It is an unenviable task, but one that all state governments face: finding a final “resting place” for low-level nuclear waste from power plants, hospitals, university laboratories, and other industries. John Weingart was the official in New Jersey who for many years led this onerous charge. This book is the story of how he and a commission appointed by the governor, instead of imposing a top-down solution, designed an approach that would confront public fears by seeking a community that would volunteer to host a disposal facility. Initially, this novel approach was surprisingly successful, as leaders in a dozen municipalities stepped forward to say they might be interested. Once their interest became known, however, the process in each town derailed. Residents demanded assurances of zero-percent risk and expressed profound distrust of government assertions and promises.
Waste Is a Terrible Thing to Mind is a compelling, suspenseful, and amusing insider’s account of New Jersey policy and politics, but it is also a larger saga of the challenges facing society in the post–9/11 era when the public’s distrust of government is increasing at the same time that its sensitivity to health and safety threats is heightened.
For more information, see: http://wasteisaterriblethingtomind.com/
"Written with a wry sense of humor, it is a pleasure to read and could provide the blueprint for future efforts to find locations for controversial land uses."
- Marie Curtis, Executive Director, New Jersey Environmental Lobby
"A penetrating look at one state's struggle with radioactive waste ... offering some tantalizing reflections on the public understanding of science and how we, in a democratic society, deal with complexity and uncertainty."
- Jay Kaufman, State Senator, Massachusetts State Legislature
"A provocative story, laced with humor, demonstrates how public distrust of government can make it impotent. It should be read by anyone working on public policy issues, especially planning, growth, and the environment."
- Harriet Keyserling, Former Energy Committee Chair, South Carolina State Legislature
"Readers interested in environmental policy, land use and how governments make decisions will learn much from this fine reflective insider's account. It's also a primer on how to survive and thrive in state government."
- David N. Kinsey, Visiting Professor, Woodrow Wilson School Princeton University
"... a fascinating case study of how a government agency creatively tried to solve an intractable public issue. Although the agency failed in its quest to recruit a town to host a low-level radioactive waste site, Weingart's detailed and often humorous narrative of the agency's efforts is a clear winner."
- Jack Sabatino, Judge, New Jersey Superior Court
"... a very engaging and sometimes discouraging case study about the pitfalls and perils of trying to site a controversial facility the right way."
- Gregg Larson, Administrator, Center for Biometric Research, University of Minnesota
In India, you can still find the kabaadiwala, the rag-and-bone man. He wanders from house to house buying old newspapers, broken utensils, plastic bottles—anything for which he can get a little cash. This custom persists and recreates itself alongside the new economies and ecologies of consumer capitalism. Waste of a Nation offers an anthropological and historical account of India’s complex relationship with garbage.
Countries around the world struggle to achieve sustainable futures. Assa Doron and Robin Jeffrey argue that in India the removal of waste and efforts to reuse it also lay waste to the lives of human beings. At the bottom of the pyramid, people who work with waste are injured and stigmatized as they deal with sewage, toxic chemicals, and rotting garbage.
Terrifying events, such as atmospheric pollution and childhood stunting, that touch even the wealthy and powerful may lead to substantial changes in practices and attitudes toward sanitation. And innovative technology along with more effective local government may bring about limited improvements. But if a clean new India is to emerge as a model for other parts of the world, a “binding morality” that reaches beyond the current environmental crisis will be required. Empathy for marginalized underclasses—Dalits, poor Muslims, landless migrants—who live, almost invisibly, amid waste produced predominantly for the comfort of the better-off will be the critical element in India’s relationship with waste. Solutions will arise at the intersection of the traditional and the cutting edge, policy and practice, science and spirituality.
Wastelanding tells the history of the uranium industry on Navajo land in the U.S. Southwest, asking why certain landscapes and the peoples who inhabit them come to be targeted for disproportionate exposure to environmental harm. Uranium mines and mills on the Navajo Nation land have long supplied U.S. nuclear weapons and energy programs. By 1942, mines on the reservation were the main source of uranium for the top-secret Manhattan Project. Today, the Navajo Nation is home to more than a thousand abandoned uranium sites. Radiation-related diseases are endemic, claiming the health and lives of former miners and nonminers alike.
Traci Brynne Voyles argues that the presence of uranium mining on Diné (Navajo) land constitutes a clear case of environmental racism. Looking at discursive constructions of landscapes, she explores how environmental racism develops over time. For Voyles, the “wasteland,” where toxic materials are excavated, exploited, and dumped, is both a racial and a spatial signifier that renders an environment and the bodies that inhabit it pollutable. Because environmental inequality is inherent in the way industrialism operates, the wasteland is the “other” through which modern industrialism is established.
In examining the history of wastelanding in Navajo country, Voyles provides “an environmental justice history” of uranium mining, revealing how just as “civilization” has been defined on and through “savagery,” environmental privilege is produced by portraying other landscapes as marginal, worthless, and pollutable.
Finding "streams in the desert" has never been more urgent for the peoples of the Middle East. Rapid population growth and a rising standard of living are driving water demand inexorably upward, while the natural supply has not increased since Biblical times. Ensuring a fair and adequate distribution of water in the region is vitally important for building a lasting peace among the nations of the Middle East.
Addressing water needs from a geographical perspective, the contributors to this book analyze and assess the impact of scarce water resources in the Jordan River basin countries and territories (Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria) as these long-time antagonists work toward peace. After geographical and historical overviews, the authors envision the future-what the water issues may be when Israel and Syria begin negotiating, the "hydro-security" needs of each nation, and the difficulties of planning for uncertainty. Without proposing any one ideal scheme, they discuss the possibilities for cooperative sharing of water resources, while honestly acknowledging the political constraints that may limit such projects. The final essay speaks to the needs of the one party so rarely represented at the negotiating table—the Jordan River itself.
Throughout history the Yellow River, or Huang Ho, has repeatedly broken through its levees to rampage over the densely populated North China Plain. In spite of its importance as the major river of China, little has been written on the Yellow River and its management. Charles Greer fills this gap with his comprehensive and thoroughly researched book.
This work deals with the technological problems faced by the Chinese in taming the destructive river and also focuses on cultural attitudes that have governed the Chinese response to nature. For example, water control was not highly regarded by the Taoists, who preferred to let nature take its course; but the Buddhists sought to harness the river against devastating floods and also to benefit their crops.
Greer traces water use and management in the Yellow River Basin through Chinese history and discusses early Western interest in the flood problem and Soviet assistance in Yellow River development. He analyzes traditional methods of control as well as newer strategies and their implications.
The author of this book is one of a small number of social scientists able to master the original Chinese-language historical materials necessary to this undertaking. He has also examined Chinese water management methods first-hand as part of a delegation of water management specialists in 1976.
In addition to geographers and conservationists, China scholars will find this book valuable because of the axial role the control of the Yellow River plays in the fundamental economic health of the People’s Republic of China. Water management engineers will find much useful comparative material.
In June 2008, the rivers of eastern Iowa rose above their banks to create floods of epic proportions; their amazing size—flowing in places at a rate nearly double that of the previous record flood—and the rapidity of their rise ruined farmlands and displaced thousands of residents and hundreds of businesses. In Cedar Rapids, the waters inundated more than nine square miles of the downtown area; in Iowa City, where the flood was also the most destructive in history, the University of Iowa’s arts campus was destroyed. By providing a solid base of scientific and technical information presented with unusual clarity and a wealth of supporting illustrations, the contributors to this far-reaching book, many of whom dealt firsthand with the 2008 floods, provide a detailed roadmap of the causes and effects of future devastating floods.
The twenty-five essays fall naturally into four sections. “Rising Rivers, Spreading Waters” begins by comparing the 2008 floods with the midwestern floods of 1993, moves on to trace community responses to the 2008 floods, and ends by illuminating techniques for forecasting floods and determining their size and frequency. “Why Here, Why Now?” searches for possible causes of the 2008 floods and of flooding in general: annual crops and urban landscapes, inflows into and releases from reservoirs, and climate change. “Flood Damages, Flood Costs, Flood Benefits” considers the complex mix of flood costs and effects, emphasizing damages to cities and farmlands as well as potential benefits to natural communities and archaeological sites. “Looking Back, Looking Forward” lays out approaches to managing the floods of the future that are sure to come.
While the book draws most of its examples from one particular region, it explains flooding throughout a much larger region—the midwestern Corn Belt—and thus its sobering yet energizing lessons apply well beyond eastern Iowa. By examining the relationships among rivers, floodplains, weather, and modern society; by stressing matters of science and fact rather than social or policy issues; and by addressing multiple environmental problems and benefits, A Watershed Year informs and educates all those who experienced the 2008 floods and all those concerned with the larger causes of flooding.
As long as humans have existed, they’ve worked and competed with plants to shape their surroundings. As cities developed and expanded, their diverse spaces were covered with and colored by weeds. In Weeds, Zachary J. S. Falck presents a comprehensive history of “happenstance plants” in American urban environments. Beginning in the late nineteenth century and continuing to the present, he examines the proliferation, perception, and treatment of weeds in metropolitan centers from Boston to Los Angeles.
In dynamic city ecosystems, population movements and economic cycles establish and transform habitats where vegetation continuously changes. Americans came to associate weeds with infectious diseases and allergies, illegal dumping, vagrants, drug dealers, and decreased property values. Local governments and citizens’ groups attempted to eliminate unwanted plants to better their urban environments and improve the health and safety of inhabitants. Over time, a growing understanding of the natural environment made “happenstance plants” more tolerable and even desirable.
In the twenty-first century, scientists have warned that the effects of global warming and the heat-trapping properties of cities are producing more robust strains of weeds. Falck shows that nature continues to flourish where humans have struggled: in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, in the abandoned homes of the California housing bust, and alongside crumbling infrastructure. Weeds are here to stay.
For 150 years, the American West has been shaped by persistent conflicts over natural resources. This has given rise to a succession of strategies for resolving disputes-prior appropriation, scientific management, public participation, citizen ballot initiatives, public interest litigation, devolution, and interest-based negotiation. All of these strategies are still in play, yet the West remains mired in gridlock. In fact, these strategies are themselves a source of conflict.
The Western Confluence is designed to help us navigate through the gridlock by reframing natural resource disputes and the strategies for resolving them. In it, authors Matthew McKinney and William Harmon trace the principles of natural resource governance across the history of western settlement and reveal how they have met at the beginning of the twenty-first century to create a turbid, often contentious confluence of laws, regulations, and policies. They also offer practical suggestions for resolving current and future disputes. Ultimately, Matthew McKinney and William Harmon argue, fully integrating the values of interest-based negotiation into the briar patch of existing public decision making strategies is the best way to foster livable communities, vibrant economies, and healthy landscapes in the West.
Relying on the authors' first-hand experience and compelling case studies, The Western Confluence offers useful information and insight for anyone involved with public decision making, as well as for professionals, faculty, and students in natural resource management and environmental studies, conflict management, environmental management, and environmental policy.
Did you know that Benjamin Franklin examined the first dinosaur bone in America from Woodbury, Gloucester County, in 1787--decades before the word dinosaur was even coined? Or that when the first reasonably complete dinosaur skeleton in the world was unearthed in Haddonfield, Camden County, in 1858, it was a major scientific breakthrough which forced paleontologists to completely revise their picture of dinosaur anatomy? Few people know that New Jersey is the nursery of American vertebrate paleontology!
When Dinosaurs Roamed New Jersey provides a succinct and readable history of the geology and paleontology of New Jersey from the time the region was covered by Cambrian seas, 543 million years ago, to the Pleistocene Ice Age only 10-15,000 years ago. William Gallagher tells the stories of professional and amateur fossil hunters, their discoveries, and their impact on the history of paleontological thought. He points out places in New Jersey and nearby where specimens characteristic of each era were found. He shows how fossil evidence found in the state is helping paleontologists uncover the ecological interactions and behavior of dinosaurs, and discusses such ongoing scientific controversies as the reason for the extinction of the dinosaurs.
From tracking dinosaur footprints across the Newark basin, to digging for the last dinosaurs in the greensands of South Jersey, to finding a mushroom in ancient amber in East Brunswick, this book is the ideal introduction to the Garden State's fossils and prehistory.
Drawing from a Society for Applied Anthropology study on human rights and the environment, Who Pays the Price? provides a detailed look at the human experience of environmental crisis. The issues examined span the globe -- loss of land and access to critical resources; contamination of air, water and soil; exposure to radiation, toxic chemicals, and other hazardous wastes. Topics considered in-depth include:
Wildbranch: An Anthology of Nature, Environmental, and Place-based Writing is a powerful collection of mostly unpublished essays and poetry by both prominent American environmental writers and exciting new voices. The poetry and essays by more than fifty contributors offer the reader glimpses into places as diverse as a forest in West Africa, the moors of Ireland, the canyons of the Sonoran desert mountains, and the fields of New England, and they reflect the varied perspectives of field biologists, hunters, farmers, environmental educators, wilderness guides, academics, writers, and artists.
The collection is an intimate portrait of the natural world drawn through the wisdom, ecological consciousness, and open hearts of these exceptional contributors. The Wildbranch Writing Workshop, cosponsored by Orion magazine and Sterling College, has encouraged thoughtful natural history, outdoor, and environmental writing for more than twenty years. The Wildbranch faculty has included its founder E. Anne Proulx, the essayists Edward Hoagland, Janisse Ray, and Scott Russell Sanders, the poet Alison Hawthorne Deming, and many other notable authors. Many have work included in the anthology.
Winner of the New Mexico Book Association's Southwest Book Design & Production Awards for Excellence in the category Trade Books: Non-illustrated.
This book aims to introduce to a larger audience issues that are too often limited to scholarly circles. A thought-provoking collection of essays by some of the environmental movement's preeminent thinkers, The Wilderness Condition explores the dynamic tension between wild nature and civilization, offering insights into why the relationship has become adversarial and suggesting creative means for reconciliation. Contributors include Paul Shepard, Curt Meine, Max Oelschlaeger, and George Sessions.
The Wildlands and Woodlands vision, as described in two previous Harvard Forest publications, calls for collaboration among conservationists and willing landowners to permanently protect at least 70 percent of the New England landscape as forests by 2060. Another 7 percent of land that is currently in agriculture would remain intact for wildlife and people. This series advocates a balanced approach to conservation and preservation; most land would be actively and sustainably managed for wood, food, and other values, while continuing to provide clean water and air, wildlife habitat, recreation, and support for human lives in a changing environment. About a tenth of the forest, along with associated wetlands, streams, ponds, and other habitats, would comprise large wildland reserves.
This 2017 report offers new data on progress toward these goals and outlines complementary uses of the forest and agricultural landscape with thoughtful and efficient development of rural villages and towns, suburbs, and cities—to support people and nature across New England. It ends with recommendations to protect and care for the land that can forge a bright future for New England, provide a regional example for the nation, and help mitigate global environmental change.
The editors and contributors to Wildlife Crime examine topical issues from extinction to trafficking in order to understand the ecological, economic, political, and social costs and consequences of these crimes. Drawing from diverse theoretical perspectives, empirical and methodological developments, and on-the-ground experiences of practitioners, this comprehensive volume looks at how conservationists and law enforcement grapple with and combat environmental crimes and the profitable market for illegal trade.
Chapters cover criminological perspectives on species poaching, unregulated fishing, the trading of ivory and rhino horns, the adoption of conservation technologies, and ranger workplaces and conditions. The book includes firsthand experiences and research from China, Indonesia, Kenya, Madagascar, Morocco, Peru, Russia, South Africa, Tanzania, and the United States. The result is a significant book about the causes of and response to wildlife crime.
Contributors include: Johan Bergenas, Avi Brisman, Craig Forsyth, Meredith Gore, Georg Jaster, Alex Killion, Kasey Kinnard, Antony C. Leberatto, Barney Long, Nerea Marteache, Gohar Petrossian, Jonah Ratsimbazafy, Gary Roloff, Viviane Seyranian, Louise Shelley, Rohit Singh, Nicole Sintov, Nigel South, Milind Tambe, Daan van Uhm, Greg Warchol, Rodger Watson, Rob White, Madelon Willemsen, and the editor.
This biography illuminates the life and achievements of the remarkable woman scientist who revolutionized the concept of radiation risk.
In the 1950s Alice Stewart began research that led to her discovery that fetal X rays double a child's risk of developing cancer. Two decades later---when she was in her seventies---she again astounded the scientific world with a study showing that the U.S. nuclear weapons industry is about twenty times more dangerous than safety regulations permit. This finding put her at the center of the international controversy over radiation risk. In 1990, the New York Times called Stewart "perhaps the Energy Department's most influential and feared scientific critic."
The Woman Who Knew Too Much traces Stewart's life and career from her early childhood in Sheffield to her medical education at Cambridge to her research positions at Oxford University and the University of Birmingham.
Gayle Greene is Professor of Women's Studies and Literature, Scripps College.
The quality and availability of fresh water are of critical importance to human and ecosystem health. Given its central role in the functioning of all living systems, water is arguably the most important of all natural resources.
Produced biennially, The World's Water provides a comprehensive examination of issues surrounding freshwater resources and their use. It offers analysis of the most significant trends worldwide along with the most current data available on a variety of water-related topics. This 2000-2001 edition features overview chapters on:
The World's Water is the most comprehensive and up-to-date source of information and analysis on freshwater resources and the political, economic, scientific, and technological issues associated with them. It is an essential reference for water resource professionals in government agencies and nongovernmental organizations, researchers, students, and anyone concerned with water and its use.
The quality and availability of fresh water are of critical importance to human and ecosystem health. Given its central role in the functioning of all living systems, water is arguably the most important of all natural resources.
Produced biennially, The World's Water provides a timely examination of the key issues surrounding freshwater resources and their use. Each new volume identifies and explains the most significant current trends worldwide, and offers the best data available on a variety of water-related topics.
This 2004-2005 edition of The World's Water features overview chapters on: conservation and efficiency as key tools for meeting freshwater needs; bottled water quality, costs, and trends; United Nations millennium development goals; groundwater issues; case studies of water privatization; the economic value of water; California water policy and climate change.
The World's Water is the most comprehensive and up-to-date source of information and analysis on freshwater resources and the political, economic, scientific, and technological issues associated with them. It is an essential reference for water resource professionals in government agencies and nongovernmental organizations, researchers, students, and anyone concerned with water and its use.
Produced biennially, The World's Water is the most comprehensive and up-to-to date source of information and analysis on freshwater resources. Each new volume examines critical global trends and offers the best data available on a variety of topics related to water.
Volume 8 features chapters on hydraulic fracturing (fracking), water footprints, sustainable water jobs, and desalination financing, among other timely issues. Water briefs provide concise updates on topics including the Dead-Sea and the role of water in the Syrian conflict.
The World's Water is coauthored by MacArthur "genius" Peter H. Gleick and his colleagues at the world-renowned Pacific Institute. Since the first volume was published in 1998, the series has become an indispensable resource for professionals in government agencies and nongovernmental organizations, researchers, students, and anyone concerned with water and its use.
READERS
Browse our collection.
PUBLISHERS
See BiblioVault's publisher services.
STUDENT SERVICES
Files for college accessibility offices.
UChicago Accessibility Resources
home | accessibility | search | about | contact us
BiblioVault ® 2001 - 2024
The University of Chicago Press