On the Shelf from CCBC Libraries
Inconspicuous Consumption by
*First Place Winner of the Society of Environmental Journalists' Rachel Carson Environment Book Award* "If you're looking for something to cling to in what often feels like a hopeless conversation, Schlossberg's darkly humorous, knowledge-is-power, eyes-wide-open approach may be just the thing."--Vogue From a former New York Times science writer, this urgent call to action will empower you to stand up to climate change and environmental pollution by making simple but impactful everyday choices. With urgency and wit, Tatiana Schlossberg explains that far from being only a distant problem of the natural world created by the fossil fuel industry, climate change is all around us, all the time, lurking everywhere in our convenience-driven society, all without our realizing it. By examining the unseen and unconscious environmental impacts in four areas-the Internet and technology, food, fashion, and fuel - Schlossberg helps readers better understand why climate change is such a complicated issue, and how it connects all of us: How streaming a movie on Netflix in New York burns coal in Virginia; how eating a hamburger in California might contribute to pollution in the Gulf of Mexico; how buying an inexpensive cashmere sweater in Chicago expands the Mongolian desert; how destroying forests from North Carolina is necessary to generate electricity in England. Cataloging the complexities and frustrations of our carbon-intensive society with a dry sense of humor, Schlossberg makes the climate crisis and its solutions interesting and relevant to everyone who cares, even a little, about the planet. She empowers readers to think about their stuff and the environment in a new way, helping them make more informed choices when it comes to the future of our world. Most importantly, this is a book about the power we have as voters and consumers to make sure that the fight against climate change includes all of us and all of our stuff, not just industry groups and politicians. If we have any hope of solving the problem, we all have to do it together. "A compelling-and illuminating-look at how our daily habits impact the environment."--Vanity Fair "Shows how even the smallest decisions can have profound environmental consequences."--The New York Times
Call Number: HC79.C6 S258 2019
Cleaning up the environment : hazardous waste technology by Call Number: TD1052 .M33 2009
Clean Coastal Waters by
Environmental problems in coastal ecosystems can sometimes be attributed to excess nutrients flowing from upstream watersheds into estuarine settings. This nutrient over-enrichment can result in toxic algal blooms, shellfish poisoning, coral reef destruction, and other harmful outcomes. All U.S. coasts show signs of nutrient over-enrichment, and scientists predict worsening problems in the years ahead. Clean Coastal Waters explains technical aspects of nutrient over-enrichment and proposes both immediate local action by coastal managers and a longer-term national strategy incorporating policy design, classification of affected sites, law and regulation, coordination, and communication. Highlighting the Gulf of Mexico's "Dead Zone," the Pfiesteria outbreak in a tributary of Chesapeake Bay, and other cases, the book explains how nutrients work in the environment, why nitrogen is important, how enrichment turns into over-enrichment, and why some environments are especially susceptible. Economic as well as ecological impacts are examined. In addressing abatement strategies, the committee discusses the importance of monitoring sites, developing useful models of over-enrichment, and setting water quality goals. The book also reviews voluntary programs, mandatory controls, tax incentives, and other policy options for reducing the flow of nutrients from agricultural operations and other sources.
Call Number: TD427.N87 N38 2000
Reconstructing Earth by
The Earth's biological, chemical, and physical systems are increasingly shaped by the activities of one species - ours. In our decisions about everything from manufacturing technologies to restaurant menus, the health of the planet has become a product of human choice. Environmentalism, however, has largely failed to adapt to this new reality. Reconstructing Earth offers seven essays that explore ways of developing a new, more sophisticated approach to the environment that replaces the fantasy of recovering pristine landscapes with a more grounded viewpoint that can foster a better relationship between humans and the planet. Braden Allenby, a lawyer with degrees in both engineering and environmental studies, explains the importance of technological choice, and how that factor is far more significant in shaping our environment (in ways both desirable and not) than environmental controls. corporate world, he describes the emerging field of earth systems engineering and management, which offers an integrated approach to understanding and managing complex human/natural systems that can serve as a basis for crafting better, more lasting solutions to widespread environmental problems. Reconstructing Earth not only critiques dysfunctional elements of current environmentalism but establishes a foundation for future environmental management and progress, one built on an understanding of technological evolution and the cultural systems that support modern technologies. Taken together, the essays offer an important means of developing an environmentalism that is robust and realistic enough to address the urgent realities of our planet. Reconstructing Earth is a thought-provoking new work for anyone concerned with the past or future of environmental thought, including students and teachers of environmental studies, environmental policy, technology policy, technological evolution, or sustainability.
Call Number: GE105 .A39 2005- Clean Coastal Waters by
Environmental problems in coastal ecosystems can sometimes be attributed to excess nutrients flowing from upstream watersheds into estuarine settings. This nutrient over-enrichment can result in toxic algal blooms, shellfish poisoning, coral reef destruction, and other harmful outcomes. All U.S. coasts show signs of nutrient over-enrichment, and scientists predict worsening problems in the years ahead. Clean Coastal Waters explains technical aspects of nutrient over-enrichment and proposes both immediate local action by coastal managers and a longer-term national strategy incorporating policy design, classification of affected sites, law and regulation, coordination, and communication. Highlighting the Gulf of Mexico's "Dead Zone," the Pfiesteria outbreak in a tributary of Chesapeake Bay, and other cases, the book explains how nutrients work in the environment, why nitrogen is important, how enrichment turns into over-enrichment, and why some environments are especially susceptible. Economic as well as ecological impacts are examined. In addressing abatement strategies, the committee discusses the importance of monitoring sites, developing useful models of over-enrichment, and setting water quality goals. The book also reviews voluntary programs, mandatory controls, tax incentives, and other policy options for reducing the flow of nutrients from agricultural operations and other sources.
Call Number: TD427.N87 N38 2000
Streaming Videos
- Scientific Research, Technology, and the Environmenthile ecosystems face increasing pressure from human activity, science plays a critical role in controlling and minimizing harmful effects. This clip explores the role of science and technology in identifying impacts on ecosystems and finding solutions for a more sustainable future. It provides students of biology and other sciences with an excellent overview of this important area of study.
Databases
- SocINDEX This link opens in a new window
Articles on sociology topics including criminal justice, gender studies, racial studies, social services, and social work.
- Sociology Database This link opens in a new window
Articles on sociology topics including criminal justice, gender studies, racial studies, social services, and social work.
- Social Science Database
Articles on social science topics like communication, criminology, economics, education, political science, psychology, social work, and sociology.
- ProQuest Central This link opens in a new window
Articles on any subject. This is a good place to start.
- Academic Search Premier This link opens in a new window
Articles on any subject. This is a good place to start.
- SIRS Issues Researcher This link opens in a new window
Viewpoint essays, topic essays, and news and magazine articles on controversial issues. Browse for topics or search.
- Opposing Viewpoints This link opens in a new window
Viewpoint essays, topic essays, and news and magazine articles on controversial issues. Browse for topics or search.
Online from CCBC Libraries
Ecosystems, Society, and Health by
The modern world has created complex systems that have interrelated concerns. Ecosystems, Society, and Health presents new perspectives on how the challenges relating to these concerns must be examined, not as disparate political narratives, but as dynamic transformational stories that demand integrative systems of research, analysis, practice, and action. Struggles over healthy watersheds, diseases associated with environmental change, and public health impacts of unsafe food exemplify the demand for integrated understanding and action. Contributors argue that traditional science, power politics, and linear ideals of public policy are inadequate to address sustainability, justice, safety, and responsibility. Drawing from a series of case studies that range from nursing, to watershed management, to environmental health and risk communication, this collection strikes an informed balance between practical lessons and a sophisticated theoretical context with which to interpret them. Demonstrating the diverse contextual understanding demanded by today's complex issues, Ecosystems, Society, and Health is a timely resource with guidance for practitioners, researchers, and educators.
Publication Date: 2015-06-15
Conservation for Cities by
It's time to think differently about cities and nature. Understanding how to better connect our cities with the benefits nature provides will be increasingly important as people migrate to cities and flourish in them. All this urban growth, along with challenges of adapting to climate change, will require a new approach to infrastructure if we're going to be successful. Yet guidance on how to plan and implement projects to protect or restore natural infrastructure is often hard to come by. With Conservation for Cities, Robert McDonald offers a comprehensive framework for maintaining and strengthening the supporting bonds between cities and nature through innovative infrastructure projects. After presenting a broad approach to incorporating natural infrastructure priorities into urban planning, he focuses each following chapter on a specific ecosystem service. He describes a wide variety of benefits, and helps practitioners answer fundamental questions: What are the best ecosystem services to enhance in a particular city or neighborhood? How might planners best combine green and grey infrastructure to solve problems facing a city? What are the regulatory and policy tools that can help fund and implement projects? Finally, McDonald explains how to develop a cost-effective mix of grey and green infrastructure and offers targeted advice on quantifying the benefits. Written by one of The Nature Conservancy's lead scientists on cities and natural infrastructure, Conservation for Cities is a book that ecologists, planners, and landscape architects will turn to again and again as they plan and implement a wide variety of projects.
Publication Date: 2015-08-13
Life Cycle Engineering of Plastics by
"This book adds much to the already evolving field of Design for Environment; but it goes far beyond most works on this subject by surrounding the central notions of life cycle assessment with a scientific body of knowledge and with a more practical slant reflecting the reality of the organizations in which product development occurs. Through a focus on plastic products, the authors show the importance of making ties between basic technical knowledge and the process of life cycle engineering. Their approach offers a practical, deliberate way to make ecologically and economically sensible decisions about product reuse and recycling and other critical dimensions of product life behavior. They demonstrate a positive approach to designing products that fits into a sustainable economy through down-to-earth cases. While the book focuses on the life cycle engineering of plastics, it is only a short step to other materials and products. Beyond contributing to the technology of life cycle engineering, this text adds to the growing body of knowledge that argues for an fundamentally new way of thinking about economic and social activity--a new paradigm for sustainable social and industrial problem solving. Industrial ecology is such a new system for thinking about and implementing sustainability that draws its core set of ideas from the ecological world. Industrial ecology brings to the surface the idea of interdependence among members of a community-- natural or economic, and notes the material cycles that are central to a stable ecosystem. The life cycle engineering framework, coupled with sound scientific knowledge of materials behavior as articulated in this book, makes a giant step towards bringing the model of industrial ecology into everyday practice." From the Preface by John R. Ehrenfeld Director, MIT Technology, Business and Environment Program Center for Technology, Policy, and Industrial Development
Publication Date: 2001-01-23
