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.
The Role of Households in Solid Waste Management in East Africa Capital Cities
Household solid waste management is a severe problem in East Africa capital cities. Domestic actors tend to be neglected in their role in solving the problem. This book develops a new conceptual framework for analyzing the role of households in solid waste management in East Africa's capital cities. This conceptual framework is derived from the theory of the Modernized Mixture Approach. By focusing on households in informal settlements in particular, domestic routines for handling wastes are analyzed for their technical and social dimensions. By elaborating upon the technical and social aspects of domestic solid wastes and the role of householders in producing and handling these wastes, this book adds to the scanty body of scientific knowledge of sustainable waste management by householders in East African countries. The knowledge generated with respect to technical and social dimensions can be used in the future by researchers and policy makers in SWM policies both in East Africa and comparable situations elsewhere in the world.
Tinkering with Eden
Mosquitoes in Hawaii, sea lampreys in the Great Lakes, mountain goats in the Olympic Mountains of Washington State--not one of these species is native to the environment in which it now flourishes. Kim Todd's Tinkering with Eden is a lyrical, brilliantly written history of the introduction of exotic species into the United Sates, and how the well-meaning endeavors of scientists, explorers, and biologists have resulted in ecological catastrophe. Todd's assured voice will haunt her readers, and the stories she tells--such as the druggist who brought starlings to America because he wanted the landscape to feature every bird mentioned by Shakespeare--will forever change how we see our increasingly afflicted landscape and its unanticipated inhabitants.
Nuclear Disaster in the Urals
The story of the explosion and contamination was and still is suppressed in the Soviet Union and, the author contends, by the CIA and other Western intelligence organizations fearful of public resistance to nuclear power plants. Now, after an intensive study of Soviet scientific articles (written to disguise the fact that they were about the Ural explosion) and after many interviews and reports from friends in the scientific community as well as from witnesses, the author has pieced together the story of what actually happened. He analyzes the extent and consequences of the contamination and draws forbidding conclusions about the possibility of similar disasters in the rest of the world.
The Wealth of Oceans
For thousands of years humanity has seen the oceans as a mysterious and limitless source of treasures to be fished, harvested, mined, and salvaged. Now accelerating developments in ocean studies offer a new understanding of the oceans, their role in a global ecosystem, and their vulnerability to threats from human action. Drawing on the latest research this book offers a fascinating tour of the complex reaches of our ocean world and points the way toward changes that will preserve, rather than squander, the wealth of oceans.
State of the World 2011
Written in clear, concise language, with easy-to-read charts and tables, State of the World 2011, produced with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, provides a practical vision of the innovations that will allow billions of people to feed themselves, while restoring rural economies, creating livelihoods, and sustaining the natural resource base on which agriculture depends.
The Little Book of Time
From the distinguished philosopher and historian of science Klaus Mainzer, a very brief history of the way we have come to understand, and not understand, time.
Co-Managing Complex Social-Ecological Systems in Tanzania
It has been conventional among co-management scientists to view social-ecological systems and actors and institutions found in these systems monolithically. Such a view is simplistic and conceals the complex nature of social-ecological systems and associated institutions and actors. In essence, a social-ecological system is a complex system comprised of multiple, diverse and dynamic social-ecological units, players and rules. This book entitled Co-managing complex social-ecological systems unveils the aforementioned complexity in which Lake Jipe wetland in Tanzania is the central case. This case depicts intra-, inter- and cross-scale interactions among multiple and dynamic institutions, actors and ecological systems at different dimensions of space and time. While some candidates of actors and institutions play separate roles, others play interdependent and linking roles across the multiple sectoral social-ecological units. The book introduces the layering concept of institutions and actors in three sectoral arrangements at Lake Jipe. It argues that not only do the institutions and actors found in social-ecological systems operate next to one another but it becomes clear that they also work interdependently. This concept extends the existing knowledge of co-management practitioners and scholars about the diversity and complexity of inter-linked human-environment systems that traverse the current monolithic view and conceptual boundaries. As such, the book avoids a simplistic approach that may end up in superficial treatment of complex environmental management problem and sheds light on how to study and approach intricate social-ecological systems using a model that recognises the diversities of these intricate systems.
Naming Nature
Biologist Carol Kaesuk Yoon explores the historical tension between evolutionary biology and taxonomy. Carl Linnaeus struggled in the eighteenth century to define species in light of their mutability while still relying on intuitive, visual judgments. As taxonomy modernized, it moved into labs, yielding results counterintuitive to humanity s innate predisposition to order the world. By conceding scientific authority to taxonomists, Yoon argues, we've contributed to our own alienation from nature.
The Climate War
In The Climate War, Eric Pooley--deputy editor of Bloomberg BusinessWeek--does for global warming what Bob Woodward did for presidents and Lawrence Wright did for terrorists. In this epic tale of an American civil war, Pooley takes us behind the scenes and into the hearts and minds of the most important players in the struggle to cap global warming pollution--a fight in which trillions of dollars and the fate of the planet are at stake. Why has it been so hard for America to come to grips with climate change? Why do so many people believe it isn't really happening? As President Obama's science advisor John Holdren has said, "We're driving in a car with bad brakes in a fog and heading for a cliff. We know for sure that cliff is out there. We just don't know exactly where it is. Prudence would suggest that we should start putting on the brakes." But powerful interests are threatened by the carbon cap that would speed the transition to a clean energy economy, and their agents have worked successfully to deny the problem and delay the solutions. To write this book, Pooley, the former managing editor of Fortune and chief political correspondent for Time, spent three years embedded with an extraordinary cast of characters: from the flamboyant head of one of the nation's largest coal-burning energy companies to the driven environmental leader who made common cause with him, from leading scientists warning of impending catastrophe to professional skeptics disputing almost every aspect of climate science, from radical activists chaining themselves to bulldozers to powerful lobbyists, media gurus, and advisors in Obama's West Wing--and, to top it off, unprecedented access to former Vice President Al Gore and his team of climate activists. Pooley captures the quiet determination and even heroism of climate campaigners who have dedicated their lives to an uphill battle that's still raging today. He asks whether we have what it takes to preserve our planet's habitability, and shows how America's climate war sends shock waves from Bali to Copenhagen. No other reporter enjoys such access to this cast of characters. No other book covers this terrain. From the trenches of a North Carolina power plant to the battlefields of Capitol Hill, Madison Avenue, and Wall Street, The Climate War is the essential read for anyone who wants to understand the players and politics behind the most important issue we face today.
Secrets of the Snake Charmer
Humans and snakes have an intimate and ancient relationship that often revolves around either love or hate. Snakes can be seen as gods, spiritual messengers, symbols of fertility, and guardians of resources in virtually all cultures. But to those that fear them, snakes are seen as venomous creatures that cannot be trusted. In Secrets of the Snake Charmer, John Murphy, a research associate of the Division of Amphibians and Reptiles in the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, provides an in-depth, twenty-first century look at snakes utilizing the published research of other herpetologists as well as his own personal experiences and speculations. Murphy covers a wide range of topics such as the adaptability of snakes, the ways in which evolution has tinkered with snakes during the last 160 million years, and the impact snakes have on the ecological communities they live in. While sharing ideas about the origin of snakes, rattlesnake rattles, and spitting in cobras, Murphy presents an innovative portrayal of snakes that proves they co-evolve with their prey, predators, and parasites in order to fulfill a significant and novel role in the web of life.
Who Greens the Waves?
The marine environment is under serious pressure from human activities. The transboundary and large-scale nature of these threats require cooperation between states, and between states, industries and NGOs. Marine governance therefore becomes a breeding ground for innovation: multi-level and multi-actor governance and changing spheres of authority. This book applies the concept 'spheres of authority' to investigate the nature of these innovations in governing shipping and offshore oil and gas production. In the environmental governance of shipping, authority is shifting from states that own ships to states that own ports. The environmental governance of offshore oil and gas production shows a shared authority for developing and implementing policies between state and industry, but not a diminishing authority of the state.
Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was one of the most original and provocative thinkers of the nineteenth century. He spent a lifetime striving to understand the meaning of living in a world where suffering and death are ubiquitous. In his quest to solve "the ever-disquieting riddle of existence," Schopenhauer explored almost every dimension of human existence, developing a darkly compelling worldview that found deep resonance in contemporary literature, music, philosophy, and psychology. This is the first comprehensive biography of Schopenhauer written in English. Placing him in his historical and philosophical contexts, David E. Cartwright tells the story of Schopenhauer's life to convey the full range of his philosophy. He offers a fully documented portrait in which he explores Schopenhauer's fractured family life, his early formative influences, his critical loyalty to Kant, his personal interactions with Fichte and Goethe, his ambivalent relationship with Schelling, his contempt for Hegel, his struggle to make his philosophy known, and his reaction to his late-arriving fame. The Schopenhauer who emerges in this biography is the complex author of a philosophy that had a significant influence on figures as diverse as Samuel Beckett, Jorge Luis Borges, Emile Durkheim, Sigmund Freud, Thomas Hardy, Thomas Mann, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Ludwig Wittgenstein.
Living Downstream
Sandra Steingraber, biologist, poet, and survivor of cancer in her twenties, brings all three perspectives to bear on the most important health and human rights issue of our time: the growing body of evidence linking cancer to environmental contaminations. Her scrupulously researched scientific analysis ranges from the alarming worldwide patterns of cancer incidence to the sabotage wrought by cancer-promoting substances on the intricate workings of human cells. In a gripping personal narrative, she travels from hospital waiting rooms to hazardous waste sites and from farmhouse kitchens to incinerator hearings, bringing to life stories of communities in her hometown and around the country as they confront decades of industrial and agricultural recklessness. Living Downstream is the first book to bring together toxics-release data -- now finally made available through under the right-to-know laws -- and newly released cancer registry data. Sandra Steingraber is also the first to trace with such compelling precision the entire web of connections between our bodies and the ecological world in which we eat, drink, breathe, and work. Her book strikes a hopeful note throughout, for, while we can do little to alter our genetic inheritance, we can do a great deal to eliminate the environmental contributions to cancer, and she shows us where to begin. Living Downstream is for all readers who care about the health of their families and future generations. Sandra Steingraber's brave, clear, and careful voice is certain to break the paralyzing silence on this subject that persists more than three decades after Rachel Carson's great early warning.
This Borrowed Earth
Over the last century mankind has irrevocably damaged the environment through the unscrupulous greed of big business and our own willful ignorance. Here are the strikingly poignant accounts of disasters whose names live in infamy: Chernobyl, Bhopal, Exxon Valdez, Three Mile Island, Love Canal, Minamata and others. And with these, the extraordinary and inspirational stories of the countless men and women who fought bravely to protect the communities and environments at risk.
Electrostatic Considerations in Mitosis
Identifying the motive force is central to explaining chromosome motions during mitosis. Presently, there is no consensus on what it is. The author has proposed a minimal assumptions model for the dynamics of post-attachment chromosome motions based on nanoscale electrostatics. Given the electrical properties of tubulin and the dynamic instability of microtubules, it is possible to account for prometaphase post-attachment, metaphase, and anaphase chromosome motions within a comprehensive model. The model addresses all of the following in a unified manner: Efficiency of aster and spindle assembly and the motive force for the motion of asters and forming half-spindles. Chromatid pair attachment. Motion of monovalently attached chromatid pairs. Motion of bivalently attached chromatid pairs and chromosome congression. Metaphase chromatid pair oscillations. Chromatid separation and anaphase-A chromosome motion. Anaphase-B pole separation. An ab-initio calculation of the maximum tension force exerted by a microtubule during mitosis that falls within the experimental range. Poleward force generation of chromosomes at poles with associated microtubule flux.
Electrostatic Considerations in Mitosis
Identifying the motive force is central to explaining chromosome motions during mitosis. Presently, there is no consensus on what it is. The author has proposed a minimal assumptions model for the dynamics of post-attachment chromosome motions based on nanoscale electrostatics. Given the electrical properties of tubulin and the dynamic instability of microtubules, it is possible to account for prometaphase post-attachment, metaphase, and anaphase chromosome motions within a comprehensive model. The model addresses all of the following in a unified manner: Efficiency of aster and spindle assembly and the motive force for the motion of asters and forming half-spindles. Chromatid pair attachment. Motion of monovalently attached chromatid pairs. Motion of bivalently attached chromatid pairs and chromosome congression. Metaphase chromatid pair oscillations. Chromatid separation and anaphase-A chromosome motion. Anaphase-B pole separation. An ab-initio calculation of the maximum tension force exerted by a microtubule during mitosis that falls within the experimental range. Poleward force generation of chromosomes at poles with associated microtubule flux.
Water Trips
Il volume vuole fare luce sullo stato dell'acqua in Italia, modello di quanto sta succedendo nel pianeta. Il nostro infatti 癡 il un paese strano: pur essendo ricchissimo di acqua, potrebbe raggiungere il collasso idrico nel 2015. Perch矇 i fiumi e i laghi si prosciugano? Per lo stesso motivo per cui le citt? si inondano: qualcuno ha toccato le nostre riserve idriche, gli equilibri si sono scomposti e la scienza sta cercando di ricomporre il mosaico. Il libro, tramite dati e storie, spiega alcuni dei meccanismi che hanno rovinato gli equilibri delle acque dolci e propone ai lettori dei consigli di viaggio, nella convinzione che tutti debbano esplorare la propria acqua. La crisi idrica, infatti, 癡 un problema globale che per簷 pu簷 essere risolto solo a livello locale, con la conoscenza ed il rispetto degli ecosistemi acquatici.
Machine Learning Methods in the Environmental Sciences
Machine learning methods originated from artificial intelligence and are now used in various fields in environmental sciences today. This is the first single-authored textbook providing a unified treatment of machine learning methods and their applications in the environmental sciences. Due to their powerful nonlinear modeling capability, machine learning methods today are used in satellite data processing, general circulation models(GCM), weather and climate prediction, air quality forecasting, analysis and modeling of environmental data, oceanographic and hydrological forecasting, ecological modeling, and monitoring of snow, ice and forests. The book includes end-of-chapter review questions and an appendix listing web sites for downloading computer code and data sources. A resources website containing datasets for exercises, and password-protected solutions are available. The book is suitable for first-year graduate students and advanced undergraduates. It is also valuable for researchers and practitioners in environmental sciences interested in applying these new methods to their own work. Preface Excerpt Machine learning is a major subfield in computational intelligence (also called artificial intelligence). Its main objective is to use computational methods to extract information from data. Neural network methods, generally regarded as forming the first wave of breakthrough in machine learning, became popular in the late 1980s, while kernel methods arrived in a second wave in the second half of the 1990s. This is the first single-authored textbook to give a unified treatment of machine learning methods and their applications in the environmental sciences. Machine learning methods began to infiltrate the environmental sciences in the 1990s. Today, thanks to their powerful nonlinear modeling capability, they are no longer an exotic fringe species, as they are heavily used in satellite data processing, in general circulation models (GCM), in weather and climate prediction, air quality forecasting, analysis and modeling of environmental data, oceanographic and hydrological forecasting, ecological modeling, and in the monitoring of snow, ice and forests, etc. This book presents machine learning methods and their applications in the environmental sciences (including satellite remote sensing, atmospheric science, climate science, oceanography, hydrology and ecology), written at a level suitable for beginning graduate students and advanced undergraduates. It is also valuable for researchers and practitioners in environmental sciences interested in applying these new methods to their own work. Chapters 1-3, intended mainly as background material for students, cover the standard statistical methods used in environmental sciences. The machine learning methods of chapters 4-12 provide powerful nonlinear generalizations for many of these standard linear statistical methods. End-of-chapter review questions are included, allowing readers to develop their problem-solving skills and monitor their understanding of the material presented. An appendix lists websites available for downloading computer code and data sources. A resources website is available containing datasets for exercises, and additional material to keep the book completely up-to-date. About the Author WILLIAM W. HSIEH is a Professor in the Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences and in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, as well as Chair of the Atmospheric Science Programme, at the University of British Columbia. He is internationally known for his pioneering work in developing and applying machine learning methods in environmental sciences. He has published over 80 peer-reviewed journal publications covering areas of climate variability, machine learning, oceanography, atmospheric science and hydrology.
When the Planet Rages
In New England, 1816 was called the Year Without a Summer. Crops failed throughout America and, in Western Europe, it was even worse, with food riots and armed groups raiding bakeries and grain markets. All this turmoil followed a catastrophic volcanic eruption--a year earlier on the other side of the world--the eruption of Tambora, a blast heard almost a thousand miles away. In When the Planet Rages, Charles Officer and Jake Page describe some of the great events of environmental history, from calamities such as the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 (the greatest in recorded history) and the ice ages, to recent man-made disasters such as Chernobyl, acid rain, and the depletion of the ozone layer. Officer and Page provide fascinating discussions of meteorites and comets; of the demise of mammoths, mastodons, and dinosaurs; and of great floods that have swept the earth. But they also show that human activity can make trouble for nature, discussing the depletion of natural resources (we burn coal and oil at millions of times their natural rate of production), air pollution in Los Angeles and London (where the Killer Smog of 1952 caused the death of some four thousand people), and the pollution of major waterways, like the Chesapeake Bay and Lake Erie. For the paperback edition, the authors have included a new preface, have added material on the recent Sichuan, China earthquake, the Indian Ocean Tsunami, and Hurricane Katrina, and discuss such topics as of the (un)predictability of symptoms of global warming. Ranging from the monumental eruption at Krakatoa to industrial disasters such as the mercury poisoning in Japan's Minamata Bay, When the Planet Rages will engage anyone concerned with the environment and the natural world.
Ethical Futures
In an ever changing interconnected world, the agriculture and food system faces constant challenges in many forms, such as the impacts of climate change, uncertainty surrounding the use of novel technologies and the emergence of new zoonotic diseases. Alongside these challenges professionals working in the food system are faced with opportunities to improve food production and distribution. As decision-makers attempt to balance these threats and opportunities in order to secure more sustainable production systems, the key question that arises is: What do we envisage as the future for agriculture and food production? With numerous voices advocating different and sometimes conflicting approaches, ranging from organic farming to wider use of GMOs through in vitro meat production, this discussion of the future raises significant ethical questions. The contributions in this book bring together a diverse group of authors who explore a set of themes relating to the ethical dimensions of the agriculture and food futures, including the role of novel technologies, the potential issues raised by the use of biofuels, the ethics of future animal production systems, concepts of global food security, as well as chapters on food governance priorities and educational aspects. It is intended that this volume serves as an interesting collection and acts as a source of stimulation that will contribute to wider debate and reflection on the future of the agriculture and food system.
The Machinery of Life
Imagine that we had some way to look directly at the molecules in a living organism. An x-ray microscope would do the trick, or since we're dreaming, perhaps an Asimov-style nanosubmarine (unfortunately, neither is currently feasible). Think of the wonders we could witness firsthand: antibodies atta- ing a virus, electrical signals racing down nerve fibers, proteins building new strands of DNA. Many of the questions puzzling the current cadre of sci- tists would be answered at a glance. But the nanoscale world of molecules is separated from our everyday world of experience by a daunting million-fold difference in size, so the world of molecules is completely invisible. I created the illustrations in this book to help bridge this gulf and allow us to see the molecular structure of cells, if not directly, then in an artistic rendition. I have included two types of illustrations with this goal in mind: watercolor paintings which magnify a small portion of a living cell by one million times, showing the arrangement of molecules inside, and comput- generated pictures, which show the atomic details of individual molecules. In this second edition of The Machinery of Life, these illustrations are presented in full color, and they incorporate many of the exciting scientific advances of the 15 years since the first edition.
Earth: The Sequel
The forecasts are grim and time is running out, but that s not the end of the story. In this book, Fred Krupp, longtime president of Environmental Defense Fund, brings a surprisingly hopeful message: We can solve global warming. And in doing so, we will build the new industries, jobs, and fortunes of the twenty-first century.In these pages the reader will encounter the bold innovators and investors who are reinventing energy and the ways we use it. These entrepreneurs are poised to remake the world s biggest business and save the planet if America s political leaders give them a fair chance to compete."
Sugarcane Ethanol
"Climate change is a challenge facing human life. It will change mobility and asks for new energy solutions. Bioenergy has gained increased attention as an alternative to fossil fuels. Energy based on renewable sources may offer part of the solution. Bio ethanol based on sugar cane offers advantages to people, the environment and the economy. Not surprisingly, governments currently enact powerful incentives for the development and exploitation of bio ethanol.However, every inch we come closer to this achievement, evokes more scepticism. Many questions are raised relating to whether sugar cane is really a sustainable solution. Still much is unknown about the net release of carbon dioxide and what the impacts of sugar cane expansion are on green house gas emissions.This book looks at the scientific base of the debate on sugar cane bio ethanol. Authors from Europe, Brazil and the USA capture many aspects of what is known and address assumptions while not denying that still much is unknown. It covers impacts on climate change, land use, sustainability and market demands. This publication discusses public policy impacts, technology developments, the fuel-food dilemma and the millennium development goals. This makes this publication unique and extremely relevant for policymakers, scientists and the private energy sector worldwide."
The Hot Topic
Last year, awareness about global warming reached a tipping point. Now one of the most dynamic writers and one of the most respected scientists in the field of climate change offer the first concise guide to both the problems and the solutions. Guiding us past a blizzard of information and misinformation, Gabrielle Walker and Sir David King explain the science of warming, the most cutting-edge technological solutions from small to large, and the national and international politics that will affect our efforts. While there have been many other books about the problem of global warming, none has addressed what we can and should do about it so clearly and persuasively, with no spin, no agenda, and no exaggeration. Neither Walker nor King is an activist or politician, and theirs is not a generic green call to arms. Instead they propose specific ideas to fix a very specific problem. Most important, they offer hope: This is a serious issue, perhaps the most serious that humanity has ever faced. But we can still do something about it. And they'll show us how.
Survival
This fascinating and accessible book examines the survival of the human race from a broad range of viewpoints. Through in-depth examinations of a number of very distinct aspects of human life, the book covers topics ranging from the preservation of Empires, to the challenges of maintaining cultural identity, the sufferings inflicted by famine, disease and natural disasters, the opportunities for increased longevity and the threats presented by climate change. The chapters draw from the expertise of those in the arts and humanities, as well as the social, physical and biological sciences. Following in the footsteps of Charles Darwin with his thoughts of the Survival of the Fittest, each chapter explores strategies which may be adopted to assist us in our individual struggle for existence and to preserve and indeed improve our collective lifestyles.
Unstoppable Global Warming
Singer and Avery present-in popular language supported by in-depth scientific evidence-the compelling concept that global temperatures have been rising mostly or entirely because of a natural cycle. Unstoppable Global Warming explains why we're warming, why it's not very dangerous, and why we can't stop it anyway.
Fundamentals of Fluvial Geomorphology
Rivers are significant geomorphological agents, they show an amazing diversity of form and behaviour and transfer water and sediment from the land surface to the oceans. This book examines how river systems respond to environmental change and why this understanding is needed for successful river management. Highly dynamic in nature, river channels adjust and evolve over timescales that range from hours to tens of thousands of years or more, and are found in a wide range of environments.This book provides a comprehensive overview of recent developments in river channel management, clearly illustrating why an understanding of fluvial geomorphology is vital in channel preservation, environmentally sensitive design and the restoration of degraded river channels. It covers: flow and sediment regimes: flow generation; flow regimes; sediment sources, transfer and yield channel processes: flow characteristics; processes of erosion and sediment transport; interactions between flow and the channel boundary; deposition channel form and behaviour: controls on channel form; channel adjustments; floodplain development; form and behaviour of alluvial and bedrock channels response to change: how channels have responded to past environmental change; impacts of human activity; reconstructing past changes river management: the fluvial hydrosystem; environmental degradation; environmentally sensitive engineering techniques; river restoration; the role of the fluvial geomorphologist. Fundamentals of Fluvial Geomorphology is an indispensable text for undergraduate students. It provides straightforward explanations for important concepts and mathematical formulae, backed up with conceptual diagrams and appropriate examples from around the world to show what they actually mean and why they are important. A colour plate section also shows spectacular examples of fluvial diversity.
Nature's Due
By an acclaimed author in his field Challenges the ideas of our modern scientific culture Far-reaching consequences for how we understand and relate to the natural world Our scientific culture, which gave birth to modern technology, is in desperate need of change. Science has largely meant groups of specialists working in separate disciplines, seeking answers to narrowly defined questions which have little or nothing to do with the living world. The last few years, however, have seen a shift to a more integrated, holistic approach to how we view and understand our world. There is still much work to be done. Most modern people have come to accept a fragmented culture whereby science isolates us from the natural world. As a result, we feel we can govern it and dominate it as we please. Brian Goodwin, acclaimed author of How the Leopard Changed Its Spots, argues for a view of nature as complex, interrelated networks of relationships. He proposes that, in order for us to once again work with nature to achieve true sustainability on our planet, we need to adopt a new science, new art, new design, new economics and new patterns of responsibility. We must be willing to pay nature its due: to recognise what we owe to the natural world and resist exploiting it solely for our own ends.This is an ambitious, wide-ranging book with far-reaching consequences, and will be essential reading for all those interested in how nature and human culture can co-exist in the future.
Deep Water
A Discover Magazine Top Science Book of the Year A Northern California Book Award Finalist There are more than 45,000 of them in the world. They have altered the speed of the planet's rotation, the tilt of its axis, and the shape of its gravitational field. They influence landscapes and societies. They are dams, and in Deep Water, Jacques Leslie offers an incisive, searching, and beautifully written account of the emerging crisis over dams and the world's water. Reporting in the tradition of John McPhee and Peter Matthiessen, Leslie examines the crisis through the lives of three people: Medha Patkar, the world's foremost anti-dam activist; Thayer Scudder, an American anthropologist; and Don Blackmore, an Australian water manager. In each of these engrossing portraits, Leslie shows how dams seduce national leaders with seeming bounties of water and power but end up producing blights on the citizenry and landscape. Deep Water is an eloquent and important book about the water crisis and a startling look at the fate of our planet.
Thin Ice
"One of the best books yet published on climate change . . . The best compact history of the science of global warming I have read."--Bill McKibben, The New York Review of Books The world's premier climatologist, Lonnie Thompson has been risking his career and life on the highest and most remote ice caps along the equator, in search of clues to the history of climate change. His most innovative work has taken place on these mountain glaciers, where he collects ice cores that provide detailed information about climate history, reaching back 750,000 years. To gather significant data Thompson has spent more time in the death zone--the environment above eighteen thousand feet--than any man who has ever lived. Scientist and expert climber Mark Bowen joined Thompson's crew on several expeditions; his exciting and brilliantly detailed narrative takes the reader deep inside retreating glaciers from China, across South America, and to Africa to unravel the mysteries of climate. Most important, we learn what Thompson's hard-won data reveals about global warming, the past, and the earth's probable future.
The Little Green Handbook
Published for the first time in the United States, The Little Green Handbook is a unique reference work that illustrates the most important global developments facing us today, explains them, and suggests area for positive change. It relates physical trends to social and political repercussions, drawing together evidence from many interrelated fields to explain the science behind the news stories, sound bytes, and cocktail-party banter. Just how serious are our environmental problems? Are we doing enough to deal with them? How many people can the planet sustain? What are the long-term effects of continued environmental damage? How fast is the process of global warming? What are the implications of our continued dependence on fossil fuels? The Little Green Handbook has the answers. This user-friendly sourcebook is filled with up-to-date facts and figures, making complex but vitally important ideas simple. It is our duty to ensure a sustainable future for our children; The Little Green Handbook gives us the information we need to make this possible.
Unsustainable
In direct language, Unsustainable explains the double bind in which humanity now finds itself - an environmental crisis that is escalating year on year, and a human and social crisis of poverty and inequality that is also growing increasingly worse. Aimed at a concerned, popular audience, including both budding social activists and young people studying the environment and international development, the book explains how these twin crises share the same historical roots. Brilliantly combining a huge amount of up-to-date information, visual charts, and clear explanation, Hossay shows step by step how a particular historical path of colonialism, capitalist development and industrial growth has brought us to this state. He shows how current attempts to develop effective environmental policies and to promote sustainable and socially just development internationally are being stymied by free-market forces, corporate-centered globalization, and the policies and actions of key international institutions. The very structure of our global order is unsustainable. There are no simple answers. Changing our own behavior is important, but fundamentally inadequate. Hossay argues that only a fundamental restructuring of the way we do business will save us from environmental and human catastrophe. And he suggests ways in which we can work for such changes.
Silent Snow
Traditionally thought of as the last great unspoiled territory on Earth, the Arctic is in reality home to some of the most contaminated people and animals on the planet. Awarded a major grant to conduct an exhaustive study of the deteriorating environment of the Arctic by the Pew Charitable Trusts (the first time Pew has given such a grant to a journalist), Los Angeles Times environmental reporter Marla Cone traveled across the Arctic, from Greenland to the Aleutian Islands, to find out why the Arctic is toxic. Silent Snow is not only a scientific journey, but a personal one. Whether hunting giant bowhead whales with native Alaskans who are struggling to protect their livelihood, or tracking endangered polar bears in Norway, Cone reports with an insider's eye on the dangers of pollution to native peoples and ecosystems, how Arctic cultures are adapting to this pollution, and what solutions will prevent the crisis from getting worse.
Inventing for the Environment
Essays by historians and practioners on how invention can benefit the environment.This ambitious book describes the many ways in which invention affects the environment (here defined broadly to include all forms of interaction between humans and nature). The book starts with nature itself and then leads readers to examine the built environment and then specific technologies in areas such as public health and energy.Each part focuses on a single environmental issue. Topics range widely, from the role of innovation in urban landscapes to the relationship among technological innovation, public health, and the environment. Each part features an essay by a historian, an essay by a practitioner, and a "portrait of innovation" describing an individual whose work has made a difference. The mixture of historians and practitioners is critical because statements about the environment inevitably measure present and future conditions against those of the past. Early in the industrial revolution, smoke stacks were symbols of prosperity; at its end they were regarded as signs of pollution. Historical examples can also lead to the rediscovery of an old technology, as in the revival of straw bale construction. As it explores the history of invention for the environment, the book suggests many new ways to put the past to use for the common good.
Utilisation Of Grazed Grass In Temperate Animal Systems
Leading authorities from wide geographical regions of the globe will review the most up-to-date information in relation to temperate grasslands. Topics covered are: nutritive value of pasture; plant characteristics conducive to high animal intake and performance; modelling of both grass growth and animal production and intake in grazing systems; optimising financial returns from grazing; decision support systems; optimal animal breeds and traits for grazing systems; challenges and opportunities for animal production in the immediate future .In addition, short papers will present the most recent research on the above mentioned topics. One paper will present a comprehensive overview of animal production from pasture in Ireland This book will be of interest to grassland and ruminant production scientists, mathematical modellers working on grazing systems, extension workers, students of agriculture and animal production and progressive livestock farmers.
Social Learning In Environmental Management
Social Learning in Environmental Management explores and expands the approaches to collective learning most needed to help individuals, communities, experts and governments work together to achieve greater social and ecological sustainability. It provides practical frameworks and case studies to assist environmental managers in building partnerships that can support learning and action on issues arising from human impacts on the life-support systems of our planet. In this book, social learning frameworks and case studies address the three areas of collaboration, community, government and professional, in some detail. The resulting guidelines and their practical applications provide key source material for undergraduate and postgraduate professional education in the fields of social and environmental sciences, political science, planning, geography and urban studies, and also for professionals in environmental management.
Outgrowing The Earth
Ever since 9/11, many have considered al Queda to be the leading threat to global security, but falling water tables in countries that contain more than half the world's people and rising temperatures worldwide pose a far more serious threat. Spreading water shortages and crop-withering heat waves are shrinking grain harvests in more and more countries, making it difficult for the world's farmers to feed 70 million more people each year. The risk is that tightening food supplies could drive up food prices, destabilizing governments in low-income grain-importing countries and disrupting global economic progress. Future security, Brown says, now depends on raising water productivity, stabilizing climate by moving beyond fossil fuels, and stabilizing population by filling the family planning gap and educating young people everywhere. If Osama bin Laden and his colleagues succeed in diverting our attention from the real threats to our future security, they may reach their goals for reasons that even they have not imagined.
The Long Summer
For more than a century we've known that much of human evolution occurred in an Ice Age. Starting about 15,000 years ago, temperatures began to rise, the glaciers receded, and sea levels rose. The rise of human civilization and all of recorded history occurred in this warm period, known as the Holocene. Until very recently we had no detailed record of climate changes during the Holocene. Now we do. In this engrossing and captivating look at the human effects of climate variability, Brian Fagan shows how climate functioned as what the historian Paul Kennedy described as one of the "deeper transformations" of history -- a more important historical factor than we understand.
Common Waters, Diverging Streams
This book is a firsthand investigation into water management in a fast-growing region of the arid American West. It presents three states that have adopted the conjunctive management of groundwater and surface water to make resources go further in serving people and the environment. Yet conjunctive management has followed a different history, been practiced differently, and produced different outcomes in each state. The authors question why different results have emerged from neighbors trying to solve similar problems with the same policy reform. Common Waters, Diverging Streams makes several important contributions to policy literature and policymaking. The first book on conjunctive water management, it describes how the policy came into existence, how it is practiced, what it does and does not accomplish, and how institutional arrangements affect its application. A second contribution is the book's clear and persuasive links between institutions and policy outcomes. Scholars often declare that institutions matter, but few articles or books provide an explicit case study of how policy linkages work in actual practice. In contrast, Blomquist, Schlager, and Heikkila show how diverging courses in conjunctive water management can be explained by state laws and regulations, legal doctrines, the organizations governing and managing water supplies, and the division of authority between state and local government. Not only do these institutional structures make conjunctive management easier or harder to achieve, but they influence the kinds of problems people try to solve and the purposes for which they attempt conjunctive management.
