The Planet Remade
A fascinating look at the perils and promise of geoengineering and our potential future on a warming planet The risks of global warming are pressing and potentially vast. The difficulty of doing without fossil fuels is daunting, possibly even insurmountable. So there is an urgent need to rethink our responses to the crisis. To meet that need, a small but increasingly influential group of scientists is exploring proposals for planned human intervention in the climate system: a stratospheric veil against the sun, the cultivation of photosynthetic plankton, fleets of unmanned ships seeding the clouds. These are the technologies of geoengineering--and as Oliver Morton argues in this visionary book, it would be as irresponsible to ignore them as it would be foolish to see them as a simple solution to the problem. The Planet Remade explores the history, politics, and cutting-edge science of geoengineering. Morton weighs both the promise and perils of these controversial strategies and puts them in the broadest possible context. The past century's changes to the planet--to the clouds and the soils, to the winds and the seas, to the great cycles of nitrogen and carbon--have been far more profound than most of us realize. Appreciating those changes clarifies not just the scale of what needs to be done about global warming, but also our relationship to nature. Climate change is not just one of the twenty-first century's defining political challenges. Morton untangles the implications of our failure to meet the challenge of climate change and reintroduces the hope that we might. He addresses the deep fear that comes with seeing humans as a force of nature, and asks what it might mean--and what it might require of us--to try and use that force for good.
Thoreau and the Language of Trees
Trees were central to Henry David Thoreau's creativity as a writer, his work as a naturalist, his thought, and his inner life. His portraits of them were so perfect, it was as if he could see the sap flowing beneath their bark. When Thoreau wrote that the poet loves the pine tree as his own shadow in the air, he was speaking about himself. In short, he spoke their language. In this original book, Richard Higgins explores Thoreau's deep connections to trees: his keen perception of them, the joy they gave him, the poetry he saw in them, his philosophical view of them, and how they fed his soul. His lively essays show that trees were a thread connecting all parts of Thoreau's being--heart, mind, and spirit. Included are one hundred excerpts from Thoreau's writings about trees, paired with over sixty of the author's photographs. Thoreau's words are as vivid now as they were in 1890, when an English naturalist wrote that he was unusually able to "to preserve the flashing forest colors in unfading light." Thoreau and the Language of Trees shows that Thoreau, with uncanny foresight, believed trees were essential to the preservation of the world.
Bee and Wasp Venoms Biological Characteristics and Therapeutic Application
Bee or wasp venom therapy is the therapeutic application of honeybee venom or wasp venom to the treatment of various diseases. Venoms from either honeybees or wasps are known to possess a wide variety of pharmaceutical properties. Recent studies using these venoms have demonstrated diverse mechanisms on a range of conditions. However, identification of a single constituent out of the venom, the possible mechanisms, and a justification of the route of application and formulation are essential in the future. Understanding the signalling pathways associated with the compound-mediated in vivo dynamics and further communication between cells at the molecular level will facilitate the development of new therapeutics.
Saving the Planet
Authoritative yet extremely readable, this book addresses control of energy resources, population, poverty, transportation, taxes, and other issues necessary to create an environmentally sound global economy.
Baffin Island
A geographer with extensive research experience in the Canadian North, Jack D. Ives has written a lively and informative account of several expeditions to Baffin Island during the "golden age" of federal research. In the 1960s, scientists from the Geographical Branch of Canada's Department of Energy, Mines, and Resources travelled to Baffin to study glacial geomorphology and glaciology. Their fieldwork resulted in vastly increased knowledge of the Far North-from its ice caps and glaciers to its lichens and microfossils. Drawing from the recollections of his Baffin colleagues as well as from his own memories, Ives takes readers on a remarkable adventure, describing the day-to-day experiences of the field teams in the context of both contemporary Arctic research and bureaucratic decision making. Along the way, his narrative illustrates the role played by the Cold War-era Distant Early Warning Line and other northern infrastructure, the crucial importance of his pioneering aerial photography, the unpredictable nature of planes, helicopters, and radios in Arctic regions, and of course, the vast and breathtaking scenery of the North. Baffin Island encompasses both field research and High Arctic adventure. The research trips to Baffin between 1961 and 1967 also served as a vital training ground in polar studies for university students; further, they represented a breakthrough in gender equality in government-sponsored science, thanks to the author's persistence in having women permitted on the teams. The book contains a special section detailing the subsequent professional achievements of the many researchers involved (in addition to the later career moves of Ives himself) and a chapter that delves deeper into the science behind their fieldwork in the North. Readers need not be versed in glaciology, however. Ives has produced a highly readable book that seamlessly combines research and adventure.
The Biology of Wonder
A new way of understanding our place in the web of life from a scholar praised for his "graceful prose" (Publishers Weekly).The disconnection between humans and nature is perhaps one of the most fundamental problems faced by our species today. This schism is arguably the root cause of most of the environmental catastrophes unraveling around us. Until we come to terms with the depths of our alienation, we will continue to fail to understand that what happens to nature also happens to us.In The Biology of Wonder Andreas Weber proposes a new approach to the biological sciences that puts the human back in nature. He argues that feelings and emotions, far from being superfluous to the study of organisms, are the very foundation of life. From this basic premise flows the development of a "poetic ecology" which intimately connects our species to everything that surrounds us-showing that subjectivity and imagination are prerequisites of biological existence.Written by a leader in the emerging fields of biopoetics and biosemiotics, The Biology of Wonder demonstrates that there is no separation between us and the world we inhabit, and in so doing it validates the essence of our deep experience. By reconciling science with meaning, expression, and emotion, this landmark work brings us to a crucial understanding of our place in the rich and diverse framework of life-a revolution for biology as groundbreaking as the theory of relativity for physics."Grounded in science, yet eloquently narrated, this is a groundbreaking book. Weber's visionary work provides new insight into human/nature interconnectedness and the dire consequences we face by remaining disconnected." -Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods
Green Planet
Welcome to Green Planet! First of all, I would like to thank you for reading Green Planet. This is Prasun Barua, the Author of Green Planet. I am an Engineer (Electrical & Electronic) and Member of the European Energy Centre (EEC). Green Planet is all about green technologies and science. The motivation of Green Planet is to create a green and healthy planet utilizing green technologies and science as well as our awareness. Green Planet contains various types of topics categorized to Green Energy, Green Technology, Green Products, Green Finance, Green IT, Green Jobs, Green Nature and Health. It will be a great pleasure if Green Planet keeps contribution in your daily life.Our planet has many significant contributions in our daily life. We are benefiting from our planet in various ways. Green nature is one of the great creations of our planet. For example, trees provide us oxygen, so that we can live. They also provide us fruit which contains various types of vitamins, minerals and nutrition. Vegetables are also a good source of vitamins, minerals and nutrition.These fruits and vegetables are essential for our health.They protect us from various types of diseases. Green forests protect us from many natural disasters. Green technologies and science are also very significant for us. We can generate power with the help of renewable energy resources like the ray of sun, force of air, water, biomass, internal heat of the earth and the tidal wave of the ocean. These technologies are called green technologies. Because, they do not pollute our environment during generating power. They contribute us to reduce the emission of carbon. They are very environmentally friendly technologies indeed.Everyday, we are damaging the nature of our planet consciously or unconsciously. For example, we are cutting trees randomly for our daily livelihood. Cutting the huge amount of trees can create imbalance of our ecosystem which impacts on human being and animals. But, we are not creating a huge tree plantation as per our requirement. Moreover, we are creating environment pollution directly or indirectly in many ways. For example, air is polluted by emitting carbon from power stations, various types of industries and vehicles which typically use conventional fuel like oil and gas as energy resources. These activities are causing climate change and global warming, which is very horrendous for us and our planet. We are already suffering some terrible changes of the nature for these activities. If these things continue to happen then our planet will turn into a disaster situation in the future. Moreover, natural resources of our planet like oil, gas, coal etc. are very limited which will be finished in the near future. We can save these natural resources by minimizing our dependency on them and maximizing the use of renewable energy resources like sun, wind, water, biomass, geothermal and tidal wave of the ocean.So, we are realizing that the overall control of protecting our planet is in our hands. We can easily destroy our nature, again we can protect and reconstruct it. If we can increase awareness among ourselves, we can easily protect our planet and create a Green Planet for our next generations.
Soil Microbiology
An updated text exploring the properties of the soil microbial community Today, the environmentally oriented specialties of microbiology are shifting from considering a single or a few microbial species to focusing on the entire microbial community and its interactions. The third edition of Soil Microbiology has been fully revised and updated to reflect this change, with a new focus on microbial communities and how they impact global ecology. The third edition still provides thorough coverage of basic soil microbiology principles, yet the textbook also expands students' understanding of the role the soil microbial community plays in global environmental health and human health. They can also learn more about the techniques used to conduct analysis at this level. Readers will benefit from the edition's expanded use of figures and tables as well as the recommendations for further reading found within each chapter. Considers the impact of environmental perturbations on microbial community structure as well as the implications for soil system functions Discusses the impact of soil microbial communities on food and health related issues Emphasizes the importance of soil microbial communities on the sustainability of terrestrial ecosystems and solutions to global issues This third edition is a suitable text for those studying soil microbiology and soil ecology at the undergraduate or graduate level. It also serves as a valuable reference tool for professionals working in the fields of reclamation and soil management.
Science for Life
In Science for Life acclaimed science writer Brian Clegg cuts through the vested interests and confusing contradictory statements that litter the media and the internet, to give a clear picture of what science is telling us right now about changing our lives for the better. Discover the much-advertised antioxidants that aren't good for you, the truth about fat and sugar and why one of the healthiest foods contains carcinogens and 21 E-numbers. Find out what does and what doesn't enhance brainpower - from the failure of playing Mozart to babies to the surprising abilities of caffeine and nicotine. Understand the tools that advertisers use to persuade us and how to turn the psychological pressure back on them. From the shortcomings of the five second rule to the truth about phone masts and nuclear power, kept up-to-date on a partnering website, Science for Life is your guide to surviving and thriving in the modern world.
Coastal Ecosystems
Coastal zones contain many of the Earth's most complex and diverse ecological systems, productive in both the biological and economic senses. Coastal region includes inshore waters, inter-tidal areas and extensive tracts of contiguous land. Coastal zones are not only economically valuable for fisheries, commerce, navigation and recreation, but also include some of the most ecologically important environments. Regrettably, these economic, social, and environmental benefits are at a risk as the coastal zones are affected by both gradual and recurrent processes such as accretion and erosion and by extreme natural events such as floods, hurricanes, typhoons, tsunamis, earthquakes and severe storms. The publication has been presented in four parts, namely General Topics on Physical Oceanography; Impect Studies related to Tsunami, Tropical Cyclones and Toxic Contamination; General Coastal Management Issues, including use of GIS and Remote Sensing Technologies; and Country Reports and Case Studies on Coastal Ecosystem. The material presented in this volume will serve as a valuable reference material for the professionals working in the area of coastal ecosystems and coastal hazards management and will help the developing countries in working out scientific solutions for management of hazards affecting the coastal ecosystems.
Toxin Toxout
How do I get this stuff out of me? Bruce Lourie and Rick Smith, two of North America's environmental leaders, have been asked this question on an almost daily basis since the publication of their runaway international bestseller, Slow Death by Rubber Duck: How the Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Life Affects our Health. Their answer? It's not as simple as we'd like, and it's not as easy as we'd hope. But it's too important to ignore. In Toxin Toxout, Lourie and Smith give practical and often surprising advice for removing toxic chemicals from our bodies and homes. There are over 80,000 synthetic chemicals in commerce today, and the authors use their outrageous experiments (they and their brave volunteers are the guinea pigs) to prove how easily our bodies absorb these chemicals. With trademark humor, they give us the good news about what is in our control, the steps we can take to help our bodies remove our toxic burden -- and what we can do to avoid it in the first place. Furthermore, Lourie and Smith investigate the truth behind organic foods, which detox methods actually work, if indoor air quality is improving, how we dispose of waste (where do those chemicals go?), and the ins and outs of a greener economy. The result is nothing short of a prescription for a healthier life.
Last Oasis Last Oasis
We have taken for granted seemingly endless supplies of water flowing from reservoirs wells, and diversion projects; access to water has been key to food security, industrialization, and the growth of cities. In this book from the Worldwatch Institute, Sandra Postel explains that decades of profligacy and mismanagement of the world's water resources have produced signs of shortages and environmental destruction. She writes with authority and clarity of the limits-ecological, economic, and political-of this vital natural resource. She explores the potential for conflict over water between nations, and between urban and rural residents. And she offers a sensible way out of such struggles. Last Oasis makes clear that the technologies and know-how exist to increase the productivity of every liter of water. But citizens must first understand the issues and insist on policies, laws, and institutions that promote the sustainable use of water.
Polluting for Pleasure
In the tradition of Silent Spring and Unsafe at Any Speed comes this frightening, landmark environmental study. The message: seemingly innocuous recreational boats, particularly outboards, are polluting as much as all the cars and trucks in America; and the marine industry has been holding its breath, hoping that nobody notices. Polluting for Pleasure begins with the author accidentally discovering that pleasure boats have been spilling oil into the environment on a magnitude that is staggering. In addition to being 80 times more polluting than automobile engines, the more than 8 million two-cycle outboard engines put more oil into American waters than 15 Exxon Valdez oil spills, annually! Oil, like dirt collecting on the sides of a bathtub, contaminates the shores and marshlands of our lakes and rivers, the cradles of all marine life. This important new book not only studies the problem of pollution from powerboats and the environmental effects, it also offers constructive suggestions for alleviating the problem.
Sex, Love and DNA
Can 21st-century molecular biology answer age-old questions about the human experience? Can studying proteins and DNA help us understand how we make our choices in sex and love? How we communicate? Where our emotions come from? Or why we age and die?......... In this fascinating journey into the biology of cells, scientist and educator Peter Schattner explains how proteins and DNA affect our lives. "Sex Love and DNA" explores the amazing world of molecular biology through stories of people who don't feel pain because of rare genetic variants, children whose DNA enables them to perform unusual feats of strength, and people who can't speak or read simply because they lack certain proteins. Written in language that anyone can understand, "Sex Love and DNA" will show you how science is revolutionizing our understanding of what it means to be human......... "Reading this book raises a feeling similar to watching one of those fascinating National Geographic specials--the one where you are so entertained, you do not realize you are learning." -- New York Journal of Books......... "Marvelous entrance for those ready to plunge into popular science." -- Kirkus Reviews......... "Immensely absorbing and eye opening"-- San Francisco Book Review......... "Will astound and entertain you far more than any science fiction" - Bookviews......... Finalist, "Best Independently Published Book of 2014" -- Shelf Unbound Reviews
Living a Land Ethic
In 1935, in the midst of relentless drought, Aldo Leopold purchased an abandoned farm along the Wisconsin River near Baraboo, Wisconsin. An old chicken coop, later to become famous as the Leopold "Shack," was the property's only intact structure. The Leopold family embraced this spent farm as a new kind of laboratory-a place to experiment on restoring health to an ailing piece of land. Here, Leopold found inspiration for writing A Sand County Almanac, his influential book of essays on conservation and ethics. Living a Land Ethic chronicles the formation of the 1,600-acre reserve surrounding the Shack. When the Leopold Memorial Reserve was founded in 1967, five neighboring families signed an innovative agreement to jointly care for their properties in ways that honored Aldo Leopold's legacy. In the ensuing years, the Reserve's Coleman and Leopold families formed the Sand County Foundation and the Aldo Leopold Foundation. These organizations have been the primary stewards of the Reserve, carrying on a tradition of ecological restoration and cooperative conservation. Author Stephen A. Laubach draws from the archives of both foundations, including articles of incorporation, correspondence, photos, managers' notes, and interviews to share with readers the Reserve's untold history and its important place in the American conservation movement.
Dark Energy and Human Consciousness
Nobody knows how life was first breathed into the first atom, molecule, or cell; all biologists can do is to suggest the most reasonable possibilities by analysing the oldest DNA available. Scientists postulate that life emerged from non-life via natural processes about 3.7 billion years ago. It then evolved (and continues to evolve) to higher levels of complexity based on mutation, natural selection, and time. In other words, scientists believe that life is purely a physical phenomenon. There are logical arguments, based on scientific concepts, suggesting that dark energy is a non-physical force that influences life and is the source of reason, intelligence, compassion, and love. If we acknowledge and nurture this non-physical (dark energy) aspect of our beings, it will bring balance to our minds and move us from selfishness to love, care, and compassion. Is this the path to freedom from selfishness, corruption, abuse of power, and greed; and consequently from poverty, starvation, conflict and war?
Dark Energy and Human Consciousness
Nobody knows how life was first breathed into the first atom, molecule, or cell; all biologists can do is to suggest the most reasonable possibilities by analysing the oldest DNA available. Scientists postulate that life emerged from non-life via natural processes about 3.7 billion years ago. It then evolved (and continues to evolve) to higher levels of complexity based on mutation, natural selection, and time. In other words, scientists believe that life is purely a physical phenomenon. There are logical arguments, based on scientific concepts, suggesting that dark energy is a non-physical force that influences life and is the source of reason, intelligence, compassion, and love. If we acknowledge and nurture this non-physical (dark energy) aspect of our beings, it will bring balance to our minds and move us from selfishness to love, care, and compassion. Is this the path to freedom from selfishness, corruption, abuse of power, and greed; and consequently from poverty, starvation, conflict and war?
Epigenetics
WHAT IS EPIGENETICS? Epigenetics is an emerging field of science that studies alterations in gene expression caused by factors other than changes in the DNA sequence. Epigenetics: The Death of the Genetic Theory of Disease Transmission is the result of decades of research and its findings that could be as critical to our understanding of human health as Pasteur's research in bacteriology. Dr. Joel "Doc" Wallach has dedicated his life work to identifying connections between certain nutritional deficiencies and a range of maladies, formerly thought to be hereditary, including Cystic Fibrosis and Muscular Dystrophy. This nexus between nutrition and so-called genetic disease has been observed in both humans and primates, and it is the central theme of Epigenetics. To bring us Epigenetics, Wallach has teamed with noted scholars Dr. Ma Lan and Dr. Gerhard N. Schrauzer. Their collective expertise gives this book its far reaching perspective. Epigenetics is of vital importance to anyone who wants real knowledge about how the human body functions, and it provides a path for better health. Epigentics dispels the dogma and misinformation propagated by medical institutions and doctors resistant to change. Epigenetics is the beginning of a new era of well-being on this planet.
The Predictive Brain
During the lengthy and complex process of human evolution our ancestors had to adapt to testing situations in which survival depended on making rapid choices that subjected muscles and body to extreme tension. In order to seize a prey travelling at 36 km per hour Homo sapiens had just thousandths of a second in which to prepare the appropriate gesture. While we are no longer faced with such an environment, our brain continues to use the adaptive mechanisms, enabling us to avoid danger and sense interlocutor intentions. This book sets out to show that our brain is not only a reactive mechanism, reacting to external stimuli, but is pro-active -- allowing us to make hypotheses, anticipate consequences, and formulate expectations: in short, to wrong foot an adversary. The body and its movements are at the origin of all abstract modes of behaviour, starting from language. The evolution of motor modes of behaviour (e.g. the ability to construct and manipulate instruments) has given rise to an "embodied logic" underpinning not only action and prediction but also gestures and syllable sequences that are the basis of human communication. Some motor experiences have progressively moulded the nervous infrastructures and led to the development of symbols/metaphors used in language, coming to serve as classes of perceptions, behavioural patterns and universal linguistic conventions. Whether shaking someone's hand or writing a letter, each executive function -- controlled by nervous structures and mental procedures that process the information -- requires behaviours that are oriented to a specific end. The executive functions imply planning/selecting an action; the process is linked to an embodied cognition supported by consciousness. If consciousness is caused by specific neuronal processes and, therefore, conscious states are causally reducible to neurobiological processes, it is also true that conscious states exist at a higher level than neuron activity. For this reason it is necessary to go beyond a hierarchical idea of levels of consciousness, and to refute the idea according to which the 'mental' sphere is qualitative, subjective, and in the 'first person', while the 'physical' sphere is quantitative, objective and in the 'third person'.
A Short History of Planet Earth
"A splendid introduction to geology and paleontology for the lay reader. To compress Earth's history into a single, lucidly written volume is a major achievement." -Publishers Weekly, starred review"Few people have both the knowledge and the writing ability to capture such a long and varied history in a compelling manner. In A Short History of Planet Earth, J.D. Macdougal demonstrates that he is one of the few." --EarthThis exhilarating survey of the four and half billion years of Earth's history charts both the geological and biological history of the planet. It moves from the origin of the earth's iron core to the formation of today's seven continents, and from the primordial building blocks of life to the evolution of the human form.
Heat
An adventurous ride through the most blisteringly hot regions of science, history, and culture. Melting glaciers, warming oceans, droughts-it's clear that today's world is getting hotter. But while we know the agony of a sunburn or the comfort of our winter heaters, do we really understand heat? A bestselling scientist and nature writer who goes to any extreme to uncover the answers, Bill Streever sets off to find out what heat really means. Let him be your guide and you'll firewalk across hot coals and sweat it out in Death Valley, experience intense fever and fire, learn about the invention of matches and the chemistry of cooking, drink crude oil, and explore thermonuclear weapons and the hottest moment of all time-the big bang. Written in Streever's signature spare and refreshing prose, Heat is an adventurous personal narrative that leaves readers with a new vision of an everyday experience-how heat works, its history, and its relationship to daily life.
The Earth Encompassed
This authoritative volume chronicles humanity's long quest to understand its own origins. Peter J. Bowler brilliantly synthesizes discoveries in geography, geology, and evolutionary biology that have brought us to our current knowledge of the fragility and connectedness of life on earth and created the new science of ecology. Bowler adeptly balances a long historical perspective with discussion of specific developments in the major fields relating to the physical and organic environment. He brings to life theoretical debates surrounding the notion of nature as an interconnected whole and addresses the controversial ethical questions raised by the ways we investigate our world and our use of the planet's resources. This book is not only the history of a discipline but also a wide-ranging study of scientific and theoretical innovations and the cultural and professional factors that influence the way scientists explain and understand their observations.
Invisible Nature
A revolutionary new understanding of the precarious modern human-nature relationship and a pathto a healthier, more sustainable world.Amidst all the wondrous luxuries of the modern world-smartphones, fast intercontinental travel, Internet movies, fully stocked refrigerators-lies an unnerving fact that may be even more disturbing than all the environmental and social costs of our lifestyles.The fragmentations of our modern lives, our disconnections from nature and from the consequences of our actions, make it difficult to follow our own values and ethics, sowecan no longer be truly ethical beings. When we buy a computer or a hamburger, our impacts ripple across the globe, and, dissociated from them, we can't quite respond. Our personal and professional choices result in damages ranging from radioactive landscapes to disappearing rainforests, but we can't quite see how. Environmental scholar Kenneth Worthytraces the broken pathways between consumers and clean-room worker illnesses, superfund sites in Silicon Valley, and massively contaminated landscapes in rural Asian villages. Hisgroundbreaking, psychologically based explanation confirms that our disconnections make us more destructive and that we must bear witness to nature and our consequences.Invisible Natureshows the way forward: how we can create more involvement in our own food production, more education about how goods are produced and waste is disposed, more direct and deliberative democracy, and greater contact with the nature that sustains us.
Ozone Crisis
The real story behind the . Ozone Crisis Straight from today's headlines, award-winning science writer Sharon Roan offers an incisive look at one of the planet's most pressing ecological concerns. Ozone Crisis tells the compelling, often shocking story of the discovery of ozone depletion, the fight to ban chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), and future prospects and prognoses. ""At last a sober, well-researched, and well-written book on an important environmental problem.. a good yarn about stratospheric ozone..This is clearly one of the best case studies of the evolution of science-intensive public policy."" --Choice ""An engaging account . skillfully recounts in terms readily understood by lay readers the shrewd detective work and unprecedented scientific cooperation that helped give rise to the Montreal Treaty."" --John C. Topping, President, Climate Institute ""Whether you have the slightest interest in environmental matters or not, this book should be on your 'must check out!' list."" --Western Producer ""Anyone interested in understanding contemporary environmental policy issues will find Roan has written a well-researched, well-balanced, and informative book in an easy-to-read, journalistic style."" --Naturalist Review
Raising Elijah
Nothing could be more important than the health of our children, and no one is better suited to examine the threats against it than Sandra Steingraber. Once called "a poet with a knife," she blends precise science with lyrical memoir. In Living Downstream she spoke as a biologist and cancer survivor; in Having Faith she spoke as an ecologist and expectant mother, viewing her own body as a habitat. Now she speaks as the scientist mother of two young children, enjoying and celebrating their lives while searching for ways to protect them -- and all children -- from the toxic, climate-threatened world they inhabit Each chapter of this engaging and unique book focuses on one inevitable ingredient of childhood -- everything from pizza to laundry to homework to the "Big Talk" -- and explores the underlying social, political, and ecological forces behind it. Through these everyday moments, Steingraber demonstrates how closely the private, intimate world of parenting connects to the public world of policy-making and how the ongoing environmental crisis is, fundamentally, a crisis of family life.
Ecomind
In EcoMind, Frances Moore Lapp' -- a giant of the environmental movement -- confronts accepted wisdom of environmentalism. Drawing on the latest research from anthropology to neuroscience and her own field experience, she argues that the biggest challenge to human survival isn't our fossil fuel dependency, melting glaciers, or other calamities. Rather, it's our faulty way of thinking about these environmental crises that robs us of power. Lapp' dismantles seven common "thought traps" -- from limits to growth to the failings of democracy -- that belie what we now know about nature, including our own, and offers contrasting "thought leaps" that reveal our hidden power. Like her Diet for a Small Planet classic, EcoMind is challenging, controversial and empowering.
Vanishing Borders
Our world is shrinking fast: goods, money, microbes, pollution, people, and ideas are crossing borders with growing ease. National governments are ill-suited for tackling the problems that result, from climate change, to the soaring trade in limited resource commodities like timber, to the management of regional water supplies. Hilary French argues that the only long-term solution to our environmental problems is a worldwide commitment to strengthening the international treaties and institutions essential for integrating ecological considerations into the still-nascent rules of global commerce. More than two hundred international environmental treaties already exist, but few of them stipulate stringent commitments and effective enforcement; and institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization continue to view environmental protection as a peripheral concern. But at the same time, new communications technologies are making it possible for nongovernmental organizations to mobilize powerful coalitions of private citizens to press for change, and some forward-thinking businesses have begun to support environmental codes of conduct and other international standards. Vanishing Borders provides people concerned about the future of the planet with a clear plan of action for ensuring environmental stability in the wake of globalization.
Growing Resistance
In 2004 Canadian farmers led an international coalition to a major victory for the anit-GM movement by defeating the introduction of Monsanto's genetically modified wheat. Canadian farmers' strong opposition to GM wheat marked a stark contrast to previous producer acceptance of other genetically modified crops. By 2005, for example, GM canola accounted for 78 percent of all canola grown nationally. So why did farmers stand up for wheat? In Growing Resistance, Emily Eaton reveals the motivating factors behind farmer opposition to GM wheat. She illustrates wheat's cultural, historical, and political significance on the Canadian prairies as well as its role in crop rotation, seed saving practices, and the economic livelihoods of prairie farmers. Through interviews with producers, industry organizations, and biochemical companies, Eaton demonstrates how the inclusion of producer interests was integral to the coalition's success in voicing concerns about environmental implications, international market opposition to GMOs, and the lack of transparency and democracy in Canadian biotech policy and regulation. Growing Resistance is a fascinating study of successful coalition building, of the need to balance local and global concerns in activist movements, and of the powerful forces vying for control of food production.
Storm Watchers
A lively, inspiring account of the pioneers who sought toaccurately predict the weather Benjamin Franklin . . . James P. Espy . . . Cleveland Abbe . . .Carl-Gustaf Rossby . . . Jule G. Charney . . . just a few of theremarkable individuals who struggled against formidable odds tounderstand the atmosphere and predict the weather. Where they sawpatterns and processes, others saw randomness and tumult-and yetthey strove to make their voices heard, often saving lives in theprocess. Storm Watchers takes you on a fascinating journey through time thatcaptures the evolution of weather forecasting. From the age whenmeteorology was considered one step removed from sorcery to themodern-day wizardry of supercomputers, John Cox introduces you tothe pioneering scientists whose work fulfilled an ancient dream andmade it possible to foretell the future. He tells the little-knownstories of these weathermen, such as Ptolemy's weather predictionsbased on astrology, John Finley's breakthrough research inidentifying tornadoes, and Tor Bergeron's new techniques of weatherforecasting, which contributed to its final worldwideacceptance. Filled with extraordinary tales of bravery and sacrifice, StormWatchers will make you think twice the next time you turn on thelocal news to catch the weather report.
Institutional Innovation in Water Management
Water supply is high on the international political agenda. This study, using the Scottish experience as an examplar, shows that institutional innovation is as important if not more so than improved technology in providing water for a growing world population.
State of the World 2000
The newest volume in the annual series that has become the bible of the global environmental movement--and indispensable for anyone concerned with the future of our world. State of the World 2000 provides national leaders and concerned citizens with a comprehensive framework for the global debate about our future in the new century. This annual survey by the award-winning Worldwatch Institute has become an invaluable analysis of negative environmental trends and a guide to emerging solutions. The book shows how our current fossil-fueled, auto-centered, throwaway economy is steadily destroying the very ecosystems that form the foundations of our lives. The great challenge we face in the next century is making the transition to a sustainable economy that reuses and recycles materials, is powered by renewable energy sources, and has a stable population. The authors argue that meeting this challenge will offer some of the greatest investment opportunities in history. Written in clear and concise language, with easy-to-read charts and tables, State of the World 2000 presents a view of our changing world that we, and our leaders, cannot afford to ignore.
The Natural Wealth of Nations
Looking for some concrete proposals about how to clean up the world's environmental problems? In The Natural Wealth of Nations, David Roodman argues that a critical but often overlooked source of solutions lies in the prosaic world of government subsidies and fiscal policy. If governments overhaul how they raise and spend money, they can use the market to protect the environment without hurting economic growth. For starters, why are the world's governments spending over $700 billion a year to subsidize activities that harm the environment, from logging to mining to driving? Roodman shows how cutting these wasteful subsidies can boost the economy, save tax dollars, and help the environment. But governments can do more. Hidden subsidies are only one of several reasons that consumers get misleading signals from the marketplace about the true environmental costs of their activities. Roodman proposes raising taxes on harmful activities like air pollution while cutting taxes on payrolls and profits. This tax shift would discourage pollution and encourage work and investment. The creation of tradable pollution credits is another way to use the market to include environmental costs. These proposals are not far-fetched, having already been tested in the United States and overseas. In a global survey, Roodman provides examples from Sweden to Spain to Malaysia of the growing number of countries that are successfully using these market-based approaches to clean up their environments.
Tough Choices
Published for the World Food Conference to be held in Rome in November, this provocative book assesses the current food scarcity situation and proposes steps that can be taken to expand food production and buy additional time to stabilize population. Part of the Worldwatch Environmental Alert series.
Forevermore, Nuclear Waste in America
Selected by Library Journal as one of the hundred best books in science and technology for 1985. This book is an outgrowth of a series of articles that appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer in November 1983. For eighteen months, the authors traveled some 20,000 miles, interviewing dozens of people and assembling more than 125,000 pages of documents. These included local, state, and federal government reports, state and federal court records, corporate files, congressional hearing transcripts, scientific studies, and internal memoranda of public agencies and private businesses. The resulting newspaper series provoked a much broader reaction than we had anticipated. In response to requests for copies of the articles, more than 25,000 reprints were sent to individuals and organizations in more than forty states and several foreign countries. Many of those who wrote urged the authors to expand the newspaper series into a book. In doing so, they updated the material and added new information, including sections on military waste, foreign reprocessing, and uranium mill tailings. We were tempted to delve into other areas, such as the design and construction of reactors and the economics of nuclear power. But we focused instead on waste--the amount produced, past efforts to manage it, and the politics of its disposal.
Transnational Governance Through Private Authority
This book provides a novel approach for understanding and analyzing transnational governance by private authorities. It brings together theoretical and empirical insights by introducing a new master concept: governance generating networks (GGN). These networks comprise three structural elements: (1) nodes of design, where global standards are developed; (2) forums of negotiation, where stakeholders discuss and negotiate the standards; and (3) sites of implementation, where global rules are transferred into concrete practices on the ground. This concept captures both transnational processes and local practices that take place in the sites of implementation, involving local actors and stakeholders as they react and adjust to the new global standards.The book focuses on forest governance through the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification scheme, investigating implementation of FSC standards in Russia. Using several case studies in which the GGN concept is used as an analytical tool, this study assesses how global governance through the FSC contributes to forest governance in Russia, and to what extent it fills an institutional void by giving voice to private actors and enabling them to foster sustainable forest management.Scholars of political science, sociology, and related disciplines as well as practitioners, such as NGO activists, company representatives, FSC experts, managers and auditors, will find valuable insights, both theoretical and empirical, in this empirically rich and theoretically innovative study.
Assessing Sanitary Mixtures in East African Cities
It has been common for both scientists and policy makers to view sanitary provision as a dichotomy between a centralised and a decentralised approach. Moreover, sustainability assessment has also been characterized by a dualistic approach, between the techno-centric and the eco-centric. Such views are often simplistic and not in tandem with the existing multiple sanitary options and service providers in East African cities, which defy such classification. This book provides the theoretical and empirical basis for a third way of classifying and assessing the multiple technical and institutional options to sanitary provision. This novel assessment approach called 'modernised mixtures' is used in this book as a tool for conceptualising, assessing and improving sanitary provision in East African cities. The assessment is based on four social and technical dimensions and three sustainability criteria. This inclusive approach in assessing sanitary mixtures, benefits decision making among imperfect options.
Deep Future
A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction of 2011 title A bold, far-reaching look at how our actions will decide the planet's future for millennia to come. Imagine a planet where North American and Eurasian navies are squaring off over shipping lanes through an acidified, ice-free Arctic. Centuries later, their northern descendants retreat southward as the recovering sea freezes over again. And later still, future nations plan how to avert an approaching Ice Age... by burning what remains of our fossil fuels. These are just a few of the events that are likely to befall Earth and human civilization in the next 100,000 years. And it will be the choices we make in this century that will affect that future more than those of any previous generation. We are living at the dawn of the Age of Humans; the only question is how long that age will last. Few of us have yet asked, "What happens after global warming?" Drawing upon the latest, groundbreaking works of a handful of climate visionaries, Curt Stager's Deep Future helps us look beyond 2100 a.d. to the next hundred millennia of life on Earth.
The Fisherman’s Problem
The living resources of California's rivers and coastal waters are among the most varied and productive in the world. They also offer a laboratory example of the mismanagement and waste that have attended the settlement and development of the North American continent. The Fisherman's Problem is a study of the interaction among resource ecology, economic enterprise, and law in the history of the California fishing industry. It analyzes the ways in which the natural environment not only provided the raw material for economic development but played an active role in it as well. As this book shows, the natural environment has a history both independent of, and yet influenced by, classic example of 'common property' re-environmental conservation generally, as well as in the management of the fisheries of the world's rivers and oceans. Professor McEvoy discusses the different ways in which human communities have harvested and managed the region's fisheries, from those of the American Indians and immigrants from Europe and Asia to those of modern, industrial-bureaucratic society. By reconstructing the ecological history of the fisheries during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this study develops a new perspective on environmental problems as contemporary observers understood them and on the results of their efforts to deal with those problems. The book concludes with an analysis of significant changes taking place in the 1970s and 1980s in the politics and theory of resource management. By combining a synthesis of recent scholarship in such disciplines as law, economics, marine biology, and anthropology with original research into the fishing industry's history, the book represents a significant new departure in the study of ecology and change in human society.
The Fragile Environment
No one today can afford to ignore the impact of the human species on its environment. In this topical volume, distinguished international authors identify and analyze areas of rapid and serious change, and outline approaches to some of the outstanding fundamental questions concerning the environment. The opening chapter places the present environmental crisis in a chronological perspective, exploring the changing impact of human populations on the environment since prehistoric times, with particular reference to forest cover, soil erosion and animal extinctions. The contributors then focus in detail on the future of the forests, the impact of man on the animal species and his coexistence with them, on the problems of famine and the Earth's exhaustible resources, and on the likely effect of man's activities on the atmosphere and global climatic patterns. In closing, a NASA scientist puts these and other environmental problems into a new perspective, as the environment is examined from space.
Local Cells, Global Science
One of the first studies of an exciting new development in global biotechnology, this cutting edge text examines the extent of the transnational movements of tissues, stem cells, and expertise, in the developing governance framework of India. Documenting the impact of local and global governance frames on the everyday conduct of research, this groundbreaking book traces the journey of 'spare' human embryos in IVF clinics to public and private laboratories engaged in isolating stem cells for potential therapeutic application. The discussion also examines the gender dimension as a potential site for exploitation in the sourcing of embryonic and other biogenic materials, and suggests that a moral economy has developed in which the ethical values of the global 'North' support and encourage the donation of abundant and ethically 'neutral' embryos by the 'South'. This unique exploration is grounded in an empirical, multi-sited ethnographic study that takes a thoroughly comparative analysis of the ethical, religious and social issues in Europe, the United States, and organ donations already prevalent in India. In this theoretically-sensitive analysis, the authors use the resources of social anthropology and the social sciences in an innovative text which will appeal to postgraduates and professionals in the areas of STS studies, genetics, bioethics, and anthropology.
Tribal Science
Human beings evolved in a tribal environment. Over the millennia, our brains have become adept at fostering social networks that are the basis of group cohesion, from the primary family unit to the extended associations of clans, villages, cities, and nations. This essential social component of our behavior gave the human species distinct survival advantages in coping with the challenges of an often-hostile environment. This book examines the many ways in which our tribally oriented brains perceive and sometimes distort reality. The author describes how our social nature led to the development of cognitive tricks that have served us so well as a social species. Some examples are our habit of imposing patterns on random phenomena, of weaving entertaining narratives to explain the mysteries of the universe, and of favoring the biases of group think. Luckily, we also stumbled upon science, which McRae views as a fortuitous accident. With this new technique, humans had discovered a method of objectively evaluating the accuracy of our traditional tribal notions. Even more important, the scientific method proved to be self-correcting, allowing us to weed out the bad ideas from those that really work. McRae argues that science is our most successful social enterprise to date. Through the sharing of scientific ideas, our species has expanded the reach of the tribal community to a global scale. Our problems may be bigger than ever, but science gives us a sure basis in reality and the best method of facing the daunting challenges of the future.
Vital Signs 2000
This annual volume from the Worldwatch Institute shows in graphic form key trends that often escape the attention of the news media, world leaders, and economic experts, but should be integrated into their plans as they map out our global future. Written by the staff of the award-winning Worldwatch Institute, this book allows readers to track key indicators that show social, economic, and environmental progress, or the lack of it. These authoritative data have been distilled from thousands of documents obtained from government, industry, scientists, and international organizations into forty-five "vital signs" of our times. Vital Signs 2000 presents up-to-the-minute information on environmental and sustainable development topics such as global temperature, population growth, HIV/AIDS, fossil fuel consumption, Internet use, income inequalities, grain production, and fish catch. Each trend is presented in both text and graphics, providing a thorough, well-documented, and very accessible overview.
Killing the Hidden Waters
In the quarter-century since his first book, Killing the Hidden Waters, was published in 1977, Charles Bowden has become one of the premier writers on the American environment, rousing a generation of readers to both the wonder and the tragedy of humanity's relationship with the land. Revisiting his earliest work with a new introduction, "What I Learned Watching the Wells Go Down," Bowden looks back at his first effort to awaken people to the costs and limits of using natural resources through a simple and obvious example-water. He drives home the point that years of droughts, rationing, and even water wars have done nothing to slake the insatiable consumption of water in the American West. Even more timely now than in 1977, Killing the Hidden Waters remains, in Edward Abbey's words, "the best all-around summary I've read yet, anywhere, of how our greed-driven, ever-expanding urban-industrial empire is consuming, wasting, poisoning, and destroying not only the resource basis of its own existence, but also the vital, sustaining basis of life everywhere."
The World According to Monsanto
Published to stellar praise worldwide, The World According to Monsanto charts award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker Marie-Monique Robin's three-year journey across four continents to uncover the disturbing practices of multinational agribusiness corporation Monsanto. The book exposes the shocking story of how the new "green" face of the world's leading producer of GMOs (genetically modified organisms) is no less malign than its PCB--and Agent Orange--soaked past. Monsanto currently controls the majority of the yield of the world's genetically modified corn and soy--ingredients found in more than 95 percent of American households--and its alarming legal and political tactics to maintain this monopoly are the subject of worldwide concern, with baleful consequences for the world's small-scale farmers. Selected as a finalist for the New York Public Library's 2011 Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism, The World According to Monsanto is positioned to increase awareness of a serious threat to our food supply.
Technological Risk
Risks seem to abound in our everyday lives, especially the risks flowing from the explosion of our modern technology, with its pesticides, pollution, nuclear power, microwave radiation and chemical trace elements in food of all kinds. Two questions face all of us: how real are these risks and, if real, how do we manage our lives in order to avoid personal damage from them? The book examines these questions, delving into the nature and true seriousness of risk (as opposed to how bad the risk seems to be), into how we measure risk and how we regulate it. Lewis includes the latest scientific information on carcinogens and the greenhouse effect as well as detailed discussion of road safety, the risk of air travel, nuclear power and acid rain.
Modernising Solid Waste Management at Municipal Level
The performance of local authorities is vital for high quality flow of key public services such as solid waste collection and treatment. This publication discusses and analyses in-depth the institutional arrangements for the management of domestic solid wastes in three urban centres bordering the lake Victoria Basin in East Africa: Kisumu, Jinja and Mwanza. It presents research on the different (public and private) systems for municipal waste service delivery in this region. It makes use of existing theories on network governance and on developmental state and multi-level governance and applies the concept of 'modernised mixtures' when studying centralised and decentralised configurations for handling urban solid waste. It is shown that for solid waste management, arrangements for service provision in the urban centres have evolved in direct response to locally specific conditions. It is argued that 'modernised mixtures' are important for improving the performance of local authorities in waste service provision since they offer flexible perspectives which build upon existing practices and (state) capacities in the particular East African contexts.
