|
Books > Earth & environment > The environment > General
Advances in Geophysics, Volume 60, the latest release in this
highly-respected publication in the field of geophysics, contains
new chapters on a variety of topics, including Marchenko imaging,
Fiber-optic sensing and distributed acoustic sensing, Diffractions,
and Time-lapse interferometry across scales.
HISTORIES OF HUMAN CONSTRUCTIONS OF NATURE Wild Things: Nature and
the Social Imagination assembles eleven substantive and original
essays on the cultural and social dimensions of environmental
history. They address a global cornucopia of social and ecological
systems, from Africa to Europe, North America and the Caribbean,
and their temporal range extends from the 1830s into the
twenty-first century. The imaginative (and actual) construction of
landscapes and the appropriation of Nature - through
image-fashioning, curating museum and zoo collections, making
'friends', 'enemies' and mythical symbols from animals - are
recurring subjects. Among the volume's thought-provoking essays are
a group enmeshing nature and the visual culture of photography and
film. Canonical environmental history themes, from colonialism to
conservation, are re-inflected by discourses including gender
studies, Romanticism, politics and technology. The loci of the
studies included here represent both the microcosmic - underwater
laboratory, zoo, film studio; and broad canvases - the German
forest, the Rocky Mountains, the islands of Haiti and Madagascar.
Their casts too are richly varied - from Britain's otters and
Africa's Nile crocodiles to Hollywood film-makers and South African
cattle. The volume represents an excitingly diverse collection of
studies of how humans, in imagination and deed, act on and are
acted on by 'wild things'.
This book discusses the concepts, methods and case studies
pertaining to Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) based Carbon Footprint
Assessment. It covers chapters on Carbon Footprint Assessment with
LCA methodology & case studies on carbon footprint calculation
following the LCA approach on power plants in India, Impacts of
Vehicle Incidents On CO2 Emissions and school buildings in India.
Highlighting the connections between climate change and human
security, this book elucidates what might happen when a mere
10-degree drop in average temperature results in a sudden inability
to produce enough food, when rapidly advancing desertification
produces water scarcities where none existed before, and when newly
frozen landscapes lead to more power plants for energy, resulting
in increased air pollution. The destabilizing effects of these
possibilities create many potential challenges for U.S. national
security in a globalized world in which we may have to intervene
militarily to safeguard our interests around the globe. In February
2004, a Pentagon report on climate change and its implication for
national security received extraordinary attention and publicity.
Public attention, however, focused almost exclusively on portents
of inevitable doom and disaster—most particularly on a scenario
outlining a possible future similar to a climate event of 8,200
years ago and its impact on the availability of food, energy, and
water. This book offers a broad examination of the meaning of
climate change and global warming while maintaining a strategic
perspective on the implications of environmental effects on all
forms of security—national, international, and human
(transcending borders and having more to do with basic resources).
Given the uncertainty surrounding climate change as a specific
event, the authors argue for recognizing the profound social,
political, and human impact that could take place in the coming
years. While recognizing the inherent dangers of prediction, Liotta
and Shearer effectively present the case that the time to not only
recognize—but deal with—potentially profound outcomes is now.
On a world scale, the implicit deal between corporation and
community is undergoing a revolution in the period 1990 2000. For
the first time, corporate boardrooms are having to confront the
environmental challenge not as a peripheral issue around 'public
relations', but as a core issue of credibility with its customers.
As trust in big business has declined, consumer willingness to
alter buying behaviour to register disapproval has accelerated. As
a result, boardrooms in the largest companies are having to redraw
their strategic procedures regarding the environment."
Long before it became fashionable to talk of climate change,
drought and water shortages, the authors of this lucid and
trenchant dialogue were warning that planet earth was heading for
uninhabitability. They exchange viewpoints and insights that have
matured over many years of thought, study and reflection. One of
the authors is a Westerner--a man of many parts, both wartime
resistance fighter and leading industrialist, who founded one of
the first think tanks to address seriously the human prospects for
global survival. The other represents the philosophical and ethical
perspectives of the East--a Buddhist leader who has visited country
after country, campaigning tirelessly for the abolition of nuclear
weapons and war in all its forms. Engaging constructively and
imaginatively with such seemingly intractable problems as
population growth, the decline of natural resources,
desertification, pollution and deforestation, Ikeda and Peccei show
that many of these problems are interrelated. Only be addressing
them as part of a web of complex but combined issues, and by
working together for peace and justice, can human beings expect to
find lasting solutions. The best prospect for the future lies in an
ethical revolution whereby humanity can find a fresh understanding
of itself in holistic connection with, rather than separation and
alienation from, the planet itself.
This book contains selected papers presented during the World
Renewable Energy Network's 28thanniversary congress at the
University of Kingston in London. The forum highlighted the
integration of renewables and sustainable buildings as the best
means to combat climate change. In-depth chapters written by the
world's leading experts highlight the most current research and
technological breakthroughs and discuss policy, renewable energy
technologies and applications in all sectors - for heating and
cooling, agricultural applications, water, desalination, industrial
applications and for the transport sectors. Presents cutting-edge
research in green building and renewable energy from all over the
world; Covers the most up-to-date research developments, government
policies, business models, best practices and innovations; Contains
case studies and examples to enhance practical application of the
technologies.
This book offers an in-depth case study on the leading
international refugee agency, the United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees (UNHCR), and its approach to environmentally displaced
persons. The author examines the UNHCR on the basis of expert
interviews and content analysis in order to highlight why and how
the organization is addressing the issue. The analysis draws on
organizational as well as security theory, offering readers a
better understanding of the connection between the two. The book
appeals to scholars in the fields of migration and organizational
studies, as well as policymakers and professionals working in
international organizations.
This book explores in detail the issues of ecological civilization
development, ecological philosophy, ecological criticism,
environmental aesthetics, and the ecological wisdom of traditional
Chinese culture related to ecological aesthetics. Drawing on
Western philosophy and aesthetics, it proposes and demonstrates a
unique aesthetic view of ecological ontology in the field of
aesthetics under the direct influence of Marxism, which is based on
the modern economic, social cultural development and the modern
values of traditional Chinese culture.This book embodies the
innovative interpretation of Chinese traditional culture in the
Chinese academic community. The author discusses the philosophical
and cultural resources that can be used for reference in Chinese
and Western cultural tradition, focusing on traditional Chinese
Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism and painting art, Western modern
ecological philosophy, Heidegger's ontology ecological aesthetics,
and British and American environmental aesthetics.In short, the
book comprehensively discusses the author's concept of ecological
ontology aesthetics as an integration and unification of ontology
aesthetics and ecological aesthetics. This generalized ecological
aesthetics explores the relationship between humans and nature,
society and itself, guided by the brand-new ecological worldview in
the post-modern context. It also changes the non-beauty state of
human existence and establishes an aesthetic existence state that
conforms to ecological laws.
This compendium of primary sources examines British architectural
history from the accession of King George III in 1760 to the
outbreak if the First World War in 1914. The collection of two
volumes contains a mixture of architectural treatises, biographical
material on architects, works on different types of building, and
contemporary descriptions of individual buildings. This title will
be of great interest to students of Art History and Architecture.
|
|