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Future Drive: Electric Vehicles And Sustainable Transportation
by Daniel Sperling A. F. Burke Patricia M. Davis Mark A. DelucchiIn Future Drive, Daniel Sperling addresses the adverse energy and environmental consequences of increased travel, and analyzes current initiatives to suggest strategies for creating a more environmentally benign system of transportation. Groundbreaking proposals are constructed around the idea of electric propulsion as the key to a sustainable transportation and energy system. Other essential elements include the ideas that: *improving technology holds more promise than large-scale behavior modification *technology initiatives must be matched with regulatory and policy initiatives *government intervention should be flexible and incentive-based, but should also embrace selective technology-forcing measures *more diversity and experimentation is needed with regard to vehicles and energy technologies Sperling evaluates past and current attempts to influence drivers and vehicle use, and articulates a clear and compelling vision of the future. He formulates a coherent and specific set of principles, strategies, and policies for redirecting the United States and other countries onto a new sustainable pathway.
Future Energy Options from a Systems Perspective
by Aled Jones Nick KingThis book is an exploration of energy and its unique role to date as one of the fundamental enabling and controlling factors in human development and progress at the scale of global civilization, and how it will be fundamental to the type of future that collective humanity is likely to experience. The first section provides a contextual overview of energy and human civilization through a chronological description of how human energy use has evolved over time and led to the current ‘energy bind’. The second section explores what this energy bind might mean for our future energy choices when trying to meet the various challenges of dwindling resources, costs, and climate change, through exploration of three broad systems-based scenarios for the human ‘energy future’. The final section draws conclusions as to which scenario is most achievable and desirable, and what this might mean for longer-term human prospects.
Future Nature: A Vision for Conservation
by W.M. AdamsThe countryside is changing faster than ever. Fifty years of conservation achievements in the UK are now being confronted by a new complexion of economic forces that are driving change in the countryside. At the same time new ideas in conservation are altering the role that conservation is being asked to play in negotiating the transition from past to future. This revised edition of Bill Adams classic work Future Nature tackles the new challenges in the countryside and wildlife conservation head-on through a new Introduction and Postscript with updated arguments about naturalness and our social engagement with nature, and complemented by a new Foreword by Adrian Phillips. Concepts such as biodiversity and sustainability, and changes in our understanding, appreciation and concern for nature, offer unprecedented opportunities. Bill Adams explores the scientific, cultural and economic significance of conservation. He argues that conservation must move beyond the boundaries of parks and reserves to embrace the whole countryside. The importance of conservation for the future is enormous. It holds the potential to create new spaces for nature, both in the landscape and in our lives and imaginations. This factual, beautifully written and thought-provoking book offers a fundamental reassessment of conservation, its importance, and how to achieve it. Published with BANC
Future Primal
by Louis G. HermanHow should we respond to our converging crises of violent conflict, political corruption, and global ecological devastation? In this sweeping, big-picture synthesis, Louis G. Herman argues that for us to create a sustainable, fulfilling future, we need to first look back into our deepest past to recover our core humanity. Important clues for recovery can be found in the lives of traditional San Bushman hunter-gatherers of South Africa, the closest living relatives to the ancestral African population from which all humans descended. Their culture can give us a sense of what life was like during the tens of thousands of years when humans lived in wilderness, without warfare, walled cities, or slavery. Herman suggests we draw from the experience of the San and other earth-based cultures and weave their wisdom together with the scientific story of an evolving universe to help create something radically new -- an earth-centered, planetary politics with the personal truth quest at its heart.
Future Primitive Revisited
by John Zerzan"Zerzan's writing is sharp, uncompromising, and tenacious." -- Derrick Jensen "John Zerzan's importance does not only consist in his brilliant intelligence, his absolute clearness of analysis and his unequalled dialectical synthesis that clarifies even the most complicated questions, but also in the humanity that fills his thoughts of resistance. Future Primitive Revisited is one more precious gift for us all."--Enrico Manicardi, author of Liberi dalla Civiltá (Free from Civilization) "Anyone who travels with his eyes open understands the sense of much of what you have written, and the longer I live the greater my contempt for the opportunists who run governments and dictate our lives with technology."--Paul Theroux "Of course we should go primitive. This doesn't mean abandoning material needs, tools, or skills, but ending our obsession with such concerns. Declaring for community, our true origin: personal autonomy, trust, mutual support in pursuit of all the joys and troubles of life. Society was a trap--massive, demanding, impersonal and debilitating from day one. So hurry back to the community, friends, and welcome all the consequences of such an orientation. The reasons for fear and despair will only multiply if we remain in this brutal and dangerous state of civilization."--Blok 45 publishing, Belgrade As our society is stricken with repeated technological disasters, and the apocalyptic problems that go with them, the "neo-primitivist" essays of John Zerzan seem more relevant than ever. "Future Primitive," the core innovative essay of Future Primitive Revisited, has been out of print for years. This new edition is updated with never-before-printed essays that speak to a youthful political movement and influential writers such as Derrick Jensen and Paul Theroux. An active participant in the contemporary anarchist resurgence, John Zerzan has been an invited speaker at both radical and conventional events on several continents. His weekly Anarchy Radio broadcast streams live on KWVA radio.
Future Remains: A Cabinet of Curiosities for the Anthropocene
by Gregg Mitman Marco Armiero Robert EmmettWhat can a pesticide pump, a jar full of sand, or an old calico print tell us about the Anthropocene—the age of humans? Just as paleontologists look to fossil remains to infer past conditions of life on earth, so might past and present-day objects offer clues to intertwined human and natural histories that shape our planetary futures. In this era of aggressive hydrocarbon extraction, extreme weather, and severe economic disparity, how might certain objects make visible the uneven interplay of economic, material, and social forces that shape relationships among human and nonhuman beings? Future Remains is a thoughtful and creative meditation on these questions. The fifteen objects gathered in this book resemble more the tarots of a fortuneteller than the archaeological finds of an expedition—they speak of planetary futures. Marco Armiero, Robert S. Emmett, and Gregg Mitman have assembled a cabinet of curiosities for the Anthropocene, bringing together a mix of lively essays, creatively chosen objects, and stunning photographs by acclaimed photographer Tim Flach. The result is a book that interrogates the origins, implications, and potential dangers of the Anthropocene and makes us wonder anew about what exactly human history is made of.
Future Sacred: The Connected Creativity of Nature
by Glenn Aparicio Parry Julie J. MorleyReveals how our survival depends on embracing complexity consciousness and relating to nature and all life as sacred • Rejects the “survival of the fittest” narrative in favor of sacred symbiosis, creative cooperation, interdependence and complex thinking • Provides examples from complexity studies, cultural history, philosophy, indigenous spirituality, biomimicry, and ecology to show how nature’s intelligence and creativity abound everywhere • Documents how indigenous cultures lived in relative harmony with nature because they perceived themselves as part of the “ordered whole” of all life In Future Sacred, Julie J. Morley offers a new perspective on the human connection to the cosmos by unveiling the connected creativity and sacred intelligence of nature. She rejects the “survival of the fittest” narrative--the idea that survival requires strife--and offers symbiosis and cooperation as nature’s path forward. She shows how an increasingly complex world demands increasingly complex consciousness. Our survival depends upon embracing “complexity consciousness,” understanding ourselves as part of nature, as well as relating to nature as sacred. Morley begins by documenting how indigenous cultures lived in relative harmony with nature because they perceived themselves as part of the “ordered whole” of all life--until modernity introduced dualistic thinking, thus separating mind from matter, and humans from nature. The author deconstructs the fallacy behind social and neo-Darwinism and the materialist theories of “dead matter” versus those that offer a connection with the sentient mind of nature. She presents evidence from complexity studies, cultural history, philosophy, indigenous spirituality, biomimicry, and ecology, highlighting the idea that nature’s intelligence and creativity abound everywhere--from cells to cetaceans, from hydrogen to humans, from sunflowers to solar panels--and that all sentient beings contribute to the evolution of life as a whole, working together in sacred symbiosis. Morley concludes that our sacred future depends on compassionately understanding and integrating multiple intelligences, seeing relationships and interdependence as fundamental and sacred, as well as honoring the experiences of all sentient beings. Instead of “mastery over nature,” we must shift toward synergy with nature--and with each other as diverse expressions of nature’s creativity.
Future Scenarios
by David HolmgrenIn Future Scenarios, permaculture co-originator and leading sustainability innovator David Holmgren outlines four scenarios that bring to life the likely cultural, political, agricultural, and economic implications of peak oil and climate change, and the generations-long era of "energy descent" that faces us. "Scenario planning," Holmgren explains, "allows us to use stories about the future as a reference point for imagining how particular strategies and structures might thrive, fail, or be transformed." Future Scenarios depicts four very different futures. Each is a permutation of mild or destructive climate change, combined with either slow or severe energy declines. Probable futures, explains Holmgren, range from the relatively benign Green Tech scenario to the near catastrophic Lifeboats scenario. As Adam Grubb, founder of the influential Energy Bulletin Web site, says, "These aren't two-dimensional nightmarish scenarios designed to scare people into environmental action. They are compellingly fleshed-out visions of quite plausible alternative futures, which delve into energy, politics, agriculture, social, and even spiritual trends. What they do help make clear are the best strategies for preparing for and adapting to these possible futures." Future Scenarios provides brilliant and balanced consideration of the world's options and will prove to be one of the most important books of the year.
Future Science Opportunities in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean
by Committee on Future Science Opportunities in Antarctica the Southern OceanAntarctica and the surrounding Southern Ocean remains one of the world's last frontiers. Covering nearly 14 million km² (an area approximately 1. 4 times the size of the United States), Antarctica is the coldest, driest, highest, and windiest continent on Earth. While it is challenging to live and work in this extreme environment, this region offers many opportunities for scientific research. Ever since the first humans set foot on Antarctica a little more than a century ago, the discoveries made there have advanced our scientific knowledge of the region, the world, and the Universe--but there is still much more to learn. However, conducting scientific research in the harsh environmental conditions of Antarctica is profoundly challenging. Substantial resources are needed to establish and maintain the infrastructure needed to provide heat, light, transportation, and drinking water, while at the same time minimizing pollution of the environment and ensuring the safety of researchers. "Future Science Opportunities in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean" suggests actions for the United States to achieve success for the next generation of Antarctic and Southern Ocean science. The report highlights important areas of research by encapsulating each into a single, overarching question. The questions fall into two broad themes: (1) those related to global change, and (2) those related to fundamental discoveries. In addition, the report identified key science questions that will drive research in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean in coming decades, and highlighted opportunities to be leveraged to sustain and improve the U. S. research efforts in the region.
Future Security of the Global Arctic: State Policy, Economic Security And Climate
by Lassi HeininenIn the globalized Arctic there has been a transformation from military security to human security. Climate change, the utilization of Arctic resources and other global challenges have caused the Arctic 'paradox' and a need to redefine security.
Future Sustainable Ecosystems: Complexity, Risk, and Uncertainty (Chapman & Hall/CRC Applied Environmental Statistics #11)
by Nathaniel K NewlandsFuture Sustainable Ecosystems: Complexity, Risk, Uncertainty provides an interdisciplinary, integrative overview of environmental problem-solving using statistics. It shows how statistics can be used to solve diverse environmental and socio-economic problems involving food, water, energy scarcity, and climate change risks. It synthesizes interdisciplinary theory, concepts, definitions, models and findings involved in complex global sustainability problem-solving, making it an essential guide and reference. It includes real-world examples and applications making the book accessible to a broader interdisciplinary readership. Discussions include a broad, integrated perspective on sustainability, integrated risk, multi-scale changes and impacts taking place within ecosystems worldwide. State-of-the-art statistical techniques, including Bayesian hierarchical, spatio-temporal, agent-based and game-theoretic approaches are explored. The author then focuses on the real-world integration of observational and experimental data and its use within statistical models.
Future Transitions in the Mining Industry: Challenges, Controversies and Responses (Routledge Studies of the Extractive Industries and Sustainable Development)
by Tuija Mononen Lasse PeltonenThis volume focuses on mining and the challenges for this industry as it transitions and evolves as the demand for products and responsible and sustainable mining ever increases.Mining is a prerequisite for modern society, yet the industry is often criticized for having many negative environmental and social impacts. The volume explores the challenges, controversies and responses that arise when a society is reliant on the products of mining to maintain their standard of living, yet are simultaneously calling for the implementation of sustainable practices, with many communities also being resistant to mining activities taking place in their own location. Many transitions which present a solution to one problem can often lead to new issues and developments elsewhere. For example, the electrification of vehicles will help to mitigate climate change, but this will simultaneously increase the demand for minerals required for batteries. The acceptance of, or resistance to, mining varies from location to location and across different scales, with key factors relating to the social and environmental impacts and the economic benefits. One common tension revolves around whether local communities really benefit economically from mining activities, and even if they do, they could now be negatively impacted by the digitization of the industry which will naturally lead to a reduction in the number of jobs. This volume explains how transitions of these types are inextricably linked by demand, acceptance and the perception of benefits, and that as the industry evolves, more tensions and controversies will develop.This book will be of great interest to scholars and students of mining and the extractive industries, transitions and sustainable development, as well as to professionals working in natural resource management.
Future Water Priorities for the Nation: Directions For The U. S. Geological Survey Water Mission Area
by Engineering Medicine National Academies of SciencesSolving problems related to use of water resources will be of paramount importance in coming decades as increasing pressure from growing populations, climate change, extreme weather, and aging water-related infrastructure threaten water availability and quality. The Water Mission Area (WMA) of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has a long-established reputation for collecting and delivering high-quality, unbiased scientific information related to the nation’s water resources. WMA observations help inform decisions ranging from rapid responses during emergencies such as hurricanes, floods, and forest fires, to the long-term management of water resources. Produced at the request of USGS, this report identifies the nation’s highest-priority water science and resources challenges over the next 25 years. Future Water Priorities for the Nation summarizes WMA’s current water science and research portfolio, and recommends strategic opportunities for WMA to more effectively address the most pressing challenges.
Future is Urban: Proceedings of the International Conference on FUTURE IS URBAN: Livability, Resilience and Resource Conservation (ICFU 2021), December 16–18, 2021
by R. Parthasarathy Utpal SharmaCities have played an important role in our lives since the dawn of civilization. However, cities are slowly becoming overwhelmed and therefore intervention is desirable towards green, blue and egalitarian nature. Even with current urban issues, we must rise to the occasion as professionals to create cities that are social, cities that take care of the environment, and cities that are digital. Increased citizen participation is indispensable in this process. The ‘International Conference on Future is Urban (IFCU’ 21) Dec 16-18, 2021, Ahmedabad, India’, takes into account Livability, Resilience & Resource Conservation for planning Future and cities in future.
Future of CO2 Capture, Transport and Storage Projects: Analysis Using A Systemic Risk Management Approach (SpringerBriefs in Environmental Science)
by Emmanuel Garbolino Jaleh SamadiThis book presents a summary of a three-year research project on risk management for the Capture, Transport and Storage of CO2 (CTSC), offering an in-depth study on complex sociotechnical systems and systemic modeling. Approaching CTSC as a complex sociotechnical system, this book proposes systemic modeling as a decision-making aid. It offers a means of decision-making for the development of CTSC projects in the real-world context, where the future of the technology is uncertain. Risk management is considered as a means of control that can provide a control structure for the whole system.The risks associated with CTSC are not exclusively technical in nature; CTSC also faces a number of further uncertainties, from development to commercial scales.A major question concerning CTSC at the current scale of development is: "What are the factors explaining the success or failure of CTSC projects in different contexts?" In order to answer this question, the book proposes a systemic risk management framework based on the system dynamics and STAMP (Systems-Theoretic Accident Model and Processes) concepts.
Future of Denial: The Ideologies of Climate Change
by Tad DeLay"Tad DeLay is one of the most important and disquieting theorists of consciousness and politics writing today. His work is indispensable."—China Miéville, author of OctoberCapitalism is an ecocidal engine constantly regenerating climate change denialThe age of denial is over, we are told. Yet emissions continue to rise while gimmicks, graft, and green- washing distract the public from the climate violence suffered by the vulnerable. This timely, interdisciplinary contribution to the environmental humanities draws on the latest climatology, the first shoots of an energy transition, critical theory, Earth&’s paleoclimate history, and trends in border violence to answer the most pressing question of our age: Why do we continue to squander the short time we have left?The symptoms suggest society&’s inability to adjust is profound. Near Portland, militias incapable of accepting that the world is warming respond to a wildfire by hunting for imaginary left-wing arsonists. Europe erects nets in the Aegean Sea to capture migrants fleeing drought and war. An airline claims to be carbon neutral thanks to bogus cheap offsets. Drone strikes hit people living along the aridity line. Yes, Exxon knew as early as the 1970s, but the fundamental physics of carbon dioxide warming the Earth was already understood before the American Civil War.Will capitalists ever voluntarily walk away from hundreds of trillions of dollars in fossil fuels unless they are forced to do so? And, if not, who will apply the necessary pressure?
Future-Proofing Fuel Cells: Critical Raw Material Governance in Sustainable Energy
by Robert Lindner Martin David Stephen M. Lyth George F. HarringtonAs the world accelerates towards a renewable energy transition, the demand for critical raw materials (CRMs) for energy generation, conversion, and storage technologies is seeing a drastic increase. Such materials are not only subject to limited supply and extreme price volatility but can also represent serious burdens to the environment, to human health, and also to socio-political systems. Taking an interdisciplinary perspective, this book provides a novel perspective on the discussion about material dependencies of energy technologies. It examines CRMs use in fuel cells, an emerging energy conversion technology, and discusses governance strategies for early-stage fuel cell development to predict and avoid potential issues. This will be an invaluable resource for researchers in energy studies, engineering, sociology and political science as well as those with a general interest in this field looking for an accessible overview.
Future-Ready Geography: Goals, Problems and Challenges (Key Challenges in Geography)
by Danuta Piróg Agnieszka ŚwiętekThis book presents research on how geography as a science, as a university degree and as a school subject can get ready for the “future.” Today's world is in a state of permanent and radical change which is affecting society, science and the economy in equal measure. The concurrent processes of globalisation, digitisation, and integration shape and constantly modify the development factors and generate multidirectional social changes. Growing global issues related to climate change, food security, depletion of conventional energy sources, conflicts and wars, refugee crisis and pandemic open up new issues for geographic investigations as well as reinforce the need to examine old research topics covering a variety of subdisciplines. That is why the term “future-ready” is being more frequently used in discourses on geographic research. In particular, geographic education at schools should be subject to discussion and reflection as this is where our learners are primed to understand the world around them. The chapters of this book spread the knowledge about the role of geography in preparing the society for the future. The book responds to environmental, socio-economic, and political issues of global, regional and local impact. It provides methods, techniques and tools of data collection and analysis which efficiently support geographers in future-oriented research and help in forecasting environmental and social changes. Finally, this volume also discusses how to reinforce the position of geography as science and school subject today and in the future.
Futures Research and Environmental Sustainability: Theory and Method
by James K. LeinThis book explores the challenges of presenting sustainability as a more actionable or practical concept and identifying approaches that might offer useful assistance in addressing the temporal and spatial representation of sustainability. The underlying premise of this book is that sustainability is a state realized in the future. In that future there is a geographic arrangement of society and economy that agrees with its environmental setting. This future perspective introduces a little examined subject area that can lend significant content to the sustainability challenge: Futures Research.
Futures after Progress: Hope and Doubt in Late Industrial Baltimore
by Chloe AhmannA powerful ethnographic study of South Baltimore, a place haunted by toxic pasts in its pursuit of better futures. Factory fires, chemical explosions, and aerial pollutants have inexorably shaped South Baltimore into one of the most polluted places in the country. In Futures after Progress, anthropologist Chloe Ahmann explores the rise and fall of industrial lifeways on this edge of the city and the uncertainties that linger in their wake. Writing from the community of Curtis Bay, where two hundred years of technocratic hubris have carried lethal costs, Ahmann also follows local efforts to realize a good future after industry and the rifts competing visions opened between neighbors. Examining tensions between White and Black residents, environmental activists and industrial enthusiasts, local elders and younger generations, Ahmann shows how this community has become a battleground for competing political futures whose stakes reverberate beyond its six square miles in a present after progress has lost steam. And yet—as one young resident explains—“that’s not how the story ends.” Rigorous and moving, Futures after Progress probes the deep roots of our ecological predicament, offering insight into what lies ahead for a country beset by dreams deferred and a planet on the precipice of change.
Futures: Imagining Socioecological Transformation
by Bruce BraunFutures: Imagining Socioecological Transformation brings together leading scholars to explore how we might know, enact, and struggle for, the conjoined social and ecological transformations we need to achieve just and sustainable futures. The question of transformation, and how it might be achieved, is explored across a variety of topics and geographical sites, and through heterodox analytical and theoretical approaches, in a collective effort to move beyond a form of critique that hands down judgements, to one that brings new ideas and new possibilities to life. Chapters are lively and original engagements with concrete situations that sparkle with creativity. Together, they add up to an impressive study of how to live, and what to struggle for, in the complex socioecological landscapes of the Anthropocene. This book was previously published as a special issue of the Annals of the Association of American Geographers.
Futurity: Contemporary Literature and the Quest for the Past
by Amir EshelWhen looking at how trauma is represented in literature and the arts, we tend to focus on the weight of the past. In this book, Amir Eshel suggests that this retrospective gaze has trapped us in a search for reason in the madness of the twentieth century’s catastrophes at the expense of literature’s prospective vision. Considering several key literary works, Eshel argues in Futurity that by grappling with watershed events of modernity, these works display a future-centric engagement with the past that opens up the present to new political, cultural, and ethical possibilities—what he calls futurity. Bringing together postwar German, Israeli, and Anglo-American literature, Eshel traces a shared trajectory of futurity in world literature. He begins by examining German works of fiction and the debates they spurred over the future character of Germany’s public sphere. Turning to literary works by Jewish-Israeli writers as they revisit Israel’s political birth, he shows how these stories inspired a powerful reconsideration of Israel’s identity. Eshel then discusses post-1989 literature—from Ian McEwan’s Black Dogs to J. M. Coetzee’s Diary of a Bad Year—revealing how these books turn to events like World War II and the Iraq War not simply to make sense of the past but to contemplate the political and intellectual horizon that emerged after 1989. Bringing to light how reflections on the past create tools for the future, Futurity reminds us of the numerous possibilities literature holds for grappling with the challenges of both today and tomorrow.
Fuzzy Mud
by Louis SacharFifth grader Tamaya Dhilwaddi and seventh grader Marshall Walsh have been walking to and from Woodbridge Academy together since elementary school. But their routine is disrupted when bully Chad Wilson challenges Marshall to a fight. To avoid the conflict, Marshall takes a shortcut home through the off-limits woods. Tamaya reluctantly follows. They soon get lost, and they find trouble. Bigger trouble than anyone could ever have imagined. In the days and weeks that follow, the authorities and the government become involved, and what they uncover might affect the future of the world. <P><b> Nominee for the 2018 Young Reader's Choice Award </b> <i>(Pacific Northwest Library Association)</i>
Fuzzy Mud (Penworthy Picks Middle School Ser.)
by Louis SacharFifth grader Tamaya Dhilwaddi and seventh grader Marshall Walsh have been walking to and from Woodridge Academy together since elementary school. But their routine is disrupted when bully Chad Hilligas challenges Marshall to a fight. To avoid the conflict, Marshall takes a shortcut home through the off-limits woods. Tamaya, unaware of the reason for the detour, reluctantly follows. They soon get lost. And then they find trouble. Bigger trouble than anyone could ever have imagined. In the days and weeks that follow, the authorities and the U.S. Senate become involved, and what they uncover might affect the future of the world. <P><b> Nominee for the 2018 Young Reader's Choice Award </b> <i>(Pacific Northwest Library Association)</i>
Fylling's Illustrated Guide to Nature in Your Neighborhood (Fylling's Illustrated Guides #2)
by Marni FyllingIn the same lighthearted yet scientifically accurate style of Fylling’s Illustrated Guide to Pacific Coast Tide Pools, this portable guidebook reveals the splendidly strange animals and plants just outside your door. Marni Fylling’s full-color illustrations make species identification a snap, and concise descriptions include fascinating (and sometimes grotesque) factoids about frequently encountered plants, insects, arachnids, birds, and mammals. With Fylling’s guidance, the everyday becomes extraordinary: Pigeons share nest-building and egg-sitting duties, and mate for life—with occasional dalliances; squirrel teeth grow about six inches per year; spiders owe their characteristic creep to their &“hydraulic&” legs; poison oak and poison ivy’s itch-inducing oil is also found in pistachios, cashews, and mangoes; and much, much more.