Search Results: Returned 18 Results, Displaying Titles 1 - 18
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2023., Adult, Dundurn Press Call No: NEW 551.45 S679a Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: What can we learn about coping with rising sea levels from ancient times? The scenario we are facing is scary: within a few decades, sea levels around the world may well rise by a metre or more as glaciers and ice caps melt due to climate change. Large parts of our coastal cities will be flooded, the basic outline of our world will be changed, and torrential rains will present their own challenges. But this is not the first time that people have had to cope with threatening waters, because sea levels have been rising for thousands of years, ever since the end of the last Ice Age. Stories told by the Indigenous people of Australia and the Pacific coast of North America, and those found in the Bible and the Epic of Gilgamesh, as well as Roman and Chinese histories all bear witness to just how traumatic these experiences were. The responses to these challenges varied: people adapted by building dikes, canals, and seawalls, by resorting to prayer or magic, and, very often, by moving out of the way of the rushing waters. Against the Seas explores these stories as well as the various measures being taken today to combat rising waters, focusing on five regions: Indonesia, which will soon move its capital to escape encroachment by the seas; Shanghai, where seawalls protect the busiest port city in the world; the Sundarbans of Bangladesh, whose mangrove forests are constantly challenged by storms and high tides; the Salish Sea, which runs from north of Vancouver to south of Seattle; and the estuary of the St. Lawrence River, where a few initiatives are giving some promising results. What happened in the past and what is being tried today may help us in the future, and, if nothing else, give us hope that we will survive.
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2020., University of Regina Press Call No: QWF 620.1 S679c Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: A fascinating history of the carbon footprint of our concrete world—from ancient Roman architecture to urban cityscapes—and the trouble it spells for sustainability amidst rapid climate change. For readers of The Sixth Extinction and The Uninhabitable Earth, Concrete explores the history of a material that has been central to architecture and design for thousands of years—and what its future looks like in a world experiencing rapid climate change. Imagine a world without concrete: there’d be no skyscrapers, no grand irrigation projects, no out of season vegetables, no highways. There would be a shortage of electricity, more mud in some places, more solitude in others. But because of the fossil fuels and other resources required to make concrete, there also would also be less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and less dramatic climate change. In Concrete: From Ancient Origins to a Problematic Future, Mary Soderstrom tells the story of concrete’s surprising past, extravagant present, and uncertain future with careful research, lively anecdotes, and thoughtful reflection.
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2013., Oberon Press Call No: QWF Fic Sod Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: All of the stories in this collection deal in one way or another with a desire line, which, urbanists say, are the paths that people take when they want to go somewhere. They frequently have no relation to the formal layout of roads and sidewalks. They sometimes lead to new places. And--very importantly--they are often maps of the heart.
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2019., University of Regina Press Call No: QWF 327 S679f Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: In the summer of 1968, Mary Soderstrom and her husband loaded up their VW Beetle and immigrated to Canada from the United States. The contrast between their new home and their old led to a long-running reflection on what makes the two countries different. How could two places that are similar in so many ways be so disparate in others? In Frenemy Nations, Soderstrom answers this question by addressing a range of geographical "odd couples": including the United States and Canada; New Hampshire and Vermont; Alberta and Saskatchewan; Haiti and the Dominican Republic; Scotland and Ireland; Rwanda and Burundi; and more. Through it all, Soderstrom shows how tiny differences--in geographic features, colonial histories, resource competition, education, women's roles, language, and migration--can have outsized effects on how polities develop.
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2006., Véhicule Press Call No: QWF 307.76 S679g c.2 Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: Examining 11 cities worldwide and concentrating on the intersection of nature and society in the urban environment, this book offers insight into how people have tried and often failed to connect with nature throughout history while retaining a strong optimism for the future. Giving examples for each city, the author weighs the consequences of introducing nature to urban areas and provides recommendations on creating green space in the city.
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-- Continuing Portuguese adventurec2010., Véhicule Press Call No: QWF 946.9 S679m Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library
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[2017], University of Regina Press Call No: QWF 388.1 S679r Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: "In this thoroughly researched and beautifully written history of roads as vectors of change, Mary Soderstrom documents how routes of migration and transport have transformed both humanity and our planet. Accessible and entertaining, Road Through Time begins with the story of how anatomically modern humans left Africa to populate the world. She then carries us along the Silk Road in central Asia, and tells of roads built for war in Persia, the Andes, and the Roman Empire. She sails across the seas, and introduces the first railways, all before plunking us down in the middle of a massive, modern freeway. The book closes with a view from the end of the road, literally and figuratively, asking, can we meet the challenges presented by a mode of travel dependent on hydrocarbons, or will we decline, like so many civilizations that have come before us?"--
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c1999., Editions de l'Hexagone Call No: QWF FR Fic Sod Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Series Title: Romans historiques
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c2008., Cormorant Books Edition: eBook ed. Summary Note: "Bujumbura, Burundi is one of the last places you would expect to find Thomas Brossard. Once a powerful cabinet minister in Brian Mulroney's Conservative government, Thomas never had a particular interest in the continent of Africa and the concerns it represented. That was his wife Louise's domain. But, after an embarrassing election loss, Thomas will do just about anything to regain political power and improve his wife's estimation of him. Through the 1980's and into the 1990's, the Brossards didn't have much to worry about; they raised a prosperous Québécois family, as might be expected of a successful cabinet minister. But, with Thomas's electoral defeat, the world outside their home becomes less inviting. After Thomas's ill-fated run for mayor of Montreal leaves him a failure, he attempts to overcome his lack of success with the help of Louise, who finds a Catholic charity in need of a political figure to investigate their projects in Africa. When Thomas disappears in war-stricken Burundi on his fact-finding mission, Louise becomes trapped inside their house in Montreal by her own fears; she is left to fret about her continually blurring past, piecing together how she has reached this suddent point of loneliness and isolation. In a story spanning decades, the past peeks through the seams and enriches the novel with a deep history of Quebec's wealthy and political classes."--Cover.
![The violets of Usambara [eBook]](/Library/images/cover/noimage.png "The violets of Usambara [eBook]")
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c2008., Véhicule Press Call No: QWF 711.4 S679w c.2 Availability:1 of 1 At Your LibraryClick here to watch Click here to view
