The Earth Brokers

The Earth Brokers

Author: Pratap Chatterjee

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-02-04

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 1317858107

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Those of us who have watched the process have said that the Earth Summit has failed ... Multinational corporations, the United States, Japan, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund have got away with what they always wanted ... the Summit has ensured increased domination by those who already have power. Worse still, it has robbed the poor of the little power they had. It has made them victims of a market economy that has thus far threatened our planet ... few negotiators realised how critical their decisions are to our generation. By failing to address such fundamental issues as militarism, the regulation of transnational corporations, the democratisation of international aid agencies and the inequitable terms of trade, my generation has been damned." - Wagaki Mwangi, Kenyan, Youth delegate to the Earth Summit


The Earth Brokers

The Earth Brokers

Author: Pratap Chatterjee

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-02-04

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 1317858115

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Those of us who have watched the process have said that the Earth Summit has failed ... Multinational corporations, the United States, Japan, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund have got away with what they always wanted ... the Summit has ensured increased domination by those who already have power. Worse still, it has robbed the poor of the little power they had. It has made them victims of a market economy that has thus far threatened our planet ... few negotiators realised how critical their decisions are to our generation. By failing to address such fundamental issues as militarism, the regulation of transnational corporations, the democratisation of international aid agencies and the inequitable terms of trade, my generation has been damned." - Wagaki Mwangi, Kenyan, Youth delegate to the Earth Summit


Halliburton's Army

Halliburton's Army

Author: Pratap Chatterjee

Publisher: Bold Type Books

Published: 2010-03-23

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 0786743697

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Halliburton'sArmy is the first book to show, in shocking detail, how Halliburton really does business, in Iraq, and around the world. From its vital role as the logistical backbone of the U.S. occupation in Iraq -- without Halliburton there could be no war or occupation -- to its role in covering up gang-rape amongst its personnel in Baghdad, Halliburton'sArmy is a devastating bestiary of corporate malfeasance and political cronyism. Pratap Chatterjee -- one of the world's leading authorities on corporate crime, fraud, and corruption -- shows how Halliburton won and then lost its contracts in Iraq, what Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld did for it, and who the company paid off in the U.S. Congress. He brings us inside the Pentagon meetings, where Cheney and Rumsfeld made the decision to send Halliburton to Iraq -- as well as many other hot-spots, including Somalia, Yugoslavia, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Guantámo Bay, and, most recently, New Orleans. He travels to Dubai, where Halliburton has recently moved its headquarters, and exposes the company's freewheeling ways: executives leading the high life, bribes, graft, skimming, offshore subsidiaries, and the whole arsenal of fraud. Finally, Chatterjee reveals the human costs of the privatization of American military affairs, which is sustained almost entirely by low-paid unskilled Third World workers who work in incredibly dangerous conditions without any labor protection. Halliburton'sArmy is a hair-raising exposéf one of the world's most lethal corporations, essential reading for anyone concerned about the nexus of private companies, government, and war.


Green Planet Blues

Green Planet Blues

Author: Ken Conca

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-10-08

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 0429973373

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This book discusses the dominant paradigms and controversies that shaped debate at the time of the Stockholm conference, and in the twenty years between Stockholm and the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. It examines the challenges of international cooperation and institutional reform.


Environmental Security

Environmental Security

Author: Simon Dalby

Publisher: U of Minnesota Press

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 9780816640263

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Since the end of the Cold War, environmental matters -- especially the international implications of environmental degradation -- have figured prominently in debates about rethinking security. But do the assumptions underlying such discussions hold up under close scrutiny? In this first treatment of environmental security from a truly critical perspective, Simon Dalby shows how attempts to explain contemporary insecurity falter over unexamined notions of both environment and security. Adding environmental history, aboriginal perspectives, and geopolitics to the analysis explicitly suggests that the growing disruptions caused by a carbon-fueled and expanding modernity are at the root of contemporary difficulties. Environmental Security argues that rethinking security means revisiting the question of how we conceive identities as endangered and how we perceive threats to these identities. The book clearly demonstrates that the conceptual basis for critical security studies requires an extended engagement with political theory and with the assumptions of the modern subject as progressive political agent. Viewed thus on a global scale, the environmental security discourse raises profoundly troubling political questions as to who we are and what kind of world we are collectively making in our efforts to be secure.


The Climate War

The Climate War

Author: Eric Pooley

Publisher: Hachette Books

Published: 2010-06-08

Total Pages: 749

ISBN-13: 1401395988

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In The Climate War, Eric Pooley--deputy editor of Bloomberg BusinessWeek--does for global warming what Bob Woodward did for presidents and Lawrence Wright did for terrorists. In this epic tale of an American civil war, Pooley takes us behind the scenes and into the hearts and minds of the most important players in the struggle to cap global warming pollution--a fight in which trillions of dollars and the fate of the planet are at stake. Why has it been so hard for America to come to grips with climate change? Why do so many people believe it isn't really happening? As President Obama's science advisor John Holdren has said, "We're driving in a car with bad brakes in a fog and heading for a cliff. We know for sure that cliff is out there. We just don't know exactly where it is. Prudence would suggest that we should start putting on the brakes." But powerful interests are threatened by the carbon cap that would speed the transition to a clean energy economy, and their agents have worked successfully to deny the problem and delay the solutions. To write this book, Pooley, the former managing editor of Fortune and chief political correspondent for Time, spent three years embedded with an extraordinary cast of characters: from the flamboyant head of one of the nation's largest coal-burning energy companies to the driven environmental leader who made common cause with him, from leading scientists warning of impending catastrophe to professional skeptics disputing almost every aspect of climate science, from radical activists chaining themselves to bulldozers to powerful lobbyists, media gurus, and advisors in Obama's West Wing--and, to top it off, unprecedented access to former Vice President Al Gore and his team of climate activists. Pooley captures the quiet determination and even heroism of climate campaigners who have dedicated their lives to an uphill battle that's still raging today. He asks whether we have what it takes to preserve our planet's habitability, and shows how America's climate war sends shock waves from Bali to Copenhagen. No other reporter enjoys such access to this cast of characters. No other book covers this terrain. From the trenches of a North Carolina power plant to the battlefields of Capitol Hill, Madison Avenue, and Wall Street, The Climate War is the essential read for anyone who wants to understand the players and politics behind the most important issue we face today.


Brokers of Deceit

Brokers of Deceit

Author: Rashid Khalidi

Publisher: Beacon Press

Published: 2013-03-12

Total Pages: 239

ISBN-13: 0807044768

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Winner of the 2014 Lionel Trilling Book Award An examination of the failure of the United States as a broker in the Palestinian-Israeli peace process, through three key historical moments For more than seven decades the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people has raged on with no end in sight, and for much of that time, the United States has been involved as a mediator in the conflict. In this book, acclaimed historian Rashid Khalidi zeroes in on the United States’s role as the purported impartial broker in this failed peace process. Khalidi closely analyzes three historical moments that illuminate how the United States’ involvement has, in fact, thwarted progress toward peace between Israel and Palestine. The first moment he investigates is the “Reagan Plan” of 1982, when Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin refused to accept the Reagan administration’s proposal to reframe the Camp David Accords more impartially. The second moment covers the period after the Madrid Peace Conference, from 1991 to 1993, during which negotiations between Israel and Palestine were brokered by the United States until the signing of the secretly negotiated Oslo accords. Finally, Khalidi takes on President Barack Obama’s retreat from plans to insist on halting the settlements in the West Bank. Through in-depth research into and keen analysis of these three moments, as well as his own firsthand experience as an advisor to the Palestinian delegation at the 1991 pre–Oslo negotiations in Washington, DC, Khalidi reveals how the United States and Israel have actively colluded to prevent a Palestinian state and resolve the situation in Israel’s favor. Brokers of Deceit bares the truth about why peace in the Middle East has been impossible to achieve: for decades, US policymakers have masqueraded as unbiased agents working to bring the two sides together, when, in fact, they have been the agents of continuing injustice, effectively preventing the difficult but essential steps needed to achieve peace in the region.


Earth Wars

Earth Wars

Author: Geoff Hiscock

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2012-04-24

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 1118152883

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A fascinating insight into the global battle for our energy future The global competition for scarce natural resources that pits the West against the super-hot economies of China and India, plus a clutch of other contenders including Russia, Brazil, and Indonesia, has become one of the biggest issues facing the world today. Whether it is the rare metal lithium found in salt pans in the Andes, gas from the Caspian Sea, oil off the coast of Brazil, coal from Africa's Zambezi River, or uranium from Kazakhstan, China and India are desperate to ensure the security of their future energy supplies. The same goes for food and water, as contamination and over-use take their toll, the need to provide continued access for the next generation and beyond has increased exponentially. In Earth Wars: The Battle for Global Resources, international business journalist Geoff Hiscock explores the problems, potential solutions, and inevitable tensions in this ongoing scramble for finite natural resources. Going beyond "big power" politics to explore resource ownership and the use of innovative technology to get the most out of them, the book takes a forward-looking approach to this pressing issue. Written in clear, jargon-free language, it tells the global resources story in a fresh and engaging way that anyone can understand. Includes insightful, up-to-the-minute coverage of the most pressing debates over resource allocations Discusses the major Chinese and Indian businesses that are just becoming known to those in the West (Sinopec, CNOOC, CNPC, Indian Oil, ONGC, Reliance, Coal India, SAIL, and many others) Presents resource- and region-specific chapters to help readers view the pertinent issues from multiple angles As the economies of China and India grow to challenge those of the West, the battle over natural resources will continue to heat up. Earth Wars looks at this very real problem in-depth, presenting a definitive look at one of the greatest challenges of our time.


Chemicals, Environment, Health

Chemicals, Environment, Health

Author: Philip Wexler

Publisher: CRC Press

Published: 2011-08-09

Total Pages: 810

ISBN-13: 1420084704

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The past 40 years have seen a phenomenal growth in globally oriented public and private initiatives related to chemical and environmental issues. The groundbreaking 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm was the event responsible for initiating framework for global environmental policies, including those addressin