Pests in the City
Pests in the City

Author: Dawn Day Biehler

Publisher: University of Washington Press

Published: 2013-11-01

Total Pages: 361

ISBN-13: 0295804866

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From tenements to alleyways to latrines, twentieth-century American cities created spaces where pests flourished and people struggled for healthy living conditions. In Pests in the City, Dawn Day Biehler argues that the urban ecologies that supported pests were shaped not only by the physical features of cities but also by social inequalities, housing policies, and ideas about domestic space. Community activists and social reformers strived to control pests in cities such as Washington, DC, Chicago, Baltimore, New York, and Milwaukee, but such efforts fell short when authorities blamed families and neighborhood culture for infestations rather than attacking racial segregation or urban disinvestment. Pest-control campaigns tended to target public or private spaces, but pests and pesticides moved readily across the porous boundaries between homes and neighborhoods. This story of flies, bedbugs, cockroaches, and rats reveals that such creatures thrived on lax code enforcement and the marginalization of the poor, immigrants, and people of color. As Biehler shows, urban pests have remained a persistent problem at the intersection of public health, politics, and environmental justice, even amid promises of modernity and sustainability in American cities. Watch the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG9PFxLY7K4&feature=c4-overview&list=UUge4MONgLFncQ1w1C_BnHcw

Public Health Significance of Urban Pests
Public Health Significance of Urban Pests

Author: Xavier Bonnefoy

Publisher: World Health Organization

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 293

ISBN-13: 9289071885

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The second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century witnessed important changes in ecology, climate and human behaviour that favoured the development of urban pests. Most alarmingly, urban planners now face the dramatic expansion of urban sprawl, in which city suburbs are growing into the natural habitats of ticks, rodents and other pests. Also, many city managers now erroneously assume that pest-borne diseases are relics of the past. All these changes make timely a new analysis of the direct and indirect effects of present-day urban pests on health. Such an analysis should lead to the development of strategies to manage them and reduce the risk of exposure. To this end, WHO invited international experts in various fields - pests, pest-related diseases and pest management - to provide evidence on which to base policies. These experts identified the public health risk posed by various pests and appropriate measures to prevent and control them. This book presents their conclusions and formulates policy options for all levels of decision-making to manage pests and pest-related diseases in the future. [Ed.]

Dr. Eleanor's Book of Common Ants
Dr. Eleanor's Book of Common Ants

Author: Eleanor Spicer Rice

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2017-08-03

Total Pages: 145

ISBN-13: 022644581X

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In this witty, accessible, and beautifully illustrated guide, Eleanor Spicer Rice, Alex Wild, and Rob Dunn metamorphose creepy-crawly revulsion into myrmecological wonder. Dr. Eleanor?s Book of Common Ants provides an eye-opening entomological overview of the natural history of species most noted by project participants. Exploring species from the spreading red imported fire ant to the pavement ant, and featuring Wild?s stunning photography, this guide will be a tremendous resource for teachers, students, and scientists alike. But more than this, it will transform the way we perceive the environment around us by deepening our understanding of its littlest inhabitants, inspiring everyone to find their inner naturalist, get outside, and crawl across the dirt?magnifying glass in hand.

Urban Forests
Urban Forests

Author: Jill Jonnes

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2017-09-05

Total Pages: 418

ISBN-13: 0143110446

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“Far-ranging and deeply researched, Urban Forests reveals the beauty and significance of the trees around us.” —Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sixth Extinction “Jonnes extols the many contributions that trees make to city life and celebrates the men and women who stood up for America’s city trees over the past two centuries. . . . An authoritative account.” —Gerard Helferich, The Wall Street Journal “We all know that trees can make streets look prettier. But in her new book Urban Forests, Jill Jonnes explains how they make them safer as well.” —Sara Begley, Time Magazine A celebration of urban trees and the Americans—presidents, plant explorers, visionaries, citizen activists, scientists, nurserymen, and tree nerds—whose arboreal passions have shaped and ornamented the nation’s cities, from Jefferson’s day to the present As nature’s largest and longest-lived creations, trees play an extraordinarily important role in our cities; they are living landmarks that define space, cool the air, soothe our psyches, and connect us to nature and our past. Today, four-fifths of Americans live in or near urban areas, surrounded by millions of trees of hundreds of different species. Despite their ubiquity and familiarity, most of us take trees for granted and know little of their fascinating natural history or remarkable civic virtues. Jill Jonnes’s Urban Forests tells the captivating stories of the founding mothers and fathers of urban forestry, in addition to those arboreal advocates presently using the latest technologies to illuminate the value of trees to public health and to our urban infrastructure. The book examines such questions as the character of American urban forests and the effect that tree-rich landscaping might have on commerce, crime, and human well-being. For amateur botanists, urbanists, environmentalists, and policymakers, Urban Forests will be a revelation of one of the greatest, most productive, and most beautiful of our natural resources.

Attracting Native Pollinators
Attracting Native Pollinators

Author: The Xerces Society

Publisher: Storey Publishing, LLC

Published: 2011-02-28

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 1603427473

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With the recent decline of the European honey bee, it is more important than ever to encourage the activity of other native pollinators to keep your flowers beautiful and your grains and produce plentiful. In Attracting Native Pollinators, you’ll find ideas for building nesting structures and creating a welcoming habitat for an array of diverse pollinators that includes not only bees, but butterflies, moths, and more. Take action and protect North America’s food supply for the future, while at the same time enjoying a happily bustling landscape.

The Organic Gardener's Handbook of Natural Pest and Disease Control
The Organic Gardener's Handbook of Natural Pest and Disease Control

Author: Fern Marshall Bradley

Publisher: Rodale Books

Published: 2010-02-02

Total Pages: 418

ISBN-13: 1605296775

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With growing consumer awareness about the dangers of garden chemicals, turn to The Organic Gardener's Handbook of Natural Pest and Disease Control (by Fern Bradley) as the most reliable and comprehensive guide on the garden shelf. Rodale has been the category leader in organic methods for decades, and this thoroughly updated edition features the latest science-based recommendations for battling garden problems. With all-new photos of common and recently introduced pests and plant diseases, you can quickly identify whether you've discovered garden friend or foe and what action, if any, you should take. No other reference includes a wider range of methods for growing and maintaining an organic garden. The plant-by-plant guide features symptoms and solutions for 200 popular plants, including flowers, vegetables, trees, shrubs, and fruits. The insect-and-disease encyclopedia includes a photo identification guide and detailed descriptions of damage readers may see. The extensive coverage of the most up-to-date organic control techniques and products, presented in order of lowest impact to most intensive intervention, makes it easy to choose the best control.

Animals and Race
Animals and Race

Author: Jonathan W. Thurston-Torres

Publisher: MSU Press

Published: 2023-02-01

Total Pages: 430

ISBN-13: 1628954833

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The intersection of race and species has a long and problematic history. Western thinking specifically has demonstrated a societal need to try to conceive of race as a purely biological fact rather than a social construct. This book is an academic-activist challenge to that instinct, prioritizing anti-racism in its observation of the animal–race intersection. Too often, as Bénédicte Boisseron has indicated, this intersection typically appears in the form of animal activists instrumentalizing racial discrimination as a vehicle to approach animal rights. But why does this intersection exist, and, perhaps more importantly, how can we challenge it moving forward? This volume examines those two critical questions, taking an interdisciplinary approach in moving across subjects including art history, film studies, American history, and digital media analysis. Our interpretation of animals has, for centuries, been fundamental in the development of Western race thinking. This collection of essays looks at how this perspective contributes to the construction of racial discrimination, prioritizing ways to read the animal in our culture as a means for working to dismantle this conception.

Infested
Infested

Author: Brooke Borel

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2015-04-08

Total Pages: 275

ISBN-13: 022604193X

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Bed bugs are thriving across the globe--from North and South America, to Africa, Asia and Europe. For some time, bed bugs were naively seen as a problem unique to developing countries, but their love of high thread content sheets has set them up in five-star residences in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and other parts of Europe as well. Bed Bugs were first noticed in society by Americans in the early 1700 s. Many believe sailboats returning from Europe unknowingly carried the bugs as cargo, as sailors complained of being attacked as they slept in their cabins. With the introduction of DDT in the 1950s, bed bugs nearly disappeared. But when DDT was banned in the 1970 s, a wave of super bed bugs rejoiced. Now, up to 25% of residents in some cities have reported problems with the pests, bordering on epidemic levels. In fact, history has never seen such widespread and intense bed bug infestations. Our propensity for travel has left bed bugs with enviable frequent flyer status too. Following the Sydney Olympics, for example, and the thousands of visitors to Australia, it was estimated that the bed bug occupancy rate in Sydney hotels was 95%. In "Sleep Tight, "Brooke Borel introduces readers to the biology of these amazingly adaptive insects which can travel over 100 foot distances at night--and the myriad ways in which humans respond to them. She travels to meet with scientists who are rearing bed bug colonies on their own blood-- to the BedBug University, to swank apartments on the upper East Side of Manhattan. She explores the history of bed bugs, and their near extinction, charting how current infestations are in direct response to human chemical use. She also introduces us to the economics of bed bug infestations, and the industry that has arisen to combat that. This is the first history and natural history of bed bugs, and it leaves few exoskeletons unturned."