This book explores the political aspects of China's climate change policy, focusing on the newly established carbon markets and carbon trading schemes. Lo makes a case for understanding the policy change in terms of discourse and in relation to narratives of national power and development.

Evolutionary developmental biology or evo-devo is a field of biological research that compares the underlying mechanisms of developmental processes in different organisms to infer the ancestral condition of these processes and elucidate how they have evolved. It addresses questions about the developmental bases of evolutionary changes and evolution of developmental processes. The book's content is divided into three parts, the first of which discusses the theoretical background of evo-devo. The second part highlights new and emerging model organisms in the evo-devo field, while the third and last part explores the evo-devo approach in a broad comparative context. To the best of our knowledge, no other book combines these three evo-devo aspects: theoretical considerations, a comprehensive list of emerging model species, and comparative analyses of developmental processes. Given its scope, the book will offer readers a new perspective on the natural diversity of processes at work in cells and during the development of various animal groups, and expand the horizons of seasoned and young researchers alike.

John Muir (1838- 1914) was a Scottish-born American naturalist, author, and the modern day "patron saint of ecology." His writings on his adventures in the various wildernesses of America have been enjoyed by millions. His ecological activism helped to preserve many of the national parks, enabling others to enjoy nature. He founded the Sierra Club, which is one of the most important conservation organizations in the United States. Although his upbringing put him off religion for life he was an immensely spiritual man, and this quality and enthusiasm pervades all his writings, inspiring his readers, including politicians to preserve the natural landscapes. For this reason he is known as the "Father of the National Parks." Author William Anderson, said that Muir exemplified "the archetype of our oneness with the earth," and biographer Donald Worster said he believed his mission was ..".saving the American soul from total surrender to materialism." The Mountains of California (1894) draws on his many, decades of exploration, describing with poetic beauty and awe the lakes, mountains, plants and animals. Stickeen (1909) is Muir's most popular book, describing his adventures in Alaska with a dog. My First Summer in the Sierra (1911) is Muir's description of his spiritual awakening when he first encountered the mountains and valleys of central California. The Story of My Boyhood and Youth (1913) is Muir's autobiography, detailing his strict upbringing in Scotland, his emigration with his family to America, aged eleven, and of his first delight with the natural world. Travels in Alaska (1915), In the late 1800s, Muir made several trips to the pristine, unspoilt territory of Alaska, drawn to its beauty and purity, its glaciers and its wild animals - bears, bald eagles, wolves, and whales. The Cruise of the Corwin (1917), In 1881, the steamship Thomas Corwin voyaged into the treacherous Arctic seas to search for the lost ship Jeannette, which had been lost. The ship was not found, but Muir's account of this expedition is poetic and magical, describing the glaciers, vegetation and seas of this mysterious land. Steep Trails(1919), This book was derived from letters, articles and local publications written by John Muir, arranged in roughly chronological sequence. The chapters describing Nevada, San Gabriel and Utah were written in the field, and have great immediacy, describing Muir's first impressions. The Yosemite(1920), In this book Muir recounts his adventures during the years he lived in the Yosemite Valley's spectacular scenery. Muir captures the breath-taking beauty of the area alongside his most ambitious adventures; looking over the brink of Yosemite Falls, climbing a hundred feet up into a high, hollow ice-cone, and climbing to the top of Half Dome, covered with a fresh blanket of snow.

En los ultimos anos el poli-etilen-tereftalato, mejor conocido como PET, se ha convertido en un Comoditie de alto valor y potencial en el mercado mexicano. La falta de interes por parte de autoridades, productores y los consumidores, en responsabilizarse por el desecho de este producto, ha generado que existan grandes volumenes de este material en tiraderos, calles, rios, lagos, campos rurales y en general, en cualquier lugar de Mexico. Este libro expone una idea sobre como utilizar todo este material desaprovechado por medio de la creacion de una Recicladora de PET que sea sustentable y que por medio de estrategias basadas en la Cadena de Suministro del mercado del reciclaje, modelos matematicos basados en programacion lineal y una combinacion de modelos de planeacion estrategica con logistica inversa, se pueda formular un proyecto de inversion que represente una atractiva rentabilidad para todo aquel interesado en crear su propia empresa en el sector ambiental, particularmente el sector del reciclaje en Mexico.

International organizations do not always live up to the expectations and mandates of their member countries. One of the best examples of this gap is the environmental performance of multilateral development banks, which are tasked with allocating and managing approximately half of all development assistance worldwide. In the 1980s and 1990s, the multilateral development banks came under severe criticism for financing projects that caused extensive deforestation, polluted large urban areas, displaced millions of people, and destroyed valuable natural resources. In response to significant and public failures, member countries established or strengthened administrative procedures, citizen complaint mechanisms, project evaluation, and strategic planning processes. All of these reforms intended to close the gap between the mandates and performance of the multilateral development banks by shaping the way projects are approved. Giving Aid Effectively provides a systematic examination of whether these efforts have succeeded in aligning allocation decisions with performance. Mark T. Buntaine argues that the most important way to give aid effectively is selectivity - moving towards projects with a record of success and away from projects with a record of failure for individual recipient countries. This book shows that under certain circumstances, the control mechanisms established to close the gap between mandate and performance have achieved selectivity. Member countries prompt the multilateral development banks to give aid more effectively when they generate information about the outcomes of past operations and use that information to make less successful projects harder to approve or more successful projects easier to approve. This argument is substantiated with the most extensive analysis of evaluations across four multilateral development banks ever completed, together with in-depth case studies and dozens of interviews. More generally, Giving Aid Effectively demonstrates that member countries have a number of mechanisms that allow them to manage international organizations for results.

When generating electronic products, manufacturing enterprises are producing pollution and waste that is harmful to the environment. As a result of this increasing event, green production has become a valuable research topic. Green Production Strategies for Sustainability is an essential reference source for the latest empirical research and relevant theoretical frameworks on creating profit through environmentally friendly operating processes. Including coverage on a range of topics such as corporate social responsibility, environmental performance, and green supply chain, this book is ideally designed for managers, professionals, and researchers seeking current research on green production use in sustainability.

This book highlights what it takes to be successful in identifying and executing environmental responsibility from an operational perspective. It provides cutting-edge research from globally recognized field experts. It is a useful resource for practitioners to explore why and how firms engage in environmentally responsible operations, but also a valuable resource for academics as an introductory reference that provides direct exposure to key environmental operational problems faced by many firms today. This book can also be used as an introductory reading for students with varying educational backgrounds - from business school students interested in environmental issues to environmental scientists interested in obtaining a business perspective - as it provides a broad scope of key issues at the interface of operations management and environmental and social responsibility. Environmentally Responsible Supply Chains is structured in a modular fashion, with each chapter introducing and analyzing a specific timely topic, allowing readers to identify the chapters that relate to their interests. More specifically, the book distinguishes between two key drivers of environmentally responsibility: Profit and Regulatory compliance. The book is divided into five sections. The first three sections of the book explore profit driven environmental responsibility, and provide examples as to where the motives for environmentally responsible business practices come from, where business opportunities are, and what operational perspectives are key to profitability. The last two sections of the book focus on regulation as a driver of environmental responsibility and identify motives, opportunities, or operational perspectives as to effective regulatory compliance. Ultimately the book introduces the reader to the fundamentals of sustainable operations and highlights the latest research on the topic.

Concerns surrounding environmental sustainability have led to an increase of interest in environmentally-friendly systems. In the ICT realm, attention has been largely paid to green aspects of hardware; however, it is equally necessary to address this issue from the software perspective. Green Services Engineering, Optimization, and Modeling in the Technological Age is a valuable reference source of the latest scholarly research on the implementation of green processes into software systems, contributing novel principles, methodologies, and tools to improve software development. Featuring comprehensive and timely coverage on various areas in service strategy and modeling, engineering, and sustainability, this publication is a pivotal reference source for researchers, practitioners, advanced-level students, and end users in the software development realm.

The book focuses on environment and conservation issues pertaining to the Himalayas, spanning Pakistan, Nepal, India, Bhutan and Myanmar. Environmental degradation, changes in snow cover and glaciers in India-Bhutan, threats to protected areas, and biodiversity in this ecologically fragile region are assessed in twelve distinct, regional case studies.

The last two decades have seen rapid and often dramatic changes in the institutional, economic and ecological contexts faced by firms operating in South Asian economies. The most significant driver of this change has been the economic liberalization attempts of national governments resulting in easier and faster flows of information, labor and capital between these economies and the rest of the world. Consequently, global environmental and social concerns are increasingly driving governmental and corporate decision-making processes for firms operating in South Asia. This edited collection aims to examine issues related to building an environmentally sustainable industrial system from an emerging-economy perspective, with specific emphasis on the subcontinent.

This collection of expert articles highlights the standards and practices concerning sustainability reporting among companies in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Due to the growing interest in corporate social responsibility issues, sustainability reporting has become increasingly common among businesses that claim to adhere to certain social, environmental and economic standards. While it can be observed that sustainability reporting is widely practiced in Western and Northern European countries, only few studies have been conducted on this topic in the CEE region. Drawing on a major empirical study involving researchers from 10 different CEE countries, this book addresses the status quo of sustainability reporting, outlines future prospects and provides essential recommendations for practitioners.

The Great Lagoon is a central part of the Szczecin Lagoon, a major component in the Odra River estuary system. It is also an important European natural heritage site and one of the largest resting places for migratory birds in the Baltic Sea area. The first part of Wolnomiejski's and Witek's book gives a thorough overview of the most up-to-date knowledge of this region, including the assessment of its biological production. Based on these findings authors develop a food web model of the Polish part of the Szczecin Lagoon, identifying a total of 45 trophic-functional components. The model describes a variety of features ranging from the magnitude of consumption, to the amount of unassimilated food and export of individual system components, and serves as an invaluable source, helping researchers to estimate various ecological indicators of The Great Lagoon's ecosystem.

Thirty years ago, Alfred Crosby published a small work that illuminated a simple point, that the most important changes brought on by the voyages of Columbus were not social or political, but biological in nature. The book told the story of how 1492 sparked the movement of organisms, both large and small, in "both "directions across the Atlantic. This Columbian exchange, between the Old World and the New, changed the history of our planet drastically and forever.

The book "The Columbian Exchange "changed the field of history drastically and forever as well. It has become one of the foundational works in the burgeoning field of environmental history, and it remains one of the canonical texts for the study of world history. This 30th anniversary edition of "The Columbian Exchange "includes a new preface from the author, reflecting on the book and its creation, and a new foreword by J. R. McNeill that demonstrates how Crosby established a brand new perspective for understanding ecological and social events. As the foreword indicates, "The Columbian Exchange "remains a vital book, a small work that contains within the inspiration for future examinations into what happens when two peoples, separated by time and space, finally meet.

Tanasescu examines the rights of nature in terms of its constituent parts. Besides offering a thorough theoretical grounding, the book gives a first detailed overview of the actual cases of rights for nature so far. This is the first comprehensive treatment of the rights of nature to date, both analytically and in terms of actual cases.

This book integrates the different prospective, scientific and practical experience of researchers as well as beneficiaries and stakeholders in the field of forest conservation in Southeast Europe. The book stresses the importance of improving the adaptability of these ecosystems to the impacts of climate change. Gathered around a common idea, the book presents the latest results in forest genetic resources conservation at national and regional level. The chapters are written by experts from: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, FYR Macedonia, Greece, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia. The book presents the current state, legal and institutional framework for conservation and management of forest genetic resources, case studies and best practices in the application of different conservation methods and techniques (in situ and ex situ) as well as climate change aspects in this area. This book will be of particular interest to scientists and experts in the field of forestry, environmental protection and rural development, bachelor, master and doctoral students, as well as for anyone interested in the conservation issues fuelled by ethical and economic motives.

This book deals with the energy footprints of biorefineries and the hotel and buildings sector. It presents footprint case studies, which include background information, methodological frameworks, assessment checklists, calculation tools and techniques, applications, challenges and limitations. It also discusses the application of each indicator/framework in various industrial sectors and the associated challenges, along with outlooks for the future. Consumption and conservation of energy are key elements in any industry's sustainability strategy.

An innovative contribution to the literature of cultural geography, this book explores the evolution of landscape--both material and symbolic--from the standpoint of the populations, cultures, and human decision-making processes that shape and give it meaning. Focusing on evolution, behavior, symbolism, and ecology, Norton offers a critique of the literature of cultural and social geography and articulates a framework of central issues that connect a wide range of theoretical approaches. In the first four chapters, Norton gives detailed consideration to both traditional and contemporary literature and methodologies and to the links between cultural geography and other social science concepts and analytical methods. The remaining chapters are concerned with the causes and consequences of cultural landscape evolution and the variables affecting it, including language, religion, politics, society, economy, and the physical environment. In addressing these areas of cultural geography, Norton promotes an approach that integrates the contributions of geography with those of anthropology, sociology, psychology, and history. His analysis provides a useful synthesis of the conceptual and empirical content of cultural geography and suggests promising new directions for research in the field. Norton's work will prove a valuable classroom and library resource for students and scholars in cultural and social geography and related areas of sociology and anthropology.

This three-book set is devoted to the prominent bays of the Western North America. The first volume describes San Francisco Bay - a shallow estuary surrounded by a large population center. The forces that built it began with plate tectonics and involved the collision of the Pacific and North American plates and the subduction of the Juan de Fuka plate. Gold mining during the California gold rush sent masses of slit into the Bay. The second volume is devoted to San Diego Bay, which is also a shallow estuary surrounded by a large human population center that influenced the Bay. The third volume describes Puget Sound - a different sort of bay - a complex fjord-estuary system, but also surrounded by several large population centers. The watershed is enormous, covering nearly 43,000 square kilometers with thousands of rivers and streams. Geological forces, volcanos, Ice Ages, and changes in sea levels make the Sound a biologically dynamic and fascinating environment, as well as a productive ecosystem. Key Features Summarizes a complex geological, geographical, and ecological history Reviews how the San Diego Bay has changed and will likely change in the future Examines the different roles of various drivers of Bay ecosystem function Includes the role of humans-both first people and modern populations-on the Bay Explores San Diego Bay as an example of general bay ecological and environmental issues

Risk, Language, and Power explores discourse around the environmental risks of nanotechnology, making the case that the dominance in risk discourse of regulatory science is a limiting policy debate on environmental risks, and that specific initiatives should be undertaken to broaden debate not just on nanotechnology, but generally on the risks of new technologies. Morris argues that the treatment of environmental risk in public policy debates has failed for industrial chemicals, is failing for nanotechnology, and most certainly will fail for synthetic biology and other new technologies unless we change how we describe the impacts to people and other living things from the development and deployment of technology. However, Morris also contends that the nanotechnology case provides reason for optimism that risk can be given different, and better, treatment in environmental policy debates. Risk, Language, and Power proposes specific policy initiatives to advance a richer discourse around the environmental implications of emerging technologies. Morris believes that evidence of enriched environmental policy debates would be a decentering of language concerning risk by developing within discourse language and practice directed toward enriching the human and environmental condition.

This book presents essential insights on environmental policy derived from behavioral economics. The authors demonstrate the potential of behavioral economics to drive environmental protection and to generate concrete proposals for the efficient design of policy instruments. Moreover, detailed recommendations on how to use "nudges" and related instruments to move industry and society toward a sustainable course are presented. This book addresses the needs of environmental economists, behavioral economists and environmental policymakers, as well as all readers interested in the intersection between behavioral economics and environmental policy.

Ecological Assessment of Polymers Strategies for Product Stewardship and Regulatory Programs John D. Hamilton and Roger Sutcliffe The expense of providing ecological assessments of new commercial products is formidable. The cost of the failure to comply with the current regulations--measured in fines, liability damages, and loss of public trust--is potentially much, much higher. Establishing effective environmental product stewardship strategies for assessment upfront not only promotes initial and continued compliance, it can reduce costs via the more efficient development of new products. Based on the collaboration of the Rohm and Haas Company and S.C. Johnson Wax with other manufacturers, contract laboratories, universities, and government agencies, Ecological Assessment of Polymers is the first complete reference to provide environment-oriented information about polymers from a product development and regulatory compliance perspective. A number of books deal with the potential hazards of pesticides and solvents. This is the first to focus on the commercial synthetic polymers that exist in laundry detergents, paints, super-absorbent diapers, packaging materials, and many other consumer and industrial products. Using the principles of environmental toxicology and chemistry, Ecological Assessment of Polymers approaches environmental evaluation as a decision-making process. The book demonstrates how assessment can be used as a planning tool for developing products, reducing potential liability, and creating new products, processes, and disposal systems. Featured discussions:

• Overviews of methods, instrumentation, and databases used by environmental scientists to assessprocesses/products involving polymers
• Environmental regulatory assessment schemes for preventing dangerous environmental exposure during manufacture, use, transport, storage, and disposal
• Interpretations of ecotoxicity and fate tests with polymers
• New directions of research in degradable polymers
• Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) of polymers
• Polymer regulations from the United States, Canada, Europe, and the Pacific Region