BiblioVault - Books about Environmental

Earth in Our Care

Ecology, Economy, and Sustainability

Maser, Chris

Rutgers University Press, 2009

"What about the twenty-first century? Will we finally accept our responsibilities as guardians of planet Earth, the biological living trust, for the beneficiaries, the children of today, tomorrow, and beyond? Or, will it too be a century of lethal, economic struggle among the polarized positions of the supremely dysfunctional among us? Are they—once again—to be allowed to determine the legacy we, as a society, as a nation, bequeath those who follow us? The choice is ours, the adults of the world. How shall we choose?"

So writes Chris Maser in this compelling study of three interactive spheres of the ecosystem: atmosphere (air), litho-hydrosphere (rock that comprises the restless continents and the water that surrounds them), and biosphere (all life sandwiched in between).

Rich in detail and insightful analogies, Earth in Our Care addresses key issues including land-use policies, ecological restoration, forest management, local living, and sustainability thinking. Exploring our interconnectedness with the Earth, Maser examines today's problems and, more importantly, provides solutions for the future.

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Earth Rising

American Environmentalism In The 21St Century

Philip Shabecoff

Island Press, 2001

"The mission of environmentalism is to mobilize society at all levels to confront the danger and disorder into which human activity has propelled us and guide us to a safer, saner way of living on the planet.... Environmentalism has never been about catastrophe. It is about alternatives, about changing course, about transforming the future." --Philip Shabecoff, from Earth Rising Philip Shabecoff, America's preeminent environmental journalist, has spent more than two decades thinking and writing about the environment and related subjects, as a reporter for The New York Times, as publisher of Greenwire, and as the author of two books, including the critically acclaimed A Fierce Green Fire. In Earth Rising, he draws on that experience to offer a pointed and thought-provoking critique of the current state and future prospects of the American environmental movement.Based on extensive interviews with a wide range of individuals both within and outside of the movement, Shabecoff elucidates the issues and problems confronting today's environmentalists and analyzes the movement's strengths and weaknesses. Viewing environmental threats as symptoms of flaws in our society and its systems, he considers the urgent need for a broader, more inclusive environmentalism, and examines the role environmentalists can -- and must -- play in: reforming the education system taming the global economy and making it an instrument of human needs working for political reform, including reducing the influence of corporate spending on the electoral process directing the course of the scientific enterprise as well as making use of its results helping develop a new moral center for people throughout the nation and the world Throughout, Shabecoff emphasizes the need for national organizations to link together with grassroots groups and to become more responsive to local concerns, and argues that the environmental movement has not yet adequately prepared itself to meet current and coming challenges. He makes a compelling case that another wave of environmentalism is needed -- more powerful, diverse and sophisticated, visionary and flexible. Earth Rising offers a detailed road map that can guide environmentalists toward that new and reenergized place in society.

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Eating the Ocean

Elspeth Probyn

Duke University Press, 2016

In Eating the Ocean Elspeth Probyn investigates the profound importance of the ocean and the future of fish and human entanglement. On her ethnographic journey around the world's oceans and fisheries, she finds that the ocean is being simplified in a food politics that is overwhelmingly land based and preoccupied with buzzwords like "local" and "sustainable." Developing a conceptual tack that combines critical analysis and embodied ethnography, she dives into the lucrative and endangered bluefin tuna market, the gendered politics of "sustainability," the ghoulish business of producing fish meal and fish oil for animals and humans, and the long history of encounters between humans and oysters. Seeing the ocean as the site of the entanglement of multiple species—which are all implicated in the interactions of technology, culture, politics, and the market—enables us to think about ways to develop a reflexive ethics of taste and place based in the realization that we cannot escape the food politics of the human-fish relationship.

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Ecocritique

Contesting the Politics of Nature, Economy, and Culture

Timothy W. Luke

University of Minnesota Press, 1997

Ecocriticism, whether coming from “back to nature” conservatives, Nature Conservancy liberals, or Earth First! radicals, is familiar enough. But when we listen do we really hear what these groups are saying? In a book that examines the terms of ecocriticism, Timothy W. Luke exposes how ecological critics, organizations, and movements manipulate our conception of the environment. Turning the tables on the ecocritics, Luke demonstrates how ecocriticism can move beyond its familiar confines to engage larger cultural, economic, and political questions.

Ecocritique rereads ecocriticism to reveal how power and economy, society and culture, community and technology compete over what are now widely regarded as the embattled ecosystems of nature. Luke considers in particular how the meanings and values attached to the environment by various groups—from the Worldwatch Institute, the Nature Conservancy, and Earth First! to proponents of green consumerism, social ecology, and sustainable development—articulate new visions of power and subjectivity for a post-Cold War era.

This accessibly written work opens with deep ecology and concludes with social ecology, along the way reconsidering thinkers with green philosophical leanings, including Herbert Marcuse, Paolo Soleri, and Murray Bookchin. In systematic critiques reexamining the cultural practices and ethical values of contemporary environmentalism, Luke highlights the political dilemmas of biocentrism and anthropocentrism in modern ecological thinking.

With its critical analysis of many contemporary environmental discourses and organizations, Ecocritique makes a major contribution to ongoing debates about the political relationships among nature, culture, and economics in the current global system.

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The Ecological City

Preserving and Restoring Urban Biodiversity

Rutherford H. Platt

University of Massachusetts Press, 1994

Interdisciplinary in content as well as approach, this collection of original essays takes a fresh look at the ecology of urban communities. Written by experts from a variety of professions--academic researchers, private and public program managers, and citizen activists--the book explores issues of geography, ecology, landscape architecture, urban forestry, law, and environmental education. Contributions include broad overviews of common problems a well as detailed case studies of specific programs.

Although several contributors are natural scientists, the book focuses on matters of public policy and public-private collaboration. The aim is not only to assess the impact of increasing urbanization on biodiversity, but also to propose new ways of preserving and restoring the balance between the natural and the built environment through planning and design.

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Ecological Communication

Niklas Luhmann

University of Chicago Press, 1989

Niklas Luhmann is widely recognized as one of the most original thinkers in the social sciences today. This major new work further develops the theories of the author by offering a challenging analysis of the relationship between society and the environment.

Luhmann extends the concept of "ecology" to refer to any analysis that looks at connections between social systems and the surrounding environment. He traces the development of the notion of "environment" from the medieval idea—which encompasses both human and natural systems—to our modern definition, which separates social systems from the external environment.

In Luhmann's thought, human beings form part of the environment, while social systems consist only of communications. Utilizing this distinctive theoretical perspective, Luhmann presents a comprehensive catalog of society's reactions to environmental problems. He investigates the spheres of the economy, law, science, politics, religion, and education to show how these areas relate to environmental issues.

Ecological Communication is an important work that critically examines claims central to our society—claims to modernity and rationality. It will be of great importance to scholars and students in sociology, political science, philosophy, anthropology, and law.

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Ecological Morphology

Integrative Organismal Biology

Edited by Peter C. Wainwright and Stephen M. Reilly

University of Chicago Press, 1994

Ecological morphology examines the relation between an animal's anatomy and physiology—its form and function—and how the animal has evolved in and can inhabit a particular environment. Within the past few years, research in this relatively new area has exploded. Ecological Morphology is a synthesis of major concepts and a demonstration of the ways in which this integrative approach can yield rich and surprising results.

Through this interdisciplinary study, scientists have been able to understand, for instance, how bat wing design affects habitat use and bat diet; how the size of a predator affects its ability to capture and eat certain prey; and how certain mosquitoes have evolved physiologically and morphologically to tolerate salt-water habitats. Ecological Morphology also covers the history of the field, the role of the comparative method in studying adaptation, and the use of data from modern organisms for understanding the ecology of fossil communities.

This book provides an overview of the achievements and potential of ecological morphology for all biologists and students interested in the way animal design, ecology, and evolution interact.

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Ecological Restoration

Principles, Values, and Structure of an Emerging Profession

Andre F. Clewell and James Aronson

Island Press, 2008

The field of ecological restoration is a rapidly growing discipline that encompasses a wide range of activities and brings together practitioners and theoreticians from a variety of backgrounds and perspectives, ranging from volunteer backyard restorationists to highly trained academic scientists and professional consultants.

Ecological Restoration offers for the first time a unified vision of ecological restoration as a field of study, one that clearly states the discipline’s precepts and emphasizes issues of importance to those involved at all levels. In a lively, personal fashion, the authors discuss scientific and practical aspects of the field as well as the human needs and values that motivate practitioners. The book:

-identifies fundamental concepts upon which restoration is based
-considers the principles of restoration practice
-explores the diverse values that are fulfilled with the restoration of ecosystems
-reviews the structure of restoration practice, including the various contexts for restoration work, the professional development of its practitioners, and the relationships of restoration with allied fields and activities

A unique feature of the book is the inclusion of eight “virtual field trips,” short photo essays of project sites around the world that illustrate various points made in the book and are “led” by those who were intimately involved with the project described.

Throughout, ecological restoration is conceived as a holistic endeavor, one that addresses issues of ecological degradation, biodiversity loss, and sustainability science simultaneously, and draws upon cultural resources and local skills and knowledge in restoration work.

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Ecological Restoration, Second Edition

Principles, Values, and Structure of an Emerging Profession

Andre F. Clewell and James Aronson

Island Press, 2013

Ecological restoration is a rapidly growing discipline that encompasses a wide range of activities and brings together practitioners and theoreticians from a variety of backgrounds and perspectives, ranging from volunteer backyard restorationists to highly trained academic scientists and professional consultants. This book offers a comprehensive and coherent account of the field for everyone who initiates, finances, designs, administers, issues government permits for, manages, and implements ecological restoration projects, and all those who serve in supportive roles. Originally published in 2007, this revised and reorganized edition brings the book up to date with new developments and current trends in the field.

In a lively, personal fashion, the authors discuss scientific and practical aspects of the field as well as the human needs and values that motivate practitioners. The book

identifies fundamental concepts upon which restoration is based
considers the principles of restoration practice
explores the diverse values that are fulfilled with the restoration of ecosystems
reviews the structure of restoration practice, including the various contexts for restoration work, the professional development of its practitioners, and the relationships of restoration with allied fields and activities

The book also includes case studies and Virtual Field Trips around the world that illustrate points made in the book with on-the-ground information from those who were intimately involved with the projects described. Throughout, ecological restoration is conceived as a holistic endeavor, one that addresses issues of ecological degradation, biodiversity loss, personal engagement, and sustainability science simultaneously, and draws upon cultural resources and local skills and knowledge in restoration work.

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Ecologics

Wind and Power in the Anthropocene

Cymene Howe

Duke University Press, 2019

Between 2009 and 2013 Cymene Howe and Dominic Boyer conducted fieldwork in Mexico's Isthmus of Tehuantepec to examine the political, social, and ecological dimensions of moving from fossil fuels to wind power. Their work manifested itself as a new ethnographic form: the duograph—a combination of two single-authored books that draw on shared fieldsites, archives, and encounters that can be productively read together, yet can also stand alone in their analytic ambitions.

In her volume, Ecologics, Howe narrates how an antidote to the Anthropocene became both failure and success. Tracking the development of what would have been Latin America's largest wind park, Howe documents indigenous people's resistance to the project and the political and corporate climate that derailed its renewable energy potential. Using feminist and more-than-human theories, Howe demonstrates how the dynamics of energy and environment cannot be captured without understanding how human aspirations for energy articulate with nonhuman beings, technomaterial objects, and the geophysical forces that are at the heart of wind and power.

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Ecologies of Comparison

An Ethnography of Endangerment in Hong Kong

Tim Choy

Duke University Press, 2011

A rich ethnography of ecopolitics in Hong Kong in the late 1990s, as the region shifted to Chinese sovereignty, Ecologies of Comparison describes how ecological concepts of uniqueness and scale resonated among environmentalists, including those seeking to preserve a species of white dolphin, to protect an aging fishing village from redevelopment, and to legitimize air quality as an object of political and medical concern. During his research, Tim Choy became increasingly interested in the power of the notion of specificity. While documenting the expert and lay production of Hong Kong’s biological, cultural, and political specificities, he began comparing the logics and narrative forms that made different types of specificity—such as species, culture, locality, and state autonomy—possible and meaningful. He came to understand these logics and forms as “ecologies of comparison,” conceptual practices through which an event or form of life comes to matter in environmentalist and other political terms. Choy’s ethnography is about environmentalism, Hong Kong, and the ways that we think about environmentalism in Hong Kong and other places. It is also about how politics, freedom, culture, expertise, and other concepts figure in comparison-based knowledge practices.

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Ecologies of Human Flourishing

Donald K. Swearer

Harvard University Press

In this volume, prominent Buddhist scholar Donald Swearer posits that the future requires a radical shift toward living in recognition of the interdependence of all life forms and the consequent ethic of communality and a life style of moderation or “enoughness” that flows from that recognition, which he calls “an ecology of human flourishing.” Swearer has assembled world-class thinkers to explore and imagine several dimensions of an ecology of human flourishing: economic, sociological, religious, ethical, environmental, historical, literary; how notions of human flourishing, quality of life, and common good have been constructed; and, in the contemporary world, how they are illuminated or are challenged by issues of distributive justice, poverty and economic inequality, global health, and environmental sustainability.

With contributors ranging from ecoactivist Bill McKibben and medical anthropologist Arthur Kleinman, to transformative theologian Sallie McFague and Malaysian critic of global injustice Chandra Muzzafar, this book expresses ethical and religious aspirations to remake the world in the midst of the contradictions, injustices, and problems of our daily lives and today's global economic and climate crises.

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Ecologists and Environmental Politics

A History of Contemporary Ecology

Stephen Bocking

West Virginia University Press, 2017

Ecologists, like other scientists, have for decades debated their role in society. While some have argued that ecologists should participate in environmental politics, others have focused their attention strictly on scientific issues. In Ecologists and Environmental Politics, now updated with a new preface by the author, Stephen Bocking explores this debate by recounting the history of ecology in Great Britain, the United States, and Canada since the 1940s.
Bocking tells this history through four case studies: the origins and early research of the Nature Conservancy in Great Britain; the development of ecology at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee; the work of the Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study in New Hampshire; and research in fisheries ecology at the University of Toronto. By comparing these case studies, Bocking demonstrates how the places of contemporary science—laboratories, landscapes, and funding agencies—and science’s purposes, as expressed through the political roles of expertise and specific managerial and regulatory responsibilities, have shaped contemporary ecology and its application to pressing environmental problems.

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Ecology and Ecosystem Conservation

Oswald J. Schmitz

Island Press, 2007

Meeting today’s environmental challenges requires a new way of thinking about the intricate dependencies between humans and nature. Ecology and Ecosystem Conservation provides students and other readers with a basic understanding of the fundamental principles of ecological science and their applications, offering an essential overview of the way ecology can be used to devise strategies to conserve the health and functioning of ecosystems.

The book begins by exploring the need for ecological science in understanding current environmental issues and briefly discussing what ecology is and isn’t. Subsequent chapters address critical issues in conservation and show how ecological science can be applied to them. The book explores questions such as:

• What is the role of ecological science in decision making?
• What factors govern the assembly of ecosystems and determine their response to various stressors?
• How does Earth’s climate system function and determine the distribution of life on Earth?
• What factors control the size of populations?
• How does fragmentation of the landscape affect the persistence of species on the landscape?
• How does biological diversity influence ecosystem processes?

The book closes with a final chapter that addresses the need not only to understand ecological science, but to put that science into an ecosystem conservation ethics perspective.

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Ecology and Management of North American Savannas

Guy R. McPherson

University of Arizona Press, 1997

Savannas are ecosytems with a continuous grass layer and scattered trees or shrubs. These lands occupy nearly a third of the earth’s land surface and are an important resource not only in world economies but also as repositories of biodiversity. Because savannas are generally thought of as tropical ecosystems, most reviews of the literature have tended to disregard savannas found in temperate zones. Yet these ecosystems are both extensive and diverse in North America, ranging from longleaf pine habitats along the Atlantic coastal plain to xeric piñon-juniper communities of the Great Basin-ecosystems seemingly disparate, yet similar enough to merit study as savannas. This book provides an overview of the patterns and processes shared by these ecosystems and offers substantive ideas regarding future management and research efforts. It describes the composition geographic distribution, climate, soils, and uses of savannas throughout North America, summarizing and integrating a wide array of literature. While discussing these ecological patterns and processes. McPherson develops a framework for implementing management practices and safeguarding the future of these important wildland ecosystems. Ecology and Management of North American Savannas takes a major step toward establishing the science of savanna ecology for North America. It encourages constructive debate and relevant research on these important systems and will also serve as a useful resource in biogeography, plant ecology, and rangeland management.

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Ecology and Recovery of Eastern Old-Growth Forests

Edited by Andrew M. Barton and William S. Keeton

Island Press, 2018

The landscapes of North America, including eastern forests, have been shaped by humans for millennia, through fire, agriculture, hunting, and other means. But the arrival of Europeans on America’s eastern shores several centuries ago ushered in the rapid conversion of forests and woodlands to other land uses. By the twentieth century, it appeared that old-growth forests in the eastern United States were gone, replaced by cities, farms, transportation networks, and second-growth forests. Since that time, however, numerous remnants of eastern old growth have been discovered, meticulously mapped, and studied. Many of these ancient stands retain surprisingly robust complexity and vigor, and forest ecologists are eager to develop strategies for their restoration and for nurturing additional stands of old growth that will foster biological diversity, reduce impacts of climate change, and serve as benchmarks for how natural systems operate.

Forest ecologists William Keeton and Andrew Barton bring together a volume that breaks new ground in our understanding of ecological systems and their importance for forest resilience in an age of rapid environmental change. This edited volume covers a broad geographic canvas, from eastern Canada and the Upper Great Lakes states to the deep South. It looks at a wide diversity of ecosystems, including spruce-fir, northern deciduous, southern Appalachian deciduous, southern swamp hardwoods, and longleaf pine. Chapters authored by leading old-growth experts examine topics of contemporary forest ecology including forest structure and dynamics, below-ground soil processes, biological diversity, differences between historical and modern forests, carbon and climate change mitigation, management of old growth, and more.

This thoughtful treatise broadly communicates important new discoveries to scientists, land managers, and students and breathes fresh life into the hope for sensible, effective management of old-growth stands in eastern forests.

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Ecology and the Environment

The Mechanisms, Marrings, and Maintenance of Nature

R. J. Berry

Templeton Press, 2011

Ecology and the Environment: The Mechanisms, Marring, and Maintenance of Nature is the ninth title published in the Templeton Science and Religion Series, in which scientists from a wide range of fields distill their experience and knowledge into brief tours of their respective specialties. In this volume, R. J. Berry, a well-known leader in the field of ecology, describes the basic concepts of ecology and seeks to put them into a general context for a reader who lacks any scientific background.

Berry explores the implications of these basic concepts and how they affect human life and the decisions we have to make, both as individuals and as members of a species that has colonized and influenced every part of the globe. He points out that we are a part of the animal world, but at the same time, we are apart from it, and he makes it clear that how we relate to our environment affects the quality of our life—indeed, it may affect our very survival. Going beyond a simple introduction of concepts, the book explores wider questions about the nature of humanity and how human ecology relates to humanness. Berry proposes that we are more than machines or even advanced apes—we are Homo divinus, transformed from an organism descended from the same stock as the apes but qualitatively different and able to relate to a creator God. The book argues that those who conclude otherwise are neglecting relevant data.

Berry offers the perfect introduction to these philosophical and theological issues, but his work never loses sight of the practical issues either—the kind that is increasingly being addressed by national and international environmental agencies. In order to grasp the full scope of these issues and to more fully understand the ubiquitous news headlines concerning environmental matters, a reader would do well to start with Ecology and the Environment.

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The Ecology of Desert Communities

Edited by Gary A. Polis

University of Arizona Press, 1991

"Provides interesting and thought-provoking reading and is highly recommended to anyone interested in desert ecosystems or community ecology. The book . . . should serve as an inspiration to many for future research."—Journal of Biogeography

"This book is not just about deserts; it is an update of the contributions that research in desert systems is making to community ecology. . . This book will provide a useful reference for desert ecologists, as well as indicate critical directions where progress needs to be made."—Ecology

"This important book fills a significant gap in previous syntheses by presenting a detailed series of reviews of current understanding of community patterns and structure in desert environments. . . . Each chapter is thorough and well written and . . . closes with a discussion of suggested future research. . . . [T]hese ideas will do much to focus interest on the importance of desert systems in understanding community. Thus, this book has interest well beyond desert ecologists alone."—BioScience

"Valuable reading and reference for ecology students, teachers and researchers."—Quarterly Review of Biology

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Ecology of the Bay of Quinte

Health, Management and Global Implications

C.K. Minns

Michigan State University Press, 2022

Project Quinte was a Canadian multi-agency collaborative initiative—launched in 1972 and lasting until 2018—that generated the longest ecosystem-based data set in the Great Lakes. The project produced a special bulletin of the Canadian Journal of Fisheries Science in 1986 and two special issues of Aquatic Ecosystem Health & Management more recently. This monograph provides a broad sweep of the many facets of aquatic ecosystem structure and function that were explored in efforts to define and solve the challenges to ecosystem health present in the Bay of Quinte ecosystem and to sustain it hopefully far into the future. Many papers provide a long-term perspective that highlights the need to maintain monitoring programs while increasing our basic knowledge. Long-term studies of ecosystems like Quinte continually reveal new questions and challenges beyond the scope of controlled laboratory experiments. The health of the Bay of Quinte is much improved as a result of the long-term participation of people, time, and resources reflected in this book. The monograph through its twenty-six in-depth chapters opens a wide panorama for exploration and application of the ecosystem approach and the resulting productivity, with much remaining to be done by those that follow in these footsteps. Approximately one hundred scientists have collectively participated toward the preparation of various chapters included in this meticulously peer-reviewed monograph.

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Ecopoetics

The Language of Nature, the Nature of Language

Scott Knickerbocker

University of Massachusetts Press, 2012

Ecocritics and other literary scholars interested in the environment have tended to examine writings that pertain directly to nature and to focus on subject matter more than expression. In this book, Scott Knickerbocker argues that it is time for the next step in ecocriticism: scholars need to explore the figurative and aural capacity of language to evoke the natural world in powerful ways.

Ecopoetics probes the complex relationship between artifice and the natural world in the work of modern American poets—in particular Wallace Stevens, Elizabeth Bishop, Richard Wilbur, and Sylvia Plath. These poets relate to nature as a deep wellspring of meaning, although they all avoid using language the way most nature writers do, merely to reflect or refer directly to the world. Each of these poets, in his or her own distinct way, employs instead what Knickerbocker terms sensuous poesis, the process of rematerializing language through sound effects and other formal devices as a sophisticated response to nonhuman nature.

Rather than attempt to erase the artifice of their own poems, to make them seem more natural and thus supposedly closer to nature, the poets in this book unapologetically embrace artifice—not for its own sake but in order to perform and enact the natural world. Indeed, for them, artifice is natural. In examining their work, Knickerbocker charts a new direction for ecocriticism.

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Ecopopulism

Toxic Waste and the Movement for Environmental Justice

Andrew Szasz

University of Minnesota Press, 1994

"This slim but well-documented book raises far more questions than it answers, which, in and of itself, is of course a noteworthy contribution. Szasz has called attention to specific aspects of the hazardous waste movement that have been heretofore overlooked, and he thereby provides us with a wealth of new questions to address and answer." Ethics, Place and Environment "Szasz does a commendable job of linking the crucial issues of class, race and gender-issues that are often either ignored or downplayed-to the environment. Szasz compellingly argues that toxic victims are usually poor or working class. EcoPopulism is recommended not only for those concerned with the environment and social movements, but also for those interested in public policy and political economy. A fascinating account of a powerful grassroots movement still in progress." Boston Book Review "Andrew Szasz has written a very strong book of interest both to the academic and to the environmental activist. This is a fine little book that deserves a wide readership." Political Studies "EcoPopulism is a stimulating book because is assesses the transformation of the environmental movement in recent years and broadens our understanding of social activism." Journal of American History "Andrew Szasz has provided us a detailed insight of a movement which may very well continue to have a great impact on world politics." Canadian Field-Naturalist "It is precisely due to the transdisciplinarity of both the toxics movement and Szasz's study of it that the book is appropriate for so many people. EcoPopulism is recommended not only for those concerned with the environment and social movements, but would also be relevant and worthwhile for those interested in media analysis and current events as well as public policy and political economy." Journal of Political Ecology "Szasz's forte is analyzing the political dynamics surrounding a major technology movement. This is a valuable supplementary text for graduate courses in social movements, environmental sociology, political sociology, and related fields." Contemporary Sociology "The book is a highly readable and timely addition to the rapidly growing literature on environmental politics and activism. A valuable contribution to the literature on environmental history and politics. The book will be of significant interest to environmental geographers, historians, and sociologists." Economic Geography "The book is a considerable achievement of scholarship and inspiration." Sociology "In providing a rich review of critical issues, Szasz argues that while policy experts, government officials and industry spokesperson were all trying desperately to find ways to neutralize the now powerful local movements, lawmakers were responding to public concerns by increasing the federal laws governing hazardous waste." Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management Moment by moment the evidence mounts that unchecked modern industry is bringing us ever closer to environmental disaster. How can we move away from the brink of extinction, toward a human society the earth can bear? In the thriving popular politics of hazardous waste, Andrew Szasz finds an answer, a scenario for taking the most pressing environmental issues out of the academy and the boardroom and turning them into everyone's business. This book reconstructs the growth of a powerful movement around the question of toxic waste. Szasz follows the issue as it moves from the world of "official" policymaking in Washington, onto the nation's television screens and into popular consciousness, and then into America's neighborhoods, spurring the formation of thousands of local, community-based groups. He shows how, in less than a decade, a rich infrastructure of more permanent social organizations emerged from this movement, expanding its focus to include issues like municipal waste, military toxics, and pesticides. In the growth of this movement, we witness the birth of a radical environmental populism. Here Szasz identifies the force that pushed environmental policy away from the traditional approach, pollution removal, toward the superior logic of pollution prevention. He discusses the conflicting official responses to the movement's evolution, revealing that, despite initial resistance, lawmakers eventually sought to appease popular discontent by strengthening toxic waste laws. In its success, Szasz suggests, this movement may even prove to be the vehicle for reinvigorating progressive politics in the United States. Winner of the 1994-1995 Association for Humanist Sociology Book Award Andrew Szasz is associate professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

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Eco-pragmatism

Making Sensible Environmental Decisions in an Uncertain World

Daniel A. Farber

University of Chicago Press, 1999

Eco-pragmatism takes on the most critical controversies in environmental law today: how to weigh economic costs against environmental quality and human life, how to assess the long time horizons of environmental problems, and how to make appropriate decisions in the face of scientific uncertainty about the scope of environmental problems.

"A comprehensive well-argued effort to address many of the most difficult issues facing legislators concerned with environmental issues."—Stephen P. Adamian, Boston Book Review

"A timely and well-argued contribution."—Calestous Juma, Nature

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Ecospeak

Rhetoric and Environmental Politics in America

M. Jimmie Killingsworth and Jacqueline S. Palmer

Southern Illinois University Press, 1992

In this book, M. Jimmie Killingsworth and Jacqueline S. Palmer have a twofold purpose: to analyze the patterns of rhetoric used in written discourse about environmental politics and to make a practical contribution to the art of rhetorical criticism through the study of rhetoric in use.

The language, professional objectivity, and research programs of scientists insulate these best-informed citizens in enclaves of specialization, limiting access to crucial information and hindering effective reformative action. Science, the authors stress, is not merely a database to rely upon but a view of the world that must be broadened in order to affect social morality. Science-based activism must arise to ensure the care and future of the environment.

Killingsworth and Palmer argue that for grassroots activism to be tied to this globally conscious philosophy, a rhetoric of sustainability must be cultivated.

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The Ecosystem Approach in Anthropology

From Concept to Practice

Emilio F. Moran, Editor

University of Michigan Press, 1990

A reassessment of the ecosystem concept for anthropology

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Ecosystem-Based Management for the Oceans

Edited by Karen McLeod and Heather Leslie

Island Press, 2009

Conventional management approaches cannot meet the challenges faced by ocean and coastal ecosystems today. Consequently, national and international bodies have called for a shift toward more comprehensive ecosystem-based marine management. Synthesizing a vast amount of current knowledge, Ecosystem-Based Management for the Oceans is a comprehensive guide to utilizing this promising new approach.

At its core, ecosystem-based management (EBM) is about acknowledging connections. Instead of focusing on the impacts of single activities on the delivery of individual ecosystem services, EBM focuses on the array of services that we receive from marine systems, the interactive and cumulative effects of multiple human activities on these coupled ecological and social systems, and the importance of working towards common goals across sectors. Ecosystem-Based Management for the Oceans provides a conceptual framework for students and professionals who want to understand and utilize this powerful approach. And it employs case studies that draw on the experiences of EBM practitioners to demonstrate how EBM principles can be applied to real-world problems.

The book emphasizes the importance of understanding the factors that contribute to social and ecological resilience —the extent to which a system can maintain its structure, function, and identity in the face of disturbance. Utilizing the resilience framework, professionals can better predict how systems will respond to a variety of disturbances, as well as to a range of management alternatives. Ecosystem-Based Management for the Oceans presents the latest science of resilience, while it provides tools for the design and implementation of responsive EBM solutions.

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Ecosystem-Based Management of Laurentian Great Lakes Areas of Concern

Three Decades of U.S. - Canadian Cleanup and Recovery

John H. Hartig

Michigan State University Press, 2021

This volume provides an in-depth look at the remediation and restoration of the forty three most polluted areas of the Great Lakes called Areas of Concern (AOCs). This binational restoration effort is unique in that it has fostered use of locally designed ecosystem approaches to restoring impaired beneficial uses as called for in the Canada–U.S. Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. In total, thirty-seven Canadian and U.S. scientists contributed to this comprehensive evaluation of what has been achieved and learned from over three decades of remediation and restoration efforts. This book will be an excellent resource to researchers, resource managers, university faculty, and students within the Great Lakes Basin Ecosystem, and others interested in restoring degraded aquatic ecosystems throughout the world. No other volume or textbook provides such a comprehensive evaluation of AOCs. A foreword is provided by Dianne Saxe, former environmental commissioner of Ontario. Leading primary contributors include J. H. Hartig, M. Munawar, L. Richman, S. W. Pickard, M. L. Tuchman, R. Stewart, J. Ridgway, R. K. Sherman, N. T. French, K. C. Williams, G. Krantzberg, and C. McLaughlin.

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Ecosystems and Human Well-Being

A Framework For Assessment

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

Island Press, 2003

Ecosystems and Human Well-being is the first product of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), a four-year international work program designed to meet the needs of decision-makers for scientific information on the links between ecosystem change and human well-being. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment is modeled on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and will provide information requested by governments, through four international conventions, as well as meeting needs within the private sector and civil society. Ecosystems and Human Well-being offers an overview of the assessment, describing the conceptual framework that is being used, defining its scope and providing a baseline of understanding that all participants need to move forward.

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment focuses on how humans have altered ecosystems, and how changes in ecosystems have affected human well-being. The assessment also evaluates how ecosystem changes may affect people in future decades and what responses can be adopted at local, national, or global scales to improve ecosystem management and thereby contribute to human well-being and poverty alleviation. The assessment was launched by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan in June 2001, and the primary assessment reports will be released by Island Press in 2005.

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment series is an invaluable new resource for professionals and policy-makers concerned with international development, environmental science, environmental policy, and related fields. It will help both in choosing among existing options and in identifying new approaches for achieving integrated management of land, water, and living resources while strengthening regional, national, and local capacities. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment series will also improve policy and decision-making at all levels by increasing collaboration between natural and social scientists, and between scientists and policy-makers. Ecosystems and Human Well-being is an essential introduction to the program.

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Ecosystems and Human Well-Being

A Manual for Assessment Practitioners

Neville Ash, Hernán Blanco, Claire Brown, Keisha Garcia, Thomas Henrichs, Nicolas Lucas, Ciara Raudsepp-Hearne, R. David Simpson, Robert Scholes, Thomas P. Tomich, Bhaskar Vira, Monika Zurek

Island Press, 2010

Designed by a partnership of UN agencies, international scientific organizations, and development agencies, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) is the most extensive study ever of the linkages between the world’s ecosystems and human well-being. The goal of the MA is to establish the scientific basis for actions needed to enhance the contribution of ecosystems to human well-being without undermining their long-term productivity. With contributions by more than 500 scientists from 70 countries, the MA has proven to be one of the most important conservation initiatives ever undertaken, and the ecosystem services paradigm on which it is based provides the standard for practice. This manual supplies the specific tools that practitioners of the paradigm need in order to extend their work into the future.

The manual is a stand-alone “how to” guide to conducting assessments of the impacts on humans of ecosystem changes. In addition, assessment practitioners who are looking for guidance on particular aspects of the assessment process will find individual chapters of this manual to be useful in advancing their understanding of best practices in ecosystem assessment. The manual builds on the experiences and lessons learned from the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment global and sub-global assessment initiatives, with chapters written by well-known participants in those initiatives. It also includes insights and experiences gained from a wider range of ecosystem service-focused assessment activities since the completion of the MA in 2005.

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Ecosystems and Human Well-Being

Current State and Trends: Findings of the Condition and Trends Working Group

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

Island Press, 2005

Humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively in the last 50 years than in any comparable period of human history. We have done this to meet the growing demands for food, fresh water, timber, fiber, and fuel. While changes to ecosystems have enhanced the well-being of billions of people, they have also caused a substantial and largely irreversible loss in diversity of life on Earth, and have strained the capacity of ecosystems to continue providing critical services. Among the findings: Approximately 60% of the services that support life on Earth are being degraded or used unsustainably. The harmful consequences of this degradation could grow significantly worse in the next 50 years. Only four ecosystem services have been enhanced in the last 50 years: crops, livestock, aquaculture, and the sequestration of carbon. The capacity of ecosystems to neutralize pollutants, protect us from natural disasters, and control the outbreaks of pests and diseases is declining significantly. Terrestrial and freshwater systems are reaching the limits of their ability to absorb nitrogen. Harvesting of fish and other resources from coastal and marine systems is compromising their ability to deliver food in the future. Richly illustrated with maps and graphs, Current State and Trends presents an assessment of Earth's ability to provide twenty-four distinct services essential to human well-being. These include food, fiber, and other materials; the regulation of the climate and fresh water systems; underlying support systems such as nutrient cycling; and the fulfillment of cultural, spiritual, and aesthetic values. The volume pays particular attention to the current health of key ecosystems, including inland waters, forests, oceans, croplands, and dryland systems, among others. It will be an indispensable reference for scientists, environmentalists, agency professionals, and students.

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Ecosystems and Human Well-Being

Multiscale Assessments: Findings of the Sub-Global Assessments Working Group

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

Island Press, 2005

One of the major innovations of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment is the incorporation of local and regional assessmentsù33 in allùin a global portrait of the planetÆs health. It is the first global assessment of ecosystems to include not only a diversity of ecosystems, but to draw on a wide range of cultural orientations and intellectual traditions, including those of indigenous peoples. The Sub-global Assessments Working Group integrated information from multiple sources and found that biophysical factors such as land-use change, climate change and variability, pollution, and invasive species have a significant effect on human well-being across cultures. For example, in places where there are no other social safety nets, diminished human well-being tends to increase immediate dependence on ecosystem services, which can damage the capacity of those local ecosystems, which in turn appears to increase the probability of natural disaster or conflict. Representing the baseline and framework for ongoing assessments of ecosystem and human well-being on a variety of scales around the world, Multiscale Assessments provides students, researchers, and policy-makers with the most comprehensive methodology for assessing ecosystems at local, national, and regional scales.

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Ecosystems and Human Well-Being

Our Human Planet: Summary for Decision Makers

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

Island Press, 2005

Our Human Planet summarizes the findings of the four working groups and serves as a reference guide to the four main volumes in the MA series. It presents the key findings of each of the working groups, providing an overview of the framework used by the assessment, and will serve as a guide for assessment, planning, and management for the future.

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Ecosystems and Human Well-Being

Policy Responses: Findings of the Responses Working Group

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

Island Press, 2005

With the knowledge of possible outcomes, what kind of actions should we take? The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment scored 74 response options for dealing with declines in ecosystem services and biodiversity, and managing drivers such as climate change and nutrient loading. This third volume in the MA series analyzes the track record of past policies and the potential of new ones. The challenge of reversing the degradation of ecosystems while meeting increasing demands for their services can be met only with significant policy and institutional changes. However, a difficult set of obstacles stand in the way. Policy makers must keep in mind that there are both trade-offs and synergies between human well-being, ecosystems, and ecosystem services, and that decisions regarding these tradeoffs are difficult and often contentious. The Responses volume ultimately establishes which policy options have the greatest chance to overcome the obstacles and generate positive outcomes. It will serve as an invaluable guide to the creation of stronger policy frameworks for the future.

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Ecosystems and Human Well-Being

Scenarios: Findings of the Scenarios Working Group

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

Island Press, 2005

Scenarios are an invaluable tool for analyzing complex systems and understanding possible outcomes. This second volume of the MA series explores the implications of four different approaches for managing ecosystem services in the face of growing human demand for them: The Global Orchestration approach, in which we emphasize equity, economic growth, and public goods, reacting to ecosystem problems when they reach critical stages. Order from Strength, which emphasizes security and economic growth. Adapting Mosaic, which emphasizes proactive management of ecosystems, local adaptation, and flexible governance. TechnoGarden, a globalized approach with an emphasis on green technology and a proactive approach to managing ecosystems. The Scenarios volume will help decision-makers and managers identify development paths that better maintain the resilience of ecosystems, and can reduce the risk of damage to human well-being and the environment.

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Ecoviews

Snakes, Snails, and Environmental Tales

Whit Gibbons and Anne R. Gibbons

University of Alabama Press, 1998

The authors offer a fun-to-read perspective on natural history, ecology as a field of study, and the current environmental issues that face our communities and the world.

This lively and entertaining book provides a fascinating and thought-provoking look at the ecology of animals, plants, and their habitats and promotes awareness of pressing environmental issues. The eight informative chapters deliver effective environmental messages and supply compelling insight into the natural world and the ecologists who investigate its many mysteries.

From a concerned ecological stance, the authors show that human relationship with other organisms and the environment is always complex and can be exhilarating, inspiring, humorous, and irritating, depending on perspectives and circumstances. Writing truly to inform and delight, they give a captivating variety of examples from the natural world in hopes of making readers of all ages more compassionate, more tolerant, and more sensitive to other living organisms and their interrelationships. The book celebrates the intrinsic worth of all plants and animals in order to motivate people in a unified effort to preserve the Earth's rich array of life forms. The preservation of the integrity of our planet's biodiversity is, the authors illustrate, critical to our own survival.

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Edge Effects

Notes From An Oregon Forest

Chris Anderson

University of Iowa Press, 1993

Buying his dream house several years ago on the forest's edge near Corvallis, Oregon, essayist Chris Anderson hoped to find the joys of rural living. Despite interminable Mr. Blandings experiences, he lived embowered by 12,000 acres of seemingly endless fir trees. But not for long. The McDonald-Dunn Forest was about to become the site of a disturbing research project. Little did Anderson know when he bought his house that, in addition to studying the ecological effects of clear-cutting, the researchers wanted to see how urban fringe dwellers might be affected too. The shock of that harvest compelled the essays in this vibrant, graceful record of the relationship between the forest and Anderson's life on its boundary.

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Effective Conservation

Parks, Rewilding, and Local Development

Ignacio Jiménez

Island Press, 2022

For most, “conservation” conjures the notion of minimizing human presence on wildlands to avoid harmful impacts. But too often, this defensive approach has pitted local communities against conservationists, wasting opportunities for collaboration and setting the stage for ongoing conflict. One conservation approach turns that paradigm on its head, and instead connects conservation with the well-being of human communities, setting both up for success. Called “Full Nature,” this approach—pioneered by conservationist Ignacio Jiménez—seeks to promote fully functional natural landscapes that are tied to the basic needs of the communities in their midst. They become a self-sustaining cycle, where nature and people are integrated ecologically, socially, and politically.

Effective Conservation is based on Jiménez’s experience managing conservation projects on three continents over thirty years. Jiménez offers a pragmatic approach to conservation that puts the focus on working with people—neighbors, governments, politicians, businesses, media—to ensure they have a long-term stake in protecting and restoring parks and wildlife. Jiménez guides readers through the practical considerations of designing, analyzing, and managing effective conservation programs. Chapters explore intelligence gathering, communication, planning, conflict management, and evaluation techniques, and include numerous text boxes showcasing examples of successful conservation projects from all continents. A companion website (islandpress.org/effective-conservation) includes additional case studies, expanded texts, and links to additional resources.

This highly readable manual, newly translated into English after successful Spanish and Portuguese editions, provides a groundbreaking and time-proven formula for successful conservation projects around the world that bring together parks, people, and nature.

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Effluent America

Cities, Industry, Energy, and the Environment

Martin V. Melosi

University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001

Garbage, wastewater, hazardous waste: these are the lenses through which Melosi views nineteenth- and twentieth-century America. In broad overviews and specific case studies, Melosi treats the relationship between industrial expansion and urban growth from an ecological perspective.

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Eighteenth-Century Environmental Humanities

Jeremy Chow

Bucknell University Press, 2023

This groundbreaking new volume unites eighteenth-century studies and the environmental humanities, showcasing how these fields can vibrantly benefit one another. In eleven chapters that engage a variety of eighteenth-century texts, contributors explore timely themes and topics such as climate change, new materialisms, the blue humanities, indigeneity and decoloniality, and green utopianism. Additionally, each chapter reflects on pedagogical concerns, asking: How do we teach eighteenth-century environmental humanities? With particular attention to the voices of early-career scholars who bring cutting-edge perspectives, these essays highlight vital and innovative trends that can enrich both disciplines, making them essential for classroom use.

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Electric Mountains

Climate, Power, and Justice in an Energy Transition

Shaun A. Golding

Rutgers University Press, 2021

Climate change has shifted from future menace to current event. As eco-conscious electricity consumers, we want to do our part in weening from fossil fuels, but what are we actually a part of?

Committed environmentalists in one of North America’s most progressive regions desperately wanted energy policies that address the climate crisis. For many of them, wind turbines on Northern New England’s iconic ridgelines symbolize the energy transition that they have long hoped to see. For others, however, ridgeline wind takes on a very different meaning. When weighing its costs and benefits locally and globally, some wind opponents now see the graceful structures as symbols of corrupted energy politics.

This book derives from several years of research to make sense of how wind turbines have so starkly split a community of environmentalists, as well as several communities. In doing so, it casts a critical light on the roadmap for energy transition that Northern New England’s ridgeline wind projects demarcate. It outlines how ridgeline wind conforms to antiquated social structures propping up corporate energy interests, to the detriment of the swift de-carbonizing and equitable transformation that climate predictions warrant. It suggests, therefore, that the energy transition of which most of us are a part, is probably not the transition we would have designed ourselves, if we had been asked.

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Emergent Ecologies

Eben Kirksey

Duke University Press, 2015

In an era of global warming, natural disasters, endangered species, and devastating pollution, contemporary writing on the environment largely focuses on doomsday scenarios. Eben Kirksey suggests we reject such apocalyptic thinking and instead find possibilities in the wreckage of ongoing disasters, as symbiotic associations of opportunistic plants, animals, and microbes are flourishing in unexpected places. Emergent Ecologies uses artwork and contemporary philosophy to illustrate hopeful opportunities and reframe key problems in conservation biology such as invasive species, extinction, environmental management, and reforestation. Following the flight of capital and nomadic forms of life—through fragmented landscapes of Panama, Costa Rica, and the United States—Kirksey explores how chance encounters, historical accidents, and parasitic invasions have shaped present and future multispecies communities. New generations of thinkers and tinkerers are learning how to care for emergent ecological assemblages—involving frogs, fungal pathogens, ants, monkeys, people, and plants—by seeding them, nurturing them, protecting them, and ultimately letting go.

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Encounters with Nature

Essays By Paul Shepard

Paul Shepard; Edited by Florence R. Shepard; Introduction by David Petersen

Island Press, 2000

While most scholars work within the safe, sturdy confines of conventional academics, Paul Shepard moved beyond convention, out under the open sky where he was free to turn and peer in every direction. Blending, sifting, and culling massive mounds of scientific, historical, and deductive data -- drawn from biology, ecology, ethology, anthropology, archaeology, psychology, sociology, philosophy, and even art -- he searched for shards of truth, then fit those pieces together to give logical and meaningful shape to our world. His interdisciplinary approach brought together diverse fields of research, embodying in a sense Edward O. Wilson's recently proposed idea of "consilience" -- the unity of knowledge needed in the fragmented world of academic specialization.Throughout the vast body of Shepard's literary legacy, certain themes appear repeatedly: the aesthetics and perception of landscape and nature; animals and their pervasive influence on our humanity; ontogeny, the development of the individual in complicity with nature and with culture; and "place" as the grounding of our being. Encounters with Nature brings together twenty-one essays written over a span of four decades that explore those themes and chronicle an interlocking progression of knowledge and insight that certifies Paul Shepard as one of the most brilliant thinkers of our time.The essays were selected and edited by Florence Shepard, who also provides a preface and substantial notes that introduce each section; her contributions offer illuminating biographical information that places the essays within the context of Shepard's life. In addition, the book features an introductory essay by writer David Petersen that discusses the meaning and importance of Shepard's guiding ideas.Encounters with Nature gives the reader a deeper understanding of Paul Shepard's thought, bringing his intellectual development into closer focus and providing a valuable overview of his life and vision. The book will bring a greater appreciation of the prescience and timelessness of Shepard's writings to his many followers and friends, and can also serve to introduce new readers to the remarkable breadth and depth of his work and insight.

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The Endangered Species Act at Thirty

Vol. 2: Conserving Biodiversity in Human-Dominated Landscapes

Edited by J. Michael Scott, Dale D. Goble, and Frank W. Davis

Island Press, 2006

Conserving Biodiversity in Human-Dominated Landscapes examines the key policy tools available for protecting biodiversity in the United States by revisiting some basic questions in conservation: What are we trying to protect and why? What are the limits of species-based conservation? Can we develop new conservation strategies that are more ecologically and economically viable than past approaches?

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Energizing China

Reconciling Environmental Protection and Economic Growth

Michael B. McElroy, Chris P. Nielsen, and Peter Lydon

Harvard University Press, 1998

As China develops its booming, fossil fuel-powered economy, is it taking lessons from the history of Western industrialization and the unforeseen environmental harms that accompanied it? Given the risks of climate change, is there an imperative, shared responsibility to help China respond to the environmental effects of its coal dependence? By linking global hazards to local air pollution concerns--from indoor stove smoke to burgeoning ground-level ozone--this volume of eighteen studies seeks integrated strategies to address simultaneously a range of harmful emissions. Counterbalancing the scientific inquiry are key chapters on China's unique legal, institutional, political, and cultural factors in effective pollution control.

Energizing China, the stage-setting publication of an ongoing program of Harvard-China research collaboration, is distinguished by its conceptual breadth and spirit of exchange. Its contributors include twenty-two Western and seventeen Chinese scholars with a disciplinary reach that includes science, public health, engineering, economics, public policy, law, business, and China studies.

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Energopolitics

Wind and Power in the Anthropocene

Dominic Boyer

Duke University Press, 2019

Between 2009 and 2013 Cymene Howe and Dominic Boyer conducted fieldwork in Mexico's Isthmus of Tehuantepec to examine the political, social, and ecological dimensions of moving from fossil fuels to wind power. Their work manifested itself as a new ethnographic form: the duograph—a combination of two single-authored books that draw on shared fieldsites, archives, and encounters that can be productively read together, yet can also stand alone in their analytic ambitions.

In his volume, Energopolitics, Boyer examines the politics of wind power and how it is shaped by myriad factors, from the legacies of settler colonialism and indigenous resistance to state bureaucracy and corporate investment. Drawing on interviews with activists, campesinos, engineers, bureaucrats, politicians, and bankers, Boyer outlines the fundamental impact of energy and fuel on political power. Boyer also demonstrates how large conceptual frameworks cannot adequately explain the fraught and uniquely complicated conditions on the isthmus, illustrating the need to resist narratives of anthropocenic universalism and to attend to local particularities.

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Energy for Sustainability

Technology, Planning, Policy

John Randolph and Gilbert M. Masters

Island Press, 2008

Energy for Sustainability is the first undergraduate textbook on renewable energy and energy efficiency with a unique focus on the community scale. Written by two of the foremost experts in the field, it is a pedagogically complete treatment of energy sources and uses. It examines the full range of issues—from generating technologies to land use planning—in making the transition to sustainable energy.

The book begins by providing a historical perspective on energy use by human civilizations and then covers energy fundamentals and trends; buildings and energy; sustainable electricity; sustainable transportation and land use; and energy policy and planning. Included in these topical areas are in-depth discussions of all of the most promising sources of renewable energy, including solar photovoltaic systems, wind turbines, and biofuels. In addition, the authors offer a thorough presentation of “green” building design, the impact of land use and transportation patterns on energy use, and the policies needed to transform energy markets at the local, state, and national levels. Throughout, the authors first provide the necessary theory and then demonstrate how it can be applied, utilizing cutting-edge practices and technologies, and the most current available data.

Since the dawn of the industrial age, the explosive growth in economic productivity has been fueled by oil, coal, and natural gas. World energy use nearly doubled between 1975 and 2005. China’s energy use has been doubling every decade. The implications for the environment are staggering. One way or another, our reliance on fossil fuels will have to end. Energy for Sustainability evaluates the alternatives and helps students understand how, with good planning and policy decisions, renewable energy and efficiency can support world demands at costs we can afford—economically, environmentally, and socially.

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The Energy-Environment Connection

Edited by Jack M. Hollander; Foreword by The Reverend Theodore M. Hesburgh

Island Press, 1992

Society currently faces critical and unprecedented decisions involving energy supply, use, and regulation. The Energy-Environment Connection brings together leading scientists and policy analysts to provide the latest thinking on all aspects of the vital connection between energy and the environment. Its goal is to help citizens and leaders find ways to balance the costs and benefits of energy within the context of global sustainability.

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Environment and Society in the Japanese Islands

From Prehistory to the Present

Bruce L. Batten

Oregon State University Press, 2015

Over the long course of Japan’s history, its people profited from their rich natural environment while simultaneously facing significant environmental challenges. Over time, they have altered their natural environment in numerous ways, from landscape modification to industrial pollution. How has the human-nature relationship changed over time in Japan? How does Japan’s environmental history compare with that of other countries, or that of the world as a whole?

Environment and Society in the Japanese Islands attempts to answer these questions through a series of case studies by leading Japanese and Western historians, geographers, archaeologists, and climatologists. These essays, on diverse topics from all periods of Japanese history and prehistory, are unified by their focus on the key concepts of “resilience” and “risk mitigation.” Taken as a whole, they place Japan’s experience in global context and call into question the commonly presumed division between pre-modern and modern environmental history.

Primarily intended for scholars and students in fields related to Japan or environmental history, these accessibly-written essays will be valuable to anyone wishing to learn about the historical roots of today’s environmental issues or the complex relationship between human society and the natural environment.

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The Environment and the People in American Cities, 1600s-1900s

Disorder, Inequality, and Social Change

Dorceta E. Taylor

Duke University Press, 2009

In The Environment and the People in American Cities, Dorceta E. Taylor provides an in-depth examination of the development of urban environments, and urban environmentalism, in the United States. Taylor focuses on the evolution of the city, the emergence of elite reformers, the framing of environmental problems, and the perceptions of and responses to breakdowns in social order, from the seventeenth century through the twentieth. She demonstrates how social inequalities repeatedly informed the adjudication of questions related to health, safety, and land access and use. While many accounts of environmental history begin and end with wildlife and wilderness, Taylor shows that the city offers important clues to understanding the evolution of American environmental activism.

Taylor traces the progression of several major thrusts in urban environmental activism, including the alleviation of poverty; sanitary reform and public health; safe, affordable, and adequate housing; parks, playgrounds, and open space; occupational health and safety; consumer protection (food and product safety); and land use and urban planning. At the same time, she presents a historical analysis of the ways race, class, and gender shaped experiences and perceptions of the environment as well as environmental activism and the construction of environmental discourses. Throughout her analysis, Taylor illuminates connections between the social and environmental conflicts of the past and those of the present. She describes the displacement of people of color for the production of natural open space for the white and wealthy, the close proximity between garbage and communities of color in early America, the cozy relationship between middle-class environmentalists and the business community, and the continuous resistance against environmental inequalities on the part of ordinary residents from marginal communities.

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Environment and Urbanization in Modern Italy

Federico Paolini

University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020

From the second half of the 1940s, when postwar reconstruction began in Italy, there were three notable driving forces of environmental change: the uncontrollable process of urban drift, fueled by considerable migratory flows from the countryside and southern regions toward the cities where large-scale productive activities were beginning to amass; unruly industrial development, which was tolerated since it was seen as the necessary tribute to be paid to progress and modernization; and mass consumption. In his fourth book, Federico Paolini presents a series of essays ranging from the uses of natural resources, to environmental problems caused by means of transport, to issues concerning environmental politics and the dynamics of the environment movement. Paolini concludes the book with a forecast about the environmental problems that will emerge in the public debate of the twenty-first century.

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Environment in the Balance

The Green Movement and the Supreme Court

Jonathan Z. Cannon

Harvard University Press, 2015

The first Earth Day in 1970 marked environmentalism’s coming-of-age in the United States. More than four decades later, does the green movement remain a transformative force in American life? Presenting a new account from a legal perspective, Environment in the Balance interprets a wide range of U.S. Supreme Court decisions, along with social science research and the literature of the movement, to gauge the practical and cultural impact of environmentalism and its future prospects.

Jonathan Z. Cannon demonstrates that from the 1960s onward, the Court’s rulings on such legal issues as federalism, landowners’ rights, standing, and the scope of regulatory authority have reflected deep-seated cultural differences brought out by the mass movement to protect the environment. In the early years, environmentalists won some important victories, such as the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision allowing them to sue against barriers to recycling. But over time the Court has become more skeptical of their claims and more solicitous of values embodied in private property rights, technological mastery and economic growth, and limited government.

Today, facing the looming threat of global warming, environmentalists struggle to break through a cultural stalemate that threatens their goals. Cannon describes the current ferment in the movement, and chronicles efforts to broaden its cultural appeal while staying connected to its historical roots, and to ideas of nature that have been the source of its distinctive energy and purpose.

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Environment in the Global Arena

Actors, Values, Policies, and Futures

Kenneth A. Dahlberg, Marvin S. Soroos, Anne Thompson Feraru, James E. Harf, and B. Thomas Trout

Duke University Press, 1985

Volumes in the Global Issues series address the problems of energy and environment as matters of international concern, and a forthcoming volume provides an overview of all these areas.

The issues in the series are each considered within a systematic framework common to all. Each volume begins with a historical background and then the issues are placed in their contemporary context. Four distinct perspectives are presented: (1) Who are the "global actors" involved in the issue, and what are the linkages among them? (2) What prevailing values are operating, and how have the relevant actors responded to those values? (3) What policies are applied by these actors at the global level, and how are these policies determined? (4) What are the possible results of the values and policies of these global actors?

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Environmental and Energy Policy and the Economy

Volume 1

Edited by Matthew J. Kotchen, James H. Stock, and Catherine D. Wolfram

University of Chicago Press Journals, 2020

This volume presents six new papers on environmental/energy economics and policy. Robert Stavins evaluates carbon taxes versus a cap-and-trade mechanism for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, arguing that specific design features of either instrument can be more consequential than the choice of instrument itself. Lucas Davis and James Sallee show that the exemption of electric vehicles from the gasoline tax is likely to be efficient as long as gasoline prices remain below social marginal costs, even though it results in lower tax revenue. Caroline Flammer analyzes the rapidly growing market for green bonds and highlights the importance of third-party certification to the financial and environmental performance of publically traded companies. Antonio Bento, Mark Jacobsen, Christopher Knittel, and Arthur van Benthem develop a general framework for evaluating the costs and benefits of fuel economy standards and use it to account for the differences between several recent studies of changes in these standards. Nicholas Muller estimates a measure of output in the U.S. economy over the last 60 years that accounts for air pollution damages, and shows that pollution effects are sizable, affect growth rates, and have diminished appreciably over time. Finally, Marc Hafstead and Roberton Williams illustrate methods of accounting for employment effects when evaluating the costs and benefits of environmental regulations.

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Environmental and Energy Policy and the Economy

Volume 2

Edited by Matthew J. Kotchen, James H. Stock, and Catherine D. Wolfram

University of Chicago Press Journals, 2020

This volume presents six new papers on environmental and energy economics and related policy issues. Robert Pindyck provides a systematic overview of what is known, and remains unknown, about climate change, along with the implications of uncertainty for climate policy. Shaikh Eskander, Sam Fankhauser, and Joana Setzer offer insights from a comprehensive data set on climate change legislation and litigation across all countries of the world over the past thirty years. Adele Morris, Noah Kaufman, and Siddhi Doshi shine a light on how expected trends in the coal industry will create significant challenges for the local public finance of coal-reliant communities. Joseph Aldy and his collaborators analyze the treatment of co-benefits in benefit-cost analyses of federal clean air regulations. Tatyana Deryugina and her co-authors report on the geographic and socioeconomic heterogeneity in the benefits of reducing particulate matter air pollution. Finally, Oliver Browne, Ludovica Gazze, and Michael Greenstone use detailed data on residential water consumption to evaluate the relative impacts of conservation policies based on prices, restrictions, and public persuasion.

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Environmental and Energy Policy and the Economy

Volume 3

Edited by Matthew J. Kotchen, Tatyana Deryugina, and James H. Stock

University of Chicago Press Journals, 2022

This volume presents six new papers on environmental and energy economics and policy in the United States. Rebecca Davis, J. Scott Holladay, and Charles Sims analyze recent trends in and forecasts of coal-fired power plant retirements with and without new climate policy. Severin Borenstein and James Bushnell examine the efficiency of pricing for electricity, natural gas, and gasoline. James Archsmith, Erich Muehlegger, and David Rapson provide a prospective analysis of future pathways for electric vehicle adoption. Kenneth Gillingham considers the consequences of such pathways for the design of fuel vehicle economy standards. Frank Wolak investigates the long-term resource adequacy in wholesale electricity markets with significant intermittent renewables. Finally, Barbara Annicchiarico, Stefano Carattini, Carolyn Fischer, and Garth Heutel review the state of research on the interactions between business cycles and environmental policy.

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Environmental and Energy Policy and the Economy

Volume 4

Edited by Matthew J. Kotchen, Tatyana Deryugina, and James H. Stock

University of Chicago Press Journals, 2023

Rigorous, careful, and nonpartisan research with a high policy impact on environmental and energy economics.

Environmental and Energy Policy and the Economy focuses on the effective and efficient management of environmental and energy challenges. Research papers offer new evidence on the intended and unintended consequences, the market and nonmarket effects, and the incentive and distributional impacts of policy initiatives and market developments.

This volume presents six new papers on environmental and energy economics and policy. Gilbert Metcalf examines the distributional impacts of substituting a vehicle miles-traveled tax for the existing federal excise tax in the United States. David Weisbach, Samuel Kortum, Michael Wang, and Yujia Yao consider solutions to the leakage problem of climate policy with differential tax policies on the supply and demand for fossil fuels and on domestic production and consumption. Danae Hernandez-Cortes, Kyle Meng, and Paige Weber quantify and decompose recent trends in air pollution disparities in the US electricity sector. Severin Borenstein and Ryan Kellogg provide a comparative analysis of different incentive-based mechanisms to reduce emissions in the electricity sector on a path to zero emissions. Sarah Anderson, Andrew Plantinga, and Matthew Wibbenmeyer document distributional differences in the allocation of US wildfire prevention projects. Finally, Mark Curtis and Ioana Marinescu provide new evidence on the quality and quantity of emerging “green” jobs in the United States.

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Environmental Challenges in the MENA Region

The Long Road from Conflict to Cooperation

Hamid Pouran and Hassan Hakimian

Gingko, 2019

The Middle East and North Africa region is well-known for its abundant natural resources and important geostrategic position. This position is often overshadowed by continued sectarian violence and trans-boundary conflicts that threaten the stability of the entire region with serious global implications. This preoccupation with conflict has come at the expense of addressing the region’s other challenges.

Although the region’s fragile environmental state has increasingly preoccupied policymakers in individual countries, there is currently insufficient attention paid to coordinating collaborative action to recognise and address problems relating to its environmental sustainability and climatic change. In the absence of a positive agenda for tackling these issues, recurrent environmental setbacks and rapid depletion of the region’s natural resources continue to pose a major threat to the long-term economic, political, and social stability of the region.

Despite the urgency of these challenges, there is little research dedicated to studying MENA’s environmental sustainability. Environmental Challenges in the MENA Region: The Long Road from Conflict to Cooperation draws from the proceedings of a seminal international conference on the subject at SOAS in October 2016, which was held as a celebration of the SOAS Centenary. This led to a collective contribution by experts and policy-makers concerned with the state of the MENA region’s environmental predicament with the aim of addressing these problems in a constructive and forward-looking approach.

The chapters in this book are predicated upon two critical premises. First, expertise and awareness from a wide range of disciplines is required to understand and address environmental challenges. And, second, to have a real chance of success, MENA countries need to confront these problems as their common threats and to see them as an opportunity for regional cooperation and policy coordination. This book provides the results of an interdisciplinary effort to address the various dimensions of the region’s environmental challenges from across the region and disciplines.

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Environmental Disputes

Community Involvement In Conflict Resolution

James E. Crowfoot and Julia Wondolleck

Island Press, 1990

Environmental Disputes helps citizen groups, businesses, and governments understand how Environmental Dispute Settlement--a set of procedures for settling disputes over environmental policies without litigation--can work for them.

[more]

Environmental Groups and Legal Expertise

Shaping the Brexit process

Carolyn Abbot and Maria Lee

University College London, 2021

A close look at environmental NGO advocacy during Brexit and how legal expertise can be a resource in moments of crisis.

This book explores the use and understanding of law and legal expertise by environmental groups. Rather than focusing on the courtroom, however, this volume scrutinizes environmental NGO advocacy during the extraordinarily dramatic Brexit process, from the referendum on leaving the EU in 2016 to the debate around the new Environment Bill in 2020. In an effort to show how legal expertise is more than a campaign tool or the threat of litigation, this book describes the ways in which law can provide distinctive ways of both seeing and changing the world. Legal resources in the environmental sector are not just a practical limit on what can be done, but an opportunity to investigate the very understanding of what should be done. Legal expertise was heavily and often effectively used in the anomalously law-heavy Brexit-environment debate. This book will clarify this moment and the NGO collaboration that made it possible for environmental advocates to call upon legal expertise in a moment of crisis.

[more]

Environmental Health

Fourth Edition

Dade W. Moeller

Harvard University Press, 2011

Dramatic changes in the field of environmental health since the Third Edition was published in 2004 demand a new, radically updated version of this essential textbook.

Based on the recommendations of advisory bodies and federal agency regulations, as well as a thorough review of the scientific literature, Moeller’s Fourth Edition is the only fully current text in this burgeoning field. It features new tables and figures, and revisions of those retained from previous editions. Environmental Health is also enriched with the knowledge and insights of professionals who are deeply involved in “real world” aspects of each subject covered.

In eighteen chapters, students receive a complete but manageable introduction to the complex nature of the environment, how humans interact with it, and the mutual impact between people and the environments where they work or live. This new edition emphasizes the challenges students will face in the field: the local and global implications of environmental health initiatives, their short- and long-range effects, their importance to both developing and developed nations, and the roles individuals can play in helping to resolve these problems.

Whether discussing toxicology, injury prevention, risk assessment, and ionizing and non-ionizing radiation, or more traditional subjects like the management and control of air, water, and food, Dade Moeller emphasizes the need for a systems approach to analyzing new projects prior to their construction and operation.

Environmental Health is indispensable reading for practitioners, students, and anyone considering a career in public health.

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Environmental Health

Third Edition

Dade W. Moeller

Harvard University Press, 2005

Environmental Health has established itself as the most succinct and comprehensive textbook on the subject. This extensively revised and rewritten third edition continues this tradition by incorporating new developments and by adding timely coverage of topics such as environmental economics and terrorism.

As in previous volumes, the new edition presents balanced assessments of environmental problems, examining their local and global implications, their short- and long-range impacts, and their importance in both developed and less developed countries of the world. The Third Edition also addresses emerging issues such as environmental justice, deforestation, the protection of endangered species, multiple chemical sensitivity, and the application of the threshold concept in evaluating the effects of toxic and radioactive materials.

Whether discussing acid rain, ozone depletion, global warming, or more traditional subjects such as the management and control of air, water, and food, Dade Moeller emphasizes the need for a systems approach. As with previous volumes, Environmental Health, Third Edition, offers a depth of understanding that is without peer. While it covers technical details, it is also a book that anyone with an interest in the environment can pick up and browse at random.

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Environmental Injustices, Political Struggles

Race, Class and the Environment

David E. Camacho, ed.

Duke University Press, 1998

In the United States, few issues are more socially divisive than the location of hazardous waste facilities and other environmentally harmful enterprises. Do the negative impacts of such polluters fall disproportionately on African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, and Asian Americans? Environmental Injustices, Political Struggles discusses how political, economic, social, and cultural factors contribute to local government officials’ consistent location of hazardous and toxic waste facilities in low-income neighborhoods and how, as a result, low-income groups suffer disproportionately from the regressive impacts of environmental policy.
David E. Camacho’s collection of essays examines the value-laden choices behind the public policy that determines placement of commercial environmental hazards, points to the underrepresentation of people of color in the policymaking process, and discusses the lack of public advocates representing low-income neighborhoods and communities. This book combines empirical evidence and case studies—from the failure to provide basic services to the “colonias” in El Paso County, Texas, to the race for water in Nevada—and covers in great detail the environmental dangers posed to minority communities, including the largely unexamined communities of Native Americans. The contributors call for cooperation between national environmental interest groups and local grassroots activism, more effective incentives and disincentives for polluters, and the adoption by policymakers of an alternative, rather than privileged, perspective that is more sensitive to the causes and consequences of environmental inequities.
Environmental Injustices, Political Struggles is a unique collection for those interested in the environment, public policy, and civil rights as well as for students and scholars of political science, race and ethnicity, and urban and regional planning.

Contributors. C. Richard Bath, Kate A. Berry, John G. Bretting, David E. Camacho, Jeanne Nienaber Clarke, Andrea K. Gerlak, Peter I. Longo, Diane-Michele Prindeville, Linda Robyn, Stephen Sandweiss, Janet M. Tanski, Mary M. Timney, Roberto E. Villarreal, Harvey L. White

[more]

Environmental Justice in South Africa

David A. McDonald

Ohio University Press, 2002

Environmental Justice in South Africa provides a systematic overview of the first ten years of postapartheid environmental politics. Written by leading activists and academics in the field, this edited collection offers the first critical perspective of environmental justice theory and practice in South Africa. Accessible and wide-ranging in its coverage, the book offers a benchmark analysis of the environmental justice movement today as well as an assessment of where it may be headed in the future.

Beginning with a history of the environmental justice movement in the country, the book explores a range of conceptual and practical questions: How does environmental justice relate to issues of marginalization and poverty in South Africa? What are the links between environmental justice and other schools of environmental thought? Is the legal system an appropriate tool for addressing environmental equity? How do race, class, and gender intersect in the South African environmental context?

The second half of the book is a more concrete exploration of environmental (in)justice in the country. These chapters are interspersed with real-life stories of struggles by workers and communities for environmental change. The book is an invaluable resource for South African and international audiences interested in the growing, and increasingly global, environmental justice movement.

[more]

Environmental Justice

Issues, Policies, and Solutions

Edited by Bunyan Bryant

Island Press, 1995

In Environmental Justice, leading thinkers of the environmental justice movement take a direct look at the failure of "top down" public policy to effectively deal with issues of environmental equity.

The book provides a startling look at pressing social and environmental problems and charts a course for future action. Among the topics considered are: the history of the social justice movement the role of the professional in working with community groups methods of dealing with environmental problems at the international level participatory national policy for environmental education, energy, industrial development, and housing and sustainable development.

Contributors include Robert Bullard, Deeohn Ferris, Tom B.K. Goldtooth, David Hahn-Baker, Beverly Wright, Ivette Perfecto, Patrick West, and others.

[more]

Environmental Law for Biologists

Tristan Kimbrell

University of Chicago Press, 2016

Environmental law has an unquestionable effect on the species, ecosystems, and landscapes that biologists study—and vice-versa, as the research of these biologists frequently informs policy. But because many scientists receive little or no legal training, we know relatively little about the precise ways that laws affect biological systems—and, consequently, about how best to improve these laws and better protect our natural resources.

With Environmental Law for Biologists, ecologist and lawyer Tristan Kimbrell bridges this gap in legal knowledge. Complete with a concise introduction to environmental law and an appendix describing the most important federal and international statutes and treaties discussed, the book is divided into four broad parts: laws that focus on individual species, like invasive species policies, the Endangered Species Act, and international treaties such as CITES; laws that focus on land, from federal public lands to agricultural regulations and urban planning; laws that focus on water, such as the Clean Water Act; and laws that focus on air, such as the Clean Air Act and international measures meant to mitigate global climate change. Written for working biologists and students alike, this book will be a catalyst for both more effective policy and enhanced research, offering hope for the manifold frictions between science and the law.

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Environmental Politics and Policy

Theories and Evidence

James P. Lester, ed.

Duke University Press, 1995

Completely revised throughout, and including five new chapters, this second edition of Environmental Politics and Policy provides an updated review and synthesis of the political science literature on the subject of environmental politics and policy. Various chapters by leading scholars in the field analyze and describe the role of public opinion, interest groups, political parties, Congress, the Executive Branch, the Courts, and elites as they have influenced the formation of U.S. environmental policies over the past twenty-five years. The book also provides ideas for future research and will stimulate thinking about the subject in the 1990s and beyond.

From reviews of the First Edition:
"All the authors in this collection of essays are well known in the field of environmental policy. Their breadth of knowledge, and diversity of perspectives, permit a rich and comprehensive coverage of the scholarly work in this field."—Daniel McCool, Journal of Politics

"An excellent collection of readings with a strong emphasis on institutional analysis as an approach to environmental policy in the United States."—Robert Paehlke, Natural Resources and Environmental Administration

"No better review of the political science of environmental policy-making has yet been published."—Christopher J. Bailey, Environmental Politics

Contributors. David Colnic, Douglas Costain, John S. Dryzek, Riley E. Dunlap, Helen M. Ingram, Sheldon Kamieniecki, Michael E. Kraft, James P. Lester, Dean E. Mann, Evan J. Ringquist, Walter A. Rosenbaum, Mark E. Rushefsky, Gerald B. Thomas, Lettie M. Wenner

[more]

Environmental Program Evaluation

A Primer

Edited by Gerrit Knaap and Tschango John Kim: Foreword by Ravinder K. Jain

University of Illinois Press, 1998

This pioneer work in a complex, interdisciplinary, and still-developing field explores the prospects for a more comprehensive approach to evaluating environmental programs. Experts in the fields of biology, chemistry, ecology, economics, management, planning, sociology, political science, and public administration provide coherent, integrated perspectives on the task of environmental program evaluation. The essays are organized thematically, covering institutional, scientific, economic, and administrative topics. The volume will be a valuable text for practitioners, regulators, policymakers, and scholars in the fields of program evaluation, environmental policy, and environmental science.

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Environmental Security

Simon Dalby

University of Minnesota Press, 2002

A critical look at the relationship between environmental degradation and international relations. Since the end of the Cold War, environmental matters--especially the international implications of environmental degradation--have figured prominently in debates about rethinking security. But do the assumptions underlying such discussions hold up under close scrutiny? In this first treatment of environmental security from a truly critical perspective, Simon Dalby shows how attempts to explain contemporary insecurity falter over unexamined notions of both environment and security. Adding environmental history, aboriginal perspectives, and geopolitics to the analysis explicitly suggests that the growing disruptions caused by a carbon-fueled and expanding modernity are at the root of contemporary difficulties. Environmental Security argues that rethinking security means revisiting questions of how we conceive identities as endangered and how we perceive threats to these identities. The book clearly demonstrates that the conceptual basis for critical security studies requires an extended engagement with political theory and with the assumptions of the modern subject as progressive political agent. Viewed thus on a global scale, the environmental security discourse raises profoundly troubling political questions as to who we are and what kind of world we are collectively making in our efforts to be secure. Simon Dalby is professor of geography and political economy at Carleton University in Ottawa.

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Environmental Studies of a Marine Ecosystem

South Texas Outer Continental Shelf

Edited by R. Warren Flint and Nancy N. Rabalais

University of Texas Press, 1981

Environmental Studies of a Marine Ecosystem reports the temporal and spatial variation of both the living and nonliving resources of the south Texas outer continental shelf. As the last major study to have been conducted before the Ixtoc oil spill in 1979, it is of great importance as a record of the baseline conditions and ecosystem characteristics for both biologists and chemists studying the effects of the Campeche disaster on the marine environment. The book is the culmination of three years of field studies conducted for the Bureau of Land Management and contains information on the climatology, hydrology, and sedimentology of the region as well as data on the pelagic and benthic biota, environmental hydrocarbons and trace metals, and the microbiology of the area. In addition to the ecosystem description, the data are integrated to expose ecological relationships that exist and to identify those specific variables which are most important for the assessment and management of environmentally damaging impacts to the area.

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Environmentalism and the Technologies of Tomorrow

Shaping The Next Industrial Revolution

Edited by Robert Olson and David Rejeski

Island Press, 2005

We sit at the doorstep of multiple revolutions in robotic, genetic, information, and communication technologies, whose powerful interactions promise social and environmental transformations we are only beginning to understand. How can we anticipate their impacts and ensure that these new technologies help move us in a more sustainable direction?

Environmentalism and the Technologies of Tomorrow is a collection of essays by leading scientists, technologists, and thinkers that examine the nature of current technological changes, their environmental implications, and possible strategies for the transition to a sustainable future. It offers a baseline understanding of new technological developments, as well as important insights for moving beyond business-as-usual by developing more anticipatory approaches to environmental protection and more comprehensive strategies for promoting the transformation of technology.

Among the contributors are Brad Allenby, David Bell, Steward Brand, Michael Braungart, Lester Brown, Joanne Ciulla, Denis Hayes, Hazel Henderson, Amory Lovins, William McDonough, Gary Marchant, David Ronfeldt, John Seely-Brown, Gus Speth, and Timothy Sturgeon.

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Envisioning Nature, Science, and Religion

Jim Proctor

Templeton Press, 2009

Contemporary scholarship has given rise to several modes of understanding biophysical and human nature, each entangled with related notions of science and religion. Envisioning Nature, Science, and Religion represents the culmination of three years of collaboration by an international group of fourteen natural scientists, social scientists, humanists, and theologians. The result is an intellectually stimulating volume that explores how the ideas of nature pertain to science and religion.

Editor James D. Proctor has gathered sixteen in-depth essays, each examining and comparing five central metaphors or "visions" of biophysical and human nature. These visions are evolutionary nature, emergent nature, malleable nature, nature as sacred, and nature as culture. The book's diverse contributors offer a wide variety of unique perspectives on these five visions, spanning the intellectual spectrum and proposing important and often startling implications for religion and science alike. Throughout the essays, the authors do a great deal of cross-referencing and engaging each other's ideas, creating a cohesive dialogue on the visions of nature.

Envisioning Nature, Science, and Religion offers a blend of scholarly rigor and readable prose that will be appreciated by anyone engaged in the fields of religion, philosophy, and the natural sciences.

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Epidemics, Empire, and Environments

Cholera in Madras and Quebec City, 1818–1910

Michael Zeheter

University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015

Throughout the nineteenth century, cholera was a global scourge against human populations. Practitioners had little success in mitigating the symptoms of the disease, and its causes were bitterly disputed. What experts did agree on was that the environment played a crucial role in the sites where outbreaks occurred. In this book, Michael Zeheter offers a probing case study of the environmental changes made to fight cholera in two markedly different British colonies: Madras in India and Quebec City in Canada.
The colonial state in Quebec aimed to emulate British precedent and develop similar institutions that allowed authorities to prevent cholera by imposing quarantines and controlling the disease through comprehensive change to the urban environment and sanitary improvements. In Madras, however, the provincial government sought to exploit the colony for profit and was reluctant to commit its resources to measures against cholera that would alienate the city’s inhabitants. It was only in 1857, after concern rose in Britain over the health of its troops in India, that a civilizing mission of sanitary improvement was begun. As Zeheter shows, complex political and economic factors came to bear on the reshaping of each colony's environment and the urgency placed on disease control.

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Erosion

American Environments and the Anxiety of Disappearance

Gina Caison

Duke University Press, 2024

In Erosion, Gina Caison traces how American authors and photographers have grappled with soil erosion as a material reality that shapes narratives of identity, belonging, and environment. Examining canonical American texts and photography including The Grapes of Wrath, Octavia Butler’s Parable series, John Audubon’s Louisiana writings, and Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother, Caison shows how concerns over erosion reveal anxieties of disappearance that are based in the legacies of settler colonialism. Soil loss not only occupies a complex metaphorical place in the narrative of American identity; it becomes central to preserving the white settler-colonial state through Indigenous dispossession and erasure. At the same time, Caison examines how Indigenous texts and art, such as Lynn Rigg’s play Green Grow the Lilacs, Karenne Wood’s poetry, and the photography of Monique Verdin, challenge colonial narratives of the continent by outlining the material stakes of soil loss for their own communities. From California to Oklahoma to North Carolina’s Outer Banks, Caison ultimately demonstrates that concerns over erosion reverberate out into issues of climate change, land ownership, Indigenous sovereignty, race, and cultural and national identity.

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Escape from the Ivory Tower

A Guide to Making Your Science Matter

Nancy Baron

Island Press, 2010

Most scientists and researchers aren’t prepared to talk to the press or to policymakers—or to deal with backlash. Many researchers have the horror stories to prove it. What’s clear, according to Nancy Baron, is that scientists, journalists and public policymakers come from different cultures. They follow different sets of rules, pursue different goals, and speak their own language. To effectively reach journalists and public officials, scientists need to learn new skills and rules of engagement. No matter what your specialty, the keys to success are clear thinking, knowing what you want to say, understanding your audience, and using everyday language to get your main points across.

In this practical and entertaining guide to communicating science, Baron explains how to engage your audience and explain why a particular finding matters. She explores how to ace your interview, promote a paper, enter the political fray, and use new media to connect with your audience. The book includes advice from journalists, decision makers, new media experts, bloggers and some of the thousands of scientists who have participated in her communication workshops. Many of the researchers she has worked with have gone on to become well-known spokespeople for science-related issues. Baron and her protégées describe the risks and rewards of “speaking up,” how to deal with criticism, and the link between communications and leadership. The final chapter, ‘Leading the Way’ offers guidance to scientists who want to become agents of change and make your science matter. Whether you are an absolute beginner or a seasoned veteran looking to hone your skills, Escape From the Ivory Tower can help make your science understood, appreciated and perhaps acted upon.

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Escaping Nature

How to Survive Global Climate Change

Orrin H. Pilkey, Charles O. Pilkey, Linda P. Pilkey-Jarvis, Norma J. Longo, Keith C. Pilkey, Fred B. Dodson, and Hannah L. Hayes

Duke University Press, 2024

Industrial and agricultural greenhouse gas emissions are rapidly warming Earth’s climate, unleashing rising seas, ocean acidification, melting permafrost, powerful storms, wildfires, floods, deadly heat waves, droughts, tsunamis, food shortages, and armed conflict over shrinking water supplies while reducing nutritional levels in crops. Billions of people will become climate refugees. Hotter temperatures will allow tropical diseases to spread into temperate regions. Higher levels of CO2, allergens, dust, and other particulate matter will impair our physical and mental health and even reduce our cognitive abilities. Climate change disproportionately affects the world’s poor. It also harms Nature, and could ultimately trigger a sixth mass extinction. In Escaping Nature, Orrin H. Pilkey and his coauthors offer concrete suggestions for how to respond to the threats posed by global climate change. They argue that while we wait for the world’s governments to get serious about mitigating climate change we can adapt to a hotter world through technological innovations, behavioral changes, nature-based solutions, political changes, and education.

[more]

Ethnic Diversity and the Control of Natural Resources in Southeast Asia

A. Terry Rambo, Kathleen Gillogly, and Karl L. Hutterrer, Editors

University of Michigan Press, 1988

The authors consider the ways in which the high degree of ethnic diversity within the region is related to the nature of tropical Asian environments, on the one hand, and the nature of Southeast Asian political systems and the ways in which they manipulate natural resources, on the other. Rather than focus on defining the phenomenon of ethnicity, this book examines the different social evolutionary contexts in which the phenomenon is manifested.

Companion volume to Cultural Values and Human Ecology in Southeast Asia (Michigan Papers no. 27).

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Everyday Environmentalism

Creating an Urban Political Ecology

Alex Loftus

University of Minnesota Press, 2012

Everyday Environmentalism develops a conversation between marxist theories of everyday life and recent work in urban political ecology, arguing for a philosophy of praxis in relation to the politics of urban environments. Grounding its theoretical debate in empirical studies of struggles to obtain water in the informal settlements of Durban, South Africa, as well as in the creative acts of insurgent art activists in London, Alex Loftus builds on the work of key marxist thinkers to redefine “environmental politics.”

A marxist philosophy of praxis—that world-changing ideas emerge from the acts of everyday people—undergirds the book. Our daily reality, writes Loftus, is woven out of the entanglements of social and natural relations, and as such a kind of environmental politics is automatically incorporated into our lives. Nevertheless, one effect of the public recognition of global environmental change, asserts Loftus, has been a resurgence of dualistic understandings of the world: for example, that nature is inflicting revenge on arrogant human societies.

This ambitious work reformulates—with the assistance of such philosophers as Lukács, Gramsci, Lefebvre, and others—a politics of the environment in which everyday subjectivity is at the heart of a revolutionary politics.

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Evolution in a Toxic World

How Life Responds to Chemical Threats

Emily Monosson

Island Press, 2012

With BPA in baby bottles, mercury in fish, and lead in computer monitors, the world has become a toxic place. But as Emily Monosson demonstrates in her groundbreaking new book, it has always been toxic. When oxygen first developed in Earth's atmosphere, it threatened the very existence of life: now we literally can't live without it. According to Monosson, examining how life adapted to such early threats can teach us a great deal about today's (and tomorrow's) most dangerous contaminants. While the study of evolution has advanced many other sciences, from conservation biology to medicine, the field of toxicology has yet to embrace this critical approach.
In Evolution in a Toxic World, Monosson seeks to change that. She traces the development of life's defense systems—the mechanisms that transform, excrete, and stow away potentially harmful chemicals—from more than three billion years ago to today. Beginning with our earliest ancestors' response to ultraviolet radiation, Monosson explores the evolution of chemical defenses such as antioxidants, metal binding proteins, detoxification, and cell death.

As we alter the world's chemistry, these defenses often become overwhelmed faster than our bodies can adapt. But studying how our complex internal defense network currently operates, and how it came to be that way, may allow us to predict how it will react to novel and existing chemicals. This understanding could lead to not only better management and preventative measures, but possibly treatment of current diseases. Development of that knowledge starts with this pioneering book.

[more]

Expanding Partnerships in Conservation

Edited by Jeffrey A. McNeely

Island Press, 1995

Protected areas around the globe national parks, wildlife reserves, biosphere reserves will prosper only if they are supported by the public, the private sector, and the full range of government agencies. Yet such support is unlikely unless society appreciates the importance of protected areas to its own interest, and the protected areas are well-managed and contribute to the national welfare in a cost-effective way.

A crucial foundation for success is full cooperation between individuals and institutions. Based on papers presented at the IVth World Congress on National Parks and Protected Areas, Expanding Partnerships in Conservation explores how new and stronger partnerships can be formed between managers of protected areas and other sectors of society. It describes a range of activities currently underway in many parts of the world that are intended to improve conservation efforts at the international, national, and local levels.

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The Expendable Future

US Politics and the Protection of Biological Diversity

Richard Tobin

Duke University Press, 1990

Species are disappearing from the earth at a rate of hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of times greater than every before witnessed. According to many scientists, this rapid destruction will lead to irreversible changes in the earth’s ecosystem. The Expendable Future provides a comprehensive and critical evaluation of the politics of biological diversity in the United States and of state and federal policies on endangered species from the early 1960s to the present.
Drawing on congressional hearing and debates, previously unpublished public opinion surveys, interviews with state officials and employees of the Department of the Interior, and internal documents from this and other government agencies, Tobin provides an in-depth analysis of the policies on endangered species and the policy relationships among the different units of government involved in implementation. He examines the resources that are available for the protection of endangered species and the way in which those resources are matched to the priorities. Tobin also discusses the processes by which species are classified as endangered, how these species’ critical habitats are determined and protected, and the successes, and mostly failures, of current recovery programs.

[more]

Exploring Apocalyptica

Coming to Terms with Environmental Alarmism

Frank Uekötter

University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018

Environmental alarmism has long been a political bellwether. Tell me what you think about the green apocalypse, and I'll tell you where you stand on the issues. But as the environmental heydays of the 1970s move into perspective, the time has come for a reassessment. Horror scenarios create a legacy whose effects have largely escaped attention. Based on case studies from four continents and the North Atlantic, ExploringApocalyptica argues for a reevaluation of familiar clichés. It shows that environmentalists were less apocalyptic than commonly thought, and other groups were far more enthusiastic. It traces an interconnection with Cold War fears and economic depressions and demonstrates how alarmism faced limits in the Global South. It also suggests that past horror scenarios impose constraints on ongoing debates. At a time when climate change turns from a scenario into an experienced reality, this book charts paths for an age that may have already moved beyond the peak apocalypse.

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The Extended Organism

The Physiology of Animal-Built Structures

J. Scott Turner

Harvard University Press, 2000

Can the structures that animals build--from the humble burrows of earthworms to towering termite mounds to the Great Barrier Reef--be said to live? However counterintuitive the idea might first seem, physiological ecologist Scott Turner demonstrates in this book that many animals construct and use structures to harness and control the flow of energy from their environment to their own advantage. Building on Richard Dawkins's classic, The Extended Phenotype, Turner shows why drawing the boundary of an organism's physiology at the skin of the animal is arbitrary. Since the structures animals build undoubtedly do physiological work, capturing and channeling chemical and physical energy, Turner argues that such structures are more properly regarded not as frozen behaviors but as external organs of physiology and even extensions of the animal's phenotype. By challenging dearly held assumptions, a fascinating new view of the living world is opened to us, with implications for our understanding of physiology, the environment, and the remarkable structures animals build.

[more]

The Extraction State

A History of Natural Gas in America

Charles Blanchard

University of Pittsburgh Press, 2021

The history of the United States of America is also the history of the energy sector. Natural gas provides the fuel that allows us to heat our homes in winter and cool them in summer with the touch of a button or turn of a dial—when the industry runs smoothly. From the oil crisis of the 1970s to the fall of Enron and the California electricity crisis at the turn of the century to contemporary issues of hydraulic fracking, poorly conceived government policies have sometimes left us shivering, stranded, or with significantly lighter wallets. In this expansive narrative, Charles Blanchard traces the rise of natural gas and the regulatory missteps that nearly ruined the market. Beginning in the 1880s, The Extraction State explains how the New Deal regulatory compact came together in the 1920s, even before the Great Depression, and how it fell apart in the 1970s. From there, the book dissects the policies that affect us today, and explores where we might be headed in the near future.

[more]