The library recently received several copies of the sumptuously photographed Antarctica: The Global Warning by Sebastian Copland and published by Earth Aware Editions. It even comes with a DVD. From the publisher: The fate of Antarctica foretells the fate of the Earth. For more than fifty years, research scientists have studied the frozen continent and its threatened and endangered creatures, including the chinstrap penguins, humpback whales and albatross. The stark yet fragile icy realm may sound our last warning before the impending destruction of the environment.
Sebastian Copeland, an award-winning photographer and environmental activist, witnessed the accelerated devastation of the Antarctica ice shelf while aboard the research vessel Ice Lady Patagonia on behalf of Global Green. He uncovered both the awesome beauty of Antarctica and the alarming warning made visible through his lens. Here he shares images of not only otherworldly glaciers, fields and fjords but also clear signs of massive inroads that climate change has made on the continent. Antarctica features Copeland’s presentation of scientific data and personal insights about climate change including how and why the Polar Regions, north and south, continue to melt at an increasingly rapid pace
Also in the Chronicle, Gov. Schwarzenegger signed bills to coordinate local planning measures to control sprawl in an effort to combat global warming, and to approve bond funds for water storage, levee improvement, and conservation projects, but he vetoed a measure that
would have set a $60 per container fee on shipping traffic at the state's ports in Oakland, Long Beach and Los Angeles. The money would have been used to clean up truck and ship emissions.
The San Francisco Chronicle today reports on a new environmental study released by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission for the proposed projects to upgrade the century-old water system that travels 167 miles and crosses five active fault lines to deliver water to the San Francisco Bay Area. The study recommends limiting additional water diversions from the threatened Tuolumne River ecosystem over the next decade and committing the region to expanded water recycling, groundwater development, and water conservation. The SFPUC will have a hearing Oct. 30 to decide whether to formally accept the report.
The Library of Congress' American Memory Today in History site celebrated the anniversary of Congressman George Perkins Marsh's address in 1847 to the Agricultural Society of Rutland County, which expressed a number of ideas central to the growing American conservation movement. He would later also write the influential book, Man and Nature. We don't have a copy, but you can download it from the nearby Internet Archive. If you haven't discovered it already, the Library of Congress has a fantastic presentation of historical resources related to the evolution of the conservation movement at http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/amrvhtml/conshome.html where you can learn about Marsh, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and much more.
Welcome to our library blog, here to help keep you, our patrons and other friends, informed of anything happening in, with, at, or to the Whole Earth Library. That will mostly be highlighting new additions to the collection from generous donors, as well as any exciting events and activities we host in the future. We'll also try to post about goings on around us at the Thoreau Center and the Presidio, interesting things on the web that relate to theme of our library, and anything else that strikes our fancy. Please feel free to stop by the back of building 1016 for a visit sometime.
