Winner of the 2022 OCM Bocas Prize for Fiction. Shortlisted for the Society of Authors' McKitterick Prize 2022. Finalist of the 2022 Firecracker Award in Fiction. Coconut trees. Carnival. Rum and coke. To many outsiders, these and other sunny images are all they know about life in the Caribbean. However, if you want to learn how the locals truly live and experience the dark and often harrowing truths that lurk behind the idyllic imagery of Caribbean culture, then come visit the town of Pleasantview. Come during election season, and see how one candidate sets out to slaughter endangered turtles - just for fun. Or come on the day the other candidate beats his "outside-woman," so badly she ends up losing their baby. Then come on the night of the political rally, where this grieving woman exacts a very public revenge. Stay a while, and see how this single event has a trajectory far beyond the lives of the immediate actors, with often tragic and heartbreaking consequences. Written in a remarkable combination of Standard English and Trinidad Creole, Pleasantview showcases the entrenched political, racial, and class dichotomies of life in Trinidad: the generosity (yet cruelty) of the average Trini; the sense of optimism (and yet, despair) which permeates everyday interaction; and the musicality of Caribbean creole (kriol) expression that masks an ingrained and frequently violent patriarchy. Merging the vibrancy and darkness of recent Caribbean writers such as Ingrid Persaud and Claire Adam with the linguistic experimentation of Marlon James's A Brief History of Seven Killings, Pleasantview is a landmark work in international fiction.

Presents a unique study of Integrative Problem-Solving (IPS). The consideration of 'Decadence' is essential in the scientific study of environmental and other problems and their rigorous solution, because the broad context within which the problems emerge can affect their solution. Stochastic reasoning underlines the conceptual and methodological framework of IPS, and its formulation has a mathematical life of its own that accounts for the multidisciplinarity of real world problems, the multisourced uncertainties characterizing their solution, and the different thinking modes of the people involved. Only by interpolating between the full range of disciplines (including stochastic mathematics, physical science, neuropsychology, philosophy, and sociology) and the associated thinking modes can scientists arrive at a satisfactory account of problem-solving, and be able to distinguish between a technically complete problem-solution, and a solution that has social impact.

This book was first published in 1943.

This survey covers pollution control, in particular measures taken at Community level to deal with water pollution, air pollution, chemicals and waste. It also discusses legislation developed in wider contexts, such as environmental impact assessment, nature conservation, and the integration of environmental policy into other community policies, such as agriculture and development co-operation. The first title in Kluwer Law International's International Environmental Law and Policy series, the book must be viewed as a work of reference, to be used by industries and organizations involved with pollution control, as well as by those interested in environmental policy more generally. This edition of the work, although it includes much that appeared in the first edition, has been totally rewritten, expanded and updated to include the key events and decisions that have intervened since the end of the 1980s, including the adoption of the Fifth Environmental Action Programme in 1993 and the impact of the Maastricht Treaty on the EU's environmental policy. The growing role of the European Community in international affairs is examined: for example, the participation of the Community in the Montreal Convention on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer is fully described, as is the Commission Communication to the Council on measures to be taken by the Community to deal with the greenhouse effect and the action taken by the Community both before and after the Rio Earth Summit.

This book deals with the transformation of the Arctic from an isolated or a distant region to a member of the global community, vulnerable to global changes, and an area frequently in the very center of the world's attention. Increased global interest is a potential source of tensions between the need for exploration or exploitation, and the requirements of protection. This context calls for new data, knowledge and information vital for a better understanding of interactions between different systems, as well as developing awareness about the current and potential changes in the future. The objective of the book is to help develop a strategy of adaptation to climate change based on the knowledge and experience of the extremely effective mechanisms which for centuries made survival possible in this region.

Land use and land cover (LULC) as well as its changes (LUCC) are an interplay between bio-geophysical characteristics of the landscape and climate as well as the complex human interaction including its different patterns of utilization superimposed on the natural vegetation. LULC is a core information layer for a variety of scientific and administrative tasks(e.g. hydrological modelling, climate models, land use planning).In particular in the context of climate change with its impacts on socio-economic, socio-ecologic systems as well as ecosystem services precise information on LULC and LUCC are mandatory baseline datasets required over large areas. Remote sensing can provide such information on different levels of detail and in a homogeneous and reliable way. Hence, LULC mapping can be regarded as a prototype for integrated approaches based on spaceborne and airborne remote sensing techniques combined with field observations. The book provides for the first time a comprehensive view of various LULC activities focusing on European initiatives, such as the LUCAS surveys, the CORINE land covers, the ESA/EU GMES program and its resulting Fast-Track- and Downstream Services, the EU JRC Global Land Cover, the ESA GlobCover project as well as the ESA initiative on Essential Climate Variables. All have and are producing highly appreciated land cover products. The book will cover the operational approaches, but also review current state-of-the-art scientific methodologies and recommendations for this field. It opens the view with best-practice examples that lead to a view that exceeds pure mapping, but to investigate into drivers and causes as well as future projections.

Examining the premise that the process of economic liberalization has had a significant impact on the labor markets of many countries, this contributed volume studies that impact in different countries and regions from both theoretical and applied perspectives. While recognizing that liberalization entails many elements, the book focuses on how structural adjustment policies have contributed to the overall development effort. The first four chapters analyze the relationship between economic liberalization and labor markets, and then investigate this relationship within broader regions, such as North-South, transition economies, and Africa. The remaining chapters provide case studies of Greece, Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Trinidad and Tobago, and Turkey.

All the country chapters treat political economy issues and related policy conclusions. Stressing the interrelationship between liberalization and labor markets, the chapters discuss the importance of institutional, political, and legal factors in considering the effects of liberalization policies on the structure of labor markets and its participants. The book is an important look at a previously unexplored area of economic analysis.

As scientists and policymakers try to come to grips with problems such as climate change and risks to biodiversity, they turn more and more frequently to the method of scenario analysis to better understand the future of these problems. Over the last few years scenario analysis has become one of the key tools for bridging environmental science and policy. This is the first book to sum up the current practice of environmental scenario analysis and to propose directions for improving its quality and effectiveness. Chapters are written by an international group of distinguished scenario experts and provide an excellent starting basis for first-time scenario practitioners, as well as a collection of new ideas on improving scenario practice for experienced scenario analysts.
* Comprehensive coverage and overview on environmental scenario analysis from a team of international experts
* First book to address key contemporary issues involved with environmental scenario analysis
* Gives guidelines for best practices
Benefits:
* Excellent starting base for first-time scenario practitioners
* Helps the reader to interpret scenarios and to place them into the correct context

Acculturating the Shopping Centre examines whether the shopping centre should be qualified as a global architectural type that effortlessly moves across national and cultural borders in the slipstream of neo-liberal globalization, or should instead be understood as a geographically and temporally bound expression of negotiations between mall developers (representatives of a global logic of capitalist accumulation) on the one hand, and local actors (architects/governments/citizens) on the other. It explores how the shopping centre adapts to new cultural contexts, and questions whether this commercial type has the capacity to disrupt or even amend the conditions that it encounters. Including more than 50 illustrations, this book considers the evolving architecture of shopping centres. It would be beneficial to academics and students across a number of areas such as architecture, urban design, cultural geography and sociology.

Increasingly, the planet is threatened by a wide variety of real and potential complex environmental problems, including the warming of the earth, the loss of biodiversity, waste mismanagement, deforestation, desertification, hazardous waste disposal, acid precipitation, and pollution of many sorts. Although many of these problems are global in scope, they are sometimes best addressed at local levels where the relationships between cause and effect may be best understood. This interdisciplinary volume brings together leading environmentalists and public policy makers in science, law, economics, business, and government who explore the connections among global environmental issues and the local initiatives needed to address those issues.

The volume begins with an overview of fundamental issues, including the problems of economic development and safe-guarding the environment. Air quality issues are examined next, followed by ocean and landbased sources of marine pollution, coastal preservation, water quality, nuclear power, environmental health and information, and a review of social and cultural perspectives. For those beginning their examination of environmental concerns, the volume provides an understandable introduction to the full spectrum of current issues; for the expert, the book offers an accurate view of current thinking on the problems.

This volume examines domestic and international environmental issues from an environmental justice perspective. The book is a compilation of original research articles and is divided into six parts. Articles in Part I focus on urban environmental issues and sustainability including Central Park's influence on historical and contemporary models of funding public parks, London's community-based efforts to deliver affordable fresh food to the poor and the relationship between sustainable living, green consumption and social justice concerns in an ecovillage in New York. Part II concentrates on water resources and the hazards of toxic fish consumption. Part III features food security, agriculture and land loss. Energy and the theme of land and resource loss in host communities is the focus in Part IV. It discusses the poverty that is pervasive in communities hosting extractive oil and gas installations and the industry and attitudes towards it in rural Trinidad and Nigeria. Part V employs spatial analyses techniques to examine siting and toxic releases and Part VI examines diversity and environmental attitudes and presents findings of national studies and environmental conflicts.

Listen to the New Books Network Podcast! The phrase, "state of nature", has been used over centuries to describe the uncultivated state of lands and animals, nudity, innocence, heaven and hell, interstate relations, and the locus of pre- and supra-political rights, such as the right to resistance, to property, to create and leave polities, and the freedom of religion, speech, and opinion, which may be reactivated or reprioritised when the polity and its laws fail. Combining intellectual history with current concerns, this volume brings together fourteen essays on the past, present and possible future applications of the legal fiction known as the state of nature. Contributors are: Daniel S. Allemann, Pamela Edwards, Ioannis D. Evrigenis, Mary C. Fuller, David Singh Grewal, Francesca Iurlaro, Edward J. Kolla, Laszlo Kontler, Grant S. McCall, Emile Simpson,Tom Sparks, Benjamin Straumann, Karl Widerquist, Sarah Winter, and Simone Zurbuchen.

Census data, population projections, trip estimates. Planners know numbers. But numbers don't always tell the whole story. Qualitative analysis which yields data in words and images rather than numbers is an important tool in any research project. Planners can use field research, photography, focus groups, and content analysis and meta-analysis to develop compelling data for a variety of uses. This book explains how to use and adapt these techniques and how to integrate these methods with more traditional qualitative research. Chapters offer step-by-step guidance to setting up various kinds of qualitative research projects, collecting data, organizing data, and analyzing data. Case studies show how a mix of qualitative and quantitative research can help planners build consensus and tackle large, complicated projects."

The news media has become a key arena for staging environmental conflicts. Through a range of illuminating examples ranging from climate change to oil spills, Media, Environment and the Network Society provides a timely and far-reaching analysis of the media politics of contemporary environmental debates.

The phrase "literature and environment" only achieved popularity in recent decades, yet writers dating back to the explorers of the 1500s--and later such 19th-century Romanticists as Thoreau--have long been addressing environmental issues through literary expression. This volume introduces students and educators to the field by tracing the evolution of environmental writing in the United States. Chapters written by distinguished scholars offer new perspectives on important environmental issues, guiding readers through 11 carefully selected literary works. Each chapter provides brief biographical information on the author, discussions of the work's structural, thematic, and stylistic components, and insights into the historical context that relates the work to relevant environmental issues. Each chapter concludes with information on works cited. The analyzed works cover a wide spectrum of literature and span nearly 100 years. Included are early writings, such as Mary Austin's 1903 The Land of Little Rain, and famous groundbreaking works, such as Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962) and Gary Snyder's Turtle Island (1974). Also included are frequently assigned works of special interest to students, such as The Monkey Wrench Gang (1975), The Earthsea Trilogy (1977), and Ceremony (1977). A list of selected further suggested readings completes the volume. Students of literature, as well as educators looking for new ways to present social issues, will find many ideas and much inspiration in this volume.

This urgent and essential text explores what could be classed as one of today's most pressing problems.It is the goal of environmental security to protect people from the short- and long-term ravages of nature, man-made threats and the deterioration of the natural environment.Environmental security includes activities related to pollution prevention, environmental conservation, compliance with regulations and environmental restoration.It is a challenge for transition countries to support all of these activities, due to limited resources, competing priorities and the fact that most environmental regulations, assessment methods and procedures, and restoration techniques were developed in countries where resources were not limited.

Modelling environmental dynamics is critical to understanding and predicting the evolution of the environment in response to the large number of influences including urbanisation, climate change and deforestation. Simulation and modelling provide support for decision making in environmental management. The first chapter introduces terminology and provides an overview of methodological modelling approaches which may be applied to environmental and complex dynamics. Based on this introduction this book illustrates various models applied to a large variety of themes: deforestation in tropical regions, fire risk, natural reforestation in European mountains, agriculture, biodiversity, urbanism, climate change and land management for decision support, etc. These case studies, provided by a large international spectrum of researchers and presented in a uniform structure, focus particularly on methods and model validation so that this book is not only aimed at researchers and graduates but also at professionals.

"Use of Microbes for the Alleviation of Soil Stresses, Volume 1" describes the most important details and advances related to the alleviation of soil stresses by soil microbes. Comprised of seven chapters, the book reviews the mechanisms by which plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) alleviate plant growth under stress; the role of mycorrhizal fungi on the alleviation of drought stress in host plants; how PGPR may alleviate salinity stress on the growth of host plants; and the role of PGPR on the growth of the host plant under the stress of sub optimal root zone temperature.

Written by experts in their respective fields, "Use of Microbes for the Alleviation of Soil Stresses, Volume 1 "is a comprehensive and valuable resource for researchers and students interested in the field of microbiology and soil stresses.

This book focuses on the academic foundations, trends and traditions of environmental education for sustainable development principally in Chinese contexts. It highlights contexts and case studies that illuminate recent Chinese initiatives. It includes case studies of green schools and reports on recent initiatives in school-based ESD curriculum development programmes in China, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. The book concludes with an overview chapter that points to likely future developments. The assumption underpinning the book is that experiences gained in such a major country as China will be of real interest to geographical and environmental educationists, professional educators and teachers elsewhere. Not only will it generate interest and create greater awareness but also it is hoped that these experiences will provide a platform for scholarly exchange and contribute insights on education policy and curriculum changes across Asian-Pacific communities in an increasingly globalised world.

This book presents the latest findings and ongoing research in the field of green information systems and green information and communication technology (ICT). It provides insights into a whole range of cross-cutting topics in ICT and environmental sciences as well as showcases how information and communication technologies allow environmental and energy efficiency issues to be handled effectively. The papers presented in this book are a selection of extended and improved contributions to the 28th International Conference on Informatics for Environmental Protection dedicated to ICT for energy efficiency. This book is essential and particularly worth reading for those who already gained basic knowledge and want to deepen and extend their expertise in the subjects mentioned above.

In the 1700s, Jean-Jacques Rousseau celebrated the Alps as the quintessence of the triumph of nature over the horrors of civilization. Now available in English, History of the Alps, 1500-1900: Environment, Development, and Society provides a precise history of one of the greatest mountain range systems in the world. Jon Mathieu's work disproves a number of commonly held notions about the Alps, positioning them as neither an inversion of lowland society nor a world apart with respect to Europe. Mathieu's broad historical portrait addresses both the economic and sociopolitical exploring the relationship between population levels, development, and the Alpine environment, as well as the complex links between agrarian structure, society, and the development of modern civilization. More detailed analysis examines the relationship between various agrarian structures and shifting political configurations, several aspects of family history between the late Middle Ages and the turn of the twentieth century, and exploration of the Savoy, Grisons, and Carinthia regions.

Wenner, who has been an active policy-oriented political scientist in the area of energy/environmental legislation and litigation . . . has created a practitioner's dictionary to the most influential special-interest groups lobbying in the halls of Washington, DC, today. Her introduction offers an excellent summation of how she determined which groups were to be included and describes how she organized the groups. . . . If the purpose of a dictionary is to save time and trouble for researchers, then this is an excellent contribution to the growing literature of environmental and energy policy studies. "Choice"

In the latter part of the 1980s, as political action committees proliferated and the number of lobbyists in Washington, D.C. increased, there was a corresponding increase of interest among scholars in examining this phenomenon. This book defines the universe of groups that lobby in the fields of environmental and energy policy regardless of which side of the many controversies in these areas they represent. Included are groups that have gained national recognition as representatives of the environmental movement; other entries are smaller organizations that focus on one special issue. Their impact may be significant on that policy, but they may be less important than some general public interest lobbies that do not specialize in environmental problems but whose influence on the American political scene makes their opinions significant. Another major category is the large trade association with many interests that go beyond the focus of this book. These groups have been in business for many years and would not fade from view if they stopped all lobbying on these issues. Yet they are some of the most important actors in this issue area today, and to ignore them would be to turn a blind eye to the reality of the political process. A third major type of group that lobbies in this area are the professional and research organizations that are formed around their members' careers. They assume a moderate position on most of the main issues and may hold a balance of power in their hands today.

Each group included in the volume is profiled according to its history, membership, sources of funding, structure of organization, strategies used to influence policies, and the types of programs about which the organization is most concerned. In addition to the 148 main entries that comprise the bulk of the book, there were groups described in standard reference works that appeared to qualify them for inclusion in this work but for which there was minimal information; these groups are listed in Appendix A. The questionnaire used to query the groups is included in Appendix B. As a reference tool, this volume will be useful for libraries, as well as for organizations interested in the fields of energy and environment.