Title search results
Showing 41 - 60 of 6953 items
Nature's Fortune: How Business and Society Thrive by Investing in Nature
By Jonathan S. Adams, Mark R. Tercek. 2011
What is nature worth? The answer to this questionwhich traditionally has been framed in environmental termsis revolutionizing the way we…
do business. In Nature’s Fortune, Mark Tercek, CEO of The Nature Conservancy and former investment banker, and science writer Jonathan Adams argue that nature is not only the foundation of human well-being, but also the smartest commercial investment any business or government can make. The forests, floodplains, and oyster reefs often seen simply as raw materials or as obstacles to be cleared in the name of progress are, instead, as important to our future prosperity as technology or law or business innovation. Who invests in nature, and why? What rates of return can it produce? When is protecting nature a good investment? With stories from the South Pacific to the California coast, from the Andes to the Gulf of Mexico and even to New York City, Nature’s Fortune shows how viewing nature as green infrastructure allows for breakthroughs not only in conservationprotecting water supplies; enhancing the health of fisheries; making cities more sustainable, livable and safe; and dealing with unavoidable climate changebut in economic progress, as well. Organizations obviously depend on the environment for key resourceswater, trees, and land. But they can also reap substantial commercial benefits in the form of risk mitigation, cost reduction, new investment opportunities, and the protection of assets. Once leaders learn how to account for nature in financial terms, they can incorporate that value into the organization’s decisions and activities, just as habitually as they consider cost, revenue, and ROI. Such a rethinking of natural capital”nature as a quantifiable assetcan not only increase profitability, but provide crucial protection against the kinds of climate change-driven phenomenalike devastating drought and hundred-year floodsthat are no longer the stuff of speculation. A must-read for business leaders, CEOs, investors, and environmentalists alike, Nature’s Fortune offers an essential guide to the world’s economicand environmentalwell-being.The Galápagos: A Natural History
By Henry Nicholls. 2014
The natural and human history of the Galapagos Islands--beloved vacation spot, fiery volcanic chain, and one of the critical sites…
in the history of science The Galapagos were once known to the sailors and pirates who encountered them as Las Encantadas: the enchanted islands, home to exotic creatures and dramatic volcanic scenery. In The Galapagos, science writer Henry Nicholls offers a lively natural and human history of the archipelago, charting its evolution from deserted wilderness to scientific resource (made famous by Charles Darwin) and global ecotourism hot spot. He describes the island chain’s fiery geological origins as well as the long history of human interaction with it, and draws vivid portraits of the Galapagos’ diverse life forms, capturing its awe-inspiring landscapes, its understated flora, its stunning wildlife and, crucially, the origin of new species. Finally, he considers the immense challenges facing the islands and what lies ahead. Nicholls shows that what happens in the Galapagos is not merely an isolated concern, but reflects the future of our species’ relationship with nature--and the fate of our planet.Fractivism: Corporate Bodies and Chemical Bonds
By Sara Ann Wylie. 2018
From flammable tap water and sick livestock to the recent onset of hundreds of earthquakes in Oklahoma, the impact of…
fracking in the United States is far-reaching and deeply felt. In Fractivism Sara Ann Wylie traces the history of fracking and the ways scientists and everyday people are coming together to hold accountable an industry that has managed to evade regulation. Beginning her story in Colorado, Wylie shows how nonprofits, landowners, and community organizers are creating novel digital platforms and databases to track unconventional oil and gas well development and document fracking's environmental and human health impacts. These platforms model alternative approaches for academic and grassroots engagement with the government and the fossil fuel industry. A call to action, Fractivism outlines a way forward for not just the fifteen million Americans who live within a mile of an unconventional oil or gas well, but for the planet as a whole.The Ecosystems Revolution
By Mark Everard. 2017
This book explores humanity's relationship with the natural world throughout evolutionary history, and the need to reorient this onto a…
symbiotic basis. It integrates the themes of natural and artificial selection, the characteristics of historic 'revolutions', and directed versus random change. Inspiring community-based projects, mainly from the developing world, show how ecosystem regeneration uplifts human livelihoods in a positively reinforcing cycle, embodying lessons germane to co-creating a Symbiocene era wherein humanity's substantial influence (the Anthropocene) achieves increasing symbiosis with the natural processes shaping the former Holocene epoch. The Ecosystems Revolution provides practical, positive examples, highlighting the attainability of an 'ecosystems revolution'.Wolf Nation: The Life, Death, and Return of Wild American Wolves (A Merloyd Lawrence Book)
By Brenda Peterson. 2017
In the tradition of Peter Matthiessen's Wildlife in America or Aldo Leopold, Brenda Peterson tells the 300-year history of wild…
wolves in America. It is also our own history, seen through our relationship with wolves. The earliest Americans revered them. Settlers zealously exterminated them. Now, scientists, writers, and ordinary citizens are fighting to bring them back to the wild. Peterson, an eloquent voice in the battle for twenty years, makes the powerful case that without wolves, not only will our whole ecology unravel, but we'll lose much of our national soul.The Ethics of Energy Sustainability
By Pamela E. Heckel. 2015
This book is an easy to use instructional aide. Explore sustainability issues in contemporary society through a transdisciplinary approach. Chapters…
include ethics, public resources, public policy, combustion, heat exchangers, nuclear, solar, water, and wind energy. A short summary is presented for each topic, followed by additional topics for research, assignments, and references. The complex assignments require students to grow in their professional judgment.Protecting the Wild
By Tom Butler, George Wuerthner, Eileen Crist. 2015
Protected natural areas have historically been the primary tool of conservationists to conserve land and wildlife. These parks and reserves…
are set apart to forever remain in contrast to those places where human activities, technologies, and developments prevail. But even as the biodiversity crisis accelerates, a growing number of voices are suggesting that protected areas are passé. Conservation, they argue, should instead focus on lands managed for human use--working landscapes--and abandon the goal of preventing human-caused extinctions in favor of maintaining ecosystem services to support people. If such arguments take hold, we risk losing support for the unique qualities and values of wild, undeveloped nature. Protecting the Wild offers a spirited argument for the robust protection of the natural world. In it, experts from five continents reaffirm that parks, wilderness areas, and other reserves are an indispensable--albeit insufficient--means to sustain species, subspecies, key habitats, ecological processes, and evolutionary potential. Using case studies from around the globe, they present evidence that terrestrial and marine protected areas are crucial for biodiversity and human well-being alike, vital to countering anthropogenic extinctions and climate change. A companion volume to Keeping the Wild: Against the Domestication of Earth, Protecting the Wild provides a necessary addition to the conversation about the future of conservation in the so-called Anthropocene, one that will be useful for academics, policymakers, and conservation practitioners at all levels, from local land trusts to international NGOs.Spirituality and Sustainability
By Satinder Dhiman, Joan Marques. 2016
This book aims to examine sustainability and spirituality philosophically with ethics as the balancing force. The goal is to reveal…
the important intersection between sustainability and spirituality by using spirituality as the invisible guiding hand in the quest for sustainability. The editors and contributors examine old social and economics dilemmas from a new perspective in order to provide alternative approaches to economic and social development. The enclosed contributions cover a broad range of topics such as sustainable development and human happiness, contemporary spirituality, environmental ethics and responsibility, and corporate social responsibility. In addition, the title features real-world case studies and discussion questions that inspire self-reflection and theoretical and empirical deliberation in academic courses and business seminars. Contemporary approaches to economic and social development have failed to address humankind's abiding need for spiritual growth. For material development to be sustainable, spiritual advancement must be seen as an integral part of the human development algorithm. While the policy makers and governments can play their respective role, each one of us has to consciously adopt spirituality and sustainability as a way of life. This book will rely on the spiritual power of individuals to heal themselves and the environment. Featuring interdisciplinary perspectives in areas such as science, marine biology, environmental policy, cultural studies, psychology, philosophy, ecological economics, and ethics, this book will provide extensive insights into the complimentary fields of spirituality, sustainability and ethics.Coming of Age at the End of Nature: A Generation Faces Living on a Changed Planet
By Susan A. Cohen, Julie Dunlap. 2016
Coming of Age at the End of Nature explores a new kind of environmental writing. This powerful anthology gathers the…
passionate voices of young writers who have grown up in an environmentally damaged and compromised world. Each contributor has come of age since Bill McKibben foretold the doom of humanity's ancient relationship with a pristine earth in his prescient 1988 warning of climate change, The End of Nature.What happens to individuals and societies when their most fundamental cultural, historical, and ecological bonds weaken-or snap? In Coming of Age at the End of Nature, insightful millennials express their anger and love, dreams and fears, and sources of resilience for living and thriving on our shifting planet.Twenty-two essays explore wide-ranging themes that are paramount to young generations but that resonate with everyone, including redefining materialism and environmental justice, assessing the risk and promise of technology, and celebrating place anywhere from a wild Atlantic island to the Arizona desert, to Baltimore and Bangkok. The contributors speak with authority on problems facing us all, whether railing against the errors of past generations, reveling in their own adaptability, or insisting on a collective responsibility to do better.Sea Narratives: Cultural Responses to the Sea, 1600-Present
By Charlotte Mathieson. 2016
Sea Narratives: CulturalResponses to the Sea, 1600-Present explores the relationship between the sea and culturefrom the early modern period to…
the present. The collection uses the concept ofthe 'sea narrative' as a lens through which to consider the multiple ways inwhich the sea has shaped, challenged, and expanded modes of culturalrepresentation to produce varied, contested and provocative chronicles of thesea across a variety of cultural forms within diverse socio-cultural moments. Sea Narratives provides a uniqueperspective on the relationship between the sea and cultural production: itreveals the sea to be more than simply a source of creative inspiration,instead showing how the sea has had a demonstrable effect on new modes andforms of narration across the cultural sphere, and in turn, how these formshave been essential in shaping socio-cultural understandings of the sea. Theresult is an incisive exploration of the sea's force as a cultural presence.Developing an Appropriate Contaminated Land Regime in China
By Xiaobo Zhao. 2012
Like all industrialized countries, China has encountered increasing problems with land contamination in recent years. Abandoned mining and manufacturing sites…
and obsolete industrial complexes, while also creating new polluting industrial enterprises, represent impending environmental threats. More importantly, a number of social and economic problems have developed and must be dealt with, in some cases urgently. Contaminated land laws and regulations have been established and have evolved in the US and UK and many other jurisdictions over the past few decades. These regimes have substantially influenced the relevant legislation in the context of numerous Asian and European countries and will inevitably benefit similar legislative efforts in China. This book is the first monograph that focuses on how China can learn from the US and UK with respect to contaminated land legislation and comprehensively illustrates how contaminated land law could be created in China. It will be of interest to academics and practitioners in environmental law in China, as well as the US and UK.Transitions to Sustainability
By Ignacy Sachs, François Mancebo. 2015
This book calls for the conditions of transition to sustainability: How to take into consideration new global phenomena such as…
and of the dimension of climate change, the depletion of natural resources, financial crises, demographic dynamics, global urbanization, migrations and mobility, while bearing in mind short-term or local place-based issues, such as social justice or quality of life? Meeting this challenge requires an inclusive approach of sustainability. It is a matter of designing a new social contract: Sustainability requires more than developing the right markets, institutions and metrics, it requires social momentum. To do so, many issues need a clear and complete answer: How to link social justice with sustainability policies? What governance tools to do so? What linkage between one decision-making level and the other? These are major issues to design sound transitions to sustainability.Global Approaches to Site Contamination Law
By Elizabeth Brandon. 2012
The book describes the complex and variable laws addressing site contamination, reviewing existing international, regional and national law of relevance…
to site contamination. It also offers detailed case studies of national approaches to the issue, and goes on to explore avenues for promoting the development of comprehensive domestic laws on site contamination, with a focus on the role of international law and actors. A detailed discussion analyzes such variations as a binding international legal instrument, a non-binding instrument, and a model framework for site contamination management. The text includes recommendations regarding the key elements needed for regulating site contamination at the national level. The author also offers an appropriate and feasible timetable for international action to promote better national law and policy regarding contaminated sites.Science and Technology for DOE Site Cleanup: Workshop Summary
By National Research Council of the National Academies. 2010
The Department of Energy's Office of Environmental Management is developing a technology roadmap to guide planning and possible future congressional…
appropriations for its technology development programs. It asked the National Research Council of the National Academies to provide technical and strategic advice to support the development and implementation of this roadmap, specifically by undertaking a study that identifies principal science and technology gaps and their priorities for the cleanup program based on previous National Academies reports, updated and extended to reflect current site conditions and EM priorities and input form key external groups, such as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, Environmental Protection Agency, and state regulatory agencies. In response, this book provides a high-level synthesis of principal science and technology gaps identified in previous NRC reports in part 1. Part 2 summarizes a workshop meant to bring together the key external groups to discuss current site conditions and science and technology needs.Implementing the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants: Summary of a Workshop in China
By National Research Council of the National Academies. 2007
This report summarizes a workshop --- Strengthening Science-Based Decision-Making: Implementing the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants held June 7-10,…
2004, in Beijing, China. The presentations and discussions summarized here describe the types of scientific information necessary to make informed decisions to eliminate the production and use of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) banned under the Stockholm Convention, sources of information; scientifically informed strategies for eliminating POPs, elements of good scientific advice, such as transparency, peer review, and disclosure of conflicts of interest; and information dealing with POPs that decision makers need from the scientific community, including next steps to make such science available and ensure its use on a continuing basis.Analysis of Engineering Design Studies for Demilitarization of Assembled Chemical Weapons at Pueblo Chemical Depot
By National Research Council, Board on Army Science and Technology, Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences, Committee on Review and Evaluation of Alternative Technologies for the Demilitarization of Assembled Chemical Weapons: Phase II. 2001
The Program Manager for Assembled Chemical Weapons Assessment (PMACWA) of the Department of Defense (DOD) requested the National Research Council…
(NRC) to assess the engineering design studies (EDSs) developed by Parsons/Honeywell and General Atomics for a chemical demilitarization facility to completely dispose of the assembled chemical weapons at the Pueblo Chemical Depot in Pueblo, Colorado. To accomplish the task, the NRC formed the Committee on Review and Evaluation of Alternative Technologies for Demilitarization of Assembled Chemical Weapons: Phase II (ACW II Committee). This report presents the results of the committee's scientific and technical assessment, which will assist the Office of the Secretary of Defense in selecting the technology package for destroying the chemical munitions at Pueblo. The committee evaluated the engineering design packages proposed by the technology providers and the associated experimental studies that were performed to validate unproven unit operations. A significant part of the testing program involved expanding the technology base for the hydrolysis of energetic materials associated with assembled weapons. This process was a concern expressed by the Committee on Review and Evaluation of Alternative Technologies for Demilitarization of Assembled Chemical Weapons (ACW I Committee) in its original report in 1999 (NRC, 1999). The present study took place as the experimental studies were in progress. In some cases, tests for some of the supporting unit operations were not completed in time for the committee to incorporate results into its evaluation. In those cases, the committee identified and discussed potential problem areas in these operations. Based on its expertise and its aggressive data-gathering activities, the committee was able to conduct a comprehensive review of the test data that had been completed for the overall system design. This report summarizes the study.Ecology of Nusa Tenggara and Maluka
By Yance De Fretes, Kathryn A. Monk, Gayatri Reksodiharjo-Lilley. 1997
CHAPTER 1 explains the book's approach and the history of ecological work in the region. CHAPTER 2 reviews the physical…
features of Nusa Tenggara and Maluku, geological origins, the propensity to environmental hazards,hydrology, climate, and soils. CHAPTERS 3 and 4 discuss the characteristicsand distribution of marine, coastal, and terrestrial habitats, and the influence of people upon them. CHAPTER 5 inventories existing information on species diversity with reference to bio-geography and selection of biological indicatorsfor both conservation and environmental impact assessments CHAPTER 6 provides information on the people of Nusa Tenggara and Maluku and the structure of their societies. CHAPTER 7 examines the people's approach to ecological managemem through traditional and modern laws. CHAPTERS 8 TO 10 deal with the marine andland resource uses and how the islands can develop iry an ecologically sustainable way . CHAPTER 11 discusses reserve management and species protection, and offers recommendations for future action that will extend the protection of the biodiversity. CHAPTER 12 summatizes the environmental characteristics of the, region, and emphasizes the need for Indonesia's growingcommunity of environmental managers and lawyers to have the baseline ecologicaldata of this region to plan, assess, and manage its rapid development.The Burning Island
By Pamela Frierson. 1991
Westerners-from early missionaries to explorers to present-day artists, scientists, and tourists-have always found volcanoes fascinating and disturbing. Native Hawaiians, in…
contrast, revere volcanoes as a source of spiritual energy and see the volcano goddess Pele as part of the natural cycle of a continuously procreative cosmos. Volcanoes hold a special place in our curiosity about nature.The Burning Island is an intimate, multilayered portrait of the Hawaiian volcano region-a land marked by a precarious tension between the harsh reality of constant geologic change, respect for mythological traditions, and the pressures of economic exploitation. Pamela Frierson treks up Mauna Loa, the world's largest active volcano, and Kilauea to explore how volcanoes work, as well as how their powerful and destructive forces reshape land, cultures, and history. Her adventures reveal surprising archeological ruins, threatened rainforest ecosystems, and questionable real estate development of the islands. Now a classic of nature writing, Frierson's narrative sets the stage for a larger exploration of our need to take great care in respecting and preserving nature and tradition while balancing our ever-expanding sense of discovery and use of the land.The Humboldt Current
By Aaron Sachs. 2006
While everyone has heard of the 'Humboldt Current', few know anything of the man after whom it was named. Yet…
Alexander von Humboldt was a towering figure of his time - scientist, explorer, and polymath, imbued with Enlightenment ideas - and he left a profound impact on the intellectual life of 19th century America. Aaron Sachs' colourful intellectual history rescues Humboldt from obscurity, and reveals the impact of a single European on both American thought and the environmental movement. Aaron Sachs traces Humboldt's legacy by focusing not only on the man himself but on the lives of other remarkable individuals who took their lead from him - explorers of the American mid-West, alienated Romantics, seminal American writers and artists, who together laid the groundwork for the great ecological tradition in 19th century America.Shearing In The Riverina, New South Wales
By Rolf Boldrewood.