The peaceful town of Holmfirth, now famous for its connection with the BBC's comedy series 'Last of the Summer Wine', has had its tranquility torn apart on two separate occasions. This book retells the stories of two devastating floods which ripped apart the heart of the town. The 1852 flood was caused, in part, by negligence of the reservoir builders, and the 1944 flood was due partly to a consequence of these lessons not being learnt. The Holmfirth Floods provides a fascinating insight into everyday life in the town before, during and after these disasterous events, accompanied throughout by maps, sketches and photographs.

This book intends to be an alert to the fact that the curve measuring environmental costs against the economic benefits of capitalism has irreversibly entered into a negative phase. The prospect of an environmental collapse has been evidenced by the sciences and the humanities since the 1960s. Today, it imposes its urgency. This collapse differs from past civilizations in that it is neither local nor just civilizational. It is global and occurs at the broadest level of the biosphere, accelerated by the convergence of different socio-environmental crises, such as: Earth energy imbalance, climate change and global warming Sea-level rise Decrease and degradation of forests Collapse of terrestrial and aquatic biodiversity Floods, droughts, wildfires, and extreme weather events Degradation of soils and water resources Increase in pollution caused by fossil fuels and coal Increase in waste production and industrial intoxication The book is divided in two parts. In the first part it presents a comprehensive review of scientific data to show the already visible effects of each of the different environmental crises and its consequences to human life on Earth. In the second part, Luiz Marques critically discusses what he calls the three concentric illusions that prevent us from realizing the gravity of the current socio-environmental crises: the illusion of a sustainable capitalism, the illusion that economic growth is still capable of providing more well-being and the anthropocentric illusion. Finally, Marques argues that "fitting" back into the biosphere will only be possible if we dismantle the expansive socioeconomic gear that has shaped our societies since the 16th century by moving from a Social Contract to a Natural Contract, which takes into account the whole biosphere. According to him, the future society will be post-capitalist or it will not be a complex society, and even perhaps, we must fear, no society at all. "This book is backed up with the latest and best science and has made the complexities understandable for the average reader, all in a context of hope for the future." - William J. Ripple, PhD, Distinguished Professor of Ecology, Director of the Alliance of World Scientists, Oregon State University

The Great Famine, an Gorta Mor in Irish, was a period of mass starvation, disease and emigration in Ireland between 1845 and 1852. Often referred to as the Irish Potato Famine, particularly outside Ireland, as around forty percent of the population were reliant on this crop. Over a million people died and over a million more emigrated, often in appalling circumstances. This book explains what happened before and during the Famine, with an account of the consequences of this epic tragedy.

This book gathers and disseminates opinions, viewpoints, studies, forecasts, and practical projects which illustrate the various pathways sustainability research and practice may follow in the future, as the world recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic and prepares itself to the possibilities of having to cope with similar crisis, a product of the Inter-University Sustainable Development Research Programme (IUSDRP) https://www.haw-hamburg.de/en/ftz-nk/programmes/iusdrp.html and the European School of Sustainability Science and Research (ESSSR) https://esssr.eu/. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to severe human suffering, and to substantial damages to economies around the globe, affecting both rich countries and developing ones. The aftermath of the epidemic is also expected to be felt for sometime. This will also include a wide range of impacts in the ways sustainable development is perceived, and how the principles of sustainability are practised. There is now a pressing need to generate new literature on the connections between COVID-19 and sustainability. This is so for two main reasons. Firstly, the world crisis triggered by COVID-19 has severely damaged the world economy, worsening poverty, causing hardships, and endangering livelihoods. Together, these impacts may negatively influence the implementation of sustainable development as a whole, and of the UN Sustainable Development Goals in particular. These potential and expected impacts need to be better understood and quantified, hence providing a support basis for future recovery efforts. Secondly, the shutdown caused by COVID-19 has also been having a severe impact on teaching and research, especially -but not only - on matters related to sustainability. This may also open new opportunities (e.g. less travel, more Internet-based learning), which should be explored further, especially in the case of future pandemics, a scenario which cannot be excluded. The book meets these perceived needs.

This book illuminates the concept of disaster communities through a series of international case studies. It offers an eclectic overview of how different forms of media and journalism contribute to our understanding of the lived experiences of communities at risk from, affected by, and recovering from disaster. This collection considers the different forms of media and journalism produced by and for communities and how they may recognise and speak to the different notions of community that emerge in disaster contexts - including vulnerabilities and consequences that arise from environmental destruction and geophysical hazards, the insecurity created by armed conflict and limitations on journalistic freedoms, and result from human (in)action and humanitarian crises.