Crate presents the first cultural ecological study of a Siberian people: the Viliui Sakha, describing the local and global forces of modernization that continue to challenge their survival, and will be of interest to environmental and economic anthropologists, as well as to practitioners interested in sustainable rural development, globalization, indigenous rights in Eurasia, and post-Soviet Russia.
This book describes the current environmental changes due to global warming in northern Eurasia, especially focusing on eastern Siberia. Spring flooding, ice-jam movements, and monitoring using remote sensing are included. Additionally, current reindeer herding of indigenous peoples in Siberia and related environmental changes such as waterlogging, rising temperatures, and vegetation changes are addressed. As a summary, the book also introduces readers to adaptation strategies at several governmental levels. The book primarily focuses on 1) introducing readers to global warming and human-nature dynamics in Siberia, with special emphasis on humidification of the region in the mid-2000s, and 2) describing social adaptation to the changing terrestrial ecosystem, with an emphasis on water environments. Adaptation strategies based on vulnerability assessments of environmental changes in northern Eurasia are crucial topics for intergovernmental organizations, such as the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). Thus, the book offers a valuable resource not only for environmental researchers but also for several stakeholders regarding global environmental change.
Robert Rattle's new book challenges key assumptions concerning the role of Internet and communication technologies (ICTs) in globalization processes. The author argues that while globalization is predicated upon a strong, extensive, and interconnected global ICT network of products, processes, and services, the real environmental and health benefits remain far from certain. ICTs have been promoted as the next economic wave with the potential to generate jobs, wealth, and prosperity to surpass that of the industrial era. It is assumed the environmental impacts will be negligible or even beneficial in this shift toward a service economy. Rattle investigates these current and expected trends in ICTs and their potential contribution to sustainable development. His book is an indispensable overview for researchers and instructors in globalization, Internet communication technologies, and environmental anthropology or sociology, as well as a resource for policy makers in environmental protection, sustainable development, sustainable consumption, and the social role of science and technology. Book jacket.
The inherent dangers of war zones constrain even the most ardent researchers, with the consequence that little has been known for certain about the effects of war on stable environments. War and Nature sifts through the available data from past wars to evaluate the actual impact that combat has on natural surroundings. Examining conflicts of various kinds_he long war in tropical Vietnam, the relatively brief and highly technical wars in the Persian Gulf, and various civil wars in Africa and South-Central Asia fought with small arms_Brauer asks whether differences in technology, location, and duration are critical in causing environmental and humanitarian harm. A number of unexpected conclusions are drawn from this data, including practical agendas for collecting scientific evidence in future wars and suggestions about what the world's environmental and conservation organizations can do. One thing War and Nature does is to show us how globalization can be a force harnessed for good ends.
The essays collected in World in Motion all address the same issue: The global paradox that modern prosperity has entailed extreme environmental degradation. Gary M. Kroll and Richard H. Robbins present readings covering all principal viewpoints on this matter, from the neoliberal belief that environmental and social problems can be fixed through a growing economy to the critics of globalization who equate growth with environmental degradation. This book asks an important question: Can we simply accelerate growth under the assumption that increased prosperity and new technologies will allow us to reverse environmental damage? Or do we need to transform our modes of living radically to maintain the health of the world around us?
This exciting new reader in environmental history provides a framework for understanding the relations between ecosystems and world systems over time. Alf Hornborg has brought together a group of the foremost writers from the social, historical and geographical sciences to provide an overview of the ecological dimension of global, economic processes, with a long-term, historical perspective. Readers are challenged to integrate studies of the Earth system with studies of the World system, and to reconceptualize human-environmental relations and the challenges of global sustainability. Immanuel Wallerstein, renowned Yale sociologist and originator of the world-system concept, closes the volume with his reflections on the intellectual, moral, and political implications of global environmental change.
Tropical forest conservation is attracting widespread public interest and helping to shape the ways in which environmental scientists and other groups approach global environmental issues. Schelhas and Pfeffer show that globally-driven forest conservation efforts have had different results in different places, ranging from violent protest to the discovery of common ground among conservation programs and the various interests of local peoples. The authors examine the connections between local values, material needs, and environmental management regimes. Saving Forests, Protecting People? explores that difficult terrain where culture, the environment, and social policies meet.
Capitalizing on Catastrophe critically explores the phenomenon of "disaster capitalism," in which relief efforts for natural disasters and other large-scale disruptions are contracted out to private companies.
The first edition of Life and Death Matters was a breakthrough text, centralizing the experiences of those on the front lines of environmental crises and forging new paradigms for understanding how crises emerge and how different groups of actors respond to them. This second edition, fully updated with both expanded and new chapters, once again provides a benchmark for the field and opens important pathways for further research. Authors reassess the state of scholarship and grassroots activism in a new century when social and environmental systems are being reconceptualised within post-9/11 security and biosecurity frameworks, when global warming and resource scarcity are not fears but realities, when global power and politics are being realigned, and when ecocide, ethnocide, and genocide are daily tragedies. This bold new edition of Life and Death Matters will be a widely used textbook and essential reading for students, scholars, and policy makers.
