Energy policies and management are of primary importance to achieve the development of sustainability and need to be consistent with recent advances in energy production and distribution. Progressing from an economy mainly focussed on hydrocarbons to one taking advantage of sustainable renewable energy resources requires considerable scientific research, as well as the development of new engineering systems. Energy fuels the world’s economy. Diminishing resources and severe environmental effects resulting from the continuous use of fossil fuels has motivated an increasing amount of interest in renewable energy resources and the search for sustainable energy policies. Key difficulties to overcome often originate from the conversion of renewable energies (wind, solar, etc.) to useful forms (electricity, heat, fuel) at an acceptable cost, including impacts on the environment as well as in the integration of these resources into the existing infrastructure. A wide range of topics are covered by the works contained in this book. The collaboration of varied disciplines are involved in order to arrive at optimum solutions, including studies of materials, energy networks, new energy resources, storage solutions, waste to energy systems, smart grids and many others.

Disasters can happen without warning and cause detrimental damage to society. By planning and conducting research beforehand, businesses can more effectively aid in relief efforts. The Developing Role of Public Libraries in Emergency Management: Emerging Research and Opportunities is an essential reference source for the latest scholarly information on library engagement in official emergency response and how these institutions can offer community aid in disaster situations. Featuring extensive coverage on a number of topics such as hazard analysis, mitigation planning, and local command structure, this publication is ideally designed for academicians, researchers, and practitioners seeking current research on the role local businesses play in emergency response situations.

Pursuing a dream instilled by early David Attenborough television adventures, a young man from the industrial northwest of England is advised at school to become a veterinary surgeon as a first step towards a career working with wild animals in Africa.

His misgivings about the values and justification of domestic veterinary practice are contrasted with a passion for wilderness and wildlife conservation. Early experiences in the vivid Uganda of Idi Amin are juxtaposed with life in a grey Pennines veterinary practice.

Eventually arriving as a veterinary officer in newly independent Botswana he finds adventure with wild animals as a veterinarian and later as an ecologist, survey pilot, game capture operator and even a safari hunter, becoming a passionate conservationist... all while starting the first veterinary practice in the country.

The volume Environmental Change and African Societies contributes to current debates on global climate change from the perspectives of the social sciences and the humanities. It charts past and present environmental change in different African settings and also discusses policies and scenarios for the future. The first section, "Ideas", enquires into local perceptions of the environment, followed by contributions on historical cases of environmental change and state regulation. The section "Present" addresses decision-making and agenda-setting processes related to current representations and/or predicted effects of climate change. The section "Prospects" is concerned with contemporary African megatrends. The authors move across different scales of investigation, from locally-grounded ethnographic analyses to discussions on continental trends and international policy. Contributors are: Daniel Callo-Concha, Joy Clancy, Manfred Denich, Sara de Wit, Ton Dietz, Irit Eguavoen, Ben Fanstone, Ingo Haltermann, Laura Jeffrey, Emmanuel Kreike, Vimbai Kwashirai, James C. McCann, Bertrand F. Nero, Jonas O. Nielsen, Erick G. Tambo, Julia Tischler.

The agricultural sector, as well as the other economic sectors, follows the current trends verified in economies and societies, including at the technological level. On the other hand, agriculture has multidimensional impacts and suffers the implications of global changes, namely those related to climate change, financial crises and pandemic frameworks. In this perspective, this book aims to bring more contributions to the current trends associated with agricultural contexts. This book is a forum of discussion about the new trends for the agricultural and food sectors. The topics covered in this publication allow to bring together the several current dimensions related with the food production. The new insights highlighted with this book bring relevant value added for the several stakeholders. This book is an interesting publication for several stakeholders related to the agricultural and food sectors, including students, researchers, policymakers, public institutions, and farmers.

Austere and immense, the Arctic region is a fascinating topic for intrepid travelers and stay at home students alike. This new guide in the Pocket Naturalist series covers the variety of flora and fauna that have adapted to this incredible, remote environment with trademark beauty and accuracy.
A truly unique ecosystem, the Arctic remains one of the few areas on Earth with very little human habitation. Many species truly run free in the Arctic and there is a wide variety of vegetation including shrubs, grasses, mosses, sedges and lichens. These plants provide food and cover for a variety of small animals including lemmings, voles and hares which are a critical food source for larger mammals including the Arctic fox. Large mammals unique to the Arctic include the polar bear, musk ox, walrus, caribou (reindeer), bowhead whale and bearded seal.
Tourism to this region has experienced incredible growth in the last decade with more and more people hoping to experience a region only visited by explorers previously. This new Pocket Naturalist Guide will be a must-have for anyone planning to visit the region or anyone hoping to visit in the future.

Ecosystems provide services that are crucial and beneficial to the human population. The management and conservation of these services can assure the wellbeing of the local population. Climate Change and Its Impact on Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity in Arid and Semi-Arid Zones is an essential reference source that studies the effects of climate change on biodiversity and ecosystem services in dry regions and examines various strategic local, national, and international policy developments to help overcome these impacts. Featuring research on topics such as poverty reduction, climate change, and adaption policies, this book is ideally designed for environmentalists, policymakers, government officials, academicians, researchers, and technology developers who want to improve their understanding of climate change impact, vulnerability, and sustainability, and the strategic role of adaptation and mitigation.

A major issue that has remained prevalent in today's modern world has been the presence of chemicals within water sources that the public uses for drinking. The associated health risks that accompany these contaminants are unknown but have sparked serious concern and emotive arguments among the global community. Empirical research is a necessity to further understand these contaminants and the effects they have on the environment. Effects of Emerging Chemical Contaminants on Water Resources and Environmental Health is a pivotal reference source that provides vital research on current issues regarding the occurrence, toxicology, and abatement of emerging contaminants in water sources. While highlighting topics such as remediation techniques, pollution minimization, and technological developments, this publication explores sample preparation and detection of these chemical contaminants as well as policy and legislative issues related to public health. This book is ideally designed for environmental engineers, biologists, health scientists, researchers, students, and professors seeking further research on the latest developments in the detection of water contaminants.

Get ready to learn everything you never knew about plants and then some! Now in paperback, this illustrated compendium celebrates the plants you didn't even know you used, from your toothpaste to your car tires to the name of your great-great-aunt. This comprehensive overview also contains great plant projects you and your friends can try at home!

Most livestock in the United States currently live in cramped and unhealthy confinement, have few stable social relationships with humans or others of their species, and finish their lives by being transported and killed under stressful conditions. In Livestock, Erin McKenna allows us to see this situation and presents alternatives. She interweaves stories from visits to farms, interviews with producers and activists, and other rich material about the current condition of livestock. In addition, she mixes her account with pragmatist and ecofeminist theorizing about animals, drawing in particular on John Dewey's account of evolutionary history, and provides substantial historical background about individual species and about human-animal relations. This deeply informative text reveals that the animals we commonly see as livestock have rich evolutionary histories, species-specific behaviors, breed tendencies, and individual variation, just as those we respect in companion animals such as dogs, cats, and horses. To restore a similar level of respect for livestock, McKenna examines ways we can balance the needs of our livestock animals with the environmental and social impacts of raising them, and she investigates new possibilities for humans to be in relationships with other animals. This book thus offers us a picture of healthier, more respectful relationships with livestock.

Hydraulic Fracturing in the Karoo: Critical Legal and Environmental Perspectives explores a broad-ranging set of questions related to proposed hydraulic fracturing or `fracking' in the Karoo. The book is multidisciplinary, with contributors including natural scientists, social scientists, and academics from the humanities, all concerned with the ways in which scientific facts and debates about fracking have been framed and given meaning. The work comprises four parts: Part 1 provides an international, legal, energy, economic, and revenue overview of the topic. Part 2 has a physio-geographic theme, with chapters on the inter-related aspects of water, geology, geo-hydrology, seismicity and biodiversity, as well as archaeological and palaeontological considerations. Part 3 focuses on public health, and sociological and humanities-related aspects, and Part 4 addresses the relevant laws, emphasising their implementation and the role of governance. The underlying theme of Hydraulic Fracturing in the Karoo: Critical Legal and Environmental Perspectives is one of caution. The book emphasises the need for collaboration between the natural and social sciences and the responsibilities of those charged with the implementation and governance of the fracking enterprise if South Africa hopes to effectively manage fracking at all.

Latin American extractivism has become the ground on which activists and scholars frame the dynamics of ecological devastation, accumulation of wealth, and erosion of rights. These maladies are the detritus of longstanding extraction-oriented economies, and more recently from the expansion of the extractive frontier and the implementation of new technologies in the extraction of fossil fuels, mining, and agriculture. But the fields of sociology, political ecology, anthropology, and geography have largely ignored the role of art and cultural practices in studies of extractivism and postextractivism. The field of art theory on the other hand, has offered a number of texts that put forward insightful analyses of artwork addressing extraction, environmental devastation, and the climate crisis. However, an art theory perspective that does not engage firsthand with collective action remains limited, and fails to provide an account of the role, processes and politics of art in anti- and post-extractivist movements. Creating Worlds Otherwise offers the narratives that subaltern groups generate around extractivism, and how they develop, communicate, and mobilize these narratives through art and cultural practices. The book reports on a two-year research project into creative resistance to extractivism in Argentina, and builds on long-term engagement working on environmental justice projects and campaigns in Argentina and the UK. Creating Worlds Otherwise is structured according to the main themes of anti and post-extractivist movements: territoriality; ecofeminism and the ethics of care; human rights and the rights of nature; urban extractivism; sovereignty, autonomy and self-determination; and postextractivism and alternatives to development. It is an innovative contribution to the fields of Latin American studies, political ecology, cultural studies, and art theory, and addresses pressing questions regarding what post-extractivist worlds might look like as well as how such visions are put into practice.

Over the last five centuries, North-East England's River Tyne went largely with the flow as it rode with us on a rollercoaster from technologically limited early modern oligarchy, to large-scale Victorian 'improvement', to twentieth-century deoxygenation and to twenty-first-century efforts to expand the river's biodiversity. By studying five centuries of Tyne conservatorship, we can see that 1855 to 1972 was a blip on the graph of environmental concern, preceded and followed by more sustainable engagement and a fairer negotiation with the river's forces and expressions as a whole and natural system, albeit driven by different motivations. Even during this blip, however, many people expressed environmental concern. Several organisations, including the Tyne Salmon Conservancy (1866-1950), local governors, the Tyne's anglers and the Standing Committee on River Pollution's Tyne Sub-Committee (1921-1939), tried to protect the river's environmental health from harm, as they perceived it. This Tyne study offers a template for a future body of work on British rivers that shakes off the straitjacket of the Thames as the river of choice in British environmental history. And it undermines traditional socio-cultural approaches which reduce rivers to passive backdrops of human activities. Departing from progressive narratives that equated change with improvement, and declensionist narratives that equated change with loss and destruction, it moves away from morally loaded notions of better or worse, and even dead, rivers. This book refocuses on the production of new and different rivers and fully situates the Tyne's fluvial transformations within their political, economic, cultural, social and intellectual contexts. Let us sit with the Tyne itself, some of its salmon, a seventeenth-century Tyne River Court Juror, some nineteenth-century Tyne Improvement Commissioners, a 1920s biologist, a twentieth-century Tyne angler, shipbuilder and council planner and some twenty-first-century Tyne Rivers Trust volunteers. What would they disagree about? Would they agree on anything? How would they explain their conceptualisation of what the river is for and how it should be used and regulated? This book takes you to the heart of such virtual debates to revive, reconnect and reinvigorate the severed bonds and flows linking riparian places, issues and people across five centuries. By analysing the Tyne's past conservatorships, we can objectify ourselves through our descendants' eyes, reconnecting us not only to our past, but also to our future.