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Seeds, Soil, Biodiversity
(see Seed Companies
for seeds and plants)
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Seed Starting Supplies 
NatureServe
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Empty Harvest: Understanding the Link Between Our Food, Our Immunity, and
Our Planet - Mark Anderson, Bernard Jensen (Contributor) - 1993
If you eat food, read this book.
from back cover:
The magnificent ecosystem that nature took millions of years to create
is, within the course of one generation, being destroyed by man's hand.
Mother Earth is talking to us through her droughts, famines, fires, and
diseases, but few of us are listening. While on occasion we hear public
outcry about the ozone depletion, the growing pollution problem, the
indiscriminate use of pesticides, the systematic destruction of our forests,
and the ravages of today's "killer" diseases, few have taken the time to
carefully study the problem as a whole.
Empty Harvest puts together a sober picture of how
interconnected man is to the earth, and how this connection is being
destroyed––link by link. While looking at the better-known manmade disasters
such as the "greenhouse effect," the indiscriminate use of toxic pesticides,
and the wholesale destruction of the world's forests, it clearly focuses on
the existing dangers inherent in our agricultural system. It provides
startling new information about problems that have been hidden from the
general public––the demineralization of our soil, the declining nutritional
values of our food supply, the resulting weakening of our bodies' immune
systems, and much more. Empty Harvest is a groundbreaking book that
examines just what the total problem represents.
But beyond simply citing impending crises, Empty Harvest
offers a wide range of practical solutions that are still available to
man––long-term solutions that can mend nature's broken links if applied in
time.
more info:
Empty Harvest: Understanding the Link...
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Enduring Seeds: Native American Agriculture
and Wild Plant Conservation - Gary Paul Nabham, Wendell Berry - 1991
more info:
Enduring Seeds: Native American... |
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Work Mother Nature's way to preserve our
biodiversity. I'm so impressed with this book that I've listed it under 3
categories to be sure you don't miss it.
Gaia's Garden - A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture - Toby Hemenway
- 2001
Back Cover:
Welcome to Paradise!
Imagine a garden filled with edible flowers, bursting with fruit
and berries, carpeted with scented herbs and tangy salad greens, all blended
in an eye-catching palette of color and texture. The flowers also nurture
endangered pollinators. Bright-feathered birds share the abundant berries
and gather twigs for their nearby nests. Each plant plays a role in building
soil, deterring pests, storing nutrients, and luring beneficial insects.
This is not a dream. This is your own backyard.
Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture describes a
gardening system that combines the best features of wildlife habitat, edible
landscapes, and conventional flower and vegetable gardens into a
self-renewing landscape that lets nature do most of the work. Rather than
mastering your garden with gas-spewing rototillers and chemical fertilizers,
let Toby Hemenway show you how to create a backyard ecosystem that balances
the needs of humans and nature.
"Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture outlines a
revolutionary course for the future of gardening and agriculture. It is
organized around the premise that it is possible to substitute information
and human stewardship for hardware, capital, chemicals, and machines in
the growing of foods and the crafting of landscapes." –
John Todd, founder of the New Alchemy
Institute, from the Foreword.
more info:
Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale... |
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Earth in the Balance: Ecology
and the Human Spirit - Al Gore - (Reprint) 1993
Amazon.com
What's most inspiring about Earth in the Balance
is who wrote it. It's a big deal, after all, that a sitting senator was
willing to write, "We must make the rescue of the environment the central
organizing principle for civilization." And that's not all. In his 1992
book, Al Gore also wrote:
I have become very impatient with my own tendency to put
a finger to the political winds and proceed cautiously.... [E]very time I
pause to consider whether I have gone too far out on a limb, I look at the
new facts [on the environment crisis] that continue to pour in from around
the world and conclude that I have not gone far enough.... [T]he time has
long since come to take more political risks--and endure more political
criticism--by proposing tougher, more effective solutions and fighting
hard for their enactments.
And the buzz on the street is that Gore actually wrote
those words himself.
When Earth in the Balance first came out, it caused
quite a stir--and for good reason. It convincingly makes the case that a
crisis of epidemic proportions is nearly upon us and that if the world
doesn't get its act together soon and agree to some kind of "Global Marshall
Plan" to protect the environment, we're all up a polluted creek without a
paddle. Myriad plagues are upon us, but the worst include the loss of
biodiversity, the depletion of the ozone layer, the slash-and-burn
destruction of rainforests, and the onset of global warming. None of this is
new, of course, nor was it new in 1992. But most environmentalists will
still get a giddy feeling reading such a call to action as written by a
prominent politician.
The book is arranged into three sections: the first
describes the plagues; the second looks at how we got ourselves into this
mess; and the final chapters present ways out. Gore gets his points across
in a serviceable way, though he could have benefited from a firmer editor's
hand; at times the analogies are arcane and the pacing is odd--kind of like
a Gore speech that climaxes at weird points and then sinks just as the
audience is about to clap. Still, at the end you understand what's been
said. Gore believes that if we apply some American ingenuity, the twin
engines of democracy and capitalism can be rigged to help us stabilize world
population growth, spread social justice, boost education levels, create
environmentally appropriate technologies, and negotiate international
agreements to bring us back from the brink. For example, a worldwide shift
to clean, renewable energy sources would create huge economic opportunities
for companies large and small to design, build, and maintain solar panels,
wind turbines, fuel cells, and other ecofriendly innovations.
Gore doesn't mince words when describing just how hard it
will be to get out of this jam. Real hope is contingent on a swelling up of
concern among the public--and fast. A year into the vice presidency, in an
interview with writer Bill McKibben, Gore paraphrased a key passage in his
book, "The minimum that is scientifically necessary far exceeds the maximum
that is politically feasible." Ah, a political out. Some readers will ask of
Gore: what has he done since publishing his book to advance the political
feasibility of decisive environmental action? --Chip Giller --This
text refers to the Hardcover edition
more info: USA: Earth in the Balance : Ecology and the...
Europe:
Earth in the Balance |
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Seeds of Change: The Living
Treasure: The Passionate Story of the Growing Movement to Restore
Biodiversity and Revolutionize the Way Way We Think About Food - Kenny
Ausubel - 1994 (out-of-print)
Seeds of Change: The Living Treasure : The Passionate Story of the Growing
Movement to Restore Biodiversity and Revolutionize the Way We Think About
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Shattering: Food, Politics, and the Loss of
Genetic Diversity - Cary Fowler, Pat Mooney - 1990
more info:
Shattering : Food, Politics, and the...
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Silent Spring - Rachel Carson (Reprint) - 1994
Amazon.com
Rachel Carson's Silent Spring is now 35 years
old. Written over the years 1958 to 1962, it took a hard look at the effects
of insecticides and pesticides on songbird populations throughout the United
States, whose declining numbers yielded the silence to which her title
attests. "What happens in nature is not allowed to happen in the modern,
chemical-drenched world," she writes, "where spraying destroys not only the
insects but also their principal enemy, the birds. When later there is a
resurgence of the insect population, as almost always happens, the birds are
not there to keep their numbers in check." The publication of her impeccably
reported text helped change that trend by setting off a wave of
environmental legislation and galvanizing the nascent ecological movement.
It is justly considered a classic, and it is well worth rereading today.
more info: USA:
Silent Spring Europe:
Silent Spring |
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The Work of Nature - How the Diversity of
Life Sustains Us - Yvonne Baskin - 1997 more info:
USA: The Work of Nature : How the Diversity...
Europe: The
Work of Nature: How the Diversity of... |
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