San Antonio College Library

Citizens concerned about the environment are taking up the call for a new, sustainable lifestyle. Lessons from Nature tells us what sustainability really means, and how we can achieve it. Daniel Chiras brings the concept of sustainability to life, defining it in a variety of contexts--economic, biological, political, and ethical. He also explores creative, practical ways we can apply the principles of sustainability to agriculture, industry, transportation,...

"Orbit takes the reader into space for astronaut's views of home: Cape Cod arching into the Atlantic, Mount Everest casting its shadow over lesser peaks, the sands of the Sahara arrayed in endless patterns. Like any travelers, these voyagers in space have aimed their cameras at sights that startled their eyes. They have flown through the aurora and captured its rippling, mystic colors. They have looked down upon storms and volcanoes. And they have...

Bored at Mass at the cathedral in Pisa, the seventeen-year-old Galileo regarded the chandelier swinging overhead and remarked to his great surprise, that the lamp took as many beats to complete an arc when hardly moving as when it was swinging widely. Galileo's Pendulum tells the story of what this observation meant, and of its profound consequences for science and technology.

"In Apollo's Eye, geographer Denis Cosgrove examines the historical implications for the West of conceiving and representing the earth as a globe: a unified, spherical body. Cosgrove traces how ideas of globalism and globalization have shifted historically in relation to changing images of the earth, from antiquity to the Space Age. He connects the evolving image of a unified globe to politically powerful conceptions of human unity." "Cosgrove's analysis...

Journalist Weisman offers an original approach to questions of humanity's impact on the planet. Drawing on the expertise of engineers, atmospheric scientists, art conservators, zoologists, oil refiners, marine biologists, astrophysicists, religious leaders, and paleontologists, he illustrates what the planet might be like today if humans disappeared. He explains how our massive infrastructure would collapse and finally vanish without human presence;...