This book straddles the fertile middle ground between science and religion at a time when the conversation is dominated by extremists on both sides. Taking seriously the modern view of the universe, including the fossil record for the history of life across millions of years, the author considers our relationship to the rest of nature. In addition, the age-old questions concerning meaning, values, and our place within it all are perhaps more pressing than ever before. This work provides a broad engagement with major ideas, including evolution and earth stewardship, while drawing upon a rich heritage of philosophy and literature and doing so in a manner accessible to the general reader.

This book straddles the fertile middle ground between science and religion at a time when the conversation is dominated by extremists on both sides. Taking seriously the modern view of the universe, including the fossil record for the history of life across millions of years, the author considers our relationship to the rest of nature. In addition, the age-old questions concerning meaning, values, and our place within it all are perhaps more pressing than ever before. This work provides a broad engagement with major ideas, including evolution and earth stewardship, while drawing upon a rich heritage of philosophy and literature and doing so in a manner accessible to the general reader.

pets.

In a lyrical memoir and meditation on the nature of time and place, Elizabeth Dodd explores a variety of landscapes, reading the records left by inhabitants and by time itself. In spring in the Yucatán peninsula, she marks the equinox among the ruins of the Maya. In summer in the Orkney Islands, she considers linguistic and historic connections with Icelandic sagas. In tallgrass country in the fall, she observes bison and black-footed ferrets returning to their ancestral landscape. In winter in the canyons of the Ancestral Puebloans, she notes the standstill positions of the sun and the moon. Ranging across continents and millennia, Dodd examines how people have inscribed the concept of time into their physical environments, through rock art, standing stones, and the alignment of buildings on the landscape. She follows the etymological trail of various languages, blending research with travel narrative and aesthetic meditation. From musings on the origin of the sandhill cranes’ transcontinental journey to reflections on the dimming light of shortening days as the winter solstice approaches, from depictions of exploding stars in ancient petroglyphs to meditations on the Great North Road, whose purpose scientists have yet to discover, Dodd captures the interstices of the natural 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.

*Goodreads Choice Award Winner for Best Science & Technology Book of the Year* In this scientifically informed account of the changes occurring in the world over the last century, award-winning broadcaster and natural historian shares a lifetime of wisdom and a hopeful vision for the future. See the world. Then make it better. I am 93. I've had an extraordinary life. It's only now that I appreciate how extraordinary. As a young man, I felt I was out there in the wild, experiencing the untouched natural world - but it was an illusion. The tragedy of our time has been happening all around us, barely noticeable from day to day -- the loss of our planet's wild places, its biodiversity. I have been witness to this decline. A Life on Our Planet is my witness statement, and my vision for the future. It is the story of how we came to make this, our greatest mistake -- and how, if we act now, we can yet put it right. We have one final chance to create the perfect home for ourselves and restore the wonderful world we inherited. All we need is the will to do so.

Robert Michael Pyle is the author of twenty books and hundreds of essays, stories, papers, and poems, but it is the occasional prose--the deeply personal essays that explored and indulged his immediate fascinations--that make up this selection of never-before-collected testimonies. Beginning with a 1965 cri de coeur written on mountain motel stationery, Through a Green Lens ranges across broad territory of topic, vehicle, geography, populace, and politics, concluding with powerful forewords for two 2015 books. Pyle's half-century long view, acute and uncommonly attuned to the physical world, gives readers a remarkable window on the natural setting of our life and times.