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A thoughtful exploration of how humans have endangered the Earth but can pull it back from the brink, as told by a renowned conservationist This personal and thoughtful book by renowned Kenya conservationist David Western traces our global conquest from Maasai herders battling droughts in Africa to the technological frontiers of California. Western draws on a half century of research in the savannas and his own life’s journey to argue that conservation is not a modern invention. The success of all societies past and present lies in conservation practices, breaking biological barriers and learning to live in large cooperative groups able to sustain a healthy environment. Our ecological emancipation from nature enabled us to expand our horizons from conserving food and water for survival to saving whales, elephants, and our cultural heritage. In the Anthropocene, our scientific knowledge and modern sensibilities offer hope for combating global warming and creating a planet able to sustain the wealth of life, but only if we use our unique cultural capacity of cooperation to plan our future.
This book explains how society will face an energy crisis in the coming decades owing to increasing scarcity of fossil fuels and climate change impacts. It carefully explores this coming crisis and concisely examines all of the major technologies related to energy production (fossil fuels, renewables, and nuclear) and their impacts on our society and environment. The author argues that it is wrong to pit alternatives to fossil fuels against each other and proposes that nuclear energy, although by no means free of problems, can be a viable source of reliable and carbon-free electricity. He concludes by calling for a diversified and rational mix of electricity generation in order to mitigate the effects of the energy crisis. Throughout, the book is spiced with science, history, and anecdotes in a way that ensures rewarding reading without loss of rigor.
Explores the ever-present experiences of risk that characterized the daily existence of individuals, communities, and societies in the late Roman world Living with Risk in the Late Roman World explores the ever-present experiences of risk that characterized the daily existence of individuals, communities, and societies in the late Roman world (late third century CE through mid-sixth century CE). Recognizing the vital role of human agency, author Cam Grey bases his argument on the concept of the riskscape: the collection of risks that constitute everyday lived experience, the human perception of those risks, and the actions that exploit, mitigate, or exacerbate them. In contrast to recent gra...
260 million years ago, life on Earth suffered wave after wave of cataclysmic extinctions, with the worst--the end-Permian extinction--wiping out nearly every species on the planet. This book delves into the mystery behind these extinctions and sheds light on the fateful role the primeval supercontinent, known as Pangea, may have played in causing these global catastrophes. Drawing on the latest discoveries as well as his own field expeditions to remote corners of the world, Paul Wignall reveals what scientists are only now beginning to understand about the most prolonged period of environmental crisis in Earth's history. He describes how a series of unprecedented extinction events swept acro...
A multidisciplinary volume describing the effects of volcanism on the environment, past and present, for researchers and advanced students.
"The Making of a Land - Geology of Norway" takes the reader on a journey in geological time, from primordial times to the present day. A fantastic journey from the summits of Norway's spectacular rugged and weather-beaten mountains to the riches concealed in the sedimentary rocks on the continental shelf. This book displays the treasures of Norwegian geology for everyone to see. Norway's geological resources represent the foundation of its welfare state. During several centuries first the mining, and then the oil industries have been economic mainstays, and this will continue in the future. The book presents a description both of Norway and the planet we inhabit and depend on for our survival. It is lavishly illustrated with photographs and maps from all over the country.
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When scholars discuss the medieval past, the temptation is to become immersed there, to deepen our appreciation of the nuances of the medieval sources through debate about their meaning. But the past informs the present in a myriad of ways and medievalists can, and should, use their research to address the concerns and interests of contemporary society. This volume presents a number of carefully commissioned essays that demonstrate the fertility and originality of recent work in Medieval Studies. Above all, they have been selected for relevance. Most contributors are in the earlier stages of their careers and their approaches clearly reflect how interdisciplinary methodologies applied to Med...
This book offers a high-level summary of shallow magmatic systems (dykes, sills and laccoliths) to support geoscience master and PhD students, scientists and practicing professionals. The product of the LASI (Laccoliths and Sills conference) workshop, it comprises thematic sections written by one or more experts on the respective field. It features reviews concerning the physical properties of magma, geotectonic settings, and the structure of subvolcanic systems, as well as case studies on the best-known systems. The book provides readers a broad and comprehensive understanding of the subvolcanic perspective on pluton growth, which is relevant for mineralogical processes as well as the genesis of mineral deposits.