News

Silent Spring (by Rachel Carson, 1962)

The book documented detrimental effects of pesticides on the environment, particularly on birds. Carson accused the chemical industry of spreading disinformation, and public officials of accepting industry claims uncritically.

The Limits to Growth (by Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and William W. Behrens III, 1972)

A book about the computer modelling of exponential economic and population growth with finite resource supplies.

Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things(by Michael Braungart and William McDonough, 2002)

The book calls for a radical change in industry: a switch from a cradle-to-grave pattern to a cradle-to-cradle pattern.

No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies (by Naomi Klein, 1999)

The book focuses on branding and corporate censorship. Naomi Klein tells a story

of rebellion and self-determination in the face of our new branded world.

Square foot gardening (by Mel Bartholomew, 2005)

The book speaks about the practice of planning and creating small but intensively planted gardens. The practice combines concepts from other organic gardening methods, including a strong focus on compost.

100 Ways to Save the World (by Johan Tell, 2006)

This work outlines what individuals can do in their day-to-day lives to make a positive difference on the environment. Beautiful full-color photos complement the easy-to-implement ideas.

The Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth Is Fighting Back - and How We Can Still Save Humanity (by James Lovelock, 2006)

James Lovelock, one of the giants of environmental thinking, argues passionately and poetically that, although global warming is now inevitable, we are not yet too late to save at least part of human civilization. This short book, written at the age of eighty-six after a lifetime engaged in the science of the earth, is his testament.

Sunship Earth: An Acclimatization Program for Outdoor Learning (by Steve van Matre, 1979)

A guide to a five-day program designed to help elementary-age children understand their world by using all five senses.

Experience and Education (by John Dewey, 1938)

The book provides a concise and powerful analysis of education. Dewey argues that the quality of an educational experience is critical and stresses the importance of the social and interactive processes of learning.

Beyond Learning By Doing: Theoretical Currents in Experiential Education (by Jay W. Roberts, 2012)

What is experiential education? What are its theoretical roots? Where does this approach come from? Offering a fresh and distinctive take, this book is about going beyond "learning by doing" through an exploration of its underlying theoretical currents.

I Love My World (by Chris Holland, 2012)

A new guidebook to rekindle the naturally playful spirit and develop a deep connection with nature from an early age. The book is full of bushcraft, environmental art, nature awareness and outdoor play activities, as well as mentoring tips and beautiful images.

This changes everything ( by Naomi Klein, 2014)

A book talking about how in order to really tackle the issue of climate change we should talk about the real reasons that are causing it. If we want to deal with the climate crisis we have to abandon the "free-market" ideology, restructure the current global economy and political system.

Watching giants - the secret lives of whales (by Elin Kelsey, 2008)

An introduction into scientific research and the world of cetaceans. A combination of personal accounts, interviews with scientists, and interesting facts about cetaceans.

 Eco-warriors: Understanding the radical environmental movement (by Rik Scarce, 2007)

An in-depth look into the "radical" environmental movement. It provides better understanding of the movement by telling the history, motives and philosophy of people and organisations behind some of the actions.

Plastic Ocean: How a Sea Captain's Chance Discovery Launched a Determined Quest to Save the Oceans (by Charles Moore, 2011)

A book on the dark side of plastic - plastic pollution of oceans and potential health impacts on organisms.

A New Green History of the World: The Environment & the Collapse of Great Civilizations (by Clive Ponting, 2007)

A study of the relationship between the environment and human history. It shows how growth of societies caused their downfall after reaching the point when the environment could not sustain them anymore.

Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics (by Paul W. Taylor, 2011)

By drawing on biology, moral philosophy, and environmental science the author forms a biocentric environmental ethics - ethics in which all life has value.

The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World (by Bjørn Lomborg, 2011)

A provocative book by a former Greenpeace member. The author examines major environmental issues using data from internationally recognized research institutes and documents that the world has actually improved.

What a Plant Knows: A Field Guide to the Senses (by Daniel Chamovitz, 2012)

Using our senses (sight, smell, touch, hearing, memory, awareness) as a guideline, the author explores how plants experience the world.

Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust (by Charles Patterson, 2001)

This book examines the relationship between humans and animals, origins of human supremacy over animals and draws parallels between the industrialized slaughter of animals and humans in modern times.

99% Ape: How Evolution Adds Up (by Jonathan Silvertown, 2009)

An introduction to evolution.

The Human Age: The World Shaped (by Us by Diane Ackerman, 2015)

Humans dominate this world and are currently the main driving force of changes. This book comprises new human related scientific discoveries, possible future environmental threats and innovative solutions to some environmental issues.

 

Human Universe (by Brian Cox and Andrew Cohen, 2014)

By combining natural history and astronomy authors present our evolution from apes to space explorers and show why humanity seems to be unique in the universe.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (by Yuval Noah Harari, 2015)

A chronicle of human history from its prehistoric beginnings to present times. The book ends with provocative scenarios of and questions on the future of humankind.

 Send us your book proposals to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Below you will find a collection of videos and documentaries that speak about important environmental issues. They can also be a great source of inspiration for your future possible actions in the field.

All the pictures are linked, just click on them.

TED Talks  A collection of articles  on the topic of environment	The Story of Stuff A look at our production and consumption patterns	Home A film about how Earth's problems are all interlinked
Binta and the great idea A liitle Senegalesegirl wants to make the world better	Vanishing of the bees A documentary about why bees are in danger	Queen of the Sun A film about bad beekeeping and colony collapse disorder
The Yes Men Fix the World Two political activists expose  the faults of big corporations	Garbage Island A story about plastic waste in the North Pacific Gyre	The Human Footprint The film explores the impact humans have on the planet
Blood coltan A film about warlords in East Congo and mobile phones	The silence of bees What are the problems bees are facing nowadays	Earthlings A film about the inhumane use of animals
Garbage Warrior The story of a new type of "radically sustainable" houses	The world according to Monsanto What are the firm's practices	The Age of Stupid A film about climate change from past to future
Ashes and Snow Photographic artworks about humans and animals	Food, Inc. About America's corporate controlled food industry	Super Size Me A man lives only on McDonald's food for a month
Promised Land A film about corporations' influence over resources	Project Wild Thing A documentary about the importance of playing outside	No Logo About the incluence of capitalism

Activism: is the doctrine or practice of vigorous action or involvement as a means of achieving political or other goals, sometimes by demonstrations, protests, etc.

Biodiversity: describes the number, variety and variability of living organisms in an ecosystem. 

Bee colony collapse disorder (CCD): is a phenomenon in which honey bee colony abruptly disappear because of the combination of a number of diseases, bad practices in the industrial agriculture as the use of pesticides. Significant economically because many agricultural crops worldwide are pollinated by honey bees. Shortages of bees in the US have increased the cost to farmers renting them for pollination services by up to 20%.

Carrying capacity: of a biological species in an environment is the maximum population size of the species that the environment can sustain indefinitely, given the food, habitat, water and other necessities available in the environment.

Certification: is a form of environmental regulation and development where a company can voluntarily choose to comply with predefined processes or objectives set forth by the certification service (eg. Ecolabel). To minimize the harmful impacts to the environment by voluntarily following a set of externally set and measured objectives.

Compost: is the product resulting from the biological decomposition of organic matter into mineral elements by bacterias under aerobic controlled conditions.

Downcycling: is the process of converting waste materials or useless products into new materials or products of lesser quality and reduced functionality. A clear of example of downcycling is plastic recycling, which turns the material into lower grade plastics.

Ecosystem: a biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment.

Earthship: is a registered trademark by Michael Reynolds, that refers to a type of passive solar house made of natural and recycled materials.

Extinction: is the end of an organism or of a group of organisms (taxon), normally a species. 

Ecological Product: is developed in accordance with criteria for the formulation and packaging in order to have less impact on the environment. This does not mean that the product is respectful of the person and the environment throughout its life cycle. In the absence of a recognized label, the consumer has no way to know if these arguments are satisfactory if there are no specific and complete criteria to respect, or official organism to confirm the veracity of the responses to criteria.

Eco-friendly product: should have a very good biodegradability and low ecotoxicity and respect the person, because humans are part of the environment. The European Ecolabel guarantees the consumer that has satisfactory environmental qualities. 

Environmental education: is a learning process that increases people's knowledge and awareness about the environment and associated challenges, develops the necessary skills and expertise to address the challenges, and fosters attitudes, motivations, and commitments to make informed decisions and take responsible action

Fracking: is a technique in which typically water is mixed with sand and chemicals, and the mixture is injected at high pressure into a wellbore to create small fractures-earthquakes, along which fluids such as gas, petroleum, uranium-bearing solution, and brine water may migrate to the well.

Folk crops: is the variance in genetic and physical characteristics of plants as a result of adaptation to local conditions used in traditional agriculture

Footprint: is the impression left by a foot or shoe on the ground or a surface.

       G.

Gaia theory: proposes that organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to form a self-regulating, complex system that contributes to maintaining the conditions for life on the planet.

GMO: genetically modified organism is an organism whose natural genetic material has been altered using engineering techniques to include new characteristics on it for lucrative interest.

Green product: is a product that organic compounds are mainly of plant origin.

Impact: Possible adverse effects caused by a development, industrial, or infrastructural project or by the release of a substance in the environment.

Indigenous: peoples and nations are those which, having a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories, consider themselves distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing on those territories, or parts of them. They form at present non-dominant sectors of society and are determined to preserve, develop and transmit to future generations their ancestral territories, and their ethnic identity, as the basis of their continued existence as peoples, in accordance with their own cultural patterns, social institutions and legal system.

Natural product: is a product extracted from nature. The word "natural" is more or less defined by legal instruments. On the other hand the term "natural" does not always guarantee a satisfactory respect of the person and the environment. Many natural substances are classified as "toxic" to the person and / or to the environment or are classified as allergens.

Natural environment: encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth or some region thereof.

Organic & eco-friendly: terms used to refer to goods and services, laws, guidelines and policies claimed to inflict reduced, minimal, or no harm at all, upon ecosystems or the environment.

Organic product: is a product which at least has 95% of its ingredients from plants or minerals, and 10% total composition must come from organic farming, which means without GMOs, chemical fertilizers, and pesticides.

Pollution: introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change. Pollution can take the form of chemical substances or energy, such as noise, heat or light. Pollutants, the components of pollution, can be either foreign substances/energies or naturally occurring contaminants.

Permaculture: is a branch of ecological design, ecological engineering, and environmental design that develops sustainable architecture and self-maintained agricultural systems modeled from natural ecosystems.

Pesticide: is a substance used for destroying insects or other organisms harmful to cultivated plants or to animals.

3 R : Refuse - Reduce - Recycle in your goods consumption

Species: is the basic unit of biological classification. Is defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring.

Sustainability: is the ability for society to meet its present needs while preserving the ability of future generations to meet their own.

Upcycling:is the process of converting waste materials or useless products into new materials or products of better quality or for better environmental value.

Vermicompost: is the product of composting utilizing various species of worms, usually red wigglers, white worms, and earthworms to create a heterogeneous mixture of decomposing vegetable or food waste (excluding meat, dairy, fats, or oils), bedding materials, and vermicast.

Water footprint

Welcome to the Campaign '30 years of volunteering for environment'

Dates: April - September 2013

Countries: AYA (Russia); Look East Wild Earth (UK); EDEN Centre (Albania); OA PTTK (Poland) and YEE.

In the year of 30th YEE anniversary we would like to promote the concept of volunteering for environment. With promotional ecological materials we aim to reach more young people and to make the work of YEE more visible and known. This international project will help to develop youth participation within YEE member organizations both by involving participants of the international team working over the project and establishing stronger contact with member organizations by distributing the materials.

To promote  youth participation in voluntary work for nature as well as celebrating the 30th anniversary of YEE we will: 

• to spread and promote voluntary work and youth participation
• to create promotional ecological materials and spread them among YEE member organizations, various NGOs in Europe and also during local actions.
• an international team of young people involved in various environmental NGOs, will reflect the work of YEE and encourage people to take action and become active locally

BLOG

EVENTS

PARTICIPATING ORGANISATIONS

MATERIAL: Sticker, leaflet, folder, bag

Funders: The main funder of this project is the European Youth Foundation, The Council of Europe. 

The project was co-funded by the Youth in Action Programme