For millennia humans have studied the skies to help them grow crops, navigate the seas, and earn favor from their gods. We still look to the stars today for answers to fundamental questions: How did the universe begin? Will it end, and if so, how? What is our place within it? John North has been examining such questions for decades. In Cosmos, he offers a sweeping historical survey of the two sciences that help define our place in the universe: astronomy and cosmology.
            Organizing his history chronologically, North begins by examining Paleolithic cave drawings that clearly chart the phases of the moon. He then investigates scientific practices in the early civilizations of Egypt, Greece, China, and the Americas (among others), whose inhabitants developed sophisticated methods to record the movements of the planets and stars. Trade routes and religious movements, North notes, brought these ancient styles of scientific thinking to the attention of later astronomers, whose own theories—such as Copernicus’ planetary theory—led to the Scientific Revolution.
            The work of master astronomers, including Ptolemy, Galileo, Kepler, and Newton, is described in detail, as are modern-day developments in astrophysics, such as the advent of radio astronomy, the brilliant innovations of Einstein, and the many recent discoveries brought about with the help of the Hubble telescope. This new edition brings North’s seminal book right up to the present day, as North takes a closer look at last year’s reclassification of Pluto as a “dwarf” planet and gives a thorough overview of current research.
            With more than two hundred illustrations and a comprehensive bibliography, Cosmos is the definitive history of astronomy and cosmology. It is sure to find an eager audience among historians of science and astronomers alike.

Until the advent of space physics, astrophysical plasmas could be studied only using ground-based observations. Although observational methods have advanced over recent decades, the merging of heliospheric physics with astrophysics is far from complete due to the vastly different techniques employed by astronomers and space physicists. That astrophysical plasmas can be studies directly is a major advance in astrophysical research. The solar wind from the Sun is only one of many examples of solar winds, but it provides scientists with a basis for understanding how these formerly disparate disciplines are related.

Cosmic Winds and the Heliosphere is a comprehensive sourcebook on conceptually correlated topics in astrophysical winds and heliospheric physics. The contributors review the various kinds of winds, such as solar wind, winds of cataclysmic variables, and winds from pulsating stars. They then examine the physics of wind origin and physical phenomena in winds. including heliospheric shocks, magnetohydrodynamic turbulence, and kinetic phenomena. A final section considers interactions with surrounding media, with contributions ranging from studies of the interstellar cloud surrounding the solar system to considerations of solar wind interaction with comets.

Prepared to the scrupulous standards of the University of Arizona Space Science Series, Cosmic Winds and the Heliosphere is an essential volume for astronomers and space physicists.

The early development of life, a fundamental question for humankind, requires the presence of a suitable planetary climate. Our understanding of how habitable planets come to be begins with the worlds closest to home. Venus, Earth, and Mars differ only modestly in their mass and distance from the Sun, yet their current climates could scarcely be more divergent. Only Earth has abundant liquid water, Venus has a runaway greenhouse, and evidence for life-supporting conditions on Mars points to a bygone era. In addition, an Earth-like hydrologic cycle has been revealed in a surprising place: Saturn’s cloud-covered satellite Titan has liquid hydrocarbon rain, lakes, and river networks. 
 
Deducing the initial conditions for these diverse worlds and unraveling how and why they diverged to their current climates is a challenge at the forefront of planetary science. Through the contributions of more than sixty leading experts in the field, Comparative Climatology of Terrestrial Planets sets forth the foundations for this emerging new science and brings the reader to the forefront of our current understanding of atmospheric formation and climate evolution. Particular emphasis is given to surface-atmosphere interactions, evolving stellar flux, mantle processes, photochemistry, and interactions with the interplanetary environment, all of which influence the climatology of terrestrial planets. From this cornerstone, both current professionals and most especially new students are brought to the threshold, enabling the next generation of new advances in our own solar system and beyond.

Contents

Over forty authorities present sections on the nucleus, dust, coma, and tails of comets, along with sections on their origin, and relationships to other solar system bodies. . . . An excellent book.—Space News

"The volume is highly recommended to all interested in comets and the Solar System."—Journal of the British Astronomical Association

"A good representation of the studies that are currently being done on comets, and it is an extremely good source of information on a wide variety of topics."—International Comet Quarterly

"Extremely well-written and informative. . . . A must for library collections."—The Observatory

The study of comets is a field that has seen tremendous advances in recent years, far surpassing the knowledge reflected in the original Comets volume published as part of the Space Science Series in 1982. This new volume, with more than seventy contributing authors, represents the first complete overview of comet science in more than a decade and contains the most extensive collection of knowledge yet assembled in the field.

Comets II situates comet science in the global context of astrophysics for the first time by beginning with a series of chapters that describe the connection between stars and planets. It continues with a presentation of the formation and evolution of planetary systems, enabling the reader to clearly see the key role played in our own solar system by the icy planetesimals that were the seeds of the giant planets and transneptunian objects.

The book presents the key results obtained during the 1990s, in particular those collected during the apparition of the exceptional comets C/Hyakutake and C/Hale-Bopp in 1996-1997. The latest results obtained from the in situ exploration of comets P/Borrelly and P/Wild 2 are also discussed in detail.

Each topic of is designed to be accessible to students or young researchers looking for basic, yet detailed, complete and accurate, information on comet science. With its emphasis on the origin of theories and the future of research, Comets II will enable scientists to make connections across disciplinary boundaries and will set the stage for discovery and new understanding in the coming years.

"An elegant read for anyone interested in understanding modern physics. Tavel has a genuine knack for making the difficult and obscure clear and exciting." --Joseph C. Pitt, author of Thinking about Technology "You will never look at scientific theories in the same way again." --John Hubiscz, North Carolina State University Introductory physics is not often a popular class among liberal arts majors. With its lively prose and analogies from the arts, humanities, and social sciences, however, Contemporary Physics and the Limits of Knowledge is guaranteed to enlighten and delight nonscience majors. Morton Tavel contends that every one of the six topics that he explores--symmetry, special and general relativity, statistical physics, quantum mechanics, and chaos--has played a role in telling us what we are unable to know about the physical world. He explains what each of the topics reveals about our attempts to pinpoint reality, and how each scientific revelation forces us to acknowledge a narrowing rather than a broadening of our knowledge. Chaos theory, for example, reveals a way to understand the randomness that seems so prevalent in natural phenomena such as weather. This development unifies our understanding of many phenomena that had been previously thought unrelated. Yet, chaos represents a significant diminution in what we can hope to predict about the course of natural events. It has increased our knowledge or understanding of a phenomena, but has seriously eroded our long-held, Newtonian vision of prediction and control. Tavel emphasizes the features of physics that make it a very human endeavor and serve to build bridges to all other intellectual disciplicnes.

Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity describes the effect of gravitation on the shape of space and the flow of time. But for more than four decades after its publication, the theory remained largely a curiosity for scientists; however accurate it seemed, Einstein’s mathematical code—represented by six interlocking equations—was one of the most difficult to crack in all of science. That is, until a twenty-nine-year-old Cambridge graduate solved the great riddle in 1963. Roy Kerr’s solution emerged coincidentally with the discovery of black holes that same year and provided fertile testing ground—at long last—for general relativity. Today, scientists routinely cite the Kerr solution, but even among specialists, few know the story of how Kerr cracked Einstein’s code.

Fulvio Melia here offers an eyewitness account of the events leading up to Kerr’s great discovery. Cracking the Einstein Code vividly describes how luminaries such as Karl Schwarzschild, David Hilbert, and Emmy Noether set the stage for the Kerr solution; how Kerr came to make his breakthrough; and how scientists such as Roger Penrose, Kip Thorne, and Stephen Hawking used the accomplishment to refine and expand modern astronomy and physics. Today more than 300 million supermassive black holes are suspected of anchoring their host galaxies across the cosmos, and the Kerr solution is what astronomers and astrophysicists use to describe much of their behavior.

By unmasking the history behind the search for a real world solution to Einstein’s field equations, Melia offers a first-hand account of an important but untold story. Sometimes dramatic, often exhilarating, but always attuned to the human element, Cracking the Einstein Code is ultimately a showcase of how important science gets done.

In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize (with former Vice President Al Gore) for its reporting on the human causes of climate change. In 2008, the National Council for Science and the Environment reported that the acceleration of climate change is already faster than the IPCC projected only a year earlier. How we deal with the rapid environmental changes, and the human forces that are driving these changes, will be among the defining issues of our generation.
 
Climate Solutions Consensus presents an agenda for America. It is the first major consensus statement by the nation’s leading scientists, and it provides specific recommendations for federal policies, for state and local governments, for businesses, and for colleges and universities that are preparing future generations who will be dealing with a radically changed climate. The book draws upon the recommendations developed by more than 1200 scientists, educators and decision makers who participated in the National Council for Science and the Environment’s 8th National Conference on Science, Policy and the Environment.
 
After presenting a lucid narrative of the science behind climate change and its solutions, Climate Solutions Consensus presents 35 practical, results-oriented approaches for minimizing climate change and its impacts. It clearly spells out options for technological, societal, and policy actions. And it deals head-on with controversial topics, including nuclear energy, ocean fertilization and atmospheric geo-engineering.
 
One of the book’s key conclusions is that climate solutions are about much more than energy sources. They involve re-examining everything people do with an eye toward minimizing climate impacts. This includes our eating habits, consumption patterns, transportation, building and housing, forestry, land use, education, and more. According to these scientists, the time to act is now. With clarity and urgency, they tell us exactly what needs to be done to start reversing the driving factors behind climate change, minimizing their consequences, and adapting to what is beyond our power to stop.

". . . the authors sound a pessimistic note about society's short-term memory in their sobering, able history of Camille" --Booklist

"This highly readable account aimed at a general audience excels at telling the plight of the victims and how local political authorities reacted. The saddest lesson is how little the public and the government learned from Camille. Highly recommended for all public libraries, especially those on the Gulf and East coasts."
—Library Journal online


As the unsettled social and political weather of summer 1969 played itself out amid the heat of antiwar marches and the battle for civil rights, three regions of the rural South were devastated by the horrifying force of Category 5 Hurricane Camille.

Camille's nearly 200 mile per hour winds and 28-foot storm surge swept away thousands of homes and businesses along the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Mississippi. Twenty-four oceangoing ships sank or were beached; six offshore drilling platforms collapsed; 198 people drowned. Two days later, Camille dropped 108 billion tons of moisture drawn from the Gulf onto the rural communities of Nelson County, Virginia-nearly three feet of rain in 24 hours. Mountainsides were washed away; quiet brooks became raging torrents; homes and whole communities were simply washed off the face of the earth.

In this gripping account, Ernest Zebrowski and Judith Howard tell the heroic story of America's forgotten rural underclass coping with immense adversity and inconceivable tragedy.

Category 5 shows, through the riveting stories of Camille's victims and survivors, the disproportionate impact of natural disasters on the nation's poorest communities. It is, ultimately, a story of the lessons learned-and, in some cases, tragically unlearned-from that storm: hard lessons that were driven home once again in the awful wake of Hurricane Katrina.

"Emergency responses to Katrina were uncoordinated, slow, and--at least in the early days--woefully inadequate. Politicians argued about whether there had been one disaster or two, as if that mattered. And before the last survivors were even evacuated, a flurry of finger-pointing had begun. The question most neglected was: What is the shelf life of a historical lesson?"

Ernest Zebrowski is founder of the doctoral program in science and math education at Southern University, a historically black university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Professor of Physics at Pennsylvania State University's Pennsylvania College of Technology. His previous books include Perils of a Restless Planet: Scientific Perspectives on Natural Disasters. Judith Howard earned her Ph.D. in clinical social work from UCLA, and writes a regular political column for the Ruston, Louisiana, Morning Paper.

"Category 5 examines with sensitivity the overwhelming challenges presented by the human and physical impacts from a catastrophic disaster and the value of emergency management to sound decisions and sustainability."
--John C. Pine, Chair, Department of Geography & Anthropology and Director of Disaster Science & Management, Louisiana State University

Questions surrounding the issue of climate change are evolving from "Is it happening?" to "What can be done about it?" The primary obstacles to addressing it at this point are not scientific but political and economic; nonetheless a quick resolution is unlikely.

Ignorance and confusion surrounding the issue -- including a lack of understanding of climate science, its implications for the environment and society, and the range of policy options available -- contributes to the political morass over dealing with climate change in which we find ourselves. Climate Change Policy addresses that situation by bringing together a wide range of new writings from leading experts that examine the many dimensions of the topics most important in understanding climate change and policies to combat it. Chapters consider:

• climate science in historical perspective
• analysis of uncertainties in climate science and policy
• the economics of climate policy
• North-South and intergenerational equity issues
• the role of business and industry in climate solutions
• policy mechanisms including joint implementation, emissions trading, and the so-called clean development mechanism

Regardless of the fate of the Kyoto Protocol, the issues raised in that debate will persist as new climate protection regimes emerge; this volume treats most of those topics. Tying the chapters together is a shared conclusion that climate change is a real and serious problem, and that we as a society have an obligation not merely to adapt to it but to mitigate it in whatever intelligent ways we can develop. Cost-effectiveness is not disdained, but neither is the imperative for valuing species threatened by rapid climate change.

This is the most comprehensive and current reference resource on climate change available today. It features 49 individual chapters by some of the world’ s leading climate scientists. Its five sections address climate change in five dimensions: ecological impacts; policy analysis; international considerations; United States considerations; and mitigation options to reduce carbon emissions.

 

In many ways, this volume supersedes the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Many important developments too recent to be treated by the 2007 IPCC documents are covered here. This book considers not only the IPCC report, but also results of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change held in Bali in December 2007, as well as even more recent research data. Overall, Climate Change Science and Policy paints a direr picture of the effects of climate change than do the IPCC reports. It reveals that climate change has progressed faster than the IPCC reports anticipated and that the outlook for the future is bleaker than the IPCC reported.

  

In his prologue, John P. Holdren writes that the widely-used term “ global warming” is a misnomer. He suggests that a more accurate label would be “ global climatic disruption.” This volume, he states, will equip readers with all they need to know to rebut the misrepresentations being propagated by “ climate-change skeptics.” No one, he writes, will be a skeptic after reading this book.

Climate Change is the report of Working Group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), established in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and UNEP to address the threat of global warming on an international scale.

Climate Affairs sets forth in a concise primer the base of knowledge needed to begin to address questions surrounding the unknown impacts of climate change. In so doing, it outlines a new approach to understanding the interactions among climate, society, and the environment. Chapters consider:

Climate Affairs draws on a range of study areas—including climate science, impacts on ecosystems and society, politics, policy and law, economics, and ethics—to address the complexity and gravity of impacts that our increasing vulnerability to climate portends. It is the first book to consider the full range of climate-related topics and the interactions among them, and will be a key resource for decision makers, as well as for students and scholars working in climate and related fields.

Challenge of Global Warming examines the causes and effects of global climate change.

Scientists have been warning for years that human activity is heating up the planet and climate change is under way. In the past century, global temperatures have risen an average of 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit, a trend that is expected to only accelerate. But public sentiment has taken a long time to catch up, and we are only just beginning to acknowledge the serious effects this will have on all life on Earth. The federal government is crafting broad-scale strategies to protect wildland ecosystems from the worst effects of climate change. The challenge now is to get the latest science into the hands of resource managers entrusted with protecting water, plants, fish and wildlife, tribal lands, and cultural heritage sites in wildlands.

Teaming with NASA and the Department of the Interior, ecologist Andrew Hansen, along with his team of scientists and managers, set out to understand how climate and land use changes affect montane landscapes of the Rockies and the Appalachians, and how these findings can be applied to wildlands elsewhere. They examine changes over the past century as well as expected future change, assess the vulnerability of species and ecosystems to these changes, and provide new, collaborative management approaches to mitigate expected impacts. A series of case studies showcases how managers might tackle such wide-ranging problems as the effects of warming streams on cold-water fish in Great Smoky Mountain National Park and dying white-bark pine stands in the Greater Yellowstone area. A surprising finding is that species and ecosystems vary dramatically in vulnerability to climate change. While many will suffer severe effects, others may actually benefit from projected changes.

Climate Change in Wildlands is a collaboration between scientists and managers, providing a science-derived framework and common-sense approaches for keeping parks and protected areas healthy on a rapidly changing planet.

Those of us in the lower forty-eight states tend to think of Alaska as an unremitting wasteland of frigid temperatures, ice, and snow. But in reality, because of its immense size and its position at the edge of the Arctic, Alaska has a remarkably varied and complex climate.

Replete with striking photos, maps, and charts, The Climate of Alaska presents a detailed picture of what to expect in this state of climate extremes. From the 40-below temperatures of the Interior to the twenty-four hours of daylight in a northern summer, Alaska’s climate presents challenges to its inhabitants on a daily basis. Readers will find   accessible descriptions of temperature, humidity, precipitation, and climate change that will enrich a visit to the state and provide insight on the living conditions of this fascinating place.

Climate and Conservation presents case studies from around the world of leading-edge projects focused on climate change adaptation-regional-scale endeavors where scientists, managers, and practitioners are working to protect biodiversity by protecting landscapes and seascapes in response to threats posed by climate change.

The book begins with an introductory section that frames the issues and takes a systematic look at planning for climate change adaptation. The nineteen chapters that follow examine particular case studies in every part of the world, including landscapes and seascapes from equatorial, temperate, montane, polar, and marine and freshwater regions. Projects profiled range from North American grasslands to boreal forests to coral reefs to Alpine freshwater environments.

Chapter authors have extensive experience in their respective regions and are actively engaged in working on climate-related issues. The result is a collection of geographical case studies that allows for effective cross-comparison while at the same time recognizing the uniqueness of each situation and locale.

Climate and Conservation offers readers tangible, place-based examples of projects designed to protect large landscapes as a means of conserving biodiversity in the face of the looming threat of global climate change. It informs readers of how a diverse set of conservation actors have been responding to climate change at a scale that matches the problem, and is an essential contribution for anyone involved with large-scale biodiversity conservation.

For years environmentalists thought natural resources could be best protected by national legislation. But the poor outcomes of this top-down policy have led conservation professionals today to regard local communities as the agents of conservation efforts. According to a recent survey, more than fifty countries report that they pursue partnerships with local communities in an effort to protect their forests. Despite the recent popularity of a community-based approach, the concept of community rarely receives the attention it should get from those concerned with resource management. This balanced volume redresses the situation, demonstrating both the promise and the potential dangers of community action.

Although the contributors advocate community-based conservation, they examine the record with a critical eye. They pay attention to the concrete political contexts in which communities emerge and operate. Understanding the nature of community requires understanding the internal politics of local regions and their relationship to external forces and actors. Especially critical are issues related to ethnicity, gender, and the state.

Until now, the research of applied zooarchaeologists has not had a significant impact on the work of conservation scientists. This book is designed to show how zooarchaeology can productively inform conservation science. Conservation Biology and Applied Zooarchaeology offers a set of case studies that use animal remains from archaeological and paleontological sites to provide information that has direct implications for wildlife management and conservation biology. It introduces conservation biologists to zooarchaeology, a sub-field of archaeology and ethnobiology, and provides a brief historical account of the development of applied zooarchaeology.

The case studies, which utilize palaeozoological data, cover a variety of animals and environments, including the marine ecology of shellfish and fish, potential restoration sites for Sandhill Cranes, freshwater mussel biogeography and stream ecology, conservation of terrestrial mammals such as American black bears, and even a consideration of the validity of the Pleistocene “rewilding” movement. The volume closes with an important new essay on the history, value, and application of applied zooarchaeology by R. Lee Lyman, which updates his classic 1996 paper that encouraged zooarchaeologists to apply their findings to present-day environmental challenges.

Each case study provides detailed analysis using the approaches of zooarchaeology and concludes with precise implications for conservation biology. Essays also address issues of political and social ecology, which have frequently been missing from the discussions of conservation scientists. As the editors note, all conservation actions occur in economic, social, and political contexts. Until now, however, the management implications of zooarchaeological research have rarely been spelled out so clearly.

Since the earliest days of our nation, new communications and transportation networks have enabled vast changes in how and where Americans live and work. Transcontinental railroads and telegraphs helped to open the West; mass media and interstate highways paved the way for suburban migration. In our own day, the internet and advanced logistics networks are enabling new changes on the landscape, with both positive and negative impacts on our efforts to conserve land and biodiversity. Emerging technologies have led to tremendous innovations in conservation science and resource management as well as education and advocacy efforts. At the same time, new networks have been powerful enablers of decentralization, facilitating sprawling development into previously undesirable or inaccessible areas.

Conservation in the Internet Age offers an innovative, cross-disciplinary perspective on critical changes on the land and in the field of conservation. The book:

• provides a general overview of the impact of new technologies and networks
• explores the potentially disruptive impacts of the new networks on open space and biodiversity
• presents case studies of innovative ways that conservation organizations are using the new networks to pursue their missions
• considers how rapid change in the Internet Age offers the potential for landmark conservation initiatives

Conservation in the Internet Age is the first book to examine the links among land use, technology, and conservation from multiple perspectives, and to suggest areas and initiatives that merit further investigation. It offers unique and valuable insight into the challenges facing the land and biodiversity conservation community in the early twenty-first century, and represents an important new work for policymakers, conservation professionals, and academics in planning, design, conservation and resource management, policy, and related fields.

Some ecosystem management plans established by state and federal agencies have begun to shift their focus away from single-species conservation to a broader goal of protecting a wide range of flora and fauna, including species whose numbers are scarce or about which there is little scientific understanding. To date, these efforts have proved extremely costly and complex to implement. Are there alternative approaches to protecting rare or little-known species that can be more effective and less burdensome than current efforts?

Conservation of Rare or Little-Known Species represents the first comprehensive scientific evaluation of approaches and management options for protecting rare or little-known terrestrial species. The book brings together leading ecologists, biologists, botanists, economists, and sociologists to classify approaches, summarize their theoretical and conceptual foundations, evaluate their efficacy, and review how each has been used.

Contributors consider combinations of species and systems approaches for overall effectiveness in meeting conservation and ecosystem sustainability goals. They discuss the biological, legal, sociological, political, administrative, and economic dimensions by which conservation strategies can be gauged, in an effort to help managers determine which strategy or combination of strategies is most likely to meet their needs. Contributors also discuss practical considerations of implementing various strategies.

Conservation of Rare or Little-Known Species gives land managers access to a diverse literature and provides them with the basic information they need to select approaches that best suit their conservation objectives and ecological context. It is an important new work for anyone involved with developing land management or conservation plans.

The Wildlands Project is a far-reaching effort by scientists and activists to develop better ways of protecting nature, wilderness, and biodiversity. Its ultimate goal is to establish an effective network of nature reserves throughout North America -- core conservation areas linked by corridors, and buffered, where appropriate, by lands that may also serve economic objectives.

Continental Conservation represents the work of thirty leading experts-including Michael Soulé, John Terborgh, Reed Noss, Paul Paquet, Dan Simberloff, Rodolfo Dirzo, J. Michael Scott, Andrew Dobson, and others -- brought together by The Wildlands Project to examine the science underlying the design and management of these regional-scale networks. It provides conservationists and biologists with the latest scientific principles for protecting living nature at spatial scales that encompass entire regions and continents.

Following an opening chapter that sets the stage by introducing major themes and the scientific and policy background, the contributors:

• consider scale in the identification, selection, and design of biological reserves
• examine the role of top carnivores in regulating terrestrial ecosystems
• suggest the need for a paradigm shift in the field of ecological restoration
• consider the scientific details of implementing regional conservation in core areas, corridors, and in buffer zones
• discuss the need for megareserves and how to design them

The book ends by challenging the reader, whether scientist or advocate, to commit more time to the effort of saving nature. The authors argue that the very survival of nature is at stake, and scientists can no longer afford to stand behind a wall of austere objectivity.

Continental Conservation is an important guidebook that can serve a vital role in helping fashion a radically honest, scientifically rigorous land-use agenda. It will be required reading for scientists and professionals at all levels involved with ecosystem and land management.

The environmental movement today is at a critical crossroads. Crossroads: Environmental Priorities for the Future is an in-depth assessment of the movement's successes and failures, and also offers prescriptions for the future. It includes contributions from some of the country's top environmental leaders and activists, including Barry Commoner, Stewart Udall, William K. Reilly, Gus Speth, Jay Hair, Lois Gibbs, Michael Frome, Chuck Little, and William Futrell.

Community and public support are essential to the success of conservation and resource management programs. Often, the level of support received depends on whether or not the goals and importance of the program have been clearly explained to the public, the press, or policymakers. Without good communication, even the best programs are liable to fail.

Communication Skills for Conservation Professionals provides in-depth guidance on achieving conservation goals through better communications. It introduces communication approaches -- marketing and mass media, citizen participation, public information, environmental interpretation, and conservation education activities -- and offers scores of real-world examples and straightforward advice that will help conservationists develop the the skills they need to communicate effectively. Following an introductory chapter that provides an overview of the communication process, the book:

• describes research techniques for gathering background information and targeting audiences
• outlines the steps involved in developing a communications campaign
• explains how to use mass media-from giving interviews to writing news releases and holding press conferences
• provides examples for developing interpretive media for conservation
• explores long-term conservation education strategies
• presents program evaluation techniques to determine the level of success achieved, or to identify steps for improvement

Throughout, the author presents a rich storehouse of examples, guidelines, and planning tools for all kinds of communication challenges. Strategies and materials that have been used by organizations across the country -- from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to The Nature Conservancy, from Adirondack Park to Yellowstone National Park -- are featured, providing both inspiration and support for others involved with similar projects.

Communication Skills for Conservation Professionals is a much-needed contribution to the environmental literature that will play a vital role in helping scientists, managers, concerned citizens, and students to more effectively communicate their knowledge and concern about the environment, and to achieve greater professional and community success with their environmental campaigns.

In the early 1970s, the environmental movement was underway. Overpopulation was recognized as a threat to human well-being, and scientists like Michael Soulé believed there was a connection between anthropogenic pressures on natural resources and the loss of the planet’s biodiversity. Soulé—thinker, philosopher, teacher, mentor, and scientist—recognized the importance of a healthy natural world and with other leaders of the day pushed for a new interdisciplinary approach to preserving biological diversity. Thirty years later, Soulé is hailed by many as the single most important force in the development of the modern science of conservation biology.

This book is a select collection of seminal writings by Michael Soulé over a thirty-year time-span from 1980 through the present day. Previously published in books and leading journals, these carefully selected pieces show the progression of his intellectual thinking on topics such as genetics, ecology, evolutionary biology, and extinctions, and how the history and substance of the field of conservation biology evolved over time. It opens with an in-depth introduction by marine conservation biologist James Estes, a long-time colleague of Soulé’s, who explains why Soulé’s special combination of science and leadership was the catalyst for bringing about the modern era of conservation biology. Estes offers a thoughtful commentary on the challenges that lie ahead for the young discipline in the face of climate change, increasing species extinctions, and impassioned debate within the conservation community itself over the best path forward.

Intended for a new generation of students, this book offers a fresh presentation of goals of conservation biology, and inspiration and guidance for the global biodiversity crises facing us today. Readers will come away with an understanding of the science, passion, idealism, and sense of urgency that drove early founders of conservation biology like Michael Soulé.

Collaborative Planning for Wetlands and Wildlife presents numerous case studies that demonstrate how different communities have creatively reconciled problems between developers and environmentalists. It answers questions asked by regulators, environmentalists, and developers who seek practical alternatives to the existing case-by-case permitting process, and offers valuable lessons from past and ongoing areawide planning efforts.

The last fifteen years have been a period of dramatic change, both in the world at large and within the fields of ecology and conservation. The end of the Cold War, the dot-com boom and bust, the globalizing economy, and the attacks of September 11, among other events and trends, have reshaped our worldview and the political environment in which we find ourselves. At the same time, emerging knowledge, needs, and opportunities have led to a rapid evolution in our understanding of the scientific foundations and social context of conservation.
 
Correction Lines is a new collection of essays from one of our most thoughtful and eloquent writers on conservation, putting these recent changes into perspective and exploring the questions they raise about the past, present, and future of the conservation movement. The essays explore interrelated themes: the relationship between biological and social dimensions; the historic tension between utilitarian and preservationist approaches; the integration of varied cultural perspectives; the enduring legacy of Aldo Leopold; the contrasts and continuities between conservation and environmentalism; the importance of political reform; and the need to "retool" conservation to address twentyfirst-century realities.
 
Collectively the essays assert that we have reached a critical juncture in conservation—a "correction line" of sorts. Correction Lines argues that we need a more coherent and comprehensive account of the past if we are to understand our present circumstances and move forward under unprecedented conditions.
 
Meine brings together a deep sense of history with powerful language and compelling imagery, yielding new insights into the origins and development of contemporary conservation. Correction Lines will help us think more clearly about the forces that have changed, and are changing, conservation, and inspire us to address current realities and future needs.

When migrating birds and other creatures move along a path of plant communities in bloom, they follow what has come to be known as a nectar trail. Should any of these plants be eliminated from the sequence—whether through habitat destruction, pests, or even aberrant weather—the movement of these pollinators may be interrupted and their very survival threatened. In recent efforts by ecologists and activists to envision a continental-scale network of protected areas connected by wildlife corridors, the peculiar roles of migratory pollinators which travel the entire length of this network cannot be underestimated in shaping the ultimate conservation design.

This book, a unique work of comparative zoogeography and conservation biology, is the first to bring together studies of these important migratory pollinators and of what we must do to conserve them. It considers the similarities and differences among the behavior and habitat requirements of several species of migratory pollinators and seed dispersers in the West—primarily rufous hummingbirds, white-winged doves, lesser long-nosed bats, and monarch butterflies. It examines the population dynamics of these four species in flyways that extend from the Pacific Ocean to the continental backbone of the Sierra Madre Oriental and Rocky Mountains, and it investigates their foraging and roosting behaviors as they journey from the Tropic of Cancer in western Mexico into the deserts, grasslands, and thornscrub of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. The four pollinators whose journeys are traced here differ dramatically from one another in foraging strategies and stopover fidelities, but all challenge many of the truisms that have emerged regarding the status of migratory species in general. The rufous hummingbird makes the longest known avian migration in relation to body size and is a key to identifying nectar corridors running through northwestern Mexico to the United States. And there is new evidence to challenge the long-supposed separation of eastern and western monarch butterfly populations by the Rocky Mountains as these insects migrate.

Conserving Migratory Pollinators and Nectar Corridors in Western North America demonstrates new efforts to understand migratory species and to determine whether their densities, survival rates, and health are changing in response to changes in the distribution and abundance of nectar plants found within their ranges. Representing collaborative efforts that bridge field ecology and conservation biology in both theory and practice, it is dedicated to safeguarding dynamic interactions among plants and pollinators that are only now being identified.

Conservationists have long been aware that political boundaries rarely coincide with natural boundaries. From the establishment of early "peace parks" to the designation of continental migratory pathways, a wide range of transborder mechanisms to protect biodiversity have been established by conservationists in both the public and private sectors.
Conservation Across Borders presents a broad overview of the history of transboundary conservation efforts and an accessible introduction to current issues surrounding the subject. Through detailed examinations of two initiatives, the International Sonoran Desert Alliance (ISDA) and the Yellowstone to Yukon Initiative (Y2Y), the book helps readers understand the benefits and challenges of landscape-scale protection.

In addition to discussing general concepts and the specific experience of ISDA and Y2Y, the author considers the emerging concept of "conservation effectiveness" and offers a comparative analysis of the two projects. The book ends with a discussion of the complex relationships among civil society, governments, and international borders.

By considering the history, goals, successes, and failures of two divergent initiatives, the book offers important insights into the field of transborder conservation along with valuable lessons for those studying or working in the field.
 

Roughly centered on the Four Corners region of the southwestern United States, the Colorado Plateau covers some 130,000 square miles of sparsely vegetated plateaus, mesas, canyons, arches, and cliffs in Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico. With elevations ranging from 3,000 to 14,000 feet, the natural systems found within the plateau are dramatically varied, from desert to alpine conditions.

This volume, the fifth from the University of Arizona Press and the tenth overall, focuses on adaptation of resource management and conservation to climate change and water scarcity, protecting biodiversity through restructured energy policies, ensuring wildlife habitat connectivity across barriers, building effective conservation networks, and exploring new opportunities for education and leadership in conservation science.

An informative read for people interested in the conservation and natural history of the region, the book will also serve as a valuable reference for those people engaged in the management of cultural and biological resources of the Colorado Plateau, as well as scientists interested in methods and tools for land and resource management throughout the West.

Covering 130,000 square miles and a wide range of elevations from desert to alpine in Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico, the Colorado Plateau has long fascinated researchers. The Colorado Plateau VI provides readers with a plethora of updates and insights into land conservation and management questions currently surrounding the region.

The Colorado Plateau VI’s contributors show how new technologies for monitoring, spatial analysis, restoration, and collaboration improve our understanding, management, and conservation of outcomes at the appropriate landscape scale for the Colorado Plateau. The volume’s chapters fall into five major themes: monitoring as a key tool for addressing management challenges, restoration approaches to improving ecosystem condition and function, collaboration and organizational innovations to achieve conservation and management objectives, landscape-scale approaches to understanding, and managing key species and ecological communities.

Focusing on the integration of science into resource management issues over the Colorado Plateau, this volume includes contributions from dozens of leading scholars of the region. The Colorado Plateau VI proves a valuable resource to all interested in the conservation management, natural history, and cultural biological resources of the Colorado Plateau.

Roughly centered on the Four Corners region of the southwestern United States, the Colorado Plateau covers an area of 130,000 square miles. The relatively high semi-arid province boasts nine national parks, sixteen national monuments, many state parks, and dozens of wilderness areas. With the highest concentration of parklands in North America and unique geological and ecological features, the area is of particular interest to researchers. Derived from the Eighth Biennial Conference of Research on the Colorado Plateau, this third volume in a series of research on the Colorado Plateau expands upon the previous two books. This volume focuses on the integration of science into resource management issues, summarizes what criteria make a successful collaborative effort, outlines land management concerns about drought, provides summaries of current biological, sociological, and archaeological research, and highlights current environmental issues in the Four Corner States of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah. With broad coverage that touches on topics as diverse as historical aspects of pronghorn antelope movement patterns through calculating watershed prescriptions to the role of wind-blown sand in preserving archaeological sites on the Colorado River, this volume stands as a compendium of cuttingedge management-oriented research on the Colorado Plateau. The book also introduces, for the first time, tools that can be used to assist with collaboration efforts among landowners and managers who wish to work together toward preserving resources on the Colorado Plateau and offers a wealth of insights into land management questions for many readers, especially people interested in the natural history, biology, anthropology, wildlife, and cultural management issues of the region.

Roughly centered on the Four Corners region of the southwestern United States, the Colorado Plateau covers some 130,000 square miles of sparsely vegetated plateaus, mesas, canyons, arches, and cliffs in Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico. With elevations ranging from 3,000 to 14,000 feet, the natural systems found within the plateau are dramatically varied, from desert to alpine conditions.

This book focuses on the integration of science and resource management issues in this unique and highly varied environment. Broken into three subsections, this volume addresses conservation biology, biophysical resources, and inventory and monitoring concerns. The chapters range in content, addressing conservation issues—past, present, and future—on the Colorado Plateau, measurement of human impacts on resources, grazing and wildland-urban interfaces, and tools and methods for monitoring habitats and species.

An informative read for people interested in the conservation and natural history of the region, the book will also serve as a valuable reference for those people engaged in the management of cultural and biological resources of the Colorado Plateau, as well as scientists interested in methods and tools for land and resource management throughout the West.

Coastal Marshes was first published in 1988. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

The coastal regions of the United States form a highly diversified environment. In addition to sandy beaches and rocky shorelines, there are lagoons, rivers, estuaries, and marshes. The last are a dominant features of many coastal areas and serve as a transition between sea and uplands. Coastal marshes have been a zone for human development, attractive to industrial and residential building because they provide water frontage. But the public is becoming aware of the great value of these wetlands to fisheries and wildlife and to the local economy that depends on them.

This book describes coastal marshes in terms of form, function, ecology, wildlife value, and management. Robert H. Chabreck's emphasis is on the marshes of the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico (there are 5,500 square miles of marshland in Louisiana alone), but he also deals with marshes on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Plant and animal communities are each given a chapter, and the book concludes with considerations of future uses and needs. The author provides references, a glossary, and a list of scientific names, along with numerous illustrations, including a section of color photographs.

For thirty years, Robert H. Chabreck has been engaged in research and management of coastal marshes and has often served as a consultant in wetland ecology. He is a professor of wildlife at Louisiana State University.

Braund presents the only annotated edition of Bernard Romans's rare and valuable 18th-century account of his observations in the southeastern United States.

Bernard Romans's A Concise Natural History of East and West Florida, William Bartram's Travels, and James Adair's History of the American Indian are the three most significant accounts of the southeastern United States published during the late 18th century. This new edition of Romans's Concise Natural History, edited by historian Kathryn Braund, provides the first fully annotated edition of this early and rare description of both the European settled areas and the adjoining Indian lands in what are now the states of Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

Romans's purpose in producing his Concise Natural History was twofold: to aid navigators and shippers by detailing the sailing passages of the region and to promote trade and settlement in the region. To those ends, he provided detailed scientific observations on the natural history of the area, a summary of the region's political history, and an assessment of the potential for economic growth in the Floridas based on the area's natural resources.

A trained surveyor and cartographer and a self-taught naturalist, Romans supplied detailed descriptions of the region's topography and environment, including information about the climate and weather patterns, plants, animals, and diseases. He provided information about the state of scientific inquiry in the South and touched on many of the most important intellectual arguments of the day, such as the origin of the races, the practice of slavery, and the benefits and drawbacks of monopoly on trade.

In addition, Concise Natural History can be placed firmly in the genre of colonial promotional literature. Romans's book was an enthusiastic guide aimed at those seeking to establish modest holdings in the region:

"What a field is open here! . . . No country ever had such inexhaustible resources; no empire had ever half so many advantages combining in its behalf!" Romans explained how settlers should travel to the area, what they would need in terms of provisions and tools, and what it would cost to have their land surveyed. In addition to providing an abundance of practical advice, Romans also offered information about the history of earlier settlements, including the earliest and most complete account of New Smyrna near St. Augustine.

Romans also presented unique information about the various Indian tribes he encountered. In fact, historians agree that among the most useful portions of the book are Romans's descriptions of the largest Indian tribes in the 18th-century Southeast: the Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws. Romans's account of the diet of the Creeks and Choctaws is one of the most complete available. And his description of the location of Choctaw village sites is one of the best sources for this information.


 

Concrete floors and concrete walls, buildings that pierce the sky, taxicabs and subway corridors, a steady din of noise. These things, along with a virtually unrivaled collection of museums, galleries, performance venues, media outlets, international corporations, and stock exchanges make New York City not only the cultural and financial capital of the United States, but one of the largest and most impressive urban conglomerations in the world. With distinctions like these, is it possible to imagine the city as any more than this?

City at the Water's Edge invites readers to do just that. Betsy McCully, a long-time urban dweller, argues that this city of lights is much more than a human-made metropolis. It has a rich natural history that is every bit as fascinating as the glitzy veneer that has been built atop it. Through twenty years of nature exploration, McCully has come to know New York as part of the Lower Hudson Bioregion-a place of salt marshes and estuaries, sand dunes and barrier islands, glacially sculpted ridges and kettle holes, rivers and streams, woodlands and outwash plains. Here she tells the story of New York that began before the first humans settled in the region twelve thousand years ago, and long before immigrants ever arrived at Ellis Island. The timeline that she recounts is one that extends backward half a billion years; it plumbs the depths of Manhattan's geological history and forecasts a possible future of global warming, with rising seas lapping at the base of the Empire State Building.

Counter to popular views that see the city as a marvel of human ingenuity diametrically opposed to nature, this unique account shows how the region has served as an evolving habitat for a diversity of species, including our own. The author chronicles the growth of the city at the expense of the environment, but leaves the reader with a vision of a future city as a human habitat that is brought into balance with nature.

Northern Michigan is undergoing unprecedented changes in land use, climate, resource extraction, and species distributions. For the last hundred years, the University of Michigan Biological Station has monitored these environmental transformations. Stretching 10,000 acres along Burt and Douglas Lakes in the northern Lower Peninsula and 3,200 acres on Sugar Island near Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, the station has played host to nearly 10,000 students and a steady stream of top scientists in the fields of biology, ecology, geology, archeology, and climatology.

The Changing Environment of Northern Michigan collects essays by some of these scientists, who lead readers on virtual field trips exploring the history of people and science at the station itself, the relations of indigenous people to the land, the geophysical history of the region, characteristics of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, key groups of organisms and their relations to local habitats, and perspectives on critical environmental challenges of today and their effects on the region. Accompanying the chapters are color illustrations and photographs that bring the station's pristine setting to life.

Like the station itself, the book provides a solid background for better appreciating the relationships among living and nonliving parts of northern Michigan, for anyone interested in exploring the region's forests, fields, and wetlands; wading or paddling down its rivers; or swimming or floating across its lakes.

Knute J. Nadelhoffer is Director of the University of Michigan Biological Station and Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Michigan.

Alan J. Hogg, Jr., teaches science writing at the University of Michigan as a faculty member of the Sweetland Writing Center. His Ph.D. research explored the effects of ozone and nitrogen oxides on University of Michigan Biological Station forests.

Brian A. Hazlett is Professor Emeritus of Zoology at the University of Michigan.