Arguing that Americans should turn to private entrepreneurs rather than the federal government to guarantee the protection and improvement of environmental quality, the authors document numerous examples of how entrepreneurs have satisfied the growing demand for environmental quality. Beginning with historical cases from the turn of the century, they illuminate the benefits of entrepreneurial participation in wildlife preservation, aquatic habitat production, and environmentally friendly housing development. As government budgets shrink and more people question the efficacy of government regulations, Enviro-Capitalists offers alternatives to traditional thinking about the environment. While the book does not claim that the private sector can provide solutions to all environmental problems, it offers innovative ideas that will cultivate and encourage environmental entrepreneurship.

Environmental argument is 'about' far more than meets the eye. How people (mis)under-stand each other during environmental debates is affected by conflicts between values and ways of life which may not be directly connected with the environment at all. This book offers sociological evidence from three contrasting societies - Ireland, Germany and China - to explore how diversity of cultural context affects deliberation about the physical world. What can we discover by examining environmental debates through the lens of interculturality? When people disagree about flood management, building motorways or extracting gas, what difference does it make if they have diverse experiences of neighbourly relations, how to use time or how to imagine a good life? What is going on at intersections between cultures to influence the trajectories of environmental debates? The book disinters taken-for-granted practices, feelings and social relationships which affect environmental arguments, in scientific and artistic debate as well as in politics and policy-making. Importantly, the book makes visible the effects of cultural difference on people's approaches to arguing itself. If public arguing is shaped by specific habits of feeling or imagination, how does that impact on theories of democracy? Do we need new kinds of arguing to cope with environmental crises? What elements of arguing are decisive in the ways people come to see environmental decisions as wise choices?

What can creativity achieve in an era of ecocide? How are people using creative and artistic practices to engage with (and resist) the destruction of life on earth? What are the relationships between creativity and repair in the face of escalating global environmental crises? Across twelve compelling case studies, this book charts the emergence of diverse forms of artistic practice and brings together accounts of how artists, scholars and activists are creatively responding to environmental destruction. Highlighting alternative approaches to creativity in both conventional art settings and daily life, the book demonstrates the major influence that ecological thought has had on contemporary creative practices. These are often more concerned with subtle processes of feeling, experience and embodiment than they are with charismatic ‘eco-art’ works. In doing so, this exploratory book develops a conception of creativity as an anti-ecocide endeavour, and provides timely theoretical and practical insights on art in an age of environmental destruction.

This book investigates the consequences of redundant state and federal environmental regulations in the United States. Drawing on the most exhaustive statistical analysis of US federal wetland permits ever constructed, the book uncovers the disjointed world of wetland regulation. The author starts by examining the socioeconomic and environmental factors driving individuals to apply for environmental regulatory permits and the regional inconsistencies encountered in federal environmental regulatory program performance. The book goes on to demonstrate that states have more power in federal relationships than scholars often believe and that individual state policies are important even in a time of strong federal governance. Evidence shows that such intergovernmental redundancy serves to increase overall regulatory program effectiveness. This book breaks new ground in the subjects of federalism and environmental regulation by rejecting the traditional approach of picking winners and losers in favour of a nuanced demonstration of how redundancy and collaboration between different levels of governance can make for more effective governmental programs. The book is also innovative in its use of the perspectives of regulated citizens not as a point of judgment, but as a means of introducing a constructive new way of thinking about political and administrative boundaries within a federalist system of governance. The book provides relevant context to wider political debates about excessive and duplicative regulatory oversight and will be of interest to Environmental Policy students and administrators.

Winner of the 2018 Nautilus Book Award, Silver, for Green Living/Sustainability At nearly twenty tons per person, American carbon dioxide emissions are among the highest in the world. Not every American fits this statistic, however. Across the country there are urban neighborhoods, suburbs, rural areas, and commercial institutions that have drastically lower carbon footprints. These exceptional places, as it turns out, are neither "poor" nor technologically advanced. Their low emissions are due to culture. In The Five-Ton Life, Susan Subak uses previously untapped sources to discover and explore various low-carbon locations. In Washington DC, Chicago suburbs, lower Manhattan, and Amish settlements in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, she examines the built and social environment to discern the characteristics that contribute to lower greenhouse-gas emissions. The most decisive factors that decrease energy use are a commitment to small interiors and social cohesion, although each example exhibits its own dynamics and offers its own lessons for the rest of the country. Bringing a fresh approach to the quandary of American household consumption, Subak's groundbreaking research provides many pathways toward a future that is inspiring and rooted in America's own traditions.

Following the much acclaimed success of the first volume of Key Topics in Conservation Biology, this entirely new second volume addresses an innovative array of key topics in contemporary conservation biology. Written by an internationally renowned team of authors, Key Topics in Conservation Biology 2 adds to the still topical foundations laid in the first volume (published in 2007) by exploring a further 25 cutting-edge issues in modern biodiversity conservation, including controversial subjects such as setting conservation priorities, balancing the focus on species and ecosystems, and financial mechanisms to value biodiversity and pay for its conservation. Other chapters, setting the framework for conservation, address the sociology and philosophy of peoples relation with Nature and its impact on health, and such challenging practical issues as wildlife trade and conflict between people and carnivores. As a new development, this second volume of Key Topics includes chapters on major ecosystems, such as forests, islands and both fresh and marine waters, along with case studies of the conservation of major taxa: plants, butterflies, birds and mammals. A further selection of topics consider how to safeguard the future through monitoring, reserve planning, corridors and connectivity, together with approaches to reintroduction and re-wilding, along with managing wildlife disease. A final chapter, by the editors, synthesises thinking on the relationship between biodiversity conservation and human development. Each topic is explored by a team of top international experts, assembled to bring their own cross-cutting knowledge to a penetrating synthesis of the issues from both theoretical and practical perspectives. The interdisciplinary nature of biodiversity conservation is reflected throughout the book. Each essay examines the fundamental principles of the topic, the methodologies involved and, crucially, the human dimension. In this way, Key Topics in Conservation Biology 2, like its sister volume, Key Topics in Conservation Biology, embraces issues from cutting-edge ecological science to policy, environmental economics, governance, ethics, and the practical issues of implementation. Key Topics in Conservation Biology 2 will, like its sister volume, be a valuable resource in universities and colleges, government departments, and conservation agencies. It is aimed particularly at senior undergraduate and graduate students in conservation biology and wildlife management and wider ecological and environmental subjects, and those taking Masters degrees in any field relevant to conservation and the environment. Conservation practitioners, policy-makers, and the wider general public eager to understand more about important environmental issues will also find this book invaluable.

* Placing an economic value on biodiversity is seen by many as the best and perhaps only successful way of preserving it while also protecting livelihoods* This is the most comprehensive examination of valuation ever conducted, focusing on one of the world's top eight biodiversity "hotspots," with principles widely applicable across the world* Original comparisons of the different "values" of biodiversity, trade-offs, incentives for conservation, case studies of coffee growing and wildlife conservation and practical policy optionsEconomic valuation of biodiversity and ecosystem services is possibly the most powerful tool for halting the loss of biodiversity while maintaining incomes and livelihoods. Yet rarely have such approaches been applied to tropical forest "hotspots," which house the vast majority of the planet's plant and animal species. This groundbreaking work is the most comprehensive and detailed examination of the economics of environmental valuation and biodiversity conservation to date. Focusing on the Western Ghats of India, one of the top biodiversity hotspots in the world, this volume looks at a cross-section of local communities living within or near sanctuaries and reserve forests such as coffee growers, indigenous people and farmers-pastoralists to assess the use and non-use values that people derive from tropical forests. It also looks at the extent of their dependence on forests for various goods and services, and examines their perceptions and attitudes towards biodiversity conservation and wildlife protection. The book concludes with an assessment of the institutional alternatives and policies for promoting biodiversity conservation through economic valuationmethods.

Environmental law and governance are the cornerstones of global efforts to conserve the environment, protect resources and ensure fair and equitable outcomes for all of the planet's inhabitants. This book presents a series of thought-provoking chapters which consider the place of governance and law in the defence against imminent and ongoing threats to ecological, social and cultural integrity. Written by an international team of both established and early-career scholars from various disciplines and backgrounds, the chapters cover the most pressing and contemporary issues in environmental law and governance. These include access and benefit-sharing; the right to food and water; climate change coping and adaptation; human rights; the rights of indigenous communities; public and environmental health; and many more. The book has a general focus on environmental governance and law in the European Union and offers points of comparison with Canada and North and South America.

“A stunning atlas of the present and future."—Rebecca Solnit, author of several books including Infinite Cities: A Trilogy of Atlases—San Francisco, New Orleans, New York This immersive portal to islands around the world highlights the impacts of sea level rise and shimmers with hopeful solutions to combat it.   Atlases are being redrawn as islands are disappearing. What does an island see when the sea rises? Sea Change: An Atlas of Islands in a Rising Ocean weaves together essays, maps, art, and poetry to show us—and make us see—island nations in a warming world. Low-lying islands are least responsible for global warming, but they are suffering the brunt of it. This transportive atlas reorients our vantage point to place islands at the center of the story, highlighting Indigenous and Black voices and the work of communities taking action for local and global climate justice. At once serious and playful, well-researched and lavishly designed, Sea Change is a stunning exploration of the climate and our world's coastlines. Full of immersive storytelling, scientific expertise, and rallying cries from island populations that shout with hope—"We are not drowning! We are fighting!"—this atlas will galvanize readers in the fight against climate change and the choices we all face.

The Amazon region is the focus of intense conflict between conservationists concerned with deforestation and advocates of agro-industrial development. This book focuses on the contributions of environmental organizations to the preservation of Brazilian Amazonia. It reveals how environmental organizations such as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, WWF and others have fought fiercely to stop deforestation in the region. It documents how the history of frontier expansion and environmental struggle in the region is linked to Brazil's position in an evolving capitalist world-economy. It is shown how Brazil's effort to become a developed country has led successive Brazilian governments to devise development projects for Amazonia. The author analyses how globalization has led to the expansion of international commodity chains in the region, particularly for mineral ores, soybeans and beef. He shows how environmental organizations have politicized these commodity chains as weapons of conservation, through boycotting certain products, while other pro-development groups within Brazil claim that such organizations threaten Brazil's sovereignty over its own resources.

Miami, Florida, is likely to be entirely underwater by the end of this century. Residents are already starting to see the effects of sea level rise today. From sunny day flooding caused by higher tides to a sewer system on the brink of total collapse, the city undeniably lives in a climate changed world. In Disposable City, Miami resident Mario Alejandro Ariza shows us not only what climate change looks like on the ground today, but also what Miami will look like 100 years from now, and how that future has been shaped by the city's racist past and present. As politicians continue to kick the can down the road and Miami becomes increasingly unlivable, real estate vultures and wealthy residents will be able to get out or move to higher ground, but the most vulnerable communities, disproportionately composed of people of color, will face flood damage, rising housing costs, dangerously higher temperatures, and stronger hurricanes that they can't afford to escape. Miami may be on the front lines of climate change, but the battle it's fighting today is coming for the rest of the U.S.--and the rest of the world--far sooner than we could have imagined even a decade ago. Disposable City is a thoughtful portrait of both a vibrant city with a unique culture and the social, economic, and psychic costs of climate change that call us to act before it's too late.

Everything we use started life in the earth, as a rock or a mineral vein, a layer of an ancient seabed, or the remains of a long-extinct volcano. Humanity's ability to fashion nature to its own ends is by no means a new phenomenon. Silica-rich rocks have been flint-knapped by Stone Age people, transformed into stained glass in medieval times, and made into silicon chips for computers in the Digital Age. Our trick of turning rocks rich in malachite and chalcopyrite into copper has taken us from Bronze Age Minoan vases to the wiring that powers modern-day machinery. Today, we mine, quarry, pump, cut, blast and crush the Earth's resources at an unprecedented rate. We shift many times more rock, soil and sediment each year than the world's rivers and glaciers, wind and rain combined. Plastics alone now weigh twice as much as all the marine and terrestrial animals around the globe. We have become a dominant, even dangerous, force on the planet. In EXTRACTION TO EXTINCTION, David Howe traces our environmental impact through time to unearth how our obsession with endlessly producing and throwing away more and more stuff has pushed the planet to its limit. And he considers the question: what does the future look like for our depleted world?

"In the Land of Orpheus" provides a rich ethnographic description of village life and conservation efforts in an ecologically important region of one of the most biologically diverse countries in Europe. Barbara Cellarius describes natural resource use and economic survival strategies in a rural Rhodope Mountain village and the ways in which the lives of residents of a rural community are affected by outside forces, particularly the economic and political uncertainties that have plagued Bulgaria since the collapse of communism. She examines larger forces, including environmental nongovernmental organizations, interested in linking global conservation priorities with local communities.

An exploration of the production and reception of nature and spirituality in America's national park system America's national parks are some of the most powerful, beautiful, and inspiring spots on the earth. They are often considered "spiritual" places in which one can connect to oneself and to nature. But it takes a lot of work to make nature appear natural. To maintain the apparently pristine landscapes of our parks, the National Park Service must engage in traffic management, landscape design, crowd-diffusing techniques, viewpoint construction, behavioral management, and more-and to preserve the "spiritual" experience of the park, they have to keep this labor invisible. Spirituality and the State analyzes the way that the state manages spirituality in the parks through subtle, sophisticated, unspoken, and powerful techniques. Following the demands of a secular ethos, park officials have developed strategies that slide under the church/state barrier to facilitate deep connections between visitors and the space, connections that visitors often express as spiritual. Through indirect communication, the design of trails, roads, and vista points, and the management of land, bodies and sense perception, the state invests visitors in a certain way of experiencing reality that is perceived as natural, individual, and authentic. This construction of experience naturalizes the exercise of authority and the historical, social, and political interests that lie behind it. In this way a personal, individual, nature spirituality becomes a public religion of a particularly liberal stripe. Drawing on surveys and interviews with visitors and rangers as well as analyses of park spaces, Spirituality and the State investigates the production and reception of nature and spirituality in America's national park system.

This book deals with the development of temperate coastal sand dunes and the way these have been influenced by human activity. The different states in which the habitat exists both for the beach/foredune and inland dune are reviewed against the pressures exerted upon them. Options for management are considered and the likely consequences of taking a particular course of action highlighted. These options include traditional approaches to the conservation and management of wildlife and landscapes as well as habitat restoration. The way the value of the areas changes under different management regimes is considered mainly from an environmental perspective. Consideration is given to new approaches to management and restoration including adopting a more dynamic approach. Audience This book will be of interest to academics, students and professionals concerned with policy formulation and /or actively managing coastal areas.

Agendas and Sustainability considers the processes used for devising global environment and development agendas and provides practical suggestions for their future development and influence. A collaboration of the latest research from the Stockholm Environment Institute and the Earth Council, the book presents similarities and differences in problem definition, objectives, principles, priorities and actions across eleven of the major agendas put forward for environment and development after Rio. Points of divergence and areas of common ground are investigated for over 30 environment and development-related topics, such as biodiversity, consumption patterns, trade, urbanization, population, education, deforestation and water resources.

Sea otters are good indicators of ocean health. In addition, they are a keystone species, offering a stabilizing effect on ecosystem, controlling sea urchin populations that would otherwise inflict damage to kelp forest ecosystems. The kelp forest ecosystem is crucial for marine organisms and contains coastal erosion. With the concerns about the imperiled status of sea otter populations in California, Aleutian Archipelago and coastal areas of Russia and Japan, the last several years have shown growth of interest culturally and politically in the status and preservation of sea otter populations. Sea Otter Conservation brings together the vast knowledge of well-respected leaders in the field, offering insight into the more than 100 years of conservation and research that have resulted in recovery from near extinction. This publication assesses the issues influencing prospects for continued conservation and recovery of the sea otter populations and provides insight into how to handle future global changes.

A study of Palestine-Israel through the unexpected lens of nature conservation Settling Nature documents the widespread ecological warfare practiced by the state of Israel. Recruited to the front lines are fallow deer, gazelles, wild asses, griffon vultures, pine trees, and cows-on the Israeli side-against goats, camels, olive trees, hybrid goldfinches, and akkoub-which are affiliated with the Palestinian side. These nonhuman soldiers are all the more effective because nature camouflages their tactical deployment as such. Drawing on more than seventy interviews with Israel's nature officials and on observations of their work, this book examines the careful orchestration of this animated warfare by Israel's nature administration on both sides of the Green Line. Alongside its powerful protection of wildlife biodiversity, the territorial reach of Israel's nature protection is remarkable: to date, nearly 25 percent of the country's total land mass is assigned as a park or a reserve. Settling Nature argues that the administration of nature advances the Zionist project of Jewish settlement and the corresponding dispossession of non-Jews from this space.

How do societies negotiate the apparently competing agendas of environmental protection and social justice? Why do some countries perform much better than others? Democracy in the Woods answers these questions by explaining the trajectories of forest and land rights-and the fate of forest-dependent peasants-in the forested regions of India, Tanzania, and Mexico. To organize a comparative inquiry that straddles the fields of comparative politics, historical institutionalism, and policy studies, this book develops a political economy of institutions framework. It shows that differences in structures of political intermediation-venues that help peasant groups and social movements engage in political and policy processes-explain the varying levels of success in combining the pursuits of social justice and environmental conservation. The book challenges the age-old notion that populist policies produce uniformly deleterious environmental consequences that must be mitigated via centralized systems of environmental regulation. It shows instead that the national leaders and dominant political parties that must compete for popular support in the political arena are more likely to fashion interventions that pursue conservation of forested landscapes without violating the rights of forest-dependent people. Mexico demonstrates the potential for win-win outcomes, India continues to stumble on both environmental and social questions despite longstanding traditions of popular mobilization for forestland rights, and Tanzania's government has failed its forest-dependent people despite a lucrative wildlife tourism sector. This book's political analysis of the control over and use of nature opens up new avenues for reflecting on nature in the Anthropocene.

What is blue-green infrastructure? How can built environment professionals provide it efficiently and what benefits does it bring? ICE Handbook of Blue-Green Infrastructure is the practical guide to designing and creating different aspects of blue-green solutions. It covers numerous what blue-green infrastructure is, why it is needed, how to create it and manage it effectively. It also covers policy and planning strategies that evidence how blue-green approaches can be monetised for stakeholder benefit. The book is underpinned by benchmarking good practice, evidence of success and failure and the environmental pros and cons.

An accessible guide to the changes we can all make-small and large-to rid our lives of disposable plastic and clean up the world's oceans How to Give Up Plastic is a straightforward guide to eliminating plastic from your life. Going room by room through your home and workplace, Greenpeace activist Will McCallum teaches you how to spot disposable plastic items and find plastic-free, sustainable alternatives to each one. From carrying a reusable straw, to catching microfibers when you wash your clothes, to throwing plastic-free parties, you'll learn new and intuitive ways to reduce plastic waste. And by arming you with a wealth of facts about global plastic consumption and anecdotes from activists fighting plastic around the world, you'll also learn how to advocate to businesses and leaders in your community and across the country to commit to eliminating disposable plastics for good. It takes 450 years for a plastic bottle to fully biodegrade, and there are around 12.7 million tons of plastic entering the ocean each year. At our current pace, in the year 2050 there could be more plastic in the oceans than fish, by weight. These are alarming figures, but plastic pollution is an environmental crisis with a solution we can all contribute to.

We are at a watershed of history. The human race is now so numerous and its technological power so great that we are having an unprecedented impact on the biosphere, the entire planet. The need to control this impact is giving rise to a new kind of politics - the politics of the planet. The most urgent problem we face is that of climate change. This book gives a vigorous and candid account of how governments tentatively felt their way to the first international agreements on climate change and the ozone layer, how these work, and the long-term implications for global governance. It points to the roles that businesses and ordinary citizens can play, and the changes we can expect in our daily lives. This is an area in which politics, technology and economics meet. In this sweeping and energetic book, the author goes on to look at the major planetary issues that confront us now or that are close over the horizon, and the ethical issues of our relationship to our environment that they raise. Amid the dangers, he finds ground for hope. Anyone with an interest in the human condition as we spin further into the new century will find this an enlightening and rewarding book. Originally published in 2000

In 1975 workers at Life Science Products, a small makeshift pesticide factory in Hopewell, Virginia, became ill after exposure to Kepone, the brand name for the pesticide chlordecone. They made the poison under contract for a much larger Hopewell company, Allied Chemical. Life Science workers had been breathing in the dust for more than a year. Ingestion of the chemical made their bodies seize and shake. News of ill workers eventually led to the discovery of widespread environmental contamination of the nearby James River and the landscape of the small, working-class city. Not only had Life Science dumped the chemical, but so had Allied when the company manufactured it in the 1960s and early 1970s. The resulting toxic impact was not only on the city of Hopewell but also on the faraway fields where Kepone was used as an insecticide. Aspects of this environmental tragedy are all too common: corporate avarice, ignorance, and regulatory failure combined with race and geography to determine toxicity and shape the response. But the Kepone story also contains some surprising medical, legal, and political moments amid the disaster. With Poison Powder, Gregory S. Wilson explores the conditions that put the Kepone factory and the workers there in the first place and the effects of the poison on the people and natural world long after 1975. Although the manufacture and use of Kepone is now banned by the Environmental Protection Agency, organochlorines have long half-lives, and these toxic compounds and their residues still remain in the environment.

Farmers once knew how to make a living fence and fed their flocks on tree-branch hay. Rural people knew how to prune hazel to foster abundance: both of edible nuts and of straight, strong, flexible rods for bridges, walls and baskets. Townspeople cut beeches to make charcoal to fuel ironworks. Shipwrights shaped oaks to make hulls. In order tp prosper communities cut their trees so they would sprout again. Pruning the trees didn't destroy them. Rather, it created healthy, sustainable and diverse woodlands. From these woods came the poetic landscapes of Shakespeare's England and of ancient Japan. The trees lived longer. William Bryant Logan travels from the English fens to Spain, California and Japan to rediscover and celebrate what was once a common and practical ecology-finding hope that humans may again learn what the persistence and generosity of trees can teach.