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Most of the world’s population lives close to the coast and is highly dependent on coastal resources, which are being exploited at unsustainable rates. These resources are being subject to further pressures associated with population increase and the globalization of coastal resource demand. This is particularly so for the Asia-Pacific region which contains almost two thirds of the world’s population and most of the world’s coastal megacities. The region has globally important atmospheric and oceanic phenomena, which affect world climate such as the Asian Monsoon and the El-Niño Southern Oscillation phenomena. The Asia-Pacific region also has highly significant marine diversity but ov...
Geomorphology, the discipline which analyzes the history and nature of the earth's surface, deals with the landforms produced by erosion, weathering, deposition, transport and tectonic processes. In recent decades there have been major developments in the discipline and these are reflected in this major Encyclopedia, the first such reference work in the field to be published for thirty-five years. Encyclopedia of Geomorphology has been produced in association with the International Association of Geomorphologists (IAG) and has a truly global perspective. The entries have been written by an international editorial team of contributors, drawn from over thirty countries, who are all among the l...
This interdisciplinary volume discusses whether the increasing salience of the Anthropocene concept in the humanities and the social sciences constitutes an "Anthropocenic turn." The Anthropocene discourse creates novel conceptual configurations and enables scholars to re-negotiate and re-contextualize long-established paradigms, premises, theories and methodologies. These innovative constellations stimulate fresh research in many areas of thought and practice. The contributors to this volume respond to the proposition of an "Anthropocene turn" from the perspective of diverse research fields, including history of science, philosophy, environmental humanities and political science as well as literary, art and media studies. Altogether, the collection reveals to which extent the Anthropocene concept challenges deep-seated assumptions across disciplines. It invites readers to explore the wealth of scholarly perspectives on the Anthropocene as well as unexpected inter- and transdisciplinary connections.
Rachel Loewen Walker's original study of Deleuze's theory of temporality advances a concept of the living present as a critical juncture through which novel meanings and activisms take flight in relation to new feminist materialisms, queer theory, Indigenous studies, and studies of climate. Drawing on literature, philosophy, popular culture, and community research, Loewen Walker unsettles the fierce linearity of our stories, particularly as they uphold fixed systems of gender, sexuality, and identity. Treading new ground for Deleuzian studies, this book focuses on the non-linearity of the living present to show that everything is within rather than outside of time. Through this critical re-evaluation, which takes in climate change, queer and trans politics, and Indigenous sovereignty, Queer and Deleuzian Temporalities “thickens” the present moment. By opening up multiple pasts and multiple futures we are invited to act with a deepened level of accountability to all possible timelines.
Humans have had a long relationship with the ebb and flow of tides on river deltas around the world. The fertile soils of river deltas provided early human civilizations with a means of farming crops and obtaining seafood from the highly productive marshes and shallow coastal waters associated with deltas. However, this relationship has at times been both nurturing and tumultuous for the development of early civilizations. The vicissitudes of seasonal changes in river flooding events as well as frequently shifting deltaic soils made life for these early human settlements challenging. These natural transient processes that affect the supply of sediments to deltas today are in many ways very s...
This book proposes and defends the practice of urban gardening as an ecologically and socially beneficial, culturally innovative, morally appropriate, ethically uplifting, and politically incisive way for individuals and variously networked collectives to contribute to a successful management of some defining challenges of the Anthropocene – this new epoch in which no earthly place, form, entity, process, or system escapes the reach of human activity – including urban resilience and climate change.
Proceedings of the 49th Session of the International Seminars on Nuclear War and Planetary Emergencies held in Erice, Sicily. This Seminar has again gathered, in 2016, over one hundred scientists from 43 countries in an interdisciplinary effort that has been going on for the last 33 years, to examine and analyze planetary problems which had been followed up, all year long, by the World Federation of Scientists' Permanent Monitoring Panels.
As the world considers how to deal with the impacts of a changing climate, it’s vital that we understand the ways in which the United States’ policymaking process addresses environmental issues. A mix of existing theory and original analysis, Environmental Policymaking in an Era of Climate Change applies recent policy scholarship to questions of environmental governance, with a particular focus on climate change. The book examines how competing political actors influence policies within and across institutions, focusing on both a macro-level, where formal bodies set the agenda, and a meso-level, where issues are contained within policy subsystems. Divided into two sections, the book inco...
As greenhouse gas emissions and temperatures at the poles continue to rise, so do damages from extreme weather events affecting countless lives. Meanwhile, ambitious international efforts to cut emissions (Kyoto, Copenhagen) have proved to be politically ineffective or infeasible. There is hope, however, in adaptive governance—an approach that has succeeded in some local communities and can be undertaken by others around the globe. This book provides a political and historical analysis of climate change policy; shows how adaptive governance has worked on the ground in Barrow, Alaska, and other local communities; and makes the case for adaptive governance as a complementary approach in the climate change regime.