This volume builds on an international workshop held in 2019, inspired by James Lovelock's "The Revenge of Gaia - Why the Earth Is Fighting Back, and How We Can Still Save Humanity". It, therefore, understands the Gaia concept as an umbrella term for the living world that planet Earth is hosting for nearly 4 billion years. Humankind has intervened in this ecosystem since its emergence on the planet about 2.5 million years ago, often with painful consequences for itself. In its reactions, the Earth system follows only the laws of nature. Consequently, humanity needs to develop strategies for a sustainable Earth system. This volume presents a unique trans- and interdisciplinary variety of approaches to this challenge, offering philosophical considerations as well as practical medical research. It addresses a broad knowledgeable and general audience in environmental management, public administration, and higher education alike.
Earth Systems Protection and Sustainability authorises imperatives to achieve sustainability and protect our threatened and vulnerable Earth. Mathematical advances in context incorporate operational and Boolean, as well as linguistic, logic-based Bayesian, and generative methods for scenario formation. Functional areas and deeper learning enable the use of searching algorithms, proffering optimal solutions for the circular nature of sustainability in natural ecosystems and human dominated settings. Key informative nodes are provided in the hope that we may moderate the very real dangers facing planet Earth and its biodiversity. An arena of insightful chapters is blended with social resilience and socio-economic development coverage, accentuating integrity, protection and sustainability within divergent climatic forces and species dynamics on Earth. Volume 2 focuses on bioaccumulation; climate change and resilience for co-operative socio-economic and ecosystem management via policy frameworks across sectors; mathematical modelling of freshwater in coastal regions in arid and semi-arid zones; decision making in natural disasters; peat solidification for environmentally sustainable geotechnical engineering; green energy conversion; flood risk mapping; rainfall analysis; exposure, safety, and security amidst increasing environmental contamination; remote handling vehicles; wind turbines; and deep learning and its environmental applications. Earth Systems Protection and Sustainability is addressed globally to communities, schools and researchers in professional, governmental and unit operations; descriptive and illustrative sections include all sectors to ensure Earth Systems Protection as our capacity reaches an unsustainable climax.
Global Change and the Earth System describes what is known about the Earth system and the impact of changes caused by humans. It considers the consequences of these changes with respect to the stability of the Earth system and the well-being of humankind; as well as exploring future paths towards Earth-system science in support of global sustainability. The results presented here are based on 10 years of research on global change by many of the world's most eminent scholars. This valuable volume achieves a new level of integration and interdisciplinarity in treating global change.
Since this new science is of an unprecedented interdisciplinary nature, the book does not merely take stock of its numerous ingredients, but also delivers their multifaceted integration. The resulting master paradigm - the co-evolution of nature and anthroposphere within a geo-cybernetic continuum of processes - is based on a structured manifold of partial paradigms with their specific ranges. Most importantly, this serves the scientific foundation of a meaningful, safe and efficient environment and development management for solving the most burning questions concerning humankind and its natural environment. The more concrete elucidation of the natural and human dimensions, as well as various attempts and instruments of integration are represented in the different parts of the book, while the didactic quality is heightened by many allegoric illustrations.
Humans have difficulty thinking at the global scale. Yet as we come to understand our planet as a single, interconnected, complex system and encounter compelling evidence of human impact on Earth’s climate and biosphere, the need for a truly global effort is increasingly urgent. In this concise and accessible text, David P. Turner presents an overview of global environmental change and a synthesis of research and ideas from the rapidly evolving fields of earth system science and sustainability science that is suitable for anyone interested in humanity’s current predicaments and what we can do about them. The Green Marble examines Earth’s past, contemporary human disruption, and the prospects for global environmental governance. Turner emphasizes the functioning of the biosphere—the totality of life on Earth—including its influence on geologic history, its sensitivity to human impacts, and its possible role in ameliorating climate change. Relying on models of the earth system that synthesize vast amounts of monitoring information and recent research on biophysical processes, The Green Marble describes a range of scenarios for our planetary home, exploring the effects of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and factors such as economic globalization. Turner juxtaposes cutting-edge ideas from both the geosciences and the social sciences to illustrate how humanity has arrived upon its current dangerous trajectory, and how we might pull back from the brink of civilization-challenging environmental change. Growing out of the author’s popular course on global environmental change, The Green Marble is accessible to non-science majors and provides a framework for understanding the complex relationship of humanity to the global environment.
Earth Systems Protection and Sustainability qualifies imperatives and discusses the use of mathematical approaches to assess and achieve sustainability in threatened and vulnerable Earth systems globally. Mathematical advances in this context include both operational and Boolean methods, as well as linguistic, logic-based Bayesian approaches and generative mathematics relevant to scenario formation. The mathematic methods are refined into functional areas and deeper learning, which enable the use of searching algorithms to achieve optimal solutions for the circular nature and application of sustainability. Pertinent sections and synergistic elements are covered in order to synthesize key informative nodes, advising of the very real dangers facing planet Earth and its biodiversity. Each volume stands in its own right. Analytical and scientific chapters are blended with social resilience and socio-economic development consideration, thus enabling the settings of sustainability within varying scenarios of climatic forces and species dynamics. Volume 1 focuses on ground-breaking evolutionary expansion assisting with life’s continuation on Earth, sustainable management of pathogens and halophyte uses in agroecology, bioremediation methods in drilling waste management, conservation and sustainability of diversity, climate change mitigation strategies, displacement management in a large scale ongoing crisis, risk reduction and management policy, sustainably intelligent-driven markets, sustainability consensus in an uncertain environment and path planning in static and dynamic environments. Pictorial contributions made from across the world refine particularly urgent problems for attention, and provide solutions and methods of environmental sustainability operated in communities, complementing the descriptive chapter sections. Both volumes are targeted for a global audience of academic, professional, classroom, governmental, unit and community members, and seek to include all sectors to ensure ongoing and comprehensive Earth Systems Protection.
Based on an interdisciplinary investigation of future visions, scenarios, and case-studies of low carbon innovation taking place across economic domains, Decarbonising Economies analyses the ways in which questions of agency, power, geography and materiality shape the conditions of possibility for a low carbon future. It explores how and why the challenge of changing our economies are variously ascribed to a lack of finance, a lack of technology, a lack of policy and a lack of public engagement, and shows how the realities constraining change are more fundamentally tied to the inertia of our existing high carbon society and limited visions for what a future low carbon world might become. Through showcasing the first seeds of innovation seeking to enable transformative change, Decarbonising Economies will also chart a course for future research and policy action towards our climate goals. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Environmental Technology and Sustainability: Physical, Chemical and Biological Technologies for Clean Environmental Management provides a dependable source of information on the fundamental scientific evidence involved in environmental protection and sustainable development. The book provides the basic natural sciences that underpin the understanding, development and application of environment technologies that support a clean inhabitable world that includes environmental technologies and sustainable, renewable energy systems. It considers the science and technology for environmental benefits, including the development of both smarter, cleaner technologies for environmental protection, conservation, and more. - Provides methods and processes for CO2 Sequestration - Focuses on technologies for reducing greenhouse gases and for biofuel production - Outlines issues surrounding contaminated water and provides solutions for water management - Describes problems facing air pollution, including sources and mitigation - Includes contaminated soil management
Can environmental institutions be effective at bringing about a healthier environment? How? Institutions for the Earth takes a close look at the factors influencing organized responses to seven international environmental problems - oil pollution from tankers, acid rain in Europe, stratospheric ozone depletion, pollution of the North Sea and Baltic, mismanagement of fisheries, overpopulation, and misuses of farm chemicals to determine the roles that environmental institutions have played in attempting to solve them. Through rigorous, systematic comparison, it reveals common patterns that can lead to improvements in the collective management of these problems and suggests ways in which international institutions can further the case of environmental protection.The contributors identify three major functions performed by effective international environmental institutions: building national capacity, improving the contractual environment, and elevating governmental concern. The international organizations analyzed within this framework include the United Nations Environment Program, the Intergovernmental Maritime Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization, numerous fisheries commissions, the Commission for Europe, the Oslo and Paris Commissions, the Helsinki Commission, and the United Nations Fund for Population Assistance.
