"A forester's fascinating stories, supported by the latest scientific research, reveal the extraordinary world of forests and illustrate how trees communicate and care for each other"--

""Birds are my almanac. They tune me into the seasons, and into myself." So begins this lively collection of essays by acclaimed filmmaker and novelist Priyanka Kumar"--

The author repeatedly visits a dozen trees around the world to stop, listen, and look, exploring each tree's connections with webs of fungi, bacterial communities, cooperative and destructive animals, and other plants, and demonstrating how the lives of trees and people are deeply interwoven. Several trees, including a balsam fir in Ontario and an Amazonian ceibo, are located in areas that seem mostly natural, but which are affected by industrial...

In this timely work, Alan Weisman examines how we can shrink our collective human footprint so that we don't stomp any more species -- including our own -- out of existence. The answer: reducing gradually and non-violently the number of humans on the planet whose activities, industries and lifestyles are damaging the Earth. "A powerful investigation into the chances for humanity's future from the author of the bestseller The World Without Us. In...

"On the Tibetan Plateau, there are wild yaks with blood cells thinner than those of horses' by half, enabling the endangered yaks to survive at 40 below zero and in the lowest oxygen levels of the mountaintops. But climate change is causing the snow patterns here to shift, and with the snows, the entire ecosystem. Food and water are vaporizing in this warming environment, and these beasts of ice and thin air are extraordinarily ill-equipped for the...

"Biologist Rob Dun grew up listening to stories of the Mississippi River, how it flooded his grandfather's town of Greenville, swallowing up the townsfolk and leaving behind a muddy wasteland. Years later, Dunn discovered the cause of the great deluge. The Army Corps of Engineers had tried to straighten the river, cutting off its meandering oxbows in order to allow for the easy passage of boats. They had tried to bend nature to their own design. But...

"In an age of pandemics, climate change, and political unrest, you don't have to be a prepper to worry about the future or to wonder how you can prepare for it. Many of us conjure up images of a post-apocalyptic world where life is simple, our needs and goals clear. We imagine the desolate, barren world of Cormac McCarthy's The Road, where starting fires, building shelters, and even picking locks are our most valuable skills. But as underwater archeologist,...

"To be alienated from animals is to live a life that is not quite whole, contends nature writer Tai Moses in Zooburbia. Urban and suburban residents share our environments with many types of wildlife: squirrels, birds, spiders, and increasingly lizards, deer, and coyote. Many of us crave more contact with wild creatures, and recognize the small and large ways animals enrich our lives, yet don't notice the animals already around us. Zooburbia reveals...