Green will illustrate and shed new light on the gamut of issues associated with renewable energy, a topic whose importance increases exponentially with every temperature record-setting year. Jane and Michael Hoffman use their years of experience to explain the technological and economic future of this ecologically significant issue. They incisively explain its politics: what countries are doing right now and, most importantly, what the U.S. should be doing. Green...

“[Brown’s] ability to make a complicated subject accessible to the general reader is remarkable.”—Katherine Salant, Washington PostAs fossil fuel prices rise, oil insecurity deepens, and concerns about climate change cast a shadow over the future of coal, a new energy economy is emerging. Wind, solar, and geothermal energy are replacing oil, coal, and natural gas, at a pace and on a scale we could not have imagined even a year ago. For the first time since the Industrial R...

Cold Matters is a vital and approachable work that distills the scientific complexities of snow, ice, water and climate and presents the global implications of research put forth and funded by the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences. This timely book gives the concerned reader an opportunity to take part in the conversation about our global environment in a way that transcends traditional scientific journals, textbooks, public talks or newspaper articles that ...

Around the world, consciousness of the threat to our environment is growing. The majority of solutions on offer, from using efficient light bulbs to biking to work, focus on individual lifestyle changes, yet the scale of the crisis requires far deeper adjustments. Ecology and Socialism argues that time still remains to save humanity and the planet, but only by building social movements for environmental justice that can demand qualitative changes in our economy, workplaces, and in...

Global warming and changes in climate will have severe and lasting impacts on national efforts to alleviate poverty and promote sustainable development. Some of the world's poorest countries and communities are the most vulnerable and are already suffering the consequences. Yet often these countries are rich in natural capital, ecosystems, and biodiversity that can contribute to solutions as they can to climate change. Biodiversity is the foundation and mainstay of agriculture, forests, and f...

In this groundbreaking book Kent E. Calder argues that a new transnational configuration is emerging in Asia, driven by economic growth, rising energy demand, and the erosion of longstanding geopolitical divisions. What Calder calls the New Silk Road—with a strengthening multi-faceted relationship between East Asia and the Middle East at its core—could eventually emerge as one of the world's most important multilateral configurations. Straddling the border between comparative politics and ...

In the spring of 2010, we watched oil gushing unstoppably into thewaters of the Gulf of Mexico. But as bad as the spill was, it isonly the latest chapter in a century-long story of destruction.Atthe height of BP's dispersant madness, the amount sprayed each daymerely equaled the amount of dispersant that washes down the Mississippifrom the Heartland's dishwashers and washing machines. Coastal drillinghas damaged the region's ecology far more...

The Peaceful People is the story of the Penan, the jungle nomads of Sarawak, Malaysia, on Borneo island who for decades have fought for possession and preservation of their traditional forest lands. Drawing on extensive first-hand interviews, as well as the diaries and journals of explorers, botanists and colonial administrators, and the observations of missionaries, Paul Malone provides the most comprehensive account of the dynamics of Penan society to date. Written in a compelling and ac...

Developing the Global Bioeconomy: Technical, Market, and Environmental Lessons from Bioenergy brings together expertise from three IEA-Bioenergy subtasks on pyrolysis, international trade, and biorefineries to review the bioenergy sector and draw useful lessons for the full deployment of the bioeconomy. Despite the vast amount of politically driven strategies, there is little understanding on how current markets will transition towards a global bioeconomy. The question is not only how the ...

In Kumaon in northern India, villagers set hundreds of forest fires in the early 1920s, protesting the colonial British state’s regulations to protect the environment. Yet by the 1990s, they had begun to conserve their forests carefully. In his innovative historical and political study, Arun Agrawal analyzes this striking transformation. He describes and explains the emergence of environmental identities and changes in state-locality relations and shows how the two are related. In so doing...

A proposal for a new chemicals strategy: that we work to develop safer alternatives to hazardous chemicals rather than focusing exclusively on controlling them.Today, there are thousands of synthetic chemicals used to make our clothing, cosmetics, household products, electronic devices, even our children's toys. Many of these chemicals help us live longer and more comfortable lives, but some of these highly useful chemicals are also persistent, toxic, and dangerous...

Malawi is among the few countries in sub-Saharan Africa that has witnessed significant improvements in relation to meeting the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets. It exhibits some of the main challenges facing African democracies while they attempt to consolidate the benefits of democratisation.Political Transition and Inclusive Development in Malawi critically analyses opportunities and constraints related to the impact of democracy on development in one of the world’s poor...