As the public increasingly questioned the war in Vietnam, a group of American scientists deeply concerned about the use of Agent Orange and other herbicides started a movement to ban what they called "ecocide."

David Zierler traces this movement, starting in the 1940s, when weed killer was developed in agricultural circles and theories of counterinsurgency were studied by the military. These two trajectories converged in 1961 with Operation Ranch Hand, the joint U.S.-South Vietnamese mission to use herbicidal warfare as a means to defoliate large areas of enemy territory.

Driven by the idea that humans were altering the world's ecology for the worse, a group of scientists relentlessly challenged Pentagon assurances of safety, citing possible long-term environmental and health effects. It wasn't until 1970 that the scientists gained access to sprayed zones confirming that a major ecological disaster had occurred. Their findings convinced the U.S. government to renounce first use of herbicides in future wars and, Zierler argues, fundamentally reoriented thinking about warfare and environmental security in the next forty years.

Incorporating in-depth interviews, unique archival collections, and recently declassified national security documents, Zierler examines the movement to ban ecocide as it played out amid the rise of a global environmental consciousness and growing disillusionment with the containment policies of the cold war era.

Chemistry for Sustainable Development in Africa gives an insight into current Chemical research in Africa. It is edited and written by distinguished African scientists and includes contributions from Chemists from Northern, Southern, Western, Eastern, Central and Island state African Countries. The core themes embrace the most pressing issues of our time, including Environmental Chemistry, Renewable Energies, Health and Human Well-Being, Food and Nutrition, and Bioprospecting and Commercial Development. This book is invaluable for teaching and research institutes in Africa and worldwide, private sector entities dealing with natural products from Africa, as well as policy and decision-making bodies and non-governmental organizations.

Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology attempts to provide concise, critical reviews of timely advances, philosophy, and significant areas of accomplished or needed endeavor in the total field of xenobiotics, in any segment of the environment, as well as toxicological implications.

This book is intended as an introduction to radioactivity and aerosols for the scientifically literate reader who has had no previous exposure to either of these subjects. Although its main focus is radioactive aerosols, on the road to this subject I provide short, somewhat independent introductions to both radioactivity and aerosols, with some emphasis on experimental aspects. The audience I have in mind is upper-level undergraduates or beginning graduate students with a minimum background of introductory college courses in physics, chemistry, and calculus. This book may also be useful to "crossover" professional- professionals in other fields of science and engineering, for example biology or geoscience, who would like a step-by-step introduction to this subject matter from the physical science perspective. In writing this book I have been sensitive to requests and suggestions from students who need some background in this subject matter but will probably not specialize in it. These students are bright, but busy, and they sometimes feel overwhelmed by the mass of information in advanced, comprehensive texts. No matter how noble the intentions of the authors (or the teachers assigning the books ), these students often do not have time to read such books through cover to cover, and they fmd it difficult to pick out a coherently-connected subset of the material. Furthermore, modern students studying an interdisciplinary subject like radioactive aerosols are likely to be more diversified than ever, in educational background, in interests, and in preparation.

This book introduces readers to the fundamentals of simulating and analyzing built and natural environments using the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) method. CFD offers a powerful tool for dealing with various scientific and engineering problems and is widely used in diverse industries. This book focuses on the most important aspects of applying CFD to the study of urban, buildings, and indoor and outdoor environments. Following the logical procedure used to prepare a CFD simulation, the book covers e.g. the governing equations, boundary conditions, numerical methods, modeling of different fluid flows, and various turbulence models. Furthermore, it demonstrates how CFD can be applied to solve a range of engineering problems, providing detailed hands-on exercises on air and water flow, heat transfer, and pollution dispersion problems that typically arise in the study of buildings and environments. The book also includes practical guidance on analyzing and reporting CFD results, as well as writing CFD reports/papers.

Development is challenged by, at least until 2050, a strong population, more severe environmental strains, growing mobility, and dwindling energy resources. All these factors will lead to serious consequences for humankind. Inadequate agricultural resources, water supply and non renewable energy sources, epidemics, climate change, and natural disasters will further heavily impact human life. The European Space Policy Institute (ESPI) sheds a new light on threats, risks and sustainability by combining approaches from various disciplines. It analyzes what could be the contribution of space tools to predict, manage and mitigate those threats. It aims at demonstrating that space is not a niche but has become an overarching tool in solving today 's problems.

The fixity or mobility of borders are key themes within the border studies literature and have useful critical application to urban and environmental planning through theory, pedagogy and practice. This offers potential for transformative change through the processes of re-bordering and re-orienting established boundary demarcations in ways that support and promote sustainability in a climate of change. Planning Across Borders in a Climate of Change draws on a range of diverse case studies from Australasia, North and South America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia and offers the application of border theory, concepts and principles to planning as a critical lens. It applies this lens to a range of international case studies in key areas such as climate change adaptation, food security, spatial planning, critical infrastructure and urban ecology. This collection fills an important gap in the border studies literature, bringing climate change considerations to bear on planning. It should be of interest to students, scholars and professionals in the field of urban and environmental planning, climate change adaptation, border studies, urban studies, human and political geography, environmental studies and development.

This textbook intends to bridge the gap between knowledge about global warming and practical implementation in the political process of the necessary measures for the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It therefore deals with climatology, economics and political science in five sections: - The state of scientific knowledge of climate change, the influencing factors, the man-made effects and the monitoring of GHG sources and sinks. Topics covered include: the transformation of scientific results into politically achievable aims, the criteria for the allocation of the reduction goals, and the GHG inventories of European countries; the relevant political and economical instruments, such as voluntary approaches, the carbon/energy-tax and Activities Implemented Jointly (AIJ) and their working principles; the instrument of tradeable emission permits (the US Acid Rain Programme as an example) and possible designs of a system for CO2 on the national and international level; and comparison and summaries of the efficacy, the cost-efficiency, the achievability and political acceptability of the different instruments.

This volume is second part of the five-part set on bioenergy research. This book provides new insight about the latest development in bioenergy research. It presents the various bioenergy options which are further explored for practical viability, their progress and utility in the industry. The main objective of the book is to provide insights into the opportunities and required actions for the development of an economically viable bioenergy industry for practical replacement of fossil fuels. This book is of interest to teachers, researchers, scientists, capacity builders and policymakers. Also the book serves as additional reading material for undergraduate and graduate students of environmental sciences. National and international bioenergy scientists, policy makers will also find this to be a useful read. Other four volumes of this set explore basic concepts, commercial opportunities, waste to energy and integrated solution for bioenergy concerns.

The current policy for climate change prioritises mitigation over adaptation. The collected papers of Climate Change as Environmental and Economic Hazard argue that although efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are still vital, the new policy paradigm should shift the priority to adaptation, with a special focus on disaster risk reduction. It should also consider climate change not purely as a hazard and a challenge, but as a window of opportunity to shift to a new sustainable development policy model, which stresses the particular importance of communities' resilience. The papers in this volume explore the key issues linked to this shift, including: ' Increasing research into the Earth Sciences, climate reconstruction and forecasting in order to decrease the degree of uncertainty about the origin, development and implications of climate change; ' The introduction of more binding and comprehensive regulation of both greenhouse gas emissions and adaptation measures, like that in the United Kingdom; ' Matching climate policy with that for disasters and mainstreaming it into overall development strategies. The volume is a valuable addition to previous climate change research and considers a new policy approach to this new global challenge.

The aim of this first book is to introduce the readers of the series to why Cuatro Cienegas Basin (CCB) is so unique, starting with the reason why astrobiologists became interested in this oasis in the first place; namely, the high diversity and abundance of stromatolites and microbial mats in continental waters to be found in the desert oasis. As NASA has long since discovered, the basin may offer the best analog of early Earth. In essence, CCB is a time machine that can take us far back and forth in time. In the respective chapters, the contributing authors explain the extraordinary microbial diversity of Cuatro Cienegas Basin from various perspectives. In order to do so, they explain their journey as well as the different tools used to unravel the basin's mysteries, such as: Why are there so many species in a place without food? How has life there survived the enormity of tectonic shifts through the ages, maintaining its ancient marine heritage?

"Integrated Risk Governance: Science Plan and Case Studies of Large-scale Disasters" is the first book in the IHDP-Integrated Risk Governance Project Series. It consists of two parts: Part I: Integrated Risk Governance Project Science Plan, which outlines the challenge, research programme, outcomes, and implementation strategy of the IRG Project; and Part II: Case Studies of Large-scale Disasters, which includes case analyses of experience, lessons learned and recommendations on various large-scale disasters around the world, such as the Tangshan and Wenchuan earthquakes and the great ice storm in China, European heat waves, and Hurricane Katrina in the USA. The community model of integrated natural disaster risk governance and paradigm of catastrophe risk governance in China are also presented. Prof. Peijun Shi works at Beijing Normal University, China; Prof. Carlo Jaeger works at Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany; Prof.Qian Ye works at Beijing Normal University, China.

Commissioned by the Intergovernmental Meeting (IGM) of the Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research (APN), this book offers a detailed survey of the current status of climate change and climate variability in the Asia-Pacific region, a thorough and thoughtful assessment of climate and security and clear recommendations on the best paths of climate research in the future.

The author explores the fraught politics of energy transitions in an age of climate change. She does so through an ecological modernisation and corporate social responsibility lens which she contends shapes and underpins sustainability today. Case studies cover climate policy, unconventional gas and renewable energy.

Much has already been written about risk assessment. Epidemiologists write books on how risk assessment is used to explore the factors that influence the distribution of disease in populations of people. Toxicologists write books on how risk assess ment involves exposing animals to risk agents and concluding from the results what risks people might experience if similarly exposed. Engineers write books on how risk assessment is utilized to estimate the risks of constructing a new facility such as a nuclear power plant. Statisticians write books on how risk assessment may be used to analyze mortality or accident data to determine risks. There are already many books on risk assessment-the trouble is that they all seem to be about different sUbjects! This book takes another approach. It brings together all the methods for assessing risk into a common framework, thus demonstrating how the various methods relate to one another. This produces four important benefits: * First, it provides a comprehensive reference for risk assessment. This one source offers readers concise explanations of the many methods currently available for describing and quantifying diverse types of risks. * Second, it consistently evaluates and compares available risk assessment methods and identifies their specific strengths and limitations. Understand ing the limitations of risk assessment methods is important. The field is still in its infancy, and the problems with available methods are disappoint ingly numerous. At the same time, risk assessment is being used.

Controlling Pollution in Transition Economies examines and evaluates the recent experience of implementing pollution charges and the use of environmental permits in Central and Eastern Europe and Russia.The book focuses on controlling point-source air and water pollution. It describes and analyses the experience of implementing pollution charges and fines, and the interactions of these fiscal instruments with systems of pollution permits. The ten country case studies have been written by specialists who have been or are actively involved with the development or revision of pollution charges. Based on the experience of these countries, general conclusions are drawn for implementing pollution charge systems in other contexts. This book will encourage new theoretical and empirical work on the problem of implementing economic instruments (pollution charges), in combination with 'command-and-control' instruments (pollution permits). Practitioners and policy analysts as well as graduate students, academics, researchers and environmental consultants will find this book an important contribution to the existing literature.

The goal of this book is to examine the complex state of radioactivity in the environment, and to understand the interplay of its two principal sources: man-made and natural. The text examines human contributions to release of radionuclides, with an eye to future reductions, and assesses natural occurrences in an evaluation of baseline radioactivity.

N.M. V AN STRAALEN** and D.A. KRIVOLUTSKY* **Department of Ecology and Ecotoxicology VrUe Universiteit, De Boelelaan 1087, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands *Institute of Evolutionary Animal Morphology and Ecology Russian Academy of Sciences, Leninsky Prospekt 33 117071 Moscow, Russian Federation Many industrialized and developing countries are faced with the assessment of potential risks associated with contaminated land. A variety of human activities, including municipal waste disposal, industrial emissions, military testing, and agricultural practices have left their impacts on soils in the form of elevated, and locally high concentrations of toxicants. In several cases sources have not yet been stopped and contamination continues. Decisions on the management of contaminated sites require information on the extent to which toxicants adversely affect the soil ecosystem. For this purpose, it is often insufficient to extrapolate from abiotic sampling. The detection of a toxicant in the abiotic environment usually does not allow a very strong conclusion on the potential hazards.

This is the first of two volumes that together provide an integrated picture of the Montenegrin Adriatic coast, presenting the natural components of the system as well as the chemical composition and chemical processes in the extended area. This book describes the biology and ecology of the high seas of the Montenegrin coast, with a special focus on their biodiversity, flora and fauna, fisheries, mariculture, marine reptiles and mammals. The data has been collected through national and international projects over the last few decades and provides the reader with models and recommendations for the protection of this vital region of the Adriatic coast, as well as scientific recommendations for the sustainable use of its biological resources. Given the breadth and depth of its coverage, the book offers an invaluable source of information for researchers, students and environmental managers alike.

This multidisciplinary book examines the diverse ways in which environmental disasters with compounding impacts are being governed as they traverse sovereign territories across rapidly urbanising societies in Asia and the Pacific. Combining theoretical advances with contextually rich studies, the book examines efforts to tackle the complexities of cross-border environmental governance. In an urban age in which disasters are not easily contained within neatly delineated jurisdictions, both in terms of their interconnected causalities and their cascading effects, governance structures and mechanisms are faced with major challenges related to cooperation, collaboration and information sharing. This book helps bridge the gap between theory and practice by offering fresh insights and contrasting explanations for variations in transboundary disaster governance regimes among urbanising populations in the Asia-Pacific.

In 1969 the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) established the Committee on Challenges of Modern Society (CCMS). The subject of air pollution was from the start one of the priority problems under study within the framework of various pilot studies undertaken by this Committee. The organization of a yearly conference dealing with air pollution modeling and its application has become one of the main activities within the pilot study relating to air pollution. The international conference was organized for the first five years by the United States and for the second five years by the Federal Republic of Germany. Belgium, represented by the Prime Minister's Office for Science policy, became responsible in 1980 for organizing the third five years of the annual conference. This volume contains the papers presented at the 15th NATO/CCMS International Technical Meeting (ITM) on Air Pollution Modeling and Its Application, held in St. Louis, Missouri, from the 15th to 19th April 1985. This ITM was jointly organized by the Prime Minister's Office for Science Policy, Belgium (Pilot Country); by the Environmental Protection Agency, Atmospheric Sciences Research Laboratory, United States (Host Country); and by Washington University, Mechanical Engineering Department (Host Organization).

The concern over the entry of agrochemicals and other xenobiotics into drinking water resources and over the general quality of drinking water is increasing. The topic of water quality and water supply will continue to be of great interest during the next two decades in developed as well as in developing countries. The new volume discusses in an authoritative way the key issues of drinking water and its often necessary treatment.

Anja Schmidt's thesis is a unique and comprehensive evaluation of the impacts of tropospheric volcanic aerosol on the atmosphere, climate, air quality and human health. Using a state-of-the-art global microphysics model, the thesis describes and quantifies the impact of volcanic sulphur emissions on global aerosol, clouds and the radiative forcing of climate. The advanced model enables the first ever estimate of the impact of the emissions on aerosol microphysical properties such as particle number concentrations and sizes, and therefore a considerably improved ability to quantify the climate and air quality effects.
There are several important discoveries in this thesis. Firstly, it is shown that continuously degassing volcanoes exert a major effect on global clouds and climate. Secondly, the impact of the 1783 Laki eruption in Iceland is re-examined to show that this long-lasting flood lava eruption would have had major effects on clouds and climate. Thirdly, by combining her research on volcanism, atmospheric science and epidemiology, she shows that a present-day Laki-like eruption would seriously affect European air quality and cause over 100000 premature deaths in the first year.

This volume provides a comprehensive overview of environmental aspects of the Sava River, which is the greatest tributary to the Danube River and the major drainage river system of South Eastern Europe. Hydroelectric power plants, river traffic, intensive agricultural activities, heavy industry and floods have considerable influence on the environment and biota in the basin. Summarizing the results that were gathered in the course of EU, bilateral and national projects, the book highlights the most important stressors and helps readers to better understand the impact of anthropogenic activities on the function of river basins. Topics include: transboundary water cooperation between the riparian countries; climate change projection, including its impact on flood hazards; evaluation of anthropogenic pollution sources; pollution of sediments, metal bioavailability and ecotoxicological and microbiological characterization of the river. The biological part also addresses quality aspects related to wildlife in river aquatic ecosystems (algae, macrophytes, zooplankton, macroinvertebrates and fish) and riparian ecosystems (amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals). The general state of biodiversity and pressures caused by invasive aquatic species are also discussed.