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The Environmental Pendulum: A Quest for the Truth about Toxic Chemicals, Human Health, and Environmental Protection
by R. Allan FreezeThe pendulum of environmental policy swings from one extreme to the other, depending on which camp is in power and who has the ear of the media. Underkill is followed by overkill. Concern breeds action; disillusion breeds reaction. The Environmental Pendulum provides a thoughtful and evenhanded assessment of this conflict. Tens of thousands of sites across the country are contaminated with toxic chemicals. Environmentalists warn us that this legacy of carelessness is seriously affecting both human health and the ecological balance of nature. They point out that even improved industrial practices will not eliminate future chemical releases to the environment. Their demand for regulatory control has received wide public support and led to the passage of the Superfund legislation in 1980. Now, after twenty years, the value of the Superfund program is being challenged by corporate America, which argues that excessive cleanup costs have the potential to bankrupt the nation. R. Allan Freeze outlines the difficulties associated with the management of hazardous waste and offers a balanced account of the controversy over the role of environmental contamination in human health. Freeze clarifies what matters and what doesn't with respect to chemical contaminants in the environment, arguing that environmental policies should be based on an accurate appraisal of the risks associated with these toxins. He concludes the book with a brilliant summation of the good news and the bad news of environmental pollution, describing what can and can't be done to bring the situation under control.
The Environmental Performance of Tall Buildings
by Joana Carla GoncalvesTall buildings represent one of the most energy-intensive architectural typologies, while at the same time offering the high density work and living conditions that many believe will an important constituent of future sustainable communities. How, then, can their environmental impact be lessened? This insightful book takes in: an overview of the tall building and its impacts (looking at cityscape, place, mobility, microclimate, energy and economics) design principles and the development of the sustainable tall building global perspectives (covering North and South America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia) detailed, qualitative case studies of buildings in design and operation the future for sustainable tall buildings. Not simply another showcase for future utopian designs and ideals, the information presented here is based on hard research from operating buildings. Highly illustrated and combining analysis with solid detail for practice, this is essential reading for architects, building engineers, design consultants, retrofitters and urban planners interested in or working with tall buildings, and researchers/students in these disciplines.
The Environmental Vision of Thomas Merton (Culture Of The Land Ser.)
by Monica Weis“Delightful . . . a superb guide to the ecological themes of Merton’s life and writings.” ?The Christian CenturyNature was always vital in Thomas Merton’s life, from the long hours he spent as a child watching his father paint landscapes in the fresh air, to his final years of solitude in the hermitage at Our Lady of Gethsemani, where he contemplated and wrote about the beauty of his surroundings. Throughout his life, Merton’s study of the natural world shaped his spirituality in profound ways, and he was one of the first writers to raise concern about ecological issues that have become critical in recent years.In The Environmental Vision of Thomas Merton, Monica Weis suggests that Merton’s interest in nature, which developed significantly during his years at the Abbey of Gethsemani, laid the foundation for his growing environmental consciousness. Tracing Merton’s awareness of the natural world from his childhood to the final years of his life, Weis explores his deepening sense of place and desire for solitude, his love and responsibility for all living things, and his evolving ecological awareness.“Explains how Merton evolved from a nature enthusiast . . . to one of the world’s most respected ecological stewards.” ?Louisville Courier Journal
The Environments of the Sun and the Stars
by Coralie Neiner Jean-Pierre RozelotBased on lectures given at a CNRS summer school in France, this book covers many aspects of stellar environments (both observational and theoretical) and offers a broad overview of the field. More specifically, Part I of the book focuses on the Sun, the properties of the ejected plasma, of the solar wind and on space weather. The second part deals with tides in planetary systems and in binary stellar systems, as well as with interactions in massive binary stars as seen by interferometry. Finally the chapters of Part III discuss the environments of young or evolved stars, stellar winds, agnetic fields and disks. With its broad approach the book will provide advanced students as well as researchers with a good overview of the environments of the Sun and the stars.
The Epochs of Nature
by Georges-Louis Leclerc Libby Robin Jan Zalasiewicz Anne-Sophie Milon Mateusz Zalasiewicz Sverker Sörlin Jacques GrinevaldGeorges-Louis Leclerc, le comte de Buffon's The Epochs of Nature, originally published as Les Époques de la Nature in 1778, is one of the first great popular science books, a work of style and insight that was devoured by Catherine the Great of Russia and influenced Humboldt, Darwin, Lyell, Vernadsky, and many other renowned scientists. It is the first geological history of the world, stretching from the Earth’s origins to its foreseen end, and though Buffon was limited by the scientific knowledge of his era—the substance of the Earth was not, as he asserts, dragged out of the sun by a giant comet, nor is the sun’s heat generated by tidal forces—many of his deductions appear today as startling insights. And yet, The Epochs of Nature has never before been available in its entirety in English—until now. In seven epochs, Buffon reveals the main features of an evolving Earth, from its hard rock substrate to the sedimentary layers on top, from the minerals and fossils found within these layers to volcanoes, earthquakes, and rises and falls in sea level—and he even touches on age-old mysteries like why the sun shines. In one of many moments of striking scientific prescience, Buffon details evidence for species extinction a generation before Cuvier’s more famous assertion of the phenomenon. His seventh and final epoch does nothing less than offer the first geological glimpse of the idea that humans are altering the very foundations of the Earth—an idea of remarkable resonance as we debate the designation of another epoch: the Anthropocene. Also featuring Buffon’s extensive “Notes Justificatives,” in which he offers further evidence to support his assertions (and discusses vanished monstrous North American beasts—what we know as mastodons—as well as the potential existence of human giants), plus an enlightening introduction by editor and translator Jan Zalasiewicz and historians of science Sverker Sörlin, Libby Robin, and Jacques Grinevald, this extraordinary new translation revives Buffon’s quite literally groundbreaking work for a new age.
The Equatorial Glaciers of New Guinea
by James A. Peterson Uwe Radok Geoffrey S. Hope Ian AllisonThe Equatorial Glaciers of New Guinea includes the Results of the 1971-1973 Australian Universities' Expeditions to Irian Jaya: Survey, Glaciology, Meteorology, Biology and Paleoenvironments.
The Equitable Forest: Diversity, Community, and Resource Management
by Carol J. Pierce ColferWhile there continues to be refinement in defining and assessing sustainable management, there remains the urgent need for policies that create the conditions that support sustainability and can halt or slow destructive practices already underway. Carol Colfer and her contributors maintain that standardized solutions to forest problems from afar have failed to address both human and environmental needs. Such approaches, they argue, often neglect the knowledge that local stakeholders have accumulated over generations as forest managers and do not address issues involving the diversity and well-being of groups within communities. The contributors note that these problems persist despite clear evidence that equity and social relationships, including gender roles, are important factors in the ways that communities adapt to change and manage forest resources overall. The Equitable Forest offers an alternative to traditional, externally organized strategies for forest management. Termed adaptive collaborative management (ACM), the approach tries to better acknowledge the diversity, complexity, and unpredictability of human and natural systems. ACM works to strengthen local institutions and use the knowledge and capacity of groups in local communities to enhance the health and well-being of both forests and the people who live in and around them. The Equitable Forest provides a detailed explanation of the descriptive, analytical, and methodological tools of ACM, along with accounts of early stages of its implementation in tropical regions of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Although the contributors make it clear that it is too soon to evaluate the efficacy of ACM, their work is supported by evidence that rural communities do make important contributions when involved in formal forest management; that management strategies are most effective when flexible and tailored to local contexts; and that efforts by outside governmental and nongovernmental organizations to support local management are feasible from the policymaking perspective, and desirable for their impact on human, economic, and environmental well-being.
The Essence of Turbulence as a Physical Phenomenon: With Emphasis On Issues Of Paradigmatic Nature
by Arkady TsinoberNow in its second edition, this book clearly, concisely and comprehensively outlines the essence of turbulence. In view of the absence of a theory based on first principles and adequate tools to handle the problem, the “essence” of turbulence, i.e. what turbulence really is from a fundamental point of view, is understood empirically through observations from nature, laboratories and direct numerical simulations rather than explained by means of conventional formalistic aspects, models, etc., resulting in pertinent issues being described at a highly theoretical level in spite of the mentioned lack of theory.As such, the book highlights and critically reexamines fundamental issues, especially those of paradigmatic nature, related to conceptual and problematic aspects, key misconceptions and unresolved matters, and discusses why the problem is so difficult. As in the previous edition, the focus on fundamental issues is also a consequence of the view that without corresponding advances in fundamental aspects there is little chance of progress in any applications. More generally there is a desperate need for physical fundamentals of a great variety of processes in nature and technology in which turbulence plays a central role. Turbulence is omnipresent throughout the natural sciences and technology, but despite the vast sea of information available the book retains its brevity without oversimplifications, making it of interest to a broad audience.
The Essence of Turbulence as a Physical Phenomenon: With Emphasis on Issues of Paradigmatic Nature
by Arkady TsinoberThis book critically reexamines what turbulence really is, from a fundamental point of view and based on observations from nature, laboratories, and direct numerical simulations. It includes critical assessments and a comparative analysis of the key developments, their evolution and failures, along with key misconceptions and outdated paradigms. The main emphasis is on conceptual and problematic aspects, physical phenomena, observations, misconceptions and unresolved issues rather than on conventional formalistic aspects, models, etc. Apart from the obvious fundamental importance of turbulent flows, this emphasis stems from the basic premise that without corresponding progress in fundamental aspects there is little chance for progress in applications such as drag reduction, mixing, control and modeling of turbulence. More generally, there is also a desperate need to grasp the physical fundamentals of the technological processes in which turbulence plays a central role.
The Essential Agrarian Reader: The Future of Culture, Community, and the Land
by Barbara Kingsolver Norman WirzbaAgrarian philosophy, a compelling worldview with advocates around the globe, encourages us to develop practices and policies that promote the sustainable health of the land, community, and culture. <P><P>In this remarkable anthology are fifteen essays from Wendell Berry, Vandana Shiva, Wes Jackson, Gene Logsdon, Brian Donahue, Eric Freyfogle, David Orr, and others. The Essential Agrarian Reader calls us to celebrate the gifts of the earth, through honest work and respect for the land.
The Essential Agrarian Reader: The Future of Culture, Community, and the Land
by Norman Wirzba“Eminently quotable and passionately argued essays” on living in harmony with the earth and each other, by Wes Jackson, Wendell Berry, and more (Library Journal, starred review).Includes a Foreword by Barbara KingsolverA compelling worldview with advocates from around the globe, agrarianism challenges the shortcomings of our industrial and technological economy. Not simply focused on farming, the agrarian outlook encourages us to develop practices and policies that promote the health of land, community, and culture. Agrarianism reminds us that no matter how urban we become, our survival will always be inextricably linked to the precious resources of soil, water, and air.Combining fresh insights from the disciplines of education, law, history, urban and regional planning, economics, philosophy, religion, ecology, politics, and agriculture, these original essays develop a sophisticated critique of our culture’s current relationship to the land, while offering practical alternatives. Leading agrarians, including Wendell Berry, Vandana Shiva, Wes Jackson, Gene Logsdon, Brian Donahue, Eric Freyfogle, and David Orr, explain how our goals should be redirected toward genuinely sustainable communities. These writers call us to an honest accounting and correction of our often-destructive ways. They suggest how our society can take practical steps toward integrating soils, watersheds, forests, wildlife, urban areas, and human populations into one great system—a responsible flourishing of our world and culture.
The Essential Atlas of the Bible (NIV Application Commentary Resources)
by Carl G. RasmussenEmbark on a fascinating journey through the lands where key biblical events unfolded. Visit the places where Jesus preached, Moses journeyed, and Paul spread the word of God - all from the comfort of your home with The Essential Atlas of the Bible.With nearly 200 visually captivating, multidimensional maps and full-color images, this comprehensive atlas will deepen your understanding of biblical lands, history, and spirituality. Leveraging highly accurate mapping technologies, it provides an up-to-date geographical perspective that makes Scripture study both engaging and impactful.Discover multifaceted insights through innovative chronological charts covering historical backgrounds, regions, weather, and roads of the Bible's world. This full-color atlas is concise yet comprehensive - perfect for Bible scholars, future pilgrims to the Holy Land, or curious readers seeking greater insight into places frequently mentioned in the Old and New Testaments.The Essential Atlas of the Bible goes beyond just providing information; it takes you on a pilgrimage across time, enriching every step of your Bible study journey where you will discover a visual experience of the biblical world.Enhance your understanding and deepen your faith - don't wait, grab your copy of The Essential Atlas of the Bible today.
The Estate House Re-designed
by Anthony SullyThe book demonstrates how new houses can be designed to be more sustainable and ergonomic. Specifically, it describes a prototype building that could be constructed in the near future. Responding to some of the poor standards of mass estate housing in the UK and its out-of-date space standards, it contributes towards improving the current status quo by describing a house design, including drawings, that can compete with today’s mass housing. The author examines the traditional geometrical reliance on the square in the design of houses and the planning of housing estates and promotes instead the adoption of polygonal forms. This is explained using geometric analysis, diagrams and references to existing housing. These concepts have been developed with reference to technical literature from various companies with one company interested in taking it further. Providing a novel and up-to-date design concept, this book is of value to practitioners and researchers looking to improve the standard of mass housing in the UK. It is also of interest to anyone wishing to build their own house and to manufacturers wanting to move into modern housing technology.
The Eternal Frontier: An Ecological History of North America and Its Peoples
by Tim FlanneryIn "The Eternal Frontier," scientist and historian Flannery tells the story of the geological and biological evolution of the North American continent, from the time of the asteroid strike that ended the age of dinosaurs 65 million years ago, to the present day.
The Eternal Frontier: An Ecological History of North America and Its Peoples
by Tim FlannerySixty-five million years ago, a meteor six miles wide smashed into the Gulf of Mexico, ending the age of dinosaurs and devastating the North American continent. Starting with this catastrophic event, The Eternal Frontier recounts the extraordinary ecological history of North America, showing how the continent originally came into being and eventually transformed into the landscape we know today. This sweeping, multidisciplinary book is history on an epic scale. Tim Flannery, a world-renowned paleontologist, traces the postmeteor rebirth of plants, animals, climate, and landforms. He describes a time when rain forests flourished in Greenland and when giant long-necked camels and fat aquatic rhinos thrived in North America’s golden age. He explores the massive changes wrought by the ice ages and shows how geological and climatic forces shaped both the autumn foliage in New England and the cacti in the Sonoran Desert. As the story moves across vast distances of time and geography, we eventually witness the impact of the human race. Flannery imagines the first humans to have immigrated 14,000 years ago, after the recession of the last ice age, and he explains how the pioneering Clovis hunters exterminated an ice-age fauna, including enormous mammoths and mastodons and half-ton lions. The story continues right up to the present, covering the deforestation of the Northeast, the decimation of the buffalo, and other facets of the impact of frontier settlement and the development of modern industry and commerce. The Eternal Frontier is science writing at its best, combining an enormous wealth of fascinating information with engaging prose that will be accessible to readers of any background.
The Ethical Underpinnings of Climate Economics (Routledge Advances in Climate Change Research)
by Adrian Walsh Säde Hormio Duncan PurvesDespite their obvious importance, the ethical implications of climate change are often neglected in economic evaluations of mitigation and adaptation policies. Economic climate models provide estimates of the value of mitigation benefits, provide understanding of the costs of reducing emissions, and develop tools for making policy choices under uncertainty. They have thus offered theoretical and empirical instruments for the design and implementation of a range of climate policies, but the ethical assumptions included in the calculations are usually left unarticulated. This book, which brings together scholars from both economics and ethical theory, explores the interrelation between climate ethics and economics. Examining a wide range of topics including sustainability, conceptions of value, risk management and the monetization of harm, the book will explore the ethical limitations of economic analysis but will not assume that economic theory cannot accommodate the concerns raised. The aim in part is to identify ethical shortcomings of economic analysis and to propose solutions. Given the on-going role of economics in government thinking on mitigation, a constructive approach is vital if we are to deal adequately with climate change. This volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of environmental ethics, economics, political science, political philosophy and the philosophy of economics.
The Ethics and Politics of Environmental Cost-Benefit Analysis (Routledge Explorations in Environmental Economics)
by Karine NyborgPutting a price tag on the environment is controversial. This book discusses ethical and political aspects of environmental cost-benefit analysis: why controversies must be expected, why they should be taken seriously, and how they can be handled in practice. Cost-benefit analysis is commonly thought of as a method for ranking projects according to their contributions to social welfare. The starting point of the present book is different. Rather than providing a final ranking, the purpose of a project analysis is to enable participants in a democratic decision-making process to make their own well-founded rankings of projects, according to their own normative views. Since ethical and political views differ, the analysis should be useful as factual background for any reasonable social welfare judgement. This purpose faces the analyst with quite different challenges than the purpose of ranking projects. The argument of the book is based on economic theory, but with a strong emphasis on readability and applicability. It is aimed at those – economists and non-economists alike – who use or are faced with cost-benefit analysis and environmental valuation in their work: politicians, employees of ministries and regulatory agencies, students, journalists, consultants and researchers. No particular prior knowledge of economics is required.
The Ethics of Energy Sustainability
by Pamela E. HeckelThis book is an easy to use instructional aide. Explore sustainability issues in contemporary society through a transdisciplinary approach. Chapters include ethics, public resources, public policy, combustion, heat exchangers, nuclear, solar, water, and wind energy. A short summary is presented for each topic, followed by additional topics for research, assignments, and references. The complex assignments require students to grow in their professional judgment.
The Ethics of Global Climate Change
by Denis G. ArnoldGlobal climate change is one of the most daunting ethical and political challenges confronting humanity in the twenty-first century. The intergenerational and transnational ethical issues raised by climate change have been the focus of a significant body of scholarship. In this new collection of essays, leading scholars engage and respond to first-generation scholarship and argue for new ways of thinking about our ethical obligations to present and future generations. Topics addressed in these essays include moral accountability for energy consumption and emissions, egalitarian and libertarian perspectives on mitigation, justice in relation to cap and trade schemes, the ethics of adaptation and the ethical dimensions of the impact of climate change on nature.
The Ethics of Participation in Environmental Field Research: Inclusion, Collaboration, and Transformation (Research and Teaching in Environmental Studies)
by Lydia GibsonLocal participation is increasingly seen as a central and ethical part of environmental research. As such, many environmental efforts are becoming increasingly participatory. Participation, as a string of literature has shown, has many political, economic, social, and epistemic consequences, and ethics is fluid, polyvalent, and contextual. 'Right is right, wrong is wrong' is dangerous rhetoric that centres western experiences and forecloses the myriad realities and relations bundled within and forced upon marginalised experiences. Both participation and ethics – as concepts and praxis – cast decades-long shadows over field research (particularly in anthropology), yet much of these discussions are left at the threshold of interdisciplinary spaces, where participation, traditional and Indigenous knowledge, and co-production are brought in to sanitise and legitimise environmental actions. Where are our lessons learned and what ought we to make of their absence? The first half of this volume offers ethnographic examples that allow us to begin to ask whether participation (in the capitalist machinery and colonial legacies of academic knowledge) is ever even ethical. The second half of the book is dedicated to anti-solutions: refusals to define problems and approaches in fixed, closed terms from which equations, calculations, and solutions can be derived.This book provokes important new discussions about ethical participation in environmental field research by bringing to the fore the fluid nature of both ethics and participation. The volume aims to provide critical intervention for students and researchers across natural and social sciences whose fieldwork includes engagement with local communities and stakeholders, as well as conservation policymakers and practitioners who consult and work with local communities.
The Ethics of Tourism Development (Contemporary Geographies of Leisure, Tourism and Mobility)
by Rosaleen Duffy Mick SmithDrawing upon a variety of important philosophical traditions, this book develops an original perspective on the relations between ethical, economic and aesthetic values in a tourism context. It considers the ethical/political issues arising in many areas of tourism development, including: the profound cultural and environmental impacts on tourist destinations the reciprocity (or lack of) in host-guest relations the (un)fair distribution of benefits and revenues the moral implications of issues such as sex tourism, staged authenticity and travel to oppressive regimes. The book concludes with a detailed investigation of the potential and pitfalls of ecotourism, sustainable tourism and community-based tourism, as examples of what is sometimes termed 'ethical tourism.'Until now, the ethical issues that surround tourism development have received little academic attention. Explaining philosophical arguments without the use of excessive jargon, this fascinating book interweaves theory and practice, aided by the use of text boxes to explain key terms in ethics, politics, and tourism development, and drawing on contemporary case studies from South Africa, Mexico, Zambia, Honduras, Ethiopia and Madagascar.
The Ethnobotany of Eden: Rethinking the Jungle Medicine Narrative
by Robert A. VoeksIn the mysterious and pristine forests of the tropics, a wealth of ethnobotanical panaceas and shamanic knowledge promises cures for everything from cancer and AIDS to the common cold. To access such miracles, we need only to discover and protect these medicinal treasures before they succumb to the corrosive forces of the modern world. A compelling biocultural story, certainly, and a popular perspective on the lands and peoples of equatorial latitudes—but true? Only in part. In The Ethnobotany of Eden, geographer Robert A. Voeks unravels the long lianas of history and occasional strands of truth that gave rise to this irresistible jungle medicine narrative. By exploring the interconnected worlds of anthropology, botany, and geography, Voeks shows that well-intentioned scientists and environmentalists originally crafted the jungle narrative with the primary goal of saving the world’s tropical rainforests from destruction. It was a strategy deployed to address a pressing environmental problem, one that appeared at a propitious point in history just as the Western world was taking a more globalized view of environmental issues. And yet, although supported by science and its practitioners, the story was also underpinned by a persuasive mix of myth, sentimentality, and nostalgia for a long-lost tropical Eden. Resurrecting the fascinating history of plant prospecting in the tropics, from the colonial era to the present day, The Ethnobotany of Eden rewrites with modern science the degradation narrative we’ve built up around tropical forests, revealing the entangled origins of our fables of forest cures.
The Ethos of the Climate Event: Ethical Transformations and Political Subjectivities (Routledge Advances in Climate Change Research)
by Kellan AnfinsonThis book develops a politico-ethical response to climate change that accounts for the novelty and uncertainty that it entails. This volume explores the ethical dimensions of climate change and posits that one must view it as a social construction intimately tied to political issues in order to understand and overcome this environmental challenge. To show how this ethos builds upon the need for new forms of responsiveness, Anfinson analyzes it in terms of four features: commitment, worldly sensitivity, political disposition, and practice. Each of these features is developed by putting four thinkers – Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Schmitt, and Foucault respectively – in conversation with the literature on climate change. In doing so, this book shows how social habits and norms can be transformed through subjective thought and behavior in the context of a global environmental crisis. Presenting a multidisciplinary engagement with the politics, philosophy, and science of climate change, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of climate change, environmental politics, environmental philosophy and environmental humanities.
The European Central Bank as a Sustainability Role Model: Philosophical, Ethical and Economic Perspectives (Sustainable Finance)
by Harald Bolsinger Johannes Hoffmann Bernd VillhauerThis book examines selected actions and investments of the European Central Bank (ECB) from a climate and sustainability standpoint. Shedding new light on the topic from various angles – ethical, philosophical, political, economical and legal – it situates sustainability mainstreaming in the finance and investment field at all levels. The former ECB President Mario Draghi once said that he considered sustainable development and an intact environment to be human rights, and therefore enshrined in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. The acting ECB President Christine Lagarde added that the future path for the climate is uncertain, but it would remain within our power to influence it. However, with all that in mind the ECB’s policy of buying assets as securities is often questionable. This volume analyzes these actions in connection with sustainability, and puts forward practical recommendations for improving the ECB’s investment strategy on its way creating a sustainable financial market.
The European Commission�s Energy and Climate Policy
by Jonas DregerThis book offers a deep insight into the genesis and development of the European Commission's energy and climate legislation, focusing on the interplay of politics and science. How does the Commission react when confronted with knowledge? According to the author, the Commission functions as catalyst transforming knowledge into politics.