While animal suffering and abuse have taken place throughout history, the alienation of humanity from nature caused by the development of capitalism - by the logic of capital and its system of generalized commodity production - accelerated and increased the depredations in scope and scale. The capitalist commodification of animals is extensive. It includes, but is not limited to: livestock production in concentrated animal feeding operations leather and fur production the ivory trade in which tusks are used for 'traditional medicines; or carved into decorative objects entertainment such as in zoos, marine parks, and circuses laboratory experimentation to test medicines, beauty products, pesticides, and other chemicals the pursuit of trophy hunting, sometimes on canned farms and sometimes in the wild bioengineering of livestock and of animals used in laboratories The contributors to this special issue of Research in Political Economy provide insightful analyses that address the historical transformations in the material conditions and ideological conceptions of nonhuman animals, alienated speciesism, the larger ecological crisis that is undermining the conditions of life for all species, and the capitalist commodification of animals that results in widespread suffering, death, and profits. This book is a must-read not only for political economists, but also for researchers interested in animal studies, environmentalism, and sustainability.

This book highlights the need for effective water governance in India given the fact that the country has been facing serious water stress in recent years. The water management in the country needs a serious scientific understanding coupled with the cooperative approach rather than a competitive one. It looks at current water regulations and underlines the need for overhaul of some laws to ensure that high water usage efficiency is attained, groundwater depletion is arrested and management of available resources is carried out in a disciplined manner. It also looks at the role of stakeholder engagement and pricing as a mechanism to manage demand in the wake of rapid population growth and industrialization.

The landscapes of the Middle East have captured our imaginations throughout history. Images of endless golden dunes, camel caravans, isolated desert oases, and rivers lined with palm trees have often framed written and visual representations of the region. Embedded in these portrayals is the common belief that the environment, in most places, has been deforested and desertified by centuries of misuse. It is precisely such orientalist environmental imaginaries, increasingly undermined by contemporary ecological data, that the eleven authors in this volume question. This is the first volume to critically examine culturally constructed views of the environmental history of the Middle East and suggest that they have often benefitted elites at the expense of the ecologies and the peoples of the region. The contributors expose many of the questionable policies and practices born of these environmental imaginaries and related histories that have been utilized in the region since the colonial period. They further reveal how power, in the form of development programs, notions of nationalism, and hydrological maps, for instance, relates to environmental knowledge production. Contributors: Samer Alatout, Edmund Burke III, Shaul Cohen, Diana K. Davis, Jennifer L. Derr, Leila M. Harris, Alan Mikhail, Timothy Mitchell, Priya Satia, Jeannie Sowers, and George R. Trumbull IV

A key focus in recent years has been on sustainable development and promoting environmentally conscious practices. In today's rapidly evolving technological world, it is important to consider how technology can be applied to solve problems across disciplines and fields in these areas. Further study is needed in order to understand how technology can be applied to sustainability and the best practices, considerations, and challenges that follow. Futuristic Trends for Sustainable Development and Sustainable Ecosystems discusses recent advances and innovative research in the area of information and communication technology for sustainable development and covers practices in several artificial intelligence fields such as knowledge representation and reasoning, natural language processing, machine learning, and the semantic web. Covering topics such as blockchain, deep learning, and renewable energy, this reference work is ideal for computer scientists, industry professionals, researchers, academicians, scholars, instructors, and students.

A tsunami is a series of water waves caused by the sudden displacement of a large volume of a body of water, typically an ocean. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater explosions (including detonations of underwater nuclear devices), landslides, glacier calving, meteorite impacts and other disturbances above or below water all have the potential to generate a tsunami. These waves are very different from normal sea waves, because their wavelength is far longer. Large events can generate wave heights of tens of metres and therefore, although the main impact of tsunamis is to coastal areas, their potential destructive power is enormous and they can affect entire ocean basins; the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was among the deadliest natural disasters in human history with over 230,000 people killed in 14 countries bordering the Indian Ocean. Tsunami: from fundamentals to mitigation comprises seven chapters, dealing with the different aspects of the field. The first chapter deals with the different types of tsunami and their historical data. Chapter 2 describes an inverse type solution to find a posteriori of the tsunami waveform.One of the main problems with tsunamis, described in Chapter 3, is how to assess the flooding they produce. Chapter 4 deals with the very important topic of Early Warning Systems. Chapter 5 not only studies the behaviour of RC buildings under the 2011 Japanese Tsunami but puts forward a series of recommendations. One of the most damaging aspects of Tsunamis is the damage to infrastructure and building systems. Chapter 6 discusses this along with providing guideline measures to take in the future. Finally Chapter 7 studies the important problem of health and related issues due to tsunami disasters.

In the age of corporate responsibility, green technology and sustainability continue to grip the consciousness of business and academic institutions. However, development of appropriate business-driven green applications requires an awareness of best practices of the green agenda. Green Technology Applications for Enterprise and Academic Innovation addresses the importance of green technology and sustainability for technology, enterprise, and academic innovation in energy management, renewable energy, and carbon reduction strategies. This book acts as the bridge for practitioners, academia, businesses, industrialists, governmental executives, and students seeking research in this emerging area.

Over the last decade, the field of plant ecology has significantly developed and expanded, especially in research concerning the herb layer and ground vegetation of forests. This revised second edition of The Herbaceous Layer in Forests of Eastern North America accounts for that growth, presenting research that approaches the ecology of the herb layer of forests from a variety of disciplines and perspectives. The book synthesizes the research of top ecologists and biologists on herbaceous layer structure, composition, and dynamics of a variety of forest ecosystem types in eastern North America. The 2003 first edition of The Herbaceous Layer in Forests of Eastern North America was praised for containing the most extensive listing of herb-layer literature in existence. This second edition brings this material up to date, revised to include current research and data. The book incorporates quantitative data to support analyses that was previously unavailable during the publication of the first edition. Also featured are six entirely new chapters, focused on the response of the herbaceous layer to a wide variety of natural and anthropogenic disturbances. Building on the over 1,200 references and sources of the first edition, the second edition of The Herbaceous Layer in Forests of Eastern North America is an invaluable resource for plant ecologists, forest ecologists, and conservationists.

This volume is a translation of China Low-Carbon Development Report (2013), originally published in Chinese. The articles report findings from research conducted by the Climate Policy Initiative at Tsinghua University. The focus of this volume is energy. Following an overview of the politics and economics of the implementation of low carbon development policies and related institutional innovations, the topical reports examine three key areas of low-carbon development in China: innovative practices in energy conservation, investment in and financing for energy efficiency improvements, and for renewable energy development. Four articles are devoted to assessing the Target-oriented Accountability System, two survey the country's recent efforts to boost investment in energy efficiency improvements, and four look at clean energy development. The translator of this volume is Jiang Mengying ( ).

To deal with the climate crisis we need a new paradigm of technological and social development aimed at the restoration of ecological systems-the bio-digital energy paradigm-and China is the world power best positioned to lead this change. The climate and energy crisis requires a strong state to change the direction, speed, and scale of innovation in world capitalism. There are only a few possible contenders for catalyzing this governance of survival: China, the European Union, India, and the United States. While China is an improbable leader-and in fact the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gasses-Peter Drahos explains in Survival Governance why this authoritarian state is actually more likely to implement systemic change swiftly and effectively than any other power. Drawing on more than 250 interviews, carried out in 17 countries-including the world's four largest carbon emitters-Drahos shows what China is doing to make its vast urban network sustainable and why all states must work toward a "bio-digital energy paradigm" based on a globalized, city-based network of innovation. As Drahos explains, America is incapable of reducing the power of its fossil fuel industry. For its part, the European Union's approach is too incremental and slowed by complex internal negotiations to address a crisis that demands a rapid response. India's capacity to be a global leader on energy innovation is questionable. To be sure, China faces hurdles too. Its coal-based industrial system is enormous, and the US, worried about losing technological superiority, is trying to slow China's development. Even so, China is currently urbanizing innovation on a historically unprecedented scale, building eco-cities, hydrogen cities, forest cities, and sponge cities (designed to cope with flooding). This has the potential to move cities into a new relationship with their surrounding ecosystems. China-given the size of its economy and the central government's ability to dictate thoroughgoing policy change-is, despite all of its flaws, presently our best hope for implementing the sort of policy overhaul that can begin to slow climate change.

For twenty-five years, the Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada was designated as the sole destination for disposal of the nation's accumulated stockpiles of highly radioactive nuclear power and weapons wastes. Now the Obama administration has abandoned Yucca, and Congress must pass new laws to solve the resulting disposal crisis. Even as the federal government seeks to expand nuclear power, local communities and states are demanding a credible program for disposal of the wastes that we already have. The Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future, appointed by the Obama administration to develop a plan, is currently conducting hearings.

The first comprehensive history and overview of U.S. nuclear waste law and regulation, "Fuel Cycle to Nowhere" traces sixty years of nuclear weapons programs, the growth of nuclear power, and their waste legacies, the rise of environmentalism, and the responses of federal agencies. Richard and Jane Stewart expertly analyze the changing policies for storing low-level waste, transuranic waste, spent nuclear fuel, and high-level waste and for regulating their transport by rail and by truck. They also chronicle "a tale of two repositories"--one, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, known as WIPP, the world's only operating deep geologic nuclear waste disposal facility, which emerged from a contentious but ultimately successful struggle between federal and state interests; the other, Yucca Mountain, mandated top down by Congress and a failure.

"Fuel Cycle to Nowhere" provides the critical information and analysis on the waste disposal issues and solutions that the commission, Congress, the administration, journalists, policymakers, and the public so urgently need.

This book is a project of the Consortium for Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation (CRESP), a Vanderbilt University-led, multi-university consortium supported as a cooperative agreement by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Environmental This book is a project of the Consortium for Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation (CRESP), a Vanderbilt University-led, multi-university consortium supported as a cooperative agreement by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Environmental Management to support safe, effective, publicly credible, risk informed management of existing and future nuclear waste from government and civilian sources through independent strategic analysis, review, applied research and education.

Nowhere on Earth is the challenge for ecological understanding greater, and yet more urgent, than in those parts of the globe where human activity is most intense - cities. People need to understand how cities work as ecological systems so they can take control of the vital links between human actions and environmental quality, and work for an ecologically and economically sustainable future. An ecosystem approach integrates biological, physical and social factors and embraces historical and geographical dimensions, providing our best hope for coping with the complexity of cities. This book is the first of its kind to bring together leaders in the biological, physical and social dimensions of urban ecosystem research with leading education researchers, administrators and practitioners, to show how an understanding of urban ecosystems is vital for urban dwellers to grasp the fundamentals of ecological and environmental science, and to understand their own environment.

An exhilarating journey to some of the world's most stunning locales, led by one of conservation's key scientists. In 1972, Eric Dinerstein was in film school at Northwestern University, with few thoughts of nature, let alone tiger-filled jungles at the base of the Himalayas or the antelope-studded Serengeti plain. Yet thanks to some inspiring teachers and the squawk of a little green heron that awakened him to nature's fundamental wonders, Dinerstein would ultimately become a leading conservation biologist, traveling to these and other remote corners of the world to protect creatures ranging from the striking snow leopard to the homely wrinkle-faced bat. "Tigerland and Other Unintended Destinations" takes readers on Dinerstein's unlikely journey to conservation's frontiers, from early research in Nepal to recent expeditions as head of Conservation Science at the World Wildlife Fund. Along the way, each locale is brought to life by the author's vivid descriptions, amusing stories, and poetic voice. We are there as the author renews his resolve after being swept downstream on an elephant's back, tracks snow leopards in the mountains of Kashmir with a remarkable housewife turned zoologist, and finds unexpected grit in a Manhattanite donor he guides into the wildest reaches of the Orinoco River. At every turn, we meet professed and unprofessed ecologists who share Dinerstein's mission, a cast of free-spirited characters uncommonly committed to - and remarkably successful at - preserving slices of the world's natural heritage. A simple sense of responsibility, one feels, shines through all of Dinerstein's experiences: not just to marvel at what we see, but to join in efforts to sustain the planet's exquisite design. Tigerland's message is clear: individuals make all the difference; if we combine science, advocacy, and passion, ambitious visions for conservation can become reality - even against overwhelming odds.

Today, the environment seems omnipresent in European policy within and beyond the European Union. The idea of a shared European environment, however, has come a long way and is still being contested. Greening Europe focuses on the many ways people have interacted with nature and made it an issue of European concern. The authors ask how notions of Europe mattered in these activities and they expose the many entanglements of activists across the subcontinent who set out to connect and network, and to exchange knowledge, worldviews, and strategies that exceeded their national horizons. Moving beyond human agency, the handbook also highlights the eminent role nature played in both "greening" Europe and making Europe a shared environment.

This book explains the tragic tale of the Satluj floodplain since its inception. As a landscape this floodplain entity evolves and sets a niche to distinctive natural and cultural aspects. The historical reconstruction of the landscape transformation depicts the excessive human encroachment and development activities which leads to more than fifty percent of landscape transformation. Data set layers were generated in a geospatial environment, with the use of multiscale and multitemporal satellite imageries, empirical field verification, and ancillary data input. An integrated landscape model was hence formed in order to identify the causal links between natural and cultural aspects. The author shows a landscape transformation matrix and change detection maps to explain the spatial trends and patterns of land use and land cover change. Pixel wise land use and land cover gain-loss algorithm were identified and measured for a selected time period. Changing spatial pattern of land cover to land use ratio are explained with underlying local to regional level causes. The author thoroughly explains the satellite image interpretation and related methodology. This book provides the detailed transition journey of landscape conversion from resource rich natural entity to a human dominated 'hazardscape'. It also explains how the expansion of population and related activities in the close vicinity of an active floodplain accentuates the problem of flood risks and how it affects the human and livestock life and creates economic loss. The author maps and explains the vector and magnitude of increased human pressure on the landscape and its adverse ecological implications, and describes issues with reference to the hazard status of the Punjab Satluj floodplain, including increased flood risk, increased pressure on agricultural land and depletion of resources, loss of biodiversity, qualitative and quantitative loss to surface and sub-surface water, and soil degradation (soil erosion, waterlogging and soil loss). Recommendations are provided with a detailed provision of potential applications with the underlying agenda of further conversion of this ecologically highly vulnerable flood prone 'hazardscape' to a Green Habitat. This book consist of two major themes: land use/land cover change and floodplain. The author answers all the geographical questions (what, where, when, why and how) related with both themes and provides an outlook to potential future prospects. The book is targeted at stakeholders, students, researchers and policy makers to optimize their interest and to guide them towards a positive charge in sustainable resource management through suitable and best possible sustainable utilization of landscape.

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.

The new edition of Environmental Law provides a comprehensive account of this topical and complex area of law, bringing within one volume the full range of law and legislation in the field.
Written by a group of practicing attorneys, all with specialist experience of environmental law, it aims to cover all aspects of the area including the practice and jurisprudence of the tribunals which administer it in England and Wales, and Northern Ireland.
This title contains detailed coverage of the substantive environmental law areas such as pollution of all kinds, the control and management of waste and hazardous substances, contaminated land issues, and conservation. The book also examines thoroughly the regulation, enforcement of environmental law, and analyses the international and European context and its implications for the UK.
The new edition of this title brings the book up to date with recent legislation such as the Clean Neighborhoods and Environment Act 2005 and considers the impact of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004. As central government policy documents have increasingly concentrated on the control of pollution in the planning process, this title analyzes development of planning and social sustainability policies as put forward in the White Paper of May 2007 and the forthcoming Planning Bill.
This book combines valuable analysis with practical guidance on the full range of topics facing the environmental lawyer.

Biology and Physiology of Freshwater Neotropical Fish is the all-inclusive guide to fish species prevalent in the neotropical realm. It provides the most updated systematics, classification, anatomical, behavioral, genetic, and functioning systems information on freshwater neotropical fish species. This book begins by analyzing the differences in phylogeny, anatomy, and behaviour of neotropical fish. Systems such as cardiovascular, respiratory, renal, digestive, reproductive, muscular, and endocrine are described in detail. This book also looks at the effects of stress on fish immune systems, and how color and pigmentation play into physiology and species differentiation. Biology and Physiology of Freshwater Neotropical Fish is a must-have for fish biologists and zoologists. Students in zoology, ichthyology, and fish farming will also find this book useful for its coverage of some of the world's rarest and least-known fish species.