Kategoria BISAC: Nature >> Natural Resources

Global warming is an increasing problem, tropical forests are being wiped out and major upper watersheds are being degraded. Using insights provided by environmentalism, ecology and thermo-dynamics, this book first published in 1989 outlines an economic approach to the use of natural resources and particularly to the problem of environmental degradation. Edward Barbier reviews and critiques the long past of environmental and resource economics and then goes on to elaborate an economics which allows us to develop alternative strategies for dealing with the problems faced. With examples...

Part one is an introductory section which reviews the social and economic value of coal, emissions from coal utilisation, the handling, impact and utilisation of coal waste, and an...

The efficient use of natural resources is key to a sustainable economy, and yet the complexities of resource efficiency have not previously been studied in great depth. In this this challenging book, the author proposes a major advance in our understanding of this topic by analysing resource efficiency from the perspective of common pool resources, particularly "the commons" of water resources and its use in irrigated agriculture.

He proposes a novel concept of "the paracommons," through which the savings of increased resource efficiency can be viewed. By recycling, economising and...

This book is about the 'how' of desertification control as opposed to an analysis of the 'why' and fills a gap in the desertification-related literature in that it shows what to do in situations ranging from fixing mobile sands to arresting accelerated soil erosion in sloping lands. There are numerous illustrations to show the successful techniques.
This compilation demonstrates that desertification and land degradation can be controlled and reversed with existing techniques in such widely varying environments as the Sahel of Africa to Sri Lanka and the Philippines in SE Asia, from...

All life on earth is dependent on energy from the sun, but one species has evolved to be especially efficient in tapping that supply. This is the story of the human species and its dedicated effort to sustain and elevate itself by making the earth's stores of energy its own. A story of slow evolutionary change and sharp revolutionary departures, it takes readers from the origins of the species to our current fork in the road.

With a winning blend of wit and insight, Alfred W. Crosby reveals the fundamental ways in which humans have transformed the world and themselves in their quest...