A new issue of Electronic Green Journal is out. A review of Natural Experiments of History, ed. Jared Diamond and James A. Robinson. More on The Environment and World History. A review of James Lovelock: In Search of Gaia by John Gribbin and Mary Gribbin, The Balance of Nature: Ecology’s Enduring Myth by John Kricher, and The Medea Hypothesis: Is Life on Earth Ultimately Self-Destructive? by Peter Ward. A review of Seasick: Ocean Change and the Extinction of Life on Earth by Alanna Mitchell. Network Theory: Carl Zimmer on a key to unraveling how nature works. In praise of mundane nature: The unsung nature in alleyways and backyards plays an important — and undervalued — role in urban lives. You think fall foliage viewing is just about finding a tree and staring at it? Wrong. In The Life & Love of Trees, vivid photography from around the world coupled with author Lewis Blackwell’s lucid prose explores the virtues of our leafy companions (and a slideshow). The Super Trees: They can grow to be the tallest trees on Earth, they can produce lumber, support jobs, safeguard clear waters, and provide refuge for countless forest species — if we let them. What does it take to save a species? Sometimes, high-voltage power wires. A review of Hope for Animals and their World: How Endangered Species are Being Rescued from the Brink by Jane Goodall (and more). Could re-wilding avert the 6th Great Extinction? A review of Rewilding the World: Dispatches from the Conservation Revolution by Caroline Fraser (and more). Brian Sholis reviews Paradise Found: Nature in America at the Time of Discovery by Steve Nicholls and A Reenchanted World: The Quest for a New Kinship with Nature by James Willaim Gibson.
