Tag: climate change

Forever strong: New health books in the collection

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Whether you’re wanting to build your body strength, understand autism, build resilience in the face of a changing climate or get a good night’s sleep, we’ve got plenty of new health books in the collection to walk you through your health journey.  Try some of these we’ve selected below:

Forever strong : a new, science-based strategy for aging well / Lyon, Gabrielle
“After years of watching patients cycle through her practice, Dr Gabrielle Lyon noticed a pattern. While her patients struggled with a wide range of conditions, they all suffered from the same core problem: they had too little muscle rather than too much fat. When we think about muscle, we tend to think about strength or aesthetics, but in reality, muscle accounts for so much more than that. As the body’s largest endocrine organ, muscle actually determines everything about the trajectory of health and aging.  Now, Dr Lyon offers an easy-to-follow food, fitness, and self-care program anchored in evidence and pioneering research that teaches you how to optimize muscle-no matter your age or health background.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

The neuroscience of yoga and meditation / Fair, Brittany
“An accessible introduction to how yoga and meditation affect the brain. Each chapter will guide the reader through the latest yoga and meditation research and break down complex topics into easily digestible points. The book also explores the current limitations in studying these practices and offers tools for interpreting scientific literature.” (Catalogue)

 

Unique : what autism can teach us about difference, connection and belonging / Rodgers, Jodi
“Beloved star of ABC TV’s award-winning Love on the Spectrum and disability rights advocate Jodi Rodgers shares stories from her three-decade career working with the autistic community and calls for a more inclusive and accepting society where we are more empathetic and curious about all the relationships in our lives. With dozens of moving stories, Jodi’s book will give readers a deeper understanding of and appreciation for the neurodiverse community around them. Above all, it will inspire a profound sense of belonging, revealing that we’re much more similar than we think and that all of our differences are worth celebrating.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

The wisdom of plagues : lessons from 25 years of covering pandemics / McNeil, Donald G.
“Many science reporters understand the basics of diseases-how a virus works, for example, or what goes into making a vaccine. But very few understand the psychology of how small outbreaks turn into pandemics: How everyone from hunters to farmers to guano-diggers gets exposed to animal diseases. How diseases spread through networks of similar people and by “mass-gathering” events. Why people refuse to believe they’re at risk, or why they reject protective measures like quarantine or vaccines. THE WISDOM OF PLAGUES is ultimately about what we can do to improve global health and be better prepared for the next pandemic, which is coming.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

10-minute strength training exercises for seniors : exercises and routines to build muscle, balance, and stamina / Deboo, Ed
“Staying strong and flexible becomes even more important as we age. This guide to exercise for seniors makes it easy to stay in motion with short and simple exercises you can do anytime and anywhere. No equipment required–Get strong at home with bodyweight exercises such as squats, lunges, and push-ups, along with moves that can be done with items you have on hand like soup cans and gallon jugs. No matter your age or current fitness level, these exercises can be modified to work for you! Live longer and stronger with 10-Minute Strength Training Exercises for Seniors.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

Surviving extreme weather : the complete climate change preparedness manual / Hawke, Mykel
“The world has changed, and impacts of global warming means weather events like extreme heat, wildfires, hurricanes, and droughts are now being felt by all of us. In Surviving Extreme Weather, Mykel Hawke, a renowned survivalist and bestselling author of Hawke’s Special Forces Survival Handbook and Hawke’s Green Beret Survival Manual, and British meteorologist Jim N. R. Dale, share their expert knowledge and personal experiences while offering valuable insights into the science behind our new weather and how to apply situational awareness, preparedness, and psychology to survive.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

On call / Meredith, Ineke
“It’s all in a mad day’s work: the good, the bad and the crazy. From a man who swallowed fishhooks to a patients playing pranks, emergency operations in the wee hours, constantly being mistaken for a nurse, and holding hands through silent goodbyes, this is a book about the strange, messy, intense world of surgery. When Ineke’s parents in Samoa fall ill, she is torn between her roles as a surgeon, a daughter, and a single working mother. Are the sacrifices of a life in scrubs worth it? Laugh-out-loud and sobering in equal turns, On Call is a memoir from inside the operating room and everything it takes to survive.” (Catalogue)

Sleepless : discovering the power of the night self / Abbs, Annabel
“Sleepless combines science, historical research, and personal experience to explore the complicated relationship women have with darkness. Her night journeys range from quiet country fields to brightly lit city streets to the darkest reaches of the Arctic Circle. And from women of the past — Lee Krasner, Virginia Woolf, Louise Bourgeois, and dozens more — who opened their minds on sleepless nights, to contemporary women who found a form of healing in darkness. Cut loose from the anxiety of insomnia, numerous women discovered strength, imagination, and inner knowledge at night. Many also learned to-finally-sleep.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

When things stick : untangling your body from old patterns / Choi, Sue J.
“This book is for people who have tried multiple mind-body paths already and still feel frustrated that they can’t see the changes they seek. “Through instructional videos, stories, and contextual information, you’ll learn how to use a multi-sensory approach to posture and walking as a path to self-regulation.” (Catalogue)

 

For more new books in the collection, go to: https://wcl.govt.nz/whatsnew/

Interview: Emergency Weather Author Tim Jones

Neil

Emergency Weather is Tim Jones’ debut novel, his previous literary outings have included releasing several acclaimed poetry collections and editing award -winning science fiction short story collections.

Emergency Weather is a powerful, prescient and compelling climate change thriller set in Aotearoa, and more precisely the Wellington region. The novel focusses on three very different people who have to face the climate crisis head-on, when a giant storm builds and then hits our capital city.

Tim Jones. Photo Copyright: Ebony Lamb.

Wellingtonian Tim Jones was awarded the NZSA Janet Frame Memorial Award for Literature in 2010. He co-edited Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand, which won the 2010 Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best Collected Work. His recent books include poetry collection New Sea Land (Mākaro Press, 2016) and climate fiction novella Where We Land (The Cuba Press, 2019). He is also a climate change activist.

Continue reading “Interview: Emergency Weather Author Tim Jones” →

Everyday Sustainability: Recent picks

Amy

What can we do to help fight climate change? It’s a very daunting question for anybody! We may not be able to solve it overnight, but by making small changes in our day-to-day life and being aware of what’s going on in the world, we can feel less overwhelmed. These new books cover a variety of climate actions from cooking sustainably or making your own clothes to learning from the Dalai Lama and Greta Thornberg.

A good appetite : eating for planet, body and soul / Chandler, Jenny
“A Good Appetite is packed with practical information and recipes for making the way you shop and cook more planet-friendly. There are brilliant bite-sized guides to everything from eating with the seasons, batch cooking and the best ways to use your freezer to foraging and growing some of your own food. By avoiding food waste and stretching expensive ingredients, there’s a payoff for your pocket too.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

Great stories of New Zealand conservation / Froggatt, Alan
“New Zealand has an extraordinary range of plants and animals, yet a great many species are trending towards extinction. Great Stories of New Zealand Conservation tells 50 inspiring and thought provoking stories, covering all matter of conservation and ecological projects from right across the motu. Some of the projects have been driven by national organisations, such as saving the kakapo and the yellow eyed penguin.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

A future we can love : how we can reverse the climate crisis with the power of our hearts & minds / Bauer-Wu, Susan | Also available as an eBook
“Filled with the Dalai Lama’s hard-earned wisdom, Greta Thunberg’s piercing focus, and dozens of accessible practices of climate activism and personal resilience, this book offers a path not just out of inaction but toward a future we can love.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

 

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Strange Weather: Recent climate books

Madeleine

We have a huge number of books on environment and climate in our collection, and new titles are being published at an astounding rate as the science develops and as the reality of climate change sets in. It can be tempting to pass over these books, especially for those of us already experiencing climate grief or anxiety – the content is confronting and frankly scary. But the authors below are not here to bog us down in hopelessness. The facts they present are undeniable and their writing is urgent, but what they are offering us is a deeper understanding, showing how we might face our fears and channel our actions, and reminding us of the other paths that we – as individuals, as communities, as countries – can take.

There are all sorts here: poets and weather experts, gardeners and journalists, and between them all they cover a vast swathe of topics. If you want to understand the nitty-gritty science, then Under the Weather and Heat are the ones for you. To focus in on particular case studies, check out Fire Weather and Wasteland. For practical advice, Milkwood from Tasmanian-based permaculture experts looks fantastic, while Re-Food offers a road forward grounded in the Aotearoa context. Lastly, the philosophically-minded will enjoy the poetic Soil or the determined essays in Not Too Late. 

Under the weather : a future forecast for New Zealand / Renwick, J. A.
“A warmer world will change more than just our weather patterns. It will change the look of the land around us, what grows and lives on it – including us. Drawing on climate models that can travel to ice ages and hothouses of the deep past, Professor James Renwick untangles how we know exactly what the future holds and why it matters to our everyday lives. He looks at New Zealand’s more frequent natural disasters, warming and rising sea levels, and the ways that the changing weather will affect our agriculture, lifestyle, food security and economy. Arresting, galvanizing and clear-sighted, Under the Weather is a picture of a miraculous planet in danger, a stock-take on what it means for this small country, and a reminder that the shape of our future is up to us.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

Re-food : exploring the troubled food system of Aotearoa New Zealand / King, Emily
“In “Re-food”, Emily King advocates for a food systems approach to help the troubled food networks of Aotearoa New Zealand. She looks at the best ways forward to address challenges we face with soils, waterways, climate change, food waste, packaging, unhealthy diets, and a lack of access to food. Written in three parts, “Re-food” traverses the full food system and unpacks its issues along the way while providing timely and relevant ideas and inspiration for readers to solve these problems themselves. It offers tools, insights and mindset changes that chart a path towards a healthier, more sustainable food future, one which incorporates Te Ao Maori and our strengths as a top-quality food-producing nation.” (Catalogue)

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Vanishing Ice: Our interview with author Lynley Hargreaves

Neil

Lynley Hargreaves is a science writer who lives with her glaciologist partner and two children at Te Tai Poutini on the West Coast of the South Island.

After gaining a mathematical physics degree and working for a United States physics magazine, she completed a journalism diploma. She now works in communications at Forest & Bird.  Lynley has spent much of her life exploring New Zealand’s mountains. Her debut book  Vanishing Ice: Stories of New Zealand’s Glaciers took many years to research and write .

Vanishing Ice brings into sharp relief the dangers our glaciers face as the  world warms and our glaciers  disappear at an unprecedented rate.

As Vanishing Ice reveals this unfolding disaster, it tells the stories of our glaciers through the lens of human interaction, the book carefully moves through time from first Māori discoverers to colonial explorers, mountaineers, and modern glaciologists. To do so the book investigates the way science, nature and culture interact and sometimes collide.

As well as being an important work, the volume is also very beautiful; containing numerous stunning photographs of our glacial landscapes.

Vanishing Ice joins an ever-growing canon of important and poignant modern books about Aotearoa’s natural world.

We wish to extend our heartfelt thanks and appreciation to Lynley for taking the time to answer our questions, and for providing such an illuminating insight into her world and work.

This interview was done in conjunction with Caffeine and Aspirin, the arts and entertainment review show on Radioactive FM and was conducted by Tanya Ashcroft.

 

Vanishing Ice : Stories of New Zealand’s glaciers / Hargreaves, Lynley
“Vanishing Ice brings into sharp relief the dangers our glaciers face as the  world warms and our glaciers  disappear at an unprecedented rate. As the book reveals this unfolding disaster,  it  tells the stories of our glaciers through the lens of human interaction, the book carefully moves through time  from first Māori discoverers to colonial explorers, mountaineers, and modern glaciologists. To do so  the book investigates the way science, nature  and culture interact and sometimes collide.” ( Adapted from Catalogue)

 

Cop26: The UN Climate Change Conference

wclstaff

In just under two weeks, 30,000 people from across the globe will descend on Glasgow for a meeting that’s been called “the world’s best last chance to get runaway climate change under control.” But what exactly is it?

What is Cop26?

Cop26 is the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, with 197 countries coming together to work out how to tackle the climate emergency. These meetings have been happening every year since 1995, with the most well known being the 2015 Cop21 in Paris, which resulted in the landmark Paris Agreement.

Why is the Paris Agreement important?

The key to the Paris Agreement is the commitment to keep global warming below an average of 2C, with efforts to limit temperature rise to 1.5C. To reach this goal, each country has decided on its own target of greenhouse gas reduction, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Countries are required to update their NDCs every five years, which is one of the reasons this year’s conference is so significant.

What should I look out for?

The biggest questions at Cop26 will probably revolve around updated NDCs–how much more greenhouse gas reduction will countries commit to? However there are a lot of other vital areas of discussion, including international funding to help developing countries reduce their carbon emissions.

The New Zealand delegation to Cop26 will have several areas of focus, but two to watch out for are the amplification of Pacific voices and also discussions around methane.

How do I find out more?

Cop26 will be covered by news outlets around the world, although the only New Zealand journalist going to the conference in person is business and climate reporter Rod Oram. The official Cop26 website is available here and the action can also be followed via Twitter.

Books:


This changes everything : capitalism vs. the climate / Klein, Naomi
“In This Changes Everything Naomi Klein argues that climate change isn’t just another issue to be neatly filed between taxes and health care. It’s an alarm that calls us to fix an economic system that is already failing us in many ways. Klein meticulously builds the case for how massively reducing our greenhouse emissions is our best chance to simultaneously reduce gaping inequalities, re-imagine our broken democracies, and rebuild our gutted local economies.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

All we can save : truth, courage, and solutions for the climate crisis
“Women are on the front line of the climate-change battle, and are uniquely situated to be agents of change. Today, across the world, from boardrooms and policy positions to local communities, from science to activism, women everywhere are using their voices to take leadership and call for action on climate change. This anthology is a collection and celebration of these diverse voices, asking critical questions and providing invaluable insight and solutions.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

Drawdown : the most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse global warming
“In the face of widespread fear and apathy, an international coalition of researchers, professionals, and scientists have come together to offer a set of realistic and bold solutions to climate change. One hundred techniques and practices are described here–some are well known; some you may have never heard of.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

The uninhabitable Earth : life after warming / Wallace-Wells, David
“It is worse, much worse, than you think. If your anxiety about global warming is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible. Without a revolution in how billions of humans conduct their lives, parts of the Earth could become close to uninhabitable, and other parts horrifically inhospitable, as soon as the end of this century.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

Doughnut economics : seven ways to think like a 21st century economist / Raworth, Kate
“Kate Raworth sets out seven key ways to fundamentally reframe our understanding of what economics is and does. Along the way, she points out how we can break our addiction to growth; redesign money, finance, and business to be in service to people; and create economies that are regenerative and distributive by design. Simple, playful, and eloquent, Doughnut Economics offers game-changing analysis and inspiration for a new generation of economic thinkers.” (Catalogue)

Braiding sweetgrass : indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teachings of plants / Kimmerer, Robin Wall
“As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together to take us on “a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise” (Adapted from Catalogue)

The new climate war : the fight to take back our planet / Mann, Michael E.
“Recycle. Fly less. Eat less meat. These are some of the tactics that we’ve been told can slow climate change. But most of these recommendations are a result of a multi-pronged marketing campaign that has succeeded in placing the responsibility for fixing climate change squarely on the shoulders of individuals. Fossil fuel companies have followed the example of other industries deflecting blame or greenwashing.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

Library Databases:

NZ Geographic: NZ Geographic has been celebrating our people, places, wildlife and environment for two decades. Its archives hold more than 600 in-depth features about our country, natural history and culture.

Gale Environmental Studies in Context: The Global Reference on the Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources focuses on the physical, social, and economic aspects of environmental issues.

LinkedIn Learning: LinkedIn Learning is a video tutorial service providing access to over 12,000 instructional videos on many topics, including several aspects of the climate emergency.