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Renewable energy has enjoyed relatively good - and sometimes extraordinary - growth in recent years, in particular photovoltaics and wind; but it will be difficult to sustain such rates of diffusion on a global basis. A more complete transition to renewable energy is required on a demanding timescale set by climate change and fossil fuel depletion. This book analyses strategies for promoting renewable energy within the context of a rapid energy transition, using case studies from different countries over the past 30 years. Having described the global context in detail, covering oil and gas depletion, climate change, third world development and the potential for renewable energy, the authors ...
When green parties emerged in the 1980s, not only did they question established ideas about nature and economic growth, they also challenged the 'iron law' of Roberto Michels that all parties inevitably follow a similar path towards informal concentration of power and oligarchy. Grass-roots democracy was both an ideological tenet and an organizational project for practically all green parties. These days the greens have lost their glamour and innocence. They have grown up and even joined governing coalitions in several countries. Did they leave grass-roots democracy by the roadside on the way to power? This book investigates to what extent green parties have remained true to their identity or have been transformed. Country specialists analyze the development of green parties in 14 countries across the world - not only Western Europe but also Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. These analyses also offer clues on broader questions about party types and party change in contemporary democracies.
This book deals with the theoretical and empirical questions of federalism in the context of five case studies: Austria, Belgium, Canada, Germany and Switzerland. The central argument is that in the long run the political institutions of federalism adapt to achieve congruence with the underlying social structure. This change could be in the centralist direction reflecting ethno-linguistic homogeneity, or in decentralist terms corresponding to ethno-linguistic heterogeneity. In this context, the volume: fills a gap in the comparative federalism literature by analyzing the patterns of change and continuity in five federal systems of the industrial west, this is done by an in-depth empirical examination of the case studies through a single framework of analysis illustrates the shortcomings of new-institutionalist approaches in explaining change, highlighting the usefulness of society-based approaches in studying change and continuity in comparative politics. Explaining Federalism will be of interest to students and scholars of federalism, comparative government, comparative institutional analysis and comparative public policy.
Taking a multi-dimensional and multi-spatial approach, this book examines the consensus democracies of Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Switzerland over the past 40 years. It examines how these democracies have been transformed by Europeanization and globalization yet are able to maintain political stability.
Packed with case studies and practical real-world examples, Electricity Marginal Cost Pricing Principles allows regulators, engineers and energy economists to choose the pricing model that best fits their individual market. Written by an author with 13 years of practical experience, the book begins with a clear and rigorous explanation of the theory of efficient pricing and how it impacts investor-owned, publicly-owned, and cooperatively-owned utilities using tried and true methods such as multiple-output, functional form, and multiproduct cost models. The author then moves on to include self-contained chapters on applying estimating cost models, including a cubic cost specification and poli...
This major new literary study offers a fresh view of the significance of the famous group of fourteenth-century poems, 'Pearl', 'Cleanness', 'Patience' and 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'. It is a comprehensive study which puts the poems themselves firmly at its centre, though it is always alert to relevant aspects of their literary and cultural context. John Anderson builds his discussions of the poems' ideas on an examination of the anonymous poet's superb Shakespeare-like language. He finds that the great fourteenth-century struggle, between religious and secular forces for control of men's minds, underlies all the poems.This title is the first in the new Manchester Medieval Literature series, which makes readability a priority. Accordingly, despite its wide range of reference and the radicalism of some of its leading ideas, this book is written in a jargon-free style designed to appeal to specialist, non-specialist and student readers alike.
Bringing together contributions from leading researchers, this volume reflects on the political, institutional and social factors that have shaped the recent expansion of wind energy, and to consider what lessons this experience may provide for the future expansion of other renewable technologies.
For more than three decades, David Orr has been one of the leading voices of the environmental movement, championing the cause of ecological literacy in higher education, helping to establish and shape the field of ecological design, and working tirelessly to raise awareness of the threats to future generations posed by humanity’s current unsustainable trajectory. Hope Is an Imperative brings together in a single volume Professor Orr’s most important works. These include classics such as “What Is Education For?,” one of the most widely reprinted essays in the environmental literature, “The Campus and the Biosphere,” which helped launch the green campus movement,and “Loving Chil...
In the new preface to this paperback edition, Kathleen R. McNamara recounts the rapid progress made in 1998 toward European monetary integration and explores the significance of political forces in bringing about recent key developments.
In contemporary life, the marketplace has emerged as an important arena for the practice of politics. Concerns about personal and family well-being as well as ethical or political assessment of favorable and unfavorable business and government practices become part and parcel of the marketplace of politics. This volume describes this phenomenon as political consumerism, reflecting an understanding of politics as a product embedded in a complex social and normative context. Politics, Products, and Markets is the first general study of political consumerism. It asks fundamental questions, including what is new and what is old about the phenomenon. The authors discuss the mediating role of poli...