Nature

How scientific advances in genetic modification will fundamentally change the natural world

The process of manipulating the genetic material of one animal to include the DNA of another creates a new transgenic organism. Several animals, notably goats, mice, sheep, and cattle are now genetically modified in this way. In Our Transgenic Future, Lisa Jean Moore wonders what such scientific advances portend. Will the natural world become so modified that it ceases to exist? After turning species into hybrids, can we ever get back to the original, or are they forever lost? Does genetic manipulation make better lives possible, and if so, for whom?

Moore centers the story on goats that have been engineered by the US military and civilian scientists using the DNA of spiders. The goat’s milk contains a spider-silk protein fiber; it can be spun into ultra-strong fabric that can be used to manufacture lightweight military body armor. Researchers also hope the transgenically produced spider silk will revolutionize medicine with biocompatible medical inserts such as prosthetics and bandages. Based on in-depth research with spiders in Florida and transgenic goats in Utah, Our Transgenic Future focuses on how these spidergoats came into existence, the researchers who maintain them, the funders who have made their lives possible, and how they fit into the larger science of transgenics and synthetics. This book is a fascinating story about the possibilities of science and the likely futures that may come.

Honorable Mention, Outstanding Publication Award, given by the Environmental Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association

A riveting portrait of the cultural struggles and political conflicts of proposed copper-nickel mines in Minnesota’s Iron Range

On an unseasonably warm October afternoon in Saint Paul, hundreds of people gathered to protest the construction of a proposed copper-nickel mine in the rural northern part of their state. The crowd eagerly listened to speeches on how the project would bring long-term risks and potentially pollute the drinking water for current and future generations. A year later, another proposed mining project became the subject of a public hearing in a small town near the proposed site. But this time, local politicians and union leaders praised the mine proposal as an asset that would strengthen working-class communities in Minnesota.

In many rural American communities, there is profound tension around the preservation and protection of wilderness and the need to promote and profit from natural resources. In Mining the Heartland, Erik Kojola looks at both sides of these populist movements and presents a thoughtful account of how such political struggles play out. Drawing on over a hundred ethnographic interviews with people of the region, from members of labor unions to local residents to scientists, Kojola is able to bring this complex struggle over mining to life. Focusing on both pro- and anti-mining groups, he expands upon what this conflict reveals about the way whiteness and masculinity operate among urban and rural residents, and the different ways in which class, race, and gender shape how people relate to the land. Mining the Heartland shows the negotiation and conflict between two central aspects of the state's culture and economy: outdoor recreation in the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes and the lucrative mining of the Iron Range.

Winner of the 2023 Nautilus Book Award in the category of Animals & Nature

The surprising, fascinating, and remarkable ways that animals use creativity to thrive in their habitats

Most of us view animals through a very narrow lens, seeing only bits and pieces of beings that seem mostly peripheral to our lives. However, whether animals are building a shelter, seducing a mate, or inventing a new game, animals’ creative choices affect their social, cultural, and environmental worlds.

The Creative Lives of Animals offers readers intimate glimpses of creativity in the lives of animals, from elephants to alligators to ants. Drawing on a growing body of scientific research, Carol Gigliotti unpacks examples of creativity demonstrated by animals through the lens of the creative process, an important component of creative behavior, and offers new thinking on animal intelligence, emotion, and self-awareness. With examples of the elaborate dams built by beavers or the lavishly decorated bowers of bowerbirds, Gigliotti provides a new perspective on animals as agents in their own lives, as valuable contributors to their world and ours, and as guides in understanding how creativity may contribute to conserving the natural world. Presenting a powerful argument for the importance of recognizing animals as individuals and as creators of a healthy, biodiverse world, this book offers insights into both the established and emerging questions about the creativity of animals.

2024 Outstanding Academic Title, given by Choice Reviews

The environmental history of “the most polluted lake in America.”
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Native Americans have long regarded Onondaga Lake as one of the most sacred spaces in the continent, the place where peace between nations was achieved and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy was created. In the mid-twentieth century, however, it acquired a wholly different reputation as “the most polluted lake in America.” Toxic Lake is an environmental history of this complex ecological system, tracking how it was tarnished, the costly efforts to clean it up, and the controversies those efforts generated.

Thomas Shevory argues that the history of Onondaga Lake mirrors the larger environmental history of the US, from colonization to the industrial era, resulting, eventually, in the rise of social movements and legislative action for environmental protection. Layered within this history is the dismissal of indigenous land claims and the marginalization of indigenous voices in clean-up efforts. Toxic Lake illustrates that the failure to prevent the environmental destruction of Onondaga Lake was part of a political climate which favored unregulated industrial production and urban growth, ignoring the destructive impacts on local environments. Shevory argues this larger failure was the result of an active process of privileging the economic interests of polluters over other business interests, expanding neighborhoods, and indigenous rights. He concludes with an investigation of New York’s recent declaration that the clean-up is complete, questioning what exactly that means and whether the lake’s status as a sacred space will ever be re-established. Toxic Lake is a compelling work of history, demonstrating the disastrous effects of pollution and the importance of community involvement in environmental activism.

Social changes through urban gardening and farming

Gardens are often spaces of hope, expected to solve many problems in a city including food insecurity and climate resilience. In fact, there has been a historical trend of urban gardening gaining popularity during times of crisis. Gardens of Hope is the story of urban gardening in New Orleans in the decade after Hurricane Katrina. Yuki Kato highlights the impact urban gardens have on communities after disasters and the efforts of well-intended individuals envisioning alternative futures in the form of urban farming.

Drawing on repeated interviews with residents who began cultivation projects in New Orleans between 2005 and 2015, Kato explains how good intentions and grit were not enough to implement or sustain urban gardeners’ visions for the post-disaster city’s future. Coining the term “prefigurative urbanism,” Kato illustrates how individuals tried to realize alternative ways of living and working in the city through pragmatism and innovation. Gardens of Hope asks key questions about what inspires and enables individuals to pursue prefigurative urbanism and about the potential and limitations of this form of civic engagement to bring about short- and long-term changes in cities undergoing transformation, from gentrification, post-pandemic recovery, to climate change.

A groundbreaking collection that explores human–animal relations and deaths with depth and hope

When Animals Die is an innovative collection of essays that delves into the intricate and uneasy dynamics between humans and other-than-human animals, particularly concerning animal deaths, which are predominantly caused by humans. This groundbreaking book brings together prominent scholars from various disciplines to address the challenging field of animal death studies, incorporating perspectives from social sciences, humanities, biological sciences, and perspectives from beyond academia.

The collection explores profound questions about the experience of animal death for both animals and humans. It examines how humans rationalize animal deaths and utilize deceased animals, and sheds light on the interconnectedness of animal death with issues like race, colonialism, gender, capitalism, and other systems of inequality that humans have established and perpetuated.

By confronting these pertinent issues, When Animals Die seeks to deepen our awareness of the relationship between animal death and humanity’s involvement in it. While grappling with the reality of humans’ impact on the earth, the collection offers hope for an alternative future that does not entail the mutual destruction of human and other-than-human animals.

Questions the treatment of laboratory animals in biomedical research

Laboratory animals are often used to develop medical treatments: vaccines, antibiotics, and organ transplants have all relied upon animal testing to ensure safety and success for human benefit. Yet the relationship between the scientific community's dependence on laboratory animals and the recognition of the need to treat these animals with respect and compassion has given rise to a profound tension.
As animals are increasingly understood to have rights and autonomy, Carrie Friese posits that, while care and compassion for a distant other who suffers are central to humanitarianism, the idea of a distant other itself, which has shaped work with laboratory animals both historically and today, has enacted forms of highly problematic paternalism, creating a double bind. Focusing on the lives of laboratory mice and rats in the United Kingdom, and on the people who take care of, and often kill, these animals, Friese gives the name of “more-than-human humanitarianism” to contradictory practices of suffering and compassion, killing and sacrifice, and compassion and consent that she witnessed in a variety of animal facilities and laboratories.

Friese proposes a new approach to the treatment of laboratory animals that recognizes the interconnectedness of all species and how human actions impact the welfare of other species and the planet as a whole. A Mouse in a Cage is an essential contribution to the ongoing conversation about the ethical treatment of animals.

Questions the treatment of laboratory animals in biomedical research

Laboratory animals are often used to develop medical treatments: vaccines, antibiotics, and organ transplants have all relied upon animal testing to ensure safety and success for human benefit. Yet the relationship between the scientific community's dependence on laboratory animals and the recognition of the need to treat these animals with respect and compassion has given rise to a profound tension.
As animals are increasingly understood to have rights and autonomy, Carrie Friese posits that, while care and compassion for a distant other who suffers are central to humanitarianism, the idea of a distant other itself, which has shaped work with laboratory animals both historically and today, has enacted forms of highly problematic paternalism, creating a double bind. Focusing on the lives of laboratory mice and rats in the United Kingdom, and on the people who take care of, and often kill, these animals, Friese gives the name of “more-than-human humanitarianism” to contradictory practices of suffering and compassion, killing and sacrifice, and compassion and consent that she witnessed in a variety of animal facilities and laboratories.

Friese proposes a new approach to the treatment of laboratory animals that recognizes the interconnectedness of all species and how human actions impact the welfare of other species and the planet as a whole. A Mouse in a Cage is an essential contribution to the ongoing conversation about the ethical treatment of animals.