Contents:
Foreword Preface List of figures and tables Part 1: Framework and Theory 1. The challenge of disasters and our approach 1.1 In at the deep end 1.2 Conventional views of disaster 1.3 What is vulnerability? 1.4 Changes since the first edition 1.5 The International decade for natural disaster reduction 1.6 Convergence and critique 1.7 Audiences 1.8 Scope and plan of the book 1.9 Limits and assumptions 2. The disaster pressure and release model 2.1 The nature of vulnerability 2.2 Cause and effects in the disaster pressure model 2.3 Time and the chain of explanation 2.4 Limits to our knowledge 2.5 Global trends and dynamic pressures 2.6 Uses of the pressure and release model 3. Access to resources and coping in adversity 3.1 Access to resources - an introduction 3.2 New thinking since 1994 3.3 'Normal life' - the formal Access model 3.4 Coping and access to safety Part 2: Vulnerability and Hazard Types 4. Famine and natural hazards 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Famines and their causes 4.3 Explanations of famine 4.4 Complex emergencies, policy famines and human rights 4.5 Causes, pressures, unsafe conditions and famine 4.6 Access and famines 4.7 Policy 4.8 Conclusion 5. Biological hazards 5.1 Introduction 5.2 What are biological hazards? 5.3 Limitations to our treatment of biological hazards 5.4 Biological links with other hazards 5.5 Livelihoods, resources and disasters 5.6 Vulnerability-creating processes 5.7 Pressures affecting defences against biological hazards 5.8 Root causes and pressures 5.9 Steps toward risk reduction 6. Floods 6.1 Introduction 6.2 Floods as known risks 6.3 Disastrous outcomes for vulnerable people 6.4 Floods and vulnerability 6.5 Summary: flood prevention and mitigation 7. Coastal storms 7.1 Introduction 7.2 The physical hazard 7.3 Patterns of vulnerability 7.4 Case-studies 7.5 Policy responses 8. Earthquakes and volcanoes 8.1 Introduction 8.2 Classic case-studies: Guatemala and Mexico 8.3 Recent case-studies 8.4 Volcanoes and related hazards 8.5 Goma, Congo, eruption of Mount Nyiragongo 2002 8.6 Policy response and mitigation Part 3: Towards a Safer Environment 9. Towards a safer environment 9.1 Towards a safer environment: are statements of intent merely hot air? 9.2 From Yokohama to Johannesburg via Geneva 9.3 Risk reduction objectives Notes Bibliography

Written during the height of the ecology movement, " The Ecological Transition " is a stunning interdisciplinary work. It combines anthropology, ecology, and sociology to formulate an understanding of cultural-environmental relationships. While anthropologists have been studying relationships between humans and the physical environment for a very long time, only in the last thirty years have questions inherent in these relationships broadened beyond description and classification. For example, the concept of environment has been extended beyond the physical into the social.

Although anthropologists have adopted many of the concepts that Bennett develops in the book, he also feels that the central issues have never been addressed, either by anthropologists or by people in related disciplines. The most important of these, in Bennett's opinion, is the failure to incorporate a respect for the environmental in contemporary culture, which would allow making exceptions in certain human practices in order to protect the environment. His point in " The Ecological Transition " is that a basic cultural change in modern civilization is necessary to achieve this end.

Both a theoretical and a practical work, " The Ecological Transition " emphasizes the relationships between human culture, the physical environment, technology, and social policy. " The Ecological Transition " is a challenging volume that makes us face the consequences of human behavior in the modern world: its effect on pollution, natural resources, agriculture, the economy, and population, to name just a few areas. The book remains a significant contribution to the discourse on social, economic, and environmental problems. While the book was first published in 1976, it still reads as a contemporary tract.

" John W. Bennett " is emeritus professor of anthropology at Washington University, St. Louis. He has served as president of the American Ethnological Society and the Society for Applied Anthropology, and has been a member of the editorial boards of the " Annual Review of Anthropology " and " Reviews in Anthropology. " He is the author of " Classic Anthropology: Critical Essays, 1944-1996 " and " Human Ecology as Human Behavior: Essays in Environmental and Development Anthropology ," both published by Transaction.

Contents:
Part 1: Environmental Problems 1. Technology and Society 2. Energy and Environment 3. Sustainable Technology Part 2: Sustainable Technology 4. Green Technology 5. The Nuclear Alternative 6. Renewable Energy 7. Renewables Worldwide 8. Sustainable Energy Strategy Part 3: Problems of Implementation 9. Getting Started: Institutional Obstacles 10. Keeping Going: Deployment Problems 11. Case-Study: Public Reactions to Wind Farms in the UK 12. Public Acceptance: The Need for Negotiation Part 4: Sustainable Society 13. Sustainable Development 14. The Global Perspective 15. Sustainable Future 16. Conclusions: The Way Ahead?

Whilst energy use is fundamental to human existence, it is also at the heart of many environmental problems we face in the 21st century. Deteriorating air quality and the global warming phenomenon can all be attributed to our use of fossil fuels. The re-emergence of nuclear power as an alternative also prompts major concerns. Sustainable alternatives such as wind and hydroelectric power also face opposition.
Energy, Society and Environment explores the ways in which energy interacts with society and the environment. The book is structured to provide:
· an understanding of energy related environmental problems
· an appreciation of the strengths and weaknesses of technological solutions
· knowledge of the social and institutional obstacles to implementing these solutions
· an understanding of the strategic issues facing sustainable energy use.
The revised edition reflects recent changes in the area. Chapters on nuclear and wind energy have been revised in response to recent debates. Coverage of fossil fuels has also been strengthened, whilst there is greater emphasis on environmental and energy policy in the context of the debate surrounding the Kyoto accord. Additional case-studies have been added which highlight alternative energy solutions.
Energy, Society and Environment examines the potential and limits of technological solutions to energy-related environmental problems and suggests that social, economic and political solutions may also be necessary to avoid serious environmental damage in the future. Global case-studies are used throughout to ground the debates and illustrate the interaction between technological and social aspects.

A critical, comparative exploration of the framing of environmental problems in Northern and Southern Europe. The book addresses theoretical and empirical questions about environmental attitudes and behaviours, politics and protest, cultures and contexts.

The study of human reproductive ecology represents an important new development in human evolutionary biology. Its focus is on the physiology of human reproduction and evidence of adaptation, and hence the action of natural selection, in that domain. But at the same time the study of human reproductive ecology provides an important perspective on the historical process of human evolution, a lens through which we may view the forces that have shaped us as a species. In the end, all actions of natural selection can be reduced to variation in the reproductive success of individuals.

Peter Ellison is one of the pioneers in the fast growing area of reproductive ecology. He has collected for this volume the research of thirty-one of the most active and influential scientists in the field. Thanks to recent noninvasive techniques, these contributors can present direct empirical data on the effect of a broad array of ecological, behavioral, and constitutional variables on the reproductive processes of humans as well as wild primates. Because biological evolution is cumulative, however, organisms in the present must be viewed as products of the selective forces of past environments. The study of adaptation thus often involves inferences about formative ecological relationships that may no longer exist, or not in the same form. Making such inferences depends on carefully weighing a broad range of evidence drawn from studies of contemporary ecological variation, comparative studies of related taxonomies, and paleontological and genetic evidence of evolutionary history. The result of this inquiry sheds light not only on the functional aspects of an organism's contemporary biology but also on its evolutionary history and the selective forces that have shaped it through time.

Encompassing a range of viewpoints--controversy along with consensus--this far-ranging collection offers an indispensable guide for courses in biological anthropology, human biology, and primatology, along with demography, medicine, social anthropology, and public health.

Environmental justice is one of the most controversial and important issues in contemporary social science. Volume 8 of the "Energy and Environmental Policy" series challenges our understanding of environmental justice in a global context. It includes theoretical investigations and case studies by leading authors in the field. Global forces of technology and the development of global markets are transforming social life and the natural order. These changes require a critical examination of nature-society relations. Increasingly, modernization assigns the risks of modernity to those with the least power and greatest vulnerability to environmental harm. Conventional environmentalism, which focuses on critique of the effects of humanity against nature, is inadequate to the challenges of globalization. In particular, it fails to explain sources of persistent patterns of social injustice that accompany escalating environmental exploitation. As the capacity for environmental destruction expands, broader concerns about environmental injustice have come to the fore, including awareness of threats to whole cultures, ways of life, and entire ecologies. The volume's authors consider the links between expanded patterns of environmental injustice and the structures and forces underlying and shaping the international political economy. Environmental injustice is examined across a variety of cultures in the developed and developing world. Through case studies of climate colonialism, revolutionary ecology, and environmental commodification, the global and local dimensions of the problem are presented. The latest volume in this important series demonstrates that environmental justice cannot be reduced to simple parables of indifference, prejudice, or appropriation. It forges understanding of environmental injustice as a development of international political economy itself. Likewise, initiatives on behalf of environmental justice are seen as elements of broader movements to secure self-determination in a globalizing world. This book will be of interest to policymakers, energy and environmental experts, and all those interested in the environment and environmental law. It provides new perspectives on the place of environmental justice in international political and economic conflict. John Byrne is director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy, University of Delaware. Leigh Glover is a research fellow at the same Center. Cecilia Martinez is a professor of ethnic studies at the Metropolitan State University (Minnesota) and a research associate of the American Indian Research and Policy Institute.

Nature in Our Culture shows that today's environmental problems are not a consequence of an incorrect science, but of the evolution of Western society. Friedrich W. Sixel acknowledges that the dominant culture that has evolved in modernity serves, primarily, the dominance of that culture. An egoistic instrumentalism forces the modern individual to view everything in terms of its usefulness. Sixel argues that only a culture that resurrects in itself its own Nature-ness will rectify our presently problematic Nature.

Sociological Theory and the Environment is a comprehensive survey and assessment of sociological theories of the relations between societies and their "natural" biophysical environment. This book touches on and addresses virtually all of the major perspectives, focal points, and debates in environmental sociology today--classical and twentieth century social theories, macro-micro linkage issues, globalization and development, reflexive modernization, ecological modernization vs. "limits" viewpoints, modernity and post modernity, risk society, constructionalism-realism, environmental movements/identities, consumption and environment, cultural sociologies of the environment, and so on. At the same time, the book aims to go beyond an inventory of environmental sociological theory. Sociological Theory and the Environment stresses how new ground can be broken in the articulation of environmental sociology with major classical and contemporary sociological theories.

In the early 1950s fisherfolk and other villagers around Minamata Bay on the western coast of Kyushu, Japan, began to suffer from mysterious and often fatal symptoms of what came to be known as Minamata disease. It was not until 1968 that the government acknowledged its cause organic mercury poisoning from effluent released by Chisso Corporation, a chemical manufacturer and the largest employer in the Japanese city for which the disease was named. For decades the company denied responsibility and was joined by the Japanese government in its attempt to cover up the problem despite lawsuits and political protests. In this compelling oral history, Ogata Masato, fisherman and Minamata disease sufferer, tells of the devastation of methyl mercury poisoning. Spanning fifty years, his story describes the impact of industrial pollution on his own life, on his extended family, and on the fishing culture of the Shiranui Sea. A one-time leader of Minamata disease patients seeking certification and compensation, Masato breaks away to follow his personal path to redemption. Masato's story begins with the vibrant village of his childhood and culminates with the possibility of return, if not to one's birthplace, then to a spiritual community, to a consciousness that we owe our existence to the web of interrelationships that constitute life. When we turn full circle, explains Masato, we find ourselves again at the water's edge, a place where all life gathers. This is the launching point for "Tokoyo," boat of the Eternal World-a world defined at once by the past, present and future; a state of mind in which we are responsible not only for our own actions but for those of our society and our species. Masato's story, larger than any one man or one incident, raises questions we must all consider as beneficiaries of modern industry and technology.

This volume analyzes the ways in which natural resource wealth has shaped authoritarian political regimes and statist economic systems in the countries of southern Africa in the post-colonial period. It consists of five essays. The first sets out the historical framework and emergence of natural resources as the crucial driver of economies in sub-Saharan Africa. Three essays, drawing on in-country research, focus on Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. They show how this explains the economic evolution of those countries - in particular, the impacts of economic and institutional changes on the bulk of the population, the rural poor. The final essay explores the nature of the changes and their neoliberal economic context, and the ways in which their harmful consequences might be relieved.

A broad and comprehensive exploration of the role of the ecological sciences in sustainability for undergraduates.The urgent quest for more sustainable patterns of development has placed new and difficult demands on both scientists and policy makers as they seek to establish more informed and effective policy processes and management regimes in the the face of pervasive uncertainty. Written by an international group of authors from a range of disciplines - ecology, geography, law, policy analysis and others - the chapters explore issues of scientific legitimacy, public participation, non-governmental organisations, inter-sectoral communication and pragmatic public policy across a wide range of ecosystem management contexts.

This is the fifth volume in a series designed to publish theoretical, empirical and review papers on scientific human ecology. Human ecology is interpreted to include structural and functional changes in human social organization and sociocultural systems as these changes may be affected by, interdepent with, or identical to changes in ecosystemic, evolutionary or ethological processes factors or mechanisms. Three degrees of scope are included in this interpretation: the adaptation of sociocultural forces to bioecological forces; the interactions, two-way adaptations, between sociocultural and bioecological forces; and the integration, or unified interactions, of sociocultural with bioecological forces.

Deforestation, soil runoff, salination, pollution. While recurrent themes of the contemporary world, they are not new to us. In this broad sweeping review of the environmental impacts of human settlement and development worldwide over the past 5,000 years, Sing C. Chew shows that these processes are as old as civilization itself. With examples ranging from Ancient Mesopotamia to Malaya, Mycenaean Greece to Ming China, Chew shows that the processes of population growth, intensive resource accumulation, and urbanization in ancient and modern societies almost universally bring on ecological disaster, which often contributes to the decline and fall of that society. He then turns his eye to the development of the modern European world-system and its impact on the environment. Challenging us to change these long-term trends, Chew also traces the existence of environmental conservation ideas and movements over the span of 5,000 years. Can we do it? Look at Chew's evidence of the past five millennia and decide. Ideal for courses in environmental history, anthropology, and sociology, and world-systems theory.

In recent years John Bellamy Foster has emerged as a leading theorist of the Marxist perspective on ecology. His seminal book Marx's Ecology (Monthly Review Press, 2000) discusses the place of ecological issues within the intellectual history of Marxism and on the philosophical foundations of a Marxist ecology, and has become a major point of reference in ecological debates. This historical and philosophical focus is now supplemented by more directly political engagement in his new book, Ecology against Capitalism. In a broad-ranging treatment of contemporary ecological politics, Foster deals with such issues as pollution, sustainable development, technological responses to environmental crisis, population growth, soil fertility, the preservation of ancient forests, and the "new economy" of the Internet age.

Foster's introduction sets out the unifying themes of these essays enabling the reader to draw from them a consolidated approach to a rapidly-expanding field of debate which is of critical importance in our times.

Within these debates on the politics of ecology, Foster's work develops an important and distinctive perspective. Where many of these debates assume a basic divergence of "red" and "green" issues, and are concerned with the exact terms of a trade-off between them, Foster argues that Marxismproperly understoodalready provides the framework within which ecological questions are best approached. This perspective is advanced here in accessible and concrete form, taking account of the major positions in contemporary ecological debate.

Carole L. Crumley has brought together top scholars from across anthropology in a benchmark volume that displays the range of exciting new work on the complex relationship between humans and the environment. Continually pursuing anthropology's persistent claim that both the physical and the mental world matter, these environmental scholars proceed from the holistic assumption that the physical world and human societies are always inextricably linked. As they incorporate diverse forms of knowledge, their work reaches beyond anthropology to bridge the sciences, social sciences, and the humanities, and to forge working relationships with non-academic communities and professionals. Theoretical issues such as the cultural dimensions of context, knowledge, and power are articulated alongside practical discussions of building partnerships, research methods and ethics, and strategies for implementing policy. New Directions in Environment and Anthropology will be important for all scholars and non-academics interested in the relation between our species and its biotic and built environments. It is also designed for classroom use in and beyond anthropology, and students will be greatly assisted by suggested reading lists for their further exploration of general concepts and specific research. Learn more about the author at the University of North Carolina Anthropology Department web pages.

Contents:
Part I. Introduction
1. The approach of transnational social spaces: responding to new configurations of the social and the spatial Ludger Pries
Part II. International Migration and Transnational Social Spaces
2. Comparing local level Swedish and Mexican transnational life: an essay in historical retrieval Robert Smith
3. Dissagregating transnational social spaces: gender, place and citizenship in Mexico - US transnational spaces Luin Goldring
4. Transnational families: institutions of transnational social space Fernando Herrera
5. Shifting spaces - complex identities in Turkish-German migration Jeffrey Jurgens
Part III. International Companies and Transnational Social Spaces
6. Pluri-local social spaces by tele-cooperation in international companies Ralf Reichwald and Kathrin Möslein
7. Pluri-local social spaces in international companies Hermann Kotthoff
8. The transnationalization of companies and their industrial relations Jürgen Kädtler and Hans-Joachim Sperling
9. Co-ordination and control in transnational business and non-profit organizations Jörg Flecker and Ruth Simsa
Part IV. The Future of Trnasnational Social Spaces
10. Cracked casings: towards an analytics for studying transnational processes Saskia Sassen

The Emergence of Ecological Modernisation offers a wealth of empirical research material from an international perspective, bringing together previously scattered sources for the first time. It addresses a series of theoretical issues that are of key contemporary relevance, such as the relationship between ecological modernisation and sustainable development; strategies for promoting ecological modernisation, and the extent to which it is possible to 'green' contemporary capitalism.

Contents:
Part I. Introduction
1. Environmental sociology and energy efficiency
2. Engaging with energy and buildings
3. Science, knowledge and practice
Part II. Building Research Environments
4. Defining energy research
5. Comparing research environments: i. Close communities ii. Co-ordinated contractors iii. Contracting knowledge iv. Networking expertise
6. Positioning energy efficiency
7. Changing research environments
Part III. Energy Knowledges
8. Constructing conventions
9. Abstracting knowledge: capturing solar energy
10. Building knowledge: demonstrations and case studies
11. Replicating knowledges: i. Design Tools ii. Case studies
12. Converging conventions
Part IV. Theories of Knowledge and Practice
13. Theories of technical change: i. Barriers to energy efficiency ii. Leaping the barriers
14. Changing course
15. Following energy efficiency
Part V. The Politics of Insulation
16. Conventional explanations
17. Culture of energy conservation: i. Denmark ii. Sweden iii. France iv. The European insulation industry
18. Filling the gap: i. First fillings 1959-1974 ii. Curbing the cowboys 1975-1981 iii. Foam fears 1981-1983 iv. Fibre Wars 1984-1992
19. Government, industry and consumer interaction
Part VI. Organising Design: Housing and Energy Efficiency
20. Best practice and decision-making
21. Contexts of action: i. Shifting associations ii. Local pressures iii. Private dilemmas
22. Context, change and choice
Part VII. Developing Interests: Office Buildings and Barriers
23. Property relationships: i. Investing and exchanging ii. Nesting and using iii. Globalising design
24. Fluctuating priorities
Part VIII. Conclusions
25. Understanding energy efficiency
26. Technical convergence, cultural diversity
27. Reconstructing research

For the anthropologists, people-wildlife conflicts readily invite symbolic analysis. This volume examines people-wildlife conflicts in Europe, Africa and Asia from an anthropological perspective. It contributes to a discussion which with growing human populations, expanding developmental activity, and progressive loss of wildlife habitat, is likely to intensify in the 21st century.

Wild animals raid crops, attack livestock, and sometimes threaten people. Conflicts with wildlife are widespread, assume a variety of forms, and elicit a range of human responses. Wildlife pests are frequently demonized and resisted by local communities while routinely 'controlled' by state authorities. However, to the great concern of conservationists, the history of many people-wildlife conflicts lies in human encroachment into wildlife territory.
In Natural Enemies the authors place the analytical focus on the human dimension of these conflicts - an area often neglected by specialists in applied ecology and wildlife management - and on their social and political contexts. Case studies of specific conflicts are drawn from Africa, Asia, Europe and America, and feature an assortment of wild animals, including chimpanzees, elephants, wild pigs, foxes, bears, wolves, pigeons and ducks.
These anthropologists challenge the narrow utilitarian view of wildlife pestilence by revealing the cultural character of many of our 'natural enemies'. Their reports from the 'front-line' expose one fact - human conflict with wildlife is often an expression of conflict between people.

Moving beyond traditional cultural and disciplinary boundaries, social scientists, humanists, natural scientists, and public servants examine the different ways in which people understand and inhabit their environments in communities across the Pacific Northwest, the Pacific Rim, and throughout Asia. Utilizing ethnographic and historical case studies; textual, cartographic, and narrative analysis; and critical examinations of discourse and methods, these essays broaden our understanding of human/environmental interactions, and prompt more realistic assessments and effective action.

Contents:
1:Business and Environment; 2:The Changing Relationships Through Time, 3:Environmental Business Perspectives - assets, costs and externalities; 4:Environmental Business Necessities - the pressures which cannot be ignored; 5:Environmental Business Opportunities - business becomes proactive; 6:Primary Industries - using resources directly; 7:Secondary Industries - adding value and carrying the burden; 8:Tertiary Industries - the hidden environmental issues; 9:Enviromental Business; 10:Business and Environment - the future for the relationships.

This introductory level text examines how businesses and the environment interact. It is ideal for students with no previous knowledge of business studies. It examines in depth the ways in which business, industry, the physical environment, environmentalism and social change have evolved alongside each other. The authors use boxed case studies to highlight how business practice and the environment interact at levels from local to global, with examples from multi-national companies, government bodies, national charities and local enterprise. The book also contains a large number of informative diagrams. The case studies include:
* Shell Oil's environmental policy
* railways and the industrial revolution
* the British National Trust's business enterprises
* Sainsbury's approach to organic foods
* Australia's landcare scheme
* changing trends in retailing
* Brent Spar
* big game hunting and conservation.

Ecological footprinting is rapidly being adopted as an effective and practical way to measure our impact on the environment - in both large- and small-scale planning and development. This is an introduction to ecological footprint analysis, showing how it can be done, and how to measure the "footprints" of activities, lifestyles, organizations and regions. Case studies illustrate its effectiveness at national, organizational, individual and product levels.