A high-level international workshop was designed to consider the cumulative impact of multiple stressors on the ocean, including warming, acidification, and overfishing. The 3-day workshop looked at the latest science across different disciplines. The 27 participants from 18 org. in 6 countries produced a grave assessment of current threats -- and a stark conclusion about future risks to marine and human life if the current trajectory of damage continues: that the world's ocean is at high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history. Delegates called for urgent and unequivocal action to halt further declines in ocean health. This report outlines the main findings and recommendations. A print on demand pub.
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.
National and global security can be assessed in many ways but one underlying factor for all humanity is access to reliable sources of water for drinking, sanitation, food production and manufacturing industry. In many parts of the world, population growth and an escalating demand for water already threaten the sustainable management of available water supplies. Global warming, climate change and rising sea level are expected to intensify the resource sustainability issue in many water-stressed regions of the world by reducing the annual supply of renewable fresh water and promoting the intrusion of saline water into aquifers along sea coasts, where 50% of the global population reside. Pro-active resource management decisions are required, but such efforts would be futile unless reliable predictions can be made about the impact of the changing global conditions on the water cycle and the quality and availability of critical water reserves. Addressing this wide spectrum of issues, a team of expert authors discusses here the impacts of climate change on the global water resources, the long-term resource management goals at global and local scales, the data requirements and the scientific and technical advances necessary to mitigate the associated impacts.
Introduction -- Elucidating complexity theories -- Complexity in the natural sciences -- Complexity in social theory -- Towards transdisciplinarity -- Complexity in philosophy: complexification and the limits to knowledge -- Complexity in ethics -- Earth in the anthropocene -- Complexity and climate change -- American dreams, ecological nightmares and new visions -- Complexity and sustainability: wicked problems, gordian knots and synergistic solutions -- Conclusion.
"More than two-thirds of the earth is covered with aquatic habitats that play a key role in stabilizing the global environment and providing a wide variety of services to increasing human needs. Nevertheless, anthropogenic activities are rapidly destroying the quality of both fresh and marine waters over the globe due to excessive use of chemicals and fertilizers, and pollution from suburban and industrial areas eventually make their way into the aquatic world. To preserve the integrity of aquatic environs is the greatest challenge in the current era because more than 80 per cent of urban wastewater, millions of tons of heavy metals chemical, toxic sludge and other waste are being directly discharged into inland waters. There are many reports that bacteria and plant species are using biodegradation and bioremediation strategies. The potential drivers of the commercial use of biological resources are yet to be explored as there are issues involved with technological facilitation and it's need for large investment funds, so there is a need to explore better training and development of more eco-friendly biological resources. After global investigation, the use of biological remediation technologies to deal with environmental problems should become standard practice, even though respondents are striving to apply bioremediation techniques. As microorganisms have evolved different survival strategies in heavier metal-polluted conditions such as biosorption, bioaccumulation or biomineralisation, which are either ex situ or in situ exploitation, these organisms are known to evolve and introduce specific detoxification mechanisms. The use of microbes as a time-saver for bioremediation was a result of the complexities involved in conventional soil regeneration methods. There are so many fungal species (like genera Penicillium, Aspergillus and Rhizopus) which has been identified as potential microbial agents for the removal of heavy metals from aqueous solutions but due to toxicity of chemical or heavy metals, it is difficult to maintain a healthy population of microorganisms hence high throughput genetic engineering tools and techniques need to be employed to attain resistant strains to degrade xenobiotic compounds. A novel technology for obtaining highly efficient biosorbents from endophytes, a hyperaccumulator, which is more convenient than the traditional method of obtaining biosorbents. Genomics, for instance in GMO plants, have been studied and used primarily in microbial genetics, but it is now a new instrument for bioremediation. Knowledge of genomics in the sense of understanding microbiological remediation provides a view of genes linked to microbial exposure to soil toxic metals. The use of genomics in bioremediation enables microorganisms to be analyzed on the basis both of biochemical and mechanism-related molecular levels."--
This book addresses the problem of ‘animal life’ in terms that go beyond the usual extension of liberal rights to animals. The discourse of animal rights is one that increasingly occupies the political, ethical and intellectual terrain of modern society. But, although the question of the status of animals holds an important place within a range of civil, political and technological disciplines, the issue of rights in relation to animals usually rehearses the familiar perspectives of legal, moral and humanist philosophy. ‘Animal law’ is fast becoming a topic of significant contemporary interest and discussion. This burgeoning interest has not, however, been matched by renewed inquiry into the jurisprudential frames and methods for the treatment of animals in law, nor the philosophical issue of the ‘human’ and the ‘animal’ that lies at law’s foundation. Responding to this interest, Law and the Question of the Animal: A Critical Jurisprudence brings together leading and emerging critical legal theorists to address the question of animality in relation to law’s foundations, practices and traditions of thought. In so doing, it engages a surprisingly underdeveloped aspect of the moral philosophies of animal rights, namely their juridical register and existence. How does ‘animal law’ alter our juridical image of personality or personhood? How do the technologies of law intersect with the technologies that invent, create and manage animal life? And how might the ethical, ontological and ceremonial relation between humans and animals be linked to a common source or experience of law?
Created in Delight challenges the church to take seriously the relationship of human beings with the earth and their fellow creatures. It challenges communities of faith to construct youth and young adult ministry through an ecological hermeneutic. Van Meter includes narratives from his youth work and teaching as well as ecological theology and an exploration of contemporary ecological concerns. He challenges youth and young adult ministers to seek their own formation through practicing hope in resistance to despair as they engage ecological questions in partnership with young people. The book concludes by asserting that cultivating curiosity, compassion, resilience, wisdom and other virtues is essential for the continuing health of young people and faith communities.
The tropical UK Territories have extensive coral reefs. Huge parts of these areas are exceptionally rich, productive and diverse. Their marine biodiversity exceeds that of the UK itself, and several are already, or are planned to be, strictly protected. Some of these areas serve as reference sites for many other countries with damaged reefs and they are oases of tropical marine biodiversity in a fast-degrading world. This book reviews all of the UK reefs, from those scarcely known to those where substantial research has already been performed.
‘The Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground . . . ’ (Genesis 2:7). Made of dust, we humans are thoroughly physical beings. We are dusty earthlings. As such, we are also ecological beings, or rather eco-physical beings, firmly embedded in and dependent upon God’s earthly ecosystems which support and provide for us and constitute our earthly home. Today we are living in ways that are damaging our home. As Christian dusty earthlings, we are called to oversee God’s earthly creation and to follow Jesus Christ – God incarnated as a dusty earthling. How do we do this in the face of the array of ecological problems we face today? How can we obey the ecological principles and limits that govern all of life on God’s good earth? Mustol argues that the virtues of humility, voluntary self-limitation, and the principles of kenosis and justice will help as we seek to follow Jesus as dusty earthlings in today’s world.
