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“Informed, utterly blindsiding account.” - Booklist, starred review It’s falling from the sky and in the air we breathe. It’s in our food, our clothes, and our homes. It’s microplastic and it’s everywhere—including our own bodies. Scientists are just beginning to discover how these tiny particles threaten health, but the studies are alarming. In A Poison Like No Other, Matt Simon reveals a whole new dimension to the plastic crisis, one even more disturbing than plastic bottles washing up on shores and grocery bags dumped in landfills. Dealing with discarded plastic is bad enough, but when it starts to break down, the real trouble begins. The very thing that makes plastic so use...
Using case studies from Florida and the Caribbean region, this book summarizes the state of coral reef conservation today. The question this book answers is, what is the best way to protect the vulnerable coral reefs, with an ever-worsening climate crisis? The book’s contribution is looking closely at people’s avenues to participate in coral reef management, and how the public is increasingly making their voices heard in the management process.
When Harold F. Pape moved to Gregory, Texas, in 1927, he quickly became fascinated by the wealth of Native American artifacts along the nearby shoreline of Corpus Christi Bay and what is now called Port Bay, a southern arm of the larger Copano Bay. A lifelong natural history enthusiast and collector, Pape met and married Lucile H. Tunnell, a widow with three young sons. Before long, John W. Tunnell, Lucile’s oldest son, was accompanying Pape on his field studies in surrounding areas and the wider Texas Coastal Bend. Working in the days before much of the development that now covers the region, Pape and Tunnell studied more than two hundred sites throughout the Coastal Bend, making meticulous logs, maps, and notes of their discoveries. John W. (Wes) Tunnell Jr. and Jace Tunnell have organized and documented their family collection and present it, along with brief biographies of the two collectors, as a survey of the state of knowledge in the late 1920s and 1930s, as well as a tribute to these two important early researchers and their body of work.
On a clear night, the bright lights of oil platforms sparkle in the Gulf of Mexico. Thousands of these platforms off the coasts of Texas and Louisiana play an important role in the lives of underwater species who find food, shelter, and permanent homes in the ecosystem created by these big, three-dimensional structures standing on the flat sea floor. They may also play lesser-known roles “above the waves” in the migration of birds and even insects. Tapping into years of diving experience, marine biologist Mary Wicksten looks at the inhabitants and visitors of these “vertical reefs”, explaining how life arrives on the platforms, what species settle and stay (like barnacles), and which ones visit then disappear (like silky sharks). She looks at how different life forms take up occupancy from the surface downward, and she shows how these communities vary on nearshore and deepwater platforms. While most people may never experience the undersea world of oil platforms, this book will bring a better understanding of it to any teacher, beachgoer, angler, diver, or coastal resident who ever wondered what was going on beneath those far-off lights.
Found only in the United States, the American alligator ranges in Texas through 120 counties, from the Sabine River to the Rio Grande, across a swath of river drainages and coastal marshes that include both the backwater swamps of the Big Thicket and the urban bayous of greater Houston. From its beginning in a pile of eggs buried in a meticulously constructed nest to its possible end as an alligator burger or a pair of boots, an alligator’s habitat preferences sometimes coincide with the favorite haunts of boaters, hunters, and coastal residents. In Alligators of Texas, biologist Louise Hayes and photographer Philippe Henry bring readers up close to this cryptic reptile’s food choices, p...
Stunned by widespread ignorance about the Gulf of Mexico following the 2010 Macondo oil spill, underwater photographer Jesse Cancelmo decided to turn his camera on the marine life of this 600,000 square mile international sea that connects five US states, six Mexican states, and the island nation of Cuba. With the goal of countering dismissive descriptions of a Gulf plagued with dead zones and overrun by oil rigs, Cancelmo set out to capture a world rarely acknowledged, let alone seen. Between the Gulf's rich shoreline habitats and its prolific oceanic communities, thriving amid dazzling coral reefs, brine seeps, canyons, salt domes, and hard bottom banks, are more than 15,000 species, inclu...
After a devastating hurricane in 1919, the people of Corpus Christi faced the stark reality of their vulnerability. It was clear that something had to be done, but the mere will to take precautionary measures did not necessarily lead the way. Instead, two decades would pass before an effective solution was in place. Mary Jo O’Rear, author of Storm over the Bay, returns to tell the story of a city’s long and often frustrating path to protecting itself. Bulwark Against the Bay reveals the struggle to construct a seawall was not merely an engineering challenge; it was also bound up with the growing popularity of the Ku Klux Klan, local aversion to Roman Catholicism, the emergence of the League of United Latin American Citizens, new efforts on behalf of African American equality, the impact of the Great Depression, support for Franklin Roosevelt, and reactions to the New Deal. A case study of a community wrestling with itself even as it races with the clock, Bulwark Against the Bay adds to our understanding of urban history, boardroom and backroom politics, and the often harsh realities of geography and climate.
The Laguna Madre is the only hypersaline coastal lagoon on the North American continent and only one of five worldwide. The lagoon is renowned for its vast seagrass meadows, huge wintering redhead population, and bountiful fishing grounds. In 2000, the Nature Conservancy, whose mission is the conservation of biodiversity through protection of habitat, recognized the need to amass all known information about the Laguna Madre and implement a science-based conservation agenda. From those efforts came the first edition of this book. Now completely revised and updated, this second edition of The Laguna Madre of Texas and Tamaulipas is the culmination of two decades of additional research and cont...
This classroom resource provides clear, concise scientific information in an understandable and enjoyable way about water and aquatic life. Spanning the hydrologic cycle from rain to watersheds, aquifers to springs, rivers to estuaries, ample illustrations promote understanding of important concepts and clarify major ideas. Aquatic science is covered comprehensively, with relevant principles of chemistry, physics, geology, geography, ecology, and biology included throughout the text. Emphasizing water sustainability and conservation, the book tells us what we can do personally to conserve for the future and presents job and volunteer opportunities in the hope that some students will pursue careers in aquatic science. Texas Aquatic Science, originally developed as part of a multi-faceted education project for middle and high school students, can also be used at the college level for non-science majors, in the home-school environment, and by anyone who educates kids about nature and water. To learn more about The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment, sponsors of this book's series, please click here.
Threats to the Arctic discusses all the current threats to this fragile region, emphasizing the interconnections between many environmental impacts, as well as the teleconnections between events already emerging in the Arctic (ocean circulation changes, melting of sea ice, glaciers and ice sheets) and other parts of the world. The book's aim is to inform readers about the impending, sometimes irreversible changes coming to the Arctic. University students, environmental engineers, policymakers and sociologists with an interest in the role of the Arctic in global change will benefit from the book's unique perspective. As this remote, inhospitable part of the world that few people will ever visit provides amazing insights, we can no longer have an 'out of sight – out of mind' approach to the environmental upheavals taking place in the Arctic. - Provides the most up-to-date information on this rapidly changing, critical part of the world - Offers a holistic understanding of the interconnections between global environmental changes and impacts in the Arctic - Examines fact-based pressure on politics and industry to preserve Arctic biota and environments