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Books > Earth & environment > The environment
This book cleverly integrates the research on welfare measurement and social accounting in imperfect market economies. In their previously acclaimed volume, Welfare Measurement, Sustainability and Green National Accounting, the authors focused on the external effects associated with environmental damage and analysed their role in the context of social accounting. This book adopts a much broader perspective by analysing a wide spectrum of resource allocation problems of real-world market economies. The authors' aim is to derive exact welfare measures in imperfect market economies and compare them with their counterparts in a first-best equilibrium. Using numerical analysis, they also attempt to make the leap from theory to practical application by measuring the empirical importance of market imperfections. Such analysis provides the tools for examining whether 'real life' approximations of the welfare contribution of external effects, such as information collected by using the willingness-to-pay method, actually capture true and accurate values. Finally, the authors address the theory of cost-benefit analysis, in terms of environmental and other public policies, in dynamic general equilibrium models. This book is an impressive investigation of the theory of social accounting, with particular emphasis on valuation problems facing imperfectly competitive markets. It will make challenging but highly rewarding reading for academics and researchers interested in environmental economics, welfare measurement, social accounting and green accounting.
As the new UN IPCC climate report issued on August 9 states, humanity is in the midst of a civilization-changing event. The book will offer hope, inspiration, and a positive path forward to billions of people in North America, the EU, and worldwide who already are, or are certain in the near future, to experience severe mental health and psycho-social-spiritual problems due to being directly impacted by climate change-related disasters, emergencies, and toxic stresses. It will also offer hope, inspiration, and a positive path forward to the millions who are experiencing intersectional traumas, vicarious (or secondary) trauma, and eco-grief (or eco-anxiety) resulting from seeing climate impacts from afar or worrying about what the future holds for their children and them. The book will challenge the thinking and approaches that dominate the mental health, disaster management, and human services fields today by describing why individually-focused clinical treatment, disaster mental health, and direct service programs--which are crisis and illness, not wellness and resilience focused--are woefully incapable of preventing or healing climate change-generated individual and collective traumas. It will also describe a proven empowering and hopeful alternative: a public health and prevention science approach to organizing community-based, culturally-tailored, population-level wellness and resilience building initiatives for relentless adversities in every community and region of North America and worldwide. The book will offer a practical how-to guide that civic, community, and government leaders can use to organize, fund, facilitate, evaluate, and continually improve community-based mental wellness and resilience initiatives that prevent and heal individual and collective traumas and help people find meaning, purpose, and realistic hope even as the global climate emergency worsens.
We've reached an environmental crisis point with plastic, and it's time to take action. But is it possible to make positive changes without radically changing your lifestyle? Absolutely! This practical book suggests eco-friendly alternatives to plastic, including budget options, high-street substitutes and DIY ideas to help you drastically reduce your plastic consumption. With 101 simple ways to use less plastic, you'll find it easy to take the first step and make a difference.
To reduce emissions and address climate change, we need to invest in renewables and rapidly decarbonise our energy networks. However, decarbonisation is often seen as a technical project, detached from questions of politics and social justice. What if this is leading to unfair transitions, in which some people bear the costs of change while others benefit? In this timely and expansive book, Ed Atkins asks: are we getting decarbonisation right? And how could it be made better for people and communities? In doing so, this book proposes a different type of energy transition. One that prioritises and takes opportunities to do better – to provide better jobs, community ownership and improve people’s homes and lives.
Carbon dioxide has become one of the “defining molecules” of our century, due to its role in Earth's climate. This text traces the development of the perception of carbon dioxide through the ages. With layman summaries at the beginning of each chapter and extensive literature references and notes, the text takes the reader through the history of our understanding of the gas, from its early discovery as a separate gas in the mid-17th century to the recognition of its radiative properties and impact on climate in the late 19th and 20th century. The text describes the world's slow efforts to control the rise in carbon dioxide over the last 50 years and concludes by setting the stage for the Paris climate accords and subsequent negotiations. The world must reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide fast, and this book discusses options to achieve that goal. Han Dolman is a climate scientist and director of the Royal NIOZ, the Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, as well as a Professor at the Department of Earth Sciences, Free University of Amsterdam. For many years, his work has been centered around the global carbon cycle and its relation to our climate. Over the length of his career, he has been involved in several international research programs such as the Global Climate Observing System.
This unique title draws together in one volume some of the best thinking to date on the pressing social and environmental challenges we face as a society. These are the Top 50 Sustainability Books as voted for by the University of Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership's alumni network of over 3,000 senior leaders from around the world. In addition to profiles of all 50 titles, many of the authors share their most recent reflections on the state of the world and the ongoing attempts by business, government and civil society to create a more sustainable future. Many of these authors have become household names in the environmental, social and economic justice movements - from Rachel Carson, Ralph Nader and E.F. Schumacher to Vandana Shiva, Muhammad Yunus and Al Gore. Others, such as Aldo Leopold, Thomas Berry and Manfred Max-Neef, are relatively undiscovered gems, whose work should be much more widely known. By featuring these and other seminal thinkers, The Top 50 Sustainability Books distils a remarkable collective intelligence - one that provides devastating evidence of the problems we face as a global society, yet also inspiring examples of innovative solutions; it explores our deepest fears and our highest hopes for the future. It is a must-read for anyone who wants to tap into the wisdom of our age.
In this compelling book, Rien Fertel tells the story of humanity's complicated and often brutal relationship with the brown pelican over the past century. This beloved bird with the mythically bottomless belly-to say nothing of its prodigious pouch-has been deemed a living fossil and the most dinosaur-like of creatures. The pelican adorns the Louisiana state flag, serves as a religious icon of sacrifice, and stars in the famous parting shot of Jurassic Park, but, most significantly, spotlights our tenuous connection with the environment in which it flies, feeds, and roosts-the coastal United States. In 1903, Theodore Roosevelt inaugurated the first national wildlife refuge at Pelican Island, Florida, in order to rescue the brown pelican, among other species, from the plume trade. Despite such protections, the ubiquity of synthetic "agents of death," most notably DDT, in the mid-twentieth century sent the brown pelican to the list of endangered species. By the mid-1960s, not one viable pelican nest remained in all of Louisiana. Authorities declared the state bird locally extinct. Conservation efforts-including an outlandish but well-planned birdnapping-saved the brown pelican, generating one of the great success stories in animal preservation. However, the brown pelican is once again under threat, particularly along Louisiana's coast, due to land loss and rising seas. For centuries, artists and writers have portrayed the pelican as a bird that pierces its breast to feed its young, symbolizing saintly piety. Today, the brown pelican gives itself in other ways, sacrificed both by and for the environment as a bellwether bird-an indicator species portending potential disasters that await. Brown Pelican combines history and first-person narrative to complicate, deconstruct, and reassemble our vision of the bird, the natural world, and ourselves.
John Hannigan's definitive textbook offers a distinctive, balanced coverage of environmental issues, policies and action. This revised fourth edition has been expanded and fully updated to explore contemporary developments and issues within global environmental sociology. Environmental Sociology reconciles Hannigan's widely cited model of the social construction of environmental problems and controversies, which states that incipient environmental issues must be identified, researched, promoted and persuasively argued in the form of "claims", with an environmental justice perspective that stresses inequality and threats to local communities. For example, this new edition explores the interconnections between indigenous communities and environmental activists via a study of the difficult relationship between Aboriginal people and environmentalists in Australia. The updated fourth edition also discusses new direct action protest groups, such as Extinction Rebellion, who have reframed the discourse around the "climate emergency" using apocalyptic language and imagery. Environmental Sociology also signposts exciting new directions for future research. The fourth edition re-interrogates the classical roots of environmental theory with a focus of the work of Alexander von Humboldt. Hannigan also asserts the need for environmental sociologists to turn their attention to "The Forgotten Ocean", arguing that the discipline should incorporate cutting-edge concepts such as marine justice, striated space and volumetrics. Environmental Sociology is a key text for students and researchers in environmental studies, political ecology, social geography and environmental sociology.
'A funny and beautifully written welcome to the enigmatic, weird and wonderful world of wasps' DAVE GOULSON, author of SILENT EARTH There may be no insect with a worse reputation than the wasp, and none guarding so many undiscovered wonders. Where bees and ants have long been the darlings of the insect world, wasps are much older, cleverer and more diverse. They are the bee's evolutionary ancestors - flying 100 million years earlier - and today they are just as essential for the survival of our environment. A bee, ecologist Professor Seirian Sumner argues, is just a wasp that has forgotten how to hunt. For readers of Entangled Life, Other Minds and The Gospel of Eels, this is a book to upturn your expectations about one overlooked animal and the wider architecture of our natural world. With endless surprises, this book might teach you about the wasps that spend their entire lives sealed inside a fig, about stinging wasps, about parasitic wasps, about wasps that turn cockroaches into living zombies, about how wasps taught us to make paper. It offers up a maligned insect in all its diverse, unexpected splendour; as both predator and pollinator, the wasp is an essential pest controller worldwide. Inside their sophisticated social worlds is the best model we have for the earth's major evolutionary transitions. In their understudied biology are clues to progressing medicine, including a possible cure for cancer. The closer you look at these spurned, winged insects - both custodians and bouncers of our planet - the more you see. Their secrets have so far gone mostly untapped, but the potential of the wasp is endless.
Discover the science behind wild and wonderful weather in this fact-packed book! Ever wondered what causes thunderstorms, how snowflakes form, or why our climate is changing? Get all the answers to these questions and more in this children's book about the weather! Inside the pages of this responsibly sourced science picture book from DK Books, you'll discover: - Beautiful illustrations to introduce scientific topics in a simple and accessible way - Stand out facts are presented clearly on each spread - Easy to understand text teaches children about climate change, meteorology, and geography - The science behind hot, cold, wet, and wild weather suitable for Key Stage 1 and 2 development From heatwaves and big freezes to tornadoes and fog, this science book gives your budding meteorologist a glimpse into all the action that happens in the sky. Learn about all kinds of weather and marvel at how powerful it can be! At a time when extreme weather is becoming more and more common, this eco-focused book is perfect for getting your little one clued up about the environment. Throughout the pages of this colourful and energetic STEM book, your child will discover fun facts about the weather. They will also learn everything there is to know about global warming, the seasons and even record-breaking weather phenomena! Become a Weather Expert in No Time This educational book tells a riveting story about how big, amazing, and wonderful our weather really is - but it's told from the child's perspective. The book itself has also been produced as sustainably as possible, made with responsibly sourced materials and soy inks. It's the perfect gift for environmentally conscious kids aged 5-9.
***A Waterstones Best Books of 2022 pick*** A New Scientist Book of the Year Shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize for Conservation Writing 'Fascinating... There is something wondrous in Milman's revelation of our fragile dependency on insect life as well as its beauty and strangeness.' Guardian 'Gripping and especially unnerving.' David Wallace-Wells When is the last time you were stung by a wasp? Or were followed by a cloud of midges? Or saw a butterfly? All these normal occurrences are becoming much rarer. A groundswell of research suggests insect numbers are in serious decline all over the world - in some places by over 90%. The Insect Crisis explores this hidden emergency, arguing that its consequences could even rival climate change. We rely on insect pollination for the bulk of our agriculture, they are a prime food source for birds and fish, and they are a key strut holding up life on Earth, especially our own. In a compelling and entertaining investigation spanning the globe, Milman speaks to the scientists and entomologists studying this catastrophe and asks why these extraordinary creatures are disappearing. Part warning, part celebration of the incredible variety of insects, this book highlights why we need to wake up to this impending environmental disaster.
As the new UN IPCC climate report issued on August 9 states, humanity is in the midst of a civilization-changing event. The book will offer hope, inspiration, and a positive path forward to billions of people in North America, the EU, and worldwide who already are, or are certain in the near future, to experience severe mental health and psycho-social-spiritual problems due to being directly impacted by climate change-related disasters, emergencies, and toxic stresses. It will also offer hope, inspiration, and a positive path forward to the millions who are experiencing intersectional traumas, vicarious (or secondary) trauma, and eco-grief (or eco-anxiety) resulting from seeing climate impacts from afar or worrying about what the future holds for their children and them. The book will challenge the thinking and approaches that dominate the mental health, disaster management, and human services fields today by describing why individually-focused clinical treatment, disaster mental health, and direct service programs--which are crisis and illness, not wellness and resilience focused--are woefully incapable of preventing or healing climate change-generated individual and collective traumas. It will also describe a proven empowering and hopeful alternative: a public health and prevention science approach to organizing community-based, culturally-tailored, population-level wellness and resilience building initiatives for relentless adversities in every community and region of North America and worldwide. The book will offer a practical how-to guide that civic, community, and government leaders can use to organize, fund, facilitate, evaluate, and continually improve community-based mental wellness and resilience initiatives that prevent and heal individual and collective traumas and help people find meaning, purpose, and realistic hope even as the global climate emergency worsens.
Through the lens of sensory affect, this book offers a new way of thinking about day-to-day teaching and student engagement within learning spaces in design education. The book examines the definitions, concepts, ideas and overlaps of a repertoire of learning spaces prevalent in higher education and addresses the pedagogical gap that exists between broader learning structures and spaces, and the requirements of specialist design education. Recognising that mainstream teaching environments impact upon design studio learning and student engagement, the book positions creative learning spaces at the heart of practice-based learning. It defines the underlying pedagogical philosophy of a creative learning space in design education and reports on how practical strategies incorporating sensory affect may be implemented by educators to foster better student engagement in these spaces within higher education. Bringing much needed attention to specialist design teaching and learning spaces in higher education, this book will be of interest to educators, researchers and post graduate students immersed in design education, pedagogy and learning spaces more broadly.
Written by an expert in energy business who has been invited to G20/B20 taskforces Covers the latest developments in smart cities, green transport, and carbon solutions Each chapter features practical strategies alongside international examples and case studies
This fully revised and expanded new edition provides a short and accessible introduction to how climate change is governed by an increasingly diverse range of actors, from civil society and business actors to multilateral development banks, donors, and cities. The issue of global climate change has risen to the top of the international political agenda. Despite ongoing contestation about the science informing policy, the economic costs of action and the allocation of responsibility for addressing the issue within and between nations, it is clear that climate change will continue to be one of the most pressing and challenging issues facing humanity for many years to come. The book: Evaluates the role of states and non-state actors in governing climate change at multiple levels of political organization: local, national, and global Provides a discussion of theoretical debates on climate change governance, moving beyond analytical approaches focused solely on nation-states and international negotiations Examines a range of key topical issues in the politics of climate change Includes multiple examples from both the north and the global south Providing an inter-disciplinary perspective drawing on geography, politics, international relations, and development studies, this book is essential reading for all those concerned not only with the climate governance but with the future of the environment in general.
Current urban planning systems are not equipped to deal with the major urban challenges of the twenty-first century, including effects of climate change, resource depletion and economic instability, plus continued rapid urbanization with its negative consequences such as poverty, slums and urban informality. These planning systems have also, to a large extent, failed to meaningfully involve and accommodate the ways of life of communities and other stakeholders in the planning of urban areas, thus contributing to the problems of spatial marginalization and exclusion. It is clear that urban planning needs to be reconsidered and revitalized for a sustainable urban future. Planning Sustainable Cities reviews the major challenges currently facing cities and towns all over the world, the emergence and spread of modern urban planning and the effectiveness of current approaches. More importantly, it identifies innovative urban planning approaches and practices that are more responsive to current and future challenges of urbanization. The Global Report on Human Settlements is the most authoritative and up-to-date global assessment of human settlements conditions and trends. It is an essential reference for researchers, academics, public authorities and civil society organizations all over the world. Preceding issues of the report have addressed such topics as Cities in a Globalizing World, The Challenge of Slums, Financing Urban Shelter and Enhancing Urban Safety and Security.
Lachlan was sixteen when he found his father dead on the side of a dirt road in North Queensland, Australia. He had suffered a heart attack and died alone, without warning, in the middle of nowhere. This tragedy motivated Lachlan to train as a doctor and specialise in providing medical care for people living in remote, resource-deprived locations. Lachlan's work has since taken him to over thirty countries, from the islands of the Pacific that are sinking as a result of climate change to civil war zones in South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In this no-holds-barred memoir, Lachlan recounts his experiences of caring for his patients and tackling health problems in some of the world's most extreme environments. We see him delivering babies in makeshift operating theatres by the light of a head torch; treating patients ravaged by tropical diseases; and helping care for patients with infected wounds, from bullets and bomb blasts, that are resistant to all known antibiotics. We follow Lachlan as he is evacuated with his Medecins Sans Frontieres colleagues to a safe house in the Democratic Republic of the Congo when it is revealed that members of their team have been kidnapped by the local militia. Lachlan's experiences also give us an invaluable insight into the devastating effects of climate change on impoverished communities. Tackling such impossible problems day in and day out takes a personal toll. Along the way, Lachlan faces his own personal battles with depression, alcohol abuse and bankruptcy. Life and Death Decisions is a deeply human look at the personal cost of our broken global health system and a vital call to action. It's what we need right now.
A comprehensive and lavishly illustrated photographic guide-now in a handy field-guide format This lavishly illustrated photographic guide provides a comprehensive overview of the natural history of wildlife habitats in Britain and Ireland. Now completely redesigned in a handy field-guide format, and featuring revised and updated text throughout, this new edition of Britain's Habitats guides readers through all the main habitat types, presenting information on their characteristics, extent, geographical variation, key species, cultural importance, origins and conservation. It aims to help visitors to the countryside recognize the habitats around them, understand how they have evolved and what makes them special, and imagine how they might change in the future. This new edition includes updated maps and additional photographs throughout, and covers a new habitat-gardens. The perfect companion for anyone travelling in Britain and Ireland, the book is essential reading for all wildlife enthusiasts, professional ecologists and landscape architects. Individual sections on all the main habitat types found in Britain and Ireland More than 680 evocative colour photographs, including images from around Britain and Ireland in all seasons Details and photographs of key species and features associated with the different habitats Up-to-date information-including maps-on the distribution, extent and importance of all habitat types Features new to this edition include a field-guide format, updated maps, more photographs throughout and coverage of an additional habitat-gardens
This is a practical manual to managing woodland. It includes a Foreword written by HRH Prince Charles. It comes from conservation expert Charles Flower, author of highly acclaimed Where Have all the Flowers Gone? Charles Flower is passionate about restoring the countryside. He has spent many years working on and writing about the restoration of wild flowers to grasslands and has now turned his attention to ancient woodlands, many of which, though derelict, are treasure houses of diversity, an asset unrecognised by almost everyone including those in Government. Yet with a little effort glades and rides, which may represent less than ten per cent of the wood, can be opened up with remarkable results. Once light penetrates some wild flowers will reappear and all will thrive attracting back the insects, birds and animals that once flourished there. This book is not only a beautiful record of the ancient woodlands that, thanks to good management, have continued to thrive, it also constitutes a practical manual and provides inspiration for those working to preserve our existing ancient woodlands and those managing recently planted woods and planting the trees that will constitute our future woodland heritage.
Providing useful insights on the use of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) in natural resource management, this book examines a number of empirical applications for several countries and a variety of natural resources. It is shown that using MCDA in the management of water, forestry, wetland and other natural resources can substantially improve the design and implementation of natural resource and environmental policies. Stakeholder involvement is also an important determinant of successful resource management and MCDA provides a useful and effective framework for getting stakeholders involved in resource management decisions. Using Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis in Natural Resource Management gives in-depth analysis of the potential problems in applying these techniques, including difficulties eliciting required information, lack of suitable measures for environmental variables and the need to develop innovative methods to simplify the use of MCDA.
Few other cities can compare with Rome's history of continuous habitation, nor with the survival of so many different epochs in its present. This volume explores how the city's past has shaped the way in which Rome has been built, rebuilt, represented and imagined throughout its history. Bringing together scholars from the disciplines of architectural history, urban studies, art history, archaeology and film studies, this book comprises a series of studies on the evolution of the city of Rome and the ways in which it has represented and reconfigured itself from the medieval period to the present day. Moving from material appropriations such as spolia in the medieval period, through the cartographic representations of the city in the early modern period, to filmic representation in the twentieth century, we encounter very different ways of making sense of the past across Rome's historical spectrum. The broad chronological arrangement of the chapters, and the choice of themes and urban locations examined in each, allows the reader to draw comparisons between historical periods. An imaginative approach to the study of the urban and architectural make-up of Rome, this volume will be valuable not only for historians of art and architecture, but also for students of cultural history and film studies.
Climate change brings about a new set of major economic risks arising from changing weather patterns, extreme weather events and rising sea levels. Most at risk are developing countries who, despite considerable post-disaster donor aid, have been bearing the major brunt of disaster-related losses. One adaptation solution that is rapidly gaining the support of countries and international donors is a risk transfer to the global reinsurance and capital markets. This volume, a special issue of the journal Climate Policy, explores the role that insurance-based mechanisms can play in helping developing countries prepare for climate change. It offers a unique and comprehensive perspective on the potential role of insurance solutions in global adaptation to climate change and attempts to engender debate on the role of insurance in reducing global emissions and encouraging climate-friendly corporate behaviour.
- examines the five major religions - Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism - and provides a balanced, objective critique of both the beliefs and practices employed which lead to both the protection and exploitation of animals - draws on scripture as well as leading historical and contemporary figures in the religions, from early Christian saints to royal figures like Ashoka - compares the teachings of old with contemporary practice and showcases what the major religions are doing to protect or exploit animals, from moving their investments away from animal-exploiting companies or running animal sanctuaries to participating in or condoning animal sacrifice, cruel sports and factory farming - challenges religious leaders and followers to re-examine their religion's teachings and to raise their official or personal practices in relation to the well-being of animals. - essential reading for those interested in the role of religion in animal welfare, human-animal studies, and animal ethics more broadly. |
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