Environment Nature

The Galapagos were once known to the sailors and pirates who encountered them as Las Encantadas: the enchanted islands, home to exotic creatures and dramatic volcanic scenery. In The Galapagos, science writer Henry Nicholls offers a lively natural and human history of the archipelago, charting its evolution from deserted wilderness to scientific resource (made famous by Charles Darwin) and global ecotourism hot spot.

John Muir was an early proponent of a view we still hold today—that much of California was pristine, untouched wilderness before the arrival of Europeans. But as this book demonstrates, what Muir was really seeing when he admired the grand vistas of Yosemite and the gold and purple flowers carpeting the Central Valley were the fertile gardens of the Sierra Miwok and Valley Yokuts Indians, modified and made productive by centuries of harvesting, tilling, sowing, pruning, and burning.

Earth has been reinventing itself for more than four billion years, keeping a record of its experiments in the form of rocks. Yet most of us live our lives on the planet with no idea of its extraordinary history, unable to interpret the language of the rocks that surround us. Geologist Marcia Bjornerud believes that our lives can be enriched by understanding our heritage on this old and creative planet. Contrary to their reputation, rocks have eventful lives—and they intersect with our own in surprising ways.

Britain has a single pod of orca, also known as killer whales, native to its home waters, although other orca visit from more northern regions. In 2014, Dr. Natalie Sanders joined the crew of the HV Silurian to seek them out and study them before we lose them forever. In The Last Sunset in the West, she discusses them one by one, and the many issues surrounding their lives in a captivating account that will take the listener deep into the history of our relations with the sentient and beautiful creatures.

Our day-to-day experiences over the past decade have taught us that there must be limits to our tremendous appetite for energy, natural resources, and consumer goods. Even utility and oil companies now promote conservation in the face of demands for dwindling energy reserves. And for years some biologists have warned us of the direct correlation between scarcity and population growth.

Grassland ecosystems can be found on nearly every continent. Countless animals and plants live in them. So what difference could the loss of one animal species make? Follow the chain reaction, and discover how important honey bees are.

An accessible and compelling story of a scientist's discovery of plant communication and how it influenced her research and changed her life.

Meet Earth. Planet Awesome! And your awesome home! Actually, Earth is home to all the plants and all the animals in the solar system, including nearly eight billion people. Humans have accidentally moved Earth's climate change into the fast lane, and she need your help to put on the brakes. Earthlings need Earth, and Earth needs Earthlings, so let’s save Earth together!

A lifelong acolyte of the natural world, Annie Proulx brings her witness and research to the subject of wetlands and the vitally important role they play in preserving the environment—by storing the carbon emissions that accelerate climate change. Fens, bogs, swamps, and marine estuaries are crucial to the earth’s survival, and in four illuminating parts, Proulx documents their systemic destruction in pursuit of profit. Proulx describes the fens of 16th-century England, Canada’s Hudson Bay lowlands, Russia’s Great Vasyugan Mire, and America’s Okeefenokee National Wildlife Refuge.

Some 40 million miles of roadways encircle the earth, yet we tend to regard them only as infrastructure for human convenience. While roads are so ubiquitous they're practically invisible to us, wild animals experience them as entirely alien forces of death and disruption. In Crossings, environmental journalist Ben Goldfarb travels throughout the United States and around the world to investigate how roads have transformed our planet. A million animals are killed by cars each day in the US alone, but as the new science of road ecology shows, the harms of highways extend far beyond roadkill.

To catch a Florida Man, you have to become one, and that’s what Officer Jeff Babauta did. As his ponytailed, whiskey-soaked alter ego, he established Sunshine Alligator Farm. His goal? Infiltrate the shady world of illegal poachers in the Florida Everglades in order to protect the natural world. A head-spinning adventure soon unfolds.

In 2007, when a new edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary - widely used in schools around the world - was published, a sharp-eyed reader soon noticed that around 40 common words concerning nature had been dropped. Apparently they were no longer being used enough by children to merit their place in the dictionary. Ten years later, Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris set out to make a “spell book” that will conjure back 20 of these lost words and the beings they name, from acorn to wren.

A paradigm shift is roiling the environmental world. For decades people have unquestioningly accepted the idea that our goal is to preserve nature in its pristine, pre-human state. But many scientists have come to see this as an outdated dream that thwarts bold new plans to save the environment and prevents us from having a fuller relationship with nature. Humans have changed the landscapes they inhabit since prehistory, and climate change means even the remotest places now bear the fingerprints of humanity.

Honey bees get all the press, but the fascinating story of North America's native bees - an endangered species essential to our ecosystems and food supplies - is just as crucial. Our Native Bees is the result of Paige Embry's yearlong quest to learn more about these forgotten, yet fundamental, creatures. Through interviews with farmers, gardeners, scientists, and bee experts, Embry explores the importance of native bees and focuses on why they play a key role in gardening and agriculture.

Discover the amazing ways animals adapt to the most extreme regions on Earth. Fiery temps and little rain make the desert a difficult place to survive. But several animals from fennec foxes to kangaroo rats have adapted to these harsh conditions. Find out how their unique behaviors and body parts allow them to call this biome home.

Ten thousand years after humans figured out how to stop wandering and plant crops, veteran investigative journalist Mark Schapiro plunges into the struggle already underway for control of seeds, the ground-zero ingredient for our food. Three-quarters of the seed varieties on Earth in 1900 had become extinct by 2015. In Seeds of Resistance, Schapiro takes us onto the frontlines of a struggle over the seeds that remain, one that will determine the long-term security of our food supply in the face of unprecedented climate volatility. More than half of all commercially-traded seeds have fallen under the control of just three multinational agri-chemical companies....

Through explorations of a rich and varied urban landscape, Brenner reveals the complex micro-habitats and surprising nature found in the middle of a city. In her hometown of Seattle, which has plowed down hills, cut through the land to connect fresh- and saltwater, and paved over much of the rest, she exposes a diverse range of strange and unknown creatures.

The conception and building of the Appalachian Trail is a story of unforgettable characters who explored it, defined it, and captured national attention by hiking it. From Grandma Gatewood—a mother of eleven who thru-hiked in canvas sneakers and a drawstring duffle—to Bill Bryson, author of the best-selling A Walk in the Woods, the AT has seized the American imagination like no other hiking path. The 2,000-mile-long hike from Georgia to Maine is not just a trail through the woods, but a set of ideas about nature etched in the forest floor.

Well, Cool Earth Facts for Kids has all of those facts and more! Made for kids eight and up, and younger ambitious learners, this audiobook breaks down all of the planet's coolest and most interesting processes! Designed to help create a foundation for a broad understanding of Earth's natural history and functions, this audiobook includes chapters on the following:

The insect world is a fascinating place. You may not think so. You may think insects are gross. Or scary. Or dangerous. But there’s so much more to insects than what meets the eye. Told through hilarious prose and packed full of jaw-dropping facts, Brenna Maloney’s first-person narrative presents the big picture on bugs. Insects play a critical role on our planet—as pollinators, garbage collectors, artistic muses, research partners, and even as “dinner.”