Up until now, mountain ecosystems have not been closely studies by social scientists as they do not offer a readily defined set of problems for human exploitation as, do for instance, tropical forests or arctic habitats. But the archaeological evidence had shown that humans have been living in this type of habitat for thousands of year. From this evidence we can also see that mountainous regions are often frontier zones of competing polities and form refuge areas for dissident communities as they often are inherently difficult to control by centralized authorities. As a consequence they fuel or contribute disproportionately to political violence. But we are now witnessing changes and increasing vulnerability of mountain ecosystems caused by human activities. Human adaptability to mountain ecosystems This volume presents an international and interdisciplinary account of the exploitation of--and human adaptation to--mountainous regions over time. The contributions discuss human cultural responses to key physical and cultural stressors associated with mountain ecosystems, such as aridity, quality of soils, steep slopes, low productivity, as well as transient phenomena such as changing weather patterns, deforestation and erosion, and the possible effects of climate change. This volume will be of interest to anthropologists, ecologists and geologists as mountainous landscapes change fast and cultures disappear and they need to be recorded, and mountain regions are of interest for studies on environmental change and cultural responses of mountain populations provide clues for us all. Critical to understanding mountain adaptations is our comprehension of human decision-making and how people view short- and long-term outcomes.

How did medieval Europeans use and change their environments, think about the natural world, and try to handle the natural forces affecting their lives? This groundbreaking environmental history examines medieval relationships with the natural world from the perspective of social ecology, viewing human society as a hybrid of the cultural and the natural. Richard Hoffmann's interdisciplinary approach sheds important light on such central topics in medieval history as the decline of Rome, religious doctrine, urbanization and technology, as well as key environmental themes, among them energy use, sustainability, disease and climate change. Revealing the role of natural forces in events previously seen as purely human, the book explores issues including the treatment of animals, the 'tragedy of the commons', agricultural clearances and agrarian economies. By introducing medieval history in the context of social ecology, it brings the natural world into historiography as an agent and object of history itself.

Providing an up-to-date synthesis of all knowledge relevant to the climate change issue, this book ranges from the basic science documenting the need for policy action to the technologies, economic instruments and political strategies that can be employed in response to climate change. Ethical and cultural issues constraining the societal response to climate change are also discussed. This book provides a handbook for those who want to understand and contribute to meeting this challenge. It covers a very wide range of disciplines - core biophysical sciences involved with climate change (geosciences, atmospheric sciences, ocean sciences, ecology/biology) as well as economics, political science, health sciences, institutions and governance, sociology, ethics and philosophy, and engineering. As such it will be invaluable for a wide range of researchers and professionals wanting a cutting-edge synthesis of climate change issues, and for advanced student courses on climate change.

Sustainable development and rural policies have pursued strategies where farming has been often regarded as a factor deteriorating the ecosystem. But the current economic, social and environmental problems of the Earth probably call for examples of a positive integration between human society and nature. This research work presents more than a hundred case studies where the historical relationships between man and nature have generated, not deterioration, but cultural, environmental, social and economic values. The results show that is not only the economic face of globalization that is negatively affecting the landscape, but also inappropriate environmental policies. The CBD-UNESCO program on biocultural diversity, the FAO Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems and several projects of the International Union of Forest Research Organizations, as well as European rural policies acknowledge the importance of cultural values associated to landscape. This research intends to support these efforts.

How do and how did people perceive, manage and respond to natural disasters? How are the causes of natural disasters explained in history, how are they explained today? This volume investigates relationships between forces of nature and human culture in a multidisciplinary context bridging science and the humanities. Forces of nature and cultural responses is divided into four sections: (1) ball lightnings, (2) earthquakes and tsunamis, (3) volcanic eruptions and plagues, and (4) hurricanes and floodings. Specifically, Section 1 investigates theories and case studies of ball lightning phenomena. Section 2 includes a psychological study on the impact of earthquakes on academic performance, a study on tsunami vulnerability and recovery strategies in Thailand and a study on the social and economic aftermaths of a tsunami and a hurricane in Hawaii. Section 3 consists of a chapter on volcanic eruptions and plagues as well as cultural responses in Ancient Times and a study on contemporary vulnerability and resilience under chronic volcanic eruptions. Section 4 investigates the impact of hurricane Katrina on the current jazz scene in New Orleans and cultural responses to floodings in The Netherlands in Early Modern Times.

In the spring of 1978, citizens of Love Canal, a suburban development in Niagara Falls, NY, began protesting against the leaking toxic waste dump - a sixteen acre site containing 100,000 barrels of chemical waste - upon which their homes, elementary school, and backyards stood. The Love Canal citizens' movement represented a different brand of environmental reform. Rather than focusing on resource conservation and preservation of natural spaces, Love Canal reformers advocated environmental justice. By the early 1980s, hundreds of local activists (many of them self-described "housewives-turned-activists") had forced two important initiatives from politicians and business leaders: government relocation of Love Canal families and government/industry remediation of the dump itself. Love Canal activists also spurred passage of the Superfund law at the federal level, "Right to Know" statutes at the state level, and a wave of copycat citizen-environmentalist groups in communities across the country (so-called NIMBYs: "Not In My Backyard" environmentalists). Nearly thirty years after making international headlines, Love Canal remains a watchword of hazardous waste reform and one of the most significant environmental disasters in American history. In this book, Richard S. Newman examines this oft-told event within the wider context of the landscape through five centuries. He begins with the conflicts that erupted between the resident Iroquois and French explorer Rene Lasalles' commercial development schemes in the Niagara Falls region. During the 18th and 19th century, the Love Canal landscape was transformed by successive generations of European and American entrepreneurs and industrialists. Love's Canal was the dream of William Love, a developer who in 1893 planned a massive industrial metropolis to be carved out of the Niagara region's lush farmland, capped by an artificial river with a waterfall higher than Niagara Falls. His scheme failed but not before digging of the canal had begun. The scheme attracted the interest of famous conservationists like John Muir, Theodore Roosevelt, and John Burroughs, who argued for preserving the falls from commercial and industrial overuse. Yet throughout the twentieth century the area supported massive industrial growth, including that of the Hooker Electrochemical Corporation, the company that dumped industrial chemicals into the abandoned Love Canal site. As the company grew, its efforts to handle disposal of its hazardous waste led to development of a new process of "in-ground disposal." Only by considering Love Canal land-use and alteration through successive stages of commercialization, industrialization, deindustrialization, and technological innovation can we understand the road to a hazardous waste nightmare in the 1970s-and the global environmental justice movement it sparked. A portrait of a charged landscape and the people who have continually redefined its meaning, this book will look at local land-use from long-term perspective.

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.

Environmentalism has relentlessly warned about the dire consequences of abusing and exploiting the planet's natural resources, imagining future wastelands of ecological depletion and social chaos. But it has also generated rich new ideas about how humans might live better with nature. Green Utopias explores these ideas of environmental hope in the post-war period, from the environmental crisis to the end of nature. Using a broad definition of Utopia as it exists in Western policy, theory and literature, Lisa Garforth explains how its developing entanglement with popular culture and mainstream politics has shaped successive green future visions and initiatives. In the face of apocalyptic, despairing or indifferent responses to contemporary ecological dilemmas, utopias and the utopian method seem more necessary than ever. This distinctive reading of green political thought and culture will appeal across the social sciences and humanities to all interested in why green utopias continue to matter in the cultivation of ecological values and the emergence of new forms of human and nonhuman well-being.

A detailed ethnographic and historical study of the implications of fast-track land reform in Zimbabwe from the perspective of those involved in land occupations around Lake Mutirikwi, from the colonial period to the present day. Finalist for the African Studies Association 2016 Melville J. Herskovits Award The Mutirikwi river was dammed in the early 1960s to make Zimbabwe's second largest lake. This was a key moment in the Europeanisation of Mutirikwi's landscapes, which had begun with colonial land appropriations in the 1890s. But African landscapes were not obliterated by the dam. They remained active and affective. At independence in 1980, local clans reasserted ancestral land claims in a wave of squatting around Lake Mutirikwi. They were soon evicted as the new government asserted control over the remaking of Mutirikwi's landscapes. Amid fast-track land reform in the 2000s, the same people returned again to reclaim the land. Many returned to the graves and ruins of past lives forged in the very substance of the soil, and even incoming war veterans and new farmers appealed to autochthonous knowledge to make safe theirresettlements. This book explores those reoccupations and the complex contests over landscape, water and belonging they provoked. The 2000s may have heralded a long-delayed re-Africanisation of Lake Mutirikwi, but just as African presence had survived the dam, so white presence remains active and affective through Rhodesian-era discourses, place-names and the materialities of ruined farms, contour ridging and old irrigation schemes. Through lenses focused on the political materialities of water and land, this book reveals how the remaking of Mutirikwi's landscapes has always been deeply entangled with changing strategies of colonial and postcolonial statecraft. It highlights howthe traces of different pasts intertwine in contemporary politics through the active, enduring yet emergent, forms and substances of landscape. Joost Fontein is Director of the British Institute in Eastern Africa and Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh. Published in association with the British Institute in Eastern Africa.

How does climate change affect social work and social development? What actions are needed to integrate the three pillars of economic development, environmental development and social protection? With global warming and the increase in natural disasters due to the emission of greenhouse gases, an alternative approach to the natural environment is vital. The main focus of this volume is to emphasize the person-in-environment concept and to find measures for its implementation. For social work the environment has traditionally been viewed as a world of human relationships as opposed to the interaction between man and environment. This informative and incisively written edited collection brings together experts from around the world to analyze the person-in-environment concept and to find measures for its implementation. Through the presentation of theoretical and practical platforms for environmental social work or 'green social work', we hope to bring about a new paradigmatic shift in our attitude to the concept of person-in- environment.

As global environmental changes become increasingly evident and efforts to respond to these changes fall short of expectations, questions about the circumstances that generate environmental reforms become more pressing. Defensive Environmentalists and the Dynamics of Global Reform answers these questions through a historical analysis of two processes that have contributed to environmental reforms, one in which people become defensive environmentalists concerned about environmental problems close to home and another in which people become altruistic environmentalists intent on alleviating global problems after experiencing catastrophic events such as hurricanes, droughts and fires. These focusing events make reform more urgent and convince people to become altruistic environmentalists. Bolstered by defensive environmentalists, the altruists gain strength in environmental politics and reforms occur.

Reshaping Environments: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Sustainability in a Complex World draws together a team of specialist authors from disciplines including urban planning, social sciences, engineering and environmental science to examine the diverse influences humans have upon the natural environment. This interdisciplinary approach presents multifaceted responses for complex environmental issues. The book explores current environmental science theories to provide a solid foundation of theoretical knowledge. Drawing on a range of case studies, it develops core analytical skills for application to real-world environmental issues. Reshaping Environments gives environmental science students the tools and insight to comprehend the range of influences society imposes on the natural environment. It is essential reading for those interested in creating a mutually beneficial future for human society and the natural environment.

This revealing book synthesizes research from many fields to offer the first complete history of the roles played by weather and climate in American life from colonial times to the present. Author William B. Meyer characterizes weather events as neutral phenomena that are inherently neither hazards nor resources, but can become either depending on the activities with which they interact. Meyer documents the ways in which different kinds of weather throughout history have represented hazards and resources not only for such exposed outdoor pursuits as agriculture, warfare, transportation, construction, and recreation, but for other realms of life ranging from manufacturing to migration to human health. He points out that while the weather and climate by themselves have never determined the course of human events, their significance as been continuously altered for better and for worse by the evolution of American life.

Modernity promised control over nature through science, material abundance through technology and effective government through rational, social organization. Instead of leading to this promised land it has brought us to the brink of environmental and cultural disaster. Why has there been this gap between modernity's aspirations and its achievements? Development Betrayed offers a powerful answer to this question. Development with its unshakeable commitment to the idea of progress, is rooted in modernism and has been betrayed by each of its major tenets. Attempts to control nature have led to the brink of environmental catastrophe. Western technologies have proved inappropriate for the needs of the South, and governments are unable to respond effectively to the crises that have resulted. Offering a thorough and lively critiques of the ideas behind development, Richard Norgaard also offers an alternative co-evolutionary paradigm, in which development is portrayed as a co-evolution between cultural and ecological systems. Rather than a future with all peoples merging to one best way of knowing and doing things, he envisions a future of a patchwork quilt of cultures with real possibilities for harmony.

This book gives an interdisciplinary overview on urban ecology. Basic understanding of urban nature development and its social reception are discussed for the European Metropolitan Area of Berlin. Furthermore, we investigate specific consequences for the environment, nature and the quality of life for city dwellers due to profound changes such as climate change and the demographic and economic developments associated with the phenomena of shrinking cities. Actual problems of urban ecology should be discussed not only in terms of natural dimensions such as atmosphere, biosphere, pedosphere and hydrosphere but also in terms of social and cultural dimensions such as urban planning, residence and recreation, traffic and mobility and economic values. Our research findings focus on streets, new urban landscapes, intermediate use of brown fields and the relationships between urban nature and the well-being of city dwellers. Finally, the book provides a contribution to the international discussion on urban ecology.

What will replace fossil fuel? Is there a way forward using renewable energy sources while avoiding nuclear power? This book argues that nuclear is unlikely to have much of a role in future, and shows that the pro- and anti-nuclear debate has absorbed too much time and energy over the years. This has been to the detriment of a more relevant, interesting and increasingly urgent debate over what sort of renewable/efficiency mix we need. This book engages in that debate, exploring the implications of shifting to greener, cleaner energy sources. Importantly, David Elliott argues there is no one green future. There is a range of possible options of various types and scales: we need to choose amongst them. This book offers an overview of the technical, economic and environmental issues to help scholars, professionals and policy makers involved in discussing those options.

Extreme climatic events present society with significant challenges in a rapidly warming world. Ordinary citizens, the insurance industry and governments are concerned about the apparent increase in the frequency of weather and climate events causing extreme, and in some instances, catastrophic, impacts. Originally published in 2008, Climate Extremes and Society focuses on the recent and potential future consequences of weather and climate extremes for different socioeconomic sectors. The book also examines actions that may enable society to better respond to climate variability. It provides examples of the impact of climate and weather extremes on society. How have these extremes varied in the past, and how might they change in the future? What type of efforts will help society adapt to potential future changes in climate and weather extremes? The book is designed for all policy-makers, engineers and scientists who have an interest in the effects of climate extremes on society.

When you tug on a single thing in nature, said the conservationist John Muir, you find it is attached to the rest of the world. Nowhere is this more evident than in the climate crisis. Tugging on a thread of our shared atmosphere in China or the U.S., for example, by shunting pollution into the skies, causes the fabric of local weather patterns to unravel half a world away. Climate change is the biggest moral problem of our time, as people who have contributed little to the pollution responsible for global warming are increasingly understood to be most vulnerable to the shifting environment around them. In Boiling Point, Leonie Joubert embarks on a journey in which she explores the lives of some South Africans affected by this phenomenon: a rooibos tea farmer in the Northern Cape, a traditional fisherman in Lamberts Bay, a farmer in the center of the Free States maize belt, a political refugee in Pietermaritzburg and a sangoma in Limpopo mining country. Most of these communities live on a knife-edge because of poverty and their dependence on an already capricious natural environment. Boiling Point considers what might happen to them as normal weather trends are amplified in a hotter world.

International environmental agreements have increased exponentially within the last five decades. However, decisions on policies to address key issues such as biodiversity loss, climate change, ozone depletion, hazardous waste transport and numerous other planetary challenges require individual countries to adhere to international norms. What have been the successes and failures in the environmental treaty-making arena? How has the role of civil society and scientific consensus contributed to this maturing process? Why have some treaties been more enforceable than others and which theories of international relations can further inform efforts in this regard? Addressing these questions with renewed emphasis on close case analysis makes this volume a timely and thorough postscript to the Rio-Plus 20 summit's celebrated invocation document, The Future We Want, towards sustainable development. Environmental Diplomacy: Negotiating More Effective Global Agreements provides an accessible narrative on understanding the geopolitics of negotiating international environmental agreements and clear guidance on improving the current system. In this book, authors Lawrence Susskind and Saleem Ali expertly observe international environmental negotiations to effectively inform the reader on the geopolitics of protecting our planet. This second edition offers an additional perspective from the Global South as well as providing a broader analysis of the role of science in environmental treaty-making. It provides a unique contribution as a panoramic analysis of the process of environmental treaty-making.

Promoting walking and cycling proposes solutions to one of the most pressing problems in contemporary British transport planning. The need to develop more sustainable urban mobility lies at the heart of energy and environmental policies and has major implications for the planning of cities and for the structure of economy and society. However, most people feel either unable or unwilling to incorporate travel on foot or by bike into their everyday journeys. This book uses innovative quantitative and qualitative research methods to examine in depth, and in an international and historical context, why so many people fail to travel in ways that are deemed by most to be desirable. It proposes evidence-based policy solutions that could increase levels of walking and cycling substantially. This book is essential reading for planners and policy makers who are developing and implementing transport policies at both national and local levels, plus researchers and students in the fields of mobility, transport, sustainability and urban planning.

The worlds developing countries will be experiencing massive increases in their urban populations over the 21st century. If managed intelligently and humanely, this growth can pave the way to sustainable development; otherwise, it will favour higher levels of poverty and environmental stress. The outcome depends on decisions being made now. The principal theme that runs through this volume is the need to transform urbanization into a positive force for development. Part I of this book reviews the demography of the urban transition, stressing the importance of benefi cial rural-urban connections and challenging commonly held misconceptions. Part II asks how urban housing, land and service provision can be improved in the face of rapid urban expansion, drawing lessons from experiences around the world. Part III analyses the challenges and opportunities that urbanization presents for improving living environments and reducing pressures on local and global ecosystems. These social and environmental challenges must be met in the context of fast-changing demographic circumstances; Part IV explores the range of opportunities that these transformations represent. These challenges and opportunities vary greatly across Africa, Asia and Latin America, as detailed in Part V. Published with IIED and UNFPA

Domestic animals have lived with humans for thousands of years and remain essential to the everyday lives of people throughout the world. In this book, Natasha Fijn examines the process of animal domestication in a study that blends biological and social anthropology, ethology, and ethnography. She examines the social behavior of humans and animals in a contemporary Mongolian herding society. After living with Mongolian herding families, Dr. Fijn has observed through firsthand experience both sides of the human-animal relationship. Examining their reciprocal social behavior and communication with one another, she demonstrates how herd animals influence Mongolian herders lives and how the animals themselves are active partners in the domestication process."

The third edition of this introductory textbook for both science students and non-science majors has been brought completely up-to-date. It reflects recent scientific progress in the field, as well as advances in the political arena around climate change. As in previous editions, it is tightly focussed on anthropogenic climate change. The first part of the book concentrates on the science of modern climate change, including evidence that the Earth is warming and a basic description of climate physics. Concepts such as radiative forcing, climate feedbacks, and the carbon cycle are discussed and explained using basic physics and algebra. The second half of the book goes beyond the science to address the economics and policy options to address climate change. The book's goal is for a student to leave the class ready to engage in the public policy debate on the climate crisis.

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.

An assessment of policy options for future global climate governance, written by a team of leading experts from the European Union and developing countries. Global climate governance is at a crossroads. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol was merely a first step, and its core commitments expire in 2012. This book addresses three questions which will be central to any new climate agreement. What is the most effective overall legal and institutional architecture for successful and equitable climate politics? What role should non-state actors play, including multinational corporations, non-governmental organizations, public private partnerships and market mechanisms in general? How can we deal with the growing challenge of adapting our existing institutions to a substantially warmer world? This important resource offers policy practitioners in-depth qualitative and quantitative assessments of the costs and benefits of various policy options, and also offers academics from wide-ranging disciplines insight into innovative interdisciplinary approaches towards international climate negotiations.