Download or read book Coviability of Social and Ecological Systems Reconnecting Mankind to the Biosphere in an Era of Global Change written by Olivier Barrière and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-03-12 with total page 728 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book considers the principle of ‘sustainable development’ which is currently facing a growing environmental crisis. A new mode of thinking and positioning the ecological imperative is the major input of this volume. The prism of co-viability is not the economics of political agencies that carry the ideology of the dominant/conventional economic schools, but rather an opening of innovation perspectives through science. This volume, through its four parts, more than 40 chapters and a hundred authors, gives birth to a paradigm which crystallizes within a concept that will support in overcoming the ecological emergency deadlock.

Download or read book Coviability of Social and Ecological Systems Reconnecting Mankind to the Biosphere in an Era of Global Change written by Olivier Barrière and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-03-12 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This second volume is the work of more than 55 authors from 15 different disciplines and includes complex systems science which studies the viability of components, and also the study of empirical situations. As readers will discover, the coviability of social and ecological systems is based on the contradiction between humanity, which adopts finalized objectives, and the biosphere, which refers to a ecological functions. We see how concrete situations shed light on the coviability’s determinants, and in this book the very nature of the coviability, presented as a concept-paradigm, is defined in a transversal and ontological ways. By adopting a systemic approach, without advocating any economic dogma (such as development) or dichotomizing between humans and nature, while emphasizing what is relevant to humans and what is not, this work neutrally contextualizes man’s place in the biosphere. It offers a new mode of thinking and positioning of the ecological imperative, and will appeal to all those working with social and ecological systems.

Download or read book Ecological Urbanism of Yoruba Cities in Nigeria written by Joseph Adeniran Adedeji and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-08-23 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers in-depth ethnographic analyses of key informants’ interviews on the ecological urbanism and ecosystem services (ES) of selected green infrastructure (GI) in Yoruba cities of Ile-Ife, Ibadan, Osogbo, Lagos, Abeokuta, Akure, Ondo, among others in Southwest Nigeria. It examines the Indigenous Knowledge System (IKS) demonstrated for wellbeing through home gardens by this largest ethno-linguistic group in Nigeria. This is in addition to the ES of Osun Grove UNESCO World Heritage Site, Osogbo; Biological Garden and Park, Akure; Lekki Conservation Centre, Lagos; Adekunle Fajuyi Park, Ado-Ekiti; Muri Okunola Park, Lagos; and some institutional GI including University of Ibadan Botanical Gardens, Ibadan; Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta Botanical Garden, Abeokuta; and University of Lagos Lagoon Front Resort, Lagos, Nigeria. The study draws on theoretical praxis of Western biophilic ideologies, spirit ontologies of the Global South, and largely, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) to examine eco-cultural green spaces, home gardens, and English-types of parks and gardens as archetypes of GI in Yoruba traditional urbanism, colonial and post-colonial city planning. The book provides methods of achieving a form of modernized traditionalism as means of translating the IKS into design strategies for eco-cultural cities. The strategies are framework, model, and ethnographic design algorithms that are syntheses of the lived experiences of the key informants.

Download or read book The Climate Conflict Displacement Nexus from a Human Security Perspective written by Mohamed Behnassi and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-04-01 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Climate change is reshaping the planet, its ecosystems, and the evolution of human societies. Related impacts and disasters are triggering significant shifts in the inextricably interconnected human and ecological systems with unprecedented potential implications. These shifts not only threaten survival at species and community levels, but are also emerging drivers of conflicts, human insecurity, and displacement both within and across national borders. Taking these shifting dynamics into account, particularly in the Anthropocene era, this book provides an analysis of the climate-conflict-migration nexus from human security and resilience perspectives. The core approach of the volume consists of unpacking the key dynamics of the nexus between climate change, conflict, and displacement and exploring the various local and global response mechanisms to address the nexus, assess their effectiveness, and identify their implications for the nexus itself. It includes both conceptual research and empirical studies reporting lessons learned from many geographical, environmental, social, and policy settings.

Download or read book The Food Security Biodiversity and Climate Nexus written by Mohamed Behnassi and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-10-20 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is the outcome of an international cooperation between 73 scientists, experts, and practitioners from many countries, disciplines, and professional areas. As a part of a series of CERES publications, the volume attempts to contribute to the scientific debate about the food–biodiversity–climate nexus by developing a comprehensive region-specific and broader global understanding of the linkages between these areas, especially in the context of Global South. Instead of providing only modern science-based solutions for the nexus related challenges, the volume covers case studies that present mixed solutions, offering the use of traditional ecological knowledge in combination with modern science for both resilience and sustainability. This is increasingly instrumental in shaping the needed response options regarding the economic, social, and environmental future of the world. Based on a multi-regional and cross-sectoral analysis, the approach consists of: assessing the different natural and anthropogenic factors currently affecting ecosystems and their services, especially the impacts of climate change; highlighting the different linkages between the state of biodiversity and food systems in many contexts and scales; and exploring the various response mechanisms to effectively manage the implications of such linkages. Most chapters provide inputs for future relevant research and policy agendas.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Sport and Society written by Lawrence A. Wenner and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022-09-27 with total page 1201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sport has come to have an increasingly large impact on daily life and commerce across the globe. From mega-events, such as the World Cup or Super Bowl, to the early socialization of children into sport, the study of sport and society has developed as a distinctly wide-ranging scholarly enterprise, centered in sociology, sport studies, and cultural, media, and gender studies. In The Oxford Handbook of Sport and Society, Lawrence Wenner brings together contributions from the world's leading scholars on sport and society to create the premier comprehensive and interdisciplinary reference for scholars and students looking to understand key areas of inquiry about the role and impacts of sport in contemporary culture. The Handbook offers penetrating analyses of the key ways that today's outsized sport is integrated into the lives of both athletes and fans and increasingly shapes the social fabric and cultural logics across the world. Featuring 85 leading international scholars, the volume is organized into six sections: society and values, enterprise and capital, participation and cultures, lifespan and careers, inclusion and exclusion, and spectator engagement and media. To aid comprehension and comparison, each chapter opens with a brief introduction to the area of research and features a common organizational scheme with three main sections of key issues, approaches, and debates to guide scholars and students to what is currently most important in the study of each area. Written at an accessible level and offering rich resources to further study each topic, this handbook is an essential resource for scholars and students as well as general readers who wish to understand the growing social, cultural, political, and economic influences of sport in society and our everyday lives.

Download or read book The Routledge Handbook of Digital Media and Globalization written by Dal Yong Jin and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-05-12 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this comprehensive volume, leading scholars of media and communication examine the nexus of globalization, digital media, and popular culture in the early 21st century. The book begins by interrogating globalization as a critical and intensely contested concept, and proceeds to explore how digital media have influenced a complex set of globalization processes in broad international and comparative contexts. Contributors address a number of key political, economic, cultural, and technological issues relative to globalization, such as free trade agreements, cultural imperialism, heterogeneity, the increasing dominance of American digital media in global cultural markets, the powers of the nation-state, and global corporate media ownership. By extension, readers are introduced to core theoretical concepts and practical ideas, which they can apply to a broad range of contemporary media policies, practices, movements, and technologies in different geographic regions of the world—North America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and Asia. Scholars of global media, international communication, media industries, globalization, and popular culture will find this to be a singular resource for understanding the interconnected relationship between digital media and globalization.

Download or read book From Complex Systems to Transdisciplinarity written by Gerardo del Cerro Santamaría and published by IAP. This book was released on 2024-05-01 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The authors in this book analyze resilience and sustainability in seven different complex adaptive systems (human beings, megaprojects, higher education, food systems, climate change, healthcare settings and cities) by highlighting transitions from complexity to transdisciplinarity as a strategy for knowledge integration. The book provides insights about the nature of complex adaptive systems based on the cases studied, in particular the issue of second order cybernetics (associated to the mind-matter problematic), the role of entropy in complex systems and the importance of the notion of reflexivity in the current cognitive-reflexive stage in world capitalism. In this way, the book aims at contributing to current debates and objections about the validity of traditional ontological and epistemological positions in the face of radical and rapid transformations worldwide affecting some aspects of capitalist development. The Conclusions explore how complex sustainability needs to integrate several elements beyond the conventional view expressed in the standard, anthropocentric definition of sustainability. The contributions in this book are important for anyone interested in meaningfully designing research on resilience and sustainability that uses complexity and transdisciplinary perspectives and frameworks. ENDORSEMENTS: "This volume, edited and co-authored by Gerardo del Cerro Santamaría, is an important book for our times. It illustrates the necessity of utilizing transdisciplinary approaches to address the unremitting onslaught of environmental disasters in the post-COVID era. It serves as an essential primer for understanding the critical intersections between complexity, sustainability, and resilience. Readers will undoubtedly become more reflective about their own inquiries as they learn how scholars from different fields integrate knowledge to offer innovative and meticulously researched insights regarding many of today’s most pressing global issues." — Tanya Augsburg, San Francisco State University "From Complex Systems to Transdisciplinarity, edited and co-authored by Gerardo del Cerro Santamaría, takes resilience and sustainability to center stage, and brings to the fore the limits of individual disciplines in understanding the intricacies of nature, ecology and capitalism as it applies to seven complex systems. The book advocates for an interconnected, creative and holistic path while calling for a transition from complexity to transdisciplinarity as a means of integrating knowledge. This challenges conventional ontological and epistemological perspectives in the face of our rapidly changing societies. This book offers a novel analytical perspective and is a valuable resource for researchers and scholars interested in addressing global challenges through complex resilience, sustainability and transdisciplinarity." — Florent Pasquier, Sorbonne Université and Centre International de Recherches et Études Transdisciplinaires (CIRET), Paris, France "Today’s grand and global challenges are marked by irreducible complexities. They cannot be adequately addressed by reductionist approaches and are likely to not have a single, undisputable solution. The contributions to this volume, carefully edited by Gerardo del Cerro Santamaría, acknowledge these impurities and argue for approaches that transgress on-sided or narrow-minded perspectives. Thus, they offer topical insights into different domains and concepts that address issues of sustainability and resilience without reiterating traditional dichotomies between nature and culture or society and technology. Hence, the volume puts transdisciplinary in the centre of research practices that are both experimental and democratic. From Complex Systems to Transdisciplinarity is insightful and innovative, and a book you cannot ignore." — Cornelius Schubert, Technische Universität Dortmund, Germany "This book shows how the Anthropocene world is an unpredictable system of complex systems. To comprehend and transform this world towards sustainability, we need new ontological and epistemic lenses offered by transdisciplinary inquiry. Policy makers, scientists and corporate leaders will benefit from reading this important collection of essays on the fundamental topics of resilience, sustainability, cybernetics, reflexivity, nature, and entropy." — Paul Shrivastava, Penn State University and The Club of Rome, United States of America

Download or read book Food Nature Wellness Dueling Epistemologies written by Debbie L. Humphries and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2023-11-14 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Coral Reefs in the Anthropocene written by Michael Sweet and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2020-02-04 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every year, 10 outstanding Research Topics are selected as finalists of the Frontiers Spotlight Award. These shortlisted article collections each address a globally important field of research with the potential to drastically impact our future. They bring together the latest, cutting-edge research to advance their fields, present new solutions and foster essential, large-scale collaborations across multiple disciplines and research groups worldwide. This international research prize recognizes the most innovative and impactful topics and the winning team of editors receives $100,000 to organize an international scientific conference on the theme of their successful collection.

Download or read book Ecosociocentrism written by Gopi Upreti and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-11-30 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book, on the subject of global environmental crisis and climate change that has threatened the very existence of humankind and the living system on planet Earth, claims that the current Anthropocene is the most dangerous era of environmental, and ecological crisis the planet Earth has ever witnessed. This book not only insightfully reflects upon the crisis manifested by climate change, breakdown of planetary ecosystem, extinction and annihilation of millions of species, acidification of oceans, desertification of productive lands, and toxic pollution attributing to the current dominant neoliberal economic model but also presents a new ethical development framework that recognizes and promotes the instrumental, relational and intrinsic values in the Earth system which form the basis for social and environmental sustainability. This is a useful book for all stakeholders involved in environmental protection, UN, and development agencies, INGOs, civil societies, NGOs, governments officials and professionals, media personnel, universities faculties, students, and researchers.

Download or read book Ecosystem Diversity and Carbon Sequestration written by P. L. Gautam and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Carbon Sequestration in nature is of critical value for resolving vital issues of our times, namely the state of ecological paucity natural resource management global warming, climate change and sustainable development. It is free carbon in nature, particularly in the from of CO2 that is responsible for most of the ills of our environment and that makes future of life on earth bleak and unsustainable. Earth s gradually but steadily becoming warmer is one of the grimmest and the gravest issues humanity on earth has ever faced in the recorded history. We have a variety of ecosystems to remove free carbon from the environment and fix it into plant biomass and soil. The earth s ecosystems, however, present a somber picture and sequestration of increasing carbon sequestration issues together as both are interrelated and are responsible for the rapidly going on processes leading to global warming and climate change. We can meet climate change challenges and usher in a sustainable future blossoming with humanity by enhancing carbon sequestration in nature, which eventually would be done by maintaining the health of our ecosystems in the first place, and by controlling carbon emissions through a number of technological, institutional, and political measures. Divided in to eight sections, the book comprises 39 chapters contributed by many eminent scientists concerned with the state of the earth. The First section attempts to present an agenda for the ecologically shattered and economically globalised world which might help us understand the gravity of the word s common future and guide us to take up effective measures to mitigate the problems and revive our tormented earth. The subsequent section present and discuss scenarios, anthropogenic dimensions and management of ecosystem diversity; climate change, critical environmental problems, alarming trends, species extinction and all that; a search for viable options; Himalayan mountains; carbon sequestration as a life-building, life-enhancing and life-conserving phenomenon; potential technological and institutional mechanisms, carbon trading, policies; eco-ethics, eco-philosophy and psychology as vital elements pivoting conservation-oriented transcendental development. The book would prove to be of extraordinary value towards resolving the most crucial issues of our times. Contents Agenda For The Revival of Our Tormented Planet; Issues Facing the Ecologically shattered and Economically Globalised World; Chapter 1: Ecosystem Diversity and Carbon Sequestration: Some Issues Confronting Humanity by Vir Singh and PL Gautam; Chapter 2: Global Climate Change: A Challenge before Humanity by S P Singh; Chapter 3: Management of Ecosystems for Livelihoods and Carbon Sequestration in India: Harmony within Natural Elements a Mantra for Human Happiness by J S Bali; Chapter 4: Carbon Sequestration: A Vision by Vishal Mahajan and Kamal Kishor Sood; Chapter 5: Carbon-A Material for the Twenty First Century: Prospects and Promises by B S Tewari and Ajay; Ecosystem Diversity in India; Scenarios, Anthropogenic Dimensions and Management; Chapter 6: Forest Ecosystems and Carbon Sequestration in India: Keeping the Greenhouse Gas at Bay by J B Lal; Chapter 7: Operationalizing CDM Afforestation and Reforestation Projects in India: Analysis of Barriers at National and International Level by Sandeep Tripathi and V R S Rawat; Chapter 8: Microbial Diversity as an Indicator of Soil Organic Carbon Status: Redevelopment of Humid Subtropical Perturbed Ecosystem by Saurindra Nr Goswami and Soneswar Sarma; Chapter 9: Ecosystem Diversity and Sustainability: Towards Middle Path by B Mohan Kumar; Chapter 10: Sacred Groves in India: Celebrating Sanctity of Life through Biodiversity Conservation by Anubhav, Kundan Singh, Akanksha Rastogi and Vir Singh; Life on Edge; Climate Change, Critical Environmental Problems, Alarming Trends, Species Extinction and the Likes; Chapter 11: Climate Change and its Effects on Global Biodiversity: Evidences of Alarming Trends and Species Extinction in Different Eco-Regions of the World by Ragupathy Kannan; Chapter 12: Climate Change and its Effects on Global Biodiversity: Triggering Effects and Frightening Prospects by B S Mahapatra, A P Singh, A K Chaubey and D K Shukla; Chapter 13: Impact of Climate Change on Crop Productivity: Need of Adjustments in Agriculture by S K Saini, Yogendra Pal and Amit Bhatnagar; Chapter 14: Global Warming: Contribution of Livestock and its Control by D N Kamra and Someshwar S Zadbuke; Environmental Management A Search for Viable Options; Chapter 15: Role of Biofertilizer to Mitigate Environmental Problems: Soil Fertility Management in Hill Agro-ecosystems by Susheela Negi, G K Dwivedi and R V Singh; Chapter 16: Effect of Sugar Industry Effluents on Seeds Germination and Seedling Growth of Linum usitatissimum L.: The Green Revolution Bowl Reels Under Industrial Pollution by Neelam and Ila Prakash; Chapter 17: Soil Carbon Sequestration: A Study in Eucalyptus Hybrid Plantations by Asha Upadhyay and Uma Melkania; Chapter 18: Alternate Use of Biomass for Sustainable Development: Gasification Technology for Solving Energy Crisis in Rural Areas by Raj Narayan Pateriya and Sadachari Singh Tomar; Chapter 19: Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi: A Unique Organism of Potential Implications for Carbon Sequestration by Rashmi Srivastava, Shruti Chaturvedi, Preeti Chaturvedi and A K Sharma; Chapter 20: Role of Plant Transcription Factor-DOF in Enhancing Nitrogen Use Efficiency: Molecular Means for Promoting Organic Farming by Dinesh Yadav, Nidhi Gupta, Anil Kumar, Pushpa Lohani, Munna Singh and U S Singh; Chapter 21: Fibre Yielding Plants and Carbon Sequestration: Banking on Ecological Attributes of Economic Plants by Sapna Gautam and Uma Melkania; Himalyan Mountains; Rejuvenated Fragile Ecosystems can Give Appropriate Response to Global Warming; Chapter 22: Sustainable Sloping Land Management Options: potential Effects on Carbon Sequestration in Upland Soils in the Himalayas by Isabelle Providoli, Sanjeev Bhuchar, Keshar Man Sthapit, Madhav Dhakal and Eklabya Sharma; Chapter 23: Rangelands Resources in the Mountains: Management Objective Should Focus on Carbon Sequestration enhancement by R D Gaur, Vir Singh and Babita Bohra; Chapter 24: Himalayan Conservation and Development: The Mighty Mountains can put the Earth s Climate Systems in Order by M L Dewan; Carbon Sequestration: A Life-Building, Life-Sustaining and Life-enhancing Phenomenon on Earth; Chapter 25: Carbon Sequestration; A Life-building, Life-Sutaing and Life-Enhancing Phenomenon on Earth; Chapter 25: Carbon Sequestration: Global Warming Mitigation through Improved Carbon Economy Linked with Photosynthesis by Munna Singh; Chapter 26: Carbon Sequestration on Agricultural Lands: Ameliorating Sustainability and Environmental Security by B Mishra and K P Raverkar; Chapter 27: Soil Carbon Sequestration: A Potential Approach to Climate Change Mitigation by J S Chauhan, Bineet Singh and J P N Rai; Chapter 28: Enhancing Carbon Sequestration: Pondering over Some Strategies by Shiwani Bhatnagar and AK Karnatak; Enhancing Carbon Sequestration in Nature; Potential Technological and Institutional Mechanisms, Carbon Trading and Policies: Chapter 29 Coastal Wetland Ecosystem in Sequestering Carbon Directly by Geological Repositories and Phytoplankton Fertilization: Workable Strategies for Maintaining Ecological Integrity by Alok Mukherjee; Chapter 30: Carbon Sequestration: Mitigating Environmental and Socio-economic Impacts of Global Warming and Climate Change by Vikram S Rathe; Chapter 31: Forest Management: Carbon Mitigation and Social Issues by Govind Singh Kushwaha; Chapter 32: Enhancing Carbon Sequetration in India: Economic Issues and Mechanisms by A K Singh and Virendra Singh; Chapter 33: Climate Change and Kyoto Protocol: Global and Indian Concerns by Tirthankar Banerjee, Jyotsana Pathak and R K Srivastava; Chapter 34: Carbon Sequestration, Global Climate and Laws: What Has Been Done and What Remains? by Rinku Verma; Ushering in a Sustainable Future; Eco-ethics, Eco-philosophy and Psychology as Core Elements Pivoting Conservation-oriented Transcendental Development; Chapter 35: Conservation of Biodiversity for Sustainable Development: Eco-ethics as an Indispendable Element by Vanmathy and Abha Ahuja; Chapter 36: Conservation of Biodiversity for Sustainable Development: Eco-ethics as an Indispensable Element by A Vanmathy and Abha Ahuja; Chapter 36: Environmental Services Emanating from the Himalayan Mountains: Valuation Against the Backdrop of eco-philosophy and Chasing the Goal of Global Happiness by Vir Singh; Chapter 37: Ecosystem Conservation for Carbon Sequestration: Let it be in the Popular Psyche of India by Subaran Singh; Chapter 38: Socio-Cultural Values Promoting Conservation on Natur s Biodiversity: Heal the Earth for Enhancing Carbon Sequestration by A Vanmathy and Abha Ahuja; Chapter 39: Environmental Psychology in Landscaping: A Dimension of Sustainability Operations by Govind Singh Kushwaha and Vir Singh

Download or read book Time Progress Growth and Technology written by Filipe Duarte Santos and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-09-18 with total page 720 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book addresses the current challenges of sustainable development, including its social, economic and environmental components. The author argues that we need to develop a new concept of time based on inter-generational solidarity, which focuses both on the long- and the short term. The evolution of man's notions of time are analyzed from prehistory to modern times, showing how these concepts shape our worldviews, our ecological paradigms and our equilibrium with our planet. Practical approaches to dealing with the major medium- and long term sustainability challenges of the 21st century are presented and discussed. This is a thought provoking and timely book that addresses the main global socioeconomic and environmental challenges facing the current and future generations, using science-based analysis and perspectives. It presents an historical narrative of the advent of progress, economic growth and technology, and discusses the structural changes needed to co-create sustainable pathways. It provides hope for our future on Earth, mankind’s common home. António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations This is an amazing, almost mind-boggling book. The author takes a look at the true whole, i.e., the development of the human enterprise since its very beginning. This enterprise is evidently a possibility under the boundary conditions of cosmological dynamics and natural evolution, but evidently also a highly improbable one. It is all but a miracle that the Earth system in its present form exists and happens to support a technical civilization. Will this civilization last long, will it transform itself into something even more exceptional, or will it perish in disgrace? Santos dares to address these grandest of all questions, equipped with a unique transdisciplinary wisdom drawing on physics, cybernetics, geology, biology, economics, anthropology, history, and philosophy. And he dares to dive into the deepest abysses of thinking, where categorial monsters like time and progress lurk. Thereby, he takes us on fascinating journey, during which we perceive and grasp things we have never seen and understood before. One of the best essays I have ever read. John Schellnhuber, founding director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and former chair of the German Advisory Council on Global Change

Download or read book The sustainable development future of mankind written by Timi Ećimović and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Gaia in Turmoil written by Eileen Crist and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 782 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essays link Gaian science to such global environmental quandaries as climate change and biodiversity destruction, providing perspectives from science, philosophy, politics, and technology.

Download or read book Social Theory and the Global Environment written by Ted Benton and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-01-11 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book marks a watershed in the social sciences. The qualitative, critical perspective of sociology and allied disciplines challenges the technocentric `managerialism' which dominates environmental policy, its discourse and its impact. The authors explore the relationship between social theory and sustainability in an attempt to transend technical rhetoric and embrace a broader understanding of `nature'.

Download or read book Science Society and the Environment written by Michael R. Dove and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-04-24 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In an era when pressing environmental problems make collaboration across the divide between sciences and arts and humanities essential, this book presents the results of a collaborative analysis by an anthropologist and a physicist of four key junctures between science, society, and environment. The first focuses on the systemic bias in science in favour of studying esoteric subjects as distinct from the mundane subjects of everyday life; the second is a study of the fire-climax grasslands of Southeast Asia, especially those dominated by Imperata cylindrica (sword grass); the third reworks the idea of ‘moral economy’, applying it to relations between environment and society; and the fourth focuses on the evolution of the global discourse of the culpability and responsibility of climate change. The volume concludes with the insights of an interdisciplinary perspective for the natural and social science of sustainability. It argues that failures of conservation and development must be viewed systemically, and that mundane topics are no less complex than the more esoteric subjects of science. The book addresses a current blind spot within the academic research community to focusing attention on the seemingly common and mundane beliefs and practices that ultimately play the central role in the human interaction with the environment. This book will benefit students and scholars from a number of different academic disciplines, including conservation and environment studies, development studies, studies of global environmental change, anthropology, geography, sociology, politics, and science and technology studies.