- Table View
- List View
A Contract with the Earth
by Newt Gingrich Terry MapleFormer Republican Speaker of the House Gingrich, teaming up with Maple (conservation and behavior, Georgia Institute of Technology), addresses environmental issues by rhetorically reprising his signature Contract with America legislative agenda of the 1990s. The new Contract with the Earth rests on 10 key principals: affirm US leadership on environmental issues; provide incentives to "environmental entrepreneurs;" move towards clean technologies; make government a facilitator for entrepreneurial, private sector innovation and private-public partnerships; become "aspirational and inspirational" by reducing the "arbitrary power of our federal bureaucracy;" mobilize the American public behind agreed-on policies; encourage scientific and technical literacy; promote non-partisanship on the environment; encourage strategic environmental philanthropy; and "enlist the nation." Gingrich and Maple defend and expand upon these principals and discuss some of the issues connected with its implementation over the course of the text. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
A Contract with the Earth
by Newt Gingrich Terry L. MapleFocusing the environmental debate on the principle of common commitment, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and eminent conservationist Terry L. Maple present A Contract with the Earth. They declare a need for bipartisan environmentalism—a new era of environmental stewardship with principles that they believe most Americans will share. While acknowledging that liberals and conservatives do not see eye to eye on many issues, Gingrich and Maple argue successfully that environmental stewardship is a mainstream value that transcends partisan politics. Their thoughtful approaches to our environmental challenges are based on three main premises: environmental leadership is integral to America's role in the world, technologically savvy environmental entrepreneurs can and should be the cornerstone of environmental solutions, and cooperation and incentives must be dramatically increased to achieve workable and broadly supported environmental solutions.Gingrich and Maple believe that most people—regardless of how they categorize themselves politically—are weary of the legal and political conflicts that prevent individuals and communities from realizing the benefits of environmental conservation. The foundation of the book—a ten-point Contract with the Earth—promotes ingenuity over rhetoric as the way forward.
A Course in Classical Physics 3 -- Electromagnetism: Electromagnetism (Undergraduate Lecture Notes in Physics)
by Alessandro BettiniFocusing on electromagnetism, this third volume of a four-volume textbook covers the electric field under static conditions, constant electric currents and their laws, the magnetic field in a vacuum, electromagnetic induction, magnetic energy under static conditions, the magnetic properties of matter, and the unified description of electromagnetic phenomena provided by Maxwell's equations. The four-volume textbook as a whole covers electromagnetism, mechanics, fluids and thermodynamics, and waves and light, and is designed to reflect the typical syllabus during the first two years of a calculus-based university physics program. Throughout all four volumes, particular attention is paid to in-depth clarification of conceptual aspects, and to this end the historical roots of the principal concepts are traced. Emphasis is also consistently placed on the experimental basis of the concepts, highlighting the experimental nature of physics. Whenever feasible at the elementary level, concepts relevant to more advanced courses in quantum mechanics and atomic, solid state, nuclear, and particle physics are included. The textbook offers an ideal resource for physics students, lecturers and, last but not least, all those seeking a deeper understanding of the experimental basics of physics.
A Course in Mathematical Methods for Physicists
by Russell L. HermanBased on the author's junior-level undergraduate course, this introductory textbook is designed for a course in mathematical physics. Focusing on the physics of oscillations and waves, A Course in Mathematical Methods for Physicists helps students understand the mathematical techniques needed for their future studies in physics. It takes a bottom-u
A Course in Mathematics for Students of Physics
by Paul Bamberg Shlomo SternbergThis textbook, available in two volumes, has been developed from a course taught at Harvard over the last decade. The course covers principally the theory and physical applications of linear algebra and of the calculus of several variables, particularly the exterior calculus. The authors adopt the 'spiral method' of teaching, covering the same topic several times at increasing levels of sophistication and range of application. Thus the reader develops a deep, intuitive understanding of the subject as a whole, and an appreciation of the natural progression of ideas. Topics covered include many items previously dealt with at a much more advanced level, such as algebraic topology (introduced via the analysis of electrical networks), exterior calculus, Lie derivatives, and star operators (which are applied to Maxwell's equations and optics). This then is a text which breaks new ground in presenting and applying sophisticated mathematics in an elementary setting. Any student, interpreted in the widest sense, with an interest in physics and mathematics, will gain from its study.
A Course in Modern Mathematical Physics
by Peter SzekeresPresenting an introduction to the mathematics of modern physics for advanced undergraduate and graduate students, this textbook introduces the reader to modern mathematical thinking within a physics context. Topics covered include tensor algebra, differential geometry, topology, Lie groups and Lie algebras, distribution theory, fundamental analysis and Hilbert spaces. The book also includes exercises and proofed examples to test the students' understanding of the various concepts, as well as to extend the text's themes.
A Course in Quantum Many-Body Theory: From Conventional Fermi Liquids to Strongly Correlated Systems (Graduate Texts in Physics)
by Michele FabrizioThis textbook presents various methods to deal with quantum many-body systems, mainly addressing interacting electrons. It focusses on basic tools to tackle quantum effects in macroscopic systems of interacting particles, and on fundamental concepts to interpret the behavior of such systems as revealed by experiments.The textbook starts from simple concepts like second quantization, which allows one to include the indistinguishability and statistics of particles in a rather simple framework, and linear response theory. Then, it gradually moves towards more technical and advanced subjects, including recent developments in the field. The diagrammatic technique is comprehensively discussed. Some of the advanced topics include Landau’s Fermi liquid theory, Luttinger liquids, the Kondo effect, and the Mott transition.The ultimate goal of the book is to gain comprehension of physical quantities that are routinely measured experimentally and fully characterize the system, therefore it is useful for graduate students but also young researchers studying and investigating the theoretical aspects of condensed matter physics.
A Course on Hopf Algebras (Universitext)
by Rinat KashaevThis textbook provides a concise, visual introduction to Hopf algebras and their application to knot theory, most notably the construction of solutions of the Yang–Baxter equations. Starting with a reformulation of the definition of a group in terms of structural maps as motivation for the definition of a Hopf algebra, the book introduces the related algebraic notions: algebras, coalgebras, bialgebras, convolution algebras, modules, comodules. Next, Drinfel’d’s quantum double construction is achieved through the important notion of the restricted (or finite) dual of a Hopf algebra, which allows one to work purely algebraically, without completions. As a result, in applications to knot theory, to any Hopf algebra with invertible antipode one can associate a universal invariant of long knots. These constructions are elucidated in detailed analyses of a few examples of Hopf algebras. The presentation of the material is mostly based on multilinear algebra, with all definitions carefully formulated and proofs self-contained. The general theory is illustrated with concrete examples, and many technicalities are handled with the help of visual aids, namely string diagrams. As a result, most of this text is accessible with minimal prerequisites and can serve as the basis of introductory courses to beginning graduate students.
A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906
by Simon WinchesterA burgeoning new city is built on the dreams of the American gold rush. It is also built upon a landscape that has been stretching, sliding and breaking apart for millennia. In 1906 the dreams of this city came crashing down beneath the rippling wave of a horrifying earthquake that turned roads into great rippling rivers, that set buildings ablaze for days on end, that made homes collapse upon themselves. Simon Winchester's breathtaking story delves deep beneath the surface of the earth and explains to us why the world moves as it does; and breaks apart with such devastating results. At the same time he never lets us forget the human story: what happened in this new, seemingly blessed city on the 18th April 1906. As he vividly portrays the lives of the people who suffered and survived the devastation he also tells a universal story: the hubris of man as he ignores the warnings of nature and how we respond and try to understand the world around us. Compelling, moving and enlightening, Simon Winchester brings to light the world beneath our feet and through the story of this one terrifying event one hundred years ago, begins to make sense of our world now.
A Critical Approach to Climate Change Adaptation: Discourses, Policies and Practices (Routledge Advances in Climate Change Research)
by Silja Klepp Libertad Chavez-RodriguezThis edited volume brings together critical research on climate change adaptation discourses, policies, and practices from a multi-disciplinary perspective. Drawing on examples from countries including Colombia, Mexico, Canada, Germany, Russia, Tanzania, Indonesia, and the Pacific Islands, the chapters describe how adaptation measures are interpreted, transformed, and implemented at grassroots level and how these measures are changing or interfering with power relations, legal pluralismm and local (ecological) knowledge. As a whole, the book challenges established perspectives of climate change adaptation by taking into account issues of cultural diversity, environmental justicem and human rights, as well as feminist or intersectional approaches. This innovative approach allows for analyses of the new configurations of knowledge and power that are evolving in the name of climate change adaptation. This volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of climate change, environmental law and policy, and environmental sociology, and to policymakers and practitioners working in the field of climate change adaptation.
A Critical Approach to International Water Management Trends
by Christian Bréthaut Rémi SchweizerThis edited volume provides a critical discussion of particular trends that are widely recognised to influence water management by comparing them with what is actually happening in the field. Among others, these trends include water security, adaptive or integrative management, and the water-energy-food nexus, which are often presented as essential means to reaching more sustainable and resilient water use. However, the extent to which these trends have managed to structure concrete practices in water management remains uncertain. Informed by empirically grounded research, each chapter of this work engages with a particular approach, concept or theory. Together, they provide a nuanced picture of trends in water management that require universal remedies and global norms.
A Critical Theory for the Anthropocene (Anthropocene – Humanities and Social Sciences)
by Nathanaël WallenhorstThis volume, which is rooted in biogeophysical studies, addresses conceptions of political action in the Anthropocene and the tension between a desire to accomplish the Promethean project of modernity and a post-Promethean approach. This work explores the idea of an anthropological mutation of political consolidation from a “post-Promethean togetherness”, to creating the capacity to act together. The political thinking of the human condition developed by Hannah Arendt is important here as a resource for thinking about humanity in terms of human adventure. This has three dimensions: hubris, the world and coexistence referring respectively to the logic of profit of the homo oeconomicus, the logic of responsibility of the homo collectivus and the logic of the hospitality of the homo religatus. The intellectual and political attitude outlined in this book is an extension of critical theory: the work also puts forward a critique of what poses a problem in our relationship to the world and suggests how to overcome it, the ultimate goal being social transformation. The author propose an uprising and an anthropological consolidation of politics based on the revitalization that is brought about by the sharing of a conviviality both between humans and with what is non-human. The identification of conviviality as an educational paradigm to survive the Anthropocene gives us the much needed reason for hope despite this heritage of the Anthropocene. In addition to Arendtian thinking, this critical theory for the Anthropocene draws on the political thinking of several contemporary authors including Maurice Bellet, Hartmut Rosa, Andreas Weber, Dominique Bourg, and Christian Arnsperger. This volume is of interest to researchers in the Anthropocene.
A Cultural History of Climate Change (Routledge Environmental Humanities)
by Tom Bristow Thomas H. FordCharting innovative directions in the environmental humanities, this book examines the cultural history of climate change under three broad headings: history, writing and politics. Climate change compels us to rethink many of our traditional means of historical understanding, and demands new ways of relating human knowledge, action and representations to the dimensions of geological and evolutionary time. To address these challenges, this book positions our present moment of climatic knowledge within much longer histories of climatic experience. Only in light of these histories, it argues, can we properly understand what climate means today across an array of discursive domains, from politics, literature and law to neighbourly conversation. Its chapters identify turning-points and experiments in the construction of climates and of atmospheres of sensation. They examine how contemporary ecological thought has repoliticised the representation of nature and detail vital aspects of the history and prehistory of our climatic modernity. This ground-breaking text will be of great interest to researchers and postgraduate students in environmental history, environmental governance, history of ideas and science, literature and eco-criticism, political theory, cultural theory, as well as all general readers interested in climate change.
A Cultural History of Famine: Food Security and the Environment in India and Britain (Routledge Environmental Humanities)
by Ayesha MukherjeeThe term "food security" does not immediately signal research done in humanities disciplines. It refers to a complex, contested issue, whose currency and significance are hardly debatable given present concerns about environmental change, resource management, and sustainability. The subject is thus largely studied within science and social science disciplines in current or very recent historical contexts. This book brings together perspectives on food security and related environmental concerns from experts in the disciplines of literary studies, history, science, and social sciences. It allows readers to compare past and contemporary attitudes towards the issues in India and Britain – the economic, social, and environmental histories of these two nations have been closely connected ever since British travellers began to visit India in the latter half of the sixteenth century. The chapters in this book discuss themes such as climate, harvest failure, trade, technological improvements, transport networks, charity measures, and popular protest, which affected food security in both countries from the seventeenth century onwards. The authors cover a range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches, and their chapters allow readers to understand and compare different methodologies as well as different contexts of time and place relevant to the topic. This book will be of great interest to students and researchers of economic and social history, environmental history, literary studies, and South Asian studies.
A Cultural History of Waste Disposal: Environmental Policy and Park Redevelopments (Routledge Environmental History)
by Benjamin A. LawsonThis book offers a historical analysis of landfill sites in New York City, Greater Toronto, and Greater Tel Aviv, and uses them as case studies to emphasize the international and global scale of issues concerning waste disposal and park redevelopments.New York, Toronto, and Tel Aviv are currently redeveloping giant landfills into parks to much fanfare. The park redevelopments may be seen as an attempt to erase or assuage the decades of problematic waste-disposal policy that led to the creation of such large landfills. Booster rhetoric underscores this point, such as promoting how the parks will be a “green lung” for the city. This book contextualizes these redevelopments by offering a historical analysis, providing a greater understanding of the past, current, and future potential issues. It goes on to analyze the language and media coverage surrounding former waste sites becoming park redevelopments, including how cities use art to promote their image and gain cultural relevance. By engaging with both the works of waste historians and literature on waste and discard studies, the book provides theoretical models for analyzing the role of power in municipal systems, as well as human and ecological impacts on waste. It concludes with an analysis of the features necessary for landfill parks to be successful. This book will be useful for scholars, researchers, and academics studying waste studies, the environment, cities, and sustainable development, as well as for policymakers and environmental/eco artists.
A Darwinian Survival Guide: Hope for the Twenty-First Century
by Daniel R. Brooks Salvatore J. AgostaHow humanity brought about the climate crisis by departing from its evolutionary trajectory 15,000 years ago—and how we can use evolutionary principles to save ourselves from the worst outcomes.Despite efforts to sustain civilization, humanity faces existential threats from overpopulation, globalized trade and travel, urbanization, and global climate change. In A Darwinian Survival Guide, Daniel Brooks and Salvatore Agosta offer a novel—and hopeful—perspective on how to meet these tremendous challenges by changing the discourse from sustainability to survival. Darwinian evolution, the world&’s only theory of survival, is the means by which the biosphere has persisted and renewed itself following past environmental perturbations, and it has never failed, they explain. Even in the aftermath of mass extinctions, enough survivors remain with the potential to produce a new diversified biosphere.Drawing on their expertise as field biologists, Brooks and Agosta trace the evolutionary path from the early days of humans through the Late Pleistocene and the beginning of the Anthropocene all the way to the Great Acceleration of technological humanity around 1950, demonstrating how our creative capacities have allowed humanity to survive. However, constant conflict without resolution has made the Anthropocene not only unsustainable, but unsurvivable. Guided by the four laws of biotics, the authors explain how humanity should interact with the rest of the biosphere and with each other in accordance with Darwinian principles. They reveal a middle ground between apocalypse and utopia, with two options: alter our behavior now at great expense and extend civilization or fail to act and rebuild in accordance with those same principles. If we take the latter, then our immediate goal ought to focus on preserving as many of humanity&’s positive achievements—from high technology to high art—as possible to shorten the time needed to rebuild.
A Day at the Farm
by Pierre Brignaud Joceline SanschagrinIn this tale, Caillou, Mommy, and Daddy visit Uncle Felix's farm. Caillou learns what it takes to keep the farm going as he feeds the sheep, gathers the hens' eggs, and gives hay to the cows. Full color.
A Day at the Pond
by Jestine WareLearn about the plant and animal life a pond supports. Duckweed, beetles, birds, and turtles call enjoy the environment of a pond.
A Day in the Life of the Desert: 6 Desert Habitats, 108 Species, and How to Save Them (Books for a Better Earth)
by Roxie MunroTour 6 North American deserts in 24 hours from day break in the Mojave Desert through midnight in the Great Basin.This meticulously illustrated picture book takes readers on a cross-continental tour in 24 hours, visiting 6 different deserts at different hours of the day, and returning to each desert as night falls. Meet the critters that call these habitats home, from the turkey vultures that fly under the hot daytime sun to the gila monster that crawls across the cool nighttime sand.While exploring the desert, young readers can play hide and seek with all kinds of desert creatures! Every nook and cranny is filled with critters big and small for readers to identify using the matching key at the bottom of the page.However, these incredibly important, fragile ecosystems are in danger. On the daytime visits, children in grades 2-4 can learn about the challenges these deserts and animals face due to climate change, invasive species, and other threats.When returning to each desert at night, readers can also learn about what&’s being done to protect these unique habitats. The deserts depicted are the Mojave, the Chihuahuan, the Great Basin, the Sonoran, Painted Valley, and Death Valley.Budding naturalists can dive into the extensive material in the back of the book, including an author&’s note with age-appropriate resources on how to get involved, a glossary with science vocabulary, and a bibliography.The Books for a Better Earth™ collection is designed to inspire young people to become active, knowledgeable participants in caringfor the planet they live on. Focusing on solutions to climate change challenges, the collection looks at how scientists, activists, andyoung leaders are working to safeguard Earth&’s future.
A Decolonial Black Feminist Theory of Reading and Shade: Feeling the University (Routledge Research on Decoloniality and New Postcolonialisms)
by Andrea N. BaldwinThis book uses a decolonial Black feminist lens to understand the contemporary significance of the practices and politics of indifference in United States higher education. It illustrates how higher education institutions are complicit in maintaining dominant social norms that perpetuate difference. It weaves together Black feminisms, affect and queer theory to demonstrate that the ways in which human bodies are classified and normalized in societal and scientific terms contribute to how the minoritized and marginalized feel White higher education spaces. The text espouses a Black Feminist Shad(e)y Theoretics to read the university, by considering the historical positioning of the modern university as sites in which the modern body is made and remade through empirically reliable truth claims and how contemporary knowledges and academic disciplinary inheritances bear the fingerprints of racist sexist science even as the academy tries to disavow its inheritance through so-called inclusive practices and policies today. This book will appeal to students and scholars interested in Black feminism, Gender and women's studies, Black and ethnic studies, sociology, decoloniality, queer studies and affect theory.
A Desert Scrapbook: Dawn To Dusk In The Sonoran Desert
by Virginia Wright-FriersonIn the early morning hours, an artist stirs. Gathering her paints and notebook, she heads into the Arizona Sonoran Desert to explore its treasures. Sketching, painting, and writing, she records all that she sees and as night falls, she spreads out her pictures to make this scrapbook of her day, from dawn to dusk.
A Dictionary of Environment and Conservation
by Chris ParkThis informative dictionary contains over 8,500 entries on all aspects of the environment and conservation. International in scope, it embraces a broad spectrum of environmental areas including sustainable development, biodiversity, conservation, environmental ethics, philosophy, and history, resource management, sociology, and policy on the environment. In addition to its wide-ranging, concise definitions, it includes longer key entries on topics such as Antarctica, Gaia hypothesis, genetic engineering, the Kyoto Protocol, and the United Nations Conference on Environmental Development. The dictionary is uniquely comprehensive in that it addresses the social, legal, political, and economic aspects of the environment and conservation as well as the scientific terms. Coverage includes international treaties, movements, trusts and organizations, as well as biographies of key figures in environmental science. It also boasts wide coverage of terms relating to rural/community development and participation, an area with an increasingly key role in managing the environment and biodiversity. This places the subject of the environment firmly in a human as well as a scientific context.The dictionary is supplemented with an invaluable selection of 10 appendices, including international hazard assessment scales (including the Beaufort scale, the Richter scale, and the Fujita tornado scale), the geological timescale, and a list of useful websites for further study. Concise and wide-ranging, this is an essential work of reference for students and professionals, and anyone with an interest in the environment and conservation
A Dictionary of Geography
by F. J. MonkhouseThe geographer seeks to describe the diverse features of the earth's surface, to explain if possible how these features have come to be what they are, and to discuss how they influence the distribution of man with his diverse activities. Geography therefore stands transitionally yet centrally between the natural sciences, the social studies, and the humanities. While in its concept and content it is an integrated whole, of necessity it impinges on the associated disciplines, and inevitably makes use of a wide range of kindred terminology. In compiling the 3,400 entries for this dictionary, the main criterion for inclusion has been usage. Geographical textbooks and periodicals have been systematically combed, and where a term has been used in a specific geographical context, or in a specialist sense which differs from general practice or popular usage, it has been included. Foreign words are listed where they have been accepted into English geographical literature, especially where no satisfactory translation exists. Cross-references are freely given, printed in small capitals, where it is necessary to assist the user in tracing cognate and supplementary entries, or where the meaning of the word thus shown is essential to the understanding of the entry. The emphasis throughout is on specific factual information, conveniently accessible on a strict alphabetical basis, rather than a bare definition. Statistical material and formulae are appended, where it would seem helpful, in the form of tables under the relevant entries. Since this dictionary is neither a gazetteer nor a compendium of current affairs, lists of countries and capitals, regional names and international groupings are not included, since these can be found conveniently elsewhere. The five hundred and seventy-two additional entries to this dictionary, together with a few minor modifications to the existing material, are the result of extensive correspondence and discussion since the appearance of the firs
A Dictionary of Geography
by Susan MayhewThis unique new dictionary offers comprehensive coverage of words and terms encountered in both human and physical geography in a single volume. Each of the over 6,000 updated, clear, and concise entries provides an initial brief definition followed by a more in-depth explanation, making the book useful for novices and experts alike. This new edition also features a fact-finder with key economic and population statistics. Authoritative and completely accessible, A Dictionary of Geography, Second Edition covers a vast scope of subjects, including cartography, surveying, meteorology, climatology, biogeography, ecology, geology, geomorphology, population, migration, agriculture, industry, transportation, and development. There is also extensive discussion of the most recent advances in and information on topics such as plate tectonics, remote sensing, geographic information systems, and aerial differentiation. Wide-ranging and highly readable, this invaluable reference guide answers questions about all aspects,of geography quickly and effectively using the most recent advances in the field.
A Dictionary of Weather
by Storm DunlopAn authoritative and comprehensive dictionary of weather, forecasting, and climate terms with illustrative examples of specific events and extremes. Find out where and when the world's largest hailstone fell or where the highest temperature was recorded using the list of weather records, and check climate data for different weather types from around the world. Key terms from the related fields of oceanography, hydrology, and climatology are also covered as well as biographical information on important people in the development of meteorology. This is an essential reference source for both professional meteorologists as well as amateurs looking to increase their knowledge of the field.