When writer Rebecca Giggs encountered a humpback whale stranded on her local beachfront in Australia, she began to wonder how the lives of whales reflect the condition of our oceans.

In recent decades we’ve learned more about the ocean than in all previous human history combined. But, even as our knowledge has exploded, so too has our power to upset the delicate balance of this complex organism. Modern overexploitation has driven many species to the verge of extinction, from tiny but indispensable biota to magnificent creatures like tuna, swordfish, and great whales. Since the mid-20th century about half our coral reefs have...

"It's the near future, and tens of thousands of species are going extinct every year. The loss is not total, though: the DNA sequences of many species are being digitized and uploaded to a global network of "biobanks," together with brain and body scans, recordings of behavior in the wild, microbiota profiles, and so forth, in the hope that the extinct victims of humanity's destructiveness might one day be resurrected. Then comes the day when the...

Shows different habitats around the world, exploring how humans have adapted to adverse climates and how they learn to live with and use the creatures that share their surroundings.

Journalist Weisman offers an original approach to questions of humanity's impact on the planet. Drawing on the expertise of engineers, atmospheric scientists, art conservators, zoologists, oil refiners, marine biologists, astrophysicists, religious leaders, and paleontologists, he illustrates what the planet might be like today if humans disappeared. He explains how our massive infrastructure would collapse and finally vanish without human presence;...

In this impassioned polemic, radical environmental philosopher Derrick Jensen debunks the near-universal belief in a hierarchy of nature and the superiority of humans. Vast and underappreciated complexities of nonhuman life are explored in detail — from the cultures of pigs and prairie dogs, to the creative use of tools by elephants and fish, to the acumen of caterpillars and fungi. The paralysis of the scientific establishment on moral and ethical...

Roaming across the salt flats and skirting the salt lake, Richard, a geologist working for an oil company, hunts for fossils under the spell of Clarissa, the local beauty who plans to use her share of their plunder to get out of small, dusty Midland for good. A generation earlier, a Depression-era couple, Max and Marie Omo, numbly mines for salt along the banks of the briny lake until the emotional terrain of their marriage is suddenly and irrevocably...

Whereas Volume 1 of Endgame presents the problem of civilization, Volume 2 of this pivotal work illustrates our means of resistance. Incensed and hopeful, impassioned and lucid, Endgame leap-frogs the environmental movement's deadlock over our willingness to change our conduct, focusing instead on our ability to adapt to the impending ecological revolution.

"The average American spends ninety percent of their time indoors, and children are no exception. Today, kids can spend up to seven hours per day looking at screens. Not only does this phenomenon have consequences for our kids' physical and mental health, it calls into question their ability to understand and engage with anything beyond the built environment. We can talk about environmental stewardship, but until more people make meaningful contact...

"The Anthropocene is the current geological age, in which human activity has profoundly shaped the planet and its biodiversity. In this ... symphony of essays adapted and expanded from his ... podcast, bestselling author John Green reviews different facets of the human-centered planet on a five-star scale--from the QWERTY keyboard and sunsets to Canada geese and Penguins of Madagascar"--