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The Optimistic Environmentalist
- Progressing Towards a Greener Future
- Narrated by: Graham Winton
- Length: 6 hrs and 54 mins
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The Optimistic Environmentalist
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Our planet is suffering from serious environmental problems: coastal flooding due to severe storms caused in part by atmospheric pollution, diminishing natural resources such as clean water, and so on. But while these problems plague planet Earth, two-thirds of our globe is ocean. The seas can be home to pioneers, seasteaders, who are willing to homestead the Blue Frontier. Oil platforms and cruise ships already inhabit the waters; now it's time to take the next step to full-fledged ocean civilizations.
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Publisher's summary
A hopeful, inspiring, and honest take on the environment.
Yes, the world faces substantial environmental challenges - climate change, pollution, and extinction. But the surprisingly good news is that we have solutions to these problems. In the past 50 years, a remarkable number of environmental problems have been solved while substantial progress is ongoing on others.
The Optimistic Environmentalist chronicles these remarkable success stories. Endangered species - from bald eagles to gray whales - pulled back from the precipice of extinction. Thousands of new parks, protecting billions of hectares of land and water. The salvation of the ozone layer, vital to life on Earth. The exponential growth of renewable energy powered by wind, water, and sun. The race to be the greenest city in the world. Remarkable strides in cleaning up the air we breathe and the water we drink. The banning of dozens of the world's most toxic chemicals. A circular economy where waste is a thing of the past. Past successes pave the way for even greater achievements in the future.
Providing a powerful antidote to environmental despair, this audiobook inspires optimism, leading listeners to take action and exemplifying how change can happen.
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-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 62
Cities are birthplaces of civilization; centers of culture, trade, and progress; cauldrons of opportunity - and the home of 80 percent of the world's population by 2050. As the 21st century progresses, metropolitan areas will bear the brunt of global megatrends such as climate change, natural resource depletion, population growth, income inequality, mass migrations, and education and health disparities, among many others.
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3 out of 5 stars
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The best way to save the future is to look at the past
- By Kate on 10-01-22
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The Upcycle
- Beyond Sustainability - Designing for Abundance
- By: William McDonough, Michael Braungart
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 7 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 141
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 120
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 124
The Upcycle is the eagerly awaited follow-up to Cradle to Cradle, the most consequential ecological manifesto of our time. Now, drawing on the lessons gained from 10 years of putting the cradle-to-cradle concept into practice with businesses, governments, and ordinary people, William McDonough and Michael Braungart envision the next step in the solution to our ecological crisis: We don't just reuse resources with greater effectiveness, we actually improve them as we use them.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A "must read" for the environmental movement.
- By Love owls on 07-09-13
By: William McDonough, and others
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The Vertical Farm
- Feeding the World in the 21st Century
- By: Dickson Despommier
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 113
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 68
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Story4 out of 5 stars 69
When Columbia professor Dickson Despommier set out to solve America's food, water, and energy crises, he didn't just think big - he thought up. The vertical farm has excited scientists, architects, and politicians around the globe. These farms, grown inside skyscrapers, would provide solutions to many of the serious problems we currently face.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Excellent Brainstorming - Not reality
- By Texas Community Project on 01-25-11
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How to Avoid a Climate Disaster
- The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need
- By: Bill Gates
- Narrated by: Wil Wheaton, Bill Gates
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 4,569
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,851
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 3,818
Bill Gates shares what he's learned in more than a decade of studying climate change and investing in innovations to address the problems, and sets out a vision for how the world can build the tools it needs to get to zero greenhouse gas emissions. Bill Gates explains why he cares so deeply about climate change and what makes him optimistic that the world can avoid the most dire effects of the climate crisis. Gates says, "We can work on a local, national, and global level to build the technologies, businesses, and industries to avoid the worst impacts of climate change."
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4 out of 5 stars
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Be curious, not furious
- By Axel Merk on 02-20-21
By: Bill Gates
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Coal
- A Human History
- By: Barbara Freese
- Narrated by: Shelly Frasier
- Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 374
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 181
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Story4 out of 5 stars 187
The fascinating, often surprising story of how a simple black rock altered the course of history. Yet the mundane mineral that built our global economy, and even today powers our electrical plants, has also caused death, disease, and environmental destruction. In this remarkable book, Barbara Freese takes us on a rich historical journey that begins three hundred million years ago and spans the globe.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Uses Coal to push her Political Agenda
- By Kismet on 08-22-06
By: Barbara Freese
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Green Metropolis
- What the City Can Teach the Country About True Sustainability
- By: David Owen
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 71
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 49
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Story4 out of 5 stars 49
In this remarkable challenge to conventional thinking about the environment, David Owen argues that the greenest community in the United States is not Portland, Oregon, or Snowmass, Colorado, but New York City.
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2 out of 5 stars
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A stupid and dangerously short sighted view
- By Gare&Sophia on 11-13-12
By: David Owen
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Let There Be Water
- Israel's Solution for a Water-Starved World
- By: Seth M. Siegel
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 170
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 153
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 152
Let There Be Water illustrates how Israel can serve as a model for the United States and countries everywhere by showing how to blunt the worst of the coming water calamities. Even with 60 percent of its country made of desert, Israel has not only solved its water problem; it also has an abundance of water. Israel even supplies water to its neighbors - the Palestinians and the Kingdom of Jordan - every day.
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3 out of 5 stars
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More water politics story than water technology
- By normal person on 04-12-21
By: Seth M. Siegel
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The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels
- By: Alex Epstein
- Narrated by: Alex Epstein
- Length: 6 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 1,681
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,489
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Story5 out of 5 stars 1,488
For decades environmentalists have told us that using fossil fuels is a self-destructive addiction that will destroy our planet. Yet by every measure of human well-being, from life expectancy to clean water to climate safety, life has been getting better and better. How can this be? The explanation is that we usually hear only one side of the story. We're taught to think only of the negatives of fossil fuels, their risks and side effects, but not their positives.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A different point of view
- By Ballofyarn on 01-12-17
By: Alex Epstein
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The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight: Revised and Updated
- The Fate of the World and What We Can Do Before It's Too Late
- By: Thom Hartmann, Neale Donald Walsch - associate editor
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 18 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 91
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 77
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 78
While everything appears to be collapsing around us - ecodamage, genetic engineering, virulent diseases, water shortages, global famine, wars - we can still do something about it and create a world that will work for us and for our children's children. The inspiration for Leonardo DiCaprio's feature documentary movie The 11th Hour, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight details what is happening to our planet, the reasons for our culture's blind behavior, and how we can fix the problem.
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5 out of 5 stars
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One of the Most Important Books of our Time
- By Jana on 04-24-20
By: Thom Hartmann, and others
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Drinking Water
- A History
- By: James Salzman
- Narrated by: Lee Hahn
- Length: 7 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 491
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 433
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Story4 out of 5 stars 435
When you turn on the tap or twist the cap, you might not give a second thought to where your drinking water comes from. But how it gets from the ground to your glass is far more complex than you might think. Is it safe to drink tap water? Should you feel guilty buying bottled water? Is your water vulnerable to terrorist attacks? With springs running dry and reservoirs emptying, where is your water going to come from in the future? In Drinking Water, Duke professor James Salzman shows how drinking water highlights the most pressing issues of our time.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Hard not to be affected by this book
- By Neuron on 11-16-13
By: James Salzman
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Abundance
- The Future Is Better Than You Think
- By: Steven Kotler, Peter H. Diamandis
- Narrated by: Keith Sellon-Wright
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 178
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 141
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 140
Space entrepreneur turned innovation pioneer Peter H. Diamandis and award-winning science writer Steven Kotler document how progress in artificial intelligence, robotics, digital manufacturing synthetic biology, and other exponentially growing technologies will enable us to make greater gains in the next two decades than we have in the previous 200 years.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Perhaps multiply his time estimates by 10
- By Rick on 11-06-21
By: Steven Kotler, and others
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The Third Industrial Revolution
- How Lateral Power Is Transforming Energy, the Economy, and the World
- By: Jeremy Rifkin
- Narrated by: Kevin Foley
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 147
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 124
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 125
Author Jeremy Rifkin presents an insider's account of the next great economic era: the Third Industrial Revolution, when a new ethic of sustainability will revolutionize the world we live in.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Lamenting "The Third Industrial Revolution"
- By Joshua Kim on 05-01-12
By: Jeremy Rifkin
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Climate Change
- What Everyone Needs to Know
- By: Joseph Romm
- Narrated by: Paul Heitsch
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 53
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 45
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 46
From Joseph Romm, Chief Science Advisor for National Geographic's Years of Living Dangerously series and one of Rolling Stone's "100 people who are changing America," Climate Change offers user-friendly, scientifically rigorous answers to the most difficult (and commonly politicized) questions surrounding what climatologist Lonnie Thompson has deemed "a clear and present danger to civilization."
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1 out of 5 stars
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Religious not scientific claims and preachings
- By Jeanne Renzo on 09-19-19
By: Joseph Romm
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It's Better Than It Looks
- By: Gregg Easterbrook
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 14 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 61
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 53
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 52
Most people who pay attention to the news would tell you that 2017 is one of the worst years in recent memory. We're facing a series of deeply troubling, even existential problems: fascism, terrorism, environmental collapse, racial and economic inequality, and more. Yet this narrative misses something important: by almost every meaningful measure, the modern world is better than it ever has been. In the United States, disease, crime, discrimination, and most forms of pollution are in long-term decline, while longevity and education keep rising.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Too political
- By Anonymous User on 07-12-18
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The Quest
- Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World
- By: Daniel Yergin
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 29 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 898
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 750
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 750
A master storyteller as well as a leading energy expert, Daniel Yergin continues the riveting story begun in his Pulitzer Prize–winning book, The Prize. In The Quest, Yergin shows us how energy is an engine of global political and economic change and conflict, in a story that spans the energies on which our civilization has been built and the new energies that are competing to replace them. The Quest tells the inside stories, tackles the tough questions, and reveals surprising insights about coal, electricity, and natural gas.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Best nonfiction book of 2011
- By Joshua Kim on 05-06-12
By: Daniel Yergin
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Fossil Future
- Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas—Not Less
- By: Alex Epstein
- Narrated by: Alex Epstein
- Length: 16 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 876
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 786
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Story5 out of 5 stars 781
For over a decade, philosopher and energy expert Alex Epstein has predicted that any negative impacts of fossil fuel use on our climate will be outweighed by the unique benefits of fossil fuels to human flourishing—including their unrivaled ability to provide low-cost, reliable energy to billions of people around the world, especially the world’s poorest people. And contrary to what we hear from media “experts” about today’s “renewable revolution” and “climate emergency”, reality has proven Epstein right.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Strongly Recommend
- By Kevin on 06-14-22
By: Alex Epstein
What listeners say about The Optimistic Environmentalist
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Jihad H. Al-Sadah
- 04-02-18
Wide and good coverage
Nice book but lacks depth in some of the topics covered. Numbers presented are not always properly scaled.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Giuseppe
- 01-23-17
Uplifting
A good friend of mine recommended this book and she was right, it a great read!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- P. Wellings
- 12-31-17
Great book
Amazing book if it was 5 credits it would still be worth it. Love the reader to (-;.
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