Environmental policy and protocols Books

Book SynopsisKeith Mako Woodhouse offers a nuanced history of radical environmentalism in the late-twentieth-century United States. Focusing especially on the group Earth First!, The Ecocentrists explores how it challenged civilization but glossed over the ways economic inequality and social difference defined people’s relationships to the nonhuman world.Trade ReviewWoodhouse deftly brings together the intellectual history of the many threads of American environmentalism with the thinkers, the activists, the organizations, and the issues that have charged environmental politics since the 1960s. Required reading for anyone with a serious interest in the history of environmental activism and thought. -- James Morton Turner, Wellesley CollegeThis book is a profound achievement. In The Ecocentrists, Keith Woodhouse examines ecocentrism within and up against traditions of radical American protest, politics, and action. Deepening our understanding of radical environmentalism well beyond any previous study, the book lays to rest caricature and misinformation. Each chapter—each page—will make you think hard. -- William Deverell, University of Southern CaliforniaA compelling story about the enigmatic journey of environmentalism since the 1960s, The Ecocentrists shines a bright light on the radical potential and heartbreaking pitfalls of Americans’ ecological crusades. Highlighting the historic and contemporary tensions within the environmental movement between localism and globalism, populism and elitism, freedom and limits, and humanism and misanthropy, Woodhouse provides essential reading for anyone interested in thinking through how efforts to create a healthier planet can be made as just and humane as possible. -- Darren Frederick Speece, author of Defending Giants: The Redwood Wars and the Transformation of American Environmental PoliticsThe Ecocentrists captures eloquently the human stories of those who stood up for the nonhuman world. Keith Woodhouse’s willingness to take seriously the most radical members of the environmental movement yields fresh ways of understanding conventional environmental politics. A smart, rigorous, and brilliant book. -- Kendra Smith-Howard, University of AlbanyInsightful and well-grounded in the literature, this is required reading for historians of environmentalism and modern political movements and, for the general reader, a stimulating introduction to an urgent area of popular concern. * Publishers Weekly *His book is strongest when it contextualizes radical environmentalism in relation to broader ideologies (liberalism, conservatism, libertarianism, anarchism)....Recommended. * Choice *This outstanding and extensively researched work, covers a wide range of ideas and personalities; an essential addition for all environmental collections. * Library Journal (starred review) *In the era of climate change, Woodhouse wonders if the ecocentrists’ narrative of crisis is the only one that can create a clear-eyed view of the problem, as well as the political and popular will to mobilize against it. * Los Angeles Review of Books *A well-crafted expansion of our understanding of the environmental movement, and it reminds us that, while there areno easy answers to our current moment of environmental crisis, we are not the first to have wrestled with the difficult questions about human freedom and our relationships with the more-than-human world. * H-Environment *A superb history of radical environmentalism in the United States. -- Benjamin Kunkel * New Republic *Table of ContentsPrefaceIntroduction1. Ecology and Revolutionary Thought2. Crisis Environmentalism3. A Radical Break4. Public Lands and the Public Good5. Earth First! Against Itself6. The Limits and Legacy of RadicalismConclusionNotesIndex

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Book SynopsisJeffrey D. Sachs shows how the United States can find a path to renewed economic progress that is fair and environmentally sustainable. Sachs explores issues including infrastructure, trade deals, energy policy, and income inequality, providing illuminating and accessible explanations of the forces at work and specific policy solutions.Trade ReviewJeffrey Sachs remains one of the most thought-provoking economists in the world today because he dares to challenge presidents of both parties and the orthodoxies that bind them to disastrous policies. His critiques are fierce and his solutions fearless in the face of political and academic groupthink. That makes Professor Sachs a rarity in public life and this book an absolute necessity. -- Joe Scarborough My father famously declared that GDP "measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile." Jeffrey Sachs presents an economic vision beyond GDP, one that is based on compassion and sustainability, and that aligns with the globally agreed Sustainable Development Goals. This is a roadmap for America's future economic strategy. -- Kerry Kennedy, president of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human RightsTable of ContentsForeword, by Bernie Sanders Preface Acknowledgments 1. Why We Need to Build a New American Economy 2. Investment, Saving, and U.S. Long-Term Growth 3. Decoding the Federal Budget 4. Sustainable Infrastructure After the Automobile Age 5. Facing Up to Income Inequality 6. Smart Machines and the Future of Jobs 7. The Truth About Trade 8. Disparities and High Costs Fuel the Health Care Crisis 9. A Smart Energy Policy for the United States 10. From Guns to Butter 11. Investing for Innovation 12. Toward a New Kind of Politics 13. Restoring Trust in American Governance 14. Prosperity in Sustainability Suggested Further Readings Notes

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Book SynopsisHow the US Environmental Protection Agency designed the governance of risk and forged its legitimacy over the course of four decades.The US Environmental Protection Agency was established in 1970 to protect the public health and environment, administering and enforcing a range of statutes and programs. Over four decades, the EPA has been a risk bureaucracy, formalizing many of the methods of the scientific governance of risk, from quantitative risk assessment to risk ranking. Demortain traces the creation of these methods for the governance of risk, the controversies to which they responded, and the controversies that they aroused in turn. He discusses the professional networks in which they were conceived; how they were used; and how they served to legitimize the EPA. Demortain argues that the EPA is structurally embedded in controversy, resulting in constant reevaluation of its credibility and fueling the evolution of the knowledge and technologies it uses to produce

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Book SynopsisAn intimate and candid account of our national parks detailing their strengths, vulnerabilities, and essential role in American lifeTrade Review“American Covenant is part historical review and part memoir. The authors . . . eloquently share their personal experience and ideas on how the preservation and enjoyment of national parks can be addressed in the 21st century.”—Susan Catherine Cork, Conservation Biology“American Covenant is a unique and personal contribution showcasing the hard-earned wisdom of two experts who know the National Park Service the best. Their stories and anecdotes illustrate why national parks are important for both individuals and our nation as a whole.”—Justin Farrell, author of Billionaire Wilderness: The Ultra-Wealthy and the Remaking of the American West“Michael Soukup and Gary Machlis offer a heartfelt, insightful assessment of our national park system complete with science-based recommendations for ensuring this magnificent natural heritage is passed along to future generations in an unimpaired condition.”—Robert B. Keiter, author of To Conserve Unimpaired: The Evolution of the National Park Idea

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Book SynopsisStanding Our Ground: Women, Environmental Justice, and the Fight to End Mountaintop Removal examines women’s efforts to end mountaintop removal coal mining in West Virginia.Trade Review“What a magnificent book! The author skillfully weaves theoretical discussions into a fast-paced narrative. Standing Our Ground is well written, well researched, and on solid theoretical ground. The book offers a unique lens: coal is a highly masculinized world, and Barry opens up a view of women’s roles and activism inside this world, which is often closed to outsiders.”“Barry exposes the coal industry's harsh effects on working-class women in Appalachia, revealing the symbiosis between gender oppression and environmental destruction. No passive victims, the women she profiles have become leading advocates for alternative energy.” * Ms. Magazine *“Standing Our Ground will appeal to a wide variety of scholars interested in intersectional analyses of social and environmental problems…at a time when so much of the climate change discourse is focused on broad solutions at the level of global environmental policy, Barry’s book is a crucial look into the lives of individuals living day to day with the consequences of our lifestyle and policy choices.” * Environmental Values *“(Standing Our Ground) highlights negatively stereotyped working-class white and nonwhite women in a ‘gendered articulation’ that speaks to diverse issues of class and disenfranchisement at a ‘global crossroads’ in history.” * Choice *“Standing Our Ground: Women, Environmental Justice, and the Fight to End Mountaintop Removal places the anti-mountaintop removal struggle squarely as a global issue with human and environmental costs. Barry successfully illustrates how local struggles in central Appalachia are indicative of a larger global movement for environmental justice.” * author of Bringing Down the Mountains: The Impact of Mountaintop Removal on Southern West Virginia Communities *

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Book SynopsisDespite a growing interest in critical social and political studies of climate change, the field remains fragmented and diffuse. This is the first volume to collect this body of scholarship, providing a key reference point in the growing debate about climate change across the social sciences. The book provides a new set of insights into the ways in which climate change is creating new forms of social order, and the ways in which they are structured through the workings of rationality, power and politics. Governing the Climate is invaluable for three main audiences: social science researchers and advanced students in the field of climate change; the wider research community interested in global environmental politics and global environmental governance; and policy makers and researchers concerned more broadly with environmental politics at international, national and local levels.Trade Review'Climate change is simply too important to leave solely to conventional modes of governance. The kind of theoretical work in this volume can't solve climate problems, nor can it provide clear administrative blueprints for policy makers, but it does show forcefully that in the face of rapid climate change thinking in new ways about many things is now unavoidable both in the United Nations system and beyond.' Simon Dalby, ACUNS (acuns.org)Table of ContentsIntroduction Johannes Stripple and Harriet Bulkeley; Part I. Governmentality, Critical Theory and Climate Change: 1. Bringing governmentality to the study of global governance Eva Lövbrand and Johannes Stripple; 2. Experimenting on climate governmentality with actor-network theory Anders Blok; 3. Third side of the coin: hegemony and governmentality in global climate politics Benjamin Stephan, Delf Rothe and Chris Methman; 4. The limits of climate governmentality Carl Death; Part II. Cases of Climate Government: Theorising Practice: 5. Neuro-liberal climatic governmentalities Marc Whitehead, Rhys Jones and Jessica Pykett; 6. Making carbon calculations Sally Eden; 7. Smart meters and the governance of energy use in the household Tom Hargreaves; 8. Translation loops and shifting rationalities of transnational bioenergy governance Jarmo Kortelainen and Moritz Albrecht; 9. Governing mobile species in a climate-changed world Juliet J. Fall; 10. Measuring forest carbon Heather Lovell; 11. Climate security as governmentality: from precaution to preparedness Angela Oels; Part III. Future Directions: 12. The rise and fall of the global climate polity Olaf Corry; 13. Climate change multiple Samuel Randalls; 14. Reflections and way forward Harriet Bulkeley and Johannes Stripple.

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Book SynopsisCities are no longer just places to live in. They are significant actors on the global stage, and nowhere is this trend more prominent than in the world of transnational climate change governance (TCCG). Through transnational networks that form links between cities, states, international organizations, corporations, and civil society, cities are developing and implementing norms, practices, and voluntary standards across national boundaries. In introducing cities as transnational lawmakers, Jolene Lin provides an exciting new perspective on climate change law and policy, offering novel insights about the reconfiguration of the state and the nature of international lawmaking as the involvement of cities in TCCG blurs the public/private divide and the traditional strictures of ''domestic'' versus ''international''. This illuminating book should be read by anyone interested in understanding how cities - in many cases, more than the countries in which they''re located - are addressing the Trade Review'An essential read for anyone concerned with how the vast conglomerate of actors involved in the climate space might interact effectively to advance climate change regulation globally.' Jacqueline Peel, Melbourne Law School'A vivid and timely account of the important and complex role that cities play in transnational climate change governance.' Liz Fisher, Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford'In this compelling book, Professor Lin demonstrates the rise of global cities as forces in the generation of transnational legal norms. As she demonstrates, global cities are not merely engaging in action that suggests the inadequacy of classical accounts of international lawmaking; they are doing so self-consciously. This is truly a new phase in the field of international law, and its recognition and demonstration by Lin is profound.' Douglas A. Kysar, Yale Law School, ConnecticutTable of Contents1. Global cities, climate change and transnational lawmaking; 2. Theoretical framework; 3. The rise of the city in international affairs; 4. City action on climate change; 5. Transnational urban climate governance via networks – the case of C40; 6. Cities as transnational lawmakers; 7. A normative assessment of urban climate law; 8. Conclusion.

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Book SynopsisPublished to coincide with the Fourth United Nations Environmental Assembly, the Summary for Policymakers of the sixth Global Environment Outlook provides an evidence-based source of environmental information to help policymakers in government, local authorities and businesses achieve the UN''s Sustainable Development Goals. Since the first edition in 1997, there have been many examples of environmental improvement, especially where problems have been well identified, manageable, and where regulatory and technological solutions have been readily available. Nevertheless, the overall condition of the global environment has deteriorated and urgent action, involving ambitious and effective policies, is necessary to arrest and reverse this situation. This Summary for Policymakers answers key policy questions by assessing the drivers of environmental change, the scale and effectiveness of policy responses, potential pathways for achieving sustainability goals in an increasingly complex worldTrade Review'The sixth Global Environment Outlook is an essential check-up for our planet. Like any good medical examination, there is a clear prognosis of what will happen if we continue with business as usual and a set of recommended actions to put things right. GEO-6 details both the perils of delaying action and the opportunities that exist to make sustainable development a reality.' António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United NationsTable of Contents1. What is the global environmental outlook?; 2. What is happening to our environment and how have we responded?; 3. Effectiveness of environmental policies; 4. Changing the path we are on; 5. Knowledge for action; References.

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Book SynopsisThe ''resource curse'' is the view that countries with extensive natural resources tend to suffer from a host of undesirable outcomes, including the weakening of state capacity, authoritarianism, fewer public goods, war, and economic stagnation. This book debunks this view, arguing that there is an ''institutions curse'' rather than a resource curse. Legacies endemic to the developing world have impelled many countries to develop natural resources as a default sector in lieu of cultivating modern and diversified economies, and bad institutions have also condemned nations to suffer from ills unduly attributed to minerals and oil. Victor Menaldo also argues that natural resources can actually play an integral role in stimulating state capacity, capitalism, industrialization, and democracy, even if resources are themselves often a symptom of underdevelopment. Despite being cursed by their institutions, weak states are blessed by their resources: greater oil means more development, both hiTrade Review'This book explores the role of natural resources, especially oil, in the development of countries. … A wide geographic area is covered, including but not limited to North America, Europe and the Middle East. … The author argues that political institutions, not resource endowment, are the basis for differences in development. … It adds to the literature on the role of natural resources, institutions, and development. Footnotes and references. … Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.' J. E. Weaver, ChoiceTable of Contents1. Introduction; 2. Three puzzles and some building blocks; 3. Intellectual heritage of the institutions curse view; 4. The institutions curse; 5. Not manna from heaven after all: the endogeneity of oil; 6. The resource blessing; 7. Whither the Arab Spring?; 8. Conclusions.

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Book SynopsisThe Pacific coast is the most iconic region of California and one of the most fascinating and rapidly changing places in the world. Densely populated, urbanized, and industrializedand also home to complex, fragile ecosystemsthe coast is the place where humanity and nature coexist in a precarious balance that is never perfectly stable. This is a dramatic snapshot of the California coasts past, present, and probable future in a time of climate change and expanding human activity. Written by two marine experts who grew up on the coast, The Edge is both an appreciation of the coasts natural and cultural uniqueness and a warning of the changes that threaten that uniqueness. As ocean levels rise, coastal communities are starting to erode, and entire neighborhoods have been lost to the sea. Coastal ecosystems and wildlife that were already stressed by human settlement now face new dangers. Fisheries, oil drilling, recreation, housing and environmental advocates compete to define the future of the region. A masterful and sweeping synthesis of environmental and social science, The Edge presents a comprehensive portrait of the history, people, communities, industries, ecology, and wildlife of the coast.

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Book SynopsisUrbanisation is caused by migration. However, an essential difference exists between migration in the past and that in the present. This book focuses on several topics that include a comparison between an informational city and a smart city; urbanisation and human impact on biodiversity in Water''s Edge Public Spaces (WEPS); a mathematical-modelling approach to urbanisation caused by migration; sustaining urbanisation in a developing economy; and urbanisation and cardiomyopathy vulnerability in an African male cohort.

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Book SynopsisCold Matters is a vital and approachable work that distills the scientific complexities of snow, ice, water and climate and presents the global implications of research put forth and funded by the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences. This timely book gives the concerned reader an opportunity to take part in the conversation about our global environment in a way that transcends traditional scientific journals, textbooks, public talks or newspaper articles that are so often ignored or forgotten. In the end, Cold Matters will change the way you think about ice and snow. The impassioned narrative and sophisticated illustrations found within the pages of Robert Sandford''s latest work offer ecologically and globally minded citizens an understanding of the behaviour of our ever-changing climate system and its effect on cold environments in western Canada over the past 400 years. Using revolutionary prediction scenarios to model glaciers and glacier meltwater in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Yukon, NWT and throughout the world, Cold Matters presents a clear snapshot of how altered ecosystems will impact future climates, urban centres and agricultural landscapes.

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Book SynopsisScientific research on climate change has given rise to a variety of images picturing climate change. These range from colorful expert graphics, model visualizations, photographs of extreme weather events like floods, droughts or melting ice, symbols like polar bears, to animated and interactive visualizations. Climate change graphics have not only increased knowledge about the subject, they have begun to influence popular awareness of global weather events. The status of climate pictures today is particularly crucial, as global climate change as a long-term process cannot be seen. When images are widely distributed, they are able to shape how the world is thought about and seen. It is this implicit basic assumption of the power of images to influence reality that this book addresses: today's images might become the blueprint for tomorrow's realities. "Image Politics of Climate Change" combines a wide interdisciplinary range of perspectives and questions, treated here in sixteen interdisciplinary case studies. The author's specializations include both visual practice and theory: in the fields of climate sciences, computer graphics, art, curating, art history and visual studies, communication and cultural science, environmental and science & technology studies. The close interlinking of these viewpoints promotes in-depth insights into issues of production and analysis of climate visualization.

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Book SynopsisSocial practice theories help to challenge the often hidden paradigms, worldviews, and values at the basis of many unsustainable practices. Discourses and their boundaries define what is seen as possible, as well as the range of issues and their solutions. By exploring the connections between practices and discourses, Minna Kanerva develops a conceptual approach enabling purposive change in unsustainable social practices. Radical transformation towards new meatways is arguably necessary, yet complex psychological, ideological, and power-related mechanisms currently inhibit change.

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Book SynopsisPeople experience disasters very differently. Conflicts about a "correct" interpretation of the risks might arise. The side-by-side of different truths lead to people seeing mismanagement and disinformation. The volcanic crisis of El Hierro shows how rivalling interpretations amongst affected islanders, the media, sciences, and disaster response institutions cause great social tensions and scepticism towards scientific information. Thus, to fully understand disaster risk, the focus must shift to the rifts between established convictions and the individuals' creativity to overcome them, taking into account their embeddedness in various fields of practice, each with their own rationales and ruptures.

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Book SynopsisLex Fullarton takes a closer look at the three pillars of the sustainable development framework known as the Triple Bottom Line (TBL). The concept of the TBL is that for a project to be sustainable it must not simply be profitable in economic terms, but it must also benefit society and enhance the natural environment. In the 21st century, the greatest threat to Earths natural environment and the population of the planet is the rise of greenhouse gas emissions caused from burning fossil fuel as an energy source. The rise of GHG emissions has resulted in a rise in the ambient air temperature of the Earths atmosphere and is resulting in a significant change in climatic conditions on Earth. Fullarton scrutinizes the problem of getting industry and governments to understand the significance of creating harmony within the TBL. One of the main problems is that partisan politics tends to fragment the factors of the TBL rather than bring them together. Fullarton takes a strong stand in suggesting that taxation systems, which have traditionally been viewed primarily as a means of raising government finance, can be effectively applied to influence industrial and consumer attitudes towards transiting away from polluting fossil-fuel energy sources towards non-polluting renewable energy use.

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Book SynopsisForests have been at the fault lines of contact between African peasant communities in the Tanzanian coastal hinterland and outsiders for almost two centuries. In recent decades, a global call for biodiversity preservation has been the main challenge to Tanzanians and their forests.ThaddeusTrade Review“This is a very well researched work on a topic of considerable contemporary importance in relation to forest utilisation and conservation. It is especially good on the wide range of historic uses of the coastal forests in particular, not just for material resources, but also for social and ritual purposes by local people.” * Tanzanian Affairs *“Sunseri’s history consistently argues that the loss of local environmental control helped push a substantial deforestation across the coastal landscape. He contends further that the assault on coastal peoples' rights to forest access continues. The overt authoritarianism and violence of former decades has yielded to a more benign intervention on the part of international conservation organizations…a new wrinkle on a historically familiar pattern….” * African Studies Review *“Tanzania enjoys a reputation as a place deeply concerned with preserving its beautiful landscapes and wildlife for global humanity to enjoy in perpetuity. This compact and masterful study (Wielding the Ax) traces the fraught environmental history that preceded this current era of ‘eco-governmentality’ in Tanzania.” * African History *“(Wielding the Ax) illustrates the wide variety of demands placed on the forests with the not-so-surprising, but documented, conclusion that Tanzanian scientific forestry was neither rational nor efficient, but fell prey to the usual political machinations…. This is the first significant work bringing together Tanzanian forestry and social issues….” * International Journal of African Historical Studies *“This exemplary book is worth reading far beyond the boundaries of Tanzania or the shores of Africa for several reasons. It takes the strong political ecology approach to writing environmental history in a way that is mercifully jargon free. It reveals the sequence of transformations from tribal society to imperialism and post-colonialism, and right through to present ‘green neoliberalism’ of international conservation. It rests on wide reading and thorough research…. Sunseri’s book tells how Tanzania’s forests have always been peopled. It is a perspective too easily ignored.” * Environment and History *“Sensitive oral interviews and deft fieldwork support a markedly populist perspective on the impact of national and international decisions on resilient local residents…. Highly recommended.” * Choice *“Sunseri demonstrates how authority over the forest has shifted from nineteenth‐century chiefs, known as ‘ceremonial ax wielders,’ to scientific forestry experts of the colonial state, and later to biodiversity advocates of the global NGO community…. Surprisingly, a forest history provides a new lens for interpreting the major events of Tanzanian colonial and postcolonial history.” * American Historical Review *

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