You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Despite being a relatively young sub-discipline, European environmental sociology has changed considerably in the last decades towards more interdisciplinary collaborations and problem solving. Current trends such as global environmental modernization and processes of economic, political and socio-cultural globalization, fuelled by developments of transport, environmental flows, scientific uncertainty, and information technologies, have fostered new conceptual approaches that move beyond classical sociological mind-sets toward broader attempts to connect to other disciplines.
Examining urban environmental issues at the macro, municipal level down to the micro community and individual level, this volume features cities and metropolitan regions across the global north and south with case studies from the United States, Canada, Eastern and Western Europe to India, Central America, South America and Africa.
For well over a century, going to the movies has been a favorite pastime for billions across the globe. But is film actually good for anything? This volume brings together thirty-six scholars, critics, and filmmakers in search of an answer. Their responses range from the most personal to the most theoretical--and, together, recast current debates about film ethics. Movie watching here emerges as a wellspring of value, able to sustain countless visions of "the good life." Films, these authors affirm, make us reflect, connect, adapt; they evoke wonder and beauty; they challenge and transform. In a word, its varieties of value make film invaluable.
With ever increasing trends in urban consumption and production practices, a call for action to mitigate Climate Change is often seen as a way to foster sustainable development. Considerable attention is now being paid to determine what urban sustainability would include. Today there is a pressing need to broaden our knowledge and apply new concepts and frameworks to development of modern cities. Building on the foregoing, this book attempts to bring together and discuss concepts, tools, frameworks and best practices to cope with the emerging challenges faced by cities today. The book will be of use to policy makers, city planners, practitioners and academics who are starting to project what modern cities would need to do in terms of energy efficiency, mobility, planning and design of habitat and infrastructure and adapting to climate change.
This volume examines the works of some of the most influential Western philosophers of ecology, tracing their influence on movements including deep ecology, ecological feminism, bioregionalism, and critical postmodern ecology. Leading authorities examine, critique, and build on the insights of thinkers such as Hobbes, Heidegger, Bloch, Jonas, Mumford, Ehrlich, and Bookchin. Topics discussed include the claims and merits of anthropocentric, biocentric, and ecocentric positions; rationality and its relationship to knowledge, technology, and social change; and what our conceptions of nature tell us about our vision of politics and society.
Renewables are a game changer for interstate energy relations. Their abundance and intermittency, possibilities for decentral generation and use of rare earth materials, and generally electric nature of transportation make them very different from fossil fuels. What do these geographic and technical characteristics of renewable energy systems imply for infrastructure topology and operations, business models, and energy markets? What are the consequences for the strategic realities and policy considerations of producer, consumer, and transit countries and energy-related patterns of cooperation and conflict between them? Who are the winners and losers? The Geopolitics of Renewables is the firs...
Changes to energy behaviour - the role of people and organisations in energy production, use and efficiency - are critical to supporting a societal transition towards a low carbon and more sustainable future. However, which changes need to be made, by whom, and with what technologies are still very much under discussion. This book, developed by a diverse range of experts, presents an international and multi-faceted approach to the sociotechnical challenge of engaging people in energy systems and vice versa. By providing a multidisciplinary view of this field, it encourages critical thinking about core theories, quantitative and qualitative methodologies, and policy challenges. It concludes by addressing new areas where additional evidence is required for interventions and policy-making. It is designed to appeal to new entrants in the energy-efficiency and behaviour field, particularly those taking a quantitative approach to the topic. Concurrently, it recognizes ecological economist Herman Daly's insight: what really counts is often not countable.
Abundant, salutary, problematic - energy makes history. As a symbol, resource and consumer good, it shapes technologies, politics, societies and cultural world views. Focussing on a range of energy types, from electricity and oil to bioenergy, this volume analyzes the social, cultural and political concepts and discourses of energy and their implementation and materialization within technical systems, applications, media representations and consumer practice. By examining and connecting production, mediation and consumption aspects from an international and interdisciplinary perspective, the book offers an innovative view on how energy is imagined, discussed, staged and used.
Over the last two decades, "green criminology" has emerged as a unique area of study, bringing together criminologists and sociologists from a wide range of research backgrounds and varying theoretical orientations. It spans the micro to the macro—from individual-level environmental crimes and victimization to business/corporate violations and state transgressions. There have been few attempts, however, to explicitly or implicitly integrate cultural criminology into green criminology (or vice versa). This book moves towards articulating a green cultural criminological perspective. Brisman and South examine existing overlapping research and offer a platform to support future excursions by g...
Global risk potentials and their interplay with economic, social and ecological processes of change have emerged as a challenge to the international community. By presenting this report, the Council hopes to contribute constructively to an effective, efficient and objective management of the risks of global change. The approach taken by the Council is first to classify globally relevant risks and then to assign to these classes of risk both established and innovative risk assessment strategies and risk management tools. On this basis, management priorities can be set. The Council further recommends a number of cross-cutting strategies for international policies. These include worldwide alignment of liability law, creation of environmental liability funds, establishment of a United Nations Risk Assessment Panel and implementation of strategies aimed at reducing vulnerability to risk.