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Drawing on the middle chapters from the first edition of J. Barkley Rosser's seminal work, From Catastrophe to Chaos, this book presents an unusual perspective on economics and economic analysis. Current economic theory largely depends upon assuming that the world is fundamentally continuous. However, an increasing amount of economic research has been done using approaches that allow for discontinuities such as catastrophe theory, chaos theory, synergetics, and fractal geometry. The spread of such approaches across a variety of disciplines of thought has constituted a virtual intellectual revolution in recent years. This book reviews the applications of these approaches in various subdisciplines of economics and draws upon past economic thinkers to develop an integrated view of economics as a whole from the perspective of inherent discontinuity.
Space-based sensors are giving us an ever-closer and more comprehensive look at the earth's surface; they also have the potential to tell us about human activity. This volume examines the possibilities for using remote sensing technology to improve understanding of social processes and human-environment interactions. Examples include deforestation and regrowth in Brazil, population-environment interactions in Thailand, ancient and modern rural development in Guatemala, and urbanization in the United States, as well as early warnings of famine and disease outbreaks. The book also provides information on current sources of remotely sensed data and metadata and discusses what is involved in establishing effective collaborative efforts between scientists working with remote sensing technology and those working on social and environmental issues.
Much of the convenience of modern life resides in sheet metal, the cowling shield of most machines and appliances. However, the load that this takes off human shoulders has to be carried elsewhere, and the Earth has borne the burden. Many of us woke up to the environmental cost when over a century of industrialization finally surpassed the capacity
Although concerns over the ecological impacts of pesticides gave rise to the environmental movement of the late 1960s and 1970s, since that time, pesticide use and its effects have been largely ignored by the law and by legal scholars. This book addresses this omission by providing a unique and serious treatment of the significance of pesticide issues in environmental law and takes an ecological perspective on the legal issues. Dealing with a wide range of questions relating to pests and pesticides, the book focuses primarily on agricultural pesticide use as the largest contaminator in the US. It also examines the legacy of past pesticide use and analyzes how recent developments in ecological science can inform the law and increase our understanding of ecology. Interdisciplinary in its approach, the book will be of interest to academics, lawyers, scientists and environmental and agricultural professionals.
Can—and should—participation be a means of achieving sustainability? The concepts of sustainability and participation are both in vogue, and many international, supranational and national legal texts and standards refer to these two concepts. However, there are still several unanswered questions that invite legal inquiry: which sustainability? Which kinds of participation? Participation by whom? How are the two concepts of sustainability and participation effectively interlinked in legal provisions? This book approaches the interconnection between sustainability and participation inductively and precisely in areas of law which are commonly associated with sustainability and sustainable development: national, European and international environmental and economic law.
Silicon is among the most abundant elements on earth. It plays a key but largely unappreciated role in many biogeochemical processes, including those that regulate climate and undergird marine food webs. The Silicon Cycle is the first book in more than 20 years to present a comprehensive overview of the silicon cycle and issues associated with it. The book summarizes the major outcomes of the project Land-Ocean Interactions: Silica Cycle, initiated by the Scientific Community on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE) of the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU). It tracks the pathway of silicon from land to sea and discusses its biotic and abiotic modifications in transit as well as its cycling in the coastal seas. Natural geological processes in combination with atmospheric and hydrological processes are discussed, as well as human perturbations of the natural controls of the silicon cycle.
Publisher description
Introduction to Sustainable Development is a component of Encyclopedia of Development and Economic Sciences in the global Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), which is an integrated compendium of twenty one Encyclopedias. The Theme on “Introduction to Sustainable Development implies processes of fundamental change in our social systems and institutions. The thrust of this change [entails] … addressing the … new global awareness that the earth is finite, and all of the planet's life support systems – including social and economic systems – are globally interconnected and interdependent.” This volume is aimed at the following five major target audiences: University and College students Educators, Professional practitioners, Research personnel and Policy analysts, managers, and decision makers and NGOs.
Biodiversity Change and Human Health brings together leading experts from the natural science and social science realms as well as the medical community to explore the explicit linkages between human-driven alterations of biodiversity and documented impacts of those changes on human health. The book utilizes multidisciplinary approaches to explore and address the complex interplay between natural biodiversity and human health and well-being. The five parts examine health trade-offs between competing uses of biodiversity (highlighting synergistic situations in which conservation of natural biodiversity actually promotes human health and well-being); relationships between biodiversity and qual...
Disasters—natural ones, such as hurricanes, floods, or earthquakes, and unnatural ones such as terrorist attacks—are part of the American experience in the twenty-first century. The challenges of preparing for these events, withstanding their impact, and rebuilding communities afterward require strategic responses from different levels of government in partnership with the private sector and in accordance with the public will. Disasters have a disproportionate effect on urban places. Dense by definition, cities and their environs suffer great damage to their complex, interdependent social, environmental, and economic systems. Social and medical services collapse. Long-standing problems i...