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Books > Earth & environment > The environment > Social impact of environmental issues > General
In this extraordinary and hopeful book, leading environmentalist Tony Juniper CBE identifies the real problem at the heart of the climate and nature crises.
From soil loss to wildfires, degraded rivers, mass migration and conflict, the environmental crisis is already here - and it's set to get much worse. While billionaires build remote bunkers and make plans for colonies on Mars, climate collapse impacts the most vulnerable among us first and hardest. But what this radical and ground-breaking book proves is that inequality isn't just about who suffers the consequences, it is the main obstacle blocking action - and it has been for decades.
How can people lead good lives without ultimately hastening global collapse? The answer lies in fairness. We can't fight the climate and nature crises without addressing the ever-widening gaps between the rich and poor, the powerful and the weak. Drawing upon more than 40 years of experience in research, practical work, campaigning and advocacy, combined with interviews with globally renowned experts, in Just Earth Tony Juniper reveals the system shifts needed to achieve real, lasting change.
World Seas: An Environmental Evaluation, Second Edition, Volume
Two: The Indian Ocean to the Pacific provides a comprehensive
review of the environmental condition of the seas from the Indian
Ocean to the Pacific. Each chapter is written by experts in the
field who provide historical overviews in environmental terms,
current environmental status, major problems arising from human
use, informed comments on major trends, problems and successes, and
recommendations for the future. The book is an invaluable worldwide
reference source for students and researchers who are concerned
with marine environmental science, fisheries, oceanography and
engineering and coastal zone development.
Winds of Change examines the global development of the wind energy
industry from a political, social movements-based perspective. It
argues the wind energy industry developed successfully in certain
regions and countries in large part because the environmental
movement influenced its growth. Vasi then defines and analyses the
three main pathways through which the environmental movement has
contributed to industry growth: it has influenced the adoption and
implementation of renewable energy policies, it has created
consumer demand for clean energy, and it has changed the
institutional logics of the energy sector. The book uses
quantitative analysis to present the big picture of the global
development of the wind energy industry, then draws on qualitative
analyses to understand why countries such as Germany, Denmark, or
Spain are world leaders in wind energy, while other countries such
as the United States, United Kingdom, or Canada have a somewhat
underdeveloped wind power industry. It also analyzes how the
environmental movement contributed to the recent growth of the
market for renewable energy certificates in the United States. The
book also examines the remarkable transformation of the electricity
sector in different countries, showing how environmentalists in
Germany, Denmark, United States and United Kingdom contributed to
wind turbine manufacturing by becoming entrepreneurs, innovators,
and/or advocates, and, furthermore, how environmental groups and
activists formed new companies that specialize in wind-farm
development and operation, and pressured utility companies to
invest in renewable energy by using tactics such as protests,
lawsuits, and lobbying for stricter regulation. In conclusion, Vasi
presents the main implications for future studies on industry
development and social movement outcomes, as well as for the future
growth of the renewable energy sector.
Restoring Layered Landscapes brings together historians,
geographers, philosophers, and interdisciplinary scholars to
explore ecological restoration in landscapes with complex histories
shaped by ongoing interactions between humans and nature. For many
decades, ecological restoration - particularly in the United States
- focused on returning degraded sites to conditions that prevailed
prior to human influence. This model has been broadened in recent
decades, and restoration now increasingly focuses on the recovery
of ecological functions and processes rather than on returning a
site to a specific historical state. Nevertheless, neither the
theory nor the practice of restoration has fully come to terms with
the challenges of restoring layered landscapes, where nature and
culture shape one another in deep and ongoing relationships. Former
military and industrial sites provide paradigmatic examples of
layered landscapes. Many of these sites are not only characterized
by natural ecosystems worth preserving and restoring, but also
embody significant political, social, and cultural histories. This
volume grapples with the challenges of restoring and interpreting
such complex sites: What should we aim to restore in such places?
How can restoration adequately take the legacies of human use into
account? Should traces of the past be left on the landscape, and
how can interpretive strategies be creatively employed to make
visible the complex legacies of an open pit mine or chemical
weapons manufacturing plant? Restoration aims to create new value,
but not always without loss. Restoration often disrupts existing
ecosystems, infrastructure, and artifacts. The chapters in this
volume consider what restoration can tell us more generally about
the relationship between continuity and change, and how the past
can and should inform our thinking about the future. These
insights, in turn, will help foster a more thoughtful approach to
human-environment relations in an era of unprecedented
anthropogenic global environmental change.
Megadrought and Collapse is the first book to treat in one volume
the current paleoclimatic and archaeological evidence of
megadrought events coincident with major historical examples of
societal collapse. Previous works have offered multi-causal
explanations for climate change, from overpopulation,
overexploitation of resources, and warfare to poor leadership and
failure to adapt to environmental changes. In earlier synthetic
studies of major instances of collapse, the archaeological record
has often not been considered. Included in this volume are nine
case studies that span the globe and stretch over fourteen thousand
years, from the paleolithic hunter-gatherer collapse of the 12th
millennium BC to the 15th century AD fall of the Khmer capital at
Angkor. Together, the studies constitute a primary sourcebook in
which principal investigators in archaeology and paleoclimatology
present their original research. Each case study juxtaposes the
latest paleoclimatic evidence of a megadrought (so-called for its
severity and its decades to centuries-long duration) with available
archaeological records of synchronous societal collapse. The
megadrought data are derived from all five archival paleoclimate
proxy sources: lake, marine, and glacial cores, speleothems (cave
stalagmites), and tree rings. The archaeological records in each
case are the most recently retrieved. The editor derives two
arguments from the discussions in the volume: (1) Societal collapse
would not have occurred without megadrought. Attendant social
disruptions may have been present in some instances. Nonetheless,
megadrought rendered agriculture-based societies unsustainable in
different regions, periods, and levels of social complexity, from
simple foraging to vast empires. (2) A set of adaptive responses
can be observed across the nine cases: adaptive collapse in the
face of insurmountable megadrought, region-wide and settlement
abandonment, and habitat tracking to sustainable agricultural
environments. The evidence points to a paradigm shift: the
insertion of another major force, natural climate
variability-megadrought-into the global historical record.
Water scarcity is the next big climate crisis. Water stress – not
just scarcity, but also water-quality issues caused by pollution
– is already driving the first waves of climate refugees. Rivers
are drying out before they meet the oceans, and ancient lakes are
disappearing. Fourteen of the world’s twenty megacities are now
experiencing water scarcity or drought conditions. It’s
increasingly clear that human mismanagement of water is dangerously
unsustainable, for both ecological and human survival. And yet in
recent years some key countries have been quietly and very
successfully addressing water stress. How are Singapore and Israel,
for example – both severely water-stressed countries – not in
the same predicament as Chennai or California, but now boast
surplus water? What can we learn from them and how can we use this
knowledge to turn things around for the wider global community? Do
we have to stop eating almonds and asparagus grown in the deserts
of California and Peru? Could desalination of seawater be the
answer? Or rainwater capture? Are some of the wilder
‘solutions’ – such as the plan to tow icebergs to Cape Town
– pure madness, or necessary innovation? Award-winning
environmental journalist Tim Smedley will travel the world to meet
the experts, the victims, the activists and pioneers, to find out
how we can mend the water table that our survival depends upon. His
book will take an unblinking look at the current situation and how
we got there. And then look to the solutions. The Last Drop
promises to offer a fascinating, universally relevant account of
the environmental and human factors that have led us to this point,
and suggests practical ways in which we might address the crisis,
before it’s too late.
An engaging, personalized look at the interplay between people and
nature in the northeastern and midwestern United States, from
prehistory to the present. The Northeast and Midwest regions of the
United States provide a fascinating case study for the emergent
field of environmental history. These regions, with their varied
resources, were central to the early economic success of the
nation. Consequently, the early industries in these regions altered
and depleted the landscape as people changed their locations and
occupations. Fishing and whaling on the northeastern coast have
given way to tourism and sailing. The great stands of timber around
the Great Lakes have been replaced by farms and dairies. The
textile mills, powered by the falls of the Piedmont and once
yielding wealth, now stand empty. That humans shape their
environment and, in turn, must respond to the consequences is
broadly obvious. Using the voices of historical figures, both
notable and obscure, this book brings to life the interaction
between humans and their environments and illustrates the
consequences of those interactions. Part of ABC-CLIO's unique
Nature and Human Societies series, this book enables readers to
better understand humanity's effect on the environment. Maps and
photographs show environmental regions, population movement, and
changes to the environment by humans Separate listing of primary
sources for all chapter topics, along with a bibliography and
glossary
A positive vision is emerging - a community-based, but globally
linked and co-ordinated society, a global human family looking
after each other and the Earth. eGaia describes starting points and
next big steps where the starting points join and link up. It
clarifies the vision, gives background, organising principles, and
a light fictional picture of a sustainable world.
Gavin Cooke is a former journalist and television researcher. He
studied Energy and Environment while at University in Newcastle and
is based in the North East Of England.
A book of natural wonders, practical guidance and life-changing
empowerment, by the author of the word-of-mouth bestseller If Women
Rose Rooted. 'To live an enchanted life is to pick up the pieces of
our bruised and battered psyches, and to offer them the nourishment
they long for. It is to be challenged, to be awakened, to be
gripped and shaken to the core by the extraordinary which lies at
the heart of the ordinary. Above all, to live an enchanted life is
to fall in love with the world all over again.' The enchanted life
has nothing to do with escapism or magical thinking: it is founded
on a vivid sense of belonging to a rich and many-layered world. It
is creative, intuitive, imaginative. It thrives on work that has
heart and meaning. It loves wild things, but returns to an
enchanted home and garden. It respects the instinctive knowledge,
ethical living and playfulness, and relishes story and art. Taking
the inspiration and wisdom that can be derived from myth, fairy
tales and folk culture, this book offers a set of practical and
grounded tools for reclaiming enchantment in our lives, giving us a
greater sense of meaning and of belonging to the world.
Climate change adaptation. A hope-fuelled necessity on the road to
a transformed world? Or the last act of the doom-merchant who has
given up? There are great ways to adapt to the climate crisis that
confronts us, but there are disastrous ways too. In this book,
Morgan Phillips takes us from the air-conditioned pavements of Doha
and the 'cool rooms' of Paris, to the fog catchers of Morocco and
the agro-foresters of Nepal. He makes an often-neglected topic
engaging and relatable at precisely the moment the climate movement
is waking up to it. A just transition is at stake. Great
Adaptations is a provocation, an invitation, and an urgent call to
action. If we don't shape what adaptation is, someone else will.
'My earnest hope is that this book will be a turning of the tide;
and that, with the silence broken, the world can finally begin the
painful process of awakening properly to climate reality...
including to the reality of how we must now adapt transformatively,
if we are to have any chance of heading off eco-induced collapses.'
Prof. Rupert Read, University of East Anglia.
Anyone who cares about the environment cannot ignore the overmining
of river-sand. This book explores how river sand in Zhuang villages
in China has been overexploited with disastrous environmental (or
social and environmental) consequences, despite official state
ownership of the sand, national and local laws regulating mining,
and peasant resistance.
This interdisciplinary volume revisits Adorno's lesser-known work,
Minima Moralia, and makes the case for its application to the most
urgent concerns of the 21st century. Contributing authors situate
Adorno at the heart of contemporary debates on the ecological
crisis, the changing nature of work, the idea of utopia, and the
rise of fascism. Exploring the role of critical pedagogy in shaping
responses to fascistic regimes, alongside discussions of extractive
economies and the need for leisure under increasingly precarious
working conditions, this volume makes new connections between
Minima Moralia and critical theory today. Another line of focus is
the aphoristic style of Minima Moralia and its connection to
Adorno's wider commitment to small and minor literary forms, which
enable capitalist critique to be both subversive and poetic. This
critique is further located in Adorno's discussion of a utopia that
is reliant on complete rejection of the totalising system of
capitalism. The distinctive feature of such a utopia for Adorno is
dependent upon individual suffering and subsequent survival, an
argument this book connects to the mutually constitutive
relationship between ecological destruction and right-wing
authoritarianism. These timely readings of Adorno's Minima Moralia
teach us to adapt through our survival, and to pursue a utopia
based on his central ideas. In the process, opening up theoretical
spaces and collapsing the physical borders between us in the spirit
of Adorno's lifelong project.
Environmental Issues: A Reader provides students with a collection
of articles that describe current environmental challenges and
demonstrate the connections between daily actions and their
environmental impacts. The text helps readers develop a greater
awareness of environmental issues and inspires them to make more
conscious personal decisions to support a sustainable future. The
anthology is divided into four units that cover biodiversity and
ecosystem services; human population growth and food production;
pollutants in the environment and other environmental hazards; and
climate change and energy production. Each unit covers elements of
basic science as they relate to the highlighted topics. In Unit I,
the concepts of evolution, speciation, and extinction are discussed
to explain biodiversity; and nutrient cycling, water purification,
pollination, and food production are used as examples of ecosystem
services. Unit II reviews the basics of population ecology; the
importance of soil, water, nutrients, and pest control in
agriculture; and the pros and cons of genetic modification of
foods. In Unit III, students learn about environmental hazards,
toxicology, bioaccumulation, and more. The final unit reviews
climate issues and examines the pros and cons of sources of energy
such as fossil fuels, solar, wind, geothermal, and others.
Developed to support non-science majors, Environmental Issues is an
ideal resource for general education science courses, especially
those that focus on the environment and sustainability.
Nature, Power and the Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire was one of
the greatest early modern world empires, stretching from the
outskirts of Vienna in the west to the Caucasus Mountains in the
east and from the tip of Arabian Peninsula in the south to the
Ukrainian steppes in the north, covering an area of 3.81 million
square kilometres. The Ottomans were remarkable not just for their
political and military success but also for their desire and
ability to understand, adapt, modify and manage different
environments. This edited volume is the first collective effort to
take an original look at the Ottomans through the lens of
environmental history. In its wide-ranging essays, environmental
perspectives illuminate diverse historical processes and events in
the long history of the Ottoman Empire. The essays thus offer new
answers to old questions - but also ask new questions - about the
ways the Ottomans related to, depended on, thought about and
interacted with the natural environment. It will appeal to anyone
interested in the environmental history of one of the world's
largest and most durable empires, the longest-lasting in the
history of the Muslim world.
Microclimate for Cultural Heritage: Measurement, Risk Assessment,
Conservation, Restoration, and Maintenance of Indoor and Outdoor
Monuments, Third Edition, presents the latest on microclimates,
environmental issues and the conservation of cultural heritage. It
is a useful treatise on microphysics, acting as a practical
handbook for conservators and specialists in physics, chemistry,
architecture, engineering, geology and biology who focus on
environmental issues and the conservation of works of art. It fills
a gap between the application of atmospheric sciences, like the
thermodynamic processes of clouds and dynamics of planetary
boundary layer, and their application to a monument surface or a
room within a museum. Sections covers applied theory, environmental
issues and conservation, practical utilization, along with
suggestions, examples, common issues and errors.
This book examines the question of what we mean when we talk about
life, revealing new insights into what life is, what it does, and
why it matters. Jenell Johnson studies arguments on behalf of
life-not just of the human or animal variety, but all life. She
considers, for example, the Standing Rock Sioux tribe's fight for
water, deep ecologists' Earth First! activism, the Voluntary Human
Extinction Movement, and astrophysicists' positions on Martian
microbes. What she reveals is that this advocacy-vital
advocacy-expands our view of what counts as life and shows us what
it would mean for the moral standing of human life to be extended
to life itself. Including short interviews with celebrated
ecological writer Dorion Sagan, former NASA Planetary Protection
Officer Catharine Conley, and leading figure in Indigenous and
environmental studies Kyle Whyte, Every Living Thing provides a
capacious view of life in the natural world. This book is a
must-read for anyone interested in biodiversity, bioethics, and the
environment.
World Seas: An Environmental Evaluation, Second Edition, Volume
Three: Ecological Issues and Environmental Impacts covers global
issues relating to our seas, including a biological description of
the coast and continental shelf waters, the development and use of
the coast, landfills and their effects, pollutant discharges over
time, the effects of over-fishing, and the management methods and
techniques used to ensure continued ecosystem functioning. The
relative importance of water-borne and airborne routes differ in
different parts of the world is explored, along with extensive
coverage of major habitats and species groups, governmental,
education and legal issues, fisheries effects, remote sensing,
climate change and management. This book is an invaluable,
worldwide reference source for students and researchers concerned
with marine environmental science, fisheries, oceanography and
engineering and coastal zone development.
Case Studies for Integrating Science and the Global Environment is
designed to help students of the environment and natural resources
make the connections between their training in science and math and
today's complex environmental issues. The book provides an
opportunity for students to apply important skills, knowledge, and
analytical tools to understand, evaluate, and propose solutions to
today's critical environmental issues. The heart of the book
includes four major content areas: water resources; the atmosphere
and air quality; ecosystem alteration; and global resources and
human needs. Each of these sections features in-depth case studies
covering a range of issues for each resource, offering rich
opportunities to teach how various scientific disciplines help
inform the issue at hand. Case studies provide readers with
experience in interpreting real data sets and considering alternate
explanations for trends shown by the data. This book helps prepare
students for careers that require collaboration with stakeholders
and co-workers from various disciplines.
Environment and Society connects the core themes of environmental
studies to the urgent issues and debates of the twenty-first
century. In an era marked by climate change, rapid urbanization,
and resource scarcity, environmental studies has emerged as a
crucial arena of study. Assembling canonical and contemporary
texts, this volume presents a systematic survey of concepts and
issues central to the environment in society, such as: social
mobilization on behalf of environmental objectives; the
relationships between human population, economic growth and
stresses on the planet's natural resources; debates about the
relative effects of collective and individual action; and unequal
distribution of the social costs of environmental degradation.
Organized around key themes, with each section featuring questions
for debate and suggestions for further reading, the book introduces
students to the history of environmental studies, and demonstrates
how the field's interdisciplinary approach uniquely engages the
essential issues of the present.
Marine Ecotoxicology: Current Knowledge and Future Issues is the
first unified resource to cover issues related to contamination,
responses, and testing techniques of saltwater from a toxicological
perspective. With its unprecedented focus on marine environments
and logical chapter progression, this book is useful to graduate
students, ecotoxicologists, risk assessors, and regulators involved
or interested in marine waters. As human interaction with these
environments increases, understanding of the pollutants and toxins
introduced into the oceans becomes ever more critical, and this
book builds a foundation of knowledge to assist scientists in
studying, monitoring, and making decisions that affect both marine
environments and human health. A team of world renowned experts
provide detailed analyses of the most common contaminants in marine
environments and explain the design and purpose of toxicity testing
methods, while exploring the future of ecotoxicology studies in
relation to the world's oceans. As the threat of increasing
pollution in marine environments becomes an ever more tangible
reality, Marine Ecotoxicology offers insights and guidance to
mitigate that threat.
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