Fires
Firestorm : how wildfire will shape our future by Call Number: Main Collection SD421.34.N67 S77 2017 (Also available as eBook; log in through MyVCCCD)ISBN: 9781610919265Publication Date: 2017
Introduction to Fire in California by
An up-to-date, essential guide to California's long relationship with fire, for the climate-change generation. What is fire? How are wildfires ignited? How do California's weather and topography influence fire? How did Indigenous people use fire on the land we now call California? David Carle's clearly written, dramatically illustrated first edition of Introduction to Fire in California helped Californians, including the millions who live near naturally flammable wildlands, better understand their own place in the state's landscape. In this revised edition, Carle covers the basics of fire ecology; looks at the effects of fire on people, wildlife, soil, water, and air; discusses fire-fighting organizations and land-management agencies; and explains how to prepare for an emergency and what to do when one occurs. This second edition brings the wildfire story up to the year 2020, with information about recent extreme and deadly fire events and the evidence that climate change is swiftly changing the wildfire story in California. This update reflects current debates about California's future as a climate-crisis leader facing massive, annual natural disasters; the future of California development and housing; and the critically necessary alternatives to traditional energy options. Features: A larger, more reader-friendly page format More than 110 color illustrations and maps An overview of major wildfires in California's history An updated and expanded discussion of the effect of climate change on fires in natural landscapes Tips on what to do before, during, and after fires Discussion of utility companies and massive power shutoffs
Call Number: Main Collection SD421.32.C2 C38 2021ISBN: 9780520379145Publication Date: 2021-08-20
Meteors
Meteor Showers by
Meteor showers are among the most spectacular celestial events that may be observed by the naked eye, and have been the object of fascination throughout human history. In "Meteor Showers: An Annotated Catalog," the interested observer can access detailed research on over 100 annual and periodic meteor streams in order to capitalize on these majestic spectacles. Each meteor shower entry includes details of their discovery, important observations and orbits, and gives a full picture of duration, location in the sky, and expected hourly rates. Armed with a fuller understanding, the amateur observer can better view and appreciate the shower of their choice. The original book, published in 1988, has been updated with over 25 years of research in this new and improved edition. Almost every meteor shower study is expanded, with some original minor showers being dropped while new ones are added. The book also includes breakthroughs in the study of meteor showers, such as accurate predictions of outbursts as well as comet and meteor observations from the 6th century to the 17th century that were not published in the first edition. It holds all of the information needed to inspire a new observer or provide deeper knowledge to the long-time enthusiast.
Call Number: eBook (Login to MyVCCCD to access this eBook from off-campus)ISBN: 9781461478973Publication Date: 2013-10-10
Freeways
RoadFrames: the American highway narrative by
RoadFrames illuminates many of the grandiose myths and unsentimental realities that have shaped modern American life. Lackey examines--and debunks--the theme of rediscovering America, with drivers seeking to escape industrialized America and recover a mythic innocence and independence. He also traces the influence of Thoreau, Emerson, and Whitman in such automobile travelers as Steinbeck, Tom Wolfe, and Jack Kerouac. There is an insightful discussion of road books by African American writers who reverse the romantic assumptions of many white travelers, creating highway narratives in which escape and nostalgia are not possible. The book concludes with a discussion of seven novels, extending from Sinclair Lewis's Free Air to Stephen Wright's Going Native.
Call Number: Main Collection PS366.T73 L33 1997ISBN: 9780803229242Publication Date: 1997-09-01
Roadside History of California by
The Roadside History series charts a course to the present through carefully selected and thoroughly researched stories relating what we see today with what happened before. Through vivid anecdotes, old photographs, and maps, the Roadside History guides provide entertaining insight into the states they describe.Each state is divided into geographical and historical regions, and each region is described in the context of highways that pass through it. This road log approach helps place modern travelers in the past.Author Ruth Pittman writes with graceful ease and contagious enthusiasm about the missions, the gold rush, the rich cultural diversity, and political issues as old as California.
Call Number: Reference Collection Ref F 861 .P55 1995ISBN: 9780878423170Publication Date: 1995-04-01
Water
Water to the Angels by
The author of Last Train to Paradise tells the story of the largest public water project ever created--William Mulholland's Los Angeles aqueduct--a story of Gilded Age ambition, hubris, greed, and one determined man who's vision shaped the future and continues to impact us today. In 1907, Irish immigrant William Mulholland conceived and built one of the greatest civil engineering feats in history: the aqueduct that carried water 223 miles from the Sierra Nevada mountains to Los Angeles--allowing this small, resource-challenged desert city to grow into a modern global metropolis. Drawing on new research, Les Standiford vividly captures the larger-then-life engineer and the breathtaking scope of his six-year, $23 million project that would transform a region, a state, and a nation at the dawn of its greatest century. With energy and colorful detail, Water to the Angels brings to life the personalities, politics, and power--including bribery, deception, force, and bicoastal financial warfare--behind this dramatic event. At a time when the importance of water is being recognized as never before--considered by many experts to be the essential resource of the twenty-first century--Water to the Angels brings into focus the vigor of a fabled era, the might of a larger than life individual, and the scale of a priceless construction project, and sheds critical light on a past that offers insights for our future. Water to the Angels includes 8 pages of photographs.
Call Number: Main Collection HD4464.L7 S73 2015ISBN: 9780062251428Publication Date: 2015-03-31
Earthquakes
4:31 : images of the 1994 Los Angeles earthquake by Call Number: Main Collection F869.L857 A15 1994ISBN: 9781883792039Publication Date: 1994-02-01
Earthquake Storms by
It is a prominent geological feature that is almost impossible to see unless you know where to look. Hundreds of thousands of people drive across it every day. The San Andreas Fault is everywhere, and primed for a colossal quake. For decades, scientists have warned that such a sudden shifting of the Earth's crust is inevitable. In fact, it is a geologic necessity.The San Andreas fault runs almost the entire length of California, from the redwood forest to the east edge of the Salton Sea. Along the way, it passes through two of the largest urban areas of the country - San Francisco and Los Angeles. Dozens of major highways and interstates cross it. Scores of housing developments have been planted over it. The words "San Andreas" are so familiar today that they have become synonymous with earthquake.Yet, few people understand the San Andreas or the network of subsidiary faults it has spawned. Some run through Hollywood, others through Beverly Hills and Santa Monica. The Hayward fault slices the football stadium at the University of California in half. Even among scientists, few appreciate that the San Andreas fault is a transient, evolving system that, as seen today, is younger than the Grand Canyon and key to our understanding of earthquakes worldwide.
Call Number: Main Collection QE606.5.U6 D96 2014ISBN: 9781605984957Publication Date: 2014-02-15
Earthquake Disasters in Latin America A Holistic Approach by Call Number: eBook Log in with MyVCCCD PortalISBN: 9786613574763Publication Date: 2012
Miscellaneous
Trees in Paradise by
California now has more trees than at any time since the late Pleistocene. This green landscape, however, is not the work of nature. It's the work of history. In the years after the Gold Rush, American settlers remade the California landscape, harnessing nature to their vision of the good life. Horticulturists, boosters, and civic reformers began to "improve" the bare, brown countryside, planting millions of trees to create groves, wooded suburbs, and landscaped cities. They imported the blue-green eucalypts whose tangy fragrance was thought to cure malaria. They built the lucrative "Orange Empire" on the sweet juice and thick skin of the Washington navel, an industrial fruit. They lined their streets with graceful palms to announce that they were not in the Midwest anymore. To the north the majestic coastal redwoods inspired awe and invited exploitation. A resource in the state, the durable heartwood of these timeless giants became infrastructure, transformed by the saw teeth of American enterprise. By 1900 timber firms owned the entire redwood forest; by 1950 they had clear-cut almost all of the old-growth trees. In time California's new landscape proved to be no paradise: the eucalypts in the Berkeley hills exploded in fire; the orange groves near Riverside froze on cold nights; Los Angeles's palms harbored rats and dropped heavy fronds on the streets below. Disease, infestation, and development all spelled decline for these nonnative evergreens. In the north, however, a new forest of second-growth redwood took root, nurtured by protective laws and sustainable harvesting. Today there are more California redwoods than there were a century ago. Rich in character and story, Trees in Paradise is a dazzling narrative that offers an insightful, new perspective on the history of the Golden State and the American West.
Call Number: Main Collection F861 .F37 2013ISBN: 9780393078022Publication Date: 2013-10-28
California Place Names - The Origin and Etymology of Current Geographical Names by
Absco, a Southern Pacific station, was coined in the 1920s from the name of the American Beet Sugar Company, which had a factory in Oxnard. Pochea is an Indian village site in Riverside County, said to mean "where the rabbit went in." Siskiyou was the Chinook word for 'bobtailed horse,' originally taken over from the Cree language. From Abadi Creek to Zzyzyx Spring, thousands of discoveries await the reader of California Place Names. This is the fourth edition, extensively revised and expanded, of a classic work of Californiana. The curious traveler or resident, as well as the serious student, will find a wealth of description and history in these names, as rich and various as the California landscape itself. Like its predecessors, this edition concentrates on the origins of the names currently used for the cities, towns, settlements, mountains, and streams of California, with engrossing accounts of the history of their usage. It has been updated to incorporate the latest research on California place names published by regional historians and to include new names that have been added to the California map since 1969. Readers will appreciate the local pronunciation of place names with unusual spellings; anyone curious about how to say La Jolla or Weitchpec can find the information here, in phonetic transcriptions. Finally, the many California place names of American Indian origin--such as Yreka, Shasta, Napa, Sonoma, Tamalpais, Yosemite, Lompoc, Mugu, Coachella, or Poway--receive particular attention from editor William Bright. The dictionary includes a Glossary and a Bibliography.
Call Number: Reference Collection Ref F859 .G79 1998ISBN: 0520213165Publication Date: 1998-08-20
