Download or read book The Power of Renewables written by Chinese Academy of Engineering and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2011-01-29 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United States and China are the world's top two energy consumers and, as of 2010, the two largest economies. Consequently, they have a decisive role to play in the world's clean energy future. Both countries are also motivated by related goals, namely diversified energy portfolios, job creation, energy security, and pollution reduction, making renewable energy development an important strategy with wide-ranging implications. Given the size of their energy markets, any substantial progress the two countries make in advancing use of renewable energy will provide global benefits, in terms of enhanced technological understanding, reduced costs through expanded deployment, and reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions relative to conventional generation from fossil fuels. Within this context, the U.S. National Academies, in collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE), reviewed renewable energy development and deployment in the two countries, to highlight prospects for collaboration across the research to deployment chain and to suggest strategies which would promote more rapid and economical attainment of renewable energy goals. Main findings and concerning renewable resource assessments, technology development, environmental impacts, market infrastructure, among others, are presented. Specific recommendations have been limited to those judged to be most likely to accelerate the pace of deployment, increase cost-competitiveness, or shape the future market for renewable energy. The recommendations presented here are also pragmatic and achievable.

Download or read book U S Health in International Perspective written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2013-04-12 with total page 421 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United States is among the wealthiest nations in the world, but it is far from the healthiest. Although life expectancy and survival rates in the United States have improved dramatically over the past century, Americans live shorter lives and experience more injuries and illnesses than people in other high-income countries. The U.S. health disadvantage cannot be attributed solely to the adverse health status of racial or ethnic minorities or poor people: even highly advantaged Americans are in worse health than their counterparts in other, "peer" countries. In light of the new and growing evidence about the U.S. health disadvantage, the National Institutes of Health asked the National Research Council (NRC) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to convene a panel of experts to study the issue. The Panel on Understanding Cross-National Health Differences Among High-Income Countries examined whether the U.S. health disadvantage exists across the life span, considered potential explanations, and assessed the larger implications of the findings. U.S. Health in International Perspective presents detailed evidence on the issue, explores the possible explanations for the shorter and less healthy lives of Americans than those of people in comparable countries, and recommends actions by both government and nongovernment agencies and organizations to address the U.S. health disadvantage.

Download or read book People Power and Pollution written by California Institute of Technology. Environmental Quality Laboratory and published by . This book was released on 1971 with total page 86 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Renewable Energy and Wildlife Conservation written by Christopher E. Moorman and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2019-09-10 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brings together disparate conversations about wildlife conservation and renewable energy, suggesting ways these two critical fields can work hand in hand. Renewable energy is often termed simply "green energy," but its effects on wildlife and other forms of biodiversity can be quite complex. While capturing renewable resources like wind, solar, and energy from biomass can require more land than fossil fuel production, potentially displacing wildlife habitat, renewable energy infrastructure can also create habitat and promote species health when thoughtfully implemented. The authors of Renewable Energy and Wildlife Conservation argue that in order to achieve a balanced plan for addressing these two crucially important sustainability issues, our actions at the nexus of these fields must be directed by current scientific information related to the ecological effects of renewable energy production. Synthesizing an extensive, rapidly growing base of research and insights from practitioners into a single, comprehensive resource, contributors to this volume • describe processes to generate renewable energy, focusing on the Big Four renewables—wind, bioenergy, solar energy, and hydroelectric power • review the documented effects of renewable energy production on wildlife and wildlife habitats • consider current and future policy directives, suggesting ways industrial-scale renewables production can be developed to minimize harm to wildlife populations • explain recent advances in renewable power technologies • identify urgent research needs at the intersection of renewables and wildlife conservation Relevant to policy makers and industry professionals—many of whom believe renewables are the best path forward as the world seeks to meet its expanding energy needs—and wildlife conservationists—many of whom are alarmed at the rate of renewables-related habitat conversion—this detailed book culminates with a chapter underscoring emerging opportunities in renewable energy ecology. Contributors: Edward B. Arnett, Brian B. Boroski, Regan Dohm, David Drake, Sarah R. Fritts, Rachel Greene, Steven M. Grodsky, Amanda M. Hale, Cris D. Hein, Rebecca R. Hernandez, Jessica A. Homyack, Henriette I. Jager, Nicole M. Korfanta, James A. Martin, Christopher E. Moorman, Clint Otto, Christine A. Ribic, Susan P. Rupp, Jake Verschuyl, Lindsay M. Wickman, T. Bently Wigley, Victoria H. Zero

Download or read book Politics of China s Environmental Protection written by Gang Chen and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2009 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the dazzling economic and social changes in China have imposed substantial impact upon the quality of environmental governance, it is time to review the problems and progress in the politics of China''s environmental protection. This book analyzes the factors in China''s governance and political process that affect and restrain its capacity to handle the mounting environmental problems. It argues that solutions to China''s ecological woes to a larger extent lie in the political and institutional changes rather than in engineering, technological and investment input. The book talks about new policies and reform measures in the green area taken by the government since 2007, arguing that some of them may be quite effective in the long run, as long as they alter institutional factors and the OC growth-firstOCO mindset that obstruct the green effort. The book also includes discussion of China''s climate change policy not only because global warming has come under the limelight of the international community in recent years, but also because it offers a unique dimension to analyze the country''s environmental diplomacy and domestic bureaucratic structure on emissions cutting and related energy issues. China is currently at the crossroads of further political and economic reform, and the intensified public attention to environmental pollution may help the Chinese Communist Party to decisively push forward the long-sluggish political reforms.

Download or read book Garbage Wars written by David Naguib Pellow and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2004-09-17 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of the struggle for environmental justice, focusing on conflicts over solid waste and pollution in Chicago. In Garbage Wars, the sociologist David Pellow describes the politics of garbage in Chicago. He shows how garbage affects residents in vulnerable communities and poses health risks to those who dispose of it. He follows the trash, the pollution, the hazards, and the people who encountered them in the period 1880-2000. What unfolds is a tug of war among social movements, government, and industry over how we manage our waste, who benefits, and who pays the costs. Studies demonstrate that minority and low-income communities bear a disproportionate burden of environmental hazards. Pellow analyzes how and why environmental inequalities are created. He also explains how class and racial politics have influenced the waste industry throughout the history of Chicago and the United States. After examining the roles of social movements and workers in defining, resisting, and shaping garbage disposal in the United States, he concludes that some environmental groups and people of color have actually contributed to environmental inequality. By highlighting conflicts over waste dumping, incineration, landfills, and recycling, Pellow provides a historical view of the garbage industry throughout the life cycle of waste. Although his focus is on Chicago, he places the trends and conflicts in a broader context, describing how communities throughout the United States have resisted the waste industry's efforts to locate hazardous facilities in their backyards. The book closes with suggestions for how communities can work more effectively for environmental justice and safe, sustainable waste management.

Download or read book Cheap and Clean written by Stephen Ansolabehere and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2016-10-07 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How Americans make energy choices, why they think locally (not globally), and how this can shape U.S. energy and climate change policy. How do Americans think about energy? Is the debate over fossil fuels highly partisan and ideological? Does public opinion about fossil fuels and alternative energies divide along the fault between red states and blue states? And how much do concerns about climate change weigh on their opinions? In Cheap and Clean, Stephen Ansolabehere and David Konisky show that Americans are more pragmatic than ideological in their opinions about energy alternatives, more unified than divided about their main concerns, and more local than global in their approach to energy. Drawing on extensive surveys they designed and conducted over the course of a decade (in conjunction with MIT's Energy Initiative), Ansolabehere and Konisky report that beliefs about the costs and environmental harms associated with particular fuels drive public opinions about energy. People approach energy choices as consumers, and what is most important to them is simply that energy be cheap and clean. Most of us want energy at low economic cost and with little social cost (that is, minimal health risk from pollution). The authors also find that although environmental concerns weigh heavily in people's energy preferences, these concerns are local and not global. Worries about global warming are less pressing to most than worries about their own city's smog and toxic waste. With this in mind, Ansolabehere and Konisky argue for policies that target both local pollutants and carbon emissions (the main source of global warming). The local and immediate nature of people's energy concerns can be the starting point for a new approach to energy and climate change policy.

Download or read book Power to the People written by Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2003 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An energy and environment correspondent for "The Economist" sees great opportunity in the energy realm today, and this is his fiercely independent and irresistibly entertaining look at the economic, political, and technological forces that are reshaping the world's management of energy resources.

Download or read book WHO global air quality guidelines written by Weltgesundheitsorganisation and published by World Health Organization. This book was released on 2021-09-07 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The main objective of these updated global guidelines is to offer health-based air quality guideline levels, expressed as long-term or short-term concentrations for six key air pollutants: PM2.5, PM10, ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide. In addition, the guidelines provide interim targets to guide reduction efforts of these pollutants, as well as good practice statements for the management of certain types of PM (i.e., black carbon/elemental carbon, ultrafine particles, particles originating from sand and duststorms). These guidelines are not legally binding standards; however, they provide WHO Member States with an evidence-informed tool, which they can use to inform legislation and policy. Ultimately, the goal of these guidelines is to help reduce levels of air pollutants in order to decrease the enormous health burden resulting from the exposure to air pollution worldwide.

Download or read book Science by the People written by Aya H. Kimura and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2019-09-13 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Studies show that citizen science projects--projects involving nonprofessionals--face dilemmas ranging from austerity to presumed boundaries between science and activism. By unpacking the politics of citizen science, this book aims to help people negotiate a complex political landscape and choose paths moving toward social change and environmental sustainability.

Download or read book Electricity from Renewable Resources written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2010-04-05 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A component in the America's Energy Future study, Electricity from Renewable Resources examines the technical potential for electric power generation with alternative sources such as wind, solar-photovoltaic, geothermal, solar-thermal, hydroelectric, and other renewable sources. The book focuses on those renewable sources that show the most promise for initial commercial deployment within 10 years and will lead to a substantial impact on the U.S. energy system. A quantitative characterization of technologies, this book lays out expectations of costs, performance, and impacts, as well as barriers and research and development needs. In addition to a principal focus on renewable energy technologies for power generation, the book addresses the challenges of incorporating such technologies into the power grid, as well as potential improvements in the national electricity grid that could enable better and more extensive utilization of wind, solar-thermal, solar photovoltaics, and other renewable technologies.

Download or read book In Search of Good Energy Policy written by Marc Ozawa and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-06-20 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers an innovative look at why science and technology cannot alone meet the needs of energy policy making in the future.

Download or read book People Power in an Era of Global Crisis written by Barry K. Gills and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-31 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A quarter of a century has now passed since the historic popular uprising that led to the overthrow of the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines. The mass movement known as the "People Power Revolution" was not only pivotal to the democratic transition within the Philippines, but it also became an inspiration for subsequent mass movements leading to further democratic transitions throughout the Third World and in the former Communist bloc in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. However, the neoliberal economic policies subsequently pursued by newly democratic governments throughout the Third World led all but the most celebratory observers to note the constrained and limited nature of these formal political transitions. This volume poses the question of the extent to which ‘people power’ has been able to play an active role resisting neoliberalism and deepen substantive democracy and social justice. Through a series of case studies of the regions and individual countries of Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe, the contributions in the volume provide a new set of original and in-depth critical assessments of the nature of the longer-term impact of the democratic transitions commencing in the 1980s and continuing until the present, and questioning their impact and potential influence on human dignity, freedom, justice, and self-determination, and thus opening new avenues of enquiry into the future of democracy. This book was originally published as a special issue of Third World Quarterly.

Download or read book Fuel for Thought written by and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2000 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Energy is basic to development. People in developing countries attach a high priority to energy services, spending nearly 12 per cent of income on energy, more than five times the average for people in OECD countries. Yet provision of those services can have adverse environmental effects, especially as developing countries are often forced to rely on the most inefficient and polluting sources of energy. This report sets out the challenge arising from growth in energy demand and its impact on the environment; analyses the World Bank's current policies and strategy; outlines a new strategy; and explains how it could be implemented.

Download or read book Power Justice and the Environment written by David N. Pellow and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scholars and practitioners assess the tactics and strategies, rhetoric, organizational structure, and resource base of the environmental justice movement, gauging its successes and failures and future prospects.

Download or read book Power Up to Fight Pollution written by Lisa Bullard and published by Millbrook Press. This book was released on 2011-08 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A young boy named Tyler helps to introduce readers to pollution, the ways that people cause it, and how to reduce pollution by reducing, reusing, and recycling.

Download or read book Energy Democracy written by Denise Fairchild and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2017-10-12 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The near-unanimous consensus among climate scientists is that the massive burning of gas, oil, and coal is having cataclysmic impacts on our atmosphere and climate. These climate and environmental impacts are particularly magnified and debilitating for low-income communities and communities of color. Energy democracy tenders a response and joins the environmental and climate movement with broader movements for social and economic change in this country and around the world. Energy Democracy brings together racial, cultural, and generational perspectives to show what an alternative, democratized energy future can look like. The book will inspire others to take up the struggle to build the energy democracy movement.