The Grizzly Manifesto

Provocative, passionate and populist, RMB Manifestos are short and concise non-fiction books of literary, critical, and cultural studies. The grizzly bear, once the archetype for all that is wild, is quickly becoming a symbol of nature’s fierce but flagging resilience in the face of human greed and ignorance—and the difficulty a wealth-addicted society has in changing its ways. North America’s grizzlies have been under siege ever since Europeans arrived. They’d survived the arrival of spear-wielding humans 13,000 years ago, outlived the short-faced bear, the dire wolf and the sabre-tooth cat—not to mention mastodons, mammoths and giant ground sloths the size of elephants—but grizzly bears in much of Turtle Island succumbed to 375 years of unrelenting commercialization and industrialization, disappearing from the Great Plains and much of the mountain West. Despite their relatively successful recovery in Yellowstone National Park, the bears’ decline continues largely unchecked. And the front line in this centuries-old battle for survival has shifted to western Alberta and southern BC, where outdated mythologies, rapacious industry and disingenuous governments continue to push the Great Bear into the mountains and toward a future that may not have room for them at all.

Beavers are the great comeback story--a keystone species that survived ice ages, major droughts, the fur trade, urbanization and near extinction. Their ability to create and maintain aquatic habitats has endeared them to conservationists, but puts the beavers at odds with urban and industrial expansion. These conflicts reflect a dichotomy within our national identity. We place environment and our concept of wilderness as a key touchstone for promotion and celebration, while devoting significant financial and personal resources to combating "the beaver problem." We need to rethink our approach to environmental conflict in general, and our approach to species-specific conflicts in particular. Our history often celebrates our integration of environment into our identity, but our actions often reveal an exploitation of environment and celebration of its subjugation. Why the conflict with the beaver? It is one of the few species that refuses to play by our rules and continues to modify environments to meet its own needs and the betterment of so many other species, while at the same time showing humans that complete dominion over nature is not necessarily achievable.

We live in critical times. Choices we make daily will affect the future of life itself. Years from now children will study our era on the brink and ask their elders "When the planet was burning, what did you do?" Problems as big as the world are daunting, but solutions are at hand, within each of us. The Earth Manifesto: Saving Nature with Engaged Ecology offers an approach to regain control of our environmental destiny by rediscovering our affinity for nature and then acting to preserve it. David Tracey's first RMB Manifesto is rooted in common sense and revolves around the author's "Six Laws of Engaged Ecology", which moves us from theory, in concepts such as interdependence and the wilderness found inour minds, to practice with explanations of ground-truthing and the ways in which we can all work toward creating sustainable communities through shared environmental principles.

The most common view of the relationship between social work and society seems to be the perspective that social work is an intermediary profession, acting between the individual and society. In this intermediary capacity, social work is somehow able to act in ways that are in the best interests of both the individual and society, seeking to empower the individual and to improve society. Critics of social work reject the view of social workers as neutral and objective, and see them rather as agents of social control, largely acting in ways that perpetuate existing inequalities. Social workers are, or can be, agents and catalysts of social change, as intermediaries objectively balancing the pressures of social control and social change.

An award-winning ecology writer goes looking for the wilderness we've lost, providing an eye-opening account of the true relationship between humans and nature.

"In our ever-warming world, trillions of indigenous bark beetles are killing billions of mature conifers throughout the forests of western North America and around the world, as they embark on their largest and most destructive feeding frenzy in modern times. In areas where cold temperatures traditionally prevented these insects from thriving, our once-healthy but now water-starved trees are becoming more and more vulnerable to the voracious appetites of these destructive pests. With aspects of both our environment and the economy at stake, Dr. Reese Halter's second RMB Manifesto provides information on the various types of beetles negatively impacting trees, descriptions of the ecosystems they currently inhabit, and an accessible look at the future humanity may face if we do not find ways to control greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, which are contributing factors to the ongoing spread of bark beetles." -- Publisher.

Fresh water is essential to both the ever-expanding human population and the ever-threatened natural landscapes that surround us. And yet, society seems to continually ignore the need for a common-sense approach to--and appreciation of--our freshwater resources and our consumption of this remarkable, life-giving substance that now exceeds its future availability. This ground-breaking and approachable work, by two of Canada's most authoritative experts on water issues, redefines our relationship with fresh water and outlines the steps we as a society will have to take if we wish to ensure the sustainability of our water supply for future generations.