The Great Transition: Shifting from Fossil Fuels to Solar and Wind Energy

Lester R. Brown with Janet Larsen, J. Matthew Roney and Emily E. Adams. W. W. Norton (2015)

9780393350555

This lucid overview of world energy is surprisingly devoid of gloom. With colleagues at the Earth Policy Institute in Washington DC, environmental analyst Lester Brown suggests that the hold of fossil fuels is finally weakening. Wind and solar power are poised to fill the gap, driven by falling prices and increased environmental awareness. This treatise depicts future energy supply and generation systems that are radically different from today's, and far superior.

Rain: A Natural and Cultural History

  • Cynthia Barnett
Crown (2015) 9780804137096 | ISBN: 978-0-8041-3709-6

In this romp through rain from pre-history to now, journalist Cynthia Barnett shows how entwined all Earth (and most human) systems are with this life-giving and life-taking precipitation. From droughts that devastated ancient civilizations and floods that drown settlements today, to the rain that inspired cultural offerings such as music from Bo Diddley and Frédéric Chopin, Barnett shows that rain is to be respected and celebrated. She looks at the science of deluge, both whimsical — a rain of frogs in Britain in 1954 — and disastrous, including acid rain and catastrophic flooding.

Naturalists in Paradise: Wallace, Bates and Spruce in the Amazon

  • John Hemming
Thames and Hudson (2015) 9780500252109 | ISBN: 978-0-5002-5210-9

Nineteenth-century biology often seems to have involved as much adventuring as academia. Geographer John Hemming finds a wonderful tale in the Amazonian sojourn of co-discoverer of evolution Alfred Russel Wallace and his fellow nature-watchers, entomologist Henry Walter Bates and botanist Richard Spruce. Hemming shows how the challenges and triumphs of their time in this haven of biodiversity shaped these naturalists, and how they in turn shaped science through specimen collection and papers. An excellent addition to the slew of biographies of eminent Victorians.

The Invaders: How Humans and Their Dogs Drove Neanderthals to Extinction

  • Pat Shipman
Belknap Press (2015) 9780674736764 | ISBN: 978-0-6747-3676-4

Are humans the ultimate invasive species? So contends anthropologist Pat Shipman — and Neanderthals, she opines, were among our first victims. The relationship between Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis is laid out cleanly, along with genetic and other evidence. Shipman posits provocatively that the deciding factor in the triumph of our ancestors was the domestication of wolves. Perhaps more troubling is the concept of early humans as invaders, rather than just another species finding its way.

Headstrong: 52 Women Who Changed Science — and the World

  • Rachel Swaby
Broadway (2015) 9780553446791 | ISBN: 978-0-5534-4679-1

A cursory glance at gender balance across science will show that women have still not gained equality. Journalist Rachel Swaby aims to present a comprehensive set of role models for the next generation, who should claim this parity. She ranges from seventeenth-century naturalist Maria Sibylla Merian to astronaut Sally Ride. But cramming 52 awe-inspiring researchers into just over 200 pages reduces them to career bullet points, shorn of context. These women, and those who will follow them, deserve more.