The Biosphere and Civilization: In the Throes of a Global Crisis

The Biosphere and Civilization: In the Throes of a Global Crisis PDF

Author: Victor I. Danilov-Danil'yan

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-03-21

Total Pages: 263

ISBN-13: 3319671936

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This monograph explores the dire ecological, social, and economic situations facing mankind through comprehensive analyses of global ecological issues, poverty, environmental stability and regulation, and sustainable development. Drs. Victor Danilov-Danil’yan and Igor Reyf discuss the development of ecology as a science, the increasing concern among scientists and public servants for the unsustainability of current economic and demographic trends, and the dire consequences our planet and civilization are already suffering as a result of the ongoing environmental and social crisis. They also address the philosophical implications of the crisis, and suggest possible solutions. The book conveys complex objects of study, namely the biosphere and the harmful anthropogenic processes it has been experiencing for decades, so that the work is accessible without omitting key components of the subject matter. Readers will learn about the social and economic contributors to a threatened biosphere, the mechanisms that maintain the stability of the global environment, and the scales at which sustainable development and preservation can be applied to initiate environmental regulation. Though intended to appeal to the general public and non-specialists, environmental researchers, organizations involved in sustainable development and conservation, and students engaged in ecology, environment, and sustainability studies will also find this book of interest.

Climate Change as a Crisis in World Civilization

Climate Change as a Crisis in World Civilization PDF

Author: Joseph Wayne Smith

Publisher:

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 396

ISBN-13:

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This study examines the scientific evidence relating to "abrupt" or "dangerous" climate change and explores the social, political, legal, and philosophical significance of this evidence. The authors locate the "climate crisis" within the context of a wider crisis of civilization, consisting of a series of converging threats to human survival.

Civilization's Crisis

Civilization's Crisis PDF

Author: John Avery

Publisher: World Scientific Publishing Company

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 416

ISBN-13: 9789813222458

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Modern civilization faces a broad spectrum of daunting problems, but rational solutions are available for them all. This book explores the following issues: (1) Threats to the environment and climate change; (2) a growing population and vanishing resources; (3) the global food and refugee crisis; (4) intolerable economic inequality; (5) the threat of nuclear war; (6) the military-industrial complex; and (7) limits to growth. These problems are closely interlinked, and their possible solutions are discussed in this book.

Healing the Heart of the World

Healing the Heart of the World PDF

Author: Dawson Church

Publisher: Elite Books

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 392

ISBN-13: 0971088853

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This book takes the viewpoint that personal health and earth’s health are one. In this mindset, it examines powerful new trends shaping individual wellness and planetary health. A wide spectrum of factors are considered as the book includes sections by 40 prominent educators, scientists, ecologists, psychologists, doctors, entrepreneurs and spiritual leaders. Their goal?--?To offer visionary ideas that point the way to a sane, hopeful and sustainable future?.

Civilization's Crisis: A Set Of Linked Challenges

Civilization's Crisis: A Set Of Linked Challenges PDF

Author: Avery John Scales

Publisher: World Scientific

Published: 2017-04-20

Total Pages: 416

ISBN-13: 9813222476

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Modern civilization faces a broad spectrum of daunting problems, but rational solutions are available for them all. This book explores the following issues: (1) Threats to the environment and climate change; (2) a growing population and vanishing resources; (3) the global food and refugee crisis; (4) intolerable economic inequality; (5) the threat of nuclear war; (6) the military-industrial complex; and (7) limits to growth. These problems are closely interlinked, and their possible solutions are discussed in this book. Contents: Economics, Ethics and EcologyThreats to the Environment and Climate ChangeGrowing Population, Vanishing ResourcesThe Global Food and Refugee CrisisIntolerable Economic InequalityThe Threat of Nuclear WarFacing a Set of Linked ProblemsOutlawing WarThe Evolution of CooperationEducation for PeaceThe Future of International LawThe Choice is Ours to Make Readership: Readers interested in an overview of world issues and a brief history of their origins.

Our Final Hour

Our Final Hour PDF

Author: Martin Rees

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 2009-03-17

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 0786740698

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A scientist known for unraveling the complexities of the universe over millions of years, Sir Martin Rees now warns that humankind is potentially the maker of its own demise -- and that of the cosmos. Though the twenty-first century could be the critical era in which life on Earth spreads beyond our solar system, it is just as likely that we have endangered the future of the entire universe. With clarity and precision, Rees maps out the ways technology could destroy our species and thereby foreclose the potential of a living universe whose evolution has just begun. Rees boldly forecasts the startling risks that stem from our accelerating rate of technological advances. We could be wiped out by lethal "engineered" airborne viruses, or by rogue nano-machines that replicate catastrophically. Experiments that crash together atomic nuclei could start a chain reaction that erodes all atoms of Earth, or could even tear the fabric of space itself. Through malign intent or by mistake, a single event could trigger global disaster. Though we can never completely safeguard our future, increased regulation and inspection can help us to prevent catastrophe. Rees's vision of the infinite future that we have put at risk -- a cosmos more vast and diverse than any of us has ever imagined -- is both a work of stunning scientific originality and a humanistic clarion call on behalf of the future of life.

Journey to Earthland

Journey to Earthland PDF

Author: Paul Raskin

Publisher:

Published: 2016-08-25

Total Pages: 138

ISBN-13: 9780997837605

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This inquiry builds a conceptual and strategic framework for understanding the contemporary global crisis and for shaping our world in transition. Its bedrock concern is the search for an organic planetary civilization, a vision that now opens before us as both possibility and exigency in an interdependent and dangerous century.

Abundant Earth

Abundant Earth PDF

Author: Eileen Crist

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2019-02-08

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 022659694X

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In Abundant Earth, Eileen Crist not only documents the rising tide of biodiversity loss, but also lays out the drivers of this wholesale destruction and how we can push past them. Looking beyond the familiar litany of causes—a large and growing human population, rising livestock numbers, expanding economies and international trade, and spreading infrastructures and incursions upon wildlands—she asks the key question: if we know human expansionism is to blame for this ecological crisis, why are we not taking the needed steps to halt our expansionism? Crist argues that to do so would require a two-pronged approach. Scaling down calls upon us to lower the global human population while working within a human-rights framework, to deindustrialize food production, and to localize economies and contract global trade. Pulling back calls upon us to free, restore, reconnect, and rewild vast terrestrial and marine ecosystems. However, the pervasive worldview of human supremacy—the conviction that humans are superior to all other life-forms and entitled to use these life-forms and their habitats—normalizes and promotes humanity’s ongoing expansion, undermining our ability to enact these linked strategies and preempt the mounting suffering and dislocation of both humans and nonhumans. Abundant Earth urges us to confront the reality that humanity will not advance by entrenching its domination over the biosphere. On the contrary, we will stagnate in the identity of nature-colonizer and decline into conflict as we vie for natural resources. Instead, we must chart another course, choosing to live in fellowship within the vibrant ecologies of our wild and domestic cohorts, and enfolding human inhabitation within the rich expanse of a biodiverse, living planet.

Against Civilization

Against Civilization PDF

Author: John Zerzan

Publisher: Feral House

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 0922915989

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Provides a collection of tlhought-provoking essays that look into the dehumanizing core of modern civilization, and the ideas that have given rise to the anarcho-primitivist movement. This edition includes 18 additional essays and feral illustrations by R.L. Tubbesing. --From publisher description.

Hope on Earth

Hope on Earth PDF

Author: Paul R. Ehrlich

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2014-04-21

Total Pages: 205

ISBN-13: 022611371X

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Hope on Earth is the thought-provoking result of a lively and wide-ranging conversation between two of the world’s leading interdisciplinary environmental scientists: Paul R. Ehrlich, whose book The Population Bomb shook the world in 1968 (and continues to shake it), and Michael Charles Tobias, whose over 40 books and 150 films have been read and/or viewed throughout the world. Hope on Earth offers a rare opportunity to listen in as these deeply knowledgeable and highly creative thinkers offer their takes on the most pressing environmental concerns of the moment. Both Ehrlich and Tobias argue that we are on the verge of environmental catastrophe, as the human population continues to grow without restraint and without significant attempts to deal with overconsumption and the vast depletion of resources and climate problems it creates. Though their views are sympathetic, they differ in their approach and in some key moral stances, giving rise to a heated and engaging dialogue that opens up dozens of new avenues of exploration. They both believe that the impact of a human society on its environment is the direct result of its population size, and through their dialogue they break down the complex social problems that are wrapped up in this idea and attempts to overcome it, hitting firmly upon many controversial topics such as circumcision, religion, reproduction, abortion, animal rights, diet, and gun control. For Ehrlich and Tobias, ethics involve not only how we treat other people directly, but how we treat them and other organisms indirectly through our effects on the environment. University of California, Berkeley professor John Harte joins the duo for part of the conversation, and his substantial expertise on energy and climate change adds a crucial perspective to the discussion of the impact of population on global warming. This engaging and timely book invites readers into an intimate conversation with some of the most eminent voices in science as they offer a powerful and approachable argument that the ethical and scientific issues involved in solving our environmental crisis are deeply intertwined, while offering us an optimistic way forward. Hope on Earth is indeed a conversation we should all be having.