"This comprehensive, informed, and balanced volume provides invaluable insights into the roots of the water management challenges in the Middle East and charts a course for resolving this pressing issue."--James D. Wolfensohn, former Quartet Special Envoy for Gaza.
In the vein of Bruce Lee's famous "be water, my friend" speech as referenced by Tom Brady comes a guide to harnessing your energy to increase focus and peace. "A fascinating and helpful book for everyone trying to make sense of our crazy world." -- Joe Hyams, Author of Zen in the Martial Arts Joseph Cardillo, Ph.D and top-selling author, reveals the philosophy behind the martial arts techniques that lead to a creative and fulfilled life in this entertaining and insightful guide. Using the techniques outlined in this book, you will feel more deeply and gain confidence in your ability to take care of yourself.
Only once did David Foster Wallace give a public talk on his views on life, during a commencement address given in 2005 at Kenyon College. The speech is reprinted for the first time in book form in THIS IS WATER. How does one keep from going through their comfortable, prosperous adult life unconsciously' How do we get ourselves out of the foreground of our thoughts and achieve compassion' The speech captures Wallace's electric intellect as well as his grace in attention to others. After his death, it became a treasured piece of writing reprinted in The Wall Street Journal and the London Times, commented on endlessly in blogs, and emailed from friend to friend. Writing with his one-of-a-kind blend of causal humor, exacting intellect, and practical philosophy, David Foster Wallace probes the challenges of daily living and offers advice that renews us with every reading.
For twenty-five years John Archer has been obsessed by water. His fascination has led him to remote temples where water is worshipped as a living deity, to hot volcanic springs and icy waterfalls, to limpid pools hidden deep in the forest. John has drunk the water dinosaurs drank in the Jurassic swamps, sucked dew from the grasstree flowers at dawn, sipped the sulphurous healing waters of Sukayu in the mountains of northern Japan, and bathed in the legendary Golden Lotus tank at Madurai. He has recorded the legends of water, studied its rituals, and worshipped it with reverence in holy places. He has listened to the rhythms of the waves on the shore, to the sound patterns of lakes, small streams and majestic rivers. And now he distils his extraordinary discoveries in The Wisdom of Water, exploring the many beautiful and mystical aspects of water, and why water has always been and remains precious beyond imagining. John Archer is an author of twenty books, including six on water preservation. His most recent book is Twenty Thirst Century.
Water is vital for life, and its availability has been a concern for mankind throughout the ages. Its presence has always been ascertained in a variety of ways and the development of human society everywhere is connected with various forms of water management. Man also needed to manage water to find protection from its dangers and the need for that is increasing. In the coming decades, the impact of climate change is expected to intensify floods and droughts, affect groundwater resources, raise sea levels, increase pollution and enhance the frequency and magnitude of disasters. Societies around the world are challenged to adapt to these threats to ensure water security, economic prosperity and environmental and cultural sustainability. This book deals with the heritage of water management and the use that was made of water, as well as the impact of water management on heritage. An example of the former may be an ancient irrigation system in the Filipines or in the Middle East that still functions today, while the latter may reflect the importance of maintaining groundwater levels for the preservation of organic remains on archaeological sites or of wooden piles underneath standing buildings. In either case the papers in this book reflect the dynamic nature of water, and hence the equally dynamic relation between water management and heritage. This publication follows up on a Heritage and Water conference in Amsterdam, the first of its kind. Its main purpose is to credibly present the importance and value of heritage and historical experience for water and sustainable development, and vice versa, present the importance of water management for the protection of heritage. It presents evolving insights and concepts about Water and about Heritage from a variety of disciplines, policy and public perspectives illustrated with cases studies and aims to connect decision makers with experts such as engineers, archaeologists, historians, geographers, ecologist and landscape architects
Water was once considered an anomalous substance indigenous to planet Earth, but science has recently discovered water everywhere: from the coldest depths of interstellar space to the nuclear infernos within stars. This seems to validate ancient wisdom that maintained everything in creation is but a unique expression of this sacred liquid. Baffled by some of water's most recognizable features, science is only now beginning to give credence to such claims. In the twenty-first century, we face monumental decisions about water that will affect not only the future quality of our lives, but all species on our planet. The author insists that we need a broader context from which to act regarding our threatening water crisis. He offers a fascinating synthesis of ancient mythology and space-age water science to create a radically new perspective. Marrin asks us, Can we continue to treat water as a mere commodity?
The New York Times bestseller A Long Walk to Water begins as two stories, told in alternating sections, about two eleven-year-olds in Sudan, a girl in 2008 and a boy in 1985. The girl, Nya, is fetching water from a pond that is two hours' walk from her home: she makes two trips to the pond every day. The boy, Salva, becomes one of the "lost boys" of Sudan, refugees who cover the African continent on foot as they search for their families and for a safe place to stay. Enduring every hardship from loneliness to attack by armed rebels to contact with killer lions and crocodiles, Salva is a survivor, and his story goes on to intersect with Nya's in an astonishing and moving way.
This book offers an introduction to the theory and practice of ecological wisdom (EW). EW is the integration of robust contemporary science with proven cultural and historical practices to identify long-term, sustainable solutions to problems of environmental management and urban design. The book combines theoretical concepts with specific case studies, illustrating the opportunities for interdisciplinary approaches combining historical experience, cultural context, and contemporary science as effective strategies for addressing complex problems confronting metropolitan and rural environmental and resource management in areas such as land use, water management, materials and building engineering, urban planning, and architecture and design. EW transcends the limitations in these fields of the normative approaches of modernity or traditional wisdom by offering a new, synthetic strategy to address socio-ecological issues. By presenting these ideas both theoretically and through existing case studies, the book provides researchers, practitioners and students with a powerful new perspective in developing long-term, resilient solutions to existing socio-environmental challenges. It is intended mainly for those working or interested in the fields of sustainable environmental and resource management, city and regional planning, architecture and design, civil engineering, landscape architecture, and the philosophy of science, particularly those with an ecological or sustainability focus.