Chemicals Environment

An enchanting biography of the most resonant - and most necessary - chemical element on Earth. Carbon. It's in the fibers in your hair, the timbers in your walls, the food that you eat, and the air that you breathe. It's worth billions as a luxury and half a trillion as a necessity, but there are still mysteries yet to be solved about the element that can be both diamond and coal. Where does it come from, what does it do, and why, above all, does life need it?

The burning of fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide (CO2), and these CO2 emissions are a major driver of climate change. Carbon capture offers a path to climate change mitigation that has received relatively little attention. In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Howard Herzog offers a concise guide to carbon capture, covering basic information as well as the larger context of climate technology and policy.  

New York Times best-selling author Seth Siegel tells how contaminants got in our drinking water, what they’re doing to us, and what we must do to make our water safe.

Lurking in our homes, hiding in our offices, and polluting the air we breathe is something sinister. Something we’ve turned a blind eye to for far too long. Dr. Leonardo Trasande, a pediatrician, professor, and world-renowned researcher, tells the story of how our everyday surroundings are making us sicker, fatter, and poorer. Through a blend of narrative, scientific detective work, and concrete information about the connections between chemicals and disease, he reveals what we can do to protect ourselves and our families in the short-term, and how we can help bring the change we deserve.

From the bedroom mattress and pillows to daily cleaning products for the kitchen and bath, toothbrushes, and even furniture and clothing, toxins are embedded in many products and items used regularly in the home—and they are making us sick. Home Detox is a practical, accessible guide to understanding the problem and how we can address it in our own homes in a manageable and affordable way. Daniella Chace, a professional toxicologist and health writer, teaches listeners how to identify potential toxins, with an easy-to-follow, room-by-room evaluation.

Maverick environmental writers William J. Kelly and Chip Jacobs follow up their acclaimed Smogtown with a provocative examination of China’s ecological calamity already imperiling a warming planet. Toxic smog most people figured was obsolete needlessly kills as many there as the 9/11 attacks every day, while sometimes Grand Canyon-sized drifts of industrial particles aloft on the winds rain down ozone and waterway-poisoning mercury in America. Vivid, gonzo prose blends first-person reportage with exhaustive research and a sense of karma, describing the horror of "Cancer Villages", spellbinding "peasant revolts" against cancer-spreading plants, and much more....

Carbon is the only element that animates the entirety of the living world. Though comprising a tiny fraction of Earth’s composition, our planet is lifeless without it. Yet it is maligned as the driver of climate change, scorned as an errant element blamed for the possible demise of civilization. Here, Paul Hawken looks at the flow of life through the lens of carbon. Embracing a panoramic view of carbon’s omnipresence, he explores how this ubiquitous and essential element extends into every aperture of existence and shapes the entire fabric of life.

You are made of stardust. It is incredible, but true! Everything you can see, touch, and smell is made of stardust, too - mind-bogglingly tiny things called "atoms" that stick together in millions of different ways like a big Lego set. Science is all about understanding what these atoms do when they stick together. How can they move? What can they make? How did bits of stardust end up making a person?

Did you know that "nontoxic" usually means "never tested"? Or that many green cleaners are good for the environment but terrible for you? Chemist and activist Monona Rossol goes from under your sink to the halls of the powerful, tracing Americas love affair with chemicals that kill, explaining how much worse the problem has gotten in the last decade. Shocking and appalling and completely reckless - thats how she describes the current prevalence of harmful chemicals in our everyday lives. Read Pick Your Poison to learn the facts and find out what you can do about the daily onslaught of toxins that are making lab rats of us all.

A few years ago, journalism professor McKay Jenkins went in for a routine medical exam. What doctors found was not routine at all: A tumor, the size of a navel orange, was lurking in his abdomen. When Jenkins returned to the hospital to have the tumor removed, he was visited by a couple of researchers with clipboards. They had some questions for him. Odd questions, like how much exposure had he had to toxic chemicals and other contaminants? Asbestos dust? Vinyl chlorine? Pesticides?