounded in environmental and science journalism. Like other environmental books, it discusses the impact that the human race has had on the planet. Weisman's thought experiment removes the judgments and sufferings of humans by focusing on a hypothetical post-human world. This approach to the genre, which "throw[s] the spotlight on the earth itself", was found to be creative and objective. There have been other books that address similar topics, such as Gregory Benford's 1999 book Deep Time: How Humanity Communicates Across Millennia. Science fiction writers such as H. G. Wells (The War of the Worlds, 1898) and John Wyndham (The Day of the Triffids, 1951) had earlier touched upon the possible fate of cities and other man-made structures after the sudden removal of their creators. Similar parallels in the decay of civilization are detailed in 1949 post-apocalyptic science fiction novel by Berkeley English professor George R. Stewart, Earth Abides.
+Addressing his approach, Weisman said that eliminating the human element eliminated the "fear factor" that people are doing something wrong or that they will die; it is meant to be read as a fantasy, according to the author. Josie Appleton of Spiked related the book to "today's romanticisation of nature" in that it linked "the decadence and detachment of a modern consumerist society" with an ignorance of the efforts required to produce products so easily disposed. Appleton also felt the book countered the "Nature knows best" notion by highlighting the randomness of natural forces.
+Weisman's science journalism style uses interviews with academic and professional authorities to substantiate conclusions, while maintaining the "cool and dispassionate [tone] ... of a scientific observer rather than an activist". Weisman said he purposely avoided the activist label: "Some of our finest science and nature writers only get read by people who already agree with them. It's nice to get some affirmation for whatever it is you believe is true, even if it's quite sobering, but I wanted to write something that people would read ... without minimizing the significance of what's going on, nor trivializing it, nor oversimplifying it." Richard Fortey compares the book to the works of Jared Diamond, Tim Flannery and E. O. Wilson, and writes that The World Without Us "narrowly avoids engendering the gloom-and-doom ennui that tends to engulf the poor reader after reading a catalogue of human rapacity". Mark Lynas in the New Statesman noted that "whereas most environmental books sag under the weight of their accumulated bad news, The World Without Us seems refreshingly positive". Demonstrating the optimism on the grim subject matter Appleton quotes an ecologist from the book saying "if the planet can recover from the Permian, it can recover from the human".
+
+== In popular culture ==
+The Earth After Us explores the geological legacy of the human species
+There Will Come Soft Rains, a 1920 poem by Sara Teasdale
+After Man: A Zoology of the Future considers the evolution of life on Earth 50 million years after the extinction of human beings.
+The plot of Foundation and Earth by Isaac Asimov (a continuation of his Foundation Trilogy), includes Aurora, a habitable planet which was abandoned by people for thousands of years. That planet, however, was settled by people, and its limited ecology was maintained by them, leading to its deterioration in the absence of human beings.
+There have been several TV specials relating to the same topic:
+
+Life After People shows what would happen if humans disappeared instantly.
+Aftermath: Population Zero is the same as the above, but gives more detail into certain things.
+The Future Is Wild, while not seeking to explain our disappearance, shows how life on Earth (without humans) would evolve 5 million, 100 million and 200 million years in the future.
+The 2009 hip-hop song "The High Line" by Kinetics & One Love, inspired by The World Without Us, is a pro-green, anti-deforestation song that paints the picture of trees and plants reclaiming the buildings of New York City long after the presence of humans. Like author Alan Weisman, rapper Kinetics uses the High Line railway in Manhattan as an example of nature's potential for reclamation of manmade structures.
+The 2013 video game The Last of Us, which takes place twenty years after an apocalyptic event, uses The World Without Us as inspiration for the look of the city settings.
+The 2017 video game NieR: Automata, which considers the Earth devoid of humanity for several hundreds of years, draws heavy inspiration from The World Without Us's depictions of cities and former civilisation habitats in its level design.
+In 2009 20th Century Fox purchased the rights to the book with the intent of creating a motion picture.
+
+== References ==
+
+== External links ==
+
+Official website

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throwim_Way_Leg-0.md

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+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:41:57.431038+00:00"
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data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrowland_(book)-0.md

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+---
+title: "Tomorrowland (book)"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrowland_(book)"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:41:58.750154+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Tomorrowland: Our Journey from Science Fiction to Science Fact is a 2015 nonfiction book by science journalist Steven Kotler and published by Amazon Publishing.
+
+
+== Content ==
+The book is composed of a series of essay articles that were published by Kotler in various online news publications, including The New York Times, The Atlantic, and Discover. There are sixteen chapters made up of the same number of articles, each dealing with a different topic of technological innovation in a variety of fields.
+
+
+== Critical reception ==
+Kirkus Reviews praised Kotler for not just presenting the technological innovations themselves, but also focusing on the "obsessive people behind the science" and how his insight into their work encompasses a "range from humane and gripping stories of redemption to indifferent research scientists unsure if their developments will even make the world a better place". Library Journal reviewer Talea Anderson also noted the introduction of each essay and discussed technology focusing on "presenting the array of often quirky inventors and early adopters who have engaged with it" and ultimately recommended the book for readers of popular science. In a separate review in Library Journal of the audiobook, reviewer Lisa Youngblood recommended the book and its look at not only the technology, but also the "social and moral questions that arise" from the potential ramifications of the emerging technologies.
+
+
+== See also ==
+
+Futurology
+Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think
+Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth, and Impact the World
+
+
+== References ==
+
+
+== External links ==
+Official website

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trading_Up_(Vogel_book)-0.md

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+---
+title: "Trading Up (Vogel book)"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trading_Up_(Vogel_book)"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:42:01.077699+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Trading Up: Consumer and Environmental Regulation in a Global Economy (Harvard University Press 1995, ISBN 0-674-90084-7) is a book by UC Berkeley political scientist and business professor, David Vogel.  It examines the impact of free trade on environmental regulations.  It analyzes the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement, and the treaties that created the European Community and Union, and looks at cases including the GATT tuna-dolphin dispute, the EC's beef hormone ban, the Danish bottle case.
+Some environmentalists have expressed concern that trade liberalization and acceptance of trade rules (with, for example, the World Trade Organization) will retard and even undermine national regulations for consumer protection and environmental improvement, as in the tuna-dolphin case. These observers are also concerned about competition among nations for footloose industries. This interesting book systematically examines the original European Community, the Single European Act, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and its 1979 standards code, the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Area, and the more recent North American Free Trade Agreement, as well as the states in the free trade area of the United States. Vogel finds that, while counterexamples do exist, trade liberalization on balance has strongly reinforced environment-improving regulations. A good example is auto emissions requirements, which have gradually stiffened and leveled up in the trading system over time. Three reasons are adduced, mainly concerning the major markets. First, stiffer regulations sometimes enhance the competitive advantage of firms, thus lining up industrialists with environmentalists in an open economy. Second, these markets (California in the United States, Germany in Europe, the United States and EU in the world at large) can set product standards that outsiders have to meet. Third, to the extent they are governed by environmentally sensitive parties (mainly the United States and EU), the major economies have negotiated international agreements that foster environmental improvement.
+
+
+== See also ==
+Pollution haven hypothesis
+Race to the bottom
+
+
+== References ==

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle_Island_(book)-0.md

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+---
+title: "Turtle Island (book)"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle_Island_(book)"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:42:03.397845+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Turtle Island is a book of poems and essays written by Gary Snyder and published by New Directions in 1974. The writings express Snyder's vision for humans to live in harmony with the earth and all its creatures. The book was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1975. "Turtle Island" is a name for the continent of North America used by many Native American tribes.
+
+
+== Background ==
+By the late 1950s, Snyder had established himself as one of the major American poets of his generation. He was associated with both the Beat Generation and the regional San Francisco Renaissance. He spent much of the 1960s traveling between California and Japan, where he studied Zen. In 1966, he met Masa Uehara while in Osaka. They married the following year and had their first child, Kai, in April 1968; by December, Snyder and his new family moved to California. His return coincided with the highest crest of 1960s counterculture, as well as the nascent environmental movement. He was received as an elder statesman by both the hippies and the environmentalists, and he became a public intellectual who gave public lectures, making television appearances, and publishing new writing.
+Many of the poems and essays in the book had been previously published. The essay "Four Changes" first appeared in The Environmental Handbook, a collection published by David Brower and Friends of the Earth for the first Earth Day in 1970. "Four Changes" was initially published anonymously with no copyright notice, and consequently it was widely reproduced. One of the poems, "The Hudsonian Curlew", was first published in the November 1969 issue of Poetry magazine. Some of the poems were published in 1972 as a limited-edition collection titled Manzanita.
+Many of the poems in Turtle Island are political in nature, like much of Snyder's poetry of the late 1960s, albeit with a different focus than that of his earlier writings. With American military involvement in the Vietnam War coming to a close, Snyder's attention had turned from matters of war and peace to environmental and ecological concerns. In 1973 several of Snyder's friends, interested in his new direction, gathered in Berkeley, California to hear him read his new work. At the reading, Snyder asked whether these political poems could "succeed as poetry"; his friends "reportedly refused to pass judgment" on the question. Later, the poet's UC Davis colleague Jack Hicks related words from a female graduate student who took one of Snyder's classes in the late 1980s: "there are two kinds of political poetry: Suckers—rare—seduce you to the point. Whackers assault you with the message. ... I cited Turtle Island as a blatant whacker, and Gary defended it strongly. But first he listened."
+
+
+== Contents ==
+Turtle Island is split into four sections. The first three—Manzanita, Magpie's Song, and For the Children—include a total of almost 60 poems, while the fourth section, Plain Talk, includes five prose essays. The collection includes many of Snyder's most commonly quoted and anthologized poems. There is also an introduction, in which Snyder explains the significance of the book's title.
+
+
+== Reception ==
+In his review of Turtle Island in Poetry magazine, critic Richard Howard commented that the book describes "where we are and where he wants us to be," although the difference between those two is "so vast that the largely good-humored resonance of the poems attests to Snyder's forbearance, his enforced detachment." He praised the book's poems for their meditative quality and their lack of preachiness or invective. He described the poems as "transitory, elliptical, extraterritorial" works, in which "the world becomes largely a matter of contours and traces to be guessed at, marveled over, left alone."
+In Library Journal, James McKenzie wrote:
+
+In precise, disciplined, unromantic language and form (at its best resembling Pound's), Snyder's poems pare cleanly through the thick crust of late 20th-Century urban mass life, revealing its essentially incidental nature, connecting us with the creeks, mountains, birds, and bears of "North America" that were here long before it had that name and, nature prevailing, will be here after that name is lost, forgotten, destroyed.
+Writing for the Christian Science Monitor, Victor Howes praised the book's "gentle, uncomplicated love-lyrics to planet earth" and said it would be equally appealing to poetry readers and to conservationists. Herbert Leibowitz, writing for the New York Times Book Review, was less enthusiastic. While Leibowitz found merit in a select few poems and praised Snyder's prose as "vigorous and persuasive", he found the collection "flat, humorless ... uneventful ... [and] oddly egotistical". In his view, it was "a textbook example of the limits of Imagism." Still, the critic said he was "reluctant to mention these doubts" because he found Snyder's fundamental environmentalist message to be so laudatory, even "on the side of the gods."
+The printing of the first American edition was limited to 2,000 copies. As of 2005, the book had been reprinted roughly once a year in the United States, placing it among a handful of Snyder's books that have never gone out-of-print. It has sold more than 100,000 copies. The book has been translated into Swedish (by Reidar Ekner in 1974), French (by Brice Matthieussent in 1977), Japanese (by Nanao Sakaki in 1978), and German (by Ronald Steckel in 1980).
+
+
+=== Pulitzer Prize ===
+Snyder received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Turtle Island in May 1975. Because of Snyder's remoteness at Kitkitdizze, news of the award took some time to reach him. It was the first time a Pulitzer had been given to a poet from the West Coast. The prestigious award helped to legitimize Snyder's idiosyncratic worldview in the intellectual mainstream.
+Along with the award itself, Snyder received a check for $1,000 (equivalent to $5,983 in 2025). According to his friend Steve Sanfield, Snyder quietly donated the money to a local volunteer organization that was building a new school in the San Juan Ridge area. Snyder maintained that the best perk of winning the Pulitzer Prize was that people no longer introduced him as "a Beat poet".
+
+
+== Citations ==
+
+
+== References ==
+
+
+=== Bibliography ===
+
+
+=== Journal and web articles ===
+
+
+== External links ==
+Turtle Island at the Internet Archive; a digital copy of the book can be borrowed for 14 days with registration
+Turtle Island in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
+Several poems from Turtle Island have been published online by the Poetry Foundation:
+
+"The Bath"
+"The Hudsonian Curlew"
+"I Went into the Maverick Bar"

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_a_White_Sky-0.md

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+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:42:05.782240+00:00"
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data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voices_from_the_Gathering_Storm-0.md

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+---
+title: "Voices from the Gathering Storm"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voices_from_the_Gathering_Storm"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:42:09.262656+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Voices from the Gathering Storm: The Web of Ecological-Societal Crisis is a 2005 non-fiction book that was published by Word Association Publishers and edited by Joseph Arcos, Mary Argus and Frederick DiCarlo.
+
+
+== Synopsis ==
+A collection of essays that discuss social, cultural, and technological factors contributing to our environmental predicament.  It proposes the need for a change in the religion of consumption, a change in our definitions of progress and success from increased consumption to increased stewardship of our diminishing resources and shrinking planet.
+
+
+== Contributors ==
+Thomas Berry
+Sharon L. Camp
+Francesco diCastri
+Daniel D. Chiras
+Herman Daly
+Matthew P. Fox
+Michael Gregory
+Joel Hilliker
+Kaye H. Kilburn
+Margaret L. Kripke
+Janice D. Longstreth
+Lester Milbrath
+Stephen S. Morse
+Hugh Pitcher
+John Poppy
+Van Rensselaer Potter
+Ellen K. Silbergeld
+James A. Swa
+
+
+== Reception ==
+The Midwest Book Review positively reviewed Voices from the Gathering Storm, calling it "expertly compiled" and a "remarkable body of study". The Times-News also praised the book, saying it was "carefully researched" and "hard-hitting".
+
+
+== References ==
+
+
+== External links ==
+Voices From the Gathering Storm

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walden-0.md

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+title: "Walden"
+chunk: 1/6
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walden"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:42:10.407216+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Walden (; first published as Walden; or, Life in the Woods) is an 1854 book by American transcendentalist writer Henry David Thoreau. The text is a reflection upon the author's simple living in natural surroundings. The work is part personal declaration of independence, social experiment, voyage of spiritual discovery, satire, and—to some degree—a manual for self-reliance.
+Walden details Thoreau's experiences over the course of two years, two months, and two days in a cabin he built near Walden Pond amidst woodland owned by his friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson, near Concord, Massachusetts.
+Thoreau makes precise scientific observations of nature as well as metaphorical and poetic uses of natural phenomena. He identifies many plants and animals by both their popular and scientific names, records in detail the color and clarity of different bodies of water, precisely dates and describes the freezing and thawing of the pond, and recounts his experiments to measure the depth and shape of the bottom of the supposedly "bottomless" Walden Pond.
+
+== Background ==
+There has been much speculation as to why Thoreau went to live at the pond in the first place. E. B. White stated on this note, "Henry went forth to battle when he took to the woods, and Walden is the report of a man torn by two powerful and opposing drives—the desire to enjoy the world and the urge to set the world straight", while Leo Marx noted that Thoreau's stay at Walden Pond was an experiment based on his teacher Emerson's "method and of nature" and that it was a "report of an experiment in transcendental pastoralism".
+Others have assumed Thoreau's intention during his time at Walden Pond was "to conduct an experiment: Could he survive, possibly even thrive, by stripping away all superfluous luxuries, living a plain, simple life in radically reduced conditions?" He thought of it as an experiment in "home economics". Although Thoreau went to Walden to escape what he considered "over-civilization", and in search of the "raw" and "savage delight" of the wilderness, he also spent considerable amounts of his time reading and writing.
+Thoreau used his time at Walden Pond (July 4, 1845 – September 6, 1847) to write his first book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849). The experience later inspired Walden, in which Thoreau compresses the time into a single calendar year and uses passages of four seasons to symbolize human development.
+By immersing himself in nature, Thoreau hoped to gain a more objective understanding of society through introspection. Simple living and self-sufficiency were Thoreau's other goals. The whole project was inspired by transcendentalist philosophy, a central theme of the American Romantic Period.
+
+== Organization ==
+I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.
+Part memoir and part spiritual quest, Walden opens with the announcement that Thoreau spent two years at Walden Pond living a simple life without support of any kind. Readers are reminded that at the time of publication, Thoreau has returned to living among the civilized. The book is separated into several chapters, each of which focuses on specific themes:
+Economy: In this first and longest chapter, Thoreau outlines his project: a two-year, two-month, and two-day stay at a cozy, "tightly shingled and plastered", English-style 10 by 15 foot cottage in the woods near Walden Pond. He does this, he says, to illustrate the spiritual benefits of a simplified lifestyle. He easily supplies the four necessities of life (food, shelter, clothing, and fuel) with the help of family and friends, particularly his mother, his best friend, and Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Waldo Emerson. The latter provided Thoreau with a work exchange: he could build a small house and plant a garden if he cleared some land on the woodlot and did other chores while there. Thoreau meticulously records his expenditures and earnings, demonstrating his understanding of "economy", as he builds his house and buys and grows food.
+
+The house's cost is US$28.12 (equivalent to $971.65 in 2025) and Thoreau gives "the details because very few are able to tell exactly what their houses cost and fewer still, if any, the separate cost of the various materials which compose them":

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+---
+title: "Walden"
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+---
+
+Where I Lived, and What I Lived For: Thoreau recollects thoughts of places he stayed at before selecting Walden Pond, and quotes Roman philosopher Cato's advice "consider buying a farm very carefully before signing the papers".  His possibilities included a nearby Hollowell farm (where the "wife" unexpectedly decided she wanted to keep the farm). Thoreau takes to the woods dreaming of an existence free of obligations and full of leisure. He announces that he resides far from social relationships that mail represents (post office) and the majority of the chapter focuses on his thoughts while constructing and living in his new home at Walden.
+Reading: Thoreau discusses the benefits of classical literature, preferably in the original Greek or Latin, and bemoans the lack of sophistication in Concord evident in the popularity of unsophisticated literature. He also loved to read books by world travelers. He yearns for a time when each New England village will support "wise men" to educate and thereby ennoble the population.
+Sounds: Thoreau encourages the reader to be "forever on the alert" and "looking always at what is to be seen".  Although truth can be found in literature, it can also be found in nature. In addition to self-development, developing one's perception can also alleviate boredom. Rather than "look[ing] abroad for amusement, to society and the theatre", Thoreau's own life, including supposedly dull pastimes like housework, becomes a source of amusement that "never ceases to be novel".  Likewise, he obtains pleasure in the sounds that fill his cabin: church bells ringing, carriages rattling and rumbling, cows lowing, whip-poor-wills singing, owls hooting, frogs croaking, and cockerels crowing. "All sound heard at the greatest possible distance," he contends "produces one and the same effect".
+Solitude: Thoreau reflects on the feeling of solitude. He explains how loneliness can occur even amongst companions if one's heart is not open to them. Thoreau meditates on the pleasures of escaping society and the petty things that society entails (gossip, fights, etc.). He also reflects on his new companion, an old settler who arrives nearby and an old woman with great memory ("memory runs back farther than mythology"). Thoreau repeatedly reflects on the benefits of nature and of his deep communion with it and states that the only "medicine he needs is a draught of morning air".
+Visitors: Thoreau talks about how he enjoys companionship (despite his love for solitude) and always leaves three chairs ready for visitors. The entire chapter focuses on the coming and going of visitors, and how he has more comers in Walden than he did in the city. He receives visits from those living or working nearby and gives special attention to a French Canadian born woodsman named Alec Thérien. Unlike Thoreau, Thérien cannot read or write and is described as leading an "animal life". He compares Thérien to Walden Pond itself. Thoreau then reflects on the women and children who seem to enjoy the pond more than men, and how men are limited because their lives are taken up.
+The Bean-Field: Reflection on Thoreau's planting and his enjoyment of this new job/hobby. He touches upon the joys of his environment, the sights and sounds of nature, but also on the military sounds nearby. The rest of the chapter focuses on his earnings and his cultivation of crops (including how he spends just under fifteen dollars on this).
+The Village: The chapter focuses on Thoreau's reflections on the journeys he takes several times a week to Concord, where he gathers the latest gossip and meets with townsmen. On one of his journeys into Concord, Thoreau is detained and jailed for his refusal to pay a poll tax to the "state that buys and sells men, women, and children, like cattle at the door of its senate-house".
+
+The Ponds: In autumn, Thoreau discusses the countryside and writes down his observations about the geography of Walden Pond and its neighbors: Flint's Pond (or Sandy Pond), White Pond, and Goose Pond. Although Flint's Pond is the largest, Thoreau's favorites are Walden and White ponds, which he describes as lovelier than diamonds.
+Baker Farm: While on an afternoon ramble in the woods, Thoreau gets caught in a rainstorm and takes shelter in the dirty, dismal hut of John Field, a penniless but hard-working Irish farmhand, and his wife and children. Thoreau urges Field to live a simple yet independent and fulfilling life in the woods, thereby freeing himself of employers and creditors. However, the Irishman will not give up his aspirations of luxury and the quest for the American dream.
+Higher Laws: Thoreau discusses whether hunting wild animals and eating meat is necessary. He concludes that the primitive, carnal sensuality of humans drives them to kill and eat animals, and that a person who transcends this propensity is superior to those who cannot. (Thoreau eats fish and occasionally salt pork and woodchuck.) In addition to vegetarianism, he lauds chastity, work, and teetotalism. He also recognizes that Native Americans need to hunt and kill moose for survival in "The Maine Woods", and eats moose on a trip to Maine while he was living at Walden. Here is a list of the laws that he mentions:

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+title: "Walden"
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+---
+
+One must love that of the wild just as much as one loves that of the good.
+What men already know instinctively is true humanity.
+The hunter is the greatest friend of the animal which is hunted.
+No human older than an adolescent would wantonly murder any creature which reveres its own life as much as the killer.
+If the day and the night make one joyful, one is successful.
+The highest form of self-restraint is when one can subsist not on other animals, but of plants and crops cultivated from the earth.
+Brute Neighbors: This chapter is a simplified version of one of Thoreau's conversations with William Ellery Channing, who sometimes accompanied Thoreau on fishing trips when Channing had come up from Concord. The conversation is about a hermit (Thoreau) and a poet (Channing) and how the poet is absorbed in the clouds while the hermit is occupied with the more practical task of getting fish for dinner and how in the end, the poet regrets his failure to catch fish. The chapter also mentions Thoreau's interaction with a mouse that he lives with, a scene in which an ant battles a smaller ant, and his frequent encounters with cats.
+House-Warming: After picking November berries in the woods, Thoreau adds a chimney, and finally plasters the walls of his sturdy house to stave off the cold of the oncoming winter. He also lays in a good supply of firewood and expresses affection for wood and fire.
+Former Inhabitants; and Winter Visitors: Thoreau tells the stories of people who formerly lived in the vicinity of Walden Pond. Then, he talks about a few of the visitors he receives during the winter: a farmer, a woodchopper, and his best friend, the poet Ellery Channing.
+Winter Animals: Thoreau amuses himself by watching wildlife during the winter. He relates his observations of owls, hares, red squirrels, mice, and various birds as they hunt, sing, and eat the scraps and corn he put out for them. He also describes a fox hunt that passes by.
+The Pond in Winter: Thoreau describes Walden Pond as it appears during the winter. He says he has sounded its depths and located an underground outlet. Then, he recounts how 100 laborers came to cut great blocks of ice from the pond to be shipped to the Carolinas.
+Spring: As spring arrives, Walden and the other ponds melt with powerful thundering and rumbling. Thoreau enjoys watching the thaw, and grows ecstatic as he witnesses the green rebirth of nature. He watches the geese winging their way north, and a hawk playing by itself in the sky. As nature is reborn, the narrator implies, so is he.
+Conclusion: In the final chapter, Thoreau criticizes conformity: "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away." By doing so, men may find happiness and self-fulfillment.
+
+I do not say that John or Jonathan will realize all this; but such is the character of that morrow which mere lapse of time can never make to dawn. The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.
+
+== Themes ==
+
+Walden is a difficult book to read for three reasons: First, it was written in an older prose, which uses surgically precise language, extended, allegorical metaphors, long and complex paragraphs and sentences, and vivid, detailed, and insightful descriptions. Thoreau does not hesitate to use metaphors, allusions, understatement, hyperbole, personification, irony, satire, metonymy, synecdoche, and oxymorons, and he can shift from a scientific to a transcendental point of view in mid-sentence. Second, its logic is based on a different understanding of life, quite contrary to what most people would call common sense. Ironically, this logic is based on what most people say they believe. Thoreau, recognizing this, fills Walden with sarcasm, paradoxes, and double entendres. He likes to tease, challenge, and even fool his readers. And third, quite often any words would be inadequate at expressing many of Thoreau's non-verbal insights into truth. Thoreau must use non-literal language to express these notions, and the reader must reach out to understand.
+Walden emphasizes the importance of solitude, contemplation, and closeness to nature in transcending the "desperate" existence that, he argues, is the lot of most people. The book is not a traditional autobiography, but combines autobiography with a social critique of contemporary Western culture's consumerist and materialist attitudes and its distance from and destruction of nature. Thoreau's proximity to Concord society and his admiration for classical literature suggest that the book is not simply a criticism of society, but also an attempt to engage creatively with the better aspects of contemporary culture. There are signs of ambiguity, or an attempt to see an alternative side of something common. Some of the major themes that are present within the text are:

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+
+Self-reliance: Thoreau constantly refuses to be in "need" of the companionship of others. Though he realizes its significance and importance, he thinks it unnecessary to always be in search for it. Self-reliance, to him, is economic and social and is a principle that in terms of financial and interpersonal relations is more valuable than anything. To Thoreau, self-reliance can be both spiritual as well as economic. Self-reliance was a key tenet of transcendentalism, famously expressed in Emerson's essay "Self-Reliance".
+Simplicity: Simplicity seems to be Thoreau's model for life. Throughout the book, Thoreau constantly seeks to simplify his lifestyle: he patches his clothes rather than buy new ones, he minimizes his consumer activity, and relies on leisure time and on himself for everything.
+Progress: In a world where everyone and everything is eager to advance in terms of progress, Thoreau finds it stubborn and skeptical to think that any outward improvement of life can bring inner peace and contentment.
+The need for spiritual awakening: Spiritual awakening is the way to find and realize the truths of life which are often buried under the mounds of daily affairs. Thoreau holds the spiritual awakening to be a quintessential component of life. It is the source from which all of the other themes flow.
+Man as part of nature
+Nature and its reflection of human emotions
+The state as unjust and corrupt
+Meditation: Thoreau was an avid meditator and often spoke about the benefits of meditating.
+Patience: Thoreau realizes that the methods he tries to employ at Walden Pond will not be instituted in the near future. He does not like compromise, so he must wait for change to occur. He does not go into isolation in the woods of Massachusetts for over two years for his own benefit. Thoreau wants to transform the world around him, but understands that it will take time.
+
+== Style and analysis ==
+Walden has been the subject of many scholarly articles. Book reviewers, critics, scholars, and many more have published literature on Thoreau's Walden.
+Thoreau carefully recounts his time in the woods through his writing in Walden. Critics have thoroughly analyzed the different writing styles that Thoreau uses. Critic Nicholas Bagnall writes that Thoreau's observations of nature are "lyrical" and "exact". Another critic, Henry Golemba, asserts that the writing style of Walden is very natural. Thoreau employs various styles of writing where his words are both intricate and simple at the same time. His word choice conveys a certain mood. For instance, when Thoreau describes the silence of nature, the reader may feel that serene moment as well. Thoreau continues to connect back to nature throughout the book because he wants to depict what he experienced and saw.
+Many scholars have compared Thoreau to fellow transcendentalist writer Ralph Waldo Emerson. Although Emerson was 14 years his senior, much of Thoreau's writing was influenced by Emerson. Critic John Brooks Moore examined the relationship between Thoreau and Emerson and the effects it had on their respective works. Moore claims that Thoreau did not simply mimic Emerson's work, but he was actually the more dominant one in the relationship. Thoreau has learned from Emerson and some "Emersonism" can be found in his works, but Thoreau's work is distinct from Emerson's. Many critics have also seen the influence of Thomas Carlyle (a great influence on Emerson), particularly in Thoreau's use of an extended clothing metaphor, which Carlyle had used in Sartor Resartus (1831).
+Scholars have recognized Walden's use of biblical allusions. Such allusions are useful tools to convince readers because the Bible is seen as a principal book of truth. According to scholar Judith Saunders, the signature biblical allusion identified in the book is, "Walden was dead and is alive again." This is almost verbatim from Luke 15.11–32. Thoreau is personifying Walden Pond to further the story relevant to the Bible. He compares the process of death and rebirth of the pond to self-transformation in humans.
+
+== Reception ==

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+
+Walden enjoyed some success upon its release, but still took five years to sell 2,000 copies, and then went out of print until Thoreau's death in 1862. Despite its slow beginnings, later critics have praised it as an American classic that explores natural simplicity, harmony, and beauty. The American poet, Robert Frost, wrote of Thoreau, "In one book ... he surpasses everything we have had in America".
+It is often assumed that critics initially ignored Walden, and that those who reviewed the book were evenly split or slightly more negative than positive in their assessment of it. But, researchers have shown that Walden actually was "more favorably and widely received by Thoreau's contemporaries than hitherto suspected". Of the 66 initial reviews that have been found so far, 46 "were strongly favorable". Some reviews were rather superficial, merely recommending the book or predicting its success with the public; others were more lengthy, detailed, and nuanced with both positive and negative comments. Positive comments included praise for Thoreau's independence, practicality, wisdom, "manly simplicity", and fearlessness. Less than three weeks after the book's publication, Thoreau's mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson, proclaimed, "All American kind are delighted with Walden as far as they have dared to say."
+On the other hand, the terms "quaint" or "eccentric" appeared in over half of the book's initial reviews. Other terms critical of Thoreau included selfish, strange, impractical, privileged (or "manor born"), and misanthropic. One review compared and contrasted Thoreau's form of living to communism, probably not in the sense of Marxism, but instead of communal living or religious communism. While valuing freedom from possessions, Thoreau was not communal in the sense of practicing sharing or of embracing community. So, communism "is better than our hermit's method of getting rid of encumbrance".
+In contrast to Thoreau's "manly simplicity", nearly twenty years after Thoreau's death Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson judged Thoreau's endorsement of living alone in natural simplicity, apart from modern society, to be a mark of effeminacy, calling it "womanish solicitude; for there is something unmanly, something almost dastardly" about the lifestyle. Poet John Greenleaf Whittier criticized what he perceived as the message in Walden that man should lower himself to the level of a woodchuck and walk on four legs. He said: "Thoreau's Walden is a capital reading, but very wicked and heathenish ... After all, for me, I prefer walking on two legs". Author Edward Abbey criticized Thoreau's ideas and experiences at Walden in detail throughout his response to Walden called "Down the River with Thoreau", written in 1980.
+Today, despite these criticisms, Walden stands as one of America's most celebrated works of literature. John Updike wrote of Walden, "A century and a half after its publication, Walden has become such a totem of the back-to-nature, preservationist, anti-business, civil-disobedience mindset, and Thoreau so vivid a protester, so perfect a crank and hermit saint, that the book risks being as revered and unread as the Bible." The American psychologist B. F. Skinner wrote that he carried a copy of Walden with him in his youth, and eventually wrote Walden Two in 1945, a fictional utopia about 1,000 members who live together in a Thoreau-inspired community.
+Kathryn Schulz has accused Thoreau of hypocrisy, misanthropy and being sanctimonious based on his writings in Walden, although this criticism has been perceived as highly selective.
+
+== Adaptations ==
+
+=== Video games ===
+The National Endowment for the Arts in 2012 bestowed Tracy Fullerton, game designer and professor at the University of Southern California's Game Innovation Lab, with a $40,000 grant to create, based on the book, a first person, open world video game called Walden, a game,  in which players "inhabit an open, three-dimensional game world that will simulate the geography and environment of Walden Woods". The game production was also supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and was part of the Sundance New Frontier Story Lab in 2014. The game was released to critical acclaim on July 4, 2017, celebrating both the day that Thoreau went down to the pond to begin his experiment and the 200th anniversary of Thoreau's birth.  It was nominated for the Off-Broadway Award for Best Indie Game at the New York Game Awards 2018.
+
+=== Digitization and scholarship efforts ===
+Digital Thoreau,  a collaboration among the State University of New York at Geneseo, the Thoreau Society, and the Walden Woods Project, has developed a fluid text edition of Walden across the different versions of the work to help readers trace the evolution of Thoreau's classic work across seven stages of revision from 1846 to 1854.  Within any chapter of Walden, readers can compare up to seven manuscript versions with each other, with the Princeton University Press edition, and consult critical notes drawn from Thoreau scholars, including Ronald Clapper's dissertation The Development of Walden: A Genetic Text (1967) and Walter Harding's Walden: An Annotated Edition (1995). Ultimately, the project will provide a space for readers to discuss Thoreau in the margins of his texts.
+
+=== Influence ===

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+title: "Walden"
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+
+The Dutch writer and psychiatrist Frederik van Eeden used the ideas from this book to create his own vision, back to the nature, at the commune Walden in the Netherlands in 1898.
+In the 1948 book Walden Two by behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner the experimental Walden Two Community is mentioned as having the benefits of living in a place like Thoreau's Walden, but "with company".
+Jonas Mekas' 1968 film Walden is loosely inspired by the book.
+The film All That Heaven Allows (1955) is clearly influenced by Thoreau, with the protagonist Cary Scott (Jane Wyman) reading lines from Walden.  
+Jean Craighead George's My Side of the Mountain trilogy (1959) draws heavily from themes expressed in Walden. Protagonist Sam Gribley is nicknamed "Thoreau" by an English teacher he befriends.
+Shane Carruth's second film Upstream Color (2013) features Walden as a central item of its story, and draws heavily on the themes expressed by Thoreau.
+In 1962, William Melvin Kelley titled his first novel, A Different Drummer, after a famous quote from Walden: "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer." The quote, as well as another stanza from the book, appears as an epigraph in Kelley's novel, which echoes Thoreau's theme of individualism.
+The name of the gay men's culture and news magazine Drum, which began publication in 1964, was inspired by the same quote, which appeared in every edition.
+The 1989 film Dead Poets Society heavily features an excerpt from Walden as a motif in the plot.
+The Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish paraphrased the quote "Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth" on their 2011 song "The Crow, the Owl and the Dove" from the studio album Imaginaerum. They also make several references to Walden on their eighth studio album Endless Forms Most Beautiful of 2015, including in the song titled "My Walden" and in the song "Alpenglow".
+The investment research firm Morningstar, Inc. was named for the last sentence in Walden by founder and CEO Joe Mansueto, and the "O" in the company's logo is shaped like a rising sun.
+In the 2015 video game Fallout 4, which takes place in Massachusetts, there exists a location called Walden Pond, where the player can listen to an automated tourist guide detail Thoreau's experience living in the wilderness. At the location there stands a small house which is said to be the same house Thoreau built and stayed in.
+Phoebe Bridgers references the book in her song "Smoke Signals".
+In 2018, MC Lars and Mega Ran released a song called "Walden" where they discuss the book and its influence.
+In the 1997 episode "Weight Gain 4000" of South Park, Eric Cartman "writes" a prize-winning essay copied from Walden, replacing Thoreau's name with his own.
+Professor Richard Primack from Boston University utilizes information from Thoreau's Walden in climate change research.
+It is suggested that the genre of nature writing in American literature is derived from Thoreau's Walden.
+Austin Chinn, editor of the trilogy version of Ring of Bright Water by Gavin Maxwell, suggests that Maxwell may have been influenced by Walden when writing the best-seller.
+
+== References ==
+
+All That Heaven Allows (1955) - Quotes - IMDb. Retrieved April 22, 2025 – via www.imdb.com.
+
+== External links ==
+
+ Walden at Project Gutenberg
+Walden – Digitized copy of the first edition from the Internet Archive.
+Walden at Standard Ebooks
+"Walden (book)" . Encyclopedia Americana. 1920.
+ Walden public domain audiobook at LibriVox
+Walden: An Annotated Edition (hyperlinked TOC, footnotes and scholarly commentary). R. Lenat (ed.). Thoreau Society and Iowa State University project.

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+---
+title: "Wet Prairie"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet_Prairie"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:42:13.972510+00:00"
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+---
+
+Wet Prairie: People, Land, and Water in Agricultural Manitoba is a 2011 book by Canadian historian Shannon Stunden Bower. The book examines the history of settlement and farming in the unique landscape of southern Manitoba, notable for its poor drainage and thus high levels of moisture that contrast with the aridity of much of the Great Plains. Stunden Bower uses this unique context to focus on the development of liberalism on the Prairies, from the late nineteenth into the twentieth centuries, highlighting tensions between private property and state intervention and between agricultural development and wetland conservation. The book uses the term "colloquial liberalisms" to describe how variable landscapes shaped local interpretations of liberalism, highlighting the ways in which ideologies interact with the environment. In this case, drainage needs and policy created "differing understandings of the appropriate interplay of individual land rights with government tax or environmental policies." Wet Prairie ultimately demonstrates "that Canada’s (and thus any nation’s) political history cannot fully be understood without paying attention to the environment."
+
+
+== Awards and recognition ==
+Wet Prairie has won numerous awards, including the 2012 Clio Prize for the Prairies from the Canadian Historical Association, the 2012 K.D. Srivastava Prize from UBC Press, and the 2013 Manitoba Day Award. The book has been called "an important contribution to the geographical, environmental, political, and cultural history of the Prairie Provinces and to the Great Plains as a whole."
+
+
+== References ==

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Corporations_Rule_the_World-0.md

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+---
+title: "When Corporations Rule the World"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Corporations_Rule_the_World"
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+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:42:15.119126+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+When Corporations Rule the World is a 1995 non-fiction book by David Korten. Korten examines the evolution of corporations in the United States and argues that "corporate libertarians" have "twisted" the ideas of Adam Smith's view of the role of private companies.
+Korten critiques current methods of economic development led by the Bretton Woods institutions and asserts his desire to rebalance the power of multinational corporations with concern for environmental sustainability and what he terms "people-centered development".  He advocates a 50% tax on advertising.
+Korten criticises consumerism, market deregulation, free trade, privatization and what he sees as the global consolidation of corporate power.  Above all he rejects any focus on money as the purpose of economic life. His prescriptions include excluding corporations from political participation, increased state and global control of international corporations and finance, rendering financial speculation unprofitable and creating local economies that rely on local resources, rather than international trade.
+
+
+== Responses ==
+In a review of the book in Left Business Observer #71 in January 1996, Doug Henwood observed:
+
+[Korten] offers a vision of "a market economy composed primarily, though not exclusively, of family enterprises, small-scale co-ops, worker-owned firms, and neighborhood and municipal corporations." Much of this is desirable. But it would be impossible to run a complex economy on this scale only; it's easy to imagine furniture being made this way, but not trains and computers. If Korten means to do away with trains and computers, he should tell us.
+
+
+== References ==

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+---
+title: "Whole Earth Catalog"
+chunk: 1/4
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_Earth_Catalog"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:42:16.251655+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+The Whole Earth Catalog (WEC) was an American counterculture magazine and product catalog. Stewart Brand, a biologist, photographer and writer, conceived the idea for it; he was the Catalog’s original editor, and its most frequent editor in later years. It was originally published by the Portola Institute, but later by the Point Foundation, with a distribution arrangement by 1969 with Penguin and subsequently with Random House. New editions were published several times a year between 1968 and 1972, and occasionally thereafter, until 1998. 
+The magazine featured essays and articles, but was primarily focused on product reviews. The editorial focus was on self-sufficiency, ecology, alternative education, "do it yourself" (DIY), community, and holism, and featured the slogan "access to tools". Although WEC listed and reviewed a wide range of products (clothing, books, tools, machines, seeds, etc.), it did not sell any of the products directly. Instead, the vendor's contact information was listed alongside the item and its review. This is why, while not a regularly published periodical, numerous editions and updates were required to keep price and availability information up to date.
+In his 2005 Stanford University commencement speech, Steve Jobs compared The Whole Earth Catalog to "a sort of Google in paperback form, before Google came along."
+
+== Origins ==
+
+The title Whole Earth Catalog came from a previous project by Stewart Brand. In 1966, he initiated a public campaign to have NASA release the then-rumored satellite photo of the sphere of Earth as seen from space, one of the first images of the "Whole Earth". He thought the image might be a powerful symbol, evoking a sense of shared destiny and adaptive strategies from people. The Stanford-educated Brand, a biologist with strong artistic and social interests, believed that there was a groundswell of commitment to thoroughly renovating American industrial society along ecologically and socially just lines, whatever they might prove to be.
+Andrew Kirk in Counterculture Green notes that the Whole Earth Catalog was preceded by the "Whole Earth Truck Store" which was a 1963 Dodge truck. In 1968, Brand, who was then 29, and his wife Lois embarked "on a commune road trip" with the truck, hoping to tour the country doing educational fairs. The truck was not only a store, but also an alternative lending library and a mobile microeducation service.
+Kevin Kelly, who would edit later editions of the catalog, summarizes the very early history this way:
+
+'Here's a tool that will make drilling a well, or grinding flour, easier,' Brand would tell [the hippies,] pointing it out in his catalog of recommended tools. But his best selling tool was the catalog itself, annotated by him, featuring tools that didn't fit into his truck.
+The "Truck Store," as a Portola Institute project, finally settled into its permanent location in Menlo Park, California. Instead of bringing the store to the people, Brand decided to create "accumulatively larger versions of his tool catalog" and sell it by mail so the people could contact the vendors directly.
+Using the most basic typesetting and page-layout tools, Brand and his colleagues created the first issue of The Whole Earth Catalog in 1968. In subsequent issues, its production values gradually improved. Its outsized pages measured 11×14 inches (28×36 cm). Later editions were more than an inch thick. The early editions were published by the Portola Institute, headed by Richard Raymond. The so-called Last Whole Earth Catalog (June 1971) won the first U.S. National Book Award in the Contemporary Affairs category. It was the first time a catalog had ever won such an award. 
+Brand's intent with the catalog was to provide education and "access to tools" so a reader could "find his own inspiration, shape his own environment, and share his adventure with whoever is interested."
+J. Baldwin was a young designer and instructor of design at colleges around the San Francisco Bay: San Francisco State University (then San Francisco State College), the San Francisco Art Institute, and the California College of the Arts (then California College of Arts and Crafts). As he recalled in the film Ecological Design (1994), "Stewart Brand came to me because he heard that I read catalogs. He said, 'I want to make this thing called a "whole Earth" catalog so that anyone on Earth can pick up a telephone and find out the complete information on anything. ... That's my goal.'" Baldwin served as the chief editor of subjects in the areas of technology and design, both in the catalog itself and in other publications which arose from it.
+True to his 1966 vision, Brand's publishing efforts were suffused with an awareness of the importance of ecology, both as a field of study and as an influence upon the future of humankind and emerging human awareness.
+
+== Contents ==
+From the opening page of the 1969 Catalog:
+
+Function
+The WHOLE EARTH CATALOG functions as an evaluation and access device.  With it, the user should know better what is worth getting and where and how to do the getting.
+An item is listed in the CATALOG if it is deemed:
+
+Useful as a tool,
+Relevant to independent education,
+High quality or low cost,
+Not already common knowledge,
+Easily available by mail.
+CATALOG listings are continually revised according to the experience and suggestions of CATALOG users and staff.
+
+Purpose
+We are as gods and might as well get good at it.   So far, remotely done power and glory—as via government, big business, formal education, church—has succeeded to the point where gross defects obscure actual gains.  In response to this dilemma and to these gains a realm of intimate, personal power is developing—power of the individual to conduct his own education, find his own inspiration, shape his own environment, and share his adventure with whoever is interested.  Tools that aid this process are sought and promoted by the WHOLE EARTH CATALOG.
+The 1968 catalog divided itself into seven broad sections:

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+---
+title: "Whole Earth Catalog"
+chunk: 2/4
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_Earth_Catalog"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:42:16.251655+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Understanding Whole Systems
+Shelter and Land Use
+Industry and Craft
+Communications
+Community
+Nomadics
+Learning
+Within each section, the best tools and books the editors could find were collected and listed, along with images, reviews and uses, prices, and suppliers. The reader was also able to order some items directly through the catalog.
+Later editions changed a few of the headings, but generally kept the same overall framework.
+The Catalog used a broad definition of "tools". There were informative tools, such as books, maps, professional journals, courses, and classes. There were well-designed special-purpose utensils, including garden tools, carpenters' and masons' tools, welding equipment, chainsaws, fiberglass materials, tents, hiking shoes, and potters' wheels. There were even early synthesizers and personal computers.
+The Catalog's publication coincided with a great wave of convention-challenging experimentalism and a do-it-yourself attitude associated with "the counterculture," and tended to appeal not only to the intelligentsia of the movement, but to creative, hands-on, and outdoorsy people of many stripes. Some of the ideas in the Catalog were developed during Brand's visits to Drop City.
+With the Catalog opened flat, the reader might find the large page on the left full of text and intriguing illustrations from a volume of Joseph Needham's Science and Civilization in China, showing and explaining an astronomical clock tower or a chain-pump windmill, while on the right-hand page are a review of a beginners' guide to modern technology (The Way Things Work) and a review of The Engineers' Illustrated Thesaurus. On another spread, the verso reviews books on accounting and moonlighting jobs, while the recto bears an article in which people tell the story of a community credit union they founded. Another pair of pages depict and discuss different kayaks, inflatable dinghies, and houseboats.
+
+== Publication after 1972 ==
+The catalog was published sporadically after 1972. An important shift in philosophy in the Catalogs occurred in the early 1970s, when Brand decided that the early stance of emphasizing individualism should be replaced with one favoring community. He had originally written that "a realm of intimate, personal power is developing"; regarding this as important in some respects (to wit, the soon-emerging potentials of personal computing), Brand felt that the overarching project of humankind had more to do with living within natural systems, and this is something we do in common, interactively.
+The broad interpretation of "tool" coincided with that given by the designer, philosopher, and engineer Buckminster Fuller, though another thinker admired by Brand and some of his cohorts was Lewis Mumford, who had written about words as tools. Early editions reflected the considerable influence of Fuller, particularly his teachings about "whole systems," "synergetics," and efficiency or reducing waste. By 1971, Brand and his co-workers were already questioning whether Fuller's sense of direction might be too anthropocentric. New information arising in fields like ecology and biospherics was persuasive.
+By the mid-1970s, much of the Buddhist economics viewpoint of E. F. Schumacher, as well as the activist interests of the biological species preservationists, had tempered the overall enthusiasm for Fuller's ideas in the catalog. Still later, the amiable-architecture ideas of people like Christopher Alexander and similar community-planning ideas of people like Peter Calthorpe further tempered the engineering-efficiency tone of Fuller's ideas.
+The Whole Earth Epilog published in 1974 was intended as a "volume 2" to the Last Whole Earth Catalog, which itself was revised as The (Updated) Last Whole Earth Catalog in 1975. 
+The Next Whole Earth Catalog (ISBN 0-394-70776-1) in 1980 was well received, and an updated second edition followed in 1981. The 1980s also saw two editions of the Whole Earth Software Catalog, a compendium for which Doubleday had bid $1.4 million for the trade paperback rights. The 1986 publication of The Essential Whole Earth Catalog (ISBN 0-385-23641-7) preceded the 1989 Electronic Whole Earth Catalog on CD-ROM, which used HyperCard, an early form of hypermedia developed by Apple Computer. Dedicated editions were published for communications tools Signal in 1988, new age topics The Fringes of Reason in 1989, and ecological matters Whole Earth Ecolog in 1990. 
+Published in 1994, The Millennium Whole Earth Catalog (ISBN 0-06-251059-2) was subtitled Access to Tools and Ideas for the Twenty-First Century. 
+A slender 30th Anniversary Celebration was published in 1998 as part of Issue 95 of the Whole Earth magazine (ISSN 0749-5056), reprinting the original WEC along with new material. An important edit to this reprint was a limitation placed by book publishers who "begged" the Catalog not to promote titles they no longer carry. All such information was placed at the back of the catalog, hampering a valuable Catalog function: nudging publishers to keep seminal works in print.
+
+== Publication history ==
+
+== Books ==
+Three books were serialized in the pages of the WEC, printing a couple of paragraphs per page. This made reading the catalog a page-by-page experience.
+
+Divine Right's Trip by Gurney Norman, July 1971 edition
+Tales of Tongue Fu by Paul Krassner, October 1974 edition
+The Rising Sun Neighborhood by Anne Herbert, March 1981 edition
+
+== Impact and legacy ==
+Steve Jobs compared The Whole Earth Catalog to Internet search engine Google in his June 2005 Stanford University commencement speech. 
+
+When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation ... It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along. It was idealistic and overflowing with neat tools and great notions. 
+Then at the very end of this commencement speech Jobs quotes explicitly the farewell message placed on the back cover of the last 1974 edition of the Catalog (#1180 October 1974 titled Whole Earth Epilog) and makes it his own final recommendation: "Stay hungry. Stay foolish."
+In 2009, Kevin Kelly stated:

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+title: "Whole Earth Catalog"
+chunk: 3/4
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_Earth_Catalog"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:42:16.251655+00:00"
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+---
+
+For this new countercultural movement, information was a precious commodity. In the '60s, there was no Internet; no 500 cable channels. ... [The WEC] was a great example of user-generated content, without advertising, before the Internet. Basically, Brand invented the blogosphere long before there was any such thing as a blog. ... No topic was too esoteric, no degree of enthusiasm too ardent, no amateur expertise too uncertified to be included. ... This I am sure about: it is no coincidence that the Whole Earth Catalogs disappeared as soon as the web and blogs arrived. Everything the Whole Earth Catalogs did, the web does better.
+Looking back and discussing attitudes evident in the early editions of the catalog, Brand wrote, "At a time when the New Left was calling for grassroots political (i.e., referred) power, Whole Earth eschewed politics and pushed grass-roots direct power—tools and skills."
+As an early indicator of the general Zeitgeist, the catalog's first edition preceded the original Earth Day by nearly two years. The idea of Earth Day occurred to Senator Gaylord Nelson, its instigator, "in the summer of 1969 while on a conservation speaking tour out west," where the Sierra Club was active, and where young minds had been broadened and stimulated by such influences as the catalog.
+
+=== Spin-offs and inspirations ===
+From 1974 to 2003, the Whole Earth principals published a magazine, known originally as CoEvolution Quarterly. When the short-lived Whole Earth Software Review (a supplement to The Whole Earth Software Catalog) failed, it was merged in 1985 with CoEvolution Quarterly to form the Whole Earth Review (edited at different points by Jay Kinney, 
+Kevin Kelly, and Howard Rheingold), later called Whole Earth Magazine and finally just Whole Earth. The last issue, number 111 (edited by Alex Steffen), was meant to be published in Spring 2003, but funds ran out. The Point Foundation, which owned Whole Earth, closed its doors later that year. 
+The Whole Earth website continues the WEC legacy of concepts in popular discourse, medical self-care, community building, bioregionalism, environmental restoration, nanotechnology, and cyberspace. As of January 2022, the website appears to be offline. 
+Recognizing the "developed country" focus of the original WEC, groups in several developing countries have created "catalogs" of their own to be more relevant to their countries. One such effort was an adaptation of the WEC (called the "Liklik Buk") written and published in the late 1970s in Papua New Guinea; by 1982 this had been enlarged, updated, and translated (as "Save Na Mekem") into the Pidgin language used throughout Melanesia, and updates of the English "Liklik Buk" were published in 1986 and 2003.
+In the United States, the book Domebook One was a direct spin-off of the WEC. Lloyd Kahn, Shelter editor of the WEC, borrowed WEC production equipment for a week in 1970 and produced the first book on building geodesic domes. A year later, in 1971, Kahn again borrowed WEC equipment (an IBM Selectric Composer typesetting machine and a Polaroid MP-5 camera on an easel), and spent a month in the Santa Barbara Mountains producing Domebook 2, which went on to sell 165,000 copies. With production of DB 2, Kahn and his company Shelter Publications followed Stewart Brand's move to nationwide distribution by Random House.
+In 1973, Kirsten Grimstad and Susan Rennie are part of a research project at Berkeley University and publish a feminist catalog inspired by the Whole Earth Catalog, the New Woman's Survival Catalog, which gathers feminist initiatives in different domains (art, communication, work, money, self-help, self-defense...) in the USA.
+In 1969, a store which was inspired by (but not financially connected with) The Whole Earth Catalog, called the Whole Earth Access opened in Berkeley, California. It closed in 1998. In 1970 a store called the "Whole Earth Provision Co.", inspired by the catalog, opened in Austin, Texas. It has six stores in Austin, Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio.
+In late 2006, Worldchanging released their 600-page compendium of solutions, Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century, which Bill McKibben, in an article in the New York Review of Books called "The Whole Earth Catalog retooled for the iPod generation." The editor of Worldchanging has since acknowledged the Catalog as a prime inspiration.
+Whole Arctic Catalog was written by Pamela Richot and Published in Backet 3: At Extremes in 2015 to draw attention to threats to the arctic region specifically, similarly to how The Whole Earth Catalog drew attention to global environmental threats.
+Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds publishes a Whole Seed Catalog, with a title and cover image inspired by the Whole Earth Catalog.
+Kevin Kelly, mentioned above for his role in editing later editions of the Whole Earth Catalog, maintains a web site—Cool-Tools.org—that publishes reviews of "the best/cheapest tools available. Tools are defined broadly as anything that can be useful. This includes hand tools, machines, books, software, gadgets, websites, maps, and even ideas." He also published a large format book in 2013—Cool Tools A Catalog of Possibilities—which draws on the many reviews published over the years on that web site. The format, size, and style of the book reflect and pay homage to the original Whole Earth Catalog.

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+title: "Whole Earth Catalog"
+chunk: 4/4
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_Earth_Catalog"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:42:16.251655+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+=== In popular culture ===
+In 1970, on April Fool's Day, the Whole Earth Restaurant opened at UC Santa Cruz. It was an early source of "whole foods" in Northern California until it closed in 2002.
+In 1972 Warner Bros. Records release a 2 disc sample album The Whole Burbank Catalog. The cover parodied the publication's artwork. 
+The WEC is mentioned in the song "Country Man," the title track from the 1972 debut album by Canadian musician Valdy: "Feed the cat, feed the dog, feed the chickens, chop the log / Have a smoke and clear the fog, read the Whole Earth Catalog." It is also mentioned in the piece "The Adventures of Greggery Peccary" by Frank Zappa: "I must plummet boldly forward to my ultra-avant laminated, simulated replica-mahogany desk, with the strategically-placed, imported, very hip water pipe, and the latest edition of the WHOLE EARTH CATALOG, and rack my agile mind for a spectacular new TREND, thereby rejuvenating our limping economy, and providing for bored & miserable people everywhere some great new 'THING' to identify with!"
+A 2010 issue of the political art magazine made by the Adbusters Media Foundation was titled The Whole Brain Catalog, which features a parody cover with a small human brain in place of the earth, and many references to the 1960s counter culture movement. The tagline read Access to Therapies rather than Access to Tools.
+On April 17, 2018, My Morning Jacket frontman Jim James announced the release of his third solo album Uniform Distortion, which he stated was inspired by The Whole Earth Catalog.
+
+== Scholarship ==
+Stewart Brand and The Whole Earth Catalog are both subjects of interest to scholars. Notable examples include works by Theodore Roszak, Howard Rheingold, Fred Turner, John Markoff, Andrew Kirk, Sam Binkley and Felicity Scott. The Stanford University Library System has a Whole Earth archive in its Department of Special Collections.
+
+== See also ==
+List of underground newspapers of the 1960s counterculture
+We Are As Gods (book)
+
+== References ==
+
+== Further reading ==
+
+== External links ==
+Whole Earth Index. Nearly complete archive of Whole Earth publications issued between 1970 and 2002.
+From Counterculture to Cyberculture: The Legacy of the Whole Earth Catalog, November 9, 2006. A symposium featuring Stewart Brand, Kevin Kelly, Howard Rheingold and Fred Turner, Cubberly Auditorium, Stanford University
+Turner, Fred, "Taking the Whole Earth Digital", From Counterculture to Cyberculture.
+"The Whole Earth Effect", Plenty Magazine.
+Cool Tools.
+The Internet Archive's Whole Earth collection
+The (Searchable) Whole Earth

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_Earth_Discipline-0.md

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+---
+title: "Whole Earth Discipline"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_Earth_Discipline"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:42:17.438124+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto is the sixth book by Stewart Brand, published by Viking Penguin in 2009. He sees Earth and people propelled by three transformations: climate change (global warming), urbanization and biotechnology. Brand tackles "touchy issues" like nuclear power, genetic engineering and geoengineering, "fully aware that many of the environmentalist readers he hopes to reach will start out disagreeing with him".
+
+
+== Overview ==
+Brand said in an interview with Seed magazine, "...I'd accumulated a set of contrarian views on some important environmental issues—specifically, cities, nuclear energy, genetic engineering, and geoengineering—and that it added up to a story worth telling."
+The author cites numerous other authors both in the recommended reading section and in live lectures. In particular, book influences are Constant Battles by Steven A. LeBlanc with Katherine Register, Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, a New Urban World by Robert Neuwirth, and James Lovelock, the author of The Revenge of Gaia and The Vanishing Face of Gaia.
+In an interview with American Public Media, Brand said, "...in [Whole Earth Catalog] I focused on individual empowerment, and in [Whole Earth Discipline] the focus is on the aggregate effects of humans on things like climate. And some of these issues are of such scale that you got to have the governments doing things like making carbon expensive. Or making coal expensive to burn and putting all that carbon into the atmosphere. And individuals can't do that, individual communities can't do that. It takes national governments."
+
+
+== Synopsis ==
+Speaking on "Rethinking Green", Brand provided a short version of his book:
+The book challenges traditional environmentalist thinking around four major issues:
+
+Cities are green.
+Nuclear power is green.
+Genetic engineering is green.
+Geoengineering is probably necessary.
+He summarized the book as follows:
+Urbanization, or the move to cities, requires grid electricity, which chapter one discusses, in particular nuclear power. Another two chapters explain the need for genetic engineering. The fourth chapter is a "sermon" on science and large-scale geoengineering. The fifth chapter tackles restoration of natural infrastructure and benevolent ecosystem engineering. Finally, Brand concludes with humans' obligation to "learn planet craft", to enhance life and Earth like an earthworm.
+
+
+== Criticism ==
+Amory Lovins published a critique at the Rocky Mountain Institute, saying on NPR that nuclear energy is not the most cost-effective solution, that it is too expensive and slow to build. Jim Riccio, a spokesman for Greenpeace speaking with Green Inc. of The New York Times, called Brand's arguments "nonsensical, especially concerning the abysmal economics of nuclear power."
+"(Environmentalists) are viewing what I'm saying more in sorrow than in anger," Brand told the Toronto Star.
+
+
+== Online revision after publication ==
+Brand maintains an online version of his book where, as he says "the text (much of it) dwells in a living thicket of its origins and implications.  Instead of static footnotes there are live links to my sources, including some better ones that turned up after the writing".
+He also published an online "Afterword".  He asks:  "What belongs in an afterword?"  For one thing, he says: "history that has moved on from what I described in 2009 should be indicated"  But his Afterword is also a place where he can record changes in his views:  "I did promise in this book that I would change my mind as needed...."
+Brand says his views on climate are influenced most by his old friend James Lovelock. In the Afterword, Brand writes that Lovelock has "softened his sense of alarm about the pace of climate change".  (Lovelock's position had been that planetary catastrophe was now unavoidable).  Brand explains that Lovelock changed his mind because of two things: he read a book, The Climate Caper, by Garth Paltridge, and he read a paper by Dr. Kevin Trenberth, which was published in Science. Brand quotes from an email he got from Lovelock:  "Something unknown appears to be slowing down the rate of global warming".
+Brand's current position on climate change is unclear.  In a talk recorded in Vancouver, he told the audience "maybe nothing" will happen as a result of the accumulating greenhouse gases, although he said it would be "like playing Russian Roulette with five cylinders loaded, to not reduce emissions".
+
+
+== Reviews ==
+Publishers Weekly said, "Rejecting the inflexible message so common in the Green movement, he describes a process of reasonable debate and experimentation. Brand's fresh perspective, approachable writing style and manifest wisdom ultimately convince the reader that the future is not an abyss to be feared but an opportunity for innovative problem solvers to embrace enthusiastically." Library Journal's verdict: "Despite the occasional flippant comment, Brand's tough but constructive projection of our near future on this overheating planet is essential reading for all."  One Energy Collective reviewer disagreed:  "What's Brand doing telling people to pay attention to a second rate climate science denier like Paltridge?  And that aging old friend of his who has so influenced him, Lovelock, he doesn't seem to understand what recent debate among leading climate scientists means."
+
+
+== References ==
+
+
+== External links ==
+Annotated extracts and footnotes on sbnotes.com.
+Brand, Stewart (June 2009). Stewart Brand proclaims 4 environmental 'heresies'. Ted Conferences. Retrieved 2009-11-02.
+Ashbrook, Tom (October 21, 2009). Stewart Brand's 'Ecopragmatism'. WBUR (Boston NPR), On Point. Retrieved 2009-11-02.
+Too Much Controversy over Genetically Modified Foods? - Stewart Brand. ForaTV via YouTube (Google). October 21, 2009. Archived from the original on 2021-12-20. Retrieved 2009-11-02.

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Law-0.md

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+---
+title: "Wild Law"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Law"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:42:19.758206+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Wild Law: A Manifesto for Earth Justice is a book by Cormac Cullinan that proposes recognizing natural communities and ecosystems as legal persons with legal rights. The book explains the concept of wild law, that is, human laws that are consistent with earth jurisprudence. Foreworded by Thomas Berry, the book was published by Green Books in November 2003 in association with The Gaia Foundation, London.  It was first published in South Africa, the author's home country, in August 2002 by Siber Ink.
+The feasibility of developing a new form of jurisprudence was discussed at a conference in Washington attended by Thomas Berry in April 2001, organised by the Gaia Foundation. A group of people involved with law and indigenous peoples attended from South Africa, Britain, Colombia, Canada and the United States.
+Since then Wild Law has been at the centre of many conferences and residential workshops: 
+
+A conference based on the concept of wild law was held in November 2005 at the University of Brighton. The conference was chaired by former Environment Minister Michael Meacher MP and speakers included Jacqueline McGlade, head of the European Environment Agency and Lynda Warren of the Environment Agency.
+In November 2006, a conference based on the book was held at the University of Brighton in the UK and organised jointly by UKELA and ELF. 'A Walk on the Wild Side: Changing Environmental Law' and was chaired by John Elkington (of SustainAbility and the ELF Advisory Council) with guest speakers, Cormac Cullinan, Norman Baker MP (former Liberal Democrat Environment Spokesman), Satish Kumar (Resurgence) and Begonia Filgueira (Gaia Law Ltd).
+"A 'Wild Law' Response to Climate Change" workshop was held in September 2007 to develop a practical approach for applying Wild Law principles which are already helping shift legal processes in the US and South Africa. Organised by UKELA, with support from ELF and the Gaia Foundation, London and sponsored by the Body Shop. Held at a conference centre in Derbyshire in the UK, with internationally renowned speakers Cormac Cullinan, author of Wild Law, Professor Brian Goodwin, visiting scholar and teacher on MSc in Holistic Science, at the Schumacher College, International Centre for Ecological Studies, Devon, Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of The Center for Food Safety in United States and founder of the International Center for Technology Assessment, Peter Roderick, director of the Climate justice Programme and was Friends of the Earth's lawyer in London from 1996.
+Wild Law was discussed in April 2007 at a conference, hosted by Center for Earth Jurisprudence, a collaborative initiative of Barry & St. Thomas Universities, Florida, USA, on the emerging field of Earth Jurisprudence.
+The "'Wild Law' – Ideas into Action" residential workshop is to be held in September 2008, to launch the first phase of international research by the UKELA and the Gaia Foundation to identify Wild Law in practice and provide a Wild Law toolkit for decision makers and practitioners. Held at a conference centre in Derbyshire in the UK, workshop leaders include: Mellese Damtie, Ethiopian lawyer and biologist, former Dean of the Legal Department at Ethiopia's Civil Service College, Andrew Kimbrell, public interest attorney, activist and author, executive director of The Centre for Food Safety in United States and founder of the International Centre for Technology Assessment; and Professor Lynda Warren, emeritus professor at Aberystwyth University, environmental consultant and the research supervisor. Also participating, research paper coordinators, Begonia Filgueira, of Gaia Law Ltd and ERIC Ltd, and Ian Mason, practising barrister and Director of the Earth Jurisprudence Resource Centre; Cormac Cullinan, an environmental lawyer based in Cape Town, South Africa, author of Wild Law, director of the leading South African environmental law firm, Cullinan and Associates Inc., and CEO of EnAct International, an environmental governance consultancy; and Ng’anga Thiong’o, legal and policy adviser for Kenyan community NGO, Porini, and formerly to Green Belt Movement and Nobel prize winner, Wangari Maathai. This event is facilitated by Elizabeth Rivers, former commercial lawyer and professional facilitator, and Vicki Elcoate, executive director of UKELA.
+The Tamaqua Borough Sewage Sludge Ordinance enacted in 2006 by the 7,000 inhabits of the community of Tamaqua, PA is based on the 2002 ideas set out in Wild Law and has been viewed potentially as one of the most important events of 2006. Tamaqua's ordinance not only denies the right of corporations to spread sewage sludge as fertilizer on farmland, even when the farmer is willing, the ordinance recognizes natural communities and ecosystems as legal persons with legal rights. This ordinance is among the first " wild laws" to be passed anywhere in the world.
+
+
+== References ==
+
+
+=== General ===
+Stephen Harding, 'Earthly rights', The Guardian, April 2007.
+Simon Boyle, 'On thin ice', The Guardian, November 2006
+
+
+== External links ==
+Center for Earth Jurisprudence
+EnAct International, an environmental law consultancy based in Cape Town, South Africa, founded by Cullinan
+Siber Ink Archived 3 July 2009 at the Wayback Machine, the original publishers of Wild Law.

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Solutions-0.md

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 tags: "science, encyclopedia"
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+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:42:21.044109+00:00"
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data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_by_Design-0.md

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+---
+title: "Wild by Design"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_by_Design"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:42:18.628441+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Wild by Design: The Rise of Ecological Restoration is a 2022 book by Laura J. Martin, Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at Williams College. The book explains how ecological restoration became a global pursuit. Martin defines restoration as "an attempt to co-design nature with non-human collaborators." Wild by Design calls for the unification of ecological restoration and social justice.
+
+
+== Content ==
+Wild by Design begins with the founding of the American Bison Society in 1905 and ends with efforts to use assisted migration and assisted evolution to save species from climate change. During this period restoration transformed “from a diffuse, uncoordinated practice into a scientific discipline and an international and increasingly privatized undertaking."
+The restoration movement began in the early 1900s when conservationists dissatisfied with gun and hunting restrictions argued that bison could be bred and then released onto designated reservations. Showing that the first bison reservations in the United States were established on Indian reservations, Martin argues these restoration efforts focused on benefits for white settlers while disregarding Native American sovereignty.
+The 1930s were a key time for restoration efforts. As ecology became a professional science, ecologists began to frame nature reservations as scientific control sites for their studies. Pursuing scientific investigation, restorationists sought to protect ecosystems like grasslands that had previously attracted little attention. At the same time, women botanists and landscape architects like Eloise Butler, Edith Roberts, and Elsa Rehmann developed the science of native plant propagation. Influenced by their work, Aldo Leopold and other Ecological Society of America members began to manage animals by manipulating plant species rather than eliminating predators or artificially feeding species.
+The Atomic Age led ecologists to shift from restoring individual species to ecosystem restoration. Ecologists traced fallout from nuclear weapons as it moved through organisms and ecosystems. During the 1960s, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission funded simulations of World War III, in which ecologists intentionally destroyed ecosystems to study how biodiversity recovered. E. O. Wilson, for instance, poisoned entire islands off the Florida coast to study their restoration. Through these experiments, ecologists developed the narrative that nature could be irreversibly damaged. The diversity-stability hypothesis emerged from these experiments, along with the idea that certain species are more resilient to environmental disturbance than others.
+Part III of Wild by Design analyses the impact of post-1970s environmental laws on restoration efforts and why the goal of returning ecosystems to precolonial conditions emerged. For decades, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had killed native predators, but with the Endangered Species Act of 1973 in place, the FWS began captive breeding programs for endangered wildlife, including predators. Meanwhile, land trusts like The Nature Conservancy found it increasingly difficult to secure federal permission to work with endangered and threatened species and they shifted to killing non-native species. Invasive species management became a widespread practice among land trusts, and the number of land trusts skyrocketed in the 1980s. Land managers "naturalized the precolonial baseline, obfuscating their role in designing native nature." The international Society for Ecological Restoration was founded by land trust managers in 1988.
+In the 1990s restoration was corporatized and consolidated. Martin argues that wetland restoration practices under the Clean Water Act created the precedent for international carbon offsetting. The Walt Disney Company, The Nature Conservancy, the Florida Department of Environmental Regulation, and others brokered the Disney Wilderness Preserve as the world's first large off-site mitigation project. Noting that offsetting projects are often based in the Global South, while those purchasing offsetting “credits” are in the Global North, Martin denounces carbon colonialism as an example of how restoration can create unequal distributions of power and resources.
+
+
+== Reception ==
+Professor Peter Brewitt praised the book as timely, engaging and entertaining,  as well as for being the first to adequately tell the "century-spanning story of ecological restoration." He predicts it will be a foundational work for those researching restoration history and politics. Yet Brewitt also suggests Martin's treatment doesn't always do full justice to the wide scope of her subject, and in particular that the book fails to clarify how representative the cases it features are. Writer Celeste Pepitone-Nahas suggested the book's historical sweep alone makes it a major achievement, though said she would have preferred more coverage on the efforts of Indigenous activists. Author Julie Dunlap praised the book as incisive and for transiting  Martin's "erudite perspective", but regretted the relative lack of coverage on efforts to protect nature from global warming.
+
+
+== Awards ==
+Wild by Design won the 2023 John Brinckerhoff Jackson Book Prize from the Foundation for Landscape Studies. It was a finalist for the George Perkins Marsh Prize from the American Society for Environmental History and the 2023 Project Syndicate Sustainability Book Award.
+
+
+== See also ==
+History of biology 
+Conservation in the United States
+Restoration ecology
+U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
+Rewilding
+
+
+== References ==

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildlife_Wars-0.md

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+---
+title: "Wildlife Wars"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildlife_Wars"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:42:22.168496+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Wildlife Wars: My Fight to Save Africa's Natural Treasures is a book written by Richard Leakey and Virginia Morell. It was published in 2001 by St. Martin's Press.
+
+
+== Overview ==
+It tells of how Leakey had been director of National Museum when appointed in 1989, President Daniel arap Moi appointed him to run the Kenya Wildlife Service. This was an entirely new experience to Leakey, because he had been accustomed to studying hominids, not managing wildlife. Elephant poaching had been a major problem in the Kenyan National Parks, and the book tells of his efforts to stop it, sometimes with a danger to his life.
+
+
+== Reception ==
+The book was reviewed in the journal Endangered Species, the ALA magazine Booklist, Publishers Weekly, Books in Canada, African Business, the Royal Geographical Society's Geographical magazine.
+
+
+== Editions ==
+Wildlife Wars:  My Fight to Save Africa's Natural Treasures ISBN 0-330-37240-8
+
+
+== References ==

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winning_the_Oil_Endgame-0.md

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+---
+title: "Winning the Oil Endgame"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winning_the_Oil_Endgame"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:42:24.463716+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Winning the Oil Endgame: Innovation for Profits, Jobs and Security is a 2005 book by Amory B. Lovins, E. Kyle Datta, Odd-Even Bustnes, Jonathan G. Koomey, and Nathan J. Glasgow, published by the Rocky Mountain Institute.  It presents an independent, transdisciplinary analysis of four ways to reduce petroleum dependence in the United States:
+
+Using oil more efficiently, through smarter technologies that wring more (and often better) services from less oil (pp. 29–102).
+Substituting for petroleum fuels other liquids made from biomass or wastes (pp. 103–111).
+Substituting saved natural gas for oil in uses where they’re interchangeable, such as furnaces and boilers (pp. 111–122).
+Replacing oil with hydrogen made from non-oil resources (pp. 228–242).
+
+
+== Problems and solutions ==
+The authors explain that the problems of oil dependence are manageable, suggesting that oil dependence is a problem we need no longer have. The proposed solutions to oil dependence are profitable and U.S. oil dependence can be eliminated by proven and attractive technologies that create wealth, enhance choice, and strengthen common security. The authors argue that America can lead the world into the post-petroleum era and create a vibrant economy. (p.xiii)
+
+
+== Reviews ==
+Winning the Oil Endgame has received many positive reviews and the Wall Street Journal called the book "Perhaps the most rigorous and surely the most dramatic analysis of what it will take to wean us from foreign oil ... carried out by the Rocky Mountain Institute, a respected center of hard-headed, market-based research."
+
+
+== The Author ==
+
+Amory Lovins has published 28 books and hundreds of papers.  His work has been recognized by the Right Livelihood Award, Onassis, Nissan, Shingo and Mitchell prizes, a MacArthur Fellowship, the Happold Medal, eight honorary doctorates, and the Heinz, Lindbergh, World Technology, and Hero of the Planet Awards. Lovins has also acted as a consultant to many Fortune 500 companies.
+
+
+== See also ==
+
+Brittle Power
+Efficient energy use
+Energy conservation
+Hypercar
+Peak oil
+Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle
+Renewable energy commercialization
+Soft energy technology
+Soft energy path
+The Carbon War: Global Warming and the End of the Oil Era
+
+
+== References ==
+
+
+== External links ==
+Winning the Oil Endgame presentation at MIT Archived 2012-03-04 at the Wayback Machine - Video of Lovins.
+Amory Lovins: We must win the oil endgame (TED presentation)
+Winning the Oil Endgame - The Book Home Page - Read Free Online or Buy

data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wintergreen_(book)-0.md

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+---
+title: "Wintergreen (book)"
+chunk: 1/1
+source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wintergreen_(book)"
+category: "reference"
+tags: "science, encyclopedia"
+date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:42:25.694365+00:00"
+instance: "kb-cron"
+---
+
+Wintergreen, written in 1987, is a book by Robert Michael Pyle.  It describes the devastation caused by unrestrained logging in Washington's Willapa Hills.  It was also the winner of the John Burroughs Medal for Distinguished Nature Writing.
+
+
+== References ==