Cities across the world celebrate Mardi Gras with colorful parades and over-the-top parties. Then Ash Wednesday arrives … Sigh. Lent has begun. You hear about devout friends giving up seemingly innocent things like chocolate or stressing out as they try to live a more perfect life during six grueling weeks—for reasons you don't completely understand. Sermons about penitence are preached, and guilt soaks the congregation. Sound like a good time?! It's time to rethink Lent. Or at least see it for the positive opportunity it offers. It's spring cleaning for the soul! Lent offers you time to pause, consider, and renew your relationship with God—an altogether hopeful (not dreary) experience. "To arrive at newness of life, we first name parts of our lives that are shrouded in darkness," writes Parsons. "To put it very dramatically,… your first order of business is to break your heart for God. We walk through some muck so that we can leave it behind and find Easter joy beyond…. With God's help we will clear the darkness away and begin to experience greater joy and newness of life." Sure, there's work to be done during Lent, but it's the gentle, gradual work of opening one's heart and mind to grace. A Clearing Season will move you week by week from "wilderness to holy ground," using a personal tone that will stir and challenge personal reflection. Parsons includes exercises for small groups, as well as questions at the end of each chapter for individual reflection. Also included is an appendix of spiritual practices for Lent. This Lent, clear away the obstacles that block you from God, and experience spiritual renewal.

First Published in 2011. Latin America today is similar to Canada in the early 1900s-a sleeping giant, basically underpopulated, whose potential rests on the exploitation of enormous land, forest, mineral, and water reserves. This study, carried out over the period 1967-69, has involved travel throughout much of Latin America north of the Tropic of Capricorn and discussions with people in many different fields, including highway construction, forestry, colonization, and agricultural industries in the forest frontier regions and capital cities of the continent. The collection of data required about twelve months of the author in the field.

Chico Mendes--a name synonymous with the battle to save the rain forest--was a Brazilian rubber tapper and homegrown environmentalist who was killed in December 1988 by ranchers intent on ravaging the jungle for short-term gain. Now an award-winning journalist has written a deeply affecting book about the life and death of this courageous, passionate man. Two 8-page photo inserts.

Managing climate variability and change remains a key development and food security issue in Bangladesh. Despite significant investments, floods, droughts, and cyclones during the last two decades continue to cause extensive economic damage and impair livelihoods. Climate change will pose additional risks to ongoing efforts to reduce poverty. This book examines the implications of climate change on food security in Bangladesh and identifies adaptation measures in the agriculture sector using a comprehensive integrated framework. First, the most recent science available is used to characterize current climate and hydrology and its potential changes. Second, country-specific survey and biophysical data is used to derive more realistic and accurate agricultural impact functions and simulations. A range of climate risks (i.e. warmer temperatures, higher carbon dioxide concentrations, changing characteristics of floods, droughts and potential sea level rise) is considered to gain a more complete picture of potential agriculture impacts. Third, while estimating changes in production is important, economic responses may to some degree buffer against the physical losses predicted, and an assessment is made of these. Food security is dependent not only on production, but also future food requirements, income levels and commodity prices. Finally, adaptation possibilities are identified for the sector. This book is the first to combine these multiple disciplines and analytical procedures to comprehensively address these impacts. The framework will serve as a useful guide to design policy intervention strategies and investments in adaptation measures.

This Open Access volume aims to methodologically improve our understanding of biodiversity by linking disciplines that incorporate remote sensing, and uniting data and perspectives in the fields of biology, landscape ecology, and geography. The book provides a framework for how biodiversity can be detected and evaluated—focusing particularly on plants—using proximal and remotely sensed hyperspectral data and other tools such as LiDAR. The volume, whose chapters bring together a large cross-section of the biodiversity community engaged in these methods, attempts to establish a common language across disciplines for understanding and implementing remote sensing of biodiversity across scales. The first part of the book offers a potential basis for remote detection of biodiversity. An overview of the nature of biodiversity is described, along with ways for determining traits of plant biodiversity through spectral analyses across spatial scales and linking spectral data to the tree of life. The second part details what can be detected spectrally and remotely. Specific instrumentation and technologies are described, as well as the technical challenges of detection and data synthesis, collection and processing. The third part discusses spatial resolution and integration across scales and ends with a vision for developing a global biodiversity monitoring system. Topics include spectral and functional variation across habitats and biomes, biodiversity variables for global scale assessment, and the prospects and pitfalls in remote sensing of biodiversity at the global scale.