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With growing evidence of unsustainable use of the world's resources, such as hydrocarbon reserves, and related environmental pollution, as in alarming climate change predictions, sustainable development is arguably the prominent issue of the 21st century. This volume gives a wide ranging introduction focusing on the arid Gulf region, where the challenges of sustainable development are starkly evident. The Gulf relies on non-renewable oil and gas exports to supply the world's insatiable CO2 em...

Radiation exposure at low doses (below 100 milligray) or low-dose rates (less than 5 milligray per hour) occurs in a wide range of medical, industrial, military, and commercial settings. The effects of exposure at these levels are not fully understood, but there are long-standing concerns that such exposure could negatively affect human health. Although cancer has been linked to low-dose radiation exposure for decades, there is increasing evidence that low-dose radiation exposure may also be ass...

During the past 25 years, population growth has increased faster than agricultural output in Sub-Saharan Africa, causing increased food insecurity and environmental degradation. This paper identifies and assesses agricultural policies and investments made by African governments and international aid agencies in order to review the successes and failures of these actions. Five major areas of activity have been identified that can significantly expand agricultural growth and address food security...

"Advances in Ecopolitics Series" presents a collection of environmental alternatives worthy of consideration in light of the ongoing economic downturn which has accompanied the latest incarnation of unsustainable practices. Each publication discusses a significant element in the environmental theory which now represents an important aspect of sustainable living. The latest volume, "Global Ecological Politics", examines the range of environmental campaigns that are occurring across the planet. It...

Global climate change poses not only environmental hazards but profound risks to planetary peace and stability as well. Climatic Cataclysm gathers experts on climate science, oceanography, history, political science, foreign policy, and national security to take the measure of these risks. The contributors have developed three scenarios of what the future may hold. The expected scenario relies on current scientific models to project the effects of climate change over the next 30 years. The sever...

This book focuses on territorial policies as instruments for local development in Europe’s periphery. Using a multiple-case research design in three typical case studies in the context of the Mediterranean island of Sardinia (Italy), we empirically test the hypothesis that the institutionalisation of the governance system is an independent variable that is capable of influencing the quality of public policy, intended as a dependent variable. According to this hypothesis, the two above-mentioned...

Distilling the work of Father Vincent McNabb's years of preaching in London's Hyde Park, this challenging and entertaining book examines urbanised and industrialised life. The arguments claim that urban life has a deleterious effect on nature, community, family, and the spirit and offer a challenge to "flee to the fields", seeking a life not dominated by technology and artificial schedules but by the forces of God and nature. Newly edited and annotated, this edition stands as an important work o...

Climate Engineering: A Normative Perspective takes as its subject a prospective policy response to the urgent problem of climate change, one previously considered taboo. Climate engineering, the "deliberate, large-scale manipulation of the planetary environment in order to counteract anthropogenic climate change," encapsulates a wide array of technological proposals. Daniel Edward Callies here focuses on one proposal currently being researched-stratospheric aerosol injection-which would spray ae...

This study analyses the politics of climate policy in a range of affluent democracies and at EU level in order to identify political strategies that would make it easier for governments to make major cuts in greenhouse gas emissions without sustaining significant political damage.

Are our urban spaces growing thirsty by the day? What implications do unplanned urban expansion and climate change have on judicious accessibility to water resources among the multitudes who have made urban fringes their home in South Asia? A significant gap exists in current studies of adaptation and vulnerability to the vagaries of climate change that tend to focus on purely agrarian or urban contexts. Addressing this lack, this volume documents and analyses the experiences of this urban pe...

A comprehensive and up-to-date overview of climate change in the Prairie provinces, along with strategies for adapting to the "new normal." The present climate crisis shows no sign of abatement. On the contrary, it is becoming more intense, and there are increasing uncertainties and fears about the outcome of the process of climate transformation. The complexity of this transformation is, to a large extent, a product of the intricate relationships between natural and social systems, both of them...

Large-scale development is once again putting Toronto's waterfront at the leading edge of change. As in other cities around the world, policymakers, planners, and developers are envisioning the waterfront as a space of promise and a prime location for massive investments. Currently, the waterfront is being marketed as a crucial territorial wedge for economic ascendancy in globally competitive urban areas. Reshaping Toronto's Waterfront analyses how and why 'problem spaces' on the waterfront hav...

Leading Local Government: The Role of Directly Elected Mayors is a timely and critical book that examines the erratic rise and uncertain future of the directly elected mayor in the context of English local governance.  Written principally for local government practitioners as well as for those with an academic interest in public leadership, the book asks whether elected mayors offer a new and reinvigorated form of local leadership, whether for individual towns and cities or for wider groups o...

In the years following World War II, the world’s biggest dam was almost built in Hells Canyon on the Snake River in Idaho. Karl Boyd Brooks tells the story of the dam controversy, which became a referendum not only on public-power expansion but also on the environmental implications of the New Deal’s natural resources and economic policy. Private-power critics of the Hells Canyon High Dam posed difficult questions about the implications of damming rivers to create power and to grow crops. Activ...

The catalyst for this study was the Fukushima-Daiichi major nuclear accident of 11 March 2011. In this event, a severe earthquake and15 metre tsunami caused serious damage and equipment failures at Japan's Fukushima 1 Nuclear Power Plant which were judged by the International Atomic Energy Agency to be equally as serious as the Soviet Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986. Against a background of nuclear hesitancy and reassessment, the prospect of including or excluding nuclear power in a low-carb...

The global economy has witnessed important changes in recent years. In the United States, enterprising communities have transitioned from tobacco farming to growing organic produce, from extractive fishing to vertical farming, from nonrenewable energy consumption to the implementation of solar cooperatives -- and have transformed from impoverished neighborhoods into green development zones. Yet these promising achievements remain a small part of the total economy and are largely ignored by polic...