Natur

In a letter to her six-year-old daughter, Julietta Singh writes toward a tender vision of the world, offering children's radical embrace of possibility as a model for how we might live. In order to survive looming political and ecological disasters, Singh urges, we must break from the conventions we have inherited and begin to orient ourselves toward more equitable and revolutionary paths.The Breaks celebrates queer family-making, communal living, and Brown girlhood, complicating the stark binaries that shape contemporary US discourse. With nuance and generosity, Singh reveals the connections among the crises humanity faces-climate catastrophe, extractive capitalism, and the violent legacies of racism, patriarchy, and colonialism-inviting us to move through the breaks toward a tenable future.

This two volume set (CCIS 398 and 399) constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Symposium on Geo-Informatics in Resource Management and Sustainable Ecosystem, GRMSE 2013, held in Wuhan, China, in November 2013. The 136 papers presented, in addition to 4 keynote speeches and 5 invited sessions, were carefully reviewed and selected from 522 submissions. The papers are divided into 5 sessions: smart city in resource management and sustainable ecosystem, spatial data acquisition through RS and GIS in resource management and sustainable ecosystem, ecological and environmental data processing and management, advanced geospatial model and analysis for understanding ecological and environmental process, applications of geo-informatics in resource management and sustainable ecosystem.

Prayers for the environment are often missing from the intercessions in church on a Sunday morning, perhaps because we struggle to find the right words. Praying for the Earth is a resource for congregations and for individual Christians who believe that environmental concerns should be an integral part of the public and private prayers of all Christian people.The book is intended to be used as a supplement to the prayers of intercession in church on Sunday, and by individuals in their private prayers, so that praying for the earth becomes an "e;ordinary"e; part of our spiritual and daily life, rather than something that happens on a special occasion.The book may be used by those who lead intercessions in public worship, by groups of Christians whenever they pray together, and by individual Christians in their personal prayers.The prayers may be used unchanged, or adapted, or as an inspiration for praying in one's own words.

Christians often find it difficult to talk or preach or engage with the possibility of climate catastrophe and an uninhabitable earth, for the questions are enormous. Faith in God needs to engage with the reality of the tragic loss of creation through anthropogenic impact.If we're living in the end times, then how should we live? Wracked with grief, anxiety and guilt, with foreboding deep as death? How is it possible to live hopefully, even as we face realistically the inevitability of the radical impact of an unpredictable climate, rising sea levels, the collapse of biodiversity? How do we remain faithful to God and loving to our neighbour, particularly if our neighbours are exiles and immigrants because their homes are no longer inhabitable? What do we tell our children and grandchildren, so they don't grow up completely overwhelmed by anxiety, such that mental illness levels continue to soar?Frances Wardattempts to think through some of these questions; to continue to have faith, hope, and love in response to God. It is a Christian response to eco-anxiety, a theological and contemplative reflection to sustain a fierce hope that hopes against hope. It is a deep lament that provokes a fierce hope to enable humanity to live life to the full, like there's no tomorrow.

International Impact Book Awards 2021 WINNER (Family and Travel categories) Firebird Book Awards 2021, First place WINNER (Travel category)Hollywood Book Festival Awards 2021, Honorable Mention (Biography/Autobiography/Memoir) Sometimes life is unpredictable and there's no time like now to live adventurously.A couple of average high-school sweethearts from middle-class America go off to college, get married, follow all the rules, play it safe, and pursue the American Dream. When they find themselves boxed in by a predictable life and looking for adventure, they decide to revisit their dreams of youth, abandon the conventional path, and leave the safety of suburbia to live aboard a sailboat with their five children. Yes, five. But to turn their shared dream into reality, they must surmount discomfort and difficulty, face their fears and insecurities, and work together to make big decisions. Leaving the Safe Harbor charts the journey of the author and her family from suburban Atlanta, to coastal Florida, to distant islands in the Caribbean, to South and Central America, as seen from the deck of a catamaran. It shares the highs and lows of living in close quarters and of raising five children while homeschooling bravely on a boat. You'll travel through space and time and explore the metaphysical landscape of hardship, love, grace, and spiritual growth. Imagine yourself in the author's shoes and contemplate how you'd handle these difficult and humorous situations. It will awaken your own desires to follow your dreams and dig deeply into the meaning and purpose of your life. You may be willing to overcome excuses you've made when you see how others succeeded despite obstacles.Leaving the Safe Harbor shows us more than seafaring stories or what it's like to go sailing with kids. Each chapter explores a different sailing idiom and the character traits developed by challenges and adventures. It shows that conflict can be handled through grace, how failures can lead to future successes, how hardship can teach us gratitude and help us find inner strength. It reveals the trade-offs when a family prioritizes relationships and experiences over material things and a so-called normal life. Living close to nature enriches the author's spiritual life. And the ocean teaches life lessons, including how to be flexible, disciplined, patient, and open to new experiences. Most importantly, Leaving the Safe Harbor shows us how love, perseverance, and hard work can turn an idea into a reality.The couple returns to the United States after a decade of travel, their children on the cusp of adulthood, and discovers that they are no longer the same people who left the house with the white picket fence. Anything is possible. Even a neurotic suburban housewife and her workaholic husband can leave their home and minivan behind and homeschool five children on a boat.

In 1968, why did a gently raised southern girl quit college, run away to sea, and join a scurvy crew of pirates, searching for sunken treasure and running contraband? Why did she allow the first mate to tie her in the crow's-nest during a fierce tropical storm? Why did she flee the Bahamas in the cover of night, fall through a beaver dam during a Rocky Mountain blizzard, and hide out in a Colorado wilderness cave with her good dog, Rocky Raccoon?Wren Godfrey Chapman told herself it was to escape the tragedy of the war in Vietnam and her failed engagement to the love of her young life. But then again, maybe it was to assuage her rebellious case of wanderlust.With a strong female voice and sense of place in the Carolinas, Florida, Colorado, and the Bahamas, Pirate Girl describes a lifelong process of discovery through the adventurous lessons of Earth School.

Waste Management is one of the key problems of modern society due to the ever-expanding volume and complexity of discarded domestic and industrial waste. Covering various areas under the topic of Waste management, this volume contains a selection of papers presented at the 10th International Conference on Waste Management and the Environment.

Where are all the homes?The affordable housing crisis today can be solved through innovative residential and urban design. Family models have evolved, society has reframed the role of cities, and ongoing urban realities demand opportunities to create housing for all, from first-time homeowners to retirees. This book navigates the design process of new housing, like additional dwelling units, and explores ideas that can be implemented from the suburbs to cities. Through the history of urban design, zoning regulation, and with an emphasis on the human side of housing, ileana schinder, with her architecture background, highlights the role that the home plays in society today.

Efficient waste management is crucial for a sustainable future. However, due to population growth and the threat of global climate change, systems of urban waste management are under increasing pressure. For the waste sector, the prospect of transitioning to a circular economy presents an opportunity to promote organizational changes and improve performance, as well as contribute to a more sustainable world.Through the examination of case studies of municipalities and waste management firms across Europe, this book provides an overview of the most innovative best practices in urban waste management. The authors analyze the development and results of collection methods, tariff-setting systems, collaborations with partners and providers, recycling policies, and employees' and stakeholders' engagement programs. Given the complexity of urban waste management procedures, analysis is multidisciplinary, encompassing management, environmental and sociological perspectives.Providing an overview of opportunities for knowledge sharing and transfer among firms and municipalities to help them promote best practice, this book is a valuable reference for managers and policy makers in urban waste management.

This edited collection explores the many ways in which diverse individuals and groupssuch as state and federal managers, First Peoples, ranchers, miners, oil and gas extraction industries, sports enthusiasts, environmentalists, local residents, and touristsactively negotiate, contest, and collaborate on issues regarding public lands in the American West. Tracing these ever-morphing alliances and antagonisms, this volume highlights the recurring patterns within this diverse array of social actors.

Located at the intersections of law and culture, The Politics of Private Property provides a fresh perspective on the functions of private property within U.S. cultural discourse by establishing a long historical arch from the early nineteenth to the twenty-first century. The study challenges the assumption of an unquestioned cultural consensus in the United States on the subject of individual property rights, instead mobilizing property as an analytical category to examine how social and political debates generate competing and contested claims to ownership. The property narratives arising out of political conflicts, the book suggests, serve to naturalize the unequal social and economic structures and legitimize the hegemonic order, which however remains to be shifting and subject to challenges. Analyzing the property narratives at the heart of the U.S. American self-conception, The Politics of Private Property addresses the gap between the ideal of the U.S. as a universal middle-class society, characterized by a wide diffusion of property ownership, and the actual social reality which is defined by unequal dissemination of wealth and race-based structures of exclusion.

Like the Pharaohs he admired, Cecil John Rhodes (1853-1902) hoped to be remembered for 4,000 years. Barely 120 years later, many people want him expunged from history altogether. A major figure in the British Empire, he has been the subject of a bitter international controversy. This book sheds new light on a complicated story, relates the history of the Rhodes Scholarships, and suggests common-sense rules for commemorating contested figures as diverse as Robert E. Lee and Mahatma Gandhi..

A young Sydneysider in London, Lenore Blackwood, was getting work as an actress, pulling beers to pay the rent, and reading about Gandhi, Nehru, Menon and the very new Republic of India. Before the Hippie Trail opened, before Westerners in serious numbers heard the spiritual song of the ashram, or the material one of getting a foothold in the world's second biggest market, Lenore wanted to go where very few Westerners went.For seven months in the 1950s she crossed the new nation from the Himalayas to Kerala and independent Ceylon. She visited cities like Bombay, Calcutta, Madras and Benares, cities whose names were already becoming extinct on the lips of the world. The diarist joined pilgrims to see the icy lingam of Shiva, one of the most arduous pilgrimages on Earth. She sought out be-by-herself walks through nature to see art: through exotic acacias and abandoned garden flowers, an elephant mother-and-infant's bath time, climbed to high places, and on to temples to rival those of Athens or Rome, and where the rulers' respect for the sculptors' trade surpassed them both. Welcome to the wonder Lenore Blackwood felt.Yet most of this book is about people she met. Prem and his family stand out, then and for life thereafter.This is a book for Westerners who find the sub-continent and its people fascinating, and fo rthe Indian diaspora.

Traveler, Adventurer, Observer, Geopolitics Expert, Teacher, Writer, Actor, Author...Andrew Reilly's book is a guide to the international politics, history and social life of numerous countries where Andrew spent part of his life - an amazing life many people dream of: free of daily routine and full of excitement and discoveries!As Andrew's saga threads its way through over 50 countries around the globe, the story becomes a chronicle of our times - detailing the author's adventures hitchhiking across Europe, Russia, North Africa, the Middle East and beyond, learning as he traveled and earning a living in places he had never been. Working as a stevedore on the docks of Hamburg, a British Army PX clerk in Berlin, ship-fitter in the US, grape harvester in France, miner near Death Valley, film/TV actor in Los Angeles and China, theater director in Russia and Hong Kong, and as a "e;Fulbright Scholar"e; English teacher in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Romania, and Russia, Andrew Reilly has seen life in all its myriad aspects. He recounts those up-close encounters in this journal as seen through the eyes of an adventurer living in our restless age.

Traveling overland through South and East Africa, I had to cross the Zambezi River three times in 1972. Starting in Sioux City, Iowa, it takes two and a half years traveling through fourteen countries on three continents. What will become my plan to travel to California begins in Ely, Nevada. Wanting to be original, I will head east. My circuitous route will take me rafting the Colorado River, betting all my savings on one spin of the roulette wheel in the Caribbean, and a van and Mediterranean villa in Europe, including a shuttle service between Paris and Amsterdam. In the Caribbean again, I restore and create a private nightclub in Historic Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. Next, it's on to traveling and bartending in South Africa. From there, I travel overland through East Africa toward the coast to catch a ship to India. This requires crossing the monsoon swollen Zambezi River multiple times. I have to survive: military convoys, armed guerillas, mined roads, landslides, dead ends, cave-ins, crocodiles, mosquitoes, and a train wreck; and experience Eden along the way. My voyage begins on the moon.

Anita has found it to have been a pleasurable experience to have written this book. It is her desire that all persons who read it would gather strength through the testimonies in the series of short stories that will make you aware of the spiritual and human existence on earth as it is in heaven. Fact or fiction, you decide. Her hope is that after reading this book, curiosity is raised in all persons, so much so that with or without religious beliefs, all will diligently seek to establish a personal relationship through prayer with God, the Father, who is the creator of all in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Solo invites the reader to embark on a journey into the solitary self, exploring one's evolving relationship with the surrounding environment. This stirring and thoughtful work articulates the rewards of self-reflection, and of silence, deep listening, and meditation.---Solo: Venturing Alone in the Northern Wilds takes us to a place that nearly all of us are afraid to venture-a place where there are no lifelines or emergency exits. Finding himself face to face with challenging waters, grizzlies and extreme weather, Dick Anderson nonetheless discovers an unexpected inner peace and strength that allows him to persevere and survive. As much as it is a journey through the rugged wilds of the north, this is also a powerful journey of the soul. -Barton Rubenstein, Public Artist, Mother Earth Project cofounder and avid canoeist

This book, the first of its kind, seeks to demonstrate how 'SDG15 - Life on Land' can be implemented through effective biodiversity management, mainstreaming strategies and proposing solutions to achieve and consolidate the goals. The book will be of great interest to natural resource policy makers, scholars and students of natural resources, development studies and sustainable development, as well as those engaged in international climate change discourse and non-government organisations.Drawing on experienced faculty scientists who are experts in natural resource governance issues in a wide variety of fields ranging from forestry, biodiversity conservation policy to climate change, this work proposes solutions to achieve and consolidate SDG15. Delving into SDG15 targets and indicators, drawing on examples from across the regions to give a truly global policy perspective, and understanding the significance of the forest ecosystem as the foundation for sustainable development, the authors demonstrate how SDG15 can and will be an appropriate tool for mainstreaming biodiversity across the policy sectors of governance.Concise Guides to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals comprises 17 short books, each examining one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The series provides an integrated assessment of the SDGs from economic, legal, social, environmental and cultural perspectives

After leaving her job in Hawaii and a failed relationship, moving to Los Angeles and knowing that she was literally going to starve to death at her new job, which was total commission, Penny read about a job in the newspaper that said, "e;Sail, see the world, travel."e; Thinking it was the Navy but knowing that she had to have a job, she applied. Fortunately for her, it turned out to be a cruise company that offered her a job in the gift shops on board a ship. She accepted, having never been on a cruise ship before and with the knowledge that she gets seasick. The book contains short stories about getting settled on board and being the new kid on the block, meeting her new "e;family,"e; the job, what it's like living on board a cruise ship for months at a time, the crew and what actually goes on below and above decks, entertainment, the cast of characters that are the guests, a major fire at sea, mishaps and death, shore excursions, and friendships that are made for a lifetime. It's a decade worth of stories that have to be told, some sad and some funny but definitely entertaining. It was a life-changing decade for her in only the positive sense and was an incredible opportunity to see and experience distant lands and people, in a way that she never imagined. So welcome aboard!

Triumphs and Trials is an honest discussion of the day to day experiences of a classroom teacher in America. It is depiction of the joys and sorrows all educators will encounter throughout their careers. Triumphs and Trials explores the unique talents of all teachers and exhibits how a career in education is more than a job; it is a calling and a mission.

Record-breaking weather events. Strange beasties that literally created a buzz. A restless universe tossing rocks at our planet. All with a raging coronavirus afflicting our world population. Just some of the bizarre happenings that defined 2020. Captured in one bucket here, the read is dizzying and dramatic... and worrying with regard to the future. Are these splashes a glimpse of more aggressive and violent weather, nature and space occurrences to come?

Literature on Zimbabwe s modern history is influenced by one particular perspective concerning the historical roots of inequitable land distribution choreographed by British colonialism from 1890. This dominant theme is based on the imperatives of redressing a historical injustice where British people alienated prime land from, among others, the indigenous Shona, Ndebele, and Tonga. The key element in this perspective has been the science of land management, particularly the protection of wooded areas, the soil, and wildlife. The discourse of ecological calamity stresses the damaging outcomes from unregulated timber logging, agriculture, mining and hunting, as well as the threats of degradation and the need to control methods of resource exploitation by humans. This book examines the debates and processes on woodland exploitation in Zimbabwe during the colonial era (1890 1960). It explores the social, economic, and political contexts of perceptions on woodland distribution and management. Much of the period was characterized by both local and global debates about environmental problems, generating in their wake politically charged and emotive language about the consequences deforestation, soil erosion, and threats to wildlife. This study analyses the history of exploitation and conservation of the Zimbabwean teak (mkusi or Baikiea plurijuga) and its associated species in Northwestern Matabeleland from 1890 to 1960. Timber exploitation was among the top three colonial economic activities in Matabeleland, including ranching and tobacco cultivation. Concessionaire capitalists and forestry officials dominated the exploitation and conservation of the Zambezi teak woodland or gusu, respectively. On one hand, capitalists sought to extract as much commercial hardwood timber as they could while on the other hand, foresters restricted tree felling. This study shows that there was conflict and accommodation between the two interest groups involved regarding exploitation and conservation. Conflict arose when timber firms such as the Rhodesia Native Timber Concessionaires (RNTC) demanded an increase on the quantity of important trees cut every year while foresters put pressure for minimum exploitation. Reconciling the two stakeholders was difficult, and from time to time they either clashed or accommodated each other through dialogue, persuasion, and compromise. The two dominant players on the scene were the Forestry Service and the RNTC. Such conflict and accommodation also took place between foresters and Africans. Foresters and other government officials blamed African methods of farming and food gathering for causing destruction on gusu. But foresters depended on ultra-cheap African tenant labor in the practice of conservation, which in large part involved firefighting and prevention. A major stumbling block for the Forestry Service in conserving gusu against African and settler demands was the absence of a Forest Act in 60 out of the 70 years of history examined. A Forest Act was enacted in 1949. In these seventy years, 994,000 and 963,000 acres were exploited and conserved for future purposes respectively. In this first critical work on the topic, author Vimbai Kwashirai focuses on woodland conservation and commercial development in Zimbabwe during the colonial period. Emphasis is placed on the tensions, conflicts, and sometimes the collusions between timber companies and the developing state. This book provides a rich example of Green Imperialism along the lines of Richard Grove, but goes beyond that by giving an economic historical account that situates conservation history within the broader political-economic context. This book is based on broad archival research, and it traces the relationship between conservation and the development of commercial capital from forest enterprises in colonial Zimbabwe. It delivers much insight on the conflicts and tensions of the workings of the British South Africa Company (a capitalist enterprise that was at the same time overseeing the development of a state polity of the then Rhodesia), providing evidence for a strong argument for the development of industrial capital under colonialism. The forestry service was caught in these tensions of supporting and enterprise, but also trying to regulate that green capital and establish the beginnings of protected forests in Zimbabwe. This book casts much light on the environmental impact on a part of Africa caused by the push and pull of politics and economics. This book will be an important addition to collections in African studies, environmental studies, and political science.

"e;Her book is a wonderful read she leaves nothing on the table but truth of her life struggles and faith. She is a great inspiration and leader. I think many generations will love her words."e; --Ashley Renee Turner, Lafayette Louisiana"e;As I read these books they seem to come alive. It was like I was there with her through it all."e; --Kristan Jeter, Minneapolis, Minnesota"e;Those three books were amazing, a true testimony. A story to teach other's about life....A great book, I rate it 5 stars."e; --Brandi Jackson. Tallahassee, Florida"e;Thank you for sharing your life story. God has used your life story to help other' along the way."e; --Tonia Jones-Thomas. Pembroke, Illinois"e;I enjoyed Volumes 1-6, it opened my mind and heart about some of the trials I have been through in my life. You never know what a person is going through, but God will walk us through it if we ask Him."e; --Delores Lewis, Ladies of Pembroke Book Club. "e;Heyyy buddy let's get it. Real realizes real and you real. Amazing Books, I'm getting my popcorn ready to see where you taking us next."e; --Matthew Gibson, Taylor, Michigan"e;I always saw greatness in you and knew you would become something, that's why I was so hard on you. I love you and very proud of you."e; --Your 6th grade teacher, Mrs. Barnetta Ray, Kankakee, Illinois

U.S. farm bills are home to the nation s primary policies for agriculture, land use, and conservation. Although often outside the public spotlight, many of these policies are crucial to how land and food are managed in this country from food stamp programs for low-income households to environmental conservation for natural resources to the often controversial commodity subsidy programs to support farmers. Every five to seven years when the farm bill comes up for reauthorization, policymakers, interest groups, and the public spend months and often years advocating, questioning, and debating farm bill provisions. Typically when the new farm bill emerges, it appears expanded and adjusted, but rarely radically reformed. Early in debates over the 2008 farm bill, however, this norm of incremental policy change seemed to be cracking. International trade proposals, budget constraints, and new tides of public opinion brought proposals to the table for drastically reforming commodity subsidies. But as the situational and cultural context surrounding farm bill debates changed, so too did prospects for farm bill reform. In the end, influenced by an emerging focus on biofuels and discourses of national security, the 2008 farm bill settled back into a more typical incremental policy trajectory. Despite its ultimate conformity to the norms of incremental policymaking, the 2008 farm bill s flirtation with radical policy reform makes it an interesting empirical case for studying processes of policy change and stability. Following the trajectory of the 2008 farm bill debates as it unfolded provides an opportunity to examine those factors political, economic, cultural and otherwise that typically combine to facilitate or forestall policy change. In this case, biofuels became a prominent driving force in debates in part because they helped policymakers sidestep earlier controversies over more radical farm bill reform. Alongside a decline in trade pressure to reform subsidies, increased biofuels production raised crop prices, alleviated budgetary pressures, and inspired support for commodity production in the name of national security. Examining the gains and misses for conservation in the 2008 farm bill also sheds light on agricultural sustainability prospects embedded in farm policy. In this case, the emphasis on biofuels during farm bill debates both threatened conservation with the prospect of large-scale corn ethanol production, and also shifted public focus away from reforms that might have improved agriculture s environmental and social footprint. At the same time, the 2008 farm bill did introduce some new prospects for environmentally- and socially-sustainable agricultural policies in the longer term. In examining the reasons for the 2008 farm bill s approach to and then retreat from rapid policy change, Nadine Lehrer guides us through ideological conflicts over world trade, renewable energy, and sustainable agriculture as embedded in U.S. farm policy debates. This book locates these debates within the historical context of farm bills over time, providing a concise history of agricultural policy dynamics as they relate to current issues. The book also integrates complementary theoretical perspectives from the policy change and social movement literatures, and in particular makes a case for incorporating discourse analysis into studies of policy change and policy stability. Integrating theory and history with a multidisciplinary perspective on changing situational drivers, interest group struggles, and Congressional politics, Lehrer uses the farm bill as an illustrative case for illuminating U.S. political processes and implications. This is an important work for students and scholars of the U.S. political system, especially those focused on agricultural policy, sustainability and environmental conservation, theory and methods of policy analysis, and the intersections of policy and culture.