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There is
a vast amount of information
accumulating every week on global
warming and its impact on regions
and populations worldwide.
Editorial articles
appear regularly in newspapers,
journals and magazines
and there are frequent broadcasts
on television and radio.
There are many books,
containing facts and
statistics on our ever-changing
planet. |
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GAIA:
A NEW LOOK AT LIFE ON EARTH - by James
Lovelock |
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last
updated 27th January 05
by 4ecotips.com
 A
book that was first published over
four years ago has been recommended
as an “essential science library”
asset according to The Guardian’s
Tim Radford. Titled “Gaia: a
new look at life on Earth” is
written by James Lovelock and puts
forward his inspirational idea that
life on earth functions as a single
organism.
In contrast to conventional belief
that living matter is passive in the
face of threats to its existence,
the book explores the hypothesis that
the earth's living matter air, ocean,
and land surfaces forms a complex
system that has the capacity to keep
the Earth a fit place for life.
Radford says: “Some books really
do change the world: this may be one
of them. Its influence among the eco-warriors
and New Agers has been immense, but
so has its influence on many geologists,
biochemists, geographers, and oceanographers.
Gaia Is only a metaphor – Lovelock
is not promoting Bronze Age religion
and Earth-mother worship – but
it is a powerful one: an image that
illuminates the intricate connection
between all living things and the
ground they must live upon.
“In this sense, Lovelock argues,
the planet itself is alive and so
sustains life on Earth.”
Gaia: a new look at life on Earth
by James Lovelock. (Published by Oxford
University Press, price £7.99
ISBN 0-19-286218-9)
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HANDBOOK
ON CARBON MARKETS - edited by Farhana
Yamin |
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last
updated 27th January 05
by 4ecotips.com
Climate Change and Carbon Markets
is a handbook which aims to provide
an accessible and practical guide
to cutting edge market-based mechanisms
to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
It’s aimed at national and international
policy-makers and industry professionals
who need to understand the carbon
markets established pursuant to the
Kyoto protocol.
The book sets out how carbon markets
will function by explaining the rules,
institutions and procedures of the
Kyoto mechanisms, including emissions
trading, joint implementation, and
the Clean Development Mechanism. It
also provides an in-depth explanation
of the EU Emissions Allowance Trading
Scheme, emerging mechanisms in the
US and developing countries and how
these will link up.
Climate Change and Carbon Markets:
A Handbook of Emissions Reduction
Mechanisms is edited by Farhana Yamin.
(Price £65 ISBN 1 84407 163
4)
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VOLCANOES
IN HUMAN HISTORY by Z.L. de Boer and
D. Sanders |
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last
updated 7th January 05
by 4ecotips.com
According to Goethe “no catastrophe
has ever yielded so much pleasure
to the rest of humanity as that buried
at Pompeii and Herculaneum.”
The eruption of Vesuvius has resonated
through western culture for 2000 years,
inspiring Dante’s Inferno, immortalised
by artists as diverse as Turner and
Warhol so says a review of this new
book in The Guardian. Shelley, apparently,
heard the volcano’s rumbling
and “felt that Earth out of
her deep heart spoke”.
The authors of this original study
describe seven major eruptions and
two volcanic landscapes (Hawaii and
Iceland) revealing both the science
and “the human dimension of
volcanism.” It is a book of
catastrophic events and titanic geological
processes … from the prodigious
blast of Thera more than 3500 years
ago to the relative burp of Mount
St Helens in 1980”. A detailed
and vivid account of the fiery relationship
between the Earth and its surface
dwellers.
Volcanoes in Human History by Jelle
Zeillinga de Boer and Donald Sanders
Published by Princeton, £12.50
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GUIDE
TO INSULATION |
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last
updated 22 Oct 04
by 4ecotips.com
A new guide launched by the Energy
Saving Trust (EST) will help self
builders and building professionals
select the most suitable insulation
materials when they are building homes.
The Insulation Materials Chart identifies
the common uses of synthetic insulation
materials and natural alternatives,
providing a handy way to compare products.
It gives each material a 'Green Guide'
rating, which assesses the environmental
impact of manufacturing and installing
the product.This takes account of
factors such as ozone depletion, mineral
extraction and human toxicity.
In contrast to synthetic insulation,
materials such as sheep's wool and
cellulose fibre (recycled newspaper)
which have no artificial ingredients
and have simple, low-energy manufacturing
processes. It shows that natural materials
can be used effectively in many situations.
Also, the chart allows easy comparison
of the thermal conductivity of different
materials and shows whether or not
they they are commonly used in roofs,
walls or floors.
Further info www.est.org.uk
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MAKING
THE MOST OF SUN AND WATER |
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last
updated 22 Oct 04
by 4ecotips.com
A new edition of the Centre for Alternative
Technology’s (CAT) bestseller
“Tapping the Sun: a guide to
solar water heating” plus a
new book “Going with the Flow:
small scale water power” have
been published.
Both books are intended to help homeowners
combat rising fuel prices, make the
most of new technologies and access
Government grants. The two books are
timely because the money awarded to
domestic and community projects by
the Government's 'Clear Skies' renewable
energy grants scheme now exceeds £4.8
million.
CAT's information service receives
hundreds of solar water heating enquiries
every year and, with public demand
at a new high, the book covers all
the elements of adapting a conventional
home’s hot water system to solar
power. From potential costs and equipment
to basic mechanical principles and
legal issues, the book cuts right
through the technical jargon and shows
homeowners just how the changes can
be made.
CAT’s comprehensive guide to
small scale water power for domestic,
community and agricultural use, shows
how to tap into one of the UK's forgotten
natural energy resources rivers and
streams. The book’s a must for
people who want to adapt to eco-friendly
technologies close to home and who
are looking at renewable technologies
as “mainstream” and not
just a quirk of dedicated “greenies”.
Further info www.cat.org.uk
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SHOPPED
BY THE SUPERMARKETS - by Joanna Blythman |
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last
updated 24 Sept 04
by 4ecotips.com
There’s probably not one of
us who could put their hand on their
heart and say they have never set
foot inside a supermarket! The truth
is we all enjoy the wide range of
products they have to offer and their
highly competitive prices.
Unfortunately we are in danger of
being totally consumed by this form
of retailing as the larger chains
grab the advantage in every corner
of towns, cities and even some villages.
Indeed, award winning food journalist,
Joanna Blythman, says our nation of
shopkeepers has become a nation of
supermarkets. In the 1950s they had
only 20% of Britain’s grocery
spend. Now they control 80% and are
hungry for more.
In her book “Shopped”
she goes behind the scenes on the
supermarket revolution and reveals
its human costs, working on the checkout,
visiting ghost town high streets,
meeting downtrodden suppliers, surveying
a landscape increasingly designed
to feed supermarket profits, exposing
the illusion of choice on our shelves
that disguises a loss of true diversity,
quality and flavour.
Shopped by Joanna Blythman is published
The Book People Ltd price £12.99
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How
can we save the planet? - By Mayer Hillman |
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[Published by Penguin Books, price £7.99p]
Challenging, stimulating and practical,
this book is the essential guide to
help you understand how we can safeguard
our future.
Climate change is the single biggest
problem that humankind has ever had
to face. Yet politicians cannot agree
a framework for tackling it effectively,
and meanwhile we continue with lifestyles
that are way beyond the plant's limits.
Here Mayer Hillman explains the real
issues we should focus on: what the
government is doing, what role technology
can play and, above all, why we must
act now to protect
our planet for later generations.
It shows how you and your community
can make changes and why government
must take the lead.
It introduces a radical rationing
scheme to reduce our individual carbon
outputs to a fair and ecologically
safe level.
It gives helpful short- and long-term
guidelines for the home, travel and
leisure to enable us to live within
this ration.
It provides a wealth of information
and contact details for relevant organisations,
companies and websites.
"For thirty years Mayer Hillman
has been busily turning conventional
political thinking on its head …
he has come up with solutions that
are hard to dismiss" - Guardian.
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High
Tide - news from a warming world - By
Mark Lynas. |
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[Published by Falmingo, price £16.99]
A glacier disappears high in the
Peruvian Andes. Floodwaters surge
across the English countryside. Ten
thousand Pacific islanders begin to
evacuate their homeland. A dust storm
turns day into night across the inner
Mongolian plains.
To many people these events might
seem unrelated. But they're not. Even
as scientists and other experts continue
to debate the specifics, climate change
has crept up almost unnoticed on Planet
Earth.
In this ground-breaking book, author
Mark Lynas reveals the first evidence
- painstakingly collected over three
of travelling to far-flung corners
of the globe - of how global warming
is hitting people's lives, not in
the future, but in our world today.
High Tide
tells the first-hand stories of Alaskan
Eskimos, South Sea islanders, Chinese
sheep-herders and British flood victims
who already know too much about the
grim realities of climate change.
And in the process, Lynas gives us
stark warning about the dangers that
lie ahead if nothing is done.
As catastrophe beckons nobody who
reads this book will be able to look
back and say "I didn't know."
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The
Earth - an intimate history - By Richard
Fortey |
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[Published
by Harper Collins price £25]
This book will change the way you
view the world permanently. The face
of the Earth, criss-crossed by chains
of mountains like the scars of old
wounds, has changed and changed again
over billions of years, a the testament
of the remote past is all around.
In this book Richard Fortey, senior
palaeontologist at London's Natural
History Museum, teaches us how to
read its character, laying out the
dominions of the world before us.
He shows how everything - human culture,
natural history, even the shape of
cities - roots back to a deeper geological
truth. Far from being the driest of
the sciences, he proves that geology
informs all our lives in the most
intimate way.
"Read this book because it is,
indeed, the best natural history of
the first four billion years of life
on Earth." John Gribbon, Sunday
Times.
"There is no way to condense
Fortey's glittering book, so filled
with insight, science, history, charm
and wit." Richard Ellis, The
Times.
"Richard Fortey is a scientist
… but his big, rich history
of four billion years of evolution
is written with an artist's zest for
life and language … Read this
sparkling book." Maggie Gee,
Daily Telegraph.
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