Showing results for "the world" in Environmentalists & Naturalists

Raymond Ditmars (1876-1942), the first curator of reptiles at New York's famous Bronx Zoo, brought cold-blooded animals to public attention as never before. Through wildly successful books and movies, he inspired a generation of zoologists with his fascination for snakes, insects, and other misunderstood creatures. Ditmars was among the most celebrated naturalists in America. His reptile-collecting trips for the zoo spawned newspaper headlines across the world.

My Garden World by Monty Don is a celebration of every living creature that we all share. This year has given us the enforced opportunity to learn more about the fascinating natural world around us. Whether you live in the countryside or the town, Monty's observations and insights are relevant to each and every one of us. My Garden World is Monty Don's personal journey through the natural year, month by month, season by season, observed from the immediate world around him.

An enthralling account of a modern voyage of discovery as we meet the clever, social birds of prey called caracaras, which puzzled Darwin, fascinate modern-day falconers, and carry secrets of our planet's deep past in their family history.

Botany was the darling and the powerhouse of the 18th century. As European ships ventured across the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans, discovery bloomed. Bounties of new plants were brought back, and their arrival meant much more than improved flowerbeds - it offered a new scientific frontier that would transform Europe’s industry, medicine, eating and drinking habits, and even fashion.

Moving through the settings of her life - red rock canyons, aspen forests, mountains, and cities - Jana Richman probes the depths of her internal landscape and asks how we can find stillness in our noisy world. In essays both personal and profoundly universal, Richman eschews quick and easy answers for quiet reflections on the questions: In a culture demanding that every voice be heard, how do we make sense of the resulting roar? Where do we seek solace when the last quiet places are sacrificed to human hubris? How do we shed the angst thrust upon us to create lives of peace?

HansjÖrg Wyss grew up in a working-class family in Switzerland. As a college student in the 1950s, he traveled to the United States for a summer job in Colorado. It was there that he first experienced the majesty of the Grand Canyon and the American West, which forever changed him. As a business leader, Wyss pioneered a medical device company that transformed orthopedic surgery to the benefit of both doctors and patients. It was in business that Wyss developed a groundbreaking approach to problem-solving to create maximum impact.

In 1722, Mark Catesby stepped ashore in Charles Town in the Carolina colony. Over the next four years, this young naturalist made history as he explored deep into America’s natural wonders, collecting and drawing plants and animals which had never been seen back in the Old World. Nine years later Catesby produced his magnificent and groundbreaking book, The Natural History of Carolina, the first-ever illustrated account of American flora and fauna.

Pollution is the single largest cause of death in the developing world. One in seven people in low- and middle-income countries die as a result of it. Simply put, pollution is now the world's most prevalent health risk. And yet, while most everyone has heard about "going green"; few are aware of the more dire and sinister brown pollution - places where man-made toxic pollutants have taken root and spread. Brown sites poison millions of people every year, causing needless suffering and death. After witnessing several brown sites firsthand and meeting families trapped by poverty in these toxic hot spots, environmentalist Richard Fuller founded the Blacksmith Institute, now renamed Pure Earth, a global nonprofit that initiates large-scale cleanups of some of the most polluted places on earth.

Burned-out after years of doing development work around the world, William Powers spent a season in a 12-foot-by-12-foot cabin off the grid in North Carolina, as recounted in his award-winning memoir Twelve by Twelve. Could he live a similarly minimalist life in the heart of New York City? To find out, Powers and his wife jettisoned 80 percent of their stuff, left their 2,000-square-foot Queens townhouse, and moved into a 350-square-foot "micro-apartment" in Greenwich Village.

Many fantasize about dramatically changing their lives - living in accordance with their ideals rather than the exigencies of job, bills, and possessions. William Powers actually does it. Here, his family, with baby in tow, searches for balance, community, and happiness in a small town in Bolivia. They build an adobe house, plant a prolific orchard and organic garden, and weave their life into a community of permaculturists, bio-builders, artists, and creative businesspeople. Can this Transition Town succeed in the face of encroaching North American capitalism?

Chris Dombrowski was playing a numbers game: two passions - poetry and fly-fishing; two children, one of them in utero; and an income hovering perilously close to zero. Enter, at this particularly challenging moment, a miraculous email: can't go, it's all paid for, just book a flight to Miami. Thus began a journey that would lead to the Bahamas and to David Pinder, a legendary bonefishing guide.

Climate change is alarming and complicated. Governments are acting too slowly or not at all, and not enough people feel informed or empowered enough to demand action. But ignoring a catastrophe of such magnitude is a certain path to disaster. The Big Swim puts forward the idea that personal growth arises from facing both inner tensions and threats to the biosphere.

At stake in 1896 was the new idea that some landscapes should be collectively, permanently owned by a democratic government. Although many people today think of public lands as an American birthright, their very existence was then in doubt and dependent on a merger of the talents of these two men. Natural Rivals examines a time of environmental threat and political dysfunction not unlike our own and reveals the complex dynamic that gave birth to America’s rich public lands legacy.