An argument for the urgent danger of global warming in a book that is sure to be as influential as Rachel Carson's Silent Spring.Known for her... insightful and thought-provoking journalism, New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert now tackles the controversial subject of global warming. Americans have been warned since the late nineteen-seventies that the buildup of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere threatens to melt the polar ice sheets and irreversibly change our climate. With little done since then to alter this dangerous course, now is the moment to salvage our future. By the end of the century, the world will likely be hotter than it's been in the last two million years, and the sweeping consequences of this change will determine the future of life on earth for generations to come.In writing that is both clear and unbiased, Kolbert approaches this monumental problem from every angle. She travels to the Arctic, interviews researchers and environmentalists, explains the science and the studies, draws frightening parallels to lost ancient civilizations, unpacks the politics, and presents the personal tales of those who are being affected most--the people who make their homes near the poles and, in an eerie foreshadowing, are watching their worlds disappear. Growing out of a groundbreaking three-part series for the New Yorker, Field Notes from a Catastrophe brings the environment into the consciousness of the American people and asks what, if anything, can be done, and how we can save our planet.

Long known for her insightful and thought-provoking political journalism, author Elizabeth Kolbert now tackles the controversial and increasingly urgent... subject of global warming. In what began as groundbreaking three-part series in the New Yorker, for which she won a National Magazine Award in 2006, Kolbert cuts through the competing rhetoric and political agendas to elucidate for Americans what is really going on with the global environment and asks what, if anything, can be done to save our planet. Now updated and with a new afterword, Field Notes from a Catastrophe is the book to read on the defining issue and greatest challenge of our times.

"Gorgeously wrought...pitch-perfect prose...In language of terrible beauty, she takes India's everyday tragedies and reminds us to be outraged all over... again."—Time MagazineCombining fierce conviction, deft political analysis, and beautiful writing, this is the essential new book from Arundhati Roy.This series of essays examines the dark side of democracy in contemporary India. It looks closely at how religious majoritarianism, cultural nationalism, and neo-fascism simmer just under the surface of a country that projects itself as the world's largest democracy.Roy writes about how the combination of Hindu Nationalism and India's neo-liberal economic reforms, which began their journey together in the early 1990s, are now turning India into a police state.She describes the systematic marginalization of religious and ethnic minorities, the rise of terrorism, and the massive scale of displacement and dispossession of the poor by predatory corporations. She also offers a brilliant account of the August 2008 uprising of the people of Kashmir against India's military occupation and an analysis of the November 2008 attacks on Mumbai.Field Notes on Democracy tracks the fault-lines that threaten to destroy India's precarious democracy and send shockwaves through the region and beyond.Praise for Field Notes on Democracy:"In her searing account of the actual practice of the world's largest democracy, Arundhati Roy calls for 'factual precision' alongside of the 'real precision of poetry.' Remarkably, she combines those achievements to a degree that few can hope to approach. Roy shows in painful detail how the beneficiaries of the highly admired 10 percent growth rate are enjoying a 'new secessionism,' leaving the great majority languishing in poverty and despair, with malnutrition reaching the same levels as sub-Saharan Africa. As surveillance and state terror extend, all under the guise of flourishing democracy, India is becoming 'a nation waiting to be accused,' a nation where a confession extracted under torture can lead to the brink of nuclear war, and where 'fascism's firm footprint has appeared' in ways reminiscent of the early years of Nazism. Most chilling of all is that much of the grim portrait is all too familiar in the West. Roy asks whether our shriveled forms of democracy will be 'the endgame of the human race'—and shows vividly why this is a prospect not to be lightly dismissed." —Noam Chomsky"After so much celebratory salesmanship about India the 'emerging market,' Roy draws us into India the actual country, peeling away the gloss until we are confronted with perhaps the most challenging question of our time: who and what are we willing to sacrifice in the name of development? Roy is one of the most confident and original thinkers of our time."—Naomi Klein"The notion of Democracy and the pleading for human compassion first came together in Sophocles and the Greek tragedies. More than two thousand years later we live under an economic world tyranny of unprecedented brutality, which depends upon the systematic abuse of words like Democracy or Progress. Arundhati Roy, the direct descendant of Antigone, resists and denounces all tyrannies, pleads for their victims, and unflinchingly questions the tragic. Reflect with her on the answers she receives from the political world today." —John BergerArundhati Roy is a world-renowned Indian author and global justice activist. From her celebrated Booker Prize–winning novel The God of Small Things to her prolific output of writing on topics ranging from climate change to war, the perils of free-market development in India, and the defense of the poor, Roy's voice has become indispensable to millions seeking a better world.

Once in a great while, as the New York Times noted recently, a naturalist writes a book that changes the way people look at the living world. John James... Audubon’s Birds of America, published in 1838, was one. Roger Tory Peterson’s 1934 Field Guide to the Birds was another. How does such insight into nature develop?Pioneering a new niche in the study of plants and animals in their native habitat, Field Notes on Science and Nature allows readers to peer over the shoulders and into the notebooks of a dozen eminent field workers, to study firsthand their observational methods, materials, and fleeting impressions.What did George Schaller note when studying the lions of the Serengeti? What lists did Kenn Kaufman keep during his 1973 “big year”? How does Piotr Naskrecki use relational databases and electronic field notes? In what way is Bernd Heinrich’s approach “truly Thoreauvian,” in E. O. Wilson’s view? Recording observations in the field is an indispensable scientific skill, but researchers are not generally willing to share their personal records with others. Here, for the first time, are reproductions of actual pages from notebooks. And in essays abounding with fascinating anecdotes, the authors reflect on the contexts in which the notes were taken.Covering disciplines as diverse as ornithology, entomology, ecology, paleontology, anthropology, botany, and animal behavior, Field Notes offers specific examples that professional naturalists can emulate to fine-tune their own field methods, along with practical advice that amateur naturalists and students can use to document their adventures.

Thirteen distinguished anthropologists describe how they create and use the unique forms of writing they produce in the field. They also discuss the... fieldnotes of seminal figures-Frank Cushing, Franz Boas, W. H. R. Rivers, Bronislaw Malinowski, and Margaret Mead-and analyze field writings in relation to other types of texts, especially ethnographies. Unique in conception, this volume contributes importantly to current debates on writing, texts, and reflexivity in anthropology.

The best-selling author of Radical Amazement articulates a transforming vision of spirituality that examines the intricate connectedness of the physical... and spiritual worlds, a phenomenon she calls the "field of compassion."In the tradition of Teilhard de Chardin and Thomas Berry, Judy Cannato invites spiritual seekers to embrace the way in which an understanding of religion and the spiritual path is informed and illumined by cutting-edge science. Cannato's newest book is a must-read for those interested in how the new cosmology and the Christian story can be understood in harmony with one another. She shows how modern scientific discoveries demonstrate that at the most fundamental of levels all life is connected and that humankind participates in the unfolding of the universe. This book's compelling and radical call to transformation will inspire readers to choose collaboration and peace over competition and conflict.

Field of Schemes is a play-by-play account of how the drive for new sports stadiums and arenas drains $2 billion a year from public treasuries for the... sake of private profit. While the millionaires who own sports franchises have seen the value of their assets soar under this scheme, taxpayers, urban residents, and sports fans have all come out losers, forced to pay both higher taxes and higher ticket prices for seats that, thanks to the layers of luxury seating that typify new stadiums, usually offer a worse view of the action. The stories in Field of Schemes, from Baltimore to Cleveland and Minneapolis to Seattle and dozens of places in between, tell of the sports-team owners who use their money and their political muscle to get their way, and of the stories of spirited local groups—like Detroit’s Tiger Stadium Fan Club and Boston’s Save Fenway Park!—that have fought to save the games we love and the public dollars our cities need. This revised and expanded edition features the first comprehensive reporting on the recent stadium battles in Washington DC, New York City, and Boston as well as updates on how cities have fared with the first wave of new stadiums built in recent years.

Building on the success of previous editions, this latest edition continues to offer readers a very practical, down-to-earth approach to the methods and... key issues involved in dong ethnographic research. Although not intended as a complete manual of field techniques, it does present a series of fourteen projects that represent some of the most common data collection techniques used by anthropologists. In carrying out the projects, readers learn something about how and when to apply such techniques, or variants of them, in the field situation. The authors' clear and useful guidelines are a welcome rite of passage to developing this field experience. Imaginable, practical, versatile and stimulating, this edition maintains the unique coverage of topics, illustrative approach, and succinctness that has made it a widely read book for nearly two decades. Most importantly, Field Projects in Anthropology, 3/E motivates readers to learn about other cultures and to develop new perspectives about their own. The projects are clearly written, short enough and varied enough to hold the reader's attention, and to the point. They are also versatile, allowing sufficient leeway to modify or amplify the method to suit individual research needs.

This comprehensive revision begins with a review of static electric and magnetic fields, providing a wealth of results useful for static and... time-dependent fields problems in which the size of the device is small compared with a wavelength. Some of the static results such as inductance of transmission lines calculations can be used for microwave frequencies. Familiarity with vector operations, including divergence and curl, are developed in context in the chapters on statics. Packed with useful derivations and applications.

Fields, Forces, and Flows in Biological Systems describes the fundamental driving forces for mass transport, electric current, and fluid flow as they... apply to the biology and biophysics of molecules, cells, tissues, and organs. Basic mathematical and engineering tools are presented in the context of biology and physiology. The chapters are structured in a framework that moves across length scales from molecules to membranes to tissues. Examples throughout the text deal with applications involving specific biological tissues, cells, and macromolecules. In addition, a variety of applications focus on sensors, actuators, diagnostics, and microphysical measurement devices (e.g., bioMEMs/NEMs microfluidic devices) in which transport and electrokinetic interactions are critical. This textbook is written for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in biological and biomedical engineering and will be a valuable resource for interdisciplinary researchers including biophysicists, physical chemists, materials scientists, and chemical, electrical, and mechanical engineers seeking a common language on the subject.