Monbiot, G. (2022). Regenesis: Feeding the World Without Devouring the Planet. Allen Lane. George Monbiot ambitiously challenges what is perhaps the greatest taboo subject as it relates to ecological impact – the source of our food. Regenesis explores farming as it relates to water pollution, persistent pollutants in the soil, biodiversity loss and climate change…

Fitch, L. (2024). Travels Up the Creek: A biologist’s search for a paddle. Rocky Mountain Books. Following his Streams of Consequence: Dispatches from the Conservation World, Lorne Fitch offers something new in Travels Up the Creek: A Biologist’s Search for a Paddle. Well not all new. Lorne still shares what can only be described as…

Vaillant, J. (2006). The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness and Greed. Penguin Canada. A fascinating story of our human relationship with the natural world. The Golden Spruce was literally golden due to an inability to hold chlorophyll, a condition that should have killed the tree, but instead it grew for 300 years along the banks of theYakoun river in…

Vaillant, J. (2011). The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival. Vintage Canada. Take a journey into one of the planet’s most remote areas; Primorye in northeastern Russia, squeezed between The Peoples’ Republic of China and the Sea of Japan. Converging in this area are 4 distinct bioregions marked by Siberian taiga, Mongolian steppes, Korean and…

Vaillant, J. (2023). Fire Weather: The Making of a Beast. Knopf “Fire has no heart, no soul, and no concern for the damage it does, or who it harms. Its focus is solely on sustaining itself and spreading as broadly as possible, wherever possible. In this way, fire resembles the unspoken priorities of most commercial industries, corporate…

Vaclav Smil (2022). How the World Really Works: A Scientist’s Guide to Our Past, Present and Future. Penguin Books: New York. Vaclav Smil’s How the World Really Works: A Scientist’s Guide to Our Past, Present and Future (2022) provides a solid compilation of available data related to the energetics of our economy, particularly on the essential aspects of modern…

Karen Armstrong (2022). Sacred Nature: Restoring our ancient bond with the natural world. Alfred A. Knopf: Toronto Karen Armstrong is a renowned scholar of the history of religions. She has an uncanny ability to describe and compare sacred / religious experiences from the earliest oral traditions and written sources. In this recent effort, Sacred Nature: Restoring our ancient…

Maude Barlow (2022). Still Hopeful: Lessons from a life of activism. ECW Press: Toronto. Recently, SAGE had the honour of co-hosting Maude Barlow’s participation at the Lethbridge Library’s Word On the Street festival. She shared readings and insights from her new book, Still Hopeful: Lessons from a life of activism. This is an enriching book for those who…

James Hoggan (2016). I’m Right and You’re an Idiot: The toxic state of public disocurse and how to clean it up. New Society Publishers: Canada My name is Braum and I am an engineer. Though one doesn’t want to give credence to stereotypes, I do like math. I like scientific measurement. I like probability and statistical…

All We Can Save: Truth, courage, and solutions for the climate crisis, 2020. (Johnson, A.E. & Wilkinson, K.K., eds.). One World: New York. All We Can Save is a diverse collection of contributions about the climate crisis, written by women for everyone. All of these contributors embody a sense of courage to meaningfully address the challenges…