The issue of 'sustainability' in the developed world is nowhere more critical than in the field of personal travel, which in many countries has become the fastest-growing contributor to global warming. Unless the use of cars can be brought under control, there is little chance of meeting government targets for reducing greenhouse emissions. Personal Transport and the Greenhouse Effect sets out the steps that could be taken to lessen the conflict between personal mobility and long-term environmental security. It provides a detailed analysis of the policy options available for limiting carbon dioxide emissions, and highlights the limitations of technological measures in solving the problem. Instead, the book's 12-point plan for sustainability shows how a significant reduction in emissions requires the use of all the policy measures available. This valuable contribution to a crucial area of debate covering energy, transport policy and the environment will be essential reading for policy makers, planners and students alike. Peter Huges is deputy editor of Local Transport Today, and has contributed to a wide range of publications including The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, New Scientist and Energy Policy. Originally published in 1993

When disaster strikes, a ritual unfolds: a flood of experts, bureaucrats, and analysts rush to the scene; personal tragedies are played out in a barrage of media coverage; on the ground, confusion and uncertainty reign. In this major comparative study, Gregory Button draws on three decades of research on the most infamous human and environmental calamities to break new ground in our understanding of these moments of chaos. He explains how corporations, state agencies, social advocacy organizations, and other actors attempt to control disaster narratives, adopting public relations strategies that may either downplay or amplify a sense of uncertainty in order to advance political and policy goals. Importantly, he shows that disasters are not isolated events, offering a holistic account of the political dynamics of uncertainty in times of calamity.

Based on 40 years of experience, Integrated Environmental Management: A Transdisciplinary Approach brings together many ecological and technological tool boxes and applies them in a transdisciplinary method. The book demonstrates how to combine continuous improvement management tools and principles with proven environmental assessment methodologies. This integrated ecological and environmental management approach lets you view environmental problems from a holistic angle, considering the ecosystem as an entity as well as the entire spectrum of solutions and possible combinations of solutions. The book discusses the importance of examining all facets or possible problems associated with an ecosystem simultaneously and evaluating all the solution possibilities proposed by the relevant disciplines at the same time. The authors underline that there is no alternative to integrated, multidisciplinary, ecological-environmental management-at least not on a long-term basis. They lay down the fundamental concepts in an applications-oriented manner that allows you to apply the seven steps of environmental management directly. However, the book goes beyond delineating the available tool boxes; it also details how they can be integrated and combined to find an optimum solution to ecological-environmental problems.

This substantially revised second edition of Merchant's classic guide to radical environmental politics and movements, offers a comprehensive overview of the philosophical, ethical, scientific and economic aspects of the environment. With a new introduction, updated chapters, and two new sections on recent global movements and on globalization and the environment, it specifically identifies ways in which radical ecologists can transform science and society in order to sustain life. This classic work by one of the most important voices in the environmental movement is a must-read for those involved in the fields of ecology, sociology and social policy.

Campaigns to redress gender inequities and injustices have resulted in significant achievements towards equality, especially for well-educated, career-orientated, white women in the West. However, such campaigns have primarily been conducted in the male-dominated arenas of public politics, paid work, and education, and the 'successes' of women's equality are usually calculated by the masculinist values of politics and the workplace. These, the learned editor of this new Routledge Major Works collection avers, are the very values-predicated on continuous economic and material growth, fuelled by consumption and competition, and combative politics-which are destroying the world's environment at a dizzying rate. However, since the late 1960s, a growing environmental awareness, combined with the third-wave feminist movement in the West, has challenged this worldview, particularly the liberal notion of 'equality' based on women achieving masculinist economic and social norms. Uneasy with the horror of a world in which everyone striving for 'equality' would end up consuming at the rate of an average Western male, the newly emerging ecological feminism of the 1970s argued that what constitutes 'success' needs to be reimagined, in other-arguably feminist/feminine-ways. This way of thinking prompted a reconceptualization of the relationship between environment and gender, with distinctive debates emerging variously in North America, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Scandinavia, and France. The work of feminist critics in the Global South have both developed and challenged these debates, and have drawn to public attention the most egregious examples of how environmental impacts consistently, and structurally, exacerbate the inequalities that women and girls endure, especially in poorer parts of the world. Literature developing the links between environment, development, and gender has broadened the earlier Western eco-feminism discourse, and has also influenced-albeit selectively-various development strategies by global institutions (such as the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and various UN agencies) and NGOs (notably, for example, Oxfam). Questions about how we want to live in relation to our environment have arguably never been more urgent and this new title from Routledge's Critical Concepts in the Environment series answers the need for an authoritative reference work to make sense of the growing-and ever more complex-corpus of scholarly and campaigning literature on gender and the environment, and the continuing explosion in research output. Drawing on a wide variety of sources, Susan Buckingham has brought together in four volumes canonical and cutting-edge work to produce an indispensable 'mini library'. The collection is fully indexed and includes comprehensive introductions, newly written by the editor, which place the collected materials in their historical and intellectual context. It is an essential reference collection and is certain to be valued by scholars and students-as well as by serious policy-makers and practitioners-as a vital one-stop research and pedagogic resource.

Is it possible for individuals to tackle waste by recycling, reusing and reducing alone? This provocative book critically analyses the widespread assumption that individuals and households have created our global waste crisis. Sociologist and waste expert Myra J. Hird reveals neoliberal capitalism's fallacy of infinite growth as the real culprit, and demonstrates how industry and local governments work in tandem to deflect our attention away from the real causes of our global waste problem. Hird offers crucial insights into the relations between waste and wider societal issues including ongoing (settler) colonialism, poverty, racism and sexism, and showcases how sociology may provide solutions through a 'pubic imagination' of waste.

This second edition of An Environmental History of the World continues to present a concise history, from ancient to modern times, of the interactions between human societies and the natural environment, including the other forms of life that inhabit our planet. Throughout their evolutionary history, humans have affected the natural environment, sometimes with a promise of sustainable balance, but also in a destructive manner. This book investigates the ways in which environmental changes, often the result of human actions, have caused historical trends in human societies. This process has happened in every historical period and in every part of the inhabited earth.

The book is organized into ten chapters. The main chapters follow a chronological path through the history of mankind, in relationship to ecosystems around the world. The first explains what environmental history is, and argues for its importance in understanding the present state of the world's ecological problems. Chapters two through eight form the core of the historical analysis, each concentrating on a major period of human history (pre-civilized, early civilizations, classical, medieval, early modern, early and later twentieth century, and contemporary) that has been characterized by large-scale changes in the relationship between human societies and the biosphere, and each gives several case studies that illustrate significant patterns occurring at that time. The chapters covering contemporary times discuss the physical impacts of the huge growth in population and technology, and the human responses to these problems. Our moral obligations to nature and how we can achieve a sustainable balance between technology and the environment are also considered. This revised second edition takes account of new research and the course of history containing new sections on global warming, the response of New Orleans to the hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and the experience of the Dutch people in protecting their low-lying lands against the encroachments of rivers, lakes, and the North Sea. New material is also offered on the Pacific Islands, including the famous case of Easter Island.

This is an original work that reaches further than other environmental histories. Rather than looking at humans and the environment as separate entities, this book places humans within the community of life. The relationship between environmental thought and actions, and their evolution, is discussed throughout. Little environmental or historical knowledge is assumed from the reader in this introduction to environmental history. We cannot reach a useful understanding of modern environmental problems without the aid of perspective provided by environmental history, with its illustrations of the ways in which past decisions helped or hindered the interaction between nature and culture. This book will be influential and timely to all interested in or researching the world in which we live.

The Oxford Handbook of Energy and Society presents an overview of this expanding area that has evolved dramatically over the past decade, away from one largely dominated by structural, political economic treatments on the one hand, and social-psychological studies of individual-level attitudes and behaviors on the other, toward a far more conceptually and methodologically rich and exciting field that brings in, for example, social practices, system complexity, risk theory, social studies of science, and social movements theories. This volume seeks to capture the variety of scales and methods, and range of both conceptual and empirical analyses that define the field, while drawing particular attention to indigenous peoples, poverty, political power, communities and cities. Organized into seven sections, chapters cover social theory and energy-society relations, political-economic perspectives, consumption dynamics, energy equity and energy poverty, energy and publics, energy and governance, as well as emerging trends.

Engaging with discussions surrounding the culture of disease, Disrupting Breast Cancer Narratives explores politically insistent narratives of illness. Resisting the optimism of pink ribbon culture, these stories use anger as a starting place to reframe cancer as a collective rather than an individual problem. Disrupting Breast Cancer Narratives discusses the ways emotion, gender, and sexuality, in relation to breast cancer diagnosis and treatment, all become complicated, relational, and questioning. Providing theoretically informed close-readings of breast cancer narratives, this study explores how disruption functions both personally and politically. Highlighting a number of contributors in the field of health and gender studies including Barbara Ehrenreich, Kathlyn Conway, Audre Lorde, and Teva Harrison, this work takes into account documentary film, television, and social media as popular mediums used to explore stories of disease.

Climate predictions - and the computer models behind them - play a key role in shaping public opinion and our response to the climate crisis. Some people interpret these predictions as 'prophecies of doom' and some others dismiss them as mere speculation, but the vast majority are only vaguely aware of the science behind them. This book gives a balanced view of the strengths and limitations of climate modeling. It covers historical developments, current challenges, and future trends in the field. The accessible discussion of climate modeling only requires a basic knowledge of science. Uncertainties in climate predictions and their implications for assessing climate risk are analyzed, as are the computational challenges faced by future models. The book concludes by highlighting the dangers of climate 'doomism', while also making clear the value of predictive models, and the severe and very real risks posed by anthropogenic climate change.

Native Americans suffer disproportionately from many social and health disparities. High rates of poverty, exposure to environmental toxins, and various forms of violence all increase the risk of health problems, including disabilities, yet there is very little published scholarship concerning Native American experiences with disabilities. In collecting contributions on various aspects of disability in Native American populations in one volume, this book seeks to redress this lack of attention. Writing about regions of the United States, Canada, and Australia, and spanning a diverse range of settings from remote rural areas, to reservations, to college campuses, the authors are attentive to the impact of specific environments on their inhabitants. Taking into account both physical and social environment, and recognizing the importance of cultural context, this book is a good starting point for anyone interested in developing a better understanding of the experience of Native peoples living with disabilities. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Social Work in Disability & Rehabilitation.

Futures: Imagining Socioecological Transformation brings together leading scholars to explore how we might know, enact, and struggle for, the conjoined social and ecological transformations we need to achieve just and sustainable futures. The question of transformation, and how it might be achieved, is explored across a variety of topics and geographical sites, and through heterodox analytical and theoretical approaches, in a collective effort to move beyond a form of critique that hands down judgements, to one that brings new ideas and new possibilities to life. Chapters are lively and original engagements with concrete situations that sparkle with creativity. Together, they add up to an impressive study of how to live, and what to struggle for, in the complex socioecological landscapes of the Anthropocene. This book was previously published as a special issue of the Annals of the Association of American Geographers.

Marine social and ecological systems around the world face multiple natural and anthropogenic stressors associated with global change. The resulting changes can create hardship for local societies that depend on them for food, livelihoods and wellbeing. Knowing how to respond to global change in a timely and appropriate manner is increasingly occupying the attention of researchers, policy makers, decision makers and practitioners around the world. Written by an international group of researchers from the natural and social sciences, Societal and governing responses to Global Change in Marine Systems analyses and appraises societal and governing responses to change, highlighting and explaining similarities and distinctions between successful, and less successful, responses. The authors present "I-ADApT", an analytical framework that enables decision makers to consider possible responses to global change, based on experiences elsewhere. Within this volume, I-ADApT is applied to 20 enlightening case studies covering a wide range of marine systems that have been challenged by critical global change issues around the world. Introducing innovative research to work towards a range of possible responses to global change, Societal and governing responses to Global Change in Marine Systems will appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as postdoctoral researchers and practitioners interested in fields such as: Environment & Natural Resources, Marine Resources and social sciences.

Y O U C A N M A K E A P O S I T I V E D I F F E R E N C E This inspiring, easy-to-use guide will help kickstart any activist's journey. From supporting independent businesses and amplifying marginalised voices, to community gardening and giving to a food bank, there's something you can do to make a positive change - whether you have a day, an hour, or just five minutes to spare. Divided into three parts, Everyday Activism suggests 60 small actions that can slip easily into any busy schedule. If you want to change the world for the better but are unsure how, this is the perfect place to begin.

The current warming of the Earth is leading to important social questions being raised: How warm will the Earth become and when? What effect will it have on human life? Should we try to slow down these trends? If so, how do we do this while balancing the economic needs of society? Global Climate Change and Human Life attempts to answer some of these questions, providing facts and theories that will help the reader formulate rational opinions and gain a new way to think about the complexities of the subject and the future of the global environment and climate. Divided into three parts, this book covers the composition of the atmosphere, the workings of the earth's climate and how the changing global climate will affect the environment and how that will affect human life. Featuring numerous questions and exercises and worked examples throughout the text, this book is intended for undergraduate students taking courses in global climate change. Based on a course that the author has given to students from a number of subject disciplines the book will appeal to all needing a well-written, unified introduction to the subject.

Here is an indispensable text and reference book for anyone interested in a systems approach to environmental studies. It will be useful not only to geographers but also to ecologists and other environmental scientists; planners; economists and other social scientists; philosophers; and applied mathematicians. Bennett and Chorley's book has a number of broad aims: first, to employ the systems approach to provide an interdisciplinary focus on environmental structures and techniques; second, to use this approach to aid in developing the interfacing of social and economic theory with physical and biological theory; and third, to investigate the implications of this interfacing for human response to current environmental dilemmas, and hence to expose the technological and social bases of values which underlie our use of natural resources. Interpreting the "environment" so as to embrace physical, biological, man-made, social, and economic reality, the authors show that the systems approach provides a powerful vehicle for the statement of environmental situations of ever-growing temporal and spatial magnitude, and for reducing the areas of uncertainty in our increasingly complex decision making arenas. Originally published in 1979. 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.

The impact of global environmental change on surface water resources affects gendered livelihoods, governance and development. The deterioration of water quality, rising temperatures, and changes in the seasonality, quantity, and duration of precipitation increasingly alters human, animal and plant demand for water resources. This edited volume explores how a feminist political ecology framework can bring new and exciting insights to the study of livelihoods dependent on vulnerable rivers, watersheds, wetlands and coastal environments. Bringing together political ecologists and feminist scholars from multiple disciplines, the book develops solution-oriented advances to theory, policy and planning to tackle the complexity of these global environmental changes.Using applied research on the contemporary management of rivers, watersheds and coastal wetlands in the South Pacific, Central and South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South and North America, the authors draw on a variety of methodological perspectives and new theoretical approaches to demonstrate the importance of considering multiple layers of social difference as produced by and central to the effective governance and local management of water resources. This unique collection employs a unifying feminist political ecology framework that emphasizes the ways that gender interacts with other social and geographical locations of water resource users. In doing so, the book further questions the normative gender discourses that underlie policies and practices surrounding water management and climate change, large-scale development and dams, resource knowledge and expertise, and critical livelihood studies. The book should be of interest to students and scholars of environment studies, development studies, anthropology, feminist and environmental geography, as well as women's and gender studies.

How do scientists, scholars, and other experts engage with the general public and with the communities affected by their work or residing in their sites of study? Where are the fine lines between public scholarship, civic engagement, and activism? Must academics 'give back' once they collect data and publish results? In this volume, authors from a wide range of disciplines examine these relationships to assess how they can be fruitful or challenging. Describing the methodological and ethical issues that experts must consider when carrying out public scholarship, this book includes a checklist for critical factors of success in engagement and an examination of the role of digital social media in science communication. Illustrated by a range of case studies addressing environmental issues (climate change, resource use, post-disaster policy) and education, it offers an investigation into the levels and ways in which scholars can engage, and how and whether academics and experts who engage in community work and public scholarship are acknowledged and rewarded for doing so by their institutions. Also bringing into the debate the perspective of citizens who have collaborated with academics, the book offers an exploration of the democratizing potential of participatory action research.

As progress towards a greater knowledge in sustainability science continues, the question of how better to integrate scientific progress with actual decisions made by practitioners remains paramount. This book aims to help close the gap between science and practice. Based on a two year collaborative project between Harvard and Clark Universities, the book takes as its focus the vulnerability and resilience of people around the world to the effects of environmental change, a mature area of research in which one might expect the gap between science and policy/practice to have been extensively bridged.

Integrating Science and Policy presents analysis of past studies, interviews conducted with the producers and users of scientific knowledge, and case studies performed by leading scholars across a spectrum of international settings and political systems. Crucially, the authors identify new directions and tools for closing the gap between science and policy across a range of situations and societies. The result is an illuminating collection of studies and analyses that suggest to researchers, students, practitioners, and policy-makers alike how best to ensure that high quality environmental research informs good environmental policy and practice.

A bestseller on Amazon.com within months of its first release, Alan AtKisson's debut book quickly became a modern classic of sustainability literature. Global companies, grassroots groups, university courses, government agencies, and even the US Army ordered it by the box. Now fully revised and updated, Believing Cassandra: How to be an Optimist in a Pessimist's World is even more relevant, fresh, and motivating than when it first appeared in 1999. In a style that's refreshingly candid and vivid, with unforgettable personal anecdotes, AtKisson provides us with a bridge over the sea of despair, and shows us how to catch the wave to an enticing, sustainable future. He empowers the reader to join the pioneers who created the ideas, techniques and practices of sustainable living - the people who prove Cassandra's warnings wrong, by believing in them, and taking strategic action.

Along with windstorms, floods are the most common and widespread of all natural disasters. Although they can often be predicted, they cause loss of life, damage and destruction, as many urban communities are located near coasts and rivers. In terms of victims, floods are responsible for more than half the deaths caused by natural catastrophes. As flood events appear to be rapidly increasing world-wide, an advanced and universal approach to urban flooding and how to manage will help reduce flood impact.

This textbook integrates expertise from disciplines such as hydrology, sociology, architecture, urban design, construction and water resources engineering. The subject is approached from an international perspective and case studies, exercises, expert advice and literature recommendations are included to support the theory and illustrations.

Developed by a team of specialists, this volume is intended for urban flood management education of hydrology, geography, civil and environmental engineering, and management students at university level. Moreover, professionals will find this book useful as a reference. More information on flood resilience and urban flood management can be found at www.floodresiliencegroup.org

For a preview, please go to http: //issuu.com/crcpress/docs/urban_flood_management

Happy City is the story of how the solutions to this century's problems lie in unlocking the secrets to great city living This is going to be the century of the city. But what actually makes a good city? Why are some cities a joy to live in? As Charles Montgomery reveals, it's not how much money your neighbours earn, or how pleasant the climate is that makes the most difference. Journeying to dozens of cities - from Atlanta to Bogota to Vancouver - he talks to the new champions of the happy city to explore the urban innovations already transforming people's lives. He meets the visionary Colombian mayor who turned some of the world's most dangerous roads into an urban cycling haven; the Danish architect who brought the lessons of medieval Tuscan towns to modern-day Copenhagen; and the New York City transport commissioner who turned the gridlock of Times Square into a place to lounge in the sun. Drawing on the lessons from their stories, from brain science, and from the fascinating realm of urban experimentation, Happy City offers solutions we can all use to improve our livesandshows that simple changes can make all the difference. 'Do we live in neighbourhoods that make us happy? Montgomery encourages us to ask without embarrassment, and to think intelligently about the answer' The New York Times Book Review 'Excellent . . . Montgomery believes in the importance of smart town planning and Happy City is a compendium of its major ideas' Will Dean, Independent Charles Montgomery is a journalist and urban experimentalist from Vancouver, Canada. His writings on urban planning, psychology, culture, and history have appeared in magazines and journals on three continents. He is the author of one previous book, and was an original member of the BMW Guggenheim Lab.