Kategoria BISAC: Nature >> Natural Resources

As domestic and worldwide petroleum reserves dwindle, America's energy situation continues to worsen. Farming for Fuel offers a major investigation into producing methanol from biomass to replace reliance on petroleum fuels. Dovring's treatment of the topic is thorough and well-reasoned. He suggests that current problems facing the U.S.--vulnerable oil imports, farm surplus production, soil erosion, and air polution--could be eradicated by methanol production on a large scale. The proposed solution, if adopted, would also bring about profound changes in the national economy, including more...

This is a study of how policy ideas, first raised as definitions of specific problems and as solutions for those problems, get translated into formal public policy. Specifically, the work tracks the making of energy and telecommunications policy, taking the reader inside the legislative policy debate involving elected officials, administrators, industry representatives, lobbyists, and citizen representatives. The author analyzes the many legislative proposals representing the preferences of the various participants which, over the course of the seven-year policy cycle seen here, illustrate...

Wilderness in National Parks casts light on the complicated relationship between the National Park Service and its policy goals of wilderness preservation and recreation. By examining the overlapping and sometimes contradictory responsibilities of the park service and the national wilderness preservation system, John C. Miles finds the National Park Service still struggling to deal with an idea that lies at the core of its mission and yet complicates that mission, nearly one hundred years into its existence.

The National Park Service's ambivalence about wilderness is traced...

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Analyzes environmental problems and policies in developing countries around the world and discusses new prospects for international cooperation and funding. Considers hard political choices, who is to blame for environmental decay, who should pay to overcome problems, and how policies should be administered. Experts from different countries offer their perspectives about the role of multilateral agencies, the North-South dimensions of environmental problems since 1972, internal and external factors that have affected Third World development, new measures and opportunities since the Rio...

Designed as a text for undergraduate and graduate level courses in Third World development, Resource Management in Developing Countries takes an interdisciplinary approach to the problem of resource management in developing countries. Focusing on Africa, James explains the reasons for the continent's declining resource base from historical, geographical, economic, and political perspectives, and illustrates the links among all these factors. He explores key resource management issues such as threats to ecological systems, water quality management and agricultural production, using...

This pioneering study explores the problems of politics and law that lie behind the growing phenomenon of NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard), a stance taken by residential property owners attempting to keep various types of facilities out of their neighborhoods. Denis J. Brion argues that the pejorative connotation that NIMBY carries is both unfortunate and unwarranted and seeks to expose the underlying problems for which NIMBY is a symptom. In particular, Brion examines the impact of siting decisions on those who will be the neighbors of a potential project and the political gridlock that so...

Unlike many who separate environmental from other social issues in their analyses of the locally unwanted land use (LULU) problem, O'Looney argues that the issues are really connected and must be addressed jointly. He frames the question this way: What is the appropriate distribution of land development rights and responsibilities overall?, then offers an answer based on Madison's conception of property and Jefferson's ideas about small-scale democracy. In doing so O'Looney examines the ideological roots of the NIMBY-LULU problem and the various zoning, land-use, and antidiscrimination...

The electric power sector operates under an archaic regulatory system that is ill-equipped to oversee a competitive, restructured, regionally-organized industry. This book offers the first systematic discourse on regional aspects of regulatory reform, sharing topical perspectives from leading actors and regional case studies that show how the debate plays out on the ground. It frames the policy debate, applies economic and political theoretical lenses to federalism issues, and outlines options for regulatory reform, modes of cooperation, and an analytical basis for decisions. Most...

Confrontation may be one way of settling environmental disputes but is there another, perhaps better, way? Stern and Hicks say yes--through the process of collaboration. They give executives the practical skills to create and sustain collaborations with environmentalists of all kinds, and environmentalists another way to work with corporations, not as foes but as partners. The book is unique in that it does not demand governmental intervention but puts faith in the disputants themselves to reach amicable, mutually agreeable solutions. Stern and Hicks give practical, tested advice from...

Wilderness in National Parks casts light on the complicated relationship between the National Park Service and its policy goals of wilderness preservation and recreation. By examining the overlapping and sometimes contradictory responsibilities of the park service and the national wilderness preservation system, John C. Miles finds the National Park Service still struggling to deal with an idea that lies at the core of its mission and yet complicates that mission, nearly one hundred years into its existence.

The National Park Service's ambivalence about wilderness is traced...

As the importance of environmental security increases worldwide, colleges and universities are evaluating how well they are preparing the next generation of environmental scientists and managers and developing new educational approaches. In this volume, we examine: (1) current educational practices and the need for change, (2) educational needs from the perspective of employers and professionals, and (3) new practices in higher education in environmental fields.

The contributors were carefully selected by an international coordinating team based on their international reputations in...

Mass tourism is one of the most striking developments in postwar western societies, involving economic, social, cultural, and anthropological factors. For many countries it has become a significant, if not the primary, source of income for the resident population. The Mediterranean basin, which has long been a very popular destination, is explored here in the first study to scrutinize the region as a whole and over a long period of time. In particular, it investigates the area's economic and social networks directly involved in tourism, which includes examining the most popular spots that...

In 2001, Kenneth Deffeyes made a grim prediction: world oil production would reach a peak within the next decade--and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it. Deffeyes's claim echoed the work of geophysicist M. King Hubbert, who in 1956 predicted that U.S. oil production would reach its highest level in the early 1970s. Though roundly criticized by oil experts and economists, Hubbert's prediction came true in 1970.

In this updated edition of Hubbert's Peak, Deffeyes explains the crisis that few now deny we are headed toward. Using geology and economics, he shows how...