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Books > Earth & environment > The environment > General
The purpose of this paper is to present a methodology for estimating space-time stochastic properties of local climatic factors reflecting global climate change. Specifically, daily precipitation amount and daily mean temperature are considered and illustrated with application to the state of Nebraska, U. S. A. Furthermore, a drought index with and without global climate change is examined. The magnitude and consequences of regional response to anticipated climatic changes are uncertain (Houghton et al., 1990). Typical questions to be answered are: can time series of hydrological events or 10cal climatic variables such as daily temperature be conditioned in scenarios of future climate change and if so, how can this be utilized ? Can extreme historical drought events be reproduced by a stochastic hydroc1imatological model ? Can such a model be used with General Circu1ation Model (GCM) outputs to evaluate the regional/local effects of climate change scenarios? The approach presented in this paper is an extension of the usual analysis of regional hydrometeorological impacts of climate change: we propose to examine time series of GCM produced daily atmospheric circulation patterns (CP), thought to be relatively accurate GCM output to estimate local climatic factors. The paper is organized as follows. First, daily CPs are classified and analyzed statistically, first for historical and then for GCM produced data. Next, the height of the 500 hPa pressure field is introduced as an additional physically relevant variable influencing local climatic factors within each CP type."
At a time when everyone is going green, most people are unaware that the FBI is using anti-terrorism resources to target environmentalists and animal rights activists. The courts are being used to push conventional boundaries of what constitutes "terrorism" and to hit nonviolent activists with disproportionate sentences. Some have faced terrorism charges for simply chalking slogans on the sidewalk. Like the Red Scare, this "Green Scare" is about fear and intimidation, using a word--"eco-terrorist"--to push a political agenda, instill fear and silence dissent. The animal rights and environmental movements directly threaten corporate profits every time activists encourage people to go vegan, to stop driving, to consume fewer resources and live simply. Their boycotts are damaging, and corporations and the politicians who represent them know it. In many ways, the Green Scare, like the Red Scare, can be seen as a culture war, a war of values. Will Potter outlines the political, legal, extra-legal, and public relations strategies that are being used to threaten even acts of nonviolent civil disobedience with the label of "terrorism." Here is a guided tour into the world of radical activism that introduces the real people behind the headlines and tells the story of how everyday people are being prevented from speaking up for what they believe in. "Will Potter unveils this complex movement with its virtues and its flaws, the courage of a few and the false bravado of others. I see this book as the definitive overview of the genesis of what is emerging as the most important social movement in human history -- the war to save ourselves from ourselves." --Captain Paul Watson, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society "If we are to survive capitalism's death grip on our discourse and on our lives, it will be in great measure due to the work of people like Will Potter. His courage and integrity, which set him apart from most journalists, are evident throughout this important book, and throughout all of his other crucial work. Thank you, Will Potter." --Derrick Jensen, author of Endgame "Part history, part action thriller and courtroom drama, part memoir, Green is the New Red plunges us into the wild, unruly, and entirely inspirational world of extreme environmental activism. Will Potter, participant-observer and partisan-reporter, is the perfect guide, unpacking with wit and skill the most elusive concepts..." --Bill Ayers Potter (a contributor to The Next Eco-Warriors) warns that the U.S. government is using post-9/11 anti-terrorism resources to target environmentalists and animal right activists (in some cases for doing nothing but speaking up)...Potter warns of the crumbling of "the legal wall separating 'terrorist' from 'dissident' or 'undesirable,'" and concludes his account with a call to action and a decry of the injustice that results in the "terrorist" label being put on those who threaten American corporate interests. Alarming."--Publishers Weekly "In this hard-hitting debut, journalist Potter likens the Justice Department targeting of environmentalists today to McCarthyism in the 1950s...A shocking expose of judicial overreach." --Kirkus Reviews (Starred review) Will Potter is an award-winning reporter who has written for publications including the Chicago Tribune, the Dallas Morning News and Legal Affairs, and has testified before the U.S. Congress about his reporting. He is the creator of www[dot]GreenIsTheNewRed[dot]com, where he blogs about the Green Scare.
The global application of Enlightenment-derived concepts to create social order through urban form suggests that we believe we know how to create a (future) ordered environment. But these notions of order and disorder need interrogation, especially as the world rapidly urbanises. Not only have such approaches failed to produce more social order, but it has become clear that the imposition of these ideas in cities of the South cuts across alternative systems of social and cultural order and creates new disorder. Thus, if we are serious about forms of urban order, then it is time to rethink what we mean by order in the first place. As this provocative and timely book shows, what we think of as urban order is partial and restricted, and what we perceive as disorder usually masks underlying orders of social nature. The book is intended for architects, urban designers, planners and urban scholars but also urban policy makers, managers and residents – to consider a different approach to emerging urban space and form, starting from an understanding of the cultural imaginaries and social constructs that underpin the production of most urban fabric, and engaging with these concepts and organisational forms to improve urban life for the majority.
This book from Jürgen Claus is a milestone among the books dedicated to the planet sea A knowledgeable overview of marine architectures from both the Pacific and Atlantic regions Discusses the seascape as a fluid studio for visual artists
After years of expeditions all over the world, adventurer Alastair Humphreys spends a year exploring the detailed local map around his home. Can this unassuming landscape, marked by the glow of city lights and the hum of busy roads, hold any surprises for the world traveller or satisfy his wanderlust? Could a single map provide a lifetime of exploration? Discovering more about the natural world than in all his years in remote environments, he learns the value of truly getting to know his neighbourhood. An ode to slowing down, Local is a celebration of curiosity and time spent outdoors, as well as a rallying cry to protect the wild places on our doorstep.
This book contributes to the multidisciplinary debate about social-ecological systems (SES) within the perspective of rethinking the nature of interaction between these systems, especially in the Anthropocene Era. Most chapters either deliberate on risk dynamics threatening current SES or stimulate thought processes to manage such risks and related negative implications. After analyzing the main drivers of SES vulnerability, the book highlights the shifts to be made to enhance the sustainability and resilience of these systems, mainly the integration and restructuring of governance frameworks, the reorganization of production and consumption systems far from conventional models based on consumerism, the elaboration of mitigation, adaptation, and SDGs implementation measures from a co-benefit perspective, and the consideration of appropriate approaches and paradigms while elaborating and implementing response mechanisms. This volume is relevant to researchers/experts, students, practitioners, and decision-makers from different scales and spheres.
This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Fuel: An Ecocritical History is the first book to chart our changing attitudes to fuel and energy through the literature and culture of the modern era, focusing on the 18th-century to the present. Reading a wide range of writers from Blake, Austen and Dickens to Upton Sinclair and Edward Abbey, Heidi Scott explores how our move from a pre-industrial reliance on biomass and elemental energy sources to our current dependence on the fossil fuels of coal, oil and natural gas have fundamentally shaped human identity and culture. The book's Anthropocene perspective reshapes our view of energy history and climate change, and Fuel looks forward to ways in which we can reimagine our culture away from the fossil fuel paradigm towards a more sustainable energy future driven by renewable, elemental energy.
Originally published in 1979. In this forcefully argued book, Milton Santos shows that contemporary explanations of urbanization and spatial organization in underdeveloped countries are inadequate. This failure is attributable to their origins in theories elaborated to explain the development of advanced Western societies. Santos' work provides the basis for the new theory which is so badly needed. He describes the urban economy in these countries in terms of two circuits of activity - an upper circuit consisting of those enterprises and structures which are based on modern technology and are oriented towards the advanced capitalist world, and a lower circuit comprised of more traditional processes and forms of exchange. The dialectical interaction of these two circuits is seen to generate the patterns of growth, forms of State intervention and, above all, the spatial organization characteristic of Third World economies. This was a revision and translation of L'Espace Partage (1975).
Nanomaterials in Plants, Algae and Microorganisms: Concepts and Controversies: Volume 2 not only covers all the new technologies used in the synthesis of nanoparticles, it also tests their response on plants, algae and micro-organisms in aquatic ecosystems. Unlike most works in the field, the book doesn't focus exclusively on the higher organisms. Instead, it explores the smaller life forms on which they feed. Topics include the impacts of plant development, how different nanoparticles are absorbed by biota, the impact different metals-including silver and rare earth metals-have on living organisms, and the effects nanoparticles have on aquatic ecosystems as a whole. As nanotechnology based products have become a trillion-dollar industry, there is a need to understand the implications to the health of our biota and ecosystems as the earth is increasingly inundated with these materials.
Halogenated organic compounds constitute one of the largest groups of environmental chemicals. The industrial production of new halogenated organic compounds has increased throughout the last century and these compounds are integral to a variety of industrial applications. Although organohalide compounds are typically considered to be anthropogenic industrial compounds, these have their counterpart in several thousands of natural biogenic and geogenic organohalides, representing most classes of organic chemicals. Natural sources account for a significant portion of the global organohalogen budget. This volume, authored by leading experts in the field, provides a current perspective on how both natural and synthetic organohalides are formed and degraded, and how these processes are incorporated into a global halogen cycle. The list of organohalides that can be utilized by microbes continues to increase dramatically, as do the number of dehalogenating microorganisms that have been identified and characterized. A critical step in the degradation of organohalides is cleavage of the carbon-halogen bond, and microorganisms have evolved a variety of metabolic strategies for dehalogenation. The chapters provide a global perspective on the diversity of dehalogenating microorganisms, explore their ecology, biochemistry and genetics, and review the range of biologically-mediated dehalogenation mechanisms. Many of the problematic organohalides, such as pesticides, chlorofluorocarbons, chlorinated solvents, polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls, are covered in detail. The book provides a comprehensive overview of fate of these compounds in the environment, practicalapplications in the laboratory and the field, and strategies for the development of bioremediation technologies for organohalide-contaminated sites. Detailed information on biodegradation and biotransformation mechanisms for a variety of organohalides and on the microorganisms mediating these processes has greatly increased our understanding of the cycling and fate of these unique and widespread compounds in our environment. The book will serve as a comprehensive resource on the processes and applications of microbial degradation of halogenated organic compounds.
This book comprises the select proceedings of the International Conference on Recent Advances in Civil Engineering (ICRACE) 2020, held at the Cochin University of Science and Technology, Cochin, Kerala, India. The book focuses on latest research in different areas of civil engineering and lays special emphasis on sustainable construction practices. It is divided into seven major themes: (i) Modern materials and sustainable construction, (ii) Environmental engineering and management, (iii) Geotechnical engineering, (iv) Health, safety and environment, (v) Irrigation, water resources and management, (vi) Structural Engineering, and (vii) Transportation engineering and traffic planning. Given the range of the topics covered, this book can be useful for students, scholars and professionals interested in the different sub-disciplines of civil engineering.
This book focuses on the contemporary fired clay brick to explore themes of home and house, homeownership, materiality, and sense of place. It investigates why, despite an increasing number of alternative materials, brick remains at the forefront of what people, in the UK in particular, expect homes to be built of, and how brick is indelibly entwined with what home means – something materially stable and financially secure, affording a located sense of place. Through observation of the building process and interviews with bricklayers, foremen, planners, developers, and homebuyers in England, Felicity Cannell traces the embedded meanings of a mundane, ubiquitous artefact, and reveals the tensions and contradictions in today’s use of brick to signify the traditional home. Although easing the planning process and leading to quick sales, the way brick is used in mass market housing today considerably restricts its capacities, notably decoration, flexibility, and strength: the very qualities which have historically positioned this tremendously versatile material as the superlative building block. Overall, the book adds complexity to the study of home and prompts debate about why we build the way we do.
Considers the life-cycle cost analysis of designing energy efficient electrical distribution systems. Addresses design requirements to integrate buildings with smart grids and micro-grids. Provides an overview of both standard and energy efficient electrical distribution components, including transformers, protection devices, conductors, controllers, and panels. Features a new chapter on optimal design energy efficient and resilient power systems. Includes case studies, exercises, and end-of-chapter problems.
Covers three important aspects of smart cities i.e., healthcare, smart communication and information, and smart transportation technologies Discusses on various security aspects of medical documents and the data preserving mechanisms Provides better solution using IoT techniques for healthcare, transportation, and communication systems Includes the implementation example, various datasets, experimental results, and simulation procedures Offers solution for various disease prediction systems with intelligent techniques
With over fifty patents to his name and innumerable awards and accolades, James Lovelock was a distinguished and original thinker, widely recognized by the international scientific community. In this inspiring book, republished in the year of his 100th birthday, Lovelock tells his life story, from his first steps as a scientist to his work with organisations as diverse as NASA, Shell and the Marine Biological Association. Homage to Gaia describes the years of travel and work that led to his crucial scientific breakthroughs in environmental awareness, uncovering how CFCs impact on the ozone layer and creating the concept of Gaia, the theory that the Earth is a self-regulating system. Written in a sharp and energetic style, James Lovelock's book will entertain and inspire anyone interested in science or the creative spirit beyond his legacy.
A complete update and revision of one of the Motley Fool’s best commercial real estate books Offers a step-by-step introduction to building and understanding the models underlying investments in properties from single family rentals to entire development projects Ideal reading for courses in real estate financial modeling; asset valuation; property investment, development, and finance; commercial real estate investments and more Provides a much-needed resource for learners at any stage of their real estate careers Includes expanded coverage of waterfalls and other cutting-edge investment trends
Toxicology in Antiquity provides an authoritative and fascinating exploration into the use of toxins and poisons in antiquity. It brings together the two previously published shorter volumes on the topic, as well as adding considerable new information. Part of the History of Toxicology and Environmental Health series, it covers key accomplishments, scientists, and events in the broad field of toxicology, including environmental health and chemical safety. This first volume sets the tone for the series and starts at the very beginning, historically speaking, with a look at toxicology in ancient times. The book explains that before scientific research methods were developed, toxicology thrived as a very practical discipline. People living in ancient civilizations readily learned to distinguish safe substances from hazardous ones, how to avoid these hazardous substances, and how to use them to inflict harm on enemies. It also describes scholars who compiled compendia of toxic agents. New chapters in this edition focus chiefly on evidence for the use of toxic agents derived from religious texts.
Written in easy to follow language, the book presents cutting-edge agriculturally relevant plant biotechnologies and applications in a manner that is accessible to all. This book updates and introduces the scope and method of plant biotechnologies and molecular breeding within the context of environmental analysis and assessment, a diminishing supply of productive arable land, scarce water resources and climate change. New plant breeding techniques including CRISPR-cas system are now tools to meet these challenges both in developed countries and in developing countries. Ethical issues, intellectual property rights, regulation policies in various countries related to agricultural biotechnology are examined. The rapid developments in plant biotechnology are explained to a large audience with relevant examples. New varieties of crops can be adapted to new climatic conditions in order to reduce pest-associated losses and the adverse abiotic effects
The matsutake mushroom continues to be a highly sought delicacy, especially in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean cuisine. Matsutake Worlds explores this mushroom through the lens of multi-species encounters centered around the matsutake's notorious elusiveness. The mushroom's success, the contributors of this volume argue, cannot be accounted for by any one cultural, social, political, or economic process. Rather, the matsutake mushroom has flourished as the result of a number of different processes and dynamics, culminating in the culinary institution we know today.
The first meeting of the NATO/CCMS Pilot Study "Dose-Response Analysis and Biologically-Based Risk assessment for Initiator and Promoter Carcinogens" was held in Rome, Italy, in the spring of 1991, and was followed by annual or bi-annual meetings held in Germany, Greece, Netherlands, Portugal, USA, up to the end of 1995; in large part supported by NATO/CCMS grants or fellowships, and organized by Pilot Study participants. The Pilot Study activity has been characterized by a higly collaborative atmosphere, which was essential for a deep and detailed analysis of a problem on which different points of view, methodological approaches and regulations exist in the various member countries. The Pilot Study was aimed at proposing a carcinogenic risk assessment procedure which is based on a detailed analysis of the relevant biological processes, and may also consent the verification of hypotheses. The specific form of theoretical and mathe matical models is identified by considering and using the whole set of objective data available. The multidisciplinary approach of the pilot study is reflected by the struc ture of this book. Each chapter is the result of the cooperation of several authors from to produce a comprehensive manual that includes different countries; its objective was both theoretical and practical information."
Environmental Tracers in Subsurface Hydrology synthesizes the research of specialists into a comprehensive review of the application of environmental tracers to the study of soil water and groundwater flow. The book includes chapters which cover ionic tracers, noble gases, chlorofluorocarbons, tritium, chlorine-36, oxygen-18, deuterium, and isotopes of carbon, strontium, sulphur and nitrogen. Applications of the tracers include the estimation of vertical and horizontal groundwater velocities, groundwater recharge rates, inter-aquifer leakage and mixing processes, chemical processes and palaeohydrology. Practicing hydrologists, soil physicists and hydrology professors and students will find the book to be a valuable support in their work.
This book investigates changing geographies of fast growing Asian metropolitan regions, in particular their peripheral areas. Through examining the intersection of global suburbanisation and Asian urbanism, the book depicts a complex (sub)urban world in Asia. It explains how the forces of globalisation, the logic of capital accumulation, and the history of rural-urban divide and interaction, path-dependent local institutions, and government policies work together to reshape the geographies of Asian urbanism. Touching on social, environmental, governance and planning aspects of contemporary urban Asia, the chapters in this volume provide grounded studies of residential relocation and changing rural settlements, property development by a congregation of developers, political ecologies of water provision, middle-class consumers, and local state agencies, transit-oriented development and infrastructure finance in peri-urban areas. It demonstrates an assemblage of actors and coexistence of multiple urban governance regimes with everyday negotiations. Changing Asian Urban Geographies will be interesting not only to those who wish to know more about Asian urban geographies but also to scholars and students wishing to see Asian metropolises in a comparative perspective of (sub)urban dynamics. The chapters in this book were originally published in Urban Geography.
The book investigates various MPPT algorithms, and the optimization of solar energy using machine learning and deep learning. It will serve as an ideal reference text for senior undergraduate, graduate students, and academic researchers in diverse engineering domains including electrical, electronics and communication, computer, and environmental. This book: Discusses data acquisition by the internet of things for real-time monitoring of solar cells. Covers artificial neural network techniques, solar collector optimization, and artificial neural network applications in solar heaters, and solar stills. Details solar analytics, smart centralized control centers, integration of microgrids, and data mining on solar data. Highlights the concept of asset performance improvement, effective forecasting for energy production, and Low-power wide-area network applications. Elaborates solar cell design principles, the equivalent circuits of single and two diode models, measuring idealist factors, and importance of series and shunt resistances. The text elaborates solar cell design principles, the equivalent circuit of single diode model, the equivalent circuit of two diode model, measuring idealist factor, and importance of series and shunt resistances. It further discusses perturb and observe technique, modified P&O method, incremental conductance method, sliding control method, genetic algorithms, and neuro-fuzzy methodologies. It will serve as an ideal reference text for senior undergraduate, graduate students, and academic researchers in diverse engineering domains including electrical, electronics and communication, computer, and environmental.
In addition to describing core concepts and principles, this book reveals professional methodologies and tools used by national agencies and private corporations to predict sites' potential for wind and solar power generation. Each chapter focuses on a different issue, showing readers the corresponding methodology, as well as examples of how to apply the techniques described. These techniques are explained with step-by-step guides that demonstrate how environmental variables in complex terrains can be characterized and forecasted.The authors present an adaptive finite element mass-consistent model, which computes a diagnostic wind field in the three-dimensional area of interest using observed wind data from measurement stations - data which is then interpolated using a physical model of the wind field in the boundary layer. An ensemble method is presented based on the perturbation of the numerical weather prediction models' results. The book goes on to explain solar radiation characterization and forecasting. Solar radiation and electrical power generation temporal and spatial variability are discussed and modelled. Different statistical methods are presented in order to improve solar radiation forecasting using ground measurement, numerical weather predictions (NWPs) and satellite-derived data. This book is focused on both probabilistic and point forecast explaining different models and methodologies to improve the forecasting. The results obtained from various simulations around the world are presented in tables. Finally, the book explains a possible methodology to develop a Solar Map taking into account solar radiation, terrain surface conditions and cast shadows. As such, the book provides an overview of the concepts, principles and practices involved in the treatment of environmental variables related to solar radiation or wind fields, especially when complex terrains are involved, offering useful resources for students and researchers alike. It also equips professionals with the methodologies and tools needed to construct environmental variable maps and conduct forecasting for solar radiation and wind fields. |
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