What if what we think we know about ecology and environmental policy is just wrong? What if environmental laws often make things worse? What if the very idea of nature has been hijacked by politics? What if wilderness is something we create in our minds, as opposed to being an actual description of nature?In 1934, former U.S. Forest Service offcial Aldo Leopold, a godfather to the modern environmental movement, wrote that “restrictive laws” had “largely failed” in ...

This book dispels common myths about electricity and electricity policy and reveals how government policies manipulate energy markets, create hidden costs, and may inflict a net harm on the American people and the environment.Climate change, energy generation and use, and environmental degradation are among the most salient—and controversial—political issues today. Our country's energy future will be determined by the policymakers who enact laws that favor certain ...

Renewable and carbon-neutral energy have been promoted as the future of energy production in the United States. Non-traditional energy sources show promise as alternatives to fossil fuels and may provide a sustainable source of energy in increasingly uncertain energy markets. However, these new sources of energy face their own set of political, administrative, and legal challenges. Green vs. Green explores how mixed land ownership and existing law and regulation present serious ch...

This book explores the relationship between quality of life, policy, and political behavior. Using carefully collected, granular data, the authors create a measurement of quality of life for each county in the United States. After applying the index to each county and calculating scores, the results are applied to key political and social questions, such as, variation in voter turnout, electoral choices, and the allocation of federal aid. By tying quality of life directly to social and pol...

This book examines the voting restrictions that have been implemented across the United States in the post-2008 recession era. Navigating the literature and conventional wisdom, this book navigates the fiscal, partisan and racial influences on voting rights laws in a post-recession era. Reilly explores the role each of these three influences have had on policy and culminate in a trifecta of effects. This is the first contribution to the literature that explores fiscal impacts with the inte...

Well-Being as a Multidimensional Concept highlights the ways that culture and community influence concepts of wellness, the experience of well-being, and health outcomes. This book includes both theoretical conceptualizations and practice-based explorations from a multidisciplinary group of contributors, including distinguished, widely celebrated senior experts as well as emerging voices in the fields of health promotion, health research, clinical practice, community engagement, a...

The increased use of direct democracy measures across the United States has brought attention to the individual petitioner however their motivations and goals continue to be an enigma.Drawing on behavioral, historical and legal analysis to provide a more concrete depiction of these individuals, expert contributors examine the true personalities, motivations and expectations, successes and failures of petitioners in the direct democracy process and how they culminate in policy forma...