Empire of the Beetle

Empire of the Beetle
Author :
Publisher : Greystone Books Ltd
Total Pages : 240
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781553655107
ISBN-13 : 1553655109
Rating : 4/5 (07 Downloads)

Synopsis Empire of the Beetle by : Andrew Nikiforuk

Beginning in the late 1980s, a series of improbable bark beetle outbreaks unsettled iconic forests and communities across western North America. An insect the size of a rice kernel eventually killed more than 30 billion pine and spruce trees from Alaska to New Mexico. Often appearing in masses larger than schools of killer whales, the beetles engineered one of the world's greatest forest die-offs since the deforestation of Europe by peasants between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. The beetle didn't act alone. Misguided science, out-of-control logging, bad public policy, and a hundred years of fire suppression created a volatile geography that released the world's oldest forest manager from all natural constraints. Like most human empires, the beetles exploded wildly and then crashed, leaving in their wake grieving landowners, humbled scientists, hungry animals, and altered watersheds. Although climate change triggered this complex event, human arrogance assuredly set the table. With little warning, an ancient insect pointedly exposed the frailty of seemingly stable manmade landscapes. And despite the billions of public dollars spent on control efforts, the beetles burn away like a fire that can't be put out. Drawing on first-hand accounts from entomologists, botanists, foresters, and rural residents, award-winning journalist Andrew Nikiforuk investigates this unprecedented beetle plague, its startling implications, and the lessons it holds.

Empire of the Beetle

Empire of the Beetle
Author :
Publisher : Greystone Books Ltd
Total Pages : 240
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781553658948
ISBN-13 : 1553658949
Rating : 4/5 (48 Downloads)

Synopsis Empire of the Beetle by : Andrew Nikiforuk

Beginning in the late 1980s, a series of improbable bark beetle outbreaks unsettled iconic forests and communities across western North America. An insect the size of a rice kernel eventually killed more than 30 billion pine and spruce trees from Alaska to New Mexico. Often appearing in masses larger than schools of killer whales, the beetles engineered one of the world's greatest forest die-offs since the deforestation of Europe by peasants between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. The beetle didn't act alone. Misguided science, out-of-control logging, bad public policy, and a hundred years of fire suppression created a volatile geography that released the world's oldest forest manager from all natural constraints. Like most human empires, the beetles exploded wildly and then crashed, leaving in their wake grieving landowners, humbled scientists, hungry animals, and altered watersheds. Although climate change triggered this complex event, human arrogance assuredly set the table. With little warning, an ancient insect pointedly exposed the frailty of seemingly stable manmade landscapes. Drawing on first-hand accounts from entomologists, botanists, foresters, and rural residents, award-winning journalist Andrew Nikiforuk, investigates this unprecedented beetle plague, its startling implications, and the lessons it holds.

Empire in Black and Gold

Empire in Black and Gold
Author :
Publisher : Prometheus Books
Total Pages : 574
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781616143398
ISBN-13 : 1616143398
Rating : 4/5 (98 Downloads)

Synopsis Empire in Black and Gold by : Adrian Tchaikovsky

The city states of the Lowlands have lived in peace for decades, bastions of civilization, prosperity and sophistication, protected by treaties, trade and a belief in the reasonable nature of their neighbors. But meanwhile, in far-off corners, the Wasp Empire has been devouring city after city with its highly trained armies, its machines, it killing Art . . . And now its hunger for conquest and war has become insatiable. Only the aging Stenwold Maker, spymaster, artificer and statesman, can see that the long days of peace are over. It falls upon his shoulders to open the eyes of his people, before a black-and-gold tide sweeps down over the Lowlands and burns away everything in its path. But first he must stop himself from becoming the Empire's latest victim.

The Battle of the Beetles 2: Beetle Queen

The Battle of the Beetles 2: Beetle Queen
Author :
Publisher : Chicken House
Total Pages : 268
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781911077374
ISBN-13 : 1911077376
Rating : 4/5 (74 Downloads)

Synopsis The Battle of the Beetles 2: Beetle Queen by : M.G. Leonard

Cruel beetle fashionista, Lucretia Cutter, is at large with her yellow ladybird spies - and she has a devious plan. Darkus, Virginia and Bertolt are determined to stop her, but Darkus's dad is dead set against their involvement. Hope rests on Novak, Lucretia's daughter and a Hollywood actress, but the beetle diva is always one scuttle ahead ...

A Perfect Red

A Perfect Red
Author :
Publisher : Harper Collins
Total Pages : 354
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780061980893
ISBN-13 : 0061980897
Rating : 4/5 (93 Downloads)

Synopsis A Perfect Red by : Amy Butler Greenfield

“You’ll finish [Greenfield’s] book with new respect for color, especially for red. With A Perfect Red, she does for it what Mark Kurlansky in Salt did for that common commodity.”—Houston Chronicle Interweaving mystery, empire, and adventure, Amy Butler Greenfield’s masterful popular history offers a window onto a world far different from our own: a world in which the color red was rare and precious—a source of wealth and power for those who could unlock its secrets. And in this world nothing was more prized than cochineal, a red dye that produced the brightest, strongest red the Old World had ever seen. A Perfect Red recounts the story of this legendary red dye, from its cultivation by the ancient Mexicans and discovery by 16th-century Spanish conquistadors to the European pirates, explorers, alchemists, scientists, and spies who joined in the chase to unlock its secrets, a chase that lasted more than three centuries. It evokes with style and verve this history of a grand obsession, of intrigue, empire, and adventure in pursuit of the most desirable color on earth.

In the Valleys of the Noble Beyond

In the Valleys of the Noble Beyond
Author :
Publisher : Greystone Books Ltd
Total Pages : 336
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781771645195
ISBN-13 : 1771645199
Rating : 4/5 (95 Downloads)

Synopsis In the Valleys of the Noble Beyond by : John Zada

This evocative work of nature writing traverses the world’s largest temperate rainforest to uncover the legend of the Sasquatch. Canada’s Great Bear Rainforest is home to trees as tall as skyscrapers and moss as thick as carpet. According to the people who live there, another giant may dwell in these woods. For centuries, locals have reported encounters with the Sasquatch—a species of hairy man-ape that could inhabit this pristine wilderness. Driven by his childhood obsession with the Sasquatch, yet trying to remain objective, journalist John Zada seeks out the people and stories surrounding this enigmatic creature. He speaks with local Indigenous peoples and a Sasquatch-studying scientist. He hikes with a former bear hunter. Soon, he finds himself on quest for something infinitely more complex, cutting across questions of human perception, scientific inquiry, Indigenous traditions, the environment, and the power of the human imagination to believe in—or to outright dismiss—one of nature’s last great mysteries.

The Insect Crisis: The Fall of the Tiny Empires That Run the World

The Insect Crisis: The Fall of the Tiny Empires That Run the World
Author :
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages : 272
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781324006602
ISBN-13 : 1324006609
Rating : 4/5 (02 Downloads)

Synopsis The Insect Crisis: The Fall of the Tiny Empires That Run the World by : Oliver Milman

A devastating examination of how collapsing insect populations worldwide threaten everything from wild birds to the food on our plate. From ants scurrying under leaf litter to bees able to fly higher than Mount Kilimanjaro, insects are everywhere. Three out of every four of our planet’s known animal species are insects. In The Insect Crisis, acclaimed journalist Oliver Milman dives into the torrent of recent evidence that suggests this kaleidoscopic group of creatures is suffering the greatest existential crisis in its remarkable 400-million-year history. What is causing the collapse of the insect world? Why does this alarming decline pose such a threat to us? And what can be done to stem the loss of the miniature empires that hold aloft life as we know it? With urgency and great clarity, Milman explores this hidden emergency, arguing that its consequences could even rival climate change. He joins the scientists tracking the decline of insect populations across the globe, including the soaring mountains of Mexico that host an epic, yet dwindling, migration of monarch butterflies; the verdant countryside of England that has been emptied of insect life; the gargantuan fields of U.S. agriculture that have proved a killing ground for bees; and an offbeat experiment in Denmark that shows there aren’t that many bugs splattering into your car windshield these days. These losses not only further tear at the tapestry of life on our degraded planet; they imperil everything we hold dear, from the food on our supermarket shelves to the medicines in our cabinets to the riot of nature that thrills and enlivens us. Even insects we may dread, including the hated cockroach, or the stinging wasp, play crucial ecological roles, and their decline would profoundly shape our own story. By connecting butterfly and bee, moth and beetle from across the globe, the full scope of loss renders a portrait of a crisis that threatens to upend the workings of our collective history. Part warning, part celebration of the incredible variety of insects, The Insect Crisis is a wake-up call for us all.

Disney's the Lion King Lunch Bugs

Disney's the Lion King Lunch Bugs
Author :
Publisher :
Total Pages : 20
Release :
ISBN-10 : 1570821259
ISBN-13 : 9781570821257
Rating : 4/5 (59 Downloads)

Synopsis Disney's the Lion King Lunch Bugs by : Mouse Works

Trying to ward off young Simba's appetite for larger prey, Timon and Pumbaa present a variety of colorful bugs for lunch, from a red ladybug to a blue beetle, but Simba is unconvinced that slimy can be satisfying.

The Water Beetles

The Water Beetles
Author :
Publisher :
Total Pages : 364
Release :
ISBN-10 : UCSD:31822043976950
ISBN-13 :
Rating : 4/5 (50 Downloads)

Synopsis The Water Beetles by : Michael Kaan

Winner, 2018 Amazon Canada First Novel Award, 2018 McNally Robinson Book of the Year, and 2018 Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction Shortlisted, 2017 Governor General's Award for Fiction and 2018 Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book A National Post Best Book of 2017 A Walter Scott Prize Academy Recommended Historical Novel of 2017 On CBC Books' list of writers to watch in 2018 The Leung family leads a life of secluded luxury in Hong Kong. But in December 1941, the Empire of Japan invades the colony. The family is quickly dragged into a spiral of violence, repression, and starvation. To survive, they entomb themselves and their friends in the Leung mansion. But this is only a temporary reprieve, and the Leungs are forced to send their children away. The youngest boy, Chung-Man, escapes with some of his siblings, and together they travel deep into the countryside to avoid the Japanese invaders. Thrown into a new world, Chung-Man befriends a young couple who yearn to break free of their rural life. But their friendship ends when the Japanese arrive, and Chung-Man is once again taken captive. Unwittingly and willingly, he enters a new cycle of violence and punishment, until he finally breaks free from his captors and returns to Hong Kong. Deeply scarred, Chung-Man drifts along respectfully and dutifully, enveloped by the unspoken vestiges of war. It is only as he leaves home once again -- this time for university in America -- that he finally glimpses a way to keep living with his troubled and divided self. Written in restrained, yet beautiful and affecting prose, The Water Beetles is an engrossing story of adventure and survival. Based loosely on the diaries and stories of the author's father, this mesmerizing story captures the horror of war, through the eyes of a child, with unsettling and unerring grace.

Decision-Making for a Sustainable Environment

Decision-Making for a Sustainable Environment
Author :
Publisher : CRC Press
Total Pages : 291
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781466552173
ISBN-13 : 1466552174
Rating : 4/5 (73 Downloads)

Synopsis Decision-Making for a Sustainable Environment by : Chris Maser

Increasingly, environmental decision making is like playing a multidimensional game of chess. With interactions between the atmosphere, the litho-hydrosphere, and the biosphere, the game is at once a measure of complexity, uncertainty, interdisciplinary acuity, social-environmental sustainability, and social justice for all generations. As such, it