Crowded, hot, subject to violent swings in climate, with a government unable or unwilling to face the most vital challenges, the rich and poor increasingly living in worlds apart; for most of the world, this picture is of a possible future. For India, it is the very real present. In this lyrical exploration of life, loss, and survival, Meera Subramanian travels in search of the ordinary people and microenterprises determined to revive India's ravaged natural world: an engineer-turned-farmer brings organic food to Indian plates; villagers resuscitate a river run dry; cook stove designers persist on the quest for a smokeless fire; biologists bring vultures back from the brink of extinction; and in Bihar, one of India's most impoverished states, a bold young woman teaches adolescents the fundamentals of sexual health. While investigating these five environmental challenges, Subramanian discovers the stories that renew hope for a nation with the potential to lead India and the planet into a sustainable and prosperous future.

"India has endured a century of clouds heavy with acid rain, and rivers so thick with industrial effluent that they catch fire. Pollutants from toxic pesticides seep through the rich soils of rural Punjab, where a "Cancer Train" shuttles droves of farmers sick with chemical poisoning to oncology centers in foreign states. Sixty percent of the population lives without access to potable water. India's ecosystem is on a precipice. In A River Runs Again, Meera Subramanian explores this environmental catastrophe through the five elements that make the building blocks of life--earth, water, fire, air, and ether"--

The New York Times–bestselling classic set amid the mountains and streams of early twentieth-century Montana, “as beautiful as anything in Thoreau or Hemingway” (Chicago Tribune). When Norman Maclean sent the manuscript of A River Runs Through It and Other Stories to New York publishers, he received a slew of rejections. One editor, so the story goes, replied, “it has trees in it.” Today, the title novella is recognized as one of the great American tales of the twentieth century, and Maclean as one of the most beloved writers of our time. The finely distilled product of a long life of often surprising rapture—for fly-fishing, for the woods, for the interlocked beauty of life and art—A River Runs Through It has established itself as a classic of the American West filled with beautiful prose and understated emotional insights. Based on Maclean’s own experiences as a young man, the book’s two novellas and short story are set in the small towns and mountains of western Montana. It is a world populated with drunks, loggers, card sharks, and whores, but also one rich in the pleasures of fly-fishing, logging, cribbage, and family. By turns raunchy and elegiac, these superb tales express, in Maclean’s own words, “a little of the love I have for the earth as it goes by.” “Maclean’s book—acerbic, laconic, deadpan—rings out of a rich American tradition that includes Mark Twain, Kin Hubbard, Richard Bissell, Jean Shepherd, and Nelson Algren.” —New York Times Book Review Includes a new foreword by Robert Redford, director of the Academy Award–winning film adaptation

New York Times bestselling author Patti Callahan Henry delivers an engaging novel about a South Carolina woman who goes back home to face the past—and discovers herself. Meridy Dresden was once a free-spirited, fun-loving girl. All that changed when the boy she loved was killed in a tragic fire. Since then, she alone has carried the burden of a terrible secret. Now, years later, married to a wonderful man and mother of a teenage son, she is shocked to learn that a childhood friend is being blamed for that long-ago fire. Fearful but determined, Meridy returns to the South Carolina Lowcountry and summons the courage to make a decision that may destroy her well-ordered life, her family’s reputation, her contented marriage, and everything she’s worked so hard to protect…including her heart. “Brilliant. Powerful. Magical. Do not miss this book.”—New York Times bestselling author Haywood Smith

Let the River Run Silver Again is an environmental conservation success story for students ages 10 to 15 and the teachers, parents, and others who mentor them. It is a source of information and insight for those who want to learn about and benefit from the success of others as well as those who are interested in developing environmental restoration programs in their own watershed. The full-color format presents engaging, action-packed photographs along with maps, graphs, and original art that extends the information presented in multiple directions and dimensions. The greater part of the book follows students from one elementary school in Maryland as they take part, over a period of nine years, in a major regional conservation initiative to restore populations of an important fish, the American shad, to the Chesapeake Bay watershed and to allow the shad to breach numerous dams while migrating to many of their former spawning areas. Numerous private organizations and local, state, and federal agencies contributed to the program - which was indeed successful - but the emphasis in this book is upon the students, their teachers, and their community as they collectively committed to the project, followed through with this commitment, and benefited in myriad ways from the success of the project. The narrative of the students' projects is presented in an energetic style, and at a level, that will both engage and inform other readers of the same age. A short section at the end of the book draws upon the insights offered by the students' story while identifying pathways for students and their mentors to the development and implementation of water, wetland, and watershed restoration projects that could be implemented in other locations and circumstances. The students' experience thus serves as a model and inspiration for student or youth-group conservation projects anywhere.

China's spectacular economic growth over the past two decades has dramatically depleted the country's natural resources and produced skyrocketing rates of pollution. Environmental degradation in China has also contributed to significant public health problems, mass migration, economic loss, and social unrest. In The River Runs Black, Elizabeth C. Economy examines China's growing environmental crisis and its implications for the country's future development. Drawing on historical research, case studies, and interviews with officials, scholars, and activists in China, the author traces the economic and political roots of China's environmental challenge and the evolution of the leadership's response. She argues that China's current approach to environmental protection mirrors the one embraced for economic development: devolving authority to local officials, opening the door to private actors, and inviting participation from the international community, while retaining only weak central control. The result has been a patchwork of environmental protection in which a few wealthy regions with strong leaders and international ties improve their local environments, while most of the country continues to deteriorate, sometimes suffering irrevocable damage. Economy compares China's response with the experience of other societies and sketches out several possible futures for the country. This second edition is updated with information about events during the past five years, covering China's tumultuous transformation of its economy and its landscape as it deals with the political implications of this behavior as viewed by an international community ever more concerned about climate change and dwindling energy resources.