At a time when it is clear that climate change adaptation and mitigation are failing, this book examines how our assumptions about (valid and usable) knowledge are preventing effective climate action. Through a cross-disciplinary, empirically-based analysis of climate science and policy, the book situates the failures of climate policy in the cultural history of prediction and its interfaces with policy. Fava calls into question the current interfaces between scientific research and climate policy by tracing multiple connections between modelling, epistemology, politics, food security, religion, art, and the apocalyptic. Demonstrating how the current domination of climate policy by models and scenarios is part of the problem, the book examines how artistic practices are a critical location to ask questions differently, rethink environmental futures, and activate social change. The analysis starts with another moment of climatic change in recent western history: the overlap of the Little Ice Age and the "scientific revolution," during which intense climatic, scientific and political change were contemporary with mathematical calculation of the apocalypse. Dealing with the need for complex answers to complex and urgent questions, this is essential reading for those interested in climate action, interdisciplinary research and methodological innovation. The empirical analyses amount to a methodological experiment, across history of science, theology, art theory and history, architecture, future studies, climatology, computer modelling, and agricultural policy. This book is a major contribution to understanding how we are precluding effective climate action, and designing futures that resemble our worst nightmares.

This book includes the proceedings of the Mitigating Climate Change 2021 Symposium and Industry Summit (MCC2021), which brings together research from experts in academia, industry, and policy arenas to uncover the challenges, sharpen existing solutions, and formulate cutting-edge means to mitigate climate change. It highlights the need to create sustainable measures at all fronts including adaptation, policy, finance, renewable energy, solar, wind, thermoelectric, green transportation, and sustainable healthcare. This symposium will disseminate the state-of-the-art breakthroughs and promote collaborations to maximize opportunities for innovative solutions.

This interdisciplinary volume comprehensively reviews recent developments in wetland science and global change. The aim is to identify gaps, problems and successes in the integration of scientific issues into lagoon and coastal wetland management.

The major strength of this volume is that it integrates several fields of research including climatology, hydrology, geomorphology, ecology and biology.

This book considers the impact of climate change on cities, advocating that people are the panaceas and antidote to mitigating climate change, by enhancing their involvement in achieving sustainable development Goals (SDGs). This leads to the development of an SDG best practice participation template, which is supported by an extensive checklist of the 'whats' and 'hows' in participatory processes. Using case studies, extensive literature reviews and meta-analysis to make a case for a people-centric and integrated approach to sustainable urban development, it examines the role of governance in climate change, focusing on decision making processes, policies and regulations, as well as focusing on the significance of a people-oriented approach on climate change and cities. Through an extensive global outlook, this book highlights bottom-up methods of implementing and achieving sustainable urban development in the age of climate change. These highlights should help to develop new mindsets, new strategies, new directions and new policies, through which we can see a more sustainable approach to urbanisation and urban development globally, which can start 'equipping future generations with the tools for them to help their future generations'.

Achieving climate justice is increasingly recognized as one of the key problems associated with climate change, helping us to determine how good or bad the effects of climate change are, and whether any harms are fairly distributed. The numerous and complex issues which climate change involves underline the need for a normative framework that allows us both to assess the dangers that we face and to create a just distribution of the costs of action. This collection of original essays by leading scholars sheds new light on the key problems of climate justice, offering innovative treatments of a range of issues including international environmental institutions, geoengineering, carbon budgets, and the impact on future generations. It will be a valuable resource for researchers and upper-level students of ethics, environmental studies, and political philosophy.

This open access book analyses the interplay of sustainable development and human rights from different perspectives including fight against poverty, health, gender equality, working conditions, climate change and the role of private actors. Each aspect is addressed from a more human rights-focused angle and a development-policy angle. This allows comparisons between the different approaches but also seeks to close gaps which would remain if only one perspective would be at the center of the discussions. Specifically, the book shows the strong connections between human rights and the objectives of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the United Nations in 2015. Already the preamble of this document explicitly states that "the 17 Sustainable Development Goals ... seek to realise the human rights of all". Moreover, several goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda correspond to already existing individual human rights obligations. The contributions of this volume therefore also address how the implementation of human rights and SDGs can reinforce each other, but also point to critical shortcomings of the different approaches.

This book addresses the quantitative measurement of climate change vulnerability at the macro and micro-level and identifies household adaptation strategies to cope with the adverse effects of climate change. Focusing on five different agro-climatic regions of West Bengal: the hill region, foothill region, drought region, and coastal regions of Sunderban and Purba Midnapore, it presents research related to various sectors, including the agricultural, forestry and informal sectors. The book also offers insights into the impact of climate change on smallholdings, forest-dependent communities, fishing and crab collecting communities, casual labourers and workers in the informal sectors, and identifies the key vulnerabilities associated with climate change, as well as the causes of such vulnerability the extent to which remedial measures have been taken. The book particularly highlights the role of Indian governmental policies like Sarva Shiksa Abhiyan, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), the housing scheme, Indira Awas Yojana, the Food for Work Programme, and the rural road building scheme, Pradhan Mantri Grameen Sadak Yojana, which are important for rural development and in reducing vulnerability. Showcasing vulnerability measurement in the socio-ecological system, the book will appeal to developmental practitioners, government implementation agencies, policymakers and researchers in the field of environmental science and policymakers will find this book appealing.

The Global Carbon Cycle and Climate Change examines the global carbon cycle and the energy balance of the biosphere, following carbon and energy through increasingly complex levels of metabolism from cells to ecosystems. Utilizing scientific explanations, analyses of ecosystem functions, extensive references, and cutting-edge examples of energy flow in ecosystems, it is an essential resource to aid in understanding the scientific basis of the role played by ecological systems in climate change. This book addresses the need to understand the global carbon cycle and the interrelationships among the disciplines of biology, chemistry, and physics in a holistic perspective. The Global Carbon Cycle and Climate Change is a compendium of easily accessible, technical information that provides a clear understanding of energy flow, ecosystem dynamics, the biosphere, and climate change. "Dr. Reichle brings over four decades of research on the structure and function of forest ecosystems to bear on the existential issue of our time, climate change. Using a comprehensive review of carbon biogeochemistry as scaled from the physiology of organisms to landscape processes, his analysis provides an integrated discussion of how diverse processes at varying time and spatial scales function. The work speaks to several audiences. Too often students study their courses in a vacuum without necessarily understanding the relationships that transcend from the cellular process, to organism, to biosphere levels and exist in a dynamic atmosphere with its own processes, and spatial dimensions. This book provides the template whereupon students can be guided to see how the pieces fit together. The book is self-contained but lends itself to be amplified upon by a student or professor. The same intellectual quest would also apply for the lay reader who seeks a broad understanding." --W.F. Harris| Deputy Assistant Director, Biological Sciences, National Science Foundation (Retired); Associate Vice Chancellor for Research, University of Tennessee, Knoxville (Retired)

Public health policy prospectively and retrospectively addresses the consequences of events ranging from the commonplace to the catastrophic. Informing policymakers and stakeholders by enhancing their understanding of complex causation to justify remedial or precautionary actions is a critical science-policy task. In this book, the key aspects of catastrophes (regardless of their nature) and routine events are identified through a common framework for their analyses, and the analyses of the consequences associated with the potential occurrence of these events also are discussed. The book is not about disaster planning; instead, it is focused on analysis and causation in the context of informing - rather than formulating - public health policy. The author aggregates and fuses scientific information and knowledge in public health policy-science using alternative but complementary methods. The book first focuses on the analysis of catastrophes and commonplace events; the focus then shifts to causal models of multifactorial diseases, particularly at low doses or dose-rates, associated with these events. Topics explored among the chapters include: Policy and Legal Aspects of Precautionary Choices Catastrophes, Disasters, and Calamities: Concepts for Their Assessment Uncertainty: Probabilistic and Statistical Aspects Aggregating Judgments to Inform Precautionary Decision-making The aim of the book is to show that the analyses of events are fundamentally similar, regardless of whether the concern is a global catastrophe or commonplace. Analysis of Catastrophes and Their Public Health Consequences is a text that should engage students, instructors, and researchers in public health, science policy, and preparedness research, as well as serve as a useful resource for policy analysts, practitioners, and risk managers.

This unique book brings together high-quality research contributions on ecological aspects of urbanization, water quality concerns in an urban environment, and climate change issues with a strong Indian focus under one umbrella. It includes several case studies that discuss urban water management, particularly highlighting the quality aspects. Urbanization is an ecological disturbance that the modern world accepts as essential in the absence of a better alternative that could provide an equal level of comfort. The prohibitive costs of eco-friendly production technologies are forcing the developing world to generate industrial waste that is detrimental to the environment. At the same time, the availability of adequate fresh water is another challenge for our climate-change impacted world. The scientific community is, therefore, searching for ways towards ecologically sustainable urban development. Discussing all these issues, this book offers a useful guide for academicians, researchers, practicing engineers, and managers dealing with diverse water-related problems in urban areas.

One of the world's leading scholars of religious trends shows how climate change has driven dramatic religious upheavals. Long before the current era of man-made climate change, the world has suffered repeated, severe climate-driven shocks. These shocks have resulted in famine, disease, violence, social upheaval, and mass migration. But these shocks were also religious events. Dramatic shifts in climate have often been understood in religious terms by the people who experienced them. They were described in the language of apocalypse, millennium, and Judgment. Often, too, the eras in which these shocks occurred have been marked by far-reaching changes in the nature of religion and spirituality. Those changes have varied widely - from growing religious fervor and commitment; to the stirring of mystical and apocalyptic expectations; to waves of religious scapegoating and persecution; or the spawning of new religious movements and revivals. In many cases, such responses have had lasting impacts, fundamentally reshaping particular religious traditions. In Climate, Catastrophe, and Faith historian Philip Jenkins draws out the complex relationship between religion and climate change. He asserts that the religious movements and ideas that emerge from climate shocks often last for many decades, and even become a familiar part of the religious landscape, even though their origins in particular moments of crisis may be increasingly consigned to remote memory. By stirring conflicts and provoking persecutions that defined themselves in religious terms, changes in climate have redrawn the world's religious maps, and created the global concentrations of believers as we know them today. This bold new argument will change the way we think about the history of religion, regardless of tradition. And it will demonstrate how our growing climate crisis will likely have a comparable religious impact across the Global South.

The world is currently undergoing an historic energy transition, driven by increasingly stringent decarbonisation policies and rapid advances in low-carbon technologies. The large-scale shift to low-carbon energy is disrupting the global energy system, impacting whole economies, and changing the political dynamics within and between countries. This open access book, written by leading energy scholars, examines the economic and geopolitical implications of the global energy transition, from both regional and thematic perspectives. The first part of the book addresses the geopolitical implications in the world's main energy-producing and energy-consuming regions, while the second presents in-depth case studies on selected issues, ranging from the geopolitics of renewable energy, to the mineral foundations of the global energy transformation, to governance issues in connection with the changing global energy order. Given its scope, the book will appeal to researchers in energy, climate change and international relations, as well as to professionals working in the energy industry.

Earth at Risk in the 21st Century offers critical interdisciplinary reflections on peace, security, gender relations, migration and the environment, all of which are threatened by climate change, with women and children affected most. Deep-rooted gender discrimination is also a result of the destructive exploitation of natural resources and the pollution of soils, water, biota and air. In the Anthropocene, the management of human society and global resources has become unsustainable and has created multiple conflicts by increasing survival threats primarily for poor people in the Global South. Alternative approaches to peace and security, focusing from bottom-up on an engendered peace with sustainability, may help society and the environment to be managed in the highly fragile natural conditions of a 'hothouse Earth'. Thus, the book explores systemic alternatives based on indigenous wisdom, gift economy and the economy of solidarity, in which an alternative cosmovision fosters mutual care between humankind and nature. * Special analysis of risks to the survival of humankind in the 21st century. * Interdisciplinary studies on peace, security, gender and environment related to global environmental and climate change. * Critical reflections on gender relations, peace, security, migration and the environment * Systematic analysis of food, water, health, energy security and its nexus. * Alternative proposals from the Global South with indigenous wisdom for saving Mother Earth.

Drawing on the work of leading researchers and practitioners from a range of disciplines, including economic geography, economics, economic history, finance, law, and public policy, this edited collection provides a comprehensive assessment of stranded assets and the environment, covering the fundamental issues and debates, including climate change and societal responses to environmental change, as well as its origins and theoretical basis. The volume provides much needed clarity as the discourse on stranded assets gathers further momentum. In addition to drawing on scholarly contributions, there are chapters from practitioners and analysts to provide a range of critical perspectives. While chapters have been written as important standalone contributions, the book is intended to systematically take the reader through the key dimensions of stranded assets as a topic of research inquiry and practice. The work adopts a broad based social science perspective for setting out what stranded assets are, why they are relevant, and how they might inform the decision-making of firms, investors, policymakers, and regulators. The topic of stranded assets is inherently multi-disciplinary, cross-sectoral, and multi-jurisdictional and the volume reflects this diversity. This book will be of great relevance to scholars, practitioners and policymakers with an interest in include economics, business and development studies, climate policy and environmental studies in general.

This open access book highlights the complexities around making adaptation decisions and building resilience in the face of climate risk. It is based on experiences in sub-Saharan Africa through the Future Climate For Africa (FCFA) applied research programme. It begins by dealing with underlying principles and structures designed to facilitate effective engagement about climate risk, including the robustness of information and the construction of knowledge through co-production. Chapters then move on to explore examples of using climate information to inform adaptation and resilience through early warning, river basin development, urban planning and rural livelihoods based in a variety of contexts. These insights inform new ways to promote action in policy and praxis through the blending of knowledge from multiple disciplines, including climate science that provides understanding of future climate risk and the social science of response through adaptation. The book will be of interest to advanced undergraduate students and postgraduate students, researchers, policy makers and practitioners in geography, environment, international development and related disciplines.

Presenting an overview of agroecology within the framework of climate change, this book looks at the impact of our changing climate on crop production and agroecosystems, reporting on how plants will cope with these changes, and how we can mitigate these negative impacts to ensure food production for the growing population. It explores the ways that farmers can confront the challenges of climate change, with contributed chapters from around the world demonstrating the different challenges associated with differing climates. Examples are provided of the approaches being taken right now to expand the ecological, physiological, morphological, and productive potential of a range of crop types. Describes the effects and responses of the macro and micro levels of crops under the different components of climate change Reports on the adaptation and resilience of food production systems within the changing climate Covers how plants cope with the changing climate including physiological, biochemical, phenotype, and ecosystem responses Provides an in-depth discussion on the importance of agricultural education connected to climate change Giving readers a greater understanding of the mechanisms of plant resilience to climate change, this book provides new insights into improving the productivity of an individual crop species as well as bringing resistance and resiliency to the entire agroecosystem. It offers a strong foundation for changing research and education programs so that they build the resistance and resilience that will be needed for the uncertain climate future ahead.

Effect of High Temperature on Crop Productivity and Metabolism of Macro Molecules presents a comprehensive overview on the direct effect of temperatures defined as "high", a definition which increasingly includes a great number of geographic regions. As temperature impacts the number of base growth days, it is necessary to adapt plant selection, strategize planting times, and understand the expected impact of adaptive steps to ensure maximum plant health and crop yield. Global warming, climate change and change in environmental conditions have become common phrases in nearly every scientific seminar, symposium and meeting, thus these changes in climatic patterns constrain normal growth and reproduction cycles. This book reviews the effect of high temperature on agricultural crop production and the effect of high temperature stress on the metabolic aspects of macro molecules, including carbohydrates, proteins, fats, secondary metabolites, and plant growth hormones.

This book is the first major ecocritical study of the relationship between British Romanticism and climate change. It analyses a wide range of texts - by authors including Lord Byron, William Cobbett, Sir Stamford Raffles, Mary Shelley, and Percy Shelley - in relation to the global crisis produced by the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815. By connecting these texts to current debates in the environmental humanities, it reveals the value of a historicized approach to the Anthropocene. British Romanticism, Climate Change, and the Anthropocene examines how Romantic texts affirm the human capacity to shape and make sense of a world with which we are profoundly entangled and at the same time represent our humiliation by powerful elemental forces that we do not fully comprehend. It will appeal not only to scholars of British Romanticism, but to anyone interested in the relationship between culture and climate change.

This is a moment of major and rapid historical change. The global elite - what used to be called the ruling class - are confronted by crises to which they have no credible response. First, the economic and political system presided over by the US is in turbulent decline. Second, within the next few years, global oil production will be in decline and, with the 'easy oil' gone, energy production is becoming dirtier than ever. Third, climate change is gathering momentum and is just one aspect of a broader environmental crisis which threatens human survival. Toxic Futures is about the world brought into being through the collusion of state and corporate power. Maintaining profit has relied on institutionalized fraud on the one hand and a war on the poor and on the environment on the other. Resistance is growing at all scales and, however chaotic, constitutes a fourth dimension of the elite crisis. This significant and timely book locates South Africa in the crisis and explores the implications for environmental, social, and economic justice. It concludes that another world is inevitable. Whether people allow the political and economic elite to lead them into a world of growing destruction or take charge to create a world of mutual solidarity is the central challenge of the age.

Global watming through the enhanced greehouse effect is one of the major and most uncertain forces of global environmental change presently facing the earth. This book is a guide to the scientific and policy debate concerning the roles of agriculture, forestry and other activities leading to global warming. The influence of land use on the greehouse effect is important, not only in terms of net emissions of greenhouse gases, but also in the potential to reduce emissions through changing land use policies.

"Land Use and the Causes of Global Warming" reviews the global emissions of greenhouse gases from land use sources, highlighting the undertainties in estimating both the magnitude of the fluxes and the scale of land use change. Policies of afforestation, policies to encourage the halting of deforestation and changing management pravctices in agriculture are all examined from the perspectives of feasibility, cost and equity. The authors illustrate how all land use policies are multi-objective but that the reduction of grenhouse gas emissions must be a key element in forestry and agriculture policy on a global bais. This is an invaluable book for all thoe in the climate change research community, environmental scientits, economists and social scientits in research institutions.

In the field of 'climate change', no terrain goes uncontested. The terminological tug of war between activists and corporations, scientists and governments, has seen radical notions of 'sustainability' emptied of urgency and subordinated to the interests of capital. 'Just Transition' is the latest such battleground, and the conceptual keystone of the post-COP21 climate policy world. But what does it really mean? Just Transition emerged as a framework developed within the trade union movement to encompass a range of social interventions needed to secure workers' and frontline communities' jobs and livelihoods as economies shift to sustainable production. Just Transitions draws on a range of perspectives from the global North and South to interrogate the overlaps, synergies and tensions between various understandings of the Just Transition approach. As the concept is entering the mainstream, has it lost its radical edge, and if so, can it be recovered? Written by academics and activists from around the globe, this unique edited collection is the first book entirely devoted to Just Transition.

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This book aims to inspire decision makers and practitioners to change their approach to climate planning in the tropics through the application of modern technologies for characterizing local climate and tracking vulnerability and risk, and using decision-making tools. Drawing on 16 case studies conducted mainly in the Caribbean, Central America, Western and Eastern Africa, and South East Asia it is shown how successful integration of traditional and modern knowledge can enhance disaster risk reduction and adaptation to climate change in the tropics. The case studies encompass both rural and urban settings and cover different scales: rural communities, cities, and regions. In addition, the book looks to the future of planning by addressing topics of major importance, including residual risk integration in local development plans, damage insurance and the potential role of climate vulnerability reduction credits. In many regions of the tropics, climate planning is growing but has still very low quality. This book identifies the weaknesses and proposes effective solutions.

The book is largely focused on biennales, which it argues are the contemporary exhibition models with the greatest capacity to offer new perspectives and propose alternative ways of connecting with our social and natural environments. The author demonstrates this by showing how curators of these high-profile exhibitions are responding in creative and engaging ways to the issues that preoccupy artists and society more broadly, of which the ecological crisis is paramount. Drawing on case studies from different parts of the world, the author reveals how biennales can make a constructive contribution to debates and attitudes around climate change, and how the role of the curator has evolved to embrace a duty of care not just to art but to the natural world. Curating in a Time of Ecological Crisis investigates how large-scale exhibitions of contemporary international art can become agents of change. As such, the book will be essential reading for scholars, students and practitioners with an interest in exhibitions, curating, contemporary art and environmental sustainability.

This book presents the outcomes of the 2017 national workshop and international conference organized by CEENR of ISEC, Bengaluru and Assam University Silchar. Addressing the threats to biodiversity and sustainable development resulting from the impacts of human induced pressures on ecosystems and global-warming-driven climate change is a major challenge. It requires increased knowledge and an enhanced information base in order to devise local policies to improve the adaptive capacity of vulnerable socio-ecological systems in developing countries. In this context, the book presents research that has the potential to benefit the environment and empower communities. It appeals to researchers investigating diverse aspects of socio-ecological-biological systems to create strategies for resource use, conservation and management to ensure sustainability.

'Inspiring. [...] Crammed with lively interviews and grounded examples' Ashish Kothari, founder of Kalpavriksh Permaculture is an environmental movement that makes us reevaluate what it means to be sustainable. Through innovative agriculture and settlement design, the movement creates new communities that are harmonious with nature. It has grown from humble origins on a farm in 1970s Australia and flourished into a worldwide movement that confronts industrial capitalism. The Politics of Permaculture is one of the first books to unpack the theory and practice of this social movement that looks to challenge the status quo. Drawing upon the rich seam of publications and online communities from the movement as well as extensive interviews with permaculture practitioners and organisations from around the world, Leahy explains the ways permaculture is understood and practiced in different contexts. In the face of extreme environmental degradation and catastrophic climate change, we urgently need a new way of living.