The degradation of our life-enhancing planet Earth has resulted in climate change, desertification, wild fires, livestock mortality, microbial ecosystem alteration, floods, extreme weather conditions, economic meltdown, poverty, resource conflicts, disease, death, and desperate migration from the most vulnerable regions. Africa, the world`s hottest continent, has deserts and drylands that cover about 60 percent of its land surface area and remains the most vulnerable continent to climate change. At the same time, Africa is the world's second most populous continent and is projected soon to be the most populous. Dr. Popoola's work highlights the uniqueness of Africa and the extent of its vulnerability to global climate change as well as its advantages and limitations in context of current mitigation and adaptation strategies. Africa and Climate Change is an indispensable guide to ensuring global food security, sustainable livelihoods, and ecosystem survival, not only in Africa, but in other less vulnerable continents.

The author examines natural disasters around the Pacific Rim throughout history together with scientific data context to produce enlightening-and highly readable-entries. On March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck off Japan's coast, triggering a powerful tsunami. The massive destruction that resulted proved that not even sophisticated, industrialized nations are immune from nature's fury. Written to take some of the mystery out of the earth's behavior, this encyclopedia chronicles major natural disasters that have occurred around the Pacific Rim, an area nicknamed the "Ring of Fire" because of the volatile earth that lies above and below. The encyclopedia offers descriptions of deadly earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis through time. The entries provide in-depth information that promotes an understanding of the structure of the earth and earth processes and shares the insights of scientists whose work helps clarify the causes and effects of these cataclysmic events. At the same time, the work examines how the people and cultures of the Pacific Rim view this active part of the earth, how they live with the threat of disaster, and how they have been affected by major events that have occurred. Readers will come away with a holistic view of what is known, how this knowledge was gained, and what its implications may be. Features approximately 100 alphabetically arranged entries with insights into specific disasters, technology, key geographic features of the area, significant people, cultural beliefs, and more Includes a general introduction and overview of the geography and tectonic activity in the Pacific Rim countries Offers both historical and scientific information Explains complex natural phenomena and scientific concepts using nontechnical language and clear illustrations Provides relevant cross-references to related topics as well as to articles, books, and websites that offer further information

The Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences (CRAES) has conducted the Environmental exposure related activity pattern research of Chinese population (Adults). Exposure Factors Handbook of Chinese Population (Adults) was compiled based on the results from this study. Highlights of the Chinese Exposure Factors Handbook is a brief introduction to the content of Exposure Factors Handbook of Chinese Population (Adults). In each chapter, definitions, possible influence factors, and survey methods have been introduced, followed by recommended values for urban/rural areas, different genders, age groups and regions with information of mean, median and P5, P25, P75, P95 values. With the abundant data and tables, readers are provided with an accessible and comprehensive overview of Chinese exposure factors.

This important collection embodies the author's pioneering and on-going efforts to incorporate equity and efficiency principles into the economics of climate change policy. It represents a valuable compendium of work, both previously published and original, the range of which is not otherwise readily accessible. Adam Rose was one of the first both to identify the central role of equity among nations and regions in addressing greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation and to quantify many equity principles so that they could be incorporated into formal models. Comprising classic explorations into GHG emission trading design with respect to burden-sharing, borrowing and banking, and political constraints, the papers contained in this volume provide guidance on coalition choices for individual states of the US and partnership choices for developing countries involved in the Clean Development Mechanism today and in emission allowance trading in the future. The impacts of mitigation policy across industries and socioeconomic groups are also analysed, using computable general equilibrium models to examine the economic implications of carbon taxes, fuel taxes, tradable emission permits, and strict regulation. In addition, the book establishes a firm grounding for policy analysis by providing a basic understanding of the carbon cycle, drivers of GHG emissions, and some economic impacts of climate change. The Economics of Climate Change Policy will be of great interest and value to academics and students of environmental economics and policy and will be welcomed by environmental policy-makers involved in climate change issues at the local, regional, national and international level.

Understanding Complex Ecosystem Dynamics: A Systems and Engineering Perspective takes a fresh, interdisciplinary perspective on complex system dynamics, beginning with a discussion of relevant systems and engineering skills and practices, including an explanation of the systems approach and its major elements. From this perspective, the author formulates an ecosystem dynamics functionality-based framework to guide ecological investigations. Next, because complex system theory (across many subject matter areas) is crucial to the work of this book, relevant network theory, nonlinear dynamics theory, cellular automata theory, and roughness (fractal) theory is covered in some detail. This material serves as an important resource as the book proceeds. In the context of all of the foregoing discussion and investigation, a view of the characteristics of ecological network dynamics is constructed. This view, in turn, is the basis for the central hypothesis of the book, i.e., ecological networks are ever-changing networks with propagation dynamics that are punctuated, local-to-global, and perhaps most importantly fractal. To analyze and fully test this hypothesis, an innovative ecological network dynamics model is defined, designed, and developed. The modeling approach, which seeks to emulate features of real-world ecological networks, does not make a priori assumptions about ecological network dynamics, but rather lets the dynamics develop as the model simulation runs. Model analysis results corroborate the central hypothesis. Additional important insights and principles are suggested by the model analysis results and by the other supporting investigations of this book - and can serve as a basis for going-forward complex system dynamics research, not only for ecological systems but for complex systems in general.

Coastal Zones: Solutions for the 21st Century bridges the gap between national and international efforts and the local needs for actions in communities where coastal zone challenges are faced daily. The solution-oriented approach covers issues of coastal zone management as well as responses to natural disasters. This work provides ideas on how to face the challenges, develop solutions, and localize management of common-pool resources. Coastal Zones targets academic stakeholders and coastal stakeholders who have local knowledge and experience but need a theoretical framework and a greater range of skills to make use of this experience.

The advances in microsystems offer new opportunities and capabilities to develop systems for biomedical applications, such as diagnostics and therapy. There is a need for a comprehensive treatment of microsystems and in particular for an understanding of performance limits associated with the shrinking scale of microsystems. The new edition of Microsystems for Bioelectronics addresses those needs and represents a major revision, expansion and advancement of the previous edition. This book considers physical principles and trends in extremely scaled autonomous microsystems such as integrated intelligent sensor systems, with a focus on energy minimization. It explores the implications of energy minimization on device and system architecture. It further details behavior of electronic components and its implications on system-level scaling and performance limits. In particular, fundamental scaling limits for energy sourcing, sensing, memory, computation and communication subsystems are developed and new applications such as optical, magnetic and mechanical sensors are presented. The new edition of this well-proven book with its unique focus and interdisciplinary approach shows the complexities of the next generation of nanoelectronic microsystems in a simple and illuminating view, and is aimed for a broad audience within the engineering and biomedical community.

The authors and editors of this book challenge traditional assumptions about economic growth, and develop the elements of a reoriented macroeconomics that takes account both of environmental impacts and social equity. Policies including carbon trading, revenue recycling, and reorientation of private and social investment are analyzed, providing insight into new paths for economic development with flat or negative carbon emissions. These issues will be crucial to macroeconomic and development policies in the twenty-first century.What are the likely economic effects of climate change? What are the costs of substantial action to avert climate change? What economic policies can be effective in responding to climate change? The debate has broad implications for public policy. However, it also raises fundamental questions about economic analysis itself, and moves issues of environmental policy from the microeconomic to the macroeconomic level. Taking global climate change seriously requires a re-examination of macroeconomic goals. Economic growth has been closely linked to expanded use of energy, primarily fossil fuels. The assumption of continuing economic growth, in turn, leads economists to discount future costs, including the generational impacts of climate change. Challenging conventional concepts of growth implies different development paths both for rich and poor nations. This volume brings together contributions from scholars around the world to address these issues. Scholars, researchers and students of economics and development studies along with policymakers and non-governmental organizations will find this insightful book of great interest.

As Dominant Western Worldviews (DWWs) proliferate through ongoing structures of globalization, neoliberalism, extractive capitalism, and colonialism, they inevitably marginalize those deemed as 'Other' (Indigenous, Black, Minority Ethnic, non-Western communities and non-human 'Others', including animals, plants, technologies, and energies). Environmental Education (EE) is well-positioned to trouble and minimize the harmful human impacts on social and ecological systems, yet the field is susceptible to how DWWs constrain and discipline what counts as viable knowledge, with a consequence of this being the loss of situated knowledges. To understand the relationships between DWW and situated knowledges and to thread an assemblage of ontological views that exist in unique contexts and nations, authors in this book take up decolonizing methodologies that expand across theories of Indigenous Knowledges (IK), Traditional Ecological Knowledges (TEK), two-eyed seeing, hybridity, and posthumanism. As EE opens to emplaced and situated socio-cultural and material stories, it opens to opportunities to attend more meaningfully to planetary social and ecological crisis narratives through contingent, contextualised, and relevant actions.

This innovative book sets out to rethink corporate social responsibility (CSR) in global value chains. Peter Lund-Thomsen considers how CSR is often framed and promoted by key actors in the Global North, the home of many large retailers and brands, in ways that overlook the unique challenges and broader circumstances faced by suppliers and countries in the Global South. He instead proposes that CSR must be understood as an evolving, context-dependent, and contested term that can best be viewed through multiple perspectives. Developing an integrated analytical model of buyer, supplier, and worker perspectives on CSR in global value chains, the book draws out future research and policy implications of this analysis in the areas of governance, human rights, the circular economy, and climate change. This book will be a critical resource for scholars and students with an interest in corporate social responsibility, critical management studies, management and sustainability, and responsible consumption and production. Practitioners and policy makers in business, government, international organizations, and NGOs will also benefit from the book's re-evaluation of CSR in global value chains.

Selected paper presented at the 1st International Conference on Urban Agriculture and City Sustainability are contained in this book. The research reviews ways in which urban agriculture can contribute to achieve sustainable cities and considers ways of reducing the impact in terms of use of natural resources, waste production and climate change. The increasing number of people in cities requires new strategies to supply the necessary food with limited provision of land and decreasing resources. This will become more challenging unless innovative solutions for growing and distributing food in urban environments are considered. The scale of modern food production has created and exacerbated many vulnerabilities and the feeding of cities is now infinitely more complex. As such the food system cannot be considered secure, ethical or sustainable. In the last few years there has been a rapid expansion in initiatives and projects exploring innovative methods and processes for sustainable food production. The majority of these projects are focused on providing alternative models that shift the power back from the global food system to communities and farmers improving social cohesion, health and wellbeing. It is therefore not surprising that more people are looking towards urban farming initiatives as a potential solution. These initiatives have demonstrated that urban agriculture has the potential to transform our living environment towards ecologically sustainable and healthy cities. Urban agriculture can also contribute to energy, natural resources, land and water savings, ecological diversity and urban management cost reductions. The impact urban agriculture can have on the shape and form of our cities has never been fully addressed. The studies included in this volume look at how cities embed these new approaches and initiatives, as part of new urban developments and show that a city regeneration strategy is critical.