Industrial and agricultural greenhouse gas emissions are rapidly warming Earth’s climate, unleashing rising seas, ocean acidification, melting permafrost, powerful storms, wildfires, floods, deadly heat waves, droughts, tsunamis, food shortages, reduced nutritional levels in crops, and armed conflict over shrinking water supplies. Billions of people will become climate refugees. Hotter temperatures will allow tropical diseases to spread into temperate regions. Higher levels of CO2, allergens, dust, and other particulate matter will impair our physical and mental health and even reduce our cognitive abilities. Climate change disproportionately affects the world’s poor. It also harms Nature, and could ultimately trigger a sixth mass extinction. In Escaping Nature, Orrin H. Pilkey and his coauthors offer concrete suggestions for how to respond to the threats posed by global climate change. They argue that, while we wait for the world’s governments to get serious about mitigating climate change, we can adapt to a hotter world through technological innovations, behavioral changes, nature-based solutions, political changes, and education.

In a time of accelerating sea level rise and increasingly intensifying storms, the world's sandy beaches and dunes have never been more crucial to protecting coastal environments. Yet, in order to meet the demands of large-scale construction projects, sand mining is stripping beaches and dunes, destroying environments, and exploiting labor in the process. The authors of Vanishing Sands track the devastating impact of legal and illegal sand mining over the past twenty years, ranging from Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean to South America and the eastern United States. They show how sand mining has reached crisis levels: beach, dune, and river ecosystems are in danger of being lost forever, while organized crime groups use deadly force to protect their illegal mining operations. Calling for immediate and widespread resistance to sand mining, the authors demonstrate that its cessation is paramount for saving not only beaches, dunes, and associated environments but also lives and tourism economies everywhere.

In a time of accelerating sea level rise and increasingly intensifying storms, the world's sandy beaches and dunes have never been more crucial to protecting coastal environments. Yet, in order to meet the demands of large-scale construction projects, sand mining is stripping beaches and dunes, destroying environments, and exploiting labor in the process. The authors of Vanishing Sands track the devastating impact of legal and illegal sand mining over the past twenty years, ranging from Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean to South America and the eastern United States. They show how sand mining has reached crisis levels: beach, dune, and river ecosystems are in danger of being lost forever, while organized crime groups use deadly force to protect their illegal mining operations. Calling for immediate and widespread resistance to sand mining, the authors demonstrate that its cessation is paramount for saving not only beaches, dunes, and associated environments but also lives and tourism economies everywhere.

Industrial and agricultural greenhouse gas emissions are rapidly warming Earth’s climate, unleashing rising seas, ocean acidification, melting permafrost, powerful storms, wildfires, floods, deadly heat waves, droughts, tsunamis, food shortages, reduced nutritional levels in crops, and armed conflict over shrinking water supplies. Billions of people will become climate refugees. Hotter temperatures will allow tropical diseases to spread into temperate regions. Higher levels of CO2, allergens, dust, and other particulate matter will impair our physical and mental health and even reduce our cognitive abilities. Climate change disproportionately affects the world’s poor. It also harms Nature, and could ultimately trigger a sixth mass extinction. In Escaping Nature, Orrin H. Pilkey and his coauthors offer concrete suggestions for how to respond to the threats posed by global climate change. They argue that, while we wait for the world’s governments to get serious about mitigating climate change, we can adapt to a hotter world through technological innovations, behavioral changes, nature-based solutions, political changes, and education.

From Amelia Island just south of Georgia to Key West's southern tip, Florida's beaches are its greatest asset. Yet Florida's dynamic Atlantic coast is a dangerous brew of rapidly proliferating structural development on highly erodible shores periodically hit by some of nature's greatest storms. The same development that has been driven by the attraction of beautiful beaches and coastal amenities, now threatens those very resources. In turn, coastal structures are vulnerable to sea level rise, shoreline retreat, winter storms, and hurricanes. Most of the methods for reducing losses associated with storms as well as slower processes such as shoreline retreat and sea level change only protect property in the short term and at a growing cost in dollars and loss of natural habitat in the long term. Living with Florida's Atlantic Beaches is a guide to mitigating or reducing losses of property, human life, and natural resources by living with, rather than at, the shore. This illustrated volume provides an introduction to coastal processes and geology along with a brief history of coastal hazards and the short sighted human responses. impact of dredge and fill beach construction on the living marine resources. Guidance is provided for longer term risk reduction in the form of tips on storm resistant construction and site evaluation; including maps for evaluating relative vulnerability to hazards. A brief review of coastal regulations will help property owners understand and navigate the various permit requirements for developing coastal property. Living with Florida's Atlantic Beaches is an invaluable source of information for everyone from the curious beach visitor to the community planner, from the prudent property investor to the decision making public official.