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Books > Business & Economics > Economics
A striving for national self-sufficiency is shaping up to be one of the greatest forces of twenty-first century geopolitics - Exile Economics is a provocative warning about the risks of abandoning globalisation and how isolationism weakens the global economy.
The dangerous race for self-sufficiency has begun. Be warned.
Nations are turning away from each other. Faith in globalisaton has been fatally undermined by the pandemic, the energy crisis, surging trade frictions and swelling great power rivalry. A new vision is vying to replace what we've known for many decades. This vision - Exile Economics - entails a rejection of interdependence, a downgrading of multilateral collaboration and a striving for greater national self-sufficiency. The supporters of this new order argue it will establish genuine security, prosperity and peace. But is this promise achievable? Or a seductive delusion?
Through the stories of globally traded commodities - from silicon to steel and from soybeans to solar panels - economics journalist Ben Chu illustrates the intricate web of interdependence that has come to bind nations together - and underlines the dangers of this new push to isolationism. Exile Economics is an essential guide to this new world in all its promise and peril.
Over the past century, new farming methods, feed additives, and
social and economic structures have radically transformed
agriculture around the globe, often at the expense of human health.
In Chickenizing Farms and Food, Ellen K. Silbergeld reveals the
unsafe world of chickenization-big agriculture's top-down,
contract-based factory farming system-and its negative consequences
for workers, consumers, and the environment. Drawing on her deep
knowledge of and experience in environmental engineering and
toxicology, Silbergeld examines the complex history of the modern
industrial food animal production industry and describes the
widespread effects of Arthur Perdue's remarkable agricultural
innovations, which were so important that the US Department of
Agriculture uses the term chickenization to cover the
transformation of all farm animal production. Silbergeld tells the
real story of how antibiotics were first introduced into animal
feeds in the 1940s, which has led to the emergence of
multi-drug-resistant pathogens, such as MRSA. Along the way, she
talks with poultry growers, farmers, and slaughterhouse workers on
the front lines of exposure, moving from the Chesapeake Bay
peninsula that gave birth to the modern livestock and poultry
industry to North Carolina, Brazil, and China. Arguing that the
agricultural industry is in desperate need of reform, the book
searches through the fog of illusion that obscures most of what has
happened to agriculture in the twentieth century and untangles the
history of how laws, regulations, and policies have stripped
government agencies of the power to protect workers and consumers
alike from occupational and food-borne hazards. Chickenizing Farms
and Food also explores the limits of some popular alternatives to
industrial farming, including organic production, nonmeat diets,
locavorism, and small-scale agriculture. Silbergeld's provocative
but pragmatic call to action is tempered by real challenges: how
can we ensure a safe and accessible food system that can feed
everyone, including consumers in developing countries with new
tastes for western diets, without hurting workers, sickening
consumers, and undermining some of our most powerful medicines?
Renewable energy technologies produce many measurable benefits,
such as a clear reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. However, it
is also apparent that these methods of energy production come with
costs. Discussing renewable energy developments within an economic
context, this pertinent Handbook provides a comprehensive view of
the present and future dimensions of renewable energy use. Divided
into six authoritative parts, the Handbook employs economic
evaluation to provide an analysis of the benefits and costs of
renewable energy, allowing authors to extrapolate potential policy
changes. Chapters address the conceptual, methodological and
empirical dimensions of renewable energy, providing a broad
coverage of key topics while maintaining a clear policy-oriented
philosophy. With a structured application of energy economics to
renewable energy issues, this enlightening Handbook will be
beneficial for environmental and energy policy makers. It will also
be an interesting read for academics within such fields as policy
regulation, energy economics and environmental economics.
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Franz Marc
Klaus H. Carl, Franz Marc
Hardcover
R992
Discovery Miles 9 920
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