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Books > Earth & environment > The environment > Social impact of environmental issues > General
Global urbanization promises better services, stronger economies, and more connections; it also carries risks and unforeseeable consequences. To deepen our understanding of this complex process and its importance for global sustainability, we need to build interdisciplinary knowledge around a systems approach. Urban Planet takes an integrative look at our urban environment, bringing together scholars from a diverse range of disciplines: from sociology and political science to evolutionary biology, geography, economics and engineering. It includes the perspectives of often neglected voices: architects, journalists, artists and activists. The book provides a much needed cross-scale perspective, connecting challenges and solutions on a local scale with drivers and policy frameworks on a regional and global scale. The authors argue that to overcome the major challenges we are facing, we must embark on a large-scale reinvention of how we live together, grounded in inclusiveness and sustainability. This title is also available Open Access.
For over half a century, food policy has mapped a path for progress
based upon a belief that the right mix of investment, scientific
input, and human skills could unleash a surge in productive
capacity which would resolve humanity's food-related health and
welfare problems. It assumed that more food would yield greater
health and happiness by driving down prices, increasing
availability, and feeding more mouths. In the 21st century, this
policy mix is quietly becoming unstuck. In a world marred by
obesity alongside malnutrition, climate change alongside fuel and
energy crises, water stress alongside more mouths to feed, and
social inequalities alongside unprecedented accumulation of wealth,
the old rubric of food policy needs re-evaluation. This book
explores the enormity of what the new policy mix must address,
taking the approach that food policy must be inextricably linked
with public with public health, environmental damage, and social
inequalities to be effective.
This book provides students in human geography with a vital resource - a collection of writings critical to understanding the field as a whole and revealing the interactions of its component parts. It is designed to give students ready access to the literature their studies are most likely to lead them to consult. The book is divided into five parts. Parts I and II describe the nature of the enterprise and show the origins and current state of thinking on central issues. Part III is concerned with interactions between nature, culture and landscape. Part IV considers area differences and geographic units such as region, place and locality. Part V provides insights into the concepts of space, time and space-time. The editors have provided a general introduction, introductions to each part and contextual notes for each chapter. Each part concludes with sections of further reading by subject and the volume ends with a time chart of the main developments in geography. This collection of seminal articles aims to be revealing, challenging and engaging. It amply demonstrates why human geography is a subject worthy of the student's engagement and provides a vital and rewarding resource for its understanding.
Ecology, Community and Lifestyle is a revised and expanded translation of Naess' book Okologi, Samfunn og Livsstil, which sets out the author's thinking on the relevance of philosophy to the problems of environmental degradation and the rethinking of the relationship between mankind and nature. The text has been thoroughly updated by Naess and revised and translated by David Rothenberg.
South Florida continues to attract new residents despite its susceptibility to sea-level rise. This book explores the views of real estate agent with respect to how prospective homebuyers assess the risk of flooding. It reports on their observations as to whether house prices are stagnant or falling in coastal areas vulnerable to flooding, and their conclusions after working with prospective homebuyers as to whether coastal south Florida is a good place to find a home or, alternatively, a risky investment in a place that will eventually be submerged by rising seas. The book reports on a 2020 survey of real estate agents and concludes that it is not clear that the housing market has integrated flood risk either into reduced demand for housing or in reduced prices for houses susceptible to flooding. These conclusions have important implications for understanding how the risks of climate change and sea-level rise are reflected in the housing market both now and in the near-term future.
Supporting Children and Their Families Facing Health Inequities in Canada fills an urgent national need to analyze disparities among vulnerable populations, where socio-economic and cultural factors compromise health and create barriers. Offering solutions and strategies to the prevalent health inequities faced by children, youth, and families in Canada, this book investigates timely issues of social, economic, and cultural significance. Chapters cover a diverse range of socio-economic and cultural factors that contribute to health inequality among the country's most vulnerable youth populations, including mental health challenges, low income, and refugee status. This book shares scientific evidence from thousands of interviews, questionnaires, surveys, and client consultations, while also providing professional insights that offer key information for at-risk families experiencing health inequities. Timely and transformative, this book will serve as an informed and compassionate guide to promote the health and resiliency of vulnerable children, youth, and families across Canada.
Geography in America at the Dawn of the 21st Century surveys
American geographers' current research in their specialty areas and
tracks trends and innovations in the many subfields of geography.
As such, it is both a 'state of the discipline' assessment and a
topical reference.
North Americans have reached a socioenvironmental tipping point where social transformation has become necessary to secure a stable and desirable future. As hurricanes destroy coastal areas that once hosted schools and homes, petroleum refineries choke nearby communities and their parks, and pipeline construction threatens water rights for indigenous peoples, communities are left to determine how to best manage and mitigate environmental loss.In this new collection, a range of contributors -- among them researchers, practitioners, organizers, and activists -- explore the ways in which people counter or cope with feelings of despair, leverage action for positive change, and formulate pathways to achieve environmental justice goals. These essays pay particular attention to issues of race, class, economic liberalization, and geography; place contemporary environmental struggles in a critical context that emphasizes justice, connection, and reconciliation; and raise important questions about the challenges and responses that concern those pursuing environmental justice. Contributors include the volume editors, Carol J. Adams, Randall Amster, Jan Inglis, Eileen Delehanty Pearkes, Zo?½ Roller, and Michael Truscello.
Australia's major river system is collapsing. Parts of it are dying; parts of it are already dead. Australia's most significant river no longer reaches the sea. I look out into the dim autumn light and wonder once again how it has come to this . . . In The River, Chris Hammer takes us on a journey through Australia's heartland, following the rivers of the Murray-Darling Basin, recounting his experiences, his impressions, and, above all, stories of the people he meets along the way. It's a journey punctuated with laughter, sadness and reflection. The River looks past the daily news reports and their sterile statistics, revealing the true impact of our rivers' decline on the people who live along their shores, and on the country as a whole. It's a tale that leaves the reader with a lingering sense of nostalgia for an Australia that may be fading away forever.
"...of interest and value to all serious students of international politics, and indeed of human affairs generally."--The American Political Science Review Originally published in 1965. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Conversations about climate change at the science-policy interface and in our lives have been stuck for some time. This handbook integrates lessons from the social sciences and humanities to more effectively make connections through issues, people, and things that everyday citizens care about. Readers will come away with an enhanced understanding that there is no 'silver bullet' to communications about climate change; instead, a 'silver buckshot' approach is needed, where strategies effectively reach different audiences in different contexts. This tactic can then significantly improve efforts that seek meaningful, substantive, and sustained responses to contemporary climate challenges. It can also help to effectively recapture a common or middle ground on climate change in the public arena. Readers will come away with ideas on how to harness creativity to better understand what kinds of communications work where, when, why, and under what conditions in the twenty-first century.
For much of history, soil has played a major, and often central, role in the lives of humans. Entire societies have risen, and collapsed, through the management or mismanagement of soil; farmers and gardeners worldwide nurture their soil to provide their plants with water, nutrients, and protection from pests and diseases; major battles have been aborted or stalled by the condition of soil; murder trials have been solved with evidence from the soil; and, for most of us, our ultimate fate is the soil. In this book Richard Bardgett discusses soil and the many, and sometimes surprising, ways that humanity has depended on it throughout history, and still does today. Analysing the role soil plays in our own lives, despite increasing urbanization, and in the biogeochemical cycles that allow the planet to function effectively, Bardgett considers how superior soil management could combat global issues such as climate change, food shortages, and the extinction of species. Looking to the future, Bardgett argues that it is vital for the future of humanity for governments worldwide to halt soil degradation, and to put in place policies for the future sustainable management of soils.
The 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station led to serious radioactive contamination of the environment. Due to transportation by seasonal wind and ocean currents, these radioactive materials have now been observed in many places in the Northern Hemisphere. This book provides a unique summary of the environmental impact of the unprecedented accident. It covers how radioactive materials were transported through the atmosphere, oceans and land. The techniques used to investigate the deposition and migration processes are also discussed including atmospheric observation, soil mapping, forest and ecosystem investigations, and numerical simulations. With chapters written by international experts, this is a crucial resource for researchers working on the dispersion and impact of radionuclides in the environment. It also provides essential knowledge for nuclear engineers, social scientists and policymakers to help develop suitable mitigation measures to prepare for similar large-scale natural hazards in the future.
This novel, transdisciplinary work explains how perturbations (defined as strong disturbances or deviations to a system) can affect the population dynamics of social animals, including ourselves. Social responses to perturbations, especially dispersal processes, can also generate non-linear population dynamics, including the potential appearance of tipping points and critical population transitions, which can in turn lead to catastrophic shifts and collapses. The book describes the links between social behaviour (mainly the use of social information and social copying), and non-linear population dynamics at different spatial scales (local dynamics and meta-population dynamics), and their ecological and evolutionary consequences. Examples from the natural world illustrate each of the main themes (prospecting, habitat suitability, collective dispersal, and cultural evolution). Human warfare and conflict, referred to in several chapters together with quantitative and qualitative examples, is also viewed as a form of perturbation and represents a paradigmatic example of the rationale behind this book. This applicability to our own species is particularly timely, given increased interest in both ecosystem change, human migration, and the global refugee crisis. Perturbation, Behavioural Feedbacks, and Population Dynamics in Social Animals will appeal to applied, theoretical, and evolutionary ecologists, particularly those working on the population and behavioural ecology of any social animal including humans. Its overlap with the study of complexity will also ensure its relevance and use to scientists from other disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, physics, computational science, economics, and mathematics.
From historic gardens and private gardens to parkland, botanical gardens and roadside greenery: the structuring presence of greenery in the city is playing an ever greater role in planning practice today. Areas of greenery within urban space are not only very important ecologically and socially. Green spatial elements also play an important role in master planning on a municipal and regional level and are subject to participatory processes. This book examines new approaches to the planning of greenery in various European countries (Germany, England, Finland, France, and the Netherlands). Ten selected cases highlight various geographical aspects in each of the national contexts and show the influences on spatial, ecological, economic, and socio- political transformations. The aim of this publication is to observe innovative processes in nature and housing and to present insights that can be applied to new approaches to planning.
Yellowstone holds a special place in America's heart. As the world's first national park, it is globally recognized as the crown jewel of modern environmental preservation. But the park and its surrounding regions have recently become a lightning rod for environmental conflict, plagued by intense and intractable political struggles among the federal government, National Park Service, environmentalists, industry, local residents, and elected officials. The Battle for Yellowstone asks why it is that, with the flood of expert scientific, economic, and legal efforts to resolve disagreements over Yellowstone, there is no improvement? Why do even seemingly minor issues erupt into impassioned disputes? What can Yellowstone teach us about the worsening environmental conflicts worldwide? Justin Farrell argues that the battle for Yellowstone has deep moral, cultural, and spiritual roots that until now have been obscured by the supposedly rational and technical nature of the conflict. Tracing in unprecedented detail the moral causes and consequences of large-scale social change in the American West, he describes how a "new-west" social order has emerged that has devalued traditional American beliefs about manifest destiny and rugged individualism, and how morality and spirituality have influenced the most polarizing and techno-centric conflicts in Yellowstone's history. This groundbreaking book shows how the unprecedented conflict over Yellowstone is not all about science, law, or economic interests, but more surprisingly, is about cultural upheaval and the construction of new moral and spiritual boundaries in the American West.
"Society and Nature" is a lively and highly accessible introduction
to the sociology of the environment. The book provides a
comprehensive guide to contemporary issues and current debates -
including society, nature and the enlightenment, industry and
environmental transformation, commodification, consumption, the
network society and human identity, human biology, citizenship and
new social movements. Combining insights from contemporary sociology, politics,
developmental biology and psychology, Peter Dickens suggests that
environmental degradation is largely due to humanity's narcissistic
demand that the environment be made into a commodity to be
consumed. Meanwhile, human biology is also being modified: people's
bodies are being rebuilt in ways that reflect their class
positions. People and their surroundings have always adapted
according to the demands of society. But modern capitalist society
is changing the environment and its people in profound, potentially
catastrophic, ways, shaping both human and non-human nature in its
own image. The book contains a number of student features to interest and
guide the reader as well as an attractive and clear layout. It will
be particularly useful for students and teachers of sociology,
human ecology, environmental studies and social theory. Dickens' insight won his work the American Sociological Association's Outstanding Publication Award 2006, in the Environment and Technology section.
Based on research conducted over two decades, this accessible and
deeply felt book provides a provocative comparative history of
environmentalism in two large ecologically and culturally diverse
democracies--India and the United States. Ramachandra Guha takes as
his point of departure the dominant environmental philosophies in
these two countries--identified as "agrarianism" in India and
"wilderness thinking" in the U.S. Proposing an inclusive "social
ecology" framework that goes beyond these partisan ideologies, Guha
arrives at a richer understanding of controversies over large dams,
state forests, wildlife reserves, and more. He offers trenchant
critiques of privileged and isolationist proponents of
conservation, persuasively arguing for biospheres that care as much
for humans as for other species. He also provides profiles of three
remarkable environmental thinkers and activists--Lewis Mumford,
Chandi Prasad Bhatt, and Madhav Gadgil. Finally, the author asks
the fundamental environmental question--how much should a person or
country consume?--and explores a range of answers.
Studies warn that global warming and sea level rise will create hundreds of millions of environmental refugees. While climate change will undoubtedly affect future migration patterns and behavior, the potential outcomes are more complex than the environmental refugee scenario suggests. This book provides a comprehensive review of how physical and human processes interact to shape migration, using simple diagrams and models to guide the researcher, policy maker and advanced student through the climate-migration process. The book applies standard concepts and theories used in climate and migration scholarship to explain how events such as Hurricane Katrina, the Dust Bowl, African droughts, and floods in Bangladesh and China have triggered migrations that haven't always fit the environmental refugee storyline. Lessons from past migrations are used to predict how future migration patterns will unfold in the face of sea level rise, food insecurity, political instability, and to review options for policy makers.
Our attitudes to our environment are widely and often acrimoniously discussed, commonly misunderstood, and will shape our future. We cannot assume that we behave as newly minted beings in a pristine garden nor as pre-programmed automata incapable of rational responsibility. Professor Berry has studied nature-nurture interactions for many years, and also been involved with many national and international decision making bodies which have influenced our environmental attitudes. He is therefore well-placed to describe what has moulded our present attitudes towards the environment. This book presents data and concepts from a range of disciplines - genetic, anthropological, social, historical and theological - to help us understand how we have responded in the past and how this influences our future. Beginning with a historical review and moving forwards to current conditions, readers will reach the end of this volume more capable and better prepared to make decisions which affect our communities and posterity.
Climate change, urban congestion, nuclear waste, deforestation, destruction of wildlife - how can we respond to these and the many other environmental problems that the world faces today? Can we trust the experts? Does technology have the answers? Should we look to governments or to markets to solve the problems? Are political solutions possible? Should we be optimistic or pessimistic about the environmental futures? To address these questions we need to look at environmental responses in an integrated way. This includes understanding the responses of environments to change, and the responses to those changes made by societies. Environmental Responses takes an innovative interdisciplinary approach to understanding the risks and uncertainties that inform our responses to environments. Featuring places such as Lake Baikal, Andalusia, Cumbria and Bhutan the book is richly illustrated drawing on examples from across the world. Among the issues covered are:
Understanding Environmental Issues
Changing Environments Contested Environments
Environmental Histories of the Cold War explores the links between the Cold War and the global environment, ranging from the environmental impacts of nuclear weapons to the political repercussions of environmentalism. Environmental change accelerated sharply during the Cold War years, and so did environmentalism as both a popular movement and a scientific preoccupation. Most Cold War history entirely overlooks this rise of environmentalism and the crescendo of environmental change. These historical subjects were not only simultaneous but also linked together in ways both straightforward and surprising. The contributors to this book present these connected issues as a global phenomenon, with chapters concerning China, the USSR, Europe, North America, Oceania, and elsewhere. The role of experts as agents and advocates of using the environment as a weapon in the Cold War or, contrastingly, of preventing environmental damage resulting from Cold War politics is also given broad attention.
The Proboscidea, of which only two species of elephant survive today, were one of the great mammalian orders of the Cenozoic. Their success over evolutionary time is reflected by their morphological and taxonomic diversity, their nearly worldwide distribution on every continent except Australia and Antarctica, and their persistence through nearly fifty million years. Their great past ability to migrate and to adapt to changing climatic conditions and interspecific competition provides a unique laboratory for the testing of evolutionary theories and development of new concepts. This is the first complete treatise on the evolution and palaeoecology of this group for half a century. It reviews their classification and phylogeny, the early differentiation of proboscideans, the major adaptive radiations and their evolutionary patterns, and the origins and current status of extant elephant species. Written by leading international experts, this is a major study documenting the record of terrestrial biodiversity. |
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