Reddit mentions: The best ecology books

Book list:

Nature and the Human Soul by Bill Plotkin. The author discusses this same theme of The Great Turning. Argues that people in modern western society are pathologically orientated towards adolescent things, and among our main problems is that few of us mature fully, and few of us can ever be considered elders who guide each other towards a wise way of life. He also argues that we historically have developed equally in both nature and culture, but modern people spend their lives solely in culture, and lack understanding of the natural world.

Future Primal by Louis Herman. The author lays out a big picture view of human history and how the solutions for the future we face can be found in the past among primitive cultures. He links his own personal struggles to the planetary struggles we face, and shows that it is true that the personal and planetary are linked.

The Ascent of Humanity by Charles Eisenstein. Lays out huamn history, and "how the illusion of a seperate self has led to our modern crisises".

Sacred Economics by Charles Eisenstein. Looks at how primitive economies differed from our own, and how we can come to a different understanding of economics and wealth in our own society.

The More Beautiful World our Hearts Know is Possible by Charles Eisenstein. Lays out a vision for what the world could be and how we could organize ourselves in a wiser way.

Limited Wants, Unlimited Means an analysis of the economics of hunter-gatherer societies by an actual Economist. Very in depth look at the different foundational beliefs and practices. This is the most scientific and in depth book I've ever come across on this subject.

Eaarth by Bill McKibben. Goes into great detail on the the stark reality of the effects that climate change have already had and will likely have over the next decades and century. Finsihes by making reccommendations for how to make a life on a rough new planet.

Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. A look at the deep history of our species. This book presents an understanding about what humans are and where we've come from that I think is hard to get anywhere else, really great work.

Blessed Unrest by Paul Hawken. Very similar to the theme of my above post, the author explains how this new movement is much larger than you might think, and could soon become one of the largest cultural movements in all of human history.

Active Hope by Joanna Macy. On "how to deal with the mess we are in without going crazy".

Greening of the Self by Joanna Macy. An exploration into the idea that we are interdependent with the ecology around us.

Natural Capitalism by Paul Hawken and others. A look at how we can start a green industrial revolution.

The Green Collar Economy by Van Jones. Lays out the idea that one solution- work on constructing a sustainable infrastructure- can fix our two biggest problems: the ecological crisis, and the rampant poverty and inequality in our society.

Spiritual Ecology: the cry of the Earth by Thich Nhat Hanh, Joanna Macy, and others. Outlines a spiritual perspective of what is happening to the world, and how we can remedy it, rooted in Buddhist thought.

Changes in the Land by William Cronon. A look at how the ecology of New England has been altered since Europeans first set foot there.

A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold. This is one of the classics of nature writing by a great naturalist. I include it here because I think it fits, and shows how much of this in not new thinking. Leopold talks about his experiences in nature and from living off the land, and lays out his own 'land ethic' for how best to coexist in nature.

The Evolving Self: a psychology for the third millennium by Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi. Explains the authors view of psychology and how to find meaning in the modern world. Talks about playing an active role in the evolutionary processes of life, and linking that up with your own personal evolution.

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimerer. Brings together scientific understanding, indigenous wisdom, and respect for nature and for plants, in a very poetic book.

The Future of Life by E. O. Wilson. Wilson is one of the greatest biologists of our time, and gave us many of the foundational concepts that we use today, such as popularizing the idea of "biodiversity" and the desire to preserve it. Here he talks about the future of life and the challenges we face in preserving the Earths biodiversity.

Half Earth by E.O. Wilson. Here Wilson lays out his strategy for saving the biodiversity of the Earth and preserving it through the hard times it will face in the future, by devoting fully half of the surface of the Earth to wildlife habitats. This book just came out so you might not be able to order a copy yet.

If you know of any other books or media in this sort of genre feel free to post it.

Quinault and Hoh rainforests are definitely worth your time. I've haven't been to the Queets or Bogacheil yet, so I'm not sure about them but I've been told the Queets is amazing even though there was a fire a ways into it a couple summers ago.

The Quinault valley has many largest of type trees in it. You can hike to the end of the valley to a place called "The Enchanted Valley" that has an old abandoned lodge in it and during the snow melt season has hundreds of waterfalls cascading down the cliffs behind it. It's truly beautiful. I went late spring last year and missed the most impressive melt time, but there were still tons of waterfalls and it was amazingly beautiful. The Olympic coast is also an exquisitely beautiful place to camp. I find the coastal spruce forests to be very magical, if somewhat ominous. My favorite plant book states that "the sharp needles of spruce were believed to give it special powers for protection against evil thoughts." There is definitely something very protective about them. Both the Quinault (some parts, check with the ranger to see if your specific campsite requires) and the coast (all areas) require bear cannisters which you can get for a couple dollar deposit at the Quinault ranger station or in Port Angeles.

The Snoqualmie Middle Fork area is also really awesome and much closer, however it's been mostly logged so the trees aren't massive like they are in ONP.

I also strongly recommend doing some mushroom hunting. In the spring, east of the mountains you can find Morels. I haven't been out morel hunting yet because I don't have a car, but I know they grow on burned areas. In the fall you can find tons of delicious edibles. Chanterelles abound. Make sure you have a good guide.

Closer in is Cougar, Squak and Tiger Mountains in Issaquah. We call them the Issaquah Alps. There're over 100 miles of trails and all three mountains have access within ~1 mile of a bus stop.

Not having a car I don't get far out as often as I'd like so I'm always looking for opportunities to go on nature adventures! Hit me up if you're ever interested.

Two general types of experience you can get: hands-on, and book learning.

The former is very important, but not too difficult to do. A fair number of people in the Portland area go mushroom hunting occasionally, even if they only know a species of two. Sucking up to the right people is surprisingly effective. Also, getting in touch with or joining organizations like Oregon Mycological Society or the Cascade Mycological Society can be immensely helpful in making contacts and finding hunting partners/mentors.

The latter is also very important, as there is some much you can learn without actually holding a mushroom in your hands. For books, accessible guides like Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest and All That the Rain promises and More are great for getting started, and heftier books like Mushrooms Demystified are good for those looking to take the next step in learning. Online, the hunting and identification board on The Shroomery, Mushroom Observer, and /r/mycology are great places to lurk and just soak in info, while sites like Mushroom Expert are good places to explore and follow what interests you.

My assertions are axiomatic, and quite obviously so, at that. This is not a wise battle for you to pursue, unless you wish to descend into colonial European notions of manifest destiny and the white man's burden.

>>Those people are just as advanced as any other
>
>No, they're not.

Tell me, then: in a contest of using indigenous medicinal plants, who would prove "more advanced" - you, or these tribespeople? In determining who has superior herding techniques, which party would be the victor? In a comparison of familial kinship and relations? Spearcraft? Long-distance hiking? Animal husbandry?

There simply does not exist any way to declare any of these criteria "unimportant" without making a subjective assertion of your own personal values. And the people we're talking about would most certainly have a different class of values about those things. Why would your values be "more objective" than theirs - or anyone's? The answer is that they cannot be. It is your own opinion, and with any degree of humility, all genuinely reasonable people recoginze that, as I hope that you will, too.

>>Civilization and technology are specific types of advancements, but they are not objectively superior to any others
>
>Yes, they are.

Funny - there sure seem to be a great many very well-reasoned arguments against civilization and technology, even from those who have experienced the very height of their "advancement".

I certainly see no evidence for an objective declaration, even just by examing the meta-issue of the debate itself, which is undeniably still open.

>>to add "culture" in there is frankly just plain racist.
>
>No, it isn't.

Yes, it is. You have virtualy no notions of these people's culture. The very definition of "culture" practically prohibits the very idea of it being declared "advanced" or otherwise. It is simply the collection of common and traditional practices of a given group. I would even go so far as to say that if one were to make judgments of "advancement," surely a culture that has been largely uninterrupted and un-usurped for a period of thousands of years has matured and "advanced" far more than a culture which is ever-shifting and highly dependent on technological advances that didn't even exist a generation prior. But even to make an assertion such as that is meaningless, because the criterion "advancement" simply does not make sense when applied to culture - any culture. The only role that such a declaration can fulfill is to demean and devalue another group of people completely arbitrarily, as to support a racist or otherwise xenophobic worldview.

>By what standard are modern Western civilization, technology, and culture objectively superior to barefoot African tribesmen? By the only objective standard of value: their success at meeting the requirements of human life.

And just what are those "requirements of human life?" These tribespeople might tell you some very different things than what you would tell them. Would either of you be "right?" Absolutely not.

As for the rest of your points, they are all similarly obvious - and highly subjective, though largely incontroversial in our demographic - subjective and personal value judgments. Adding the word "objectively" to your statements does not make it so. Even such criteria as you have mentioned - lifespan, "individualism," property rights (lol), etc., are not objectively "advanced." After all, what are the "objective" benefits of a long lifespan if it is filled with ennui, alienation and oppression? What is the value of "individualism" to a person who cherishes deep bonds and shared struggle with others? How can one declare "property rights" to be an objective good when the very concept of such has only existed for a few hundred years, and has arguably led to the greatest ongoing extinction of species in millions of years?

You see? Value judgments, all of it. And for someone who might call themself a "libertarian," you certainly seem not to understand the true spirit of the credo, "live and let live."

Look into local chapters of the mycological society or mushroom hunting groups/clubs in your area. This site lists a few options. Looks like the one in Albion may be near-ish to you.

I've also found many of the links in the sidebar helpful, especially mushroom observer and the mushroom hunting and identification forum on The Shroomery. The Shroomery's ID forum is where I go to confirm my suspected ID's after keying out specimens on my own.

I use Mushrooms Demystified, by David Arora, as a my post collection ID book. It's both huge and dated (i think it's latest edition is from the early or mid 80's) so it's functionality as a field guide or the final word in ID is lacking. Even so, it is good to learn to work through dichotomous keys like the ones that it employs and it usually gets you headed in the right direction. Other guides like Rogers Mushrooms, All the Rain Promises and More, and The National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms are good resources, too (I'm sure other folks can add to this list, I'm just dropping the names that first come to mind).

As much as I clash with some of his professional/ethical decisions, Paul Stamets has contributed a ton to the accessibility of Mycology to the masses. Check out Mycelium Running and Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms as introductions to the Fifth Kingdom.

I'm also really enjoying Tradd Cotter's new book, Organic Mushroom Farming and Mycoremediation

Fungi for the People and The Radical Mycology Collective have also been hugely influential in my personal growth as an amateur mycologist. If you ever get a chance to attend any of their events, I would recommend doing it.

Best of luck and enjoy your journey!

Love your typo!

All That the Rain Promises and More: A Hip Pocket Guide to Western Mushrooms, by David Arora is definitely a good place to start. For people in the U.S.

There are good edible Russula, Lactarius and Amanita mushrooms, but the species you've listed are not commonly eaten. I do believe A. rubescens is edible, but I would not suggest anyone who is new to mushrooming even pretend to think about eating any species of Amanita until they have familiarized themselves with the genus and the Amanitas in their harvesting areas. Stick with the numerous other edible genera for a season or two, and learn all you can. Russula and Lactarius are great places to start; very delicious and often abundant.

Good luck. If you wanna come back and post pics of your finds, make sure to get them in focus and get shots of all parts, including the gills and their attachment to the stipe. Try to get into the habit of making spore prints of unknown specimens, as this can narrow down considerably the number of potential genera your specimen could belong to...

Have fun!

Personally, I think the American Empire is declining. Sir John Glubb had a wonderful write up of this, and I have copied his conclusion below. The full PDF can be found here and it is only 27 pages long.

Glubb looked at eleven empires over the course of history. I copied a relevant summary from the end. The pdf is online here.

> As numerous points of interest have arisen in the course of this essay, I close with a brief summary, to refresh the reader’s mind.

> (a) We do not learn from history because our studies are brief and prejudiced.

> (b) In a surprising manner, 250 years emerges as the average length of national greatness.

> (c) This average has not varied for 3,000 years. Does it represent ten generations?

> (d) The stages of the rise and fall of great
nations seem to be:

> The Age of Pioneers (outburst)

> The Age of Conquests

> The Age of Commerce

> The Age of Affluence

> The Age of Intellect

> The Age of Decadence.

> (e) Decadence is marked by:

> Defensiveness

> Pessimism

> Materialism

> Frivolity

> An influx of foreigners

> The Welfare State

> A weakening of religion.

> (f) Decadence is due to:

> Too long a period of wealth and power

> Selfishness

> Love of money

> The loss of a sense of duty.

> (g) The life histories of great states are amazingly similar, and are due to internal factors.

> (h) Their falls are diverse, because they are largely the result of external causes.

> (i) History should be taught as the history of the human race, though of course with emphasis on the history of the student’s own country.

The real question is how technology will either speed up, slow down. or prevent the same thing from happening to America.

I also recommend the following books:

The Collapse of Complex Societies, By Joseph Tainter

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Succeed or Fail, By Jared Diamond

Overshoot: The Ecological Basis for Revolutionary Change

Finally, when it comes to survival information, I highly recommend www.survivalblog.com. To me, they are the best of the best.

I also would like to plug Radio Free Redoubt (podcast) as well as AmRRON (American Redoubt Radio Operator's Network).

Initially I'd avoid books on areas of science that might challenge her (religious) beliefs. You friend is open to considering a new view point. Which is awesome but can be very difficult. So don't push it. Start slowly with less controversial topics. To be clear, I'm saying avoid books that touch on evolution! Other controversial topics might include vaccinations, dinosaurs, the big bang, climate change, etc. Picking a neutral topic will help her acclimate to science. Pick a book related to something that she is interested in.

I'd also start with a book that the tells a story centred around a science, instead of simply trying to explain that science. In telling the story their authors usually explain the science. (Biographies about interesting scientist are a good choice too). The idea is that if she enjoys reading the book, then chances are she will be more likely to accept the science behind it.

Here are some recommendations:
The Wave by Susan Casey: http://www.amazon.com/The-Wave-Pursuit-Rogues-Freaks/dp/0767928857

Fermat's Enigma by Simon Singh: http://www.amazon.com/Fermats-Enigma-Greatest-Mathematical-Problem/dp/0385493622

The Man who Loved Only Numbers by Paul Hoffman: http://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Loved-Only-Numbers/dp/0786884061/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1405720480&sr=1-1&keywords=paul+erdos

I also recommend going to a book store with her, and peruse the science section. Pick out a book together. Get a copy for yourself and make it a small book club. Give her someone to discusses the book with.

After a few books, if she's still interested then you can try pushing her boundaries with something more controversial or something more technical.

I've posted this elsewhere but here ya go...

> Avoid the Audubon guide. The Audubon guide is pretty terribad (bad photos, pithy descriptions, not user-friendly.)

> There are much better nationwide guides out there (like the Falcon Guide), but quite honestly you're better off with a regional guide.

> My recs for regional field guides:

> Alaska

> - Common Interior Alaska Cryptogams

> Western US

> - All The Rain Promises and More

• Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest
  
  >Midwestern US
  >
  
• Mushrooms of the Midwest
  
• Edible Wild Mushrooms of Illinois and Surrounding States
  
• Mushrooms of the Upper Midwest
  
  >Southern US
  >
  
• Texas Mushrooms: A Field Guide
  >
  Eastern US
  >
  
• Mushrooms of West Virginia and the Cental Appalachians
  
• Mushrooms of Northeast North America
  
• Macrofungi Associated with Oaks of Eastern North America
  
  > As an aside, books like Mushrooms Demystified, Lichens of North America, Mushrooms of Northeastern North America, and Mushrooms of the Southeastern United States are too large and cumbersome to take out in the field, but are all excellent references to have at home for ID after a foray.

I would not recommend the Audubon guide it is very out of date (this can range from outdated taxonomy all the way to toxicology that has changed over the years). It is useful because it lists species other guides lacks but you'll learn to hate it.

Buy a location specific guide. It depends on where you live. If you get really into field hunting buy some specific guides that give you a more in depth understanding and help you not to die. Joining a local mycological society is also an extremely valuable resource in understanding mycology.

Here's a bit of everything

Regional guides

Alaska

Common Interior Alaska Cryptogams

Western US

All The Rain Promises and More
Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest

Mushrooms Demystified This is an old book, while still useful it definitely needs updating.

The New Savory Wild Mushroom Also dated but made for the PNW

Midwestern US

Mushrooms of the Midwest

Edible Wild Mushrooms of Illinois and Surrounding States

Mushrooms of the Upper Midwest

Southern US

Texas Mushrooms: A Field Guide

Mushrooms of the Southeastern United States

Common Mushrooms of Florida

A Field Guide to Southern Mushrooms It's old so you'll need to learn new names.

Eastern US

Mushrooms of West Virginia and the Central Appalachians

Mushrooms of Northeast North America (This was out of print for awhile but it's they're supposed to be reprinting so the price will be normal again)

Mushrooms of Northeastern North America

Macrofungi Associated with Oaks of Eastern North America(Macrofungi Associated with Oaks of Eastern North America)

Mushrooms of Cape Cod and the National Seashore

More specific (Advanced) guides

Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World

North American Boletes

Tricholomas of North America

Milk Mushrooms of North America

Waxcap Mushrooms of North America

Ascomycete of North America

Ascomycete in colour

Fungi of Switzerland: Vol. 1 Ascomycetes A series of 6 books.

Fungi Europaei A collection of 14 books.

PDFs and online Guides

For Pholiota

For Chlorophyllum

American species of Crepidotus

Guide to Australian Fungi If this is useful consider donating to this excellent set of guides.

Websites that aren't in the sidebar

For Amanita

For coprinoids

For Ascos

MycoQuebec: they have a kickass app but it's In French

Messiah college this has a lot of weird species for polypores and other things

For Hypomyces

Cultivation

The Mushroom Cultivator: A Practical Guide to Growing Mushrooms at Home (If your home is a 50,000 sq ft warehouse)

Organic Mushroom Farming and Mycoremediation: Simple to Advanced and Experimental Techniques for Indoor and Outdoor Cultivation

Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms

Mycology

The fifth kingdom beginner book, I would recommend this. It goes over fungal taxonomy Oomycota, Zygomycota and Eumycota. It also has ecology and fungi as food.

The kingdom fungi coffee table book it has general taxonomy of the kingdom but also very nice pictures.

Introduction to fungi Depends on your definition of beginner, this is bio and orgo heavy. Remember the fungi you see pop out of the ground (ascos and basidios) are only a tiny fraction of the kingdom.

NAMA affiliated clubs

For a pocket guide I'd recommend All That the Rain Promises and More. It has a little bit of a bias towards species in western North America, but it's still very useful in the east (I'm in New England and I love it). Mushrooms Demystified is pretty big for taking into the field, but it is a great companion to ATtRPaM, and it is the best all around field guide for North America, in my opinion.

I hear what you're saying, and responded as I did because I was kind of shocked to see you say what I interpreted you as saying. The charitable/analytic part of me wanted to ask for clarification, but the emotional part of me just wanted to rant. ;-)

I understand you are speaking from personal experience, but things have changed in the last 5-10 years. Heck, they've changed quite a bit in the last year.

In America particularly, non-believers have been such a small and demonized group their platforms have had to be as generic and inclusive as possible. One great thing about the recent expansion of the group is that there are more splinter points of view, some of which have more strongly stated points of view on ethical issues.

In my mind this is quite healthy, except that some people have viewed such splintering as "you're saying I'm bad if I don't join your splinter group identity". Tribalism rules in any group, and my main critique of the atheists in the large is that many are in the dangerous place of thinking they are less affected by cognitive biases than others. This is just flat out not true.

> My only point was that specifically secular groups usually elevate rationality above emotionism and thus cannot seem to break the barrier very well.

Well then I agree. Enlightenment rationality is a myth, and the large contingent of atheists who still think it is true are on dangerous footing indeed. I try to yell at them at least as much as I do at religious fundamentalists, and do so much more in meatspace. ;-)

Unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, it goes about just as well. At least until I can get them to do some reading on the topic, when evidence and nuance can than gets a chance to win over dogma. ;-) I've found The Republican Brain usually goes over fairly well, as it is critical of a group that is Other to such people at the same time it tells them truths about themselves.

Try to understand that the hearing you saw was political theater. It's a gimmick orchestrated by the majority party to try to drum up headlines on partisan media, galvanize the hardcore issue-followers from their base, and make snarky comments. The purpose of a hearing like this is most emphatically not to dig into the heart of an issue and try to come to a better understand of it. It's also an opportunity for trying to re-frame political discourse; bear in mind that a the very moment of this hearing, the ADP was convening to finalize the penultimate text of the COP21 and Paris Agreement.

It's very worrisome to me that you came away from this hearing with the impression that there are two sides to the climate change issue. There are not. There is not competing, alternative explanation of modern climate change, and there is no serious, scholarly debate about broad swaths of the field. What you saw at the hearing were manufactured controversies - misdirections which prey on the lay person's unfamiliarity with the science. For instance, Senator Cruz insisted - multiple times - that the satellite temperature record is the "gold standard" for recording temperatures and documenting potential climate change, and that we can't trust the surface temperature record because the data isn't available. That's, without any question or minimization whatsoever, absolute horseshit. In reality, all of the data and code necessary to reproduce the surface temperature record is available freely for anyone to download, and old records are archived in their original format. On the other hand, the satellite record is not freely available - it's privately maintained by both RSS and UAH. UAH has also - for two decades now - refused to release the code used to produce their dataset. That's a major problem, given the complexity of trying to infer temperatures from what satellites measure. In fact, it requires simplified atmosphere/climate models validated against the surface temperature record. So you can begin to see the problem here, and the insidious goal of this hearing - to invert the idea of which dataset is more reliable.

If you want to learn more about climate science, then stick to your textbooks. Some very good ones for geosciences students would be "Global Warming: The Complete Briefing" by John Houghton and "What We Know About Climate Change" by Kerry Emanuel. I'd be happy to recommend further resources from there.

But if you're looking for a head-to-head debate about climate science you won't find one, because there isn't a serious contrarian side on the issue.

Probably a lot of readers of /r/water have read Cadillac Desert.

I own a copy of, and have made two false starts reading, The King Of California as recommend by the anonymous author of the blog On The Public Record.

I highly recommend A Great Aridness, a worthy heir to Cadillac Desert.

Also on my to-read list is Rising Tide. I would like to find a book that does for the Great Lakes what Marc Reisner did for water in the American West with his book Cadillac Desert.

A few things I've read this year that have little to do with water:

• The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History
  
• The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind
  
• The Human Experiment: Two Years and Twenty Minutes Inside Biosphere 2
  
• The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies
  
• Citizenville: How to Take the Town Square Digital and Reinvent Government
  

They were towed out of Callao about 50 miles to sea
and then after wrecking, towed in to Tahiti. Recountings of the adventure tend to minimize this, but it's definitely there in the story. I recommend reading between the lines. Sailors in general who have done great crossings don't seems to have much respect for the opportunistic justifications of all the help the expedition got. Read The Wayfinders to get an idea of how great Polynesian navigation was and just how clueless westerners remain about it and the cultural agenda that motivates this ignorance.

Not fiction... but if you find the era interesting:

• Sapiens
  
• The Humans Who Went Extinct: Why Neanderthals died out and we survived
  
• Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors
  
  Jean M Auel provided a fun introduction to the period but, as readers of the series know, she took creative liberty. More than occasionally the books wandered into fantasy. To enjoy a fascinating view based a bit more on scientific evidence, the three listed are (or were to me) quire enlightening.

I have a few.

My favorite for plants is: Pacific Northwest Foraging.

My favorite for mushrooms is split between: All that the Rain Promises and More, which is an awesome, positive, life affirming mushroom hunting book which has info about all the west, not just the PNW, and Common Mushrooms of the Northwest, which is nice and thin, so easy to bring with me, and has really good pictures and descriptions. The same author also has a nice Berry Book.

> I think there must be some sort of primordial fear mechanism that Fox/Roger Ailes know how to exploit.

tl;dr Strong correlation between "being conservative" and "brain that tends to respond more strongly to fear, with bigger fear-handling brain parts [the amygdala]".

• Mother Jones article from 2013 by Chris Mooney, "The Surprising Brain Differences Between Democrats and Republicans"
  
  
• One of the studies referred to in the article
  
  > What they found is that people who have more fearful disposition also tend to be more politically conservative, and less tolerant of immigrants and people of races different from their own. As [Brown University researcher Rose] McDermott carefully emphasizes, that does not mean that every conservative has a high fear disposition. "It's not that conservative people are more fearful, it's that fearful people are more conservative," as she puts it.
  
  
• The second study referred to in the article
  
  > Darren Schreiber, a political neuroscientist at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, first performed brain scans on 82 people participating in a risky gambling task, one in which holding out for more money increases your possible rewards, but also your possible losses. Later, cross-referencing the findings with the participants' publicly available political party registration information, Schreiber noticed something astonishing: Republicans, when they took the same gambling risk, were activating a different part of the brain than Democrats.
  
  > Republicans were using the right amygdala, the center of the brain's threat response system. Democrats, in contrast, were using the insula, involved in internal monitoring of one's feelings. Amazingly, Schreiber and his colleagues write that this test predicted 82.9 percent of the study subjects' political party choices—considerably better, they note, than a simple model that predicts your political party affiliation based on the affiliation of your parents.
  
  
• Chris Mooney's book The Republican Brain
  
  > There is a growing body of evidence that conservatives and liberals don't just have differing ideologies; they have different psychologies. How could the rejection of mainstream science be growing among Republicans, along with the denial of expert consensus on the economy, American history, foreign policy, and much more? Why won't Republicans accept things that most experts agree on? Why are they constantly fighting against the facts? Increasingly, the answer appears to be: it's just part of who they are.
  
  > Mooney explores brain scans, polls, and psychology experiments to explain why conservatives today believe more wrong things; appear more likely than Democrats to oppose new ideas; are less likely to change their beliefs in the face of new facts; and sometimes respond to compelling evidence by doubling down on their current beliefs.
  
  > The answer begins with some measurable personality traits that strongly correspond with political preferences. For instance, people more wedded to certainty tend to become conservatives; people craving novelty, liberals. Surprisingly, openness to new experiences and fastidiousness are better predictors of political preference than income or education. If you like to keep your house neat and see the world in a relatively black and white way, you're probably going to vote Republican. If you've recently moved to a big city to see what else life has to offer, you're probably going to vote Democrat. These basic differences in openness and curiosity, Mooney argues, fuel an "expertise gap" between left and right that explains much of the battle today over what is true.
  
  
• 2011 Psychology Today article "Conservatives Big on Fear, Brain Study Finds" that refers to this study which says:
  
  > We found that greater liberalism was associated with increased gray matter volume in the anterior cingulate cortex, whereas greater conservatism was associated with increased volume of the right amygdala. These results were replicated in an independent sample of additional participants. Our findings extend previous observations that political attitudes reflect difference in self-regulatory conflict monitoring and recognition of emotional faces by showing that such attitudes are reflected in human brain structure. Although our data do not determine whether these regions play a causal role in the formation of political attitudes, they converge with previous work to suggest a possible link between brain structure and psychological mechanisms that mediate political attitudes.

I know this will be buried, but:

just to be clear, psychologists do not have a clear understanding of the mechanism behind motivated reasoning. all of the persuasion resistance strategies mentioned in the reference you provided are really downstream of the process, they are strategies that result from this motivated reasoning.

it's sort of like asking how Lionel Messi is so good at scoring goals (or LeBron James and basketball or whatever), and answering, "he uses such and such strategies" but that still doesn't answer why he scores all those goals as opposed to other people. it's part of the answer, yes, but not a complete answer. when does he use which strategies? how does he make the decision what strategy to use? when are they more or less effective? there are lots of questions remaining in addition to the critical one of determining the exact mechanism(s).

I'm also surprised you didn't cite the most complete account of motivated reasoning in a journal format, which is Kunda, Z. (1990) in Psychological Bulletin, p. 108.

edit:changed a 'why' to a 'how'. also, for a good recent treatment of this, Chris Mooney, a journalist, as a book The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science and Reality which doesn't actually answer those gaps I have brought up, but is a good intro into some of the science nonetheless.

Late to the game, but people always need more books...

The World Without Us was great, really interesting read about humanity's effects on the planet, with lots of references to expand on if you wanted to do that.

A Year of Living Biblically was interesting, even if you aren't a Christian or a Jew, if you find religion interesting.

And last but not least, Rocket Boys by Homer H. Hickam. This was made into the movie 'October Sky', and it's a memoir, one of the best I've ever read. But all the science of the rockets is in there too, I learned a lot about propellants and DeLavalle nozzles lol.

Often times mycology societies have events for mushroom picking as well as classes you can take. Ther are also more general foraging classes that happen in your local nature area. If you would like a wonderful book to get you excited and knowledgeable try https://www.amazon.com/All-That-Rain-Promises-More/dp/0898153883 it's a wonderful full colored pocket book with great encyclopedic knowledge for many species. Often times, if you're in the US, you might have to get a permit to pick, so that you don't destroy the ecology by over picking and such.

​

As they say the video, be extremely careful about what you pick. Always good to double check with experts.

I moved from Denver to Southern Oregon. Walking in the woods here you'll see amazing things, and you can eat almost all of them. I got a copy of All the Rain Promises and More and I was off. It helped that they were buying matsutakes for $100 a pound that winter.

These days you're lucky to get $15 for #1's and you're competing with Asian slave labor.

Now I only pick for pleasure
The variety here is amazing. Mushroom picking is one of the best ways to spend a grey winter day.

Yes, there are negative feedbacks, like CO2 increasing plant growth. There are also positive feedbacks, like forest destruction from drought, heat stress, disease, and fires. There's topsoil drying out in droughts, and getting washed away in occasional torrential rainfalls, both of which will be more common. There's CO2 and methane emissions from melting permafrost, methane clathrate destabilization, and loss of polar ice causing more sunlight to be absorbed instead of reflected away.

All due respect to your Environmental Science degree, but climate scientists are in fact very concerned about positive feedbacks.

It's true that the Earth will stabilize again one day. It's gone through this before. A small push, like an orbital variation, warms it up a little, and these sorts of feedbacks keep it going until it stabilizes in a hot state. It happens fairly rapidly, and takes tens of millions of years to return to the original temperature and CO2 level. Last time it happened was fifty million years ago; much of the life on the planet died out, and most of what remained was clustered around the poles, which were tropical. Crocodiles swam in the Arctic.

A great book on all this, covering multiple lines of geological evidence, is Hansen's Storms of My Grandchildren.

I strongly suggest you read "The Sixth Extinction" by Elizabeth Kolbert. In short, it details a series of extinctions - some mass some minor - and weaves in the narrative of humanity's future into it. The thesis revolves largely about climate change, but we too often think of climate change as weather. Here, Kolbert goes out of her way to explain to the reader all the ways in which smalls changes in things from ocean acidity to Amazonian ecosystems can have large scale ramifications for previously dominant species.

For example:

>Since the origin of life on earth 3.8 billion years ago, our planet has experienced five mass extinction events. The last of these events occurred some 66 million years ago when a six-mile-wide asteroid is thought to have collided with earth, wiping out the dinosaurs. The Cretaceous extinction event dramatically changed the composition of biodiversity on the planet: Marine ecosystems essentially collapsed, and about 75 percent of all plant and animal species disappeared.

>Today, Kolbert writes, we are witnessing a similar mass extinction event happening in the geologic blink of an eye. According to E. O. Wilson, the present extinction rate in the tropics is “on the order of 10,000 times greater than the naturally occurring background extinction rate” and will reduce biological diversity to its lowest level since the last great extinction.

>This time, however, a giant asteroid isn’t to blame — we are, by altering environmental conditions on our planet so swiftly and dramatically that a large proportion of other species cannot adapt. And we are risking our own future as well, by fundamentally altering the integrity of the climate balance that has persisted in more or less the same configuration since the end of the last ice age, and which has fostered the flourishing of human civilization.

I strongly suggest reading the book even if this minor tidbit won't change your view. I don't consider myself much a climate science evangelist - I acknowledge it's correct and should be fixed, but I never found it especially interesting or galvanizing. After reading this book and gaining an understanding of the history of the science of extinction - which is frankly extraordinarily new - and how many minor extinctions that occur in the background can have a cumulative cataclysmic effect, I've taken a stronger interest because it will have a major impact on humanity's future on this Earth.

While it isn't strictly a science book, Douglas Adam's "Last Chance to See" Is a really great book on a few endangered species he toured around the world to go and try to find. Its short and hilarious and also does a really wonderful job at showing you how silly humans can be and how our silliness actually has pretty detrimental effects on the other animals we share this world with.

If you know anything about Douglas Adams and his Hitch Hikers Guide book then you will probably really enjoy this. It's an overlooked gem in his body of work.

http://www.amazon.com/Last-Chance-See-Douglas-Adams/dp/0345371984

First read about these guys in 'Last Chance to See' by Douglas Adams. Worth a read.

Edit: Ah, what the hell...

Of these, the kakapo is the strangest. Well, I suppose the penguin is a pretty peculiar kind of creature when you think about it, but it's quite a robust kind of peculiarness, and the bird is perfectly well adapted to the world in which it finds itself, in a way the kakapo is not. The kakapo is a bird out of time. If you look one in its large, round, greeny-brown face, it has a look of serenely innocent incomprehension that makes you want to hug it and tell it that everything will be all right, though you know that it probably will not be.

It is an extremely fat bird. A good-sized adult will weigh about six or seven pounds, and its wings are just about good for waggling a bit if it thinks it's about to trip over something - but flying is completely out of the question. Sadly, however, it seems that not only has the kakapo forgotten how to fly, but it has also forgotten that it has forgotten how to fly. Apparently, a seriously worried kakapo will sometimes run up a tree and jump out of it, whereupon it flies like a brick and lands in a graceless heap on the ground.*

Was thinking that this is far enough into the future that former cities have been almost completely subsumed by nature - New growth, the rise and fall of sea levels, even geological processes. Think like, 20,000 years after some sort of apocalypse, an ice age come and gone. The most intact traces of the ancients are akin to like, Angkor Wat or Stonehenge, all but the most permanent construction completely erased, by the time the former civilization was wiped out perhaps there already wasn't much left to be preserved. The current population understands that there were grand civilizations at some point in the past and they know where these ruins are but that's about it. Maybe warnings against whatever ideology begat the ancient's downfall are preserved as whispers among the current population's elders, kept secret from those not wise enough to be trusted with the preventative knowledge.

I read The World Without Us, a pop science book speculating about the life of infrastructure if humans were to disappear, and was surprised by the convincing arguments regarding just how fast things would crumble to dust. So I went with that. Related, I was kind of let down by how 'preserved' the ancient structures in Horizon Zero Dawn seemed, considering how far in the future it's supposed to be. A lot of my game is inspired by Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, and in that story most of the ancient's world has been washed away by completely new and alien ecosystems. But not wanting such a 'harsh' and dangerous world in my game I'm instead aiming for something positive and pastoral. The kind of imagery that cyclists like to look at while they're climbing a mountain pass :)

Yes, it is a man in a tuxedo, holding a flugelhorn & large fungi, sneaking around in a forest.

Apparently the book got this glowing review by the NYTimes: "is certainly the best guide to fungi, and may in fact be a long lasting masterpiece in guide writing for all subjects."

*Edit: (On Amazon, it's the #1 Best Seller in "Mushrooms in Biological Sciences")

Any book by Mary Roach- her books are hilarious, random, and informative. I like Jon Krakauer's, Sarah Vowell's, and Bill Bryson's books as well.

Some of my favorites that I can think of offhand (as another poster mentioned, I loved Devil in the White City)

No Picnic on Mount Kenya

Guns, Germs, and Steel

Collapse

The Closing of the Western Mind

What is the What

A Long Way Gone

Alliance of Enemies

The Lucifer Effect

The World Without Us

What the Dog Saw

The God Delusion (you'd probably enjoy Richard Dawkins' other books as well if you like science)

One Down, One Dead

Lust for Life

Lost in Shangri-La

Endurance

True Story

Havana Nocturne

>Not in the slightest. I'm merely restating what a massive body of evidence supports. But I don't think you even know what you're talking about, here.

Yes I have read through dozens of papers since I first got interested in this topic. I have a inkling of what I'm talking about.

>What is this theory, exactly? Can you point me to any of the scientific literature on the subject? Can you be precise about what this theory entails?

Can you link to anything beyond Green House Gas Effect? Yeah I thought not.

>That estimate of climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 was 5-6 C; almost double the modern 'best estimate'.

The current modern estimate is .8-1.5 degree Celsius per doubling of CO2 without positive feedback (depending on the study). You are using a forcing that includes positive feedback that is much greater than negative feedback. Including in immediate feedbacks you get 5-6 C per doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere.

This paper for instance shows that the feedbacks are quite inconsistent when building the combined CO2 forcing from historical data.

http://www.clim-past-discuss.net/8/4923/2012/cpd-8-4923-2012.pdf

The following book from Professor Houghton who is advocating for immediate action on global warming gives gives the direct forcing for CO2 to be 1.2 degree Celsius.

http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/0521709164

The IPCC has listed a 3.7 W/m^2 forcing per doubling of CO2. This value also gives roughly the same answer as Professor Houghton of roughly 1.1-1.2 degree Celsius per doubling of CO2. This is of course before any feedbacks are included.

>I could easily point to dozens of papers on the topic of climate feedbacks; can you point to any actual peer-reviewed science supporting your claims?

I haven't made a single claim. The facts are quite clear on this. I'm sure you could link to the IPCC report and feel like you have done yourself a service and that is the extent of your experience on this topic. You are throwing out numbers without any context for which they stand for.

Feedbacks vary largely based on the study you look at. And there is no defining scientific finding that shows positive feedback is much greater than negative feedback. So claiming there are mountains of scientific evidence is disingenuous to say the least. As it stands if positive feedback == negative feedback the warming caused by CO2 is not dangerous, but is worth keeping track of.

One of my favorite books to take hunting is All That Rain Promises and More. It's pocket-sized and the pictures are clear (plus the cover is great). The author also has some interesting recipes and narratives in the book. As far as not poisoning yourself, I suggest starting with species that are very unambiguous in whether or not they are another poisonous mushroom. Morels, chanterelles, and hen/chicken of the woods have solid identifying features unlike some stalked white mushrooms. Know the lookalikes though! False morels can be very poisonous, so know how to tell the difference between the two (hollow stem of morel).

Know the season/habitat of what you're looking for, it will save you time and help you ID. When you do find your first shrooms, there are methods to ensure you don't poison yourself, like chewing a bit and spitting it out before ingesting the whole thing. I believe there is information about that in the book and of course more online.

Happy hunting!

I can offer a general layman's overview of you like (global studies ftw)

I'm not sure if this is what you're getting at but:

"Humans comprise about 100 million tonnes of the Earth's dry biomass, domesticated animals about 700 million tonnes, ..."

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomass_%28ecology%29

I think human lifestyle might be a bigger issue. If you include indirect human usage like domesticated animals (and the resulting sewage pools) etc.

You might really like this book:
http://www.amazon.com/The-World-Without-Alan-Weisman/dp/0312427905

Edit: hopefully as technology progresses we can be less disruptive towards our environment. I'm convinced that bio diversity will be a huge scientific/economic boom in terms of finding out what kind of genetic/mathematical/physical models work well as trial tested by time/evolution (granted they're not all winners but...) A lot of solid architecture and medicine has come straight out of nature. Seems like a shame we're just pissing it away for short term goals/benefits.

I also look forward to the day all science merged into one and there's something better out there to run society than what humans/computers/programs are limited to at the moment.

I often hunt in Olympic National forest but you don't have to go that far to find them. Chanterelles are definitely out now. Find a predominantly Doug fir forest with a light sparse enough understory that you can see the ground and wander. Be sure you don't get lost and be sure you are 100% sure of the ID before you put anything in your mouth. We have some deadly ones in the area.

My 2 favorite field guides: http://www.calypso-publishing.com/book-titles/common-mushrooms-of-the-northwest/

https://www.amazon.com/All-That-Rain-Promises-More/dp/0898153883

For mushrooms in general (not specifically psychedelic ones) I recommend All That the Rain Promises and More by David Arora. If you like that then check out Mushrooms Demystified which is his famous tome. Two newer books with beautiful color photographs are Mushrooms of the Redwood Coast by Noah Siegel and Christian Schwarz, and California Mushrooms by Desjardin, Wood, and Stevens.

The best way though is to go foraging with someone who knows what they're doing. Check out MSSF or one of the other clubs in the area. If you join MSSF now, you can still get a spot on the Mendocino Woodlands camping trip, which is an absolute blast.

I love mushroom picking and pick a bunch of different kinds. The spot I'm going is usually full of boletes, chanterelles and hedgehogs, which are my favorites.

I pick for culinary use, yeah. I dry them for the rest of the year. It's not hard to learn how to pick mushrooms because there is a system that's essentially a dichotomous key for identification - basically, you go down the list of basic characteristics and can identify many types that way. It's just a matter of being diligent and never eating anything of which you're uncertain. It's great if you want to learn to go with someone experienced to get a primer. Also, this book is the field guide I've used for fifteen years and it fits in my pocket and is the best beginner's mushroom guide I've seen.

This is a phenomenon described thoroughly by Douglas Adams in his less-fictional-than-usual account of a zoologically-focused trip he'd taken.

In a certain chapter, he gives the details of a bird with a specific sort of problem: this bird has invented something to make its life easier.

Most birds need to spend time incubating their nests, but the bird he describes creates a heap of material which warms the egg, so that it's free to go and do other things, such as hunt for food.

The inherent difficulty here is that the body of the bird regulates its own temperature, where the heap does not.
Thus, the bird has to constantly attend to the matter, adding here, subtracting there, in order to maintain the exact temperatures needed to incubate their young.


He then compared that to his own interest in computers, especially that he might spend the entire afternoon creating a program which will calculate a very close approximation the volume of the heaps created by these birds, instead of just figuring it out on paper, and then getting on with writing the rest of the book.

You really just need 2 pieces of equipment: a field guide (I like Sibley's) and a pair of binoculars (cheap is ok to start). Beyond that, I think it's mostly having the patience to develop the skills and knowledge base. Take the time to really look at birds. Get the common species under your belt - house sparrow, robin, cardinal (for the eastern US, at least). Once you know them well, you'll really notice when you see something new.

Birding with a buddy is a great help early on - a good birding pal will nudge you to notice the identifying features. Fat beak? Think finch. Small and yellow? Maybe a warbler. Speckled breast? Think thrush.

A friend took me when I was a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed college kid. I took our findings to a mycologist on campus who spent 20 minutes describing proper browning-in-butter protocol. I was hooked- both on mushrooming and the goofy people involved. I already collect field identification books, so I have a shelf in my bookcase just for mushroom ID and foraging. Every time i go out i try to ID a new mushie. Anything im super lost on i take to a mycologist friend in town, or i email the prof at OSU (which is 30 minutes drive) and bug them with it.

I also have permits for personal collection of mushrooms in all the local national forests (most were free) and researched the county and state park rules for collection on their property. Gotta be responsible, yo.

I recommend picking up All That Rain Promises and More (link) and the unabridged Mushrooms Demystified link2 because i reference both a TON, The first one is waterproof, and David is a certified goofball.

Rofl! Ron Paul!

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Oh yeah, republitards love science! Remember when they said:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/06/paul-broun-evolution-big-bang_n_1944808.html

That was fun!

Here are a few more!

http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/03/its-not-your-imagination-republicans-really-dont-science

http://www.salon.com/2013/01/11/scientists_hate_the_gop_for_a_reason/

This book might explain why..:http://www.amazon.com/Republican-Brain-Science-Science-Reality/dp/1118094514

In conclusion

http://i.imgur.com/2cfsJnP.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/8TcwHbx.jpg

ITT: People who are trying to argue with people without trying to change their minds.

I'm no expert, but I'll paraphrase words from people who are.

The single best piece of material I've ever seen on the mass extinction we are living in (not the mass extinction that's coming; the one we are currently witnessing) is this. The Sixth Extinction (well, mass extinction) does a really good job of simplifying complex stuff into what normal people like myself can digest. Yes, by definition, this is a mass extinction; the rates of background extinction are currently hundreds to thousands of times higher than before significant human activity and approaching that of the fallout of the comet/asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. Please search up background extinction rates and read some material before attempting to argue about this.

Climate change is tremendous, but it is only part of a series of problems that are about to fuck us in the butthole mouth ear bellybutton set that includes all of our orifices. Ocean acidification, habitat fragmentation, flora/fauna trying to migrate and failing (yes, flora. Tree populations spread up slopes faster than down slopes with climate change, especially around warmer climates). The loss of megafauna that comes with poaching and habitat fragmentation.

On top of that, by spreading around the whole globe, we spread life and disease in places where the environment has not evolved to place density-dependent limiting factors on them. We have new invasive species coming into California every week.

I understand your concern that we have more pressing matters, and that we have more time to solve this issue. But we don't. The youngest generation will witness significant changes. Last time we had this much CO2 in the atmosphere, the oceans were about 100 feet higher.

We are currently past the point of being able to solve the problems. We would need a way to cleanse the atmosphere, cut our population, stop expansion, shut off the car, and end globalization if we are to have the people five generations from now not worry about how to survive.

There is no happy ending to our story. There is only a later ending. We release the most carbon emissions in the world. And we just elected Donald Drumpf.

GOOD JOB AMERICA!

https://www.amazon.com/County-Almanac-Outdoor-Essays-Reflections/dp/0345345053

You are asking questions that have been asked for a hundred years. Of course its hard to tell what the best way to live in or outside of the enviroment. Should we try to introduce predators instead of hunting? Should we let disease and starvation natural run its course rather than hunting? Should humans have any conscience role in trying to shape the environment? Or should we just isolate ourselves as much as possible?

All things me or you can never know. I like hunting, I dont mind buying tickets to hunt or fish. I liked volunteering to clean up the swamp and do some planting in the mouth of the lake I used to fish. Should I continue to try and be the Tenet of the land like Leopold said a long time ago, or should I just isolate myself and hope that society will figure that all out without me.

For those who have not read Douglas Adams' book Last Chance to See I highly recommend it.

This encounter took place as Douglas' friend Stephen traveled to the same places Douglas went in an attempt to see how things had changed since the original publishing of the book.

The bird in this clip is a Kakapo, and it was one of the most touching and funny parts of the original book. There was no porn in the original though.

This is a great book about that very subject.

It's not that Republicans are mentally wrong, but they do tend to think differently than liberals in many areas. Many of those differences, while they might be useful in certain situations and contexts, are pretty awful when dealing with a modern, free society.

I also encourage:

"Last Chance to See"

"The Deeper Meaning of Liff"

Both are excellent books. Honestly he was a great writer, and greatly missed.

Welcome! Mushroom season is just getting started! Check Google, FB or Nextfoor for your local mycological society, they'll have some good info for you, too.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003R4Z2MM/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 this is a guide specifically for PNW mushrooms.

https://www.amazon.com/All-That-Rain-Promises-More/dp/0898153883 this is a really popular mushroom identification book, this was my go-to guide for identifying mushrooms in the field. The author, David Arora, has written a few books.

Happy hunting!

Hi /u/reversejellyfish that's an excellent question. Unfortunately a large portion of my knowledge is based from courses and materials (scientific articles, lab experiments, etc.) during my degree. Further, I would cast myself as an outlier preferring to read actual text books, and peer-reviewed studies to gain insight. In other words I believe my preference choice for materials would also have members of your book club 'sawing logs.' That being said, I would recommend x-posting your question to a couple of other subreddits that typically see far more activity from its subscribers than /r/GlobalClimateChange. Try /r/environment and /r/climate.

As far as what I would recommend, quickly off the top of my head...

Documentary:

• An Inconvenient Truth
  
  
• Chasing Ice
  
  TV Series:
  
  
• Years of Living Dangerously
  
  Youtube Short:
  
  
• Welcome to the Anthropocene
  
  
• The Anthropocene and the Near Future: Crash Course Big History #9
  
  Books:
  
  
• Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity
  
  Hopefully that was of at least some help, though I feel none of these recommendations really details a full analysis of the "anthropocene"

I started out with All That the Rain Promises and More and I definitely recommend it. However, I would also recommend that you consider having more than one book. For one thing, having multiple pictures can be helpful since every mushroom you find in the field is unique and having multiple images to compare has been helpful for me. Also, it can be helpful to have more than one key model. For me this has helped me realize that there can be multiple ways to arrive at an ID and that there is no one way to do it. My other two books are Mushrooms Demystified and Mushrooms (this one is only OK, but it has pictures for every mushroom and as I said previously this has been helpful to compare to pictures in other books).

Very welcome :-)

The speed with which nature will take over if left to its own devices is amazing.

For a really good read on the subject, check out The World Without Us.

Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams is a fantastic travelogue. I love it so much.

Also Michael Palin's books, Around the World in 80 Days and Hemingway Adventure are especially fine.

There are a bunch of suggestions in here already but allow me to supplement with a non-fiction book. The World Without Us bu Alan Weisman. Essentially he begins with the premise that humans are removed suddenly from the planet. He then explores (through research and discussion) what would happen to infrastructure, land, etc. He creates a narrative so its readable but it is also packed with interesting details. If anyone likes post-apocalypse settings this book provides a real-world anchor.

> 125kWh/day per person is sustainable IF the person multiplier remains constant or decreases.

The only thing keeping 125kwh/day sustainable is high EROI petrol. High EROI petrol is the only thing keeping 6+ billion people people sustainable on an ecological level.

EROI = Energy Return On Investment, aka you put in 5 barrels of oil worth of energy to pump up 10 more barrels of oil out of the ground. The Oil Drum had a good series of articles on EROI. Here is the first.

As far as the topics of population and sustainability goes the best book I know of is Overshoot.

I would also recommend the sibley guide to birds of eastern North America. It's nicely laid out and it's a convenient size for carrying with you in the field.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/067945120X

As for binoculars, my first pair are these Nikon monarch 8x42:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0033PRQB0/ref=pd_aw_sbs_2?pi=SL500_SS115

I paid less than this, in the $230-240 range, on eBay I believe. You definitely don't want to discourage yourself with substandard optics, which can be unreliable or fatiguing. I've had this model for well over a year now and they continue to be a pleasure to use.

You should get All That The Rain Promises and More by David Aurora. It's 3x as cheap and probably has loads more personality than that California Mushroom book. Just look at that cover! The book is a field guide (small enough for a back pocket) for western mushrooms with tons of mushroom pictures for ID and pics of the generally quirky/interesting people interested in mycology holding specimen, etc. I don't even live on the West Coast but it's still an enjoyable book. I have one in hand, let me know if you have any questions.

Invest in a good field guide. All That the Rain Promises and More is good to get your feet wet, and Mushrooms Demystified is the bible. Also, see if there are any mushroom clubs near you. Have fun!

http://www.amazon.com/All-That-Rain-Promises-More/dp/0898153883

It's actually a very good read and the author is clearly in love with mushrooms including the psilocybe types. ;)

I own and use the guide by Garrigues and Dean. I didn't look at any other books when I bought it, because I was a 7th grader and foolishly forgot to buy a field guide before I went on the trip. It was the only quality, english guide I could find at the time. The book is lightweight and very traveler-friendly, and although the pictures tend to be somewhat dim, they generally provide enough accuracy to make good comparisons. The range maps are also very useful and appear to be quality, and very rare birds are for the most part still included. Based on the Amazon reviews, I think most other people agree that this is the best traveler's field guide for Costa Rica available at the time.

My book All that the rain promises and more suggests this is a bolete, but I don't think I can pick one that suits it. Perhaps someone can help me figure it out?

I did not have a knife to cut it with, because I am a failure! Just kidding, I mean, I wasn't prepared to find mushrooms that evening, we were chasing waterfalls. But I hacked it in half with a stick and was delighted to see my first blue bruising mushroom! I tried not too touch it too much (I'm not sure why, I usually do), but when I did touch the top, my fingers were stained yellow.

I didn't think my non-mycology-fascinated friends would like me bringing any home, so I only managed low light photos which aren't as crisp. My phone is wonderful in the daylight but not so much at dusk.

"Neomalthusian" is just a catch all phrase for the modern study of resource limits and human ecological overshoot.

It's modern origin is in the Club of Rome's funding of Donella H. Meadows systems dynamics work, which lead to the 1972 Limits to Growth report and regular updates since. Other good resources are Will Cattton's 1980 book Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change,
Joel Cohen's 1996 How Many People Can the Earth Support, and Alan Weisman's 2013 Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth. There's no shortage of books and academic studies which have drawn on these more popular titles (LtG, OS, HMPCtES, CD), but they're a good intro.

Reading the Forested Landscape: A Natural History of New England is pretty neat if you're in New England. The book teaches you to recognize the signs of past management in order to make better current management decisions.

If you really believe that conservatives aren't biased you're really only giving evidence that conservatives aren't any less biased then anyone else. But, since you asked, here's a well-known book on the topic. I don't endorse the book or the slant it uses to discuss the issue, but it's the most famous popular work on the topic and sources a whole wealth of science to support the fact that everyone has cognitive biases.

The most important concept here isn't that conservatives are biased or that liberals are biased, it's that the difference between liberal and conservative is essentially the difference between two different sets of cognitive bias.

FYI, this book is super awesome.

https://www.amazon.com/Mountaineering-Handbook-Modern-Tools-Techniques/dp/0071430105

I have this and FOTH. I think FOTH is better and more clear and comprehensive. Honestly, if there is something to learn by reading it's in FOTH. Otherwise I would turn you to youtube, there are tons of lessons on there. Including Jeff Lowe's ice climbing technique. Just search for what you want to know and you will at the very least see it being done.

Go on some group walks (http://www.nvabc.org/trips.htm http://www.loudounwildlife.org/Programs_and_Field_Trips.htm) and meet some other birders - they'll have some thoughts on places to visit and can tell you about other local resources.

Woodend has some great classes for example.

Ditto what LigoRider says - As for guides to birds, having a good field guide is key (iBird pro is good for an app, but book can be handy too). Sibley is the generally recommended book.

For learning, I think specific guides can be helpful. For example:

• Waterfowl
  
• Sparrows
  
• Hawks
  
  

Tom Harrison map, Tenacious tape, wool hiking socks, leather man multi-tool.

You could go a diffent route that's a bit more personal you could make a personal backing meal or go with some sort of premade backpacking meal like mountain house (a bit on the heavier side) or astronaut ice cream (a bit better), perhaps a dehydrator like an Excalibur model if you want a big luxury gift.

Books; some picks for foraging, all that the rains promises and more , Stalking the wild asparagus, the foragers harvest ,

I can't believe this sub exists and I didn't know about it. I have a dancing rescue parrot of my own. Thanks, random redditor - have an upvote!

Also, the species of head-humping bird in that gif is really fascinating. Here's "Hitchhiker's Guide" author Douglas Adams' book about themm. The co-author of the book is the guy whose head the bird is humping in that gif.

Well, that's the million dollar question really. Some like Clive Finlayson argue that it was that humans stumbled upon a cultural package that led them to genetic victory or others say that modern humans could have simply been slightly more fertile than other hominins and replaced them over time without conflict.

However, the fact that modern humans seems to have displaced all other hominin species wherever they have found them remains. It's quite surprising that we only have 2-4% of other hominin species in our DNA; the fact that some ancient humans had like 20%+ Neanderthal DNA indicates that such DNA had been selected against.

And there are genetic differences we posses with Neanderthals,
a interesting preprint (currently undergoing peer review) has found that modern humans have undergone much selection on the face and the vocal tract. The trait that cause our faces to recede unlike Neanderthals seems to have consequences for the evolution for our ability to vocalize; so there also could have been substantial differences that way.

A New Tree Biology and Dictionary by Alex Shigo was used in 3 or 4 of my college classes. But it depends on what you want to learn about (e.g. Mensuration, Silviculture, log grading/scaling, etc). A New Tree Biology will at least give you a good basis for most things, and it's not too bad in terms of being a "dry" textbook. (For example, the first sentence of chapter 2 is "Trees are large, heavy plants that can kill you if they fall on you")

If you're looking for less technical information, and more stories then check out The Forest Unseen: A Year's Watch in Nature by David George Haskell and A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold (another book used numerous times while in college). If you want a bit of a mix The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate by Peter Wohlleben is fantastic. While they might not be all information, they do give you a lot to think about when considering ecosystems and provide interesting ethical perspectives.

This book will answer all those questions (and many others) in great detail. A really interesting thought experiment. I highly recommend it.

Exclusively is indeed too big of a word. Predominantly would be more accurate, as that appears to be the case in the us, especially in the last elections. And the article makes the case that in Belgium there appears is a similar trend.

And this shouldn't surprise, as it's inline with more recent psychological insights (mainly from the us). This is a good read on the topic, if you're interested
http://www.firstpersonpolitics.com/confirmation-bias-how-the-left-resists-it-and-the-right-enlists-it/#.Wucyi6SFOUl

And if you'd like to dive deeper I can recommend https://www.amazon.com/Republican-Brain-Science-Science-Reality/dp/1118094514

The Book is pretty great: http://www.amazon.com/World-Without-Us-Alan-Weisman/dp/0312427905

Kinda reads like Bill Bryson or Mary Roach

I first heard from it from Last Chance to See, which is the least popular book Douglas Adams has written but the one he's the most proud of. So if anyone likes Douglas Adams, I think they owe it to themselves to read that book.

It also features the guy being shagged by the kakapo.

I am not questioning their methodology, I am questioning their motives. Reading the citations at the end sounds like a reading list for young progressives. I am sorry, but it sounds like AGW believers that conservatives are irrational and here, we have the "hockey stick" (i.e. heart rate) to prove it.

Check out the Republican Brain book which basically says conservatives don't have the empathy gene, so they are emotionally inferior to the morally superior liberals.

It really smacks of 1984 to prove a political point more than research designed to show some innate difference.

Sorry if you wrote the study. Did you base your thinking on the book?

As a brief matter of convention, I like that definition of indoctrination and it is functionally very close to the way I intended to use the word in my previous post.

---

> Yes ... They have not given up.

All scientific inquiry is driven by a lack of knowledge of a subject that is suspected to be adjacent to either known information or theorized information. Everything beyond that adjacency is speculation and unscientific.

That process can be thought of as the scientist's puzzle drive. To translate your statement into these terms, you're saying an agnostic who claims unknowability can't possibly have a puzzle-drive. This is incorrect.

The agnostics puzzle drive is just one level abstract from the scientist's puzzle drive. The agnostic could be driven by a presumed lack of knowability of a subject that is adjacent to either verifiable evidence or epistemological theory. Everything beyond that adjacency is absurdity and gnostic.

>Well, intensity is a feature of all education ... to attend a regimen of Sunday School and so forth.

>Ideally, we humans would be presented with a proposition ... more likely he is to be persuaded.

That is a lot of discussable/disputable information, but since I agree with most of it, I suggest we save it for a different conversation. Very interesting stuff.

> (1) the relatively automatic filtration by cognitive bias ("your GF is cheating on you." "Impossible! She's much too pretty to cheat on me!") based on previously known information

> (1), and they get better at it as they gather more reference material.

This is called motivated reasoning and it models and predicts the smart idiot^Mooney effect very well. I would definitely be an audience to the argument that there is some overlap with critical thinking (in practice).

> Aside from religion, they become poor marks for conspiracy theories, magical cures, horoscopes, ghost sightings and so on

Again -- have you seen the way popular media co-opts skeptical language to these ends!? Ghost Hunters, popular conspiracy theories etc... these groups draw power from ridiculing religion just like we do. If it's a religious thing, the anecdotal precedence is not readily available to me, and I would feel more comfortable deferring to topical data.

I agree, teaching actual critical thinking skills is vital, but I'm not so sure (read: convinced) the lack of critical thinking skills offers a significant in-religious correlation when you adjust for population. Maybe the subtext here is people are fucking stupid, but I'd rather make that as a global claim than a religious claim. /rant (sorry.)

> Err no, that's most likely type (1) processing, it's more cognitive bias than "real" critical thinking.

I don't completely disagree, but I've got several different models of this to compare it to, so I'm going to challenge it. Can you demonstrate this? What are you thinking of?

Also there's something I call the chaos theory of religious world-view which basically holds the following:

• The earlier in a world-view system that spooky thinking is integrated, the more capacity for cohesion and reason that system has. (This helps me empathize with people like Bill Craig)
  
  
• The later in a world-view system that spooky thinking is challenged, the more that challenge needs to explain in order for it be seen as a useful world-view component. (This helps us understand why paradigm shifts are so difficult inside a generation.)
  
  Let me know if you're interested in hearing about that.
  
  > In science education, at least as far as through grade school, any claim can usually be supported, if questioned, by referring to and explaining the historic experiments by which it was arrived at.
  
  But, practically these is superficial regress. You explain the experiments but if the explanation is questioned you can only fall back on the concept. If the concept is rejected, the instructor can't really be expected to demonstrate further. The model still supports fabrication, it just shifts it. Can we demonstrate that it shifts it to a point where fabrication is too difficult? (Maybe... I would argue this is the importance of peer review and try to demonstrate it's relevance.) Your thoughts?
  
  The rest of that paragraph I readily agree with (even if your terms are usually far more graphic than I would use).
  
  > After being made to swallow that the Bible is God's word and therefore necessarily true (that establishes its authority once and for a long time), pretty much the first lesson is "questioning is inappropriate in a religious context."
  
  Again -- this assumes a certain type of Christianity. The kind that is employing this method of inculcating. There are two things here, a cautionary message and a disagreement.
  
  (1) If the religious group was not doing this, then you would need to move goal posts to re-establish their badness or look elsewhere. Don't do that.
  
  (2) The religious groups who aren't doing this are probably not doing this for a reason! Could there be any reasons you would agree with? As a call back to the original discussion, wouldn't that make them sort of viable candidates to being on your side?
  
  > I don't have good backup material for the claim that critical questioning is discouraged in Sunday School. If you have a problem with that claim, I'll have to retract it.
  
  No, it can stay. Just as a matter of contingency, imagine if that factor was removed -- so too would your problem with sunday school. I never get too bent out of shape over contingent conclusions because somewhere, somehow, they won't apply and then I'll need to go back to the drawing board.
  
  
  
  ---
  Mooney:
  
  > But it’s not just global warming where the “smart idiot” effect occurs. It also emerges on nonscientific but factually contested issues, like the claim that President Obama is a Muslim. Belief in this falsehood actually increased moreamong better-educated Republicans from 2009 to 2010 than it did among less-educated Republicans, according to research by George Washington University political scientist John Sides.
  
  > The same effect has also been captured in relation to the myth that the healthcare reform bill empowered government “death panels.” According toresearch by Dartmouth political scientist Brendan Nyhan, Republicans who thought they knew more about the Obama healthcare plan were “paradoxically more likely to endorse the misperception than those who did not.” Well-informed Democrats were the opposite—quite certain there were no “death panels” in the bill.
  
  Chris Mooney, The Republican Brain

There's a great book that deals with this exact topic, called The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman. It basically starts off with every human simply disappearing from Earth, and the process in which nature would reclaim the planet. It's science fiction obviously, but without an overarching story. It reads sort of like a historical text about a what-if scenario of the future. I recommend it if you're interested in this subject.

I like to practice reading the forest. Check the book out; it's fantastic. It's fun to try to "read" the woods and think about what formed the forests I'm exploring.

Last Chance to See, starring Stephen Fry and Mark Carwardine.

The series is based off the book of the same title, written by Douglas Adams, 20 years prior on his travels with Mark Carwardine.

The series is excellent on its own, and Mark talks plenty about his previous trip with Douglas, but it is even better having read the book as well.

Let me see if I can put this more eloquently than @pliers below. Go and buy Neil Gresham's "Climbing Masterclass: Improve your climbing" DVDs 1 & 2. Don't torrent them, they're not wildly expensive, and the guy deserves to get paid for the quality of instruction he puts out there. You won't regret the purchase.

I'd recommend Craig Connally's "The Mountaineering Handbook" in addition to Freedom of the Hills. Neither book is perfect - compare, contrast, ask around your climbing buddies...

Here's an article speculating about what might happen if all of humanity suddenly disappeared. It's a little old now and it focuses mainly on New York City, but it's still a pretty interesting read.

Edit: After doing a little more digging, it turns out the guy who wrote that article (Alan Weisman) also wrote a book (The World Without Us) on the same subject.

A Duet of Edits: Someone else mentioned Life After People above, but I turned up another documentary called AFTERMATH : Population Zero that's supposed to be similar in nature. It's a 90 minute video, so you may want to pass on starting it if you don't have a nice block of time.

1 looks like some old puffballs (Calvatia sp.)

2 maybe Trametes sp. like T. elegans

3 looks like Trametes versicolor

Not sure about the outdoor growing question, as far as midwestern guides I like this one

All That the Rain Promises and More: A Hip Pocket Guide to Western Mushrooms https://www.amazon.com/dp/0898153883/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_5SsWDbXQZCWSR I loved this book. It’s quirky but wonderful.

This book is pretty good.

I went to Costa Rica to bird in 2005, when the Stiles and Skutch book was the only book in town.

The Stiles and Skutch book is very detailed and informative....but it lacks maps, it's bulky, and you won't want to carry it with you in the field every day. However, taking that book with me did teach me to take very good notes (so I could ID birds I wasn't sure about back at the hostel each night).

The newer book (with the toucanet on the cover) is more manageable in the field, and it includes maps. It also has more up-to-date taxonomy.

This book is useful for your scenario: The World Without Us. After 40 years, not much city infrastructure will be left usable. Especially since nature has had a chance to play with it for 40 years. Trees get pretty big in 40 years, and there was no one to pull out the saplings. Concrete buildings will still have most of their basic structure recognizable, albeit full of cracks and spalling all over. Wood buildings...might be recognizable as a hill of vegetation. The wood (even pressure treated wood) won't last for 40 years under those conditions. I suppose you might find occasional wood buildings in protected areas that might still be recognizable as a building. Expect leaks if it rains, though.

The book is one of the funniest things I have ever read while also being informative and captivating. Douglas Adams was such a great writer.

Please check it out!

Right, let's expand and destroy the life support eco-systems we depend on in order to... survive?

A much saner strategy would be:

a) limit human encroachment on the natural world by setting aside ecologically viable areas that we are not allowed to touch/enter. 20% of the world, 50%, 90%? pick a number, maybe start low and as time goes on add to it. Beautiful things happen when mankind gets out of the way - see [The World Without Us]
(http://www.amazon.com/World-Without-Us-Alan-Weisman/dp/0312427905/) by Alan Weisman. This would decouple our civilization's fate from that of the natural world's. Aren't you glad the Romans didn't take out 90% of exisiting wild species when their society collapsed? Their preindustrial technology wasn't up to the task, but ours certainly is.

b) realize that an economic system that requires exponential growth on a finite planet is madness, and move towards a sustainable, steady-state system. Western economic theory is rooted in a period when Europeans were colonizing the world and unlocking vast, seemingly limitless, areas of undeveloped land and resources. There are no more frontiers of unexplored natural wealth to unlock to kick the can down the road a little longer, we desperately need a system that works with what we can sustainably harvest today.

My two favorites, for understanding the general ideas of ecology without memorizing the nitrogen cycle, are Reading the Forested Landscape and Tracking and the Art of Seeing. Those are the books that convinced me that I wanted to study ecology in graduate school.

FWIW, I also enjoy memorizing the nitrogen cycle.

That's too bad. There's a chapter about them in Douglas Adams' (Author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) book Last Chance to See. It's actually a really good read, if you liked his other works I would definitely recommend taking a week and reading this.

Here's the 5-degrees of geek that makes this even cooler: This is from a show called "Last Chance to See". It is based on a book called, naturally, "Last Chance to See". The author of this book? Douglas Adams. The author of the Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy.

If you get a chance to read it, do so. It is a great book.

[This book inspired a lot of the world of The Last of Us. It's a great read.] (http://www.amazon.com/The-World-Without-Alan-Weisman/dp/0312427905)

This book might interest you.

It get's a bit environmental protectionist preachy at times but it answers a lot of these questions in very rich detail.

I just heard there is a new book out about the Republican Brain. About how differently Reps and Dems think. Sounded interesting on the radio review. It may enlighten some.

edit: ok it's due out this week. link

If you like that style, I really recommend Last Chance to See which is Adams writing nonfiction in that same rambling but immensely entertaining style, in which he traveled around the world to see a bunch of near-extinct animals while they still exist.

Anything by Steven Rinella. (Meat Eater, Scavenger's Guide to haute Cuisine, American Buffalo and The Complete Guide to Hunting, Butchering, and Cooking Wild Game: Volume 1: Big Game (Volume 2 Small Game comes out soon). I've read them all.

A sand county almanac is really good too by Aldo Leopold..

If you like humor, anything by Bill Heavy.

And for Shitter material, you can't beat this collection of short stories.

This book has a great chapter on nutrition. Since reading that I take mostly GU gels and gummies, some with caffeine, which gives a nice boost before a difficult pitch. They are much lighter on the stomach than cliff bars and don't require as much water to digest. I can go about 8-10hrs on those before requiring real food.

Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth?

Haha, they're among my favorite books. If you haven't read it, you should also check out Last Chance to See, which Adams wrote with Mark Carwardine, about a project to travel around the world and see various rare animals on the edge of extinction. I've always felt it was a bit under-appreciated.

That really is the best, and if you like

mushrooms https://www.amazon.com/Mushrooms-Demystified-David-Arora/dp/0898151694
or https://www.amazon.com/All-That-Rain-Promises-More/dp/0898153883

or rocks https://www.amazon.com/Gem-Trails-Oregon-Garret-Romaine/dp/1889786446

This will be good. If you have interest in this topic and famous Brits, you should read Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams (Author of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy).

He travels the world and experiences some of the most endangered animals and writes about them and the experience in the way that ONLY he can. (it was written in the late 80s, so some species he writes about are in fact now extinct)

If you think mascaras are deathcaps, I strongly suggest not eating anymore wild mushrooms until you get a better understanding of the local varieties. here's a good guide

On this particular topic, here are some books that I have read (sorry, mere comments from them will not do them justice):

• The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery
  
• Storms of My Grandchildren by James Hansen
  
• CO2 Rising by Tyler Volk
  
• Hell and High Water by Joseph Romm
  
• With Speed and Violence by Fred Pearce
  
• Under a Green Sky by Peter D. Ward
  
  All of these authors have legitimate scientific credentials. With a little searching there is a lot more to be found. You might also check out www.climate.gov.
  
  Good luck.
  

I agree with everyone else, Sibley is one of the best out there today.

Unless of course you are properly trained in the local mycology. All The Rain Promises and More is a great start, as is joining the Puget Sound Mycological Society http://www.psms.org/index.php

The Eastern Sibley guide is exactly what you're looking for. His illustrations are very accurate and very clear, and since it only focuses on birds on the eastern half of the continent, it's much more portable than a guide for all of North America. It's sorted by taxonomic order, not by color, but as you become more familiar with birding you'll start to find that color isn't really the best way to ID anyway - location, shape, and behavior are necessary, too, and Sibley's illustrations and notes will really help to clue you in to things like that, in addition to the color patterns of the bird.

Unfortunately his non-fiction book Last Chance to See about a serious subject is waaaayyyy underrated because everybody concentrates on HHGTTG. I laughed much more while reading Last Chance to See.

As a German my favorite part was when DA described two German tourists in his group when they go to see mountain gorillas in Zaire.

Quotes from the book (but with all the context missing they are not nearly as good as actually reading the whole book, also, I've doubts those quotes are the best parts)

BBC

Amazon

A great book on the subject is called "The World Without Us" by Alan Weisman.

There were also TV series' on Nat Geo and History based on the book called "Aftermath: Population Zero" and "Life After People" respectively. Episodes of these are (probably still) available for viewing on youtube.

"All That The Rain Promises and More" is pretty much THE pocket sized mushroom foraging book. Its technically not specific to the US west coast, but in reality it's very west coast oriented.


All That The Rain Promises and More

Parallel worlds by Michio Kaku is pretty good, if you're into the history of string theory and/or the universe. I read it about 10 years ago, so I'm not sure if it's outdated nowadays.

The world without us by Alan Weisman talks about what would happen to the earth if we disappeared, it talks about engineering marvels like the hoover dam, NY subway system, and nuclear waste storage sites and what could happen to these if humans were not around the maintain them.

I'm looking for a book about space if anyone has a suggesting. Particularly books that talk about neutron stars and other cosmic wonders.

If you're into field guides, you should check out All That the Rain Promises and More... by David Arora. It is amazing. Definitely worth stealing if you're ever ransacking somebody's place and you notice it on the shelf.

Nope, none of those for my location, but there is this fantastic book which is the bible of most foragers in my neighbourhood. And this one.

I have this one

And

[This one] (http://www.amazon.com/All-That-Rain-Promises-More/dp/0898153883/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1418146439&sr=1-1&keywords=all+that+the+rain+promises)

And they are working pretty good to get me started.

I'd also suggest Last Chance to See.

It's really interesting to see Adams blend his humor into such a different subject as endangered species.

I would suggest picking up Mushrooms Demystified and All That the Rain Promises and More. Great books to get you into identification.

And remember; There are old mushroom hunters, and there are bold mushroom hunters, but there are no old bold mushroom hunters!

Just finished Rat Island and Where the Wild Things Were by William Stolzenburg. Very well written, and really great if you like being depressed--turns out humanity is destroying the planet for other living things.

https://www.amazon.com/Republican-Brain-Science-Science-Reality/dp/1118094514

The Republican Brain, the science of why they reject science and reality. An excellent neuroscience science book, worth a read. Explains why they can't understand the simplest concepts by thinking they are clever and logical.

Realistically yes.

I read an awesome book which talks about this, though it's covers the broader hypothetical of what would happen if all humans disappeared from the planet tomorrow.

The World Without Us.

Last Chance to See - one of my favorite books ever!!!

Reading this right now. Has been a popular subject with me lately, the early US space missions that is, not necessarily just the moon landing. It's old and written by a magazine team, but seems alright.

Some other non-fictions I've read over the last 2-3 years that scream out at me are Ice; the Nature, History and Uses of an Astonishing Substance. Basically everything you could ever want to know about ice. The World Without Us. What would happen to our world if people disappeared completely tomorrow? Fascinating and quick read, plan on rereading it again soon. A Long Way Gone. Story of an African boy soldier. Grim, yet fascinating topic. Guitar; An American Life. History of guitars, how they're built. I'm a player, and so this was great. And lastly, A Crack in the Edge of the World. All about the 1906 SF earthquake, which is my neck of the woods, so was good local history reading.

They have already tried to establish their own "facts" with Conservapedia.

For example, Conservapedia suggests that the Theory of Relativity is not supported by evidence, and in fact, says "Claims that relativity was used to develop the Global Positioning System (GPS) are false." ... This assertion by Conservapedia is itself just plain false.

Chris Mooney goes into much more depth with this and other examples in his book "The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science - and Reality", worth checking out.

EDIT: I just checked out a few entries in Conservapedia. The following are good for a laugh:

Global Warming

Dinosaurs

Mammoth

Counterexamples to an Old Earth

It also has my absolute favorite cover of ANY book. Middle of the woods? Check. Massive fungus? Check. Trombone? Sure. Tuxedo? Why the hell not. It is simply magnificent.

http://www.amazon.com/All-That-Rain-Promises-More/dp/0898153883

> Our homes and cities won't break down, and neither will a lot of what we have produced (should humans disappear).

They will more so than you might think, just on a longer scale than something like a bird's nest. Check out 'The World Without Us'

We and everything we do is literally a part of nature. The universe is a closed system and everything is increasing entropy :)

If you're interested in the topic, I highly recommend The World Without Us by Alan Weisman.

Ah, yes. It's a classic read. I highly recommend.

Can't help or make a recommendation, but atleast the conversation is going in the right direction. Someone will probably chime in with a book rec

Would you consider yourself midwest? This seems like it may be worth considering: Mushrooms of the Midwest https://www.amazon.com/dp/0252079760/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_8U8SCbDR5ZS4H

I don't recall if it answers your exact question, but this book does a great job of discussing what would happen to human constructions and the Earth in general if humans suddenly disappeared.

I couldn't speak to the quality of the science but it all seemed pretty plausible to me. I believe it was based on (and an expansion of) the book "The World Without Us".

amzn.com/0312427905

The question isn't whether or not they have both, which they certainly do, so much as it is the proportions they occupy in their respective bubbles of conversation.

Also I'm drawing from themes from Chris Mooney's Republican Brain, which I think is a decent starting point for a lot of summarized research on the matter.

I feel like I've seen him before too, but not in the MEME. I feel like maybe he's somewhere in this classic book!

https://www.amazon.com/All-That-Rain-Promises-More/dp/0898153883/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=what+the+rain+brings+and+more&qid=1574469879&sr=8-1

That wave is absurd... I like to imagine Laird riding much bigger waves than these and just not putting it out there. After reading The Wave I see these and wonder what he's up to, they talk a lot about 'Egypt' which is supposed to be enormous and insane. Anyway, if you want to know what his point of view on waves like this is, check that book out. It's a good quick read.

Anything by Richard Dawkins is great for a general overview. If you wanted to drill down into human evolution, I'd recommend Last Ape Standing: The Seven-Million-Year Story of How and Why We Survived. For fun if you wanted to read an author's hypothesis on a world without humans, I'd recommend The World Without Us. Spoiler alert: cats thrive, dogs die.

https://www.amazon.com/Sixth-Extinction-Unnatural-History/dp/0805092994

Great book on this topic

I think we are on the same page but you don't realize it and I am not offended. Choosing to be offended is silly, you can use less energy and just not be.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Christs_of_Ypsilanti

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_Set_a_Watchman

https://www.amazon.ca/Sibley-Field-Guide-Eastern-America/dp/067945120X

Though the third one is a work in progress.

and for you west coasters and trombone enthusiasts All That the Rain Promises and More

I can't help with documentaries but you helped me...and I read the book Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World and I have also been waiting for/interested in this documentary for some time now...Aluna not sure of when it will actually come out though...

There is actually a book (and a television series) about this...it goes into deep detail on exactly your question... Below is the amazon link. Its a good read.

book!

This is actually a pretty obvious fact to people who are into this kind of of stuff and he probably didn't feel the need to cite it. The amount of energy needed to go into meat is incredible. I am far too lazy to come up with a source but I was an environmental minor and took a few courses on climate change and greenhouse gas emissions. A lot of what I know came from this textbook "http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0521709164.jpg" among others. Also cement is a huge CO2 emitter, who would've thought.

I'm in NorCal and we get those fairly often. On fast rising storm swells out of the north west is when you'll see them most because the energy is so close together the wave energy often gets compounded. You'll be out in 2 ft surf riding a longboard then bam! a long period head high and hollow set rolls through. I'm reading this book right now, you'd probably find it really interesting, they talk about freak waves in the 3rd or 4th chapter.

>Source?

pp. 136-140 of The Mountaineering Handbook. Also, a video of the figure eight rolling over itself when cross (ring) loaded.


>Inches?

Try a few feet, and I could say more as to why, but it has to do with alpinism and the whole tying in when you are doing things not most people do.

>that's just familiarity with the knot.

Yep, and that is the whole point.

There's also an excellent book by Alan Weisman on the topic.

reddit loves animals and douglas adams:

http://www.amazon.com/Last-Chance-See-Douglas-Adams/dp/0345371984

Shout out to Elizabeth Kolbert's book The Sixth Extinction pretty good read about evolution,extinction and the anthropocene. Full of cool info but keeps it very narrative.

Wade Davies' The Wayfinders is an inspiring book based on his CBC Massey lecture about this subject. Well worth reading.

Everyone should have this book: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0898153883/ref=pd_aw_fbt_14_img_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=N9RA0GA05WH819KQ3RSD

i don't forage for mushrooms but have the book on my coffee table because the cover makes me giggle every time I see it.

Maybe something like Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine

I just finished The Sixth Extinction
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0805092994/ref=cm_sw_r_udp_awd_GaFvtb1Z57C8X
Exciting, startling, readable and current.

The book you want to read is this one

http://www.worldwithoutus.com/index2.html

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0312427905

It's very detailed and very good.

Nothing new is necessary.

Countdown by Alan Weisman, describes many nations that have lowered birth rates without coercion to increases in joy and abundance.

Usually it results from making contraception widely available, education, and concerted PR.

Make sure to read his book, "Last Chance to See".

This is a fun book to start to learn how to ud mushrooms

https://www.amazon.com/All-That-Rain-Promises-More/dp/0898153883

http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/mindex.shtml

https://climate.nasa.gov/

https://www.amazon.com/Storms-My-Grandchildren-Catastrophe-Humanity/dp/1608195023

http://michaelmann.net/

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/

http://www.nature.com/climate/

https://www.omicsonline.org/earth-science-climatic-change.php

Feel free to find the livestock numbers.

I don't exactly have time to make a detailed post right now, but I recommend grabbing a copy of The World Without Us by Alan Weisman. It covers this exact subject.


https://www.amazon.com/World-Without-Us-Alan-Weisman/dp/0312427905

Depending where you live, mushroom hunting.

http://www.amazon.com/All-That-Rain-Promises-More/dp/0898153883

Edit to add that it can be good exercise and an excuse to get out of the house.

Logic checks out. You might enjoy this book.

The World Without Us is about exactly that. Really good read.

There's a really good book, called The Wave, appropriately enough, about these: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0767928857/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_N.v2Ab74BFAR9