SciDev.Net

"The authors corralled by Tom Lovejoy and Lee Hannah … discuss the grotesque climate changes of the greenhouse Earth. The book is written in the hope that policy-makers might read it. [The] early-warning signs of what's to come are well known … so Lovejoy and Hannah offer just a few chapters on climate and modelling for those who need to play catch-up. Without profound changes in our energy systems, we are in for a few generations of misery, but as with other 'interesting times' we shall muddle through, forced to cope with the conditions. It is the rest of life on Earth that concerns the authors … A conservationists' lament echoed in this book is that most nature reserves and conservation areas are now in the wrong places … The answer to the conservationist dilemma, then, is to let every refuge have an escape route. Conceive a world of scattered refuges in between patchworks of land parcels of mixed use: built-up areas, parks, houses with gardens, green strips on highways, windbreaks. Conservationists call this design the 'matrix' — a meaning in keeping with the word's derivation from the Latin for 'womb'. If we concentrate on providing a good matrix between conservation areas, we just might solve the problem."

Price: $65