The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (Common Text 2019-2020)

Is alternative energy for you? Learn how to capture energy from the sun, wind and water to create electricity for home. Focuses on off-grid homes but includes a chapter on utility grid-tie options. Also discussed: solar hot water, home heating and water pumping options. Written in plain English by someone who has lived with solar and wind energy since 1999.

Energy, biology, and climate change interact, often in unpredictable ways; they are the three main characters in a scenario that appears to be permanently transforming Earth's biosphere. By now everyone gets the big picture, though the quotation following quotation by Jonathan Franzen, a novelist writing in The New Yorker on April 6, 2015, says it more clearly than most scientists would: "We're taking carbon that used to be sequestered and putting it into the atmosphere, and unless we stop we're fucked." The carbon, in the form of carbon dioxide, is a result of our intense use of fossil fuels as humanity's main source of energy for the past century or two. It took several hundred million years of photosynthesis to sequester that carbon, but it will take us only several hundred years to release it, so it should come as no surprise that there are consequences. Is there any reasonable way stop, and still have enough energy? How much damage to society and the ecosystem has the additional carbon caused already, and how much will it cause in the future? These questions are addressed by thousands of scientists, engineers, and economists in thousands of technical papers published each year. This book summarizes over 200 of the best of them published within the past year. It will give you a good sense of many of the issues, how much scientists currently know about them, and what they think is likely to happen next. One way to think of this is as the most complicated serialized mystery story ever written. We have a pretty good idea whodunit...we just don't know for sure yet what we have done. Reading this book will get you closer to figuring it out.

What is the impact of such energy issues as global warming, radioactive waste, and municipal solid waste on the individual and society? ENERGY: ITS USE AND THE ENVIRONMENT answers these questions, emphasizing the physical principles behind energy and its effects on our environment, and explaining the basic physical principles behind the use of energy, including the study of mechanics, electricity and magnetism, thermodynamics, and atomic and nuclear physics. By placing energy issues within the context of everyday examples and asking you to define and support critical arguments, ENERGY: ITS USE AND THE ENVIRONMENT offers a provocative approach to this crucial issue.

GLOBAL STUDIES is a unique series designed to provide comprehensive background information and selected world press articles on the regions and countries of the world. Each GLOBAL STUDIES volume includes an annotated listing of World Wide Web sites. GLOBAL STUDIES titles are supported with study tools and links to related websites at our student website www.mhcls.com/online/.

New York Times bestseller An inspiring personal story of redemption, second chances, and the transformative power within us all, from the founder and CEO of the nonprofit charity: water.   At 28 years old, Scott Harrison had it all. A top nightclub promoter in New York City, his life was an endless cycle of drugs, booze, models--repeat. But 10 years in, desperately unhappy and morally bankrupt, he asked himself, "What would the exact opposite of my life look like?" Walking away from everything, Harrison spent the next 16 months on a hospital ship in West Africa and discovered his true calling. In 2006, with no money and less than no experience, Harrison founded charity: water. Today, his organization has raised over $300 million to bring clean drinking water to more than 8.2 million people around the globe. In Thirst, Harrison recounts the twists and turns that built charity: water into one of the most trusted and admired nonprofits in the world. Renowned for its 100% donation model, bold storytelling, imaginative branding, and radical commitment to transparency, charity: water has disrupted how social entrepreneurs work while inspiring millions of people to join its mission of bringing clean water to everyone on the planet within our lifetime. In the tradition of such bestselling books as Shoe Dog and Mountains Beyond Mountains, Thirst is a riveting account of how to build a better charity, a better business, a better life--and a gritty tale that proves it's never too late to make a change. 100% of the author's net proceeds from Thirst will go to fund charity: water projects around the world.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * In Sapiens, he explored our past. In Homo Deus, he looked to our future. Now, one of the most innovative thinkers on the planet turns to the present to make sense of today's most pressing issues. "Fascinating . . . a crucial global conversation about how to take on the problems of the twenty-first century."--Bill Gates, The New York Times Book Review NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY FINANCIAL TIMES AND PAMELA PAUL, KQED  How do computers and robots change the meaning of being human? How do we deal with the epidemic of fake news? Are nations and religions still relevant? What should we teach our children? Yuval Noah Harari's 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is a probing and visionary investigation into today's most urgent issues as we move into the uncharted territory of the future. As technology advances faster than our understanding of it, hacking becomes a tactic of war, and the world feels more polarized than ever, Harari addresses the challenge of navigating life in the face of constant and disorienting change and raises the important questions we need to ask ourselves in order to survive. In twenty-one accessible chapters that are both provocative and profound, Harari builds on the ideas explored in his previous books, untangling political, technological, social, and existential issues and offering advice on how to prepare for a very different future from the world we now live in: How can we retain freedom of choice when Big Data is watching us? What will the future workforce look like, and how should we ready ourselves for it? How should we deal with the threat of terrorism? Why is liberal democracy in crisis? Harari's unique ability to make sense of where we have come from and where we are going has captured the imaginations of millions of readers. Here he invites us to consider values, meaning, and personal engagement in a world full of noise and uncertainty. When we are deluged with irrelevant information, clarity is power. Presenting complex contemporary challenges clearly and accessibly, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is essential reading. "If there were such a thing as a required instruction manual for politicians and thought leaders, Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari's 21 Lessons for the 21st Century would deserve serious consideration. In this collection of provocative essays, Harari . . . tackles a daunting array of issues, endeavoring to answer a persistent question: 'What is happening in the world today, and what is the deep meaning of these events?'"--BookPage (top pick)

An Oprah Book Club selection, Cry, the Beloved Country, the most famous and important novel in South Africa's history, was an immediate worldwide bestseller in 1948. Alan Paton's impassioned novel about a black man's country under white man's law is a work of searing beauty. Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or valley. For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much. The eminent literary critic Lewis Gannett wrote, "We have had many novels from statesmen and reformers, almost all bad; many novels from poets, almost all thin. In Alan Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country the statesman, the poet and the novelist meet in a unique harmony." Cry, the Beloved Country is the deeply moving story of the Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo and his son, Absalom, set against the background of a land and a people riven by racial injustice. Remarkable for its lyricism, unforgettable for character and incident, Cry, the Beloved Country is a classic work of love and hope, courage and endurance, born of the dignity of man.

Supporting key learning concepts and critical thinking, this book explores top topics related to the future of wind energy. It examines the impact wind farms have on the environment, the effects of carbon emissions, and government funding and investments in regard to wind energy.

Over the last fifteen years the world's largest developing countries have initiated market reform in their electric power sectors from generation to distribution. This book evaluates the experiences of five of those countries - Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa - as they have shifted from state-dominated systems to schemes allowing for a larger private sector role. As well as having the largest power systems in their regions and among the most rapidly rising consumption of electricity in the world, these countries are the locus of massive financial investment and the effects of their power systems are increasingly felt in world fuel markets. This accessible volume explains the origins of these reform efforts and offers a theory as to why - despite diverse backgrounds - reform efforts in all five countries have stalled in similar ways. The authors also offer practical advice to improve reform policies.

Despite the vast wealth generated in the last half century, in today's world inequality is worsening and poverty is becoming increasingly chronic. Hundreds of millions of people continue to live on less than $2 per day and lack basic human necessities such as nutritious food, shelter, clean water, primary health care, and education. Innovating for the Global South offers fresh solutions for reducing poverty in the developing world. Highlighting the multidisciplinary expertise of the University of Toronto's Global Innovation Group, leading experts from the fields of engineering, medicine, management, and global public policy examine the causes and consequences of endemic poverty and the challenges of mitigating its effects from the perspective of the world's poorest of the poor. Can we imagine ways to generate solar energy to run essential medical equipment in the countryside? Can we adapt information and communication technologies to provide up-to-the-minute agricultural market prices for remote farming villages? How do we create more inclusive innovation processes to hear the voices of those living in urban slums? Is it possible to reinvent a low-cost toilet that operates beyond the water and electricity grids? Motivated by the imperatives of developing, delivering, and harnessing innovation in the developing world, Innovating for the Global South is essential reading for managers, practitioners, and scholars of development, business, and policy.

More than a billion people live in extreme poverty, and many face the possibility of never escaping from it. Millions more may be at risk of falling into poverty. These risks are exacerbated by natural hazards, ill-health, and macroeconomic volatility. This massive, widespread vulnerability to poverty has become one of the defining challenges of our times. To effectively combat it, we need to better understand vulnerability, particularly in developing countries where people do not have the same bulwarks against risks as those in more developed nations. Through essays from leading scholars, this volume focuses on critical dimensions of vulnerability in developing countries, such as its relationship with poverty, and vulnerability arising from poor health and external shocks. Reflecting the multidimensionality of vulnerability, it showcases a variety of methodologies that offer new perspectives on the notion of vulnerability in economic development. Case studies range from some of the largest countries in the world, such as China and India, to countries in transition, small island states, and failing states. This book is a timely reminder of what remains to be done to reduce the risk of poverty.

A co-publication with UNISA PressNutrition textbooks used by universities and colleges in developing countries have very often been written by scholars who live and work in North America or the United Kingdom. And while the research and information they present is sound, the nutrition-related health challenges with which developing countries must grapple differ considerably from those found in highly industrialized Western nations. The primary aim of Community Nutrition for Developing Countries is to provide a book that meets the needs of nutritionists and other health professionals living and working in developing countries. Written by both scholars and practitioners, the volume draws on their wealth of knowledge, experience, and understanding of nutrition in developing countries to provide nutrition professionals with all the information they require. Each chapter addresses a specific nutrition challenge currently faced by developing countries such as food security, food safety, disease prevention, maternal health, and effective nutrition policy. In addition, the volume serves as an invaluable resource for those developing and implementing nutrition education programmes. With an emphasis on nutritional education as a means to prevent disease and effectively manage health disorders, it is the hope of the nearly three dozen contributors to this work that it will enhance the health and well-being of low-income populations throughout the world.