Judith D. Schwartz – författare

"Compelling, Fascinating, sometimes unexpectedly moving, this vitally important book is, above all, a springboard for hope and transformation."—Isabella Tree

"A lucid and compelling look at the global movement of ecological rehabilitation."— The Boston Globe

In a time of uncertainty about our environmental future—an eye-opening global tour of some of the most wounded places on earth, and stories of how a passionate group of eco-restorers is leading the way to their revitalization.

Award-winning science journalist Judith D. Schwartz takes us first to China’s Loess Plateau, where a landmark project has successfully restored a blighted region the size of Belgium, lifting millions of people out of poverty. She journeys on to Norway, where a young indigenous reindeer herder challenges the most powerful orthodoxies of conservation—and his own government. And in the Middle East, she follows the visionary work of an ambitious young American as he attempts to re-engineer the desert ecosystem, using plants as his most sophisticated technology.

Schwartz explores regenerative solutions across a range of landscapes: deserts, grasslands, tropics, tundra, Mediterranean. She also highlights various human landscapes, the legacy of colonialism and industrial agriculture, and the endurance of indigenous knowledge.

The Reindeer Chronicles demonstrates how solutions to seemingly intractable problems can come from the unlikeliest of places, and how the restoration of local water, carbon, nutrient, and energy cycles can play a dramatic role in stabilizing the global climate. Ultimately, it reveals how much is in our hands if we can find a way to work together and follow nature’s lead.

Lying-For Better or WorseEverybody lies. Friends lie to friends. Children lie to their parents. Politicians lie to constituents. And, inevitably, husbands and wives lie to each other. Lies between lovers have tremendous potential to both nurture and destroy a relationship. It is easy to underestimate the power that lies-even seemingly harmless lies-can wield in your marriage. Tell Me No Lies explores the complexity of honesty versus deception in marriage and reveals the many reasons behind the lies we tell our partners (and ourselves). Learn the four marital stages: * The Honeymoon* Emerging Differences* Freedom* Together as TwoDiscover how to recognize how lying can lead to serious trouble at each stage. The signs include: * The Dark Side of the Honeymoon, when couples refuse to acknowledge any problems* The Stalemate, when couples fight and brutalize each other with exaggerated truths* Freedom Unhinged, when independence outweighs togetherness and marital anarchy ensues.Offering a new way of thinking about truth and deception, this book will help you understand the dynamics of your marriage in the context of the marital stages. If you can identify your marital stage, you can overcome the barriers to honesty and move on to a happier and more fulfilling marriage!

In Cows Save the Planet, journalist Judith D. Schwartz looks at soil as a crucible for our many overlapping environmental, economic, and social crises.

Schwartz reveals that for many of these problems—climate change, desertification, biodiversity loss, droughts, floods, wildfires, rural poverty, malnutrition, and obesity—there are positive, alternative scenarios to the degradation and devastation we face. In each case, our ability to turn these crises into opportunities depends on how we treat the soil.

Drawing on the work of thinkers and doers, renegade scientists and institutional whistleblowers from around the world, Schwartz challenges much of the conventional thinking about global warming and other problems. For example, land can suffer from undergrazing as well as overgrazing, since certain landscapes, such as grasslands, require the disturbance from livestock to thrive. Regarding climate, when we focus on carbon dioxide, we neglect the central role of water in soil—"green water"—in temperature regulation. And much of the carbon dioxide that burdens the atmosphere is not the result of fuel emissions, but from agriculture; returning carbon to the soil not only reduces carbon dioxide levels but also enhances soil fertility.

Cows Save the Planet is at once a primer on soil''s pivotal role in our ecology and economy, a call to action, and an antidote to the despair that environmental news so often leaves us with.