"Ecosystems today are dynamic and complex, leaving conservationists faced with the paradox of conserving moving targets. New approaches to conservation are now required that aim to conserve ecological function and process, rather than attempt to protect static snapshots of biodiversity. To do this effectively, long-term information on ecosystem variability and resilience is needed. While there is a wealth of such information in palaeoecology, archaeology,...

Down to earth offers a sweeping history of our nation, one that places the environment at the very center of our story. Ted Steinberg sweeps across the centuries, re-envisioning the story of America as he recounts how the environment has played a key role in virtually every social, economic, and political development. Ranging from the colonists' attempts to impose order on the land to the modern efforts to sell the wilderness as a consumer good, packaged...

"YES! magazine cofounder Sarah van Gelder was worried about the current state of American society. Environmental destruction, growing poverty, urban decay, rural decline - it's a long list. Can we turn this around, she wondered? Are there answers we haven't found yet? She confided her fears to a friend, who said to her, 'If the universe could deploy the one small person that is you, what would it have you do?' Her answer surprised them both: 'I'd...