This beautifully produced, highly praised and readable retrospective survey of Andy Goldsworthy's early work covers the fourteen years between 1976 and 1990. It embraces not only photographs of his ephemeral works, but also his earliest permanent sculptures constructed of stone and earth, as well as drawings for monumental sculpture projects in the landscape. The combination of superlative illustrations and incisive texts makes it the most authoritative and comprehensive publication available on the artist's early work.
For the first time in Earth's history, our planet is experiencing a confluence of rapidly accelerating changes prompted by one species: humans. Climate change is only the most visible of the modifications we've made--up until this point, inadvertently--to the planet. And our current behavior threatens not only our own future but that of countless other creatures. By comparing Earth's story to those of other planets, astrobiologist David Grinspoon shows what a strange and novel development it is for a species to evolve to build machines, and ultimately, global societies with world-shaping influence. Without minimizing the challenges of the next century, Grinspoon suggests that our present moment is not only one of peril, but also great potential, especially when viewed from a 10,000-year perspective. Our species has surmounted the threat of extinction before, thanks to our innate ingenuity and ability to adapt, and there's every reason to believe we can do so again. Our challenge now is to awaken to our role as a force of planetary change, and to grow into this task. We must become graceful planetary engineers, conscious shapers of our environment and caretakers of Earth's biosphere. This is a perspective that begs us to ask not just what future do we want to avoid, but what do we seek to build? What kind of world do we want? Are humans the worst thing or the best thing to ever happen to our planet? Today we stand at a pivotal juncture, and the answer will depend on the choices we make.
Eighteen masters of American gardening open the gates to their beloved gardens--and to their more than 1,000 collective years of horticultural passion, wisdom, and knowledge--in this exquisitely photographed gift book for every gardener to treasure. 250 color photos.
• Bestselling author Barbara Hand Clow examines legendary cataclysms and shows how we are about to overcome the collective fear they have instilled in us. • The long-awaited follow-up that continues the revelations begun in The Pleiadian Agenda, which has sold more than 60,000 copies. • Explains why, contrary to many prophets of doom, we are actually on the cusp of an era of incredible creative growth. The recent discovery of the remains of ancient villages buried beneath the Black Sea is the latest instance of mounting evidence that many of the "mythic" catastrophes of history--the fall of Atlantis, the Biblical Flood--were actual events. In Catastrophobia Barbara Hand Clow shows that a series of cataclysmic disasters, caused by a massive disturbance in the Earth's crust 11,500 years ago, rocked the world and left humanity's collective psyche permanently scarred. We are a wounded species, and this unprocessed fear, passed from generation to generation, is responsible for our constant expectations of apocalypse, from Y2K to the famed end of the Mayan calendar in 2012. Catastrophobia reveals the insidious global forces that have used these collective fears to control humanity for thousands of years. But we are in the midst of a tremendous shift in the Earth's 26,000-year precessional cycle, and there is every indication that the changes in consciousness over the last 30 years are the beginnings of a collective healing from these deep fears, heralding a new age where we will see that the era of cataclysms is ending and a time of extraordinary creative activity is at hand.
Help readers make a difference by encouraging them to learn about the various ways the environment needs our help and the things they can do to reduce their carbon footprint. Readers will learn about the effects of pollution, fossil fuels, renewable and non-renewable resources, deforestation, and recycling through interesting images and charts and informational text. This nonfiction title features a glossary of terms and a list of helpful websites that encourages children to take part in helping the environment in many different ways.
Part biography, part tribute, offers a blueprint for a creative life from the perspective of award-winning science-fiction writer and "MacArthur Genius" Octavia E. Butler. It is a collection of ideas about how to look, listen, breathe--how to be in the world. George not only engages the world that shaped Octavia E. Butler, she also explores the very specific processes through which Butler shaped herself--her unique process of self-making. It's about creating a life with what little you have--hand-me-down books, repurposed diaries, journals, stealing time to write in the middle of the night, making a small check stretch--bit by bit by bit. Includes photographs of Butler's ephemera (personal notes, library call slips, etc.) taken by George from hundreds of boxes of Butler's personal items.
This title presents the history of climate change. Vivid text details how early studies of greenhouse gases and climate models led to our modern understanding of Earth's climate. It also puts a spotlight on the brilliant scientists who made these advances possible. Useful sidebars, rich images, and a glossary help readers understand the science and its importance. Maps and diagrams provide context for critical discoveries in the field. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Essential Library is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO.
The classic pacifist novel by a major Polish writer, who was nominated for the Nobel Prize At the beginning of the twentieth century the villagers of the Carpathian mountains lead a simple life, much as they have always done. Among them is Piotr, a bandy-legged peasant, who wants nothing more from life than an official railway cap, a cottage, and a bride with a dowry. But then the First World War reaches the mountains and Piotr is drafted into the army. All the weight of imperial authority is used to mould him into an unthinking fighting machine, forced to fight a war he does not understand, for interests other than his own. The Salt of the Earth is a classic war novel and a powerfully pacifist tale about the consequences of war for ordinary men.
Earth Sound Earth Signal is a study of energies in aesthetics and the arts, from the birth of modern communications in the nineteenth century to the global transmissions of the present day. Grounded in the Aeolian sphere music that Henry David Thoreau heard blowing in telegraph lines and in the Aelectrosonic sounds of natural radio that Thomas Watson heard in telephone lines, the book moves through the histories of science, media, music, and the arts to the 1960s, when the composer Alvin Lucier worked with the ""natural electromagnetic sounds"" present from ""brainwaves to outer.
