Download or read book Opportunities and Challenges for Environmental Sustainability A Socioeconomic and Political Analysis written by Fritz Dufour and published by Fritz Dufour. This book was released on 2019-05-26 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report is a socioeconomic and political analysis of environmental sustainability in terms of the present state of the environment, what we can do to reverse the negative trends, and what the current and potential barriers are. First, it offers a background of the issue through a historical perspective. How we got here has a lot to do with how previous generations behaved towards the environment. Similarly, how we behave will determine the kind of environment future generations will have to contend with. It looks at the dynamics likely to impact the balance of nature. Also, because understanding what is biodiversity and why is it important are essential in order to grasp the concept of sustainability, this report looks at the types of ecosystems that form the biosphere and brings an answer to this important question, “Is the Maximum sustainable yield (MSY) concept a fallacy?” Moreover, the importance of cities is a key factor in environmental sustainability. So, the report shows the pros and cons of cities in both the preservation of the environment and the conservation of its biodiversity. The social, economic, and political analyses use the latest data and views from experts, scientists, and scholars alike and also the views of the common people. The result is that all three levels have positives and negatives and so, none of them should be individually prioritized over the other two. To tackle this dilemma, the report offers an alternative: an inclusive, pluralistic, and global approach which aims at motivating all stakeholders – from rich and poor countries – and people from all walks of life to work together towards a common goal and common interests. Such an approach, says the report should be bottom-up instead of top-down, that is, the needs of local populations, especially those closer to biodiversity, must come first before those of large corporations. However, while in the present and short terms, this approach may be successful, in the long term or a distant future, there are reasons to be skeptical for the environment is constantly changing and generations are different from one another. And that is very important because what constitutes the cornerstone of environmental sustainability is this: the present use of natural resources should not be harmful to future generations. Therefore, the report looks into the future. While acknowledging that, in terms of environmental sustainability, predicting the future is a daunting task – because it is better to think that the future is now – the report shows how we can prepare a soft landing for our great grand-children by laying the groundwork for them. We can accomplish this last task because we still have time.

Download or read book The Challenge of Sustainability written by Atkinson, Hugh and published by Policy Press. This book was released on 2014-12-03 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This timely and accessible book explores the links between politics, learning and sustainability. Its central focus is the future of people and the planet itself. The challenges that we face in combatting climate change and building a more sustainable world are complex and the book argues that if we are to successfully meet these challenges we need a fundamental change in the way we do politics and economics, embedding a lifelong commitment to sustainability in all learning. We have no option but to make things work for the better. After all, planet earth is the only home we have! The book will be important reading for academics and students in a variety of related subjects, including politics, public policy, education, sustainable development, geography, media, international relations and development studies. It will also be a valuable resource for NGOs and policy makers.

Download or read book Positional Analysis for Sustainable Development written by Judy Brown and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-05-18 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution of land and water, land-use changes, lack of equality and other problems at local, national and global levels represent a challenge for economics as a social science. Mainstream neoclassical economics may be able to contribute to a more sustainable society but it has also played a dominant role in a period where problems have been aggravated. A pluralist and democratic view of economics is therefore very much warranted. This book presents a multidimensional and ideologically more open view of economics: understanding economics in multidimensional terms is in accordance with the 17 sustainable development goals recognized by nations at the UN-level in 2015. Accordingly, approaches to decision making and accounting at the national- and business levels have to be reconsidered. Neoclassical Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) with focus on the monetary dimension and an assumed consensus about a specific market ideology to be applied is not compatible with democratic societies where citizen and actors in other roles normally differ with respect to ideological orientation. Environmental Impact Statements and Multi-Criteria methods are used to some extent to broaden approaches to decision-making. In this book, Positional Analysis is advocated as a multidimensional and ideologically open approach. Positional Analysis is based on a political economic conceptual framework (as part of ecological economics) that differs from neoclassical ideas of individuals, firms and markets. And since approaches to decision-making and to accounting are closely connected, a new theoretical perspective in economics similarly raises issues of how national and business accounting can be opened up to meet present demands among various actors in society. This perspective raises also numerous ethical questions at the science and policy interface that need to be properly addressed for sustainability decision making.

Download or read book Sustainability and the U S EPA written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2011-09-08 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sustainability is based on a simple and long-recognized factual premise: Everything that humans require for their survival and well-being depends, directly or indirectly, on the natural environment. The environment provides the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat. Recognizing the importance of sustainability to its work, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been working to create programs and applications in a variety of areas to better incorporate sustainability into decision-making at the agency. To further strengthen the scientific basis for sustainability as it applies to human health and environmental protection, the EPA asked the National Research Council (NRC) to provide a framework for incorporating sustainability into the EPA's principles and decision-making. This framework, Sustainability and the U.S. EPA, provides recommendations for a sustainability approach that both incorporates and goes beyond an approach based on assessing and managing the risks posed by pollutants that has largely shaped environmental policy since the 1980s. Although risk-based methods have led to many successes and remain important tools, the report concludes that they are not adequate to address many of the complex problems that put current and future generations at risk, such as depletion of natural resources, climate change, and loss of biodiversity. Moreover, sophisticated tools are increasingly available to address cross-cutting, complex, and challenging issues that go beyond risk management. The report recommends that EPA formally adopt as its sustainability paradigm the widely used "three pillars" approach, which means considering the environmental, social, and economic impacts of an action or decision. Health should be expressly included in the "social" pillar. EPA should also articulate its vision for sustainability and develop a set of sustainability principles that would underlie all agency policies and programs.

Download or read book Emerging Economies and Challenges to Sustainability written by Arve Hansen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-10-10 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The rise of emerging economies represents a challenge to traditional global power balances and raises the question of how we can combine sustainability with continued economic growth. Understanding this global shift and its impact on the environment is the paramount contemporary challenge for development-oriented researchers and policy makers alike. This book breaks new ground by combining scholarship on the role of emerging economies with research on sustainable development. The book investigates how the development strategies of emerging economies challenge traditional development theory and sustainability discourses. With regional introductions and original case studies from South Asia, East Asia, Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa, it discusses how to conceptualise sustainable development in the global race for economic prosperity. What characterises the development strategies of emerging economies, and what challenges are these posing for global sustainable development? How can emerging economies shed light on the global challenges, dilemmas and paradoxes of the relationship between socio-economic improvements and environmental degradation? This book will be a valuable resource for researchers and postgraduates in development studies, geography, economics and environmental studies.

Download or read book Fairness and Futurity written by Andrew Dobson and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 1999-04-01 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fairness and Futurity: Essays on Environmental Sustainability and Social Justice brings together leading international figures in political theory and sociology, as well as representatives from the political community, to consider the normative issues at stake in the relationship between environmental sustainability and social justice. It raises important questions and sets out to provide the answers. If future generations are owed justice, what should we bequeath them? Is `sustainability' an appropriate medium for environmentalists to express their demands? Is environmental protection compatible with intra-generational justice? Is environmental sustainability a luxury when social peace has broken down? These essays emerged from three intensive seminars that involved participants in constant re-evaluations of their work, and which bought three distinct groups—environmental theorists, `mainstream' political theorists, and policy community members—into fruitful contact. In particular, the attempt to involve `mainstream' theorists in environmental questions, and to encourage environmentalists to use intellectual resources of political theory, should be highlighted.

Download or read book Taking Stock of Industrial Ecology written by Roland Clift and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-12-11 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can we design more sustainable industrial and urban systems that reduce environmental impacts while supporting a high quality of life for everyone? What progress has been made towards reducing resource use and waste, and what are the prospects for more resilient, material-efficient economies? What are the environmental and social impacts of global supply chains and how can they be measured and improved? Such questions are at the heart of the emerging discipline of industrial ecology, covered in Taking Stock of Industrial Ecology. Leading authors, researchers and practitioners review how far industrial ecology has developed and current issues and concerns, with illustrations of what the industrial ecology paradigm has achieved in public policy, corporate strategy and industrial practice. It provides an introduction for students coming to industrial ecology and for professionals who wish to understand what industrial ecology can offer, a reference for researchers and practitioners and a source of case studies for teachers.

Download or read book The Crisis of Global Environmental Governance written by Jacob Park and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2008-03-27 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than twenty years after the Bruntland Commission report, Our Common Future, we have yet to secure the basis for a serious approach to global environmental governance. The failed 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development showed the need for a new approach to globalization and sustainability. Taking a critical perspective, rooted in political economy, regulation theory, and post-sovereign international relations, this book explores questions concerning the governance of environmental sustainability in a globalizing economy. With contributions from leading international scholars, the book offers a comprehensive framework on globalization, governance, and sustainability, and examines institutional mechanisms and arrangements to achieve sustainable environmental governance. It: considers current failures in the framework of global environmental governance addresses the problematic relationship between sustainability and globalization explores controversies of development and environment that have led to new processes of institution building examines the marketization of environmental policy-making; stakeholder politics and environmental policy-making; socio-economic justice; the political origins of sustainable consumption; the role of transnational actors; and processes of multi-level global governance. This book will be of interest to students and researchers of political science, international studies, political economy and environmental studies.

Download or read book Sustainability Assessment written by Alan James Bond and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Currently the writing on the subject is limited and comprises, for the most part, guidance documents and completed assessments.

Download or read book Environmental Sustainability and Development in Organizations written by Clara Ines Pardo Martinez and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2021-05-21 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book aims to analyze contexts and perspectives in the relationships between environmental sustainability, human development and organizations. The book combines different scientific approaches for enhancing our understanding of environmental sustainability, development economics and evaluate what the actual conditions in emerging economies are and how developing new process could improve the well-being of developing countries. Employing a collaborative and interdisciplinary approach, the authors work to determine the main related factors and outcomes of the relationship between challenges and new strategies in the environmental sustainability, ultimately seeking to guide public policies to enhance the welfare of the population of an emerging economy.

Download or read book The Route Towards Global Sustainability written by Pardeep Singh and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-03-11 with total page 429 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume discusses topics of global sustainability involving sustainability indicators, stakeholders' participation, and technological and strategic advances with the goal of "thinking locally to act globally". Scientists, academics, policymakers, and planners are currently focused on escalating global socioeconomic and ecological issues, such as rising inequality, adverse anthropogenic impacts on the environment, and deficiencies in natural resources. These variables are pushing the earth system's resistance capacity past its breaking point, with additional pressures incurred by a global pandemic. Therefore, this book looks to impart knowledge on participatory learning action research for human and environmental health and well-being. Sustainable development planning and management are needed in these pressing circumstances, and they necessitate an analytical interpretation of ongoing processes, current and future challenges, and an understanding of available tools and technologies. The main sections of the book focus on challenges and management practices for global sustainability, promoting educational values, smart initiatives in urban contexts, and integrating emerging sustainability dimensions in policies and legislation. The primary audience for the work is policy makers, urban planners, social scientists, economists, NGOs, and students, researchers, and educators engaged in environmental social science and sustainability management.

Download or read book Dynamic Sustainabilities written by Melissa Leach and published by Earthscan. This book was released on 2010 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Linking environmental sustainability with poverty reduction and social justice, and making science and technology work for the poor, have become central practical, political and moral challenges of our times. These must be met in a world of rapid, interconnected change in environments, societies and economies, and globalised, fragmented governance arrangements. Yet despite growing international attention and investment, policy attempts often fail. Why is this, and what can be done about it? How might we understand and address emergent threats from epidemic disease, or the challenges of water scarcity in dryland India? In the context of climate change, how might seed systems help African farmers meet their needs, and how might appropriate energy strategies be developed? This book lays out a new 'pathways approach' to address sustainability challenges such as these in today's dynamic world. Through an appreciation of dynamics, complexity, uncertainty, differing narratives and the values-based aims of sustainability, the pathways approach allows us to see how some approaches are dominant, even though they do not produce the desired results, and how to create successful alternative 'pathways' of responding to the challenges we face. As well as offering new ways of thinking about sustainability, the book also suggests a series of practical ways forward - in tools and methods, forms of political engagement, and styles of knowledge-making and communication. Throughout the book, the practicalities of the pathways approach are illustrated using four case studies: water in dryland India, agricultural seeds in Africa, responses to epidemic disease and energy systems/climate change. Published in association with the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)

Download or read book Foundations of Environmental Sustainability written by Larry Rockwood and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2008-06-04 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book reviews and analyzes the period (roughly from the 1950s to the present) when the "environment" became an issue as important as economic growth, or war and peace; to assess the current situation, and begin planning for the challenges that lie ahead. Most people are aware of both the environmental destruction taking place around the world and of the specter of climate change. The devastation of New Orleans by hurricane Katrina illustrates the potential for disaster when climate change is combined with the mismanaged environmental policy. How did we get to this point? What has been done and what can be done to avoid future environmental disasters? Thirty-two contributing chapter authors (among them, one of the principal drafters of the National Environmental Policy Act, Chief of the African Environment Division and the World Bank, Vice President of the Center for Conservation Innovation at the World Wildlife Fund, President of the Zoological Society of London, former President of the Ecological Society of America) use their unique, authoritative perspective to review the evolution of environmental science and policy in the past half century. Each author describes the evolution of environmental science and policy in the past half century and consider the challenges of the future. Although the authors of this book come from various fields, they have followed paths that have generally converged on the concept of sustainability. This book attempts to define what sustainability is, how we can achieve it, and what the prospects for sustainability in the future are.

Download or read book The South China Sea A Look into China s Modern Times Maritime Silk Road and Its Geopolitical Implications written by Fritz Dufour, Linguist, MBA, DESS and published by Fritz Dufour. This book was released on 2017-07-08 with total page 12 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Westward expansion has always been more important to China than eastward expansion because except for the Korean peninsula and Japan, China is looking at the vast Pacific Ocean. The west has always been and continues to be China’s lifeline. China has come a long way. Civilizations rise and fall. They come and go. But the Chinese civilization is one of the oldest and most stable. The Chinese engaged in world trade way before America was even discovered. They did that thanks to the Silk Road, which was an ancient caravan route linking Xi'an in central China with the eastern Mediterranean. It was established during the period of Roman rule in Europe, and took its name from the silk which was brought to the west from China . Although trading with the West was quintessential, China has always sought to retain their own economic model. When the four leading powers of the West – England, France, Spain, and Portugal - decided to build their politico-economic empires on triangular trade or face failure, China was thriving, as it had been for millennia. But World War II dealt a serious blow to China’s economy as the United states emerged as the only superpower on both the political and economic levels and put shortly after a policy of containment towards China. That, along with past failures, exacerbated if not China’s resentment at least its mistrust towards the West and, especially towards the United States.

Download or read book Environmental Change and Sustainability written by Steven Silvern and published by BoD – Books on Demand. This book was released on 2013-05-08 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Environments around the globe are undergoing human-induced change. Human population growth, rapid urbanization, expanding global economy, and the diffusion of western consumer lifestyles are placing increasing pressure on natural and social systems. Global institutions, nation-states, and local communities are seeking to identify and employ sustainable solutions to these environmental and socio-economic challenges. Sustainability has emerged as a policy discourse that seeks to balance the desire and need for economic growth with the protection of the environment, and the promotion of social and environmental justice. This book contributes to the study and search for sustainable responses to global environmental change. The authors of this volume explore environmental change in different places around the world and the diverse responses to such changes. The chapters demonstrate the need for place-specific sustainable development; the authors suggest the need to see sustainable responses to environmental change as a negotiated outcome between various social actors living and working in diverse spatial, environmental and socio-economic contexts. Environmental Change and Sustainability is a timely international examination of the relationship between environmental change and sustainability. As an InTech open source volume, current and cutting edge research methodologies and research results are quickly published for the academic policy-making communities. Dimensions of environmental change and sustainability explored in this volume include: Natural science approaches to study of environmental change Importance of perception in human understanding of environmental change Role of external events and institutions in shaping sustainable responses to environmental change Importance of bottom-up sustainable development as key to reducing environmental risk and community vulnerability The need for place-based sustainable development that combines local conditions with global processes Creation of a sustainable development model that synthesizes local, traditional knowledge of the environment and environmental management with the techniques and understandings generated by modern environmental science

Download or read book Dynamic Sustainabilities written by Melissa Leach and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-08-12 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Linking environmental sustainability with poverty reduction and social justice, and making science and technology work for the poor, have become central practical, political and moral challenges of our times. These must be met in a world of rapid, interconnected change in environments, societies and economies, and globalised, fragmented governance arrangements. Yet despite growing international attention and investment, policy attempts often fail. Why is this, and what can be done about it? How might we understand and address emergent threats from epidemic disease, or the challenges of water scarcity in dryland India? In the context of climate change, how might seed systems help African farmers meet their needs, and how might appropriate energy strategies be developed? This book lays out a new 'pathways approach' to address sustainability challenges such as these in today's dynamic world. Through an appreciation of dynamics, complexity, uncertainty, differing narratives and the values-based aims of sustainability, the pathways approach allows us to see how some approaches are dominant, even though they do not produce the desired results, and how to create successful alternative 'pathways' of responding to the challenges we face. As well as offering new ways of thinking about sustainability, the book also suggests a series of practical ways forward - in tools and methods, forms of political engagement, and styles of knowledge-making and communication. Throughout the book, the practicalities of the pathways approach are illustrated using four case studies: water in dryland India, agricultural seeds in Africa, responses to epidemic disease and energy systems/climate change. Published in association with the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)

Download or read book Reflections and Observations on Mark Twain s The Gilded Age A Tale of Today written by Fritz Dufour and published by Fritz Dufour. This book was released on 2021-02-27 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Gilded Age: a Tale of Today is a depiction of those crimes committed in the United States in the late 19th Century which so frequently went unpunished and of the casualties which ought to be called crimes. The description severely winds up with the satirical verdict “No one to blame.” The project of Colonel Sellers for raising mules for the Southern markets is a satire upon the fraudulency and soap-bubble speculation of capitalists. The work is full of hints and descriptions that take their rise from the frauds and outrages under which the country had plagued for so many years. Family, social and national questions are all cleverly satirized. The monument erected to the memory of the Father of his country – a monument begun, but, of course, never completed – calls forth some strokes of bitter but not unjust humor. The means by which preferment is obtained in Washington are amply satirized. There are two views of this book: favorable and unfavorable. This essay considers both. For instance, while some critics think that it is incoherent, others suggests that the narrative departs from the traditional methods of concluding and is thereby more natural than most novels because every chapter of the book bears the marks of both writers and is therefore a novelty in its way. In this essay I argue that The Gilded Age is essentially a satire and should always be accepted as such. Of course, other good contemporary books did not make it to our time in terms of popularity and legacy. The Gilded Age did. We talk, write, and read about it to this day. Evidently, it is an integral part of the annals of American literature and fully contributes to Mark Twain’s reputation, legacy, and lasting influence.