"Living at the border between life and non-life, fungi use diverse cocktails of potent enzymes and acids to disassemble some of the most stubborn substances on the planet, turning rock into soil and wood into compost, allowing plants to grow. Fungi not only help create soil, they send out networks of tubes that enmesh roots and link plants together in the 'Wood Wide Web.' Fungi also drive many long-standing human fascinations: from yeasts that cause...

Journalist Klare describes the impact the coming shortage of natural resources will have on the future of the human race.

Renowned energy expert Michael T. Klare provides an invaluable account of the new and increasingly dangerous competition for the world's dwindling natural resources. Arguing that the world is facing an unprecedented crisis of resource depletion -- one that goes beyond "peak oil" to encompass shortages of coal and uranium, copper and lithium, water, and arable land -- Klare shows how the desperate hunt for raw materials is forcing governments and corporations...

From the author of the now-classic Resource Wars, an indispensable account of how the world's diminishing sources of energy are radically changing the international balance of power Recently, an unprecedented Chinese attempt to acquire the major American energy firm Unocal was blocked by Congress amidst hysterical warnings of a Communist threat. But the political grandstanding missed a larger point: the takeover bid was a harbinger of a new structure...

Presents a strong counterargument to those arguing for limits on population growth and the using up of natural resources and food. Human resources driving the discovery of new natural resources are the core of Simon's expansionist theories. This book and those by Herman Kahn are important to have a balence presentation of expansionist with conserver views.

"The book is, first, a study of how people decide to conserve or convert resources. Without worrying about the characteristics of particular resources, we ask when and for how long it may be optimal to conserve resources. In other words, we consider the general principles involved in making conservation decisions. The book is, second, a study of the conservation of resources of the natural environment. This includes both directly exploited resources...

"Natural resources on Earth are at risk of running out. Using too many natural resources, such as water, trees, and fossil fuels, is putting pressure on our supplies and damaging the environment. Discover the facts about how resources are used around the world, which resources are renewable and non-renewable, and what the future of natural resource management looks like."--

Paleobiologist Anthony D. Barnosky weaves together evidence from the deep past and the present to alert us to the looming Sixth Mass Extinction and to offer a practical, hopeful plan for avoiding it. Writing from the front lines of extinction research, Barnosky tells the overarching story of geologic and evolutionary history and how it informs the way humans inhabit, exploit, and impact Earth today. He presents compelling evidence that unless we rethink...

The Once-ler describes the results of the local pollution problem.

How should we evaluate the ethics of procreation, especially the environmental consequences of reproductive decisions on future generations, in a resource-constrained world? While demographers, moral philosophers, and environmental scientists have separately discussed the implications of population size for sustainability, no one has attempted to synthesize the concerns and values of these approaches. The culmination of a half century of engagement...