Staff Picks

This witty, well-written book explores how beavers and their decimation drastically altered the landscape of the American continent and what folks are doing to bring them back. Eager made me laugh, cry, and look at our environment in a whole new way. Now I can't stop thinking about beavers!

 

Publisher's description:

Environmental journalist Ben Goldfarb reveals that our modern idea of what a healthy landscape looks like and how it functions is wrong, distorted by the fur trade that once trapped out millions of beavers from North America’s lakes and rivers. The consequences of losing beavers were profound: streams eroded, wetlands dried up, and species from salmon to swans lost vital habitat. Today, a growing coalition of “Beaver Believers”—including scientists, ranchers, and passionate citizens—recognizes that ecosystems with beavers are far healthier, for humans and non-humans alike, than those without them. From the Nevada deserts to the Scottish highlands, Believers are now hard at work restoring these industrious rodents to their former haunts. This is a powerful story about one of the world’s most influential species, how North America was colonized, how our landscapes have changed over the centuries, and how beavers can help us fight drought, flooding, wildfire, extinction, and the ravages of climate change. Ultimately, it’s about how we can learn to coexist, harmoniously and even beneficially, with our fellow travelers on this planet.

 

Before It's Gone is an honest look at the climate disasters we face today and eventually tomorrow, told from the perspective of a reporter who has covered disasters such as the Paradise Fires. Vigliotti examines the role the news media plays in covering disasters while informing other areas of high risk how to prepare and respond, while at the same time trying to navigate how to support the communities of the current disaster they are covering.

 

Publisher's description:
Before It's Gone traces Vigliotti's travels across the country, taking him to the frontlines of climate disaster and revealing the genuine impacts of climate change that countless Americans have already been forced to confront. From massive forest fires in California to hurricanes in Louisiana, receding coastlines in Massachusetts and devastated fisheries in Alaska, we learn that warnings of a future impacted by climate are no more; the climate catastrophe is already here. This is the story of America, and Americans, on the edge, and a powerful argument that radical action on climate change with a respect for its people and traditions is not only possible, but also the only way to preserve what we love.

 

Philips incorporates several different perspectives that showcase the multiple ways we interact with beavers and how they interact with us. Made me fall in love with the semi aquatic goofballs. It's also a good book for those who don't always read non-fiction!

 

Publisher's description: 
In the rich naturalist tradition of H Is for Hawk and The Soul of an Octopus, BEAVERLAND tells the tumultuous, eye-opening story of how beavers and the beaver fur trade shaped America's history, culture, and environment. Before the American empires of steel and coal and oil, before the railroads, there was the empire of fur. Beginning with the early trans-Atlantic trade in North America, Leila Philip traces the beaver's profound influence on our nation's early economy and feverish western expansion, its first corporations and multi-millionaires. As Leila's passion for this weird and wonderful rodent widens from her careful observation of its dams in her local pond, she chronicles the many characters she meets in her pursuit of the beaver: fur trappers and fur traders, biologists and fur auctioneers, wildlife managers, PETA activists, Native American environmental vigilantes, scientists, engineers and beaver enthusiasts. What emerges is a startling portrait of the secretive, largely hidden world of the contemporary fur trade and an immersive ecological and historical investigation of these animals that, once trapped to the point of extinction, have rebounded to become one of the greatest conservation stories of the 20th century. Now, beavers offer surprising solutions to some of the most urgent problems caused by climate change. Beautifully written and filled with the many colorful characters-fur trappers and fur traders and fur auctioneers, wildlife managers and biologists, Native American environmental vigilantes. She meets a Harvard scientist from the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana, using drones to create 3-dimensional images of beaver dams. She meets an environmental restoration consultant in the Chesapeake whose nickname is the beaver whisperer. BEAVERLAND transports readers into scenes of beavers in their ponds and the scientists and fur trappers in pursuit of them, widening arcs of information to reveal the profound ways in which beavers and the beaver trade shaped history, culture, and our environment. 

 

This book protests against the widespread use of chemical pesticides, herbicides, and insecticides in the U.S because of the harm that such chemicals do to the environment and to humans. By giving many examples of the inefficacy of chemical pest control and of human death resulting from poisoning via chemical sprays, Carson makes it abundantly clear that using chemicals to tamper with nature upsets the delicate balance of life and causes a backlash. For example, chemical insecticide sprays kill not only the target insect but also its natural predators, allowing surviving target insects to thrive without restrictions. Chemical sprays also contain poisons like arsenic, which build up in miniscule amounts in the body and cause untimely death in humans. By bringing this fatal reality of chemical sprays close to us, Carson evokes fear in us and effectively turns us against chemical sprays. Her statements in this all-revealing book teach us the importance of knowing the consequences before we take action. 

- Jikyu K., eighth-grade teen volunteer

Publisher's description:

Discusses the reckless annihilation of fish and birds by the use of pesticides and warns of the possible genetic effects on humans.
 

 

Publisher's description:

In May 2016, Fort McMurray, the hub of Canada's oil industry and America's biggest foreign supplier, was overrun by wildfire. The multi-billion-dollar disaster melted vehicles, turned entire neighborhoods into firebombs, and drove 88,000 people from their homes in a single afternoon. Through the lens of this apocalyptic conflagration--the wildfire equivalent of Hurricane Katrina--John Vaillant warns that this was not a unique event, but a shocking preview of what we must prepare for in a hotter, more flammable world. Fire has been a partner in our evolution for hundreds of millennia, shaping culture, civilization, and, very likely, our brains. Fire has enabled us to cook our food, defend and heat our homes, and power the machines that drive our titanic economy. Yet this volatile energy source has always threatened to elude our control, and in our new age of intensifying climate change, we are seeing its destructive power unleashed in previously unimaginable ways. With masterly prose and a cinematic eye, Vaillant takes us on a riveting journey through the intertwined histories of North America's oil industry and the birth of climate science, to the unprecedented devastation wrought by modern forest fires, and into lives forever changed by these disasters. John Vaillant's urgent work is a book for--and from--our new century of fire, which has only just begun.

 

This new book of essays is perfect for readers of the One Book One Boulder selection All We Can Save. In much the same way, this is a hopeful and engaging collection of writing from around the world, "a book that provides some brightness, passion, and intelligence in dark times." (Kirkus Reviews).

 

Publisher's description:

An energizing case for hope about the climate, from Rebecca Solnit ("the voice of the resistance"--New York Times), climate activist Thelma Young Lutunatabua, and a chorus of voices calling on us to rise to the moment. Not Too Late is the book for anyone who is despondent, defeatist, or unsure about climate change and seeking answers. As the contributors to this volume make clear, the future will be decided by whether we act in the present--and we must act to counter institutional inertia, fossil fuel interests, and political obduracy. These dispatches from the climate movement around the world feature the voices of organizers like Guam-based lawyer and writer Julian Aguon; climate scientists like Dr. Jacquelyn Gill and Dr. Edward Carr; poets like Marshall Islands activist Kathy Jetnil-Kijner; and longtime organizers like The Tyranny of Oil author Antonia Juhasz. Guided by Rebecca Solnit's typical clear-eyed wisdom and enriched by photographs and quotes, Not Too Late leads readers from discouragement to possibilities, from climate despair to climate hope.

Find Not Too Late in our online catalog.

This is a book that everyone should wake up and read now! An intense book about the climate crisis. Terrifying and a bit hopeful. The audio version is really well done with a full cast of readers.

 

Publisher's description: 

In the early 21st century, the world is convulsing, its governments mired in gridlock while a patient but unrelenting ecological crisis looms. America is in upheaval, battered by violent weather and extreme politics. In California in 2013, Tony Pietrus, a scientist studying deposits of undersea methane, receives a death threat. His fate will become bound to a stunning cast of characters—a broken drug addict, a star advertising strategist, a neurodivergent mathematician, a cunning eco-terrorist, an actor turned religious zealot, and a brazen young activist named Kate Morris, who, in the mountains of Wyoming, begins a project that will alter the course of the decades to come. Their intertwined odysseys unfold against a stark backdrop of accelerating chaos as they summon courage, galvanize a nation, fall to their own fear, and find wild hope in the face of staggering odds. As their stories hurtle toward a spectacular climax, each faces a reckoning: what will they sacrifice to salvage humanity’s last chance at a future?

 

This collection from activist Greta Thunberg gathers leading thinkers--from scientists and engineers to historians and philosophers--to go beyond the question "Is it already too late?" and give some real guidance on what we can do now. Kirkus calls this "vital reading for anyone who cares about the planet."

 

Publisher's description:

You might think it's an impossible task: secure a safe future for life on Earth, at a scale and speed never seen, against all the odds. There is hope--but only if we listen to the science before it's too late. In The Climate Book, Greta Thunberg has gathered the wisdom of over one hundred experts--geophysicists, oceanographers and meteorologists; engineers, economists and mathematicians; historians, philosophers and indigenous leaders--to equip us all with the knowledge we need to combat climate disaster. Throughout, illuminating and often shocking grayscale charts, graphs, diagrams, photographs, and illustrations underscore their research and their arguments. Alongside them, she shares her own stories of demonstrating and uncovering greenwashing around the world, revealing how much we have been kept in the dark. This is one of our biggest challenges, she shows, but also our greatest source of hope. Once we are given the full picture, how can we not act? And if a schoolchild's strike could ignite a global protest, what could we do collectively if we tried? We are alive at the most decisive time in the history of humanity. Together, we can do the seemingly impossible. But it has to be us, and it has to be now.
 

Finding the Mother Tree follows Suzanne Simard's life journey as her science reveals the interconnectedness of the forest ecosystem. The amazing, magical world beneath our feet is documented by Simard in several scientific studies over many years and told through stories of her life. We follow her journey, interspersed with her own life events to the revelation of the Mother Tree. This very readable book reminded me of a beautiful movie, Fantastic Fungi, for which Suzanne Simard wrote the companion book.

 

Publisher's description:

Simard brings us into the intimate world of the trees, in which she brilliantly illuminates the fascinating and vital truths—that trees are not simply the source of timber or pulp, but are a complicated, interdependent circle of life; that forests are social, cooperative creatures connected through underground networks by which trees communicate their vitality and vulnerabilities with communal lives not that different from our own. Simard writes of how trees, living side by side for hundreds of years, have evolved, how they perceive one another, learn and adapt their behaviors, recognize neighbors, and remember the past; how they have agency about the future; elicit warnings and mount defenses, compete and cooperate with one another with sophistication, characteristics ascribed to human intelligence, traits that are the essence of civil societies—and at the center of it all, the Mother Trees: the mysterious, powerful forces that connect and sustain the others that surround them. Simard writes of her own life, born and raised in the rainforests of British Columbia, of her days as a child spent cataloging the trees from the forest and how she came to love and respect them—embarking on a journey of discovery, and struggle. And as she writes of her scientific quest, she writes of her own journey—of love and loss, of observation and change, of risk and reward, making us understand how deeply human scientific inquiry exists beyond data and technology, that it is about understanding who we are and our place in the world, and, in writing of her own life, we come to see the true connectedness of the Mother Tree that nurtures the forest in the profound ways that families and human societies do, and how these inseparable bonds enable all our survival.

 

This book is not hopeful, but if you want to know how deep we are into the Anthropocene, read it. While it is generally acknowledged that the same thinking that created a problem will not be the thinking to solve it, sadly, it seems, that the major solutions to the climate crisis that are contemplated, researched, and funded are coming from the same thinking that got us here. Kolbert's book is a devastating counter-point to All We Can Save, but one that shows just how needed other voices, values, and people are at the forefront of decision-making about the future of our planet, which is to say, of ourselves.

 

Publisher's Description:

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sixth Extinction returns to humanity's transformative impact on the environment, now asking: After doing so much damage, can we change nature, this time to save it? That man should have dominion "over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth" is a prophecy that has hardened into fact. So pervasive are human impacts on the planet that it's said we live in a new geological epoch: the Anthropocene. In Under a White Sky, Elizabeth Kolbert takes a hard look at the new world we are creating. She meets scientists who are trying to preserve the world's rarest fish, which lives in a single, tiny pool in the middle of the Mojave. She visits a lava field in Iceland, where engineers are turning carbon emissions to stone; an aquarium in Australia, where researchers are trying to develop "super coral" that can survive on a hotter globe; and a lab at Harvard, where physicists are contemplating shooting tiny diamonds into the stratosphere in order to reflect sunlight back to space and cool the earth. One way to look at human civilization, says Kolbert, is as a ten-thousand-year exercise in defying nature. In The Sixth Extinction, she explored the ways in which our capacity for destruction has reshaped the natural world. Now she examines how the very sorts of interventions that have imperiled our planet are increasingly seen as the only hope for its salvation. By turns inspiring, terrifying, and darkly comic, Under a White Sky is an utterly original examination of the challenges we face".