Download or read book Environmental Politics written by Andrew Dobson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Environmental politics has many faces and operates at multiple scales: it preoccupies individuals as well as governments, drives local agreements as well as international treaties, results in minor business changes as well as wholesale business decisions, and fluctuates between a politics of protest and one of accommodation. In this Very Short Introduction Andrew Dobson offers a lively and comprehensive commentary on the many facets of environmental politics today. Looking towards the future, he asks whether environmental politics will be comfortably accommodated by mainstream politics, or whether the advent of the Anthropocene - a whole new geological epoch driven by human impact on the environment - will herald a break with the politics of growth that has dominated social life since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Download or read book Environmental Economics A Very Short Introduction written by Stephen Smith and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2011-09-22 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If environmental protection is costly, how much should we spend on pollution control? Is it worth reducing pollution to zero, or should we accept some level of pollution because of the economic benefits associated with it? How can we assess the benefits that people get from a less-polluted atmosphere? In broad terms, environmental economics looks at how economic activity and policy affect the environment in which we live. Some production generates pollution, such as power station emissions causing acid rain and contributing to global warming, but household consumption decisions also affect the environment, where more consumption can mean more waste sent to polluting incinerators. However, pollution is not an inevitable consequence of economic activity - environmental policies can require polluting firms to clean up their emissions, and can encourage people to change their behaviour, through environmental taxes on polluting goods, for example. Generally, though, these measures will involve some costs, such as installing pollution control equipment. So there's a trade-off: a cleaner environment, but economic costs. In recent years, many economists have argued for greater use of incentive in the form of pollution charges and emissions trading rather than more traditional direct regulation of polluters. In this Very Short Introduction, Stephen Smith discusses environmental issues including pollution control, reducing environmental damage, and global climate change policies, answering questions about how we should balance environmental and economic considerations, and what form government policies should take. Including many illustrative case studies and examples he shows that this is an exciting field of economics, and one that is at the heart of many public debates and controversies. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Download or read book Environmental Ethics A Very Short Introduction written by Robin Attfield and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-11-15 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Environmental ethics is a relatively new branch of philosophy, which studies the values and principles involved in combatting environmental problems such as pollution, loss of species and habitats, and climate change. As our environment faces evermore threats from human activities these core issues are becoming increasingly important. In this Very Short Introduction Robin Attfield traces the origins of environmental ethics as a discipline, and considers how it defends the independent value of living creatures, and the need to make decisions informed by the needs and interests of future generations. Exploring the diverse approaches to ethical decisions and judgements, he highlights the importance of making processes of production and consumption sustainable and of addressing human population levels, together with policies for preserving species, sub-species, and their habitats. Along the way Attfield discusses different movements such as Deep Ecology, Social Ecology, the Environmental Justice movement and the Green movement, and also considers the attitudes to the environment of the world's religions, including the approach from the major religions and the contributions of the indigenous religions of Asia, Africa and North America. Analysing the current threat of climate change, and proposals for climate engineering, he demonstrates how responsibility for the environment ultimately lies with us all, from states and corporations to individuals, and emphasises how concerted action is required to manage our environment ethically and sustainably. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Download or read book Environmental Law written by Elizabeth Fisher and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Although environmental laws are rarely able to provide the simple solutions that people want from them, they are essential for the future of our planet. This book explores how legal responses are shaped in response to the problems facing the environment today, and the socio-political conflicts facing environmental legislation."--Publisher's description.
Download or read book Politics A Very Short Introduction written by Kenneth Minogue and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2000-02-24 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this provocative but balanced essay, Kenneth Minogue discusses the development of politics from the ancient world to the twentieth century. He prompts us to consider why political systems evolve, how politics offers both power and order in our society, whether democracy is always a good thing, and what future politics may have in the twenty-first century. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Download or read book Global Environmental Politics written by Jean-Frederic Morin and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020-03-17 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Global Environmental Politics provides a fully up to date and comprehensive introduction to the most important issues dominating this fast moving field. Going beyond the issue of climate change, the textbook also introduces students to the pressing issues of desertification, trade in hazardous waste, biodiversity protection, whaling, acid rain, ozone-depletion, water consumption, and over-fishing. . Importantly, the authors pay particular attention to the interactions between environmental politics and other governance issues, such as gender, trade, development, health, agriculture, and security.
Download or read book Anthropocene A Very Short Introduction written by Erle C. Ellis and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-02-22 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The proposal that the impact of humanity on the planet has left a distinct footprint, even on the scale of geological time, has recently gained much ground. Global climate change, shifting global cycles of the weather, widespread pollution, radioactive fallout, plastic accumulation, species invasions, the mass extinction of species - these are just some of the many indicators that we will leave a lasting record in rock, the scientific basis for recognizing new time intervals in Earth's history. The Anthropocene, as the proposed new epoch has been named, is regularly in the news. Even with such robust evidence, the proposal to formally recognize our current time as the Anthropocene remains controversial both inside and outside the scholarly world, kindling intense debates. The reason is clear. The Anthropocene represents far more than just another interval of geologic time. Instead, the Anthropocene has emerged as a powerful new narrative, a concept through which age-old questions about the meaning of nature and even the nature of humanity are being revisited and radically revised. This Very Short Introduction explains the science behind the Anthropocene and the many proposals about when to mark its beginning: the nuclear tests of the 1950s? The beginnings of agriculture? The origins of humans as a species? Erle Ellis considers the many ways that the Anthropocene's "evolving paradigm" is reshaping the sciences, stimulating the humanities, and foregrounding the politics of life on a planet transformed by humans. The Anthropocene remains a work in progress. Is this the story of an unprecedented planetary disaster? Or of newfound wisdom and redemption? Ellis offers an insightful discussion of our role in shaping the planet, and how this will influence our future on many fronts. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Download or read book Environmental Policy and Politics written by Michael Kraft and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-09-25 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covering global threats such as climate change, population growth, and loss of biodiversity, as well as national, state, and local problems of environmental pollution, energy use, and natural resource use and conservation, Environmental Policy and Politics provides a comprehensive overview of U.S. policy-making processes, the legislative and administrative settings for policy decisions, the role of interest groups and public opinion in environmental politics, and the public policies that result. It helps readers understand modern environmental policy and its implications, including the need for a comprehensive and integrated approach to problem solving.
Download or read book Tocqueville A Very Short Introduction written by Harvey C. Mansfield and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-07-13 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No one has ever described American democracy with more accurate insight or more profoundly than Alexis de Tocqueville. After meeting with Americans on extensive travels in the United States, and intense study of documents and authorities, he authored the landmark Democracy in America, publishing its two volumes in 1835 and 1840. Ever since, this book has been the best source for every serious attempt to understand America and democracy itself. Yet Tocqueville himself remains a mystery behind the elegance of his style. Now one of our leading authorities on Tocqueville explains him in this splendid new entry in Oxford's acclaimed Very Short Introduction series. Harvey Mansfield addresses his subject as a thinker, clearly and incisively exploring Tocqueville's writings--not only his masterpiece, but also his secret Recollections, intended for posterity alone, and his unfinished work on his native France, The Old Regime and the Revolution. Tocqueville was a liberal, Mansfield writes, but not of the usual sort. The many elements of his life found expression in his thought: his aristocratic ancestry, his ventures in politics, his voyages abroad, his hopes and fears for America, and his disappointment with France. All his writings show a passion for political liberty and insistence on human greatness. Perhaps most important, he saw liberty not in theories, but in the practice of self-government in America. Ever an opponent of abstraction, he offered an analysis that forces us to consider what we actually do in our politics--suggesting that theory itself may be an enemy of freedom. And that, Mansfield writes, makes him a vitally important thinker for today. Translator of an authoritative edition of Democracy in America, Harvey Mansfield here offers the fruit of decades of research and reflection in a clear, insightful, and marvelously compact introduction.
Download or read book Climate Change A Very Short Introduction written by Mark Maslin and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2014-10-23 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Climate change is still, arguably, the most critical and controversial issue facing the world in the twenty-first century. Previously published as Global Warming: A Very Short Introduction, the new edition is now Climate Change: A Very Short introduction, reflecting an important change in the terminology of the last decade. In the third edition, Mark Maslin includes crucial updates from the last few years, including the results of the 2013 IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, the effects of ocean acidification, and the impact of changes to global population and health. Exploring all of the key topics in the debate, Maslin makes sense of the complexities climate change involves, from political and social issues to environmental and scientific. Looking at its predicated impacts, he explores all of the controversies, and also explains the various proposed solutions. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Download or read book A Strategic Nature written by Melissa Aronczyk and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A Strategic Nature shows how public relations has dominated public understanding of the natural environment for over one hundred years. More than spin or misinformation, PR is a social and political force that shapes how we understand and address the environmental crises we now face. Drawing on interviews, ethnography, and archival research, Melissa Aronczyk and Maria I. Espinoza offer an original account of the promotional agents who have influenced public perception of the environment since the beginning of the twentieth century, revealing how professional communicators affect how we think about public knowledge and who can legitimately produce it. Instead of focusing on just the messages or the campaigns, this book provides a conceptual framework for understanding the promotional culture around the meaning of the environment. A Strategic Nature argues that it is not possible to understand the role of the environment in our everyday lives without understanding how something called "the environment" has been invented and communicated to us throughout history. To tell this story properly requires a careful account of the evolution of the institutions, norms and movements that have pushed environmental concerns to the fore of public opinion and political action. But it also demands an examination of the simultaneous evolution of professional communicators and the formation of their institutions, norms and movements. Without this piece of the puzzle, we miss crucial ways that struggles are won, resources allocated, and beliefs fostered about environmental problems"--
Download or read book Global Environmental Politics written by Gareth Porter and published by Westview Press. This book was released on 1991 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essays discuss environmental issues, interest groups, security and trade considerations, and future approaches to environmental policy
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Environmental Political Theory written by Teena Gabrielson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-01-07 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Set at the intersection of political theory and environmental politics, yet with broad engagement across the environmental social sciences and humanities, The Oxford Handbook of Environmental Political Theory, defines, illustrates, and challenges the field of environmental political theory (EPT). Featuring contributions from distinguished political scientists working in this field, this volume addresses canonical theorists and contemporary environmental problems with a diversity of theoretical approaches. The initial volume focuses on EPT as a field of inquiry, engaging both traditions of political thought and the academy. In the second section, the handbook explores conceptualizations of nature and the environment, as well as the nature of political subjects, communities, and boundaries within our environments. A third section addresses the values that motivate environmental theorists—including justice, responsibility, rights, limits, and flourishing—and the potential conflicts that can emerge within, between, and against these ideals. The final section examines the primary structures that constrain or enable the achievement of environmental ends, as well as theorizations of environmental movements, citizenship, and the potential for on-going environmental action and change.
Download or read book Globalization A Very Short Introduction written by Manfred B. Steger and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-05-28 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We live today in an interconnected world in which ordinary people can became instant online celebrities to fans thousands of miles away, in which religious leaders can influence millions globally, in which humans are altering the climate and environment, and in which complex social forces intersect across continents. This is globalization. In the fifth edition of his bestselling Very Short Introduction Manfred B. Steger considers the major dimensions of globalization: economic, political, cultural, ideological, and ecological. He looks at its causes and effects, and engages with the hotly contested question of whether globalization is, ultimately, a good or a bad thing. From climate change to the Ebola virus, Donald Trump to Twitter, trade wars to China's growing global profile, Steger explores today's unprecedented levels of planetary integration as well as the recent challenges posed by resurgent national populism. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Download or read book The European Union A Very Short Introduction written by John Pinder and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-07-25 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Pinder and Simon Usherwood explain the EU in plain readable English. They show how and why it has developed, how the institutions work, and what it does - from the single market to the euro, and from agriculture to the environment.
Download or read book How to Think Seriously about the Planet written by Roger Scruton and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014-10 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In How to Think Seriously About the Planet, Roger Scruton rejects the popular left-wing view that international capitalism, consumerism, and over-exploitation of natural resources are the chief threats to the planet. Such a view necessitates top-down interventions, which Scruton contends are ineffective unless rooted in small-scale practical reasoning. Rather than entrusting the environment to unwieldy NGOs and international committees, Scruton argues, we must assume personal responsibility and foster local control over our environment."--Back cover.
Download or read book Governance A Very Short Introduction written by Mark Bevir and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-10-25 with total page 147 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Generally referring to all forms of social coordination and patterns of rule, the term 'governance' is used in many different contexts. In this Very Short Introduction, Mark Bevir explores the main theories of governance and considers their impact on ideas of governance in the corporate, public, and global arenas.
