There has been an exponential growth in international environmental treaty-making over the past fifty years, to the point of 'treaty congestion' - with a total of more than 1,300 multilateral (global and regional) agreements on the topic and close to 3,000 bilateral ones currently in force. This research review addresses this phenomenon from a variety of disciplinary perspectives: international law, political science, and 'ecological economics'. The objective is comparative analysis, with a view to identifying common features and common problems of transnational environmental regimes, in light of their historical evolution, their application and effectiveness in practice, and possible lessons learned in their institutional 'interplay' with each other.

Today's highly industrialized and technologically controlled global food systems dominate our lives, shaping our access and attitudes towards food and deeply influencing and defining our identities. At the same time, these food systems are profoundly and destructively impacting the health of the environment and threatening all of us, human and nonhuman, who must subsist in ecological conditions of increasing fragility and scarcity. This collection examines and exposes the myriad ways that the food systems, driven by global commodity capitalism and its imperative of growth at any cost, increasingly controls us and conforms us to our roles as consumers and producers. This collection covers a range of topics from the excess of consumers in the post-industrial world and the often unacknowledged yet intrinsic connection of their consumption to the growing ecological and health crises in developing nations, to topics of surveillance and control of human and nonhuman bodies through food, to the deep linkages of cultural values and norms toward food to the myriad crises we face on a global scale.

Modern civilization and the social reproduction of capitalism are bound inextricably with fossil fuel consumption. But as carbon energy resources become scarcer, what implications will this have for energy-intensive modes of life? Can renewable energy sustain high levels of accumulation?? Or will we witness the end of existing capitalist economies? This book provides an innovative and timely study that mobilizes a new theory of capitalism to explain the rise and fall of petro-market civilization. Di Muzio investigates how theorists of political economy have largely taken energy for granted and illuminates how the exploitation of fossil fuels increased the universalization and magnitude of capital accumulation. He then examines the likelihood of renewable resources providing a feasible alternative and asks whether they can beat peak oil prices to sustain food production, health care, science and democracy. Using the capital as power framework, this book considers the unevenly experienced consequences of monetizing fossil fuels for people and the planet.

Marine Paleobiodiversity presents a concise history, development and current status of paleobiodiversity research, thus forming a reference work for beginners, graduates and postgraduates, who are interested in this subject and intend venture into serious research. This book provides a link-reference between text book and highly-specialized journal articles, and so will be valuable for a wide audience of geologists and climatologists.

In today's society, businesses are being pressured to play a more active role in addressing global environmental, social, and economic issues. Therefore, a considerable shift in the functional components of enterprises is required to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. SMEs play a vital role in countries' socio-economic structures, and the importance of SMEs is increasingly recognized as a factor of economic stability and social cohesion. In order to ensure SMEs are appropriately utilized to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, further study is required. Examining the Vital Financial Role of SMEs in Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals highlights the challenges and opportunities of using the concepts of economic sustainability to achieve sustainability goals as well as the role SMEs play in developing sustainable practices. The book also discusses how finance sustainability can be used to improve the stability of policies. Covering topics such as blockchain, corporate social responsibility, and performance management practices, this reference work is ideal for business owners, policymakers, researchers, scholars, academicians, practitioners, instructors, and students.

Climate Engineering: A Normative Perspective takes as its subject a prospective policy response to the urgent problem of climate change, one previously considered taboo. Climate engineering, the "deliberate, large-scale manipulation of the planetary environment in order to counteract anthropogenic climate change," encapsulates a wide array of technological proposals. Daniel Edward Callies here focuses on one proposal currently being researched-stratospheric aerosol injection-which would spray aerosol particles into the upper atmosphere to thus reflect a small portion of incoming sunlight and slightly cool the globe. This book asks important questions that should guide moral and political discussions of geoengineering. Does engaging in such research lead us towards inexorable deployment? Could this research draw us away from the more important tasks of mitigation and adaptation? Should we avoid risky interventions in the climate system altogether? What would legitimate governance of this technology look like? What would constitute a just distribution of the benefits and burdens associated with stratospheric aerosol injection? Who ought to be included in the decision-making process? Callies offers a normative perspective on these and other questions related to engineering the climate, ultimately arguing for research and regulation guided by norms of legitimacy, distributive justice, and procedural justice.

Biosocial Synchrony on Sumba: Multispecies Relationships and Environmental Variations in Indonesia examines biosocial change in the Austronesian community of the Kodi by examining multispecies interactions between select biota and abiota. Cynthia T. Fowler describes how the Kodi people coordinate their mundane and ritual practices with polychaetes and celestial bodies, and how this synchrony encourages and is encouraged by social and ecological variations. Fowler grounds her anthropogenic environmental research with information from geospatial science, marine ecology, astronomy, physics, and astrophysics.

This book focuses mainly on strategic decision making at a global level, which is rarely considered in approaches to sustainability. This book makes a unique contribution as the work looks at global consequences of mineral exhaustion and steps that can be taken to alleviate the impending problems. This book highlights how sustainability has become one of the most important issues for businesses, governments and society at large. This book explores the topic of sustainability as one that is under much debate as to what it actually is and how it can be achieved, but it is completely evident that the resources of the planet are fixed in quantity, and once used, cannot be reused except through being reused in one form or another. This is particularly true of the mineral resources of the planet. These are finite in quantity, and once fully extracted, extra quantities are no longer available for future use. This book argues and presents evidence that the remaining mineral resources are diminishing significantly and heading towards exhaustion. Once mined and consumed, they are no longer available for future use other than what can be recycled and reused. This book demonstrates that future scarcity means that best use must be made of what exists, as sustainability depends upon this, and best use is defined as utility rather than economic value, which must be considered at a global level rather than a national level. Moreover, sustainability depends upon both availability in the present and in the future, so the use of resources requires attention to the future as well as to the present. This book investigates the alternative methods of achieving the global distribution of these mineral resources and proposes an optimum solution. This book adds to the discourse through the understanding of the importance of the depletion and finiteness of raw materials and their use for the present and the future, in order to achieve and maintain sustainability.

Michel Serres captures the urgencies of our time; from the digital revolution to the ecological crisis to the future of the university, the crises that code the world today are addressed in an accessible, affirmative and remarkably original analysis in his thought. This volume is the first to engage with the philosophy of Michel Serres, not by writing 'about' it, but by writing 'with' it. This is done by expanding upon the urgent themes that Serres works on; by furthering his materialism, his emphasis on communication and information, his focus on the senses, and the role of mathematics in thought. His famous concepts, such as the parasite, 'amis de viellesse', and the algorithm are applied in 21st century situations. With contributions from an international and interdisciplinary team of authors, these writings tackle the crises of today and affirm the contemporary relevance of Serres' philosophy.