The Energy Reader takes an unflinching look at the environmental devastation created by our thirst for energy--including supposedly clean renewable sources. From oil spills, nuclear accidents, and mountaintop-removal coal mining to oversized wind farms and desert-destroying solar power plants, virtually every region of the globe is now experiencing the consequences of out-of-control energy development. Essentially no place is sacred, no landscape safe from the relentless search for energy resources to continue powering a culture based on perpetual growth. Precious wildlands, fragile ecosystems, even our own communities and children's health are at risk.
Featuring essays by more than thirty of the most brilliant minds in the fields of energy, society, and ecology, The Energy Reader lifts the veil on the harsh realities of our pursuit of energy at any price, revealing the true costs, benefits, and limitations of all our energy options. Contributors include Wes Jackson, Bill McKibben, Sandra B. Lubarsky, Richard Heinberg, Philip Cafaro, Wendell Berry, Juan Pablo Orrego. Collectively, they offer a wake-up call about the future of energy and what each of us can do to change course.
Ultimately, the book offers not only a deep critique of the current system that is toxic to nature and people, but also a hopeful vision for a future energy economy--in which resilience, health, beauty, biodiversity, and durability, not incessant growth, are the organizing principles.

Is it time to embrace the so-called "Anthropocene"--the age of human dominion--and to abandon tried-and-true conservation tools such as parks and wilderness areas? Is the future of Earth to be fully domesticated, an engineered global garden managed by technocrats to serve humanity? The schism between advocates of rewilding and those who accept and even celebrate a "post-wild" world is arguably the hottest intellectual battle in contemporary conservation.In Keeping the Wild, a group of prominent scientists, writers, and conservation activists responds to the Anthropocene-boosters who claim that wild nature is no more (or in any case not much worth caring about), that human-caused extinction is acceptable, and that "novel ecosystems" are an adequate replacement for natural landscapes. With rhetorical fists swinging, the book's contributors argue that these "new environmentalists" embody the hubris of the managerial mindset and offer a conservation strategy that will fail to protect life in all its buzzing, blossoming diversity. With essays from Eileen Crist, David Ehrenfeld, Dave Foreman, Lisi Krall, Harvey Locke, Curt Meine, Kathleen Dean Moore, Michael Soule, Terry Tempest Williams and other leading thinkers, Keeping the Wild provides an introduction to this important debate, a critique of the Anthropocene boosters' attack on traditional conservation, and unapologetic advocacy for wild nature.

Wildfires are an awe-inspiring natural phenomenon that have shaped North America's landscapes since the dawn of time. They are a force that we cannot really control, and thus understanding, appreciating, and learning to live with wildfire is ultimately our wisest public policy. With more than 150 dramatic photographs, "Wildfire: A Century of Failed Forest Policy" covers the topic of wildfire from ecological, economic, and social/political perspectives, while also documenting how past forest policies have hindered natural processes, creating a tinderbox of problems that we are faced with today. More than 25 leading thinkers in the field of fire ecology provide in-depth analyses, critiques, and compelling solutions for how we live with fire in our society. Using examples, such as the epic Yellowstone fires of 1988, the ever-present southern California fires, and the Northwest's Biscuit Fire of 2002, the book examines the ecology of these landscapes and the policies and practices that affected them and continue to affect them, such as fire suppression, prescribed burns, salvage logging, and land-use planning. Overall, the book aims to promote the restoration of fire to the landscape and to encourage its natural behaviour so it can resume its role as a major ecological process.