Canada's Environmental Voice
With the children’s title Not Your Typical Book About The Environment, author Elin Kelsey has crafted a breezy yet densely informative volume that maintains a positive outlook throughout its 64 pages. In chapters covering the clothes we wear, the food we eat and the toys we play with, Kelsey reveals […]
The underlying message in Julie Hill’s book, The Secret Life of Stuff: A Manual for a New Material World, is one of conscious simplification. Not one to slap the wrists of consumers, she professes a love of shopping and the joy she gets from the perfect “find” for pennies. She does, […]
If the world as you knew it was going to end in 21 days, what would you do? Find shelter, locate a water supply or possibly pull out your SKS assault rifle? Wendy Brown’s Surviving the Apocalypse in the Suburbs takes readers through day-by-day preparations in order to live comfortably after an […]
In Recovering a Lost River: Removing Dams, Rewilding Salmon, Revitalizing Communities, author Steven Hawley leads readers on a meandering journey up the Snake River – dropping in on the communities it threads through – to its wilderness headwaters in Idaho. The largest tributary of the Columbia River, the Snake was once […]
Getting A Grip 2: Clarity, Creativity and Courage for the World We Really Want is a revised edition of a book that addresses the common feeling that the planet is in trouble and we have little control over the outcome. Author Frances Moore Lappé tackles the issues of the world by […]
If I were asked by a visitor from outer space for the best information on the history and ecology of life on Earth, I’d offer this book. Deservedly short-listed for the 2010 Writers’ Trust Non-Fiction Prize, The Ptarmigan’s Dilemma: An Exploration into How Life Organizes and Supports Itself covers all the bases, […]
You are probably aware that nature is dead. This may be why you are gloomy all the time. We tried so hard to ensure that biodiversity wasn’t lost and climate change didn’t spiral (further) out of control, but only an extreme idealist can maintain the illusion any longer. We have […]
Evolution is a series of short essays exploring some of the many topics under the umbrella of evolutionary theory. Using the natural landscape around his southern Quebec cottage as the central theme, author Jean-Pierre Rogel explores topics as diverse as genetically modified corn and whale taxonomy.
The trust inherent in a community’s relationship with its water utility is profound and often unquestioned. That is, until a rash of illness opens the floodgate to doubt. In The Epidemic: A Collision of Power, Privilege, and Public Health, author David DeKok reconstructs a deadly typhoid epidemic in Ithaca, New York, […]
We are, it seems, entering the adolescence of environmental history. The teenage years are characterized by intense changes that can exacerbate conflict but also promote positive development. In equal measure, according to environmental historian Frank Uekoetter, the discipline is in a transitional stage of development: While it is still finding […]
