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A Friend Of The Earth
''A Friend of the Earth'' is a 2000 novel by T. Coraghessan Boyle. The novel is a story of environmental destruction set in 2025; as a result of global warming and the greenhouse effect, the climate has drastically changed, and, accordingly, biodiversity is a thing of the past. America in 2025 Due to habitat loss, many animal species have become extinct, but the flora has also considerably suffered. Many foods, including beef, eggs, beer, etc., are no longer readily available. Instead, rice is grown everywhere, and sake is the only alcoholic beverage available. Other vegetables are grown in domed fields. El Niño has become an everyday companion of the inhabitants of the United States: strong winds are continuously blowing, and there is heavy rainfall for several months every year. In the dry season, it is unbearably hot. Helpful medicines have been found in the rainforest, including cures for cancer. Deforestation has occurred for two reasons: (a) the storms, which have uproot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Viking Books
Viking Press (formally Viking Penguin, also listed as Viking Books) is an American publishing company owned by Penguin Random House. It was founded in New York City on March 1, 1925, by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheim and then acquired by the Penguin Group in 1975. History Guinzburg, a Harvard graduate and former employee of Simon and Schuster and Oppenheimer, a graduate of Williams College and Alfred A. Knopf, founded Viking in 1925 with the goal of publishing nonfiction and "distinguished fiction with some claim to permanent importance rather than ephemeral popular interest." B. W. Huebsch joined the firm shortly afterward. Harold Guinzburg's son Thomas became president in 1961. The firm's name and logo—a Viking ship drawn by Rockwell Kent—were meant to evoke the ideas of adventure, exploration, and enterprise implied by the word "Viking." In August 1961, they acquired H.B. Huesbsch, which maintained a list of backlist titles from authors such as James Joyce ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Sand County Almanac
''A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There'' is a 1949 non-fiction book by American ecologist, forester, and environmentalist Aldo Leopold. Describing the land around the author's home in Sauk County, Wisconsin, the collection of essays advocate Leopold's idea of a " land ethic", or a responsible relationship existing between people and the land they inhabit. Edited and published by his son, Luna, a year after Leopold's death, the book is considered a landmark in the American conservation movement. The book has had over two million copies printed and has been translated into at least fourteen languages. It has informed and changed the environmental movement and stimulated a widespread interest in ecology as a science. Overview ''A Sand County Almanac'' is a combination of natural history, scene painting with words, and philosophy. It is perhaps best known for the following quote, which defines his land ethic: "A thing is right when it tends to preserve the in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Environmental Fiction Books
A biophysical environment is a biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development, and evolution. A biophysical environment can vary in scale from microscopic to global in extent. It can also be subdivided according to its attributes. Examples include the marine environment, the atmospheric environment and the terrestrial environment. The number of biophysical environments is countless, given that each living organism has its own environment. The term '' environment'' can refer to a singular global environment in relation to humanity, or a local biophysical environment, e.g. the UK's Environment Agency. Life-environment interaction All life that has survived must have adapted to the conditions of its environment. Temperature, light, humidity, soil nutrients, etc., all influence the species within an environment. However, life in turn modifies, in various forms, its con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eco-terrorism In Fiction
The seminal work of fiction featuring eco-terrorism as a major focal point is Edward Abbey's 1975 novel ''The Monkey Wrench Gang'', wherein a group of environmentalists disrupt various projects that are damaging to the environment. The novel inspired the Earth First! movement and directly influenced the Earth Liberation Front The Earth Liberation Front (ELF), also known as "Elves" or "The Elves", is the collective name for autonomous individuals or covert cells who, according to the ELF Press Office, use "economic sabotage and guerrilla warfare to stop the exploita .... The term "monkeywrenching", in the sense of sabotage, derives from the book. The 1985 film ''Pale Rider'', directed by and starring Clint Eastwood, likewise frames eco-terrorism positively; in the film, the vigilante justice morality which is a common feature of the Western (genre), Western genre is applied to environmentally destructive mining practices. In contrast, Michael Crichton's 2004 novel ''State of Fear ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dystopian Novels
A dystopia (from Ancient Greek δυσ- "bad, hard" and τόπος "place"; alternatively cacotopiaCacotopia (from κακός ''kakos'' "bad") was the term used by Jeremy Bentham in his 1818 Plan of Parliamentary Reform (Works, vol. 3, p. 493). or simply anti-utopia) is a speculated community or society that is undesirable or frightening. It is often treated as an Opposite (semantics), antonym of '' utopia'', a term that was coined by Sir Thomas More and figures as the title of his best known work, published in 1516, which created a blueprint for an ideal society with minimal crime, violence and poverty. The relationship between utopia and dystopia is in actuality not one simple opposition, as many utopian elements and components are found in dystopias as well, and '' vice versa''. Dystopias are often characterized by rampant fear or distress , tyrannical governments, environmental disaster, or other characteristics associated with a cataclysmic decline in society. Distin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Julia Butterfly Hill
Julia Lorraine Hill (known as Julia Butterfly Hill, born February 18, 1974) is an American environmental activist and tax redirection advocate. She is best known for having lived in a -tall, roughly 1500-year-old California redwood tree for 738 days between December 10, 1997 and December 18, 1999. Hill lived in the tree, affectionately known as Luna, to prevent Pacific Lumber Company loggers from cutting it down. She is the author of the 2000 book ''The Legacy of Luna'' and co-author of ''One Makes the Difference''. Early life Hill's father was a traveling minister who went from town to town, bringing his family with him. Until she was about ten years old, Hill lived in a camper with her father Dale, mother Kathy, and brothers Mike and Dan. Julia is the middle child. While traveling with her family, Hill often explored rivers by campgrounds. When Hill was seven years old, she and her family were taking a hike one day when a butterfly landed on her finger and stayed with her fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Tortilla Curtain
''The Tortilla Curtain'' is a 1995 novel by American author T.C. Boyle. It is about middle-class values, illegal immigration, xenophobia, poverty, and environmental destruction. In 1997, it was awarded the French Prix Médicis Étranger prize for best foreign novel. Plot summary Cándido Rincón (33) and América (his pregnant common law wife, 17) are two Mexicans who enter the United States illegally, dreaming of a good life in their own little house somewhere in California. Meanwhile, they are homeless and camping at the bottom of the Topanga Canyon area of Los Angeles, in the hills above Malibu. Another couple, Delaney and Kyra Mossbacher, have recently moved into a gated community on top of Topanga, in order to be closer to nature yet be close enough to the city to enjoy those amenities. Kyra is a successful real estate agent while Delaney keeps house, looks after Kyra's son by her first marriage and writes a regular column for an environmentalist magazine. The two coupl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gated Community
A gated community (or walled community) is a form of residential community or housing estate containing strictly controlled entrances for pedestrians, bicycles, and automobiles, and often characterized by a closed perimeter of walls and fences. Historically, cities have built defensive city walls and controlled gates to protect their inhabitants, and such fortifications have also separated quarters of some cities. Today, gated communities usually consist of small residential streets and include various shared amenities. For smaller communities, these amenities may include only a park or other common area. For larger communities, it may be possible for residents to stay within the community for most daily activities. Gated communities are a type of common interest development, but are distinct from intentional communities. Given that gated communities are spatially a type of enclave, Setha M. Low, an anthropologist, has argued that they have a negative effect on the net soc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Budding Prospects
''Budding Prospects: A Pastoral'' is a 1984 novel by T. C. Boyle. It details the misadventure of protagonist Felix Nasmyth, who plans to get rich quick by illegally growing marijuana. Plot Felix Nasmyth, the first-person narrator, is a young man who, as he tells readers right at the beginning of the book, has "always been a quitter". Without any hopes for the future, he is persuaded by one of his few friends to take part in a "summer camp"—a secluded rural area in Mendocino County, California-and grow marijuana on a large scale. The illegal business venture seems doomed from the start, but for once Nasmyth decides to prove something to himself and follow through. In the end, after many misadventures, the venture is a failure. At the same time Nasmyth has made the acquaintance of a lovely girl and has fallen in love with her. He ends his narrative on an optimistic note, returning to the girl with plans to "plant a little seed". Themes Capitalism, male fellowship, drug and alcoh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817May 6, 1862) was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading transcendentalist, he is best known for his book '' Walden'', a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay "Civil Disobedience" (originally published as "Resistance to Civil Government"), an argument for disobedience to an unjust state. Thoreau's books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry amount to more than 20 volumes. Among his lasting contributions are his writings on natural history and philosophy, in which he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern-day environmentalism. His literary style interweaves close observation of nature, personal experience, pointed rhetoric, symbolic meanings, and historical lore, while displaying a poetic sensibility, philosophical austerity, and attention to practical detail.Thoreau, Henry David. ''A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rive ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
