Product Description
This book asks an important question: Can we simply accelerate growth under the assumption that increased prosperity and new technologies will allow us to reverse environmental damage? Or do we need to transform our modes of living radically to maintain the health of the world around us? ... Read more

Product Description
The book focuses on the negotiation process leading up to thecreation of the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) and the domesticimplementation of this international agreement. This political sciencestudy of the negotiation process applies several perspectives drawnfrom international relations theories, while also focusing on theimplementation of international environmental agreements in adeveloping country. Moreover, the links between factors atinternational and domestic levels are examined, with four proposedmechanisms through which an international institution may affectdomestic policies. Evidence is found that the CBD has had a beneficialimpact on national biodiversity policies in the country studied, butthat necessary compatible legislation is absent in developed countryparties. Readership: Policy makers, decision makers, politicalscientists, lawyers and environmentalists engaged in developmentassistance work, and academics and industrialists involved in thebiotechnology industry. ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description
Includes essays by Nobel Laureate Dr. Norman E. Borlaug and other noted scientists and scholars
The modern environmental movement began with the publication of three seminal works, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, Paul Ehrlich's The Population Bomb, and the Club of Rome's The Limits to Growth. These books' dismal visions of a poisoned, over-populated, resource-depleted world spiraling down toward environmental collapse are today's conventional wisdom. And every year we hear about new "conclusive" reports from special interest groups claiming that our atmosphere's temperatures are soaring, our air and water are more polluted, our cities are more crowded, and our global food supply is more precarious than ever before. However, according to a number of leading scientists from around the world, members of the environmental movement are guilty of twisting—sometimes manufacturing—the facts in an effort to frighten people into joining their cause.
In this eye-opening book, some of the most respected researchers in the country explode the myths behind much of the doom and gloom of today's environmental movement. You will discover how the hysteria about global warming, overpopulation, mass extinctions, imminent famines, biotechnology, energy shortages, and more are grounded not in reason but in false science and a fear of progress. When placed beside the overwhelming facts, some of the most pervasive eco-myths crumble, including:
Myth:
Antarctica is melting due to global warming—threatening to raise ocean levels
Fact:
Antarctica has been cooling—and its glaciers thickening—for the past 30 years
Myth:
The global population is growing faster than our ability to produce food
Fact:
Global fertility rates are falling dramatically, and with advanced technology, farmers are producing more food using fewer resources than ever before
Myth:
Solar- and wind-powered generators are a renewable, efficient, and less intrusive alternative to gas-, oil-, and coal-burning generators
Fact:
Global fossil fuel supplies are in no near-term danger of being depleted, and a single 555-megawatt natural gas power plant produces more electricity than 13,000 windmills
Myth:
Modern pesticides and fertilizers are increasing the rates of cancer in humans
Fact:
No study has ever shown that anyone has developed cancer from the legal application of pesticides, and environmental pollution accounts for at most 2 percent of all cancer cases versus 30 percent caused by tobacco use
And many more
Ultimately, this book shows that uniting much of the environmental movement is an agenda that is not so much anti-pollution as it is anti-human. Global Warming and Other Eco-Myths lays out the true state of the planet, which, as you'll discover, is more healthy, vibrant, and clean than ideologically motivated environmentalists want you to believe. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (47)

A good choice to learn
I read this good book, here in Brazil. I'm an agronomist and I like to read books.
In more than 350 pages, this book has many excellent parts. I'll give you ten examples of these excellent parts:
1-On Page 24:"The five most significant droughts in the past 2,000 years all occurred prior to 1600."
2-On page 42:"One of the last major land frontiers are the vast acid-soils areas found in the Brazilian cerrado and llanos of Colombia and Venezuela, central and southern Africa, and Indonesia."
3-Page 51:"Despite the formidable opposition by many ideological environmentalists to transgenic crops, commercial adoption by farmers of the new varieties has been one of the most rapid cases of technology diffusion in the history of agriculture. Between 1996 and 2001, the are planted commercially to transgenic crops has increased 30-fold(Table 2.9)."
4-Page 78:"The vision of the link between rapid opulation growth and political destablization, however, is sometimes undercut by the very evidence to support it. Take Gore's aforementioned attribution of the carnage in the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s to rapid population growth. The problem with the argument is that the former Yugoslavia was characterized by especially rapid rates of population growth nor by particularly high levels of fertility."
5-Page 115:"Economic development and free markets are the keys to increasing energy efficiency. In 1986, a few years before the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the United States and the other developed countries used less than half the amount of energy per dollar of GDP that the socialist economies used. Communist North Korea uses roughly three times as much energy to produce a dollar of output as South Korea does."
6-Page 133:"It is not the natural resources, but good ideas that developing countries lack."
7-Page 206:"What is too often overlooked by antibiotech activists, however, is the fact that bioengeneered crop varieties have substancial positive impacts on the environment."
8-Page 223:"Thus on a global scale, renewable water supplies exceed demand by a factor of about 12.Not purifying water can be disastrous. In 1991, failure to chlorinate drinking water supplies in Peru contributed to a massive outbreak of cholera that infected more than 300,000, killing several thousand. "
9-Page 288:"As two malaria researchers observe,:"DDT has saved countless millions of lifes, while Greenpeace struggles to find some evidence that it harms mankind."
10-Page 336:"Agricultural production has consistently outpaced population growth over the past 30 years."
Even with so many excellent parts, I can't give five stars for this book, because of some minor mistakes:
1-Page 44 has a mistake about Brazilian company Embrapa.
2-Page 137 has a mistake about Bengal famine.Maoist and Chinese famine between 1958 and 1964 was the biggest in world's history.
3-Pages 245 and 262 have a mistake about hydrogen.
4-Page 336 has a mistake about crops in the former USSR. The author takes as trues the ghost-crops in the former USSR.
These mistakes are combined less than one page, in a book with more than 350. This book is a good choice to learn about ecology, global warming, malthusian believes,etc. Please, I'm an agronomist, but this book is for anyone, including yourself.

Old and dated,isn't consistant with author's own currents beliefs
Facts and science on this topic are moving and advancing so fast Please don't read old books to learn about Global warming!!!
Words from the same author 3 years later in 2005. Quote:["People who have doubted predictions of catastrophic global warming (and that includes me) have long cited the satellite data series derived by climatologists John Christy and Roy Spencer at the University of Alabama Huntsville (UAH). That data set showed a positive trend of 0.088 degrees centigrade per decade until recently. On a straight line extrapolation that trend implied warming of less than 1.0 degree centigrade by 2100."]

An anthology worth picking up
The good part about anthologies is that they tend to cover more ground than an author normally would on his/her own.Such serves the reader well."Global Warming and Other Eco-myths" does cover much ground in the realm of "fierce ecological advocacy," handling topics on population, natural resources, water, industrial products, and of course, global warming.There are three chapters on general policy-philosophy which go along with topic-specific chapters.

The themes which run through all parts of the book may roughly be summarized as:1.Strident environmentalism needs to be braked with logical thinking and a truthful look at actual data;2.Too many "hot" environmental topics of the past have been misunderstood at best, intentionally misleading at worst;3.Human beings are not Earth's pests; and 4. Human brains are the most powerful force for solving these largely technological problems discussed in the book.No reader will agree with everything in this work.In fact Ron Bailey, the editor, has since this book's publication changed much of his mind on the global warming part![http://www.reason.com/news/show/126851.html]

For sure it is worth your picking up this book.This reviewer purchased a copy for reference.Who know?In a decade and one-half, let's see how much of this pans out -- results are always the best judge!

Global Warming for the uneducated
I think books like this are dangerous and to those who insist we ignore global warming problems I just want to ask you to answer this one question: What if we continue to ignore this crisis and you are wrong. What then ???? If we do indeed choose to continue to ignore these issues and you happen to be wrong then it will be too late to do anything about them. As a result we all need to do our part and play the safe side which is to assume there is a big global warming problem and do what we can to protect the environment at any cost as we only have one environment people and noone should have the power to dictate that we ignore this crisis.

October 23, 2007 in San Diego
As I write this review, I'm watching TV coverage of a fire -- 13 fires actually -- that has destroyed already more than 1000 homes in Southern California, killed at least two and severely burned dozens more, and destroyed well over 100,000 acres of landscape. The fire has been fueled and spread by Santa Ana winds of up to 100 miles per hour. The whole event is precisely what the environmentalists and climatologists, demonized by this fraudulent book, would predict and have predicted.
Wake up, ideologues! Don't burn your copies of Ayn Rand and Ann Coulter; that would merely add to the carbon load, which by the way has just been measured by Australian climatologists as HIGHER than expected right now, at the same time that the ability of the ocean to dissolve and keep CO2 in solution is testing LOWER than expected. There is no eco-myth. There is only self-serving petro-fraud and libertarian tomfoolery. At this point, denying the probable consequences of rapid anthropogenic climate change is an act of social irresponsibility verging on a crime against humanity, especially the humanity fo our children.
There is little in this book that hasn't been covered in similar manifestos of denial, such as the PIGuide to Global Warming. Don't be deceived; this is a political tract, not a book of balanced science. However, if you want to approach the problem reasonably, you might take a look at "Kicking the Carbon Habit" by William Sweet, or "Global Warming: a Very Short Introduction" by Mark Maslin. ... Read more

Product Description

Environmentalism and social sciences appear to be in a period of disorientation and perhaps transition. In this innovative collection, leading international thinkers explore the notion that one explanation for the current malaise of the “politics of ecology” is that we increasingly find ourselves negotiating “technonatural” space/times. International contributors map the political ecologies of our technonatural present and indicate possible paths for technonatural futures.

Product Description
Rethinking Green Politics offers a wide-ranging overview and critical analysis of the theoretical framework that underpins the values, principles and concerns of contemporary green politics and the appropriate institutional means for realizing green ends.

In challenging the ecocentric and anarchistic traits of much green political ideology, John Barry argues for a new theory-based conceptualization of green moral and political theory and practice. He develops an immanent critique of `deep' and `shallow' green thought, ecologism and environmentalism, and in this way reconstructs green political theory.

Explaining and examining existing models of thinking and providing new insights, this text will be essential reading for all students of green and environmental politics who wish to develop a deeper understanding of green political theory and to consider the possibility of a green and sustainable democratic society.

Product Description
Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Environmental Challenges in the Mediterranean 2000-2050, held in Madrid, Spain from October 2-5, 2002. ... Read more

Product Description

State and Provincial Parks are represented as inherently natural places set apart from the disorder of everyday life, places that are intrinsically 'wild' and must be protected. Yet, in order to experience the naturalness and freedom of the parks, we must embrace the very forms of regulation that we closely associate with places we consider to be artificial, restrictive, and alienating.

Drawing on a wide range of documents used to govern park jurisdictions, Joseph Hermer explores the character and consequences of the contradiction posed by the 'regulated Eden' of park destinations. Central to his analysis of parks as historically specific sites of governance is the notion of 'emparkment,' the practises and discourses that manufacture wildness and nature through specific forms of spatial and temporal regulation.

Using theoretical literature from the sociology of law and cultural geography, Hermer argues that emparkment order is driven primarily through discourses of both personal and environmental risk and results in an interdependency that generates powerful moralizing effects. He suggests that the mode of power constituted by emparkment is a mirror not only of how nature is configured in an era of environmental toxification, but also of how the experience of freedom itself is constructed in a society frequently characterized as repressive. Challenging us to re-think the place we have given to 'nature' in the protection of ecologically valuable landscapes, Hermer urges us to consider,too,the forms by which we govern ourselves in the moral order of daily life. ... Read more

Product Description
Political ecology has developed as an academic discipline in reaction to the increased concern of nations and individuals about humanity's adverse impact on the environment and the ways international bodies have moved to counter this impact. This new text draws together international experts at the cutting edge of this new field to focus on real world examples of problems and the tension between developed and developing states. ... Read more

Product Description
The participation of citizens and other stakeholders is increasingly important for policy making in sustainability and environmental development. The contributors to this book examine methods for facilitating public participation on local and international levels. Policy makers must consider a complex network of social and natural interactions. The study suggests consultation procedures integrating technical scientific modelling with democratic decision-making processes. ... Read more

Product Description
What are the challenges facing public interest groups as a result of their transformation from the small, grassroots groups of the 1960s into the large, professionalized, multi-billion dollar industry of the ´90s? How might public interest groups meet these challenges as they move into the next century? Focusing on national environmental organizations, including Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation, The Wilderness Society, and Environmental Defense Fund, Voices and Echoes for the Environment demonstrates how the demands of organizational maintenance encroach on the goal of effective policy influence. ... Read more

Product Description
Traditional transport planning has generated transport systems that propagate an unfair distribution of accessibility and have environmental and safety issues. This book highlights the importance of social and political aspects of transport policy and provides a methodology to support this approach. It emphasizes the importance of coordinating urban transport and traffic planning, and addresses the major challenge of modifying the building and use of roads. The author makes valuable suggestions for innovative and radical new measures towards an equitable and sustainable urban environment. ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description
The first edition of Life and Death Matters was a breakthrough text, centralizing the experiences of those on the front lines of environmental crises and forging new paradigms for understanding how crises emerge and how different groups of actors respond to them. This second edition, fully updated with both expanded and new chapters, once again provides a benchmark for the field and opens important pathways for further research. Authors reassess the state of scholarship and grassroots activism in a new century when social and environmental systems are being reconceptualised within post-9/11 security and biosecurity frameworks, when global warming and resource scarcity are not fears but realities, when global power and politics are being realigned, and when ecocide, ethnocide, and genocide are daily tragedies. This bold new edition of Life and Death Matters will be a widely used textbook and essential reading for students, scholars, and policy makers. ... Read more

Product Description
Given China's current and potential impacts on the global environment and the contributions Chinese science can make to global change research, China's full participation in international research programs dealing with global change is very important. This book provides insights into how research priorities are determined and detailed information about institutional infrastructure, human resources, and other factors that will constrain or facilitate Chinese responses to and research on global change issues. An overview of research relevant to the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program and the World Climate Research Program is presented. Additionally, research in certain areas of atmospheric chemistry and physical and ecological interactions of the atmosphere and land surface are explored in further detail. ... Read more

Product Description
A question that 21st century politicians and policy makers must answer is whether the diversity of species that existed before mankind will be preserved or succumb to the self-interests and power of policymakers. Is there global ecological apathy or can we transcend national political boundaries to protect our environment? The purpose of this study is to determine if debt-for-nature swaps (DNS) are a viable option in saving species and ecosystems. A review of 24 completed DNS between 1988-2004 by World Wildlife, The Nature Conservancy and Conservation International were reviewed. The countries involved: Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Jamaica, Madagascar, Panama, Peru and Philippines were selected as they represent a cross section geographically. The amount of debt varied from $119,000 to $19,000.000 (US dollars). The NGO?s pay off a portion of the foreign debt at a discount and the money saved is invested in environmental preservation. The country involved retains sovereignty of the ecological project. Man needs to learn how to coexist with the various ecosystems that were here before mankind, and how to preserve the biodiversity for generations yet to come. ... Read more

Product Description
In 1990, shortly after a Malaysian politician announced that the boundaries of Kinabalu Park, a primary tourist destination, were to be expanded to include the species-rich tropical forest known locally as Bukit Hempuen, most of the area was burned to the ground, allegedly by local people. What would motivate the people who had for generations hunted and gathered forest products there to act so destructively?

In this volume, Amity Doolittle illuminates this and other contemporary land-use issues by examining how resources were used historically in Sabah from 1881 to 1996 and what customary rights of access to land and resources were enjoyed by local people. Drawing upon anthropology, political science, environmental history, and political ecology, she looks at how control over and access to resources have been defined, negotiated, and contested by colonial state agents, the postcolonial Malaysian state, and local people.

The study is grounded in methodological and theoretical advances in the field of political ecology, merging the traditions of human ecology and political economy and looking at environmental conflicts in terms of the particulars of place, culture, and history. Doolittle assumes that environmental problems have causes that are complex and changing and that solutions must be specific to time and place. Using a political ecology perspective allows her to focus on the root causes of environmental degradation, exposing the underlying political, economic, and social forces at work. The challenge in the twenty-first century, she writes, is to move beyond blaming local people for resource degradation and to find ways to achieve equitable access to natural resources and more sustainable land use practices.

Property and Politics in Sabah, Malaysia has great relevance to development studies, political ecology, environmental planning, anthropology, and legal studies in natural resource management. ... Read more