Download or read book Can China Feed Itself A System for Evaluation of Policy Options written by and published by . This book was released on with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Features a CD ROM-based report of the research by Gerhard Heilig on land use in China and future food security, published by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria. Provides access to arguments, data, a FAQ, a bibliography, and links to related resources.
Download or read book The New Consumers written by Norman Myers and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2013-04-10 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While overconsumption by the developed world's roughly one billion inhabitants is an abiding problem, another one billion increasingly affluent "new consumers" in developing countries will place additional strains on the earth's resources, argue authors Norman Myers and Jennifer Kent in this important new book. The New Consumers examines the environmental impacts of this increased consumption, with particular focus on two commodities -- cars and meat -- that stand to have the most far-reaching effects. It analyzes consumption patterns in a number of different countries, with special emphasis on China and India (whose surging economies, as well as their large populations, are likely to account for exceptional growth in humanity's ecological footprint), and surveys big-picture issues such as the globalization of economies, consumer goods, and lifestyles. Ultimately, according to the orman Myers and Jennifer Kent, the challenge will be for all of humanity to transition to sustainable levels of consumption, for it is unrealistic to expect "new" consumers not to aspire to be like the "old" ones. Cogent in its analysis, The New Consumers issues a timely warning of a major and developing environmental trend, and suggests valuable strategies for ameliorating its effects.
Download or read book Vulnerability of Land Systems in Asia written by Ademola K. Braimoh and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-11-17 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a comprehensive yet accessible overview of land systems vulnerability assessment in Asia - fundamental to the understanding of the link between global change, environmental sustainability and human wellbeing. The extent and intensity of human interactions with the environment have increased spectacularly since the Industrial Revolution. Thus, the global change research community and development practitioners increasingly recognize the need to address the adverse consequences of changes taking place in the structure and function of the biosphere and the implications for society. With a focus on Asia, this book provides an overview of the vulnerability of land systems and the subsequent multiple stressors in this region. The book offers a discussion surrounding the potential causal processes that affect land systems vulnerability and our capacity to cope with different perturbations. It also identifies factors that help to integrate vulnerability assessment into policy and decision-making. • Addresses the complex issues arising from human–environment interactions that cannot be satisfactorily dealt with by core disciplinary methods alone. • Key coverage of a variety of topics from the vulnerability of smallholder agriculture and urban systems to the impact of socioeconomic processes at the sub-regional level. • Coverage of the causal processes that affect land systems vulnerability and capacity to cope with different perturbations are documented. • Focus on integrating vulnerability assessment into policies and decision-making • Includes contributions from leading academics in the field.
Download or read book China written by and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2001 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Annotation This report focuses on how to promote both China 's economic growth while protecting its environment.
Download or read book An Introduction to Global Studies written by Patricia J. Campbell and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2011-09-13 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taking an interdisciplinary approach, An Introduction to Global Studies presents readers with a solid introduction to the complex, interconnected forces and issues confronting today's globalized world. Introduces readers to major theories, key terms, concepts, and notable theorists Equips readers with the basic knowledge and conceptual tools necessary for thinking critically about the complex issues facing the global community Includes a variety of supplemental features to facilitate learning and enhance readers' understanding of the material
Download or read book Sustainable Development in Rural China written by Bin Wu and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-06-02 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wu explores how farmers have organised themselves to initiate technical innovation, and considers communication networks and co-operative mechanisms.
Download or read book Blueprint for Action written by Thomas P.M. Barnett and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2006-10-03 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If The Pentagon's New Map was "a compelling framework for confronting twenty-first century problems" (Business Week), Barnett's Blueprint for Action is something more - a powerful road map through a chaotic and uncertain world to "a future worth creating." Barnett explores our possible long- and short-term relations with such nations and regions as Iran, Iraq, and the Middle East, China and North Korea, Latin America and Africa, while outlining the strategies to pursue, the entities to create, and the pitfalls to overcome.
Download or read book The Skeptical Environmentalist written by Bjørn Lomborg and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2001-08-30 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Skeptical Environmentalist challenges widely held beliefs that the environmental situation is getting worse and worse. The author, himself a former member of Greenpeace, is critical of the way in which many environmental organisations make selective and misleading use of the scientific evidence. Using the best available statistical information from internationally recognised research institutes, Bjørn Lomborg systematically examines a range of major environmental problems that feature prominently in headline news across the world. His arguments are presented in non-technical, accessible language and are carefully backed up by over 2500 footnotes allowing readers to check sources for themselves. Concluding that there are more reasons for optimism than pessimism, Bjørn Lomborg stresses the need for clear-headed prioritisation of resources to tackle real, not imagined problems. The Skeptical Environmentalist offers readers a non-partisan stocktaking exercise that serves as a useful corrective to the more alarmist accounts favoured by campaign groups and the media.
Download or read book Welfare Environment and Changing US Chinese Relations written by Maria Weber and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2004-01-01 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scholars of political economy and international economics as well as academics and researchers of Asian - particularly Chinese- studies, will find this book of great value. Since the People's Republic of China began to promote an open-door policy to foreign investment in 1979, economic results have been startling. In twenty years China recorded at least eight percent growth in gross domestic product annually. Since 1978 the number of Chinese living in poverty dropped from 270 million to 60 million. China's economy cou. By adopting a wide-ranging perspective, this book addresses the key issues relevant to contemporary China, providing a valuable tool with which to understand the challenges and opportunities facing political and economic actors, both domestic and foreign, over the next decades. The book addresses key issues now subject to considerable debate, such as sustainable growth, the imbalances in society deriving from growing inequalities and environmental threats. Concluding this section is an overview of how Chinese - US relations, and China's geo-political role at the international level, have evolved at the turn of the 21st century. The book then goes on to analyse those issues linked to the impacts of recent welfare system reforms. In particular, those impacts on the health care and pension systems, growing unemployment deriving from reform of state-owned enterprises and the related phasing out of the 'cradle-to-grave' welfare system. The closing chapter looks at the potential provided by a fast-growing insurance market in conjunction with WTO opening measures, to assess whether increased opportunities are likely to arise for foreign insurance suppliers.
Download or read book Facing Global Environmental Change written by Hans Günter Brauch and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2009-06-04 with total page 1546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The year 2007 could perhaps accurately be described as the year when climate change finally received the attention that this challenge deserves globally. Much of the information and knowledge that was created in this field during the year was the result of the findings of the Fourth - sessment Report (AR4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which were disseminated on a large scale and reported extensively by the media. This was the result not only of a heightened interest on the part of the public on various aspects of climate change, but also because the IPCC itself proactively attempted to spread the findings of its AR4 to the public at large. The interest generated on the scientific realities of climate change was further enhanced by the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to the IPCC and former Vice President of the US, Al Gore. By taking this decision in favour of a leader who has done a great deal to create awareness on c- mate change, and a body that assesses all scientific aspects of climate change and disseminates the result of its findings, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has clearly drawn the link between climate change and peace in the world.
Download or read book Climate Change as a Security Risk written by Hans Joachim Schellnhuber and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-09-23 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Without resolute counteraction, climate change will overstretch many societies' adaptive capacities within the coming decades. This could result in destabilization and violence, jeopardizing national and international security to a new degree. However, climate change could also unite the international community. This is provided that we recognize climate change as a threat to humankind and so set the course for adopting a dynamic and globally coordinated climate policy. If we fail to do so, climate change will draw ever-deeper lines of division and conflict in international relations, triggering numerous conflicts between and within countries over the distribution of resources - especially water and land, and over the management of migration, or over compensation payments between the countries mainly responsible for climate change and those countries most affected by its destructive effects. With Climate Change as a Security Risk, WBGU has compiled a flagship report on an issue that quite rightly is rising rapidly up the international political agenda. The authors pull no punches on the likelihood of increasing tensions and conflicts in a climatically constrained world and spotlight places where possible conflicts may flare up in the 21st century unless climate change is checked. The report makes it clear that climate policy is preventative security policy.
Download or read book At Risk written by Piers Blaikie and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-01-21 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The term 'natural disaster' is often used to refer to natural events such as earthquakes, hurricanes or floods. However, the phrase 'natural disaster' suggests an uncritical acceptance of a deeply engrained ideological and cultural myth. At Risk questions this myth and argues that extreme natural events are not disasters until a vulnerable group of people is exposed. The updated new edition confronts a further ten years of ever more expensive and deadly disasters and discusses disaster not as an aberration, but as a signal failure of mainstream 'development'. Two analytical models are provided as tools for understanding vulnerability. One links remote and distant 'root causes' to 'unsafe conditions' in a 'progression of vulnerability'. The other uses the concepts of 'access' and 'livelihood' to understand why some households are more vulnerable than others. Examining key natural events and incorporating strategies to create a safer world, this revised edition is an important resource for those involved in the fields of environment and development studies.
Download or read book Asian Maritime Power in the 21st Century written by Vijay Sakhuja and published by Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. This book was released on 2011 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Maritime power has been a key defining parameter of economic vitality and geostrategic power of nations. This book explores how the first decade of the 21st century has witnessed the rise of China and India as confident economic powers pivoting on high growth rates, exponential expansion of science, technology and industrial growth.
Download or read book Redefining Diversity and Dynamics of Natural Resources Management in Asia Volume 1 written by Ganesh Shivakoti and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2016-09-01 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Redefining Diversity and Dynamics of Natural Resources Management in Asia, Volumes 1-4 brings together scientific research and policy issues across various topographical area in Asia to provide a comprehensive overview of the issues facing the region. Sustainable Natural Resources Management in Dynamic Southeast Asia, Volume 1, pulls together regional experts in the field to look specifically at sustainability issues across the region, to see what has been implemented, what the impacts have been, and what other options are available. In the race to be a developed region, many Southeast Asian countries have foregone natural resources through haphazard use. As a result, the people are faced with numerous environmental challenges, particularly deforestation and forest degradation, biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation, reduction in soil quality, and decreases in the quantity of available water. Community-based forest management is the involvement of local communities in the protection, conservation and management of public forests to prevent degradation through sustainable practices while still responding to the basic social and economic needs of local populations. When the people who depend on forest resources for their livelihoods are jointly responsible for managing and protecting them, they tend to do so in a more sustainable manner by focusing on the long-term benefits rather than the immediate short-term gains. However, when tenure rights are weak, unclear, or insecure, or offer limited benefits, people are incited in extracting more immediate benefits, resulting in suboptimal forest management and the reduction of carbon stocks. - Features case studies that cover issues such as rising levels of deforestation, forest degradation, regional food security, ecosystem degradation, biodiversity loss, conflicts over natural resource use, water management issues, and impacts on local communities - Includes contributions from local researchers who are dealing with these issues first hand, and on a daily basis - Includes a comparative review on REDD+ implementation in different communities - Focuses on sustainability issues across the region
Download or read book Sustainable Agriculture Biotechniques in Plant Biology written by Javid Ahmad Parray and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2019-11-06 with total page 547 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book will be of immense helpful to the students of plant biotechnology, Agricultural sciences, Microbiology of both undergraduate and postgraduate levels in universities, colleges, and Research institutes. Besides the book will be quite supportive researchers who work in the field of plant biotechnology and agricultural sciences. In this book, the main focus will be on advanced genome editing approaches for the production of GM crops besides their socioeconomic, ethical and risk-biosafety assessments. Nanotechnology is the new emerging and fascinating field of science finds its application in almost all the major research areas and its uses in agriculture and food sectors are incipient.The books seems to be first in summarizing the two way interactive approach in the field of plant biotechnology and setting of a new arena in shaping the new bio techniques towards the sustainable cause.
Download or read book Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London written by and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 944 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Each issue of Transactions B is devoted to a specific area of the biological sciences, including clinical science. All papers are peer reviewed and edited to the highest standards. Published on the 29th of each month, Transactions B is essential reading for all biologists.
Download or read book The Metabolic Pattern of Societies written by Mario Giampietro and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2011-10-12 with total page 453 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is increasingly evident that the conventional scientific approach to economic processes and related sustainability issues is seriously flawed. No economist predicted the current planetary crisis even though the world has now undergone five severe recessions primed by dramatic increases in the price of oil. This book presents the results of more than twenty years of work aimed at developing an alternative method of analysis of the economic process and related sustainability issues: it is possible to perform an integrated and comprehensive analysis of the sustainability of socio-economic systems using indicators and variables that have been so far ignored by conventional economists. The book’s innovative approach aims to provide a better framework with which we can face the predicaments of sustainability issues. It begins by presenting practical examples of the shortcomings of conventional economic analysis and examines the systemic problems faced when trying to use quantitative analysis for governance. In providing a critical appraisal of current applications of economic narratives to the issue of sustainability, the book presents several innovative concepts required to generate a post-Newtonian approach to quantitative analysis in the Musiasem approach. An empirical section illustrates the results of an analysis of structural changes in world and EU countries. Finally, the book, using the insight gained in the theoretical and empirical analysis, exposes the dubious quality of many narratives currently used in the sustainability debate. Overall, the performance of modern economies across different hierarchical levels of organization and across different disciplinary knowledge systems is fully analyzed and a more realistic measure of happiness and well-being is devised. The book should be of interest to researchers and students looking at the issue of sustainability within a variety of disciplines.
