Earth Repair

Details grassroots bioremediation techniques and strategies for transforming environmental despair into action, including the use of plants to extract toxins and fungi to clean contaminated water and soil.

Millions of acres of land have been contaminated by pesticides, improperly handled chemicals, dirty energy projects, toxic waste, and other pollutants in the United States alone. This toxic legacy impacts the environment, our health, our watersheds, and land that could otherwise be used to grow healthy local food and medicines. Conventional clean-up techniques employed by government and industry are tremendously expensive and resource-intensive and can cause further damage. More and more communities find themselves increasingly unable to rely on those companies and governments who created the problems to step in and provide solutions. Earth Repair describes a host of powerful grassroots bioremediation techniques, including: Microbial remediation—using microorganisms to break down and bind contaminants Phytoremediation—using plants to extract, bind, and transform toxins Mycoremediation—using fungi to clean up contaminated soil and water Packed with valuable, firsthand information from visionaries in the field, Earth Repair empowers communities and individuals to take action and heal contaminated and damaged land. Encompassing everything from remediating and regenerating abandoned city lots for urban farmers and gardeners to recovering from environmental disasters and industrial catastrophes such as oil spills and nuclear fallout, this fertile toolbox is essential reading for anyone who wishes to transform environmental despair into constructive action. Leila Darwish is a community organizer, urban gardener, and permaculture designer with a focus on using grassroots bioremediation to address environmental justice issues in communities struggling with toxic contamination of their land and drinking water.

Just as the restoration of Michelangelo’s Last Judgment sparked enormous controversy in the art world, so are environmental restorationists intensely divided when it comes to finding ways to rehabilitate damaged ecosystems. Although environmental restoration is quickly becoming a widespread pursuit, debate over the methods and goals of this endeavor often halts progress. The same question confronts artistic and environmental restorationists: Which systems need restoring, and to what states should they be restored? In Earth Repair: A Transatlantic History of Environmental Restoration, Marcus Hall explores the answer to this question while offering an alternative to the usual narrative of humans disrupting and spoiling the earth. Hall’s purpose is not to deny that humans have done lasting damage but to show that those who believed in restoration did not always agree on what they wanted to restore, or how, or to what form. With guidance from the pioneer conservationist George Perkins Marsh, the reader travels between the United States and Italy to see that restoration has taken many forms over the past two hundred years, from maintaining and repairing, to gardening and naturalizing. By contrasting land management in these two countries and elsewhere, Earth Repair clarifies different meanings of restoration, shows how such meanings have changed through time and place, and suggests how restorationists can apply these insights to their own practices.

A thorough examination of the use of earth as an eco-friendly building material, with full details on the properties of earth as a building material, appropriate construction techniques, and practical troubleshooting advice.

Everyone talks about the weather but no one ever does anything about it. Sadly, that old joke is no longer true. A large body of increasingly compelling scientific evidence is telling us that many things we do -- from the kinds of cars we drive to how we heat our homes -- are directly affecting our global climate in unprecedented and alarming ways. But what can any one person do about this vast, global problem? Help fix it! And it doesn't have to be a do-it-yourself project; we citizens and stewards of the earth can unite in greater numbers and power than ever before.In The Official Earth Day Guide to Planet Repair, Earth Day leader and renewable energy expert Denis Hayes tells us how changes in individual, local, and national energy choices can slow or even stop the dangerous build-up of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, while at the same time saving us money, helping the economy, creating new jobs, and enhancing human health. A how-to home improvement guide for the planet, the book: describes the problem of global warming today as well as its likely effects in the future considers the sources of energy available to us, and explains why one of them is the Earth's best hope offers dozens of ways to painlessly reduce your own energy use provides action steps to affect the world's energy use and help change policy tells where to go for further help and more information The first Earth Day in 1970 helped launch the modern environmental movement. Rather than waiting for elected officials to take action to address environmental abuses, environmental maverick Denis Hayes and his compatriots took the lead in bringing the subject to the forefront of American consciousness. Through three decades, the idea of Earth Day has flourished, and now more than ever, individuals need to take matters into their own hands and create change from the ground up and from the whole earth down. As citizens and consumers, we hold a vast capacity for improving our environment and leaving a bright legacy for our children. For seasoned green veterans and environmental newcomers alike, The Official Earth Day Guide to Planet Repair is the must-have book for the next century.

Buildings with load-bearing earth walls were once widespread throughout Britain and many thousands still survive, including some dating from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Earth is the ultimate form of ‘green’ building construction, creating no environmental pollutions and consuming virtually no energy. Subsoil can be dug from or near the site to construct buildings that will meet modern needs and conform to the latest building regulations. This book describes all aspects of earth building, explaining how earth performs as a building material and providing guidance on how best to repair and conserve existing earth buildings.

Sit back, relax and let your garden offset some of your carbon footprint. Finally, here is the information we all need to make a real and positive contribution towards climate change, while doing what we love most - gardening! Earth Repair Gardening guides the reader through the garden, discussing options for reducing our environmental impact at every turn. We are encouraged to make those changes that suit us best when it comes to gardening more sustainably. This is not a one size fits all, it delves into the complexity of choices available to us, guiding us to the best outcome for our own situation. By doing less work, we can grow more as our gardens become working carbon sinks. This book teaches us about knowing, respecting and caring for the earth we live and garden on. This book will make you a better gardener, it will make your garden more fabulous, and it will help you make this world a better place.

Before you spend top dollar on pool maintenance, check out the self-help guide Pool Repair and Service Manual That Can Save You Hundreds of Dollars. This do-it yourself guide shows you everything you need to know about swimming pool repairs, regular maintenance, and winterizing. Have you ever gotten frustrated with your pool when something breaks and you don't know what's wrong with it? You make a call to the pool company and then have to wait for a serviceman to diagnose and fix the problem. Next thing you know, two weeks have passed by before you can finally use your pool again. This book discusses all sorts of problems along with the solutions and detailed instructions, including images of equipment, parts, and diagrams. It will assist you in diagnosing and fixing the pool yourself. Everything you can imagine that may go wrong with your pool is in this easy-to-follow guide. The manual also aids in regular maintenance, and includes instructions on how to open your pool for the season and prepare it for the winter. A special troubleshooting section will help you figure out just what the problem may be.