Emma Watson's Our Shared Shelf book club choice New York Times bestseller 'Fascinating.' Sunday Times 'Thrilling.' Mail on Sunday All they wanted was the chance to shine. Be careful what you wish for... 'The first thing we asked was, "Does this stuff hurt you?" And they said, "No." The company said that it wasn't dangerous, that we didn't need to be afraid.' As the First World War spread across the world, young American women flocked to work in factories, painting clocks, watches and military dials with a special luminous substance made from radium. It was a fun job, lucrative and glamorous - the girls shone brightly in the dark, covered head to toe in dust from the paint. However, as the years passed, the women began to suffer from mysterious and crippling illnesses. It turned out that the very thing that had made them feel alive - their work - was slowly killing them: the radium paint was poisonous. Their employers denied all responsibility, but these courageous women - in the face of unimaginable suffering - refused to accept their fate quietly, and instead became determined to fight for justice. Drawing on previously unpublished diaries, letters and interviews, The Radium Girls is an intimate narrative of an unforgettable true story. It is the powerful tale of a group of ordinary women from the Roaring Twenties, who themselves learned how to roar. Further praise for The Radium Girls 'The importance of the brave and blighted dial-painters cannot be overstated.' Sunday Times 'A perfect blend of the historical, the scientific and the personal.' Bustle 'Thrilling and carefully crafted.' Mail on Sunday

Understanding urban air pollution is a prerequisite to finding effective solutions to air quality problems and for a sustainable development in the urban environment. In this book the current state of the art in urban air pollution research is presented. A major focus is on suitable air pollution modelling concepts, covering also street canyon geometries. Such models may be applied to establish source-receptor relationships in support of urban air quality management. Procedures for evaluating the performance of air pollution models are proposed, and results from field experiments and laboratory studies are shown to provide better insight into the characteristics of air pollution at the urban and local scales. The contents of this book are of a high policy relevance, given their direct connection to the formulation of improved tools for urban air quality assessments.

A huge effort is put into the science of nanoparticles and their production. In many cases it is unavoidable that nanoparticles are released into the environment, either during the production processes or during the use of a product made from these particles. It is also realized that combustion processes like traffic and power plants release nanoparticles into the atmosphere. However it is not known how nanoparticles interact with the human body, especially upon inhalation. At the same time research activities are devoted to understand how nano-sized medicine particles can be used to administer medicines via inhalation. In any case it is absolutely necessary to know how the nanoparticles interfere with the inhalation system, how they deposit and affect on the human system.

Three main themes are discussed:

• Nanoparticle sources and production
• Nanoparticle inhalation and deposition
• Toxicological and medical consequences of nanoparticles

Each theme is covered comprehensively, starting at nano-quantum effects up to technical and medical applications such as measuring equipment and inhalation instrumentation. This book brings together all sub-disciplines in the field related to aerosol nanoparticles. Each chapter is written by a world expert, giving the state of the art information and challenging open questions. The last chapter summarizes in an interdisciplinary way what is already known and what still is ahead of us.

Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology attempts to provide concise, critical reviews of timely advances, philosophy, and significant areas of accomplished or needed endeavor in the total field of xenobiotics in any segment of the environment, as well as toxicological implications.

Numerous studies have revealed that the poor disproportionately bear the burden of environmental problems in America today. Issues range from higher levels of poisonous wastes, carbon dioxide, and ozone, to greater than normal incidences of asthma and lead poisoning. The environmental justice movement, which has emerged in working class and low-income African American and Latino communities since the early 1990s, is an effort that is reinterpreting the definition of the environment as "where we live, work, and play" to connect new constituencies traditionally outside of the postwar environmental movement. Novotny documents this expanding constituency through case studies of four community groups ranging from South Central Los Angeles to Louisiana. "Environmental racism" is understood as yet another type of discrimination which results in a high incidence of environmental concerns in poorer communities due to what many activists see as discriminatory land use practices, decisions by industry that intentionally locate hazardous wastes in these communities, and the uneven enforcement of environmental regulations by federal, state, and local officials. Community leaders have added environmental causes to their fight against unemployment, impoverishment, and substandard housing. This study explores various attempts to put a halt to illegal practices and to broaden public awareness of the issues involved.

Environmental Contamination and Remediation Practices at Former and Present Military Bases outlines the different strategies that are useful in the investigation and subsequent remediation of military bases, Particular attention is paid to the pollution of groundwater. The book contains an excellent review of useful remediation techniques and several examples of their application to polluted military bases. Several mathematical models are demonstrated, showing their predictive value for real examples. A detailed list is given of chemical pollutants that can be found on a military base. Strategies are described for the investigation and determination of the future of a polluted military site. Examples are given, obtained from practical experience of dealing with old, contaminated sites.

ROBERT A. GOLDSTEIN Electric Power Research Institute. Environmental Assessment Department. P.O. Box 10412. Palo Alto. CA 94303. U.S.A. CARL W. CHEN Systech Engineering. Inc .. 3744 Mt. Diablo Boulevard. Suite 101. Lafayette. CA 94549. U.S.A. and STEVEN A. GHERINI Tetra Tech. Inc .. 3746 Mt. Diablo Boulevard. Suite 300. Lafayette. CA 94549. U.S.A. (Received November I, 1984; revised May 14, 1985) Abstract. An integrated, interdisciplinary, intensive study of three forested watersheds in the Adirondack Park region of New York State was started in 1977 to quantify the relationship between the deposition of atmospheric acids and surface water acidity. A general mechanistic theory of lake-watershed acidification that takes into account the production and consumption of acidity by watershed processes, as well as atmospheric inputs of acidity, was developed. This theory is formulated as a mathematical simulation model. Model and data analyses establish the importance of using an integrated ecosystem perspective to assess the vulnerability of surface waters to acidification by acidic deposition. The acid-base status of surface waters is determined by the interaction of many factors: soil, hydrologic, vegetation, geologic, climatic, atmospheric. The absolute and relative contribution of any given factor can be highly variable, both geographically and temporally; hence, lake sensitivity to changes in the quality and quantity of atmospheric deposition is also highly variable.

Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology attempts to provide concise, critical reviews of timely advances, philosophy and significant areas of accomplished or needed endeavor in the total field of xenobiotics, in any segment of the environment, as well as toxicological implications.

Managed ecosystems cover a large part of the Earth's land surface, provide almost all of our food and most of our wood and fibre, and are increasingly a source of renewable energy. Forecasting the ability of managed ecosystems to continue these vital roles in a globally changing environment is an inter-disciplinary challenge.

To elucidate the complex responses of managed systems to elevated CO2], several free air carbon dioxide enrichment (FACE) facilities were established. These FACE systems allow large areas to be exposed to the elevated CO2] we expect by the middle of the century. This volume summarizes the main findings from 13 experiments with annual crops, permanent pastures and plantation forests at 11 sites throughout the world during the past ten years. The results significantly alter our perception of how rising CO2] will directly affect these managed ecosystems, with implications for policy, plant-breeding objectives and adaptation.

First published in 1987, Peter Brimblecombe's book provides an engaging historical account of air pollution in London, offering a fascinating insight into the development of air pollution controls against a changing social and economic background. He examines domestic and industrial pollution and their effects on fashions, furnishings, buildings and human health. The book ends with an intriguing analysis of the dangers arising from contemporary pollutants and a glimpse of what the future may hold for London.

In this urgent time, World on the Edge calls out the pivotal environmental issues and how to solve them now. We are in a race between political and natural tipping points. Can we close coal-fired power plants fast enough to save the Greenland ice sheet and avoid catastrophic sea level rise? Can we raise water productivity fast enough to halt the depletion of aquifers and avoid water-driven food shortages? Can we cope with peak water and peak oil at the same time? These are some of the issues Lester R. Brown skilfully distils in World on the Edge. Bringing decades of research and analysis into play, he provides the responses needed to reclaim our future.

Dry sulfurization processes offer the significant advantages of low capital and low operating costs when compared to wet desulfurization. They hold great potential for the economical reduction of sulfur emissions from power utilities that use high-sulfur coal. Dry Scrubbing Technologies for Flue Gas Desulfurization represents a body of research that was sponsored by the State of Ohio's Coal Development Office for the development of technologies that use coal in an economic, environmentally-sound manner. One of the project's major goals was the development of dry, calcium-based sorption processes for removing sulfur dioxide from the combustion gases produced by high-sulfur coal. Dry Scrubbing Technologies for Flue Gas Desulfurization highlights a number of fundamental research findings that have had a significant and lasting impact in terms of scientific understanding. For example, the experimental investigation of the upper-furnace sulfur capture obtained time-resolved kinetic data in less than 100 millisecond time-scales for the first time ever, thereby revealing the true nature of the ultra-fast and overlapping phenomena. This was accomplished through the development of a unique entrained flow reactor system. The authors also identify a number of important areas for future research, including reaction mechanisms, sorbent material, transport effects, modeling, and process development. Dry Scrubbing Technologies for Flue Gas Desulfurization will appeal to both chemical and environmental engineers who examine different ways touse coal in a more environmentally benign manner. It will make an essential reference for air pollution control researchers from coal, lime, cement, and utility industries; for government policy-makers and environmental regulatory agencies; and for those who teach graduate courses in environmental issues, pollution control technologies, and environmental policy.

In the continuing fight against organic environmental xenobiotics, the initial success attributed to bioremediation has paled, in part due to the low availability of xenobiotics entrapped within a soil or sediment matrix. This has generated a very significant wave of interest in the bioavailability issue. However, much experimental evidence is puzzling or contradictory, mechanistic theories are embryonic, and implications for the practice of bioremediation or concerning the natural fate of xenobiotics are still tentative. The debate in Europe and the USA is vigorous. Eastern Europe, following the liberalisation of the economy and political life, is evolving in a similar direction. In many cases, however, limited access to literature sources, severe language barriers, and the lack of a strong pluridisciplinary tradition are hampering the adoption of state of the art techniques. Originally intended to allow scientists in East European countries to become acquainted with the key aspects of the bioavailability debate that is unfolding in the scientific literature in the West, and with its implications for bioremediation efforts, the present book presents a very complete coverage of the theoretical and practical aspects of the (limited) bioavailability of organic xenobiotics in the environment.

A philosopher and a scientist propose that sustainability can be understood as living well together without diminishing opportunity to live well in the future. Most people acknowledge the profound importance of sustainability, but few can define it. We are ethically bound to live sustainably for the sake of future generations, but what does that mean? In this book Randall Curren, a philosopher, and Ellen Metzger, a scientist, clarify normative aspects of sustainability. Combining their perspectives, they propose that sustainability can be understood as the art of living well together without diminishing opportunity to live well in the future. Curren and Metzger lay out the nature and value of sustainability, survey the problems, catalog the obstacles, and identify the kind of efforts needed to overcome them. They formulate an ethic of sustainability with lessons for government, organizations, and individuals, and illustrate key ideas with three case studies. Curren and Metzger put intergenerational justice at the heart of sustainability; discuss the need for fair (as opposed to coercive) terms of cooperation to create norms, institutions, and practices conducive to sustainability; formulate a framework for a fundamental ethic of sustainability derived from core components of common morality; and emphasize the importance of sustainability education. The three illustrative case studies focus on the management of energy, water, and food systems, examining the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, Australia's National Water Management System, and patterns of food production in the Mekong region of Southeast Asia.

This publication characterizes the environmental burden of disease in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), measured by the excess number of deaths and illnesses in the population due to exposure to environmental hazards. The robust methods used in this risk analysis can be applied to any country or region. This publication documents the systematic, multi-step process used to identify environmental priorities and the detailed methods used to quantify the disease burden attributable to each risk. Based on the results of the burden of disease assessment, the publication summarizes the subsequent steps that are recommended to further reduce the burden of disease resulting from various environmental risk factors.

Authors and Contributors
This book represents the synthesis of research carried out by a large, interdisciplinary team from several institutions and multiple nations between June 2008 and June 2011.The lead authors are responsible for weaving together the pieces prepared by the team.Nonetheless, this book would not have been possible without major contributions from each team member.The list below shows contributors to each chapter.Following this list are biographies of all of the authors and contributors.

Lead Authors

Jacqueline MacDonald Gibson, Frederic J. P. Launay, Jens T. W. Thomsen, Angela Brammer, Christopher Davidson

Additional Contributors (by Chapter)

Chapter 2: Prioritizing Environmental Risks to Health
Henry H. Willis, Aimee Curtright, Gary Cecchine, Zeinab S. Farah, Sandra A. Geschwind, Jianhui Hu, Ying Li, Melinda Moore, Sarah Olmstead, Hanine Salem, Regina A. Shih, J. Jason West

Chapter 3: Assessing the Environmental Burden of Disease: Method Overview
TiinaFolley, Elizabeth S. Harder, MejsHasan

Chapter 4: Burden of Disease from Outdoor Air Pollution
Ying Li, GavinoPuggioni, PrahladJat, MejsHasan, Marc Serre, Kenneth G. Sexton, J. Jason West, SaravananArunachalam, Uma Shankar, William Vizuete, Mohammed ZuberFarooqui

Chapter 5: Burden of Disease from Indoor Air Pollution
Chris B. Trent

""

Chapter 6: Burden of Disease from Occupational Exposures
TiinaFolley, LeenaA. Nylander-French

Chapter 7: Burden of Disease from Climate Change
Richard N. L. Andrews, Leslie Chinery, Elizabeth S. Harder, J. Jason West

Chapter 8: Burden of Disease from Drinking Water Contamination
Gregory W. Characklis, Joseph N. LoBuglio

Chapter 9: Burden of Disease from Coastal Water Pollution
Gregory W. Characklis, Leigh-Anne H. Krometis, Joseph N. LoBuglio
Chapter 10: Burden of Disease from Soil and Groundwater Contamination
Chidsanuphong Chart-asa, Stephanie Soucheray-Grell

Chapter 11: Burden of Disease from Produce and Seafood Contamination
Leigh-Anne H. Krometis, Leslie Chinery"

This book provides extensive information on high-temperature H2S removal for integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) coarse gas, together with briefly introductions to the concept of clean coal technology, and to the mechanism and kinetics of hot coal gas desulfurizers. Readers will gain a comprehensive understanding of available control methods for high-temperature H2S removal in IGCC coarse gas and how the technology has been adopted by industry. As such, the book offers a unique resource for researchers and engineers in the fields of energy science and technology, environmental science and technology, and chemical engineering.

Metal contamination is an increasing ecological and eco-toxicological risk. Understanding the processes involved in metal mobilization, sorption and mineralization in soils are key features for soil bioremediation.

Following an introduction to the physical, chemical and biological components of contaminated soils, various chapters address the interactions of soil, microorganisms, plants and the water phase necessary to transfer metals into biological systems. These include topics such as potential hazards at mining sites; rare earth elements in biotic and abiotic acidic systems; manganese redox reactions; biomineralisation, uranium in seepage water; metal-resistant streptomycetes; mycorrhiza in re-forestation; metal (hyper)accummulation in plants; microbial metal uptake; and their potential for bioremediation.

This book will be of interest to soil biologists, geologists and chemists, researchers and graduate students, as well as consulting companies and small enterprises involved in bioremediation.

This book presents some of the latest technologies in waste management, and emphasizes the benefits that can be gained from the use of recycled products. Divided into four sections, it deals with phytoremediation, acquatic weed management and the treatment of solid- and water-based wastes, such as those arising from agricultural, industrial and medical activities. With its special emphasis on the utilization of recycled products, this volume will be of interest to students, academicians, policy makers and others who have a practical and academic interest in dealing with the waste society generates.

Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology publishes authoritative reviews on the occurrence, effects, and fate of pesticide residues and other environmental contaminants. It will keep you informed of the latest significant issues by providing in-depth information in the areas of analytical chemistry, agricultural microbiology, biochemistry, human and veterinary medicine, toxicology, and food technology.

International concern in scientific, industrial, and governmental communi ties over traces of xenobiotics in foods and in both abiotic and biotic envi ronments has justified the present triumvirate of specialized publications in this field: comprehensive reviews, rapidly published research papers and progress reports, and archival documentations. These three international publications are integrated and scheduled to provide the coherency essential for nonduplicative and current progress in a field as dynamic and complex as environmental contamination and toxicology. This series is reserved ex clusively for the diversified literature on "toxic" chemicals in our food, our feeds, our homes, recreational and working surroundings, our domestic animals, our wildlife and ourselves. Tremendous efforts worldwide have been mobilized to evaluate the nature, presence, magnitude, fate, and toxi cology of the chemicals loosed upon the earth. Among the sequelae of this broad new emphasis is an undeniable need for an articulated set of authoritative publications, where one can find the latest important world literature produced by these emerging areas of science together with docu mentation of pertinent ancillary legislation. Research directors and legislative or administrative advisers do not have the time to scan the escalating number of technical publications that may contain articles important to current responsibility. Rather, these individu als need the background provided by detailed reviews and the assurance that the latest information is made available to them, all with minimal literature searching."

This book gives a current overview of all facets of urban soils. Different urban land-use types in a number of examples worldwide are introduced. Many examples in different countries are provided in order to illustrate the situation in detail. The contaminant sources of urban soils (e.g., dust deposition, contamination along roadsides, contamination of floodplains, application of wastewater, anthropogenic deposits) are comprehensively presented. For practical application purposes a key with which to identify technogenic materials during field work is presented. Features like reductomorphic conditions in landfill soils, acidification of coal mining heaps and the impact of physical characteristics such as sealing are taken into consideration in the context of the contamination problem. The mobility of contaminants in the soils under consideration is introduced and discussed. The content of the book, however, is not limited to the description of contaminated urban soils. Different methods of assessment (classification, functional assessment, assessment focused on pathways with reference to standardized exposure scenarios) are introduced. Finally, quality standards for contaminated land in a number of countries are listed, compared and discussed. The book links up the contamination problem of urban soils with geographical aspects such as the historical development of city growth, the process of urbanization and the urban-to-rural gradients. Accordingly, the reader will be able to understand the specific problems of contaminated urban soils and will find sensible approaches to assessment.

Listen to the podcast! In Forces of Production, Climate Change and Canadian Fossil Capitalism, Nicolas Graham reinterprets the concept of forces of production from an ecological standpoint and in the context of the deepening climate crisis. He argues that ecological knowledge itself, as well as associated developments in renewable energy technology and green infrastructure, represent advancements in productive forces. However, such "green productive forces" are fettered by capitalist relations of production, including the power of carbon capital. In addition to a conceptual and theoretical reinterpretation, case studies focusing on Canadian fossil capitalism provide a concrete-complex analysis of the deepening of fossil-fuelled productive forces and the process of fettering in both renewable energies and in the development and application of ecological knowledge.

Agriculture Pollutes: pesticides can destroy wildlife and some are toxic to humans; some fungicides and herbicides cause cancer. Nitrates result in the contamination of drinking water and produce the risk of the ?blue-baby? syndrome in infants and of stomach cancer in adults. Agriculture produces methane, ammonia, nitrous oxide and the products of burning off, all of which add to the world's problems of acid rain, depletion of the ozone layer and global warming. This book, which focuses on the UK, the USA and Third World countries, is the first comprehensive review of agriculture and pollution: it examines the facts and assesses the relative dangers of each pollution problem. It also considers the effects of pollution on agriculture itself ? crop yields are depressed and livestock damaged by various forms of pollution from all sources. The authors offer solutions to these apparently overwhelming problems, and describe existing technology which would allow us to deal with them. Originally published in 1991

The world is moving into a new era which will be dominated by a new range of threats and a new range of priorities. Already headlines tell of storms and droughts, mass emigrations, the danger of old Soviet nuclear reactors and the thinning ozone layer, and with the menaces of global warming, deforestation, pollution and loss of biodiversity, the picture is likely to get bleaker. Unlike traditional threats, these are not made deliberately and standard military responses are usually inappropriate They are threats without enemies and they present quite new and fundamental challenges to the international community which has to find new methods and institutions, as well as the resolve, to tackle them. In this book, eminent experts describe the new threats and the scale of the dangers which they present and set out the political, military and institutional changes needed. Gwyn Prins is Director of the Global Security Programme at the University of Cambridge. He is author of Top guns and Toxic Whales, also published by Earthscan. Progress For A Small Planet Three topics dominate discussions of the global environment: pollution; the consequences of the affluent running ever faster through finite resources; and the growing tensions between rich and poor as a third of humanity continues to live and die in desperate poverty. In this exceptional book Barbara Ward (co-author with Rene Dubos of the bestselling Only One Earth) refused to see these processes as inevitable. It describes new technologies for recycling waste, for energy, for 'getting more for less' ,linking them to ordinary people's working lives. It also suggests a strategy for meeting the basic needs of the disadvantaged, and shows how the vast inequalities between countries can be reduced. This perceptive survey of policies outlines a planetary bargain between the world's nations that would guarantee individual freedom from poverty and keep our shared biosphere in good working order. Originally published in 1993