Download or read book Perils of Progress written by Andrew L. Jenks and published by Pearson. This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part of the Connections: Key Themes in World History series, Perils of Progress: Environmental Disasters in the 20th Century is essential reading for anyone interested in furthering a clean and safe environment while simultaneously encouraging responsible manufacturing. Author Andrew Jenks examines past environmental disasters, such as the tragedies at Love Canal, Bhopal, and Chernobyl, to prepare students to anticipate and head off potential environmental disasters as well as to meet and deal rationally with the next toxic apocalypse should one occur.
Download or read book Perils of Progress written by John Ashton and published by Zed Books. This book was released on 1999 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work offers a challenge to our society's largely unquestioning commitment to new technologies, and practical advice on how to deal with their adverse effects. While modern technologies have no doubt brought many benefits, the authors argue that our confidence in them is seriously misplaced. They consider an array of health and environmental issues including: the damaging effects on human health of certain microwaves, including those from mobile phones and television transmission towers; the effects of aluminium in food and other consumer products; and the evidence that the acids in margarines may be more detrimental to health than butter.
Download or read book Make believes in Psychiatry Or The Perils of Progress written by Herman Meïr Praag and published by Bruner Meisel U. This book was released on 1993 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An assessment of the recent biological and psychological revolutions in psychiatry. The text evaluates the positive aspects and pitfalls of the advances made between 1960 and 1992 and critiques the expanding system of discrete and defined disorders, suggesting that some are make believes.
Download or read book What We Owe the Future written by William MacAskill and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2022-08-16 with total page 423 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An Instant New York Times Bestseller “This book will change your sense of how grand the sweep of human history could be, where you fit into it, and how much you could do to change it for the better. It's as simple, and as ambitious, as that.” —Ezra Klein An Oxford philosopher makes the case for “longtermism” — that positively influencing the long-term future is a key moral priority of our time. The fate of the world is in our hands. Humanity’s written history spans only five thousand years. Our yet-unwritten future could last for millions more — or it could end tomorrow. Astonishing numbers of people could lead lives of great happiness or unimaginable suffering, or never live at all, depending on what we choose to do today. In What We Owe The Future, philosopher William MacAskill argues for longtermism, that idea that positively influencing the distant future is a key moral priority of our time. From this perspective, it’s not enough to reverse climate change or avert the next pandemic. We must ensure that civilization would rebound if it collapsed; counter the end of moral progress; and prepare for a planet where the smartest beings are digital, not human. If we make wise choices today, our grandchildren’s grandchildren will thrive, knowing we did everything we could to give them a world full of justice, hope and beauty.
Download or read book Has It Come to This written by J.P. Sapinski and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2020-11-13 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Geoengineering is the deliberate and large-scale intervention in the Earth's climate system in an attempt to mitigate the adverse effects of global warming. Now that a climate emergency is upon us, claims that geoengineering is inevitable are rapidly proliferating. How did we get into this? What options make it onto the table? Which are left out? Whom does geoengineering serve? These are some of the questions that the thinkers contributing to this volume are exploring.
Download or read book The Artificial River written by Carol Sheriff and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 1997-06-12 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of the Eric Canal is the story of industrial and economic progress between the War of 1812 and the Civil War. The Artificial River reveals the human dimension of the story of the Erie Canal. Carol Sheriff's extensive, innovative archival research shows the varied responses of ordinary people-farmers, businessmen, government officials, tourists, workers-to this major environmental, social, and cultural transformation in the early life of the Republic. Winner of Best Manuscript Award from the New York State Historical Association "The Artificial River is deeply researched, its arguments are both subtle and clear, and it is written with grace and an engagingly light touch. The book merits a wide readership." --Paul Johnson, The Journal of American History
Download or read book Perils of Progress written by John Ashton and published by UNSW Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines and in many cases exposes the dangerous, unseen consequences of everyday technology. Ranging broadly across aspects of daily life, the authors consider the impact of such things as mobile phones, microwave ovens, computer VDUs, electric blankets, water beds, air- conditioning, and artificial light.
Download or read book The Business of Less written by Roland Geyer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-09-06 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Business of Less rewrites the book on business and the environment. For the last thirty years, corporate sustainability was synonymous with the pursuit of ‘eco-efficiency’ and ‘win-win’ opportunities. The notion of ‘eco-efficiency’ gives us the illusion that we can achieve environmental sustainability without having to question the pursuit of never-ending economic growth. The ‘win-win’ paradigm is meant to assure us that companies can be protectors of the environment whilst also being profit maximizers. It is abundantly clear that the state of the natural environment has further degraded instead of improved. This book introduces a new paradigm designed to finally reconcile business and the environment. It is called ‘net green’, which means that in these times of ecological overshoot businesses need to reduce total environmental impact and not just improve the eco-efficiency of their products. The book also introduces and explains the four pollution prevention principles ‘again’, ‘different’, ‘less’, and ‘labor, not materials’. Together, ‘net green’ and the four pollution prevention principles provide a road map, for businesses and for every household, to a world in which human prosperity and a healthy environment are no longer at odds. The Business of Less is full of anecdotes and examples. This brings its material to life and makes the book not only very accessible, but also hugely applicable for everyone who is worried about the fate of our planet and is looking for answers.
Download or read book Woodrow Wilson written by H. W. Brands and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2003-06 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An acclaimed historian and Pulitzer Prize finalist offers a clear, comprehensive, and timely account of Wilson's unusual route to the White House, his campaign against corporate interests, and his decline in popularity and health following the rejection by Congress of his League of Nations.
Download or read book Perils of a Restless Planet written by Ernest Zebrowski and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From epidemics and earthquakes to tornadoes and tidal waves, the overwhelming power of Nature never ceases to instil humankind with both terror and awe. As natural disasters continue to claim human lives and wreak havoc in their wake, Perils of a Restless Planet examines our attempts to understand and anticipate such phenomena. Drawing upon case studies from ancient to present times, this book focuses on scientific inquiry, technological innovation and public policy to provide a lucid and riveting look at natural disasters. While shedding light on the elusive quality of Nature and the limits scientific study and laboratory replication impose on our understanding of her mercurial ways, the author extrapolates from the history of science to suggest how we may someday learn to warn and protect vulnerable populations on our small and tempestuous planet. Anyone interested in the power of Nature will find this book compelling and informative.
Download or read book The Filth of Progress written by Ryan Dearinger and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2015-10-30 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Filth of Progress explores the untold side of a well-known American story. For more than a century, accounts of progress in the West foregrounded the technological feats performed while canals and railroads were built and lionized the capitalists who financed the projects. This book salvages stories often omitted from the triumphant narrative of progress by focusing on the suffering and survival of the workers who were treated as outsiders. Ryan Dearinger examines the moving frontiers of canal and railroad construction workers in the tumultuous years of American expansion, from the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825 to the joining of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads in 1869. He tells the story of the immigrants and Americans—the Irish, Chinese, Mormons, and native-born citizens—whose labor created the West’s infrastructure and turned the nation’s dreams of a continental empire into a reality. Dearinger reveals that canals and railroads were not static monuments to progress but moving spaces of conflict and contestation.
Download or read book Tools and Weapons written by Brad Smith and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2019-09-10 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The instant New York Times bestseller. From Microsoft's president and one of the tech industry's broadest thinkers, a frank and thoughtful reckoning with how to balance enormous promise and existential risk as the digitization of everything accelerates. “A colorful and insightful insiders’ view of how technology is both empowering and threatening us. From privacy to cyberattacks, this timely book is a useful guide for how to navigate the digital future.” —Walter Isaacson Microsoft President Brad Smith operates by a simple core belief: When your technology changes the world, you bear a responsibility to help address the world you have helped create. This might seem uncontroversial, but it flies in the face of a tech sector long obsessed with rapid growth and sometimes on disruption as an end in itself. While sweeping digital transformation holds great promise, we have reached an inflection point. The world has turned information technology into both a powerful tool and a formidable weapon, and new approaches are needed to manage an era defined by even more powerful inventions like artificial intelligence. Companies that create technology must accept greater responsibility for the future, and governments will need to regulate technology by moving faster and catching up with the pace of innovation. In Tools and Weapons, Brad Smith and Carol Ann Browne bring us a captivating narrative from the cockpit of one of the world's largest and most powerful tech companies as it finds itself in the middle of some of the thorniest emerging issues of our time. These are challenges that come with no preexisting playbook, including privacy, cybercrime and cyberwar, social media, the moral conundrums of artificial intelligence, big tech's relationship to inequality, and the challenges for democracy, far and near. While in no way a self-glorifying "Microsoft memoir," the book pulls back the curtain remarkably wide onto some of the company's most crucial recent decision points as it strives to protect the hopes technology offers against the very real threats it also presents. There are huge ramifications for communities and countries, and Brad Smith provides a thoughtful and urgent contribution to that effort.
Download or read book Catastrophe written by Richard A. Posner and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2004-11-11 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Catastrophic risks are much greater than is commonly appreciated. Collision with an asteroid, runaway global warming, voraciously replicating nanomachines, a pandemic of gene-spliced smallpox launched by bioterrorists, and a world-ending accident in a high-energy particle accelerator, are among the possible extinction events that are sufficiently likely to warrant careful study. How should we respond to events that, for a variety of psychological and cultural reasons, we find it hard to wrap our minds around? Posner argues that realism about science and scientists, innovative applications of cost-benefit analysis, a scientifically literate legal profession, unprecedented international cooperation, and a pragmatic attitude toward civil liberties are among the keys to coping effectively with the catastrophic risks.
Download or read book The United Negro His Problems and His Progress written by Irvine Garland Penn and published by . This book was released on 1902 with total page 740 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Science for Sale written by Daniel S. Greenberg and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-09-15 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years the news media have been awash in stories about increasingly close ties between college campuses and multimillion-dollar corporations. Our nation’s universities, the story goes, reap enormous windfalls patenting products of scientific research that have been primarily funded by taxpayers. Meanwhile, hoping for new streams of revenue from their innovations, the same universities are allowing their research—and their very principles—to become compromised by quests for profit. But is that really the case? Is money really hopelessly corrupting science? With Science for Sale, acclaimed journalist Daniel S. Greenberg reveals that campus capitalism is more complicated—and less profitable—than media reports would suggest. While universities seek out corporate funding, news stories rarely note that those industry dollars are dwarfed by government support and other funds. Also, while many universities have set up technology transfer offices to pursue profits through patents, many of those offices have been financial busts. Meanwhile, science is showing signs of providing its own solutions, as highly publicized misdeeds in pursuit of profits have provoked promising countermeasures within the field. But just because the threat is overhyped, Greenberg argues, doesn’t mean that there’s no danger. From research that has shifted overseas so corporations can avoid regulations to conflicts of interest in scientific publishing, the temptations of money will always be a threat, and they can only be countered through the vigilance of scientists, the press, and the public. Based on extensive, candid interviews with scientists and administrators, Science for Sale will be indispensable to anyone who cares about the future of scientific research.
Download or read book Environmental Inequalities written by Andrew Hurley and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2009-11-30 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By examining environmental change through the lens of conflicting social agendas, Andrew Hurley uncovers the historical roots of environmental inequality in contemporary urban America. Hurley's study focuses on the steel mill community of Gary, Indiana, a city that was sacrificed, like a thousand other American places, to industrial priorities in the decades following World War II. Although this period witnessed the emergence of a powerful environmental crusade and a resilient quest for equality and social justice among blue-collar workers and African Americans, such efforts often conflicted with the needs of industry. To secure their own interests, manufacturers and affluent white suburbanites exploited divisions of race and class, and the poor frequently found themselves trapped in deteriorating neighborhoods and exposed to dangerous levels of industrial pollution. In telling the story of Gary, Hurley reveals liberal capitalism's difficulties in reconciling concerns about social justice and quality of life with the imperatives of economic growth. He also shows that the power to mold the urban landscape was intertwined with the ability to govern social relations.
Download or read book After Progress written by John Michael Greer and published by New Society Publisher. This book was released on 2015-05-01 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The acclaimed climate futurist examines our unquestioning faith in progress, and its limits in the face of peak oil and climate change. Since the Industrial Age began, scientific and technological progress has been nothing short of miraculous. As a result, progress itself has become the new religion of the West. Our faith in it is so complete that many of us ignore the perils of peak oil and climate change, believing that our lab-coated high priests will surely bring forth yet another miracle to save us all. Unfortunately, progress as we've known it has been entirely dependent on the breakneck exploitation of half a billion years of stored sunlight in the form of fossil fuels. As the age of this cheap, abundant energy draws to a close, progress is grinding to a halt. Unforgiving planetary limits are teaching us that our blind faith in endless exponential growth is a dangerous myth. After Progress addresses this looming paradigm shift, exploring the shape of history from a perspective on the far side of the coming crisis. With a startling examination of the role our belief systems play in our collective fate, John Michael Greer makes a persuasive argument for seeking new sources of meaning, value, and hope for the era ahead.
