Venice Against the Sea: A City Besieged

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"Venice is in trouble," writes John Keahey. The city is sinking into the sea. It has lost six feet over the last millennium and soon will lose more. The problem has become so bad that hotel concierges routinely distribute rubber boots to guests, and tourists cross historic squares on elevated boardwalks. Long-time residents flee not only the rising water, but also the rising cost-of- living and the rising industrial pollution. Venice, according to Keahey, "is evolving into a crumbling museum." Once, of course, it was an economic powerhouse with global reach; later it became the repository of some of the finest art and architecture in the world. Now it's sinking, largely due to the remorseless facts of geography, but also because the city's residents have abused their underground water resources. In Venice Against the Sea, Keahey offers a detailed description of what's gone wrong--and explores how the city might be saved, at least temporarily, through innovative engineering. This is a book anybody who has fallen in love with Venice will want to read, yet it issues a stark warning for people in coastal cities all over the world. If sea levels continue to rise, Venice's bleak fate may also be their own. --John Miller

Book Description

Venice is sinking - six feet over the past 1,000 years.The reasons for this are many.Although there is a natural geologic tendency for some sinking, humans have exacerbated the problem by exploiting on a massive scale underground water resources for industrial purposes.Coupled with these events - and perhaps most significant - are climatic changes all over the globe.The heating of the atmosphere after the last ice age, dramatically speeded up by humans, has led to a steady, continuing rise in sea level.This global warming is likely to persist beyond human control for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.Venetians, other Italians, and many in the world community are locked in debate over Venice's plight. Venice Against the Sea explains how the city and its 177 canals were built and what has led up to this long-foreseen crisis.It explores the various options currently being considered for "solving" this problem and chronicles the ongoing debate among scientists, engineers, and politicians about the pros and cons of each potential solution.Through extensive research and interviews, award-winning journalist John Keahey has written the definitive book on this fascinating problem. No matter what the experts decide to do, one thing is for certain - Venice's art, its buildings, and its history are too important to the planet's cultural identity to let it slip beneath the rising waters of the Adriatic.AUTHORBIO: John Keahey, a veteran newspaper journalist, is an Idaho native raised in Nampa, Idaho. He has degrees from the University of Utah, and lives in Salt Lake City with his wife, book designer Connie Disney.He is also the author of A Sweet and Glorious Land.

Customer Reviews:

Very good, gets a little technical towards the end.......2002-07-24

The first three-quarters+ of the book is excellent. It provides a good overview of Venetian history and explains how/why the city is essentially sinking. The author then gets into a TREMENDOUS amount of depth (no pun intended) concerning funding for a proposed gate project, various changes of Italian government, etc.-- probably more than you need to know, certainly more than I needed. Overall, though, the book was very good, even for someone who knows Venice as well as I do.

The Green Skyscraper: The Basis for Designing Sustainable Intensive Buildings

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a hollistic approach ...
a hollistic approach ...

The Green Skyscraper: The Basis for Designing Sustainable Intensive Buildings
Ken Yeang
Manufacturer: Prestel
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Binding: Paperback

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Reinventing the Skyscraper: A Vertical Theory of Urban Design

ASIN: 3791319930

Customer Reviews:

a hollistic approach ..........2000-03-26

Designing the green skyscrapter do not begin with 1 : 100 scale drawing. But we have to consider all the environmental factors that affect the building.

I think that's the reason why this book contains basic theory of green building, environmental aspects that become an important factor in designing green skyscrapter rather than the skyscrapter itself.

In this book Yeang convincingly described in a hollistic approach, from the basic theory with doubtless reason, the environmental factors and its application in the building with example of his Tokyo-Nara building.

Indeed, this is not an 'easy reading' book. But understanding all the factors is important, not only about the separate issue to ensure the main goal, designing 'true' green skyscrapter as Yeang explained here.

After all, this book is a valuabe resources for those who interest in this field.

a hollistic approach ..........2000-03-26

Designing the green skyscrapter do not begin with 1 : 100 scale drawing. But we have to consider all the environmental factors that affect the building.

Indeed, this is not an 'easy reading' book. But to understanding all the factors is important, not only about the separate issue to ensure the main goal, designing 'true' green skyscrapter as Yeang explained here.

Book Description

China's spectacular economic growth over the past two decades has dramatically depleted the country's natural resources and produced skyrocketing rates of pollution. Environmental degradation in China has also contributed to significant public health problems, mass migration, economic loss, and social unrest. In The River Runs Black, Elizabeth C. Economy examines China's growing environmental crisis and its implications for the country's future development.

Drawing on historical research, case studies, and interviews with officials, scholars, and activists in China, Economy traces the economic and political roots of China's environmental challenge and the evolution of the leadership's response. She argues that China's current approach to environmental protection mirrors the one embraced for economic development: devolving authority to local officials, opening the door to private actors, and inviting participation from the international community, while retaining only weak central control. The result has been a patchwork of environmental protection in which a few wealthy regions with strong leaders and international ties improve their local environments, while most of the country continues to deteriorate, sometimes suffering irrevocable damage. Economy compares China's response with the experience of other societies and sketches out several possible futures for the country.

Customer Reviews:

A bloated and dry dissertation.......2007-08-03

This reads like research paper and lacks personality. Feels like Elizabeth wrote this 3rd person without any firsthand experience of China.

Good policy study.......2007-02-17

Previous reviewers have said good things about this book, and I can only agree. It is notably superior to other recent books about the Chinese environment, which (though often scholarly) are long on polemics and short on comprehensive vision.
Dr. Economy focuses on politics and policies. These have been notoriously awful under Communism, but there is now a realization of the damage being done, and thus some hope. Dr. Economy is as optimistic as one could reasonably be. Incidentally, interested readers should also look up her very fine chapter in Kristen Day's worthy edited volume CHINA'S ENVIRONMENT AND THE CHALLENGE OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT.
I am not so optimistic. One reason is that my training is more in biology, and I am aware that the devastating damage China has done to its environment will not be clear for 50 to 100 years. It takes that long for pollution and environmental degradation to show themselves fully.
As Dr. Economy says, China wanted to be "first rich, then clean" (that's the literal Chinese; she actually phrases it more academically). They thought that the west had done this. No, the west started conservation and scientific management long ago. The United States' golden age of conservation was under Theodore Roosevelt, when the US was still poor and rural. The US and western Europe never allowed anything close to what China has done. There was much degradation, but reaction always came eventually. China, like all Communist-led countries, missed this lesson. Marx had spoken: production is all, and top-down control is the way to do it. This has led, everywhere, to dismal environmental records, though much good has come from distributing food, health care, housing, etc., more evenly (this may no longer be the case). It is now too late. The white-flag dolphin, once common and resilient, is extinct, the Three Gorges are dammed, and much else has gone beyond possibility of repair.
Dr. Economy does not draw as sharp a contrast as I would between traditional management and Communist excess. Traditional China had major Malthusian problems, but they were caused more by imperial policy than by environmental mismanagement at the riceroots level. The peasants and workers created a system based on harmony and balance. The system was full of problems, and never got as harmonious as we would now wish, but it worked; it kept hundreds of millions of people alive in spite of a premodern technology, and it managed the key resources--topsoil, water, forests, and so on--sustainably enough that there was quite a bit left by 1950. Recent books trashing the old system have titles significantly featuring elephants and tigers instead of people. Even if you prefer the charismatic megafauna, note that China had some elephants and a lot of tigers in 1950.
So a flawed, antiquated, underproductive, but still well-designed and eminently functional system was sacrificed, and the result has been a royal mess. Yields of food are way up, thanks to modern technology (some of it developed in China by the Communists--to their credit), but the future is cloudy indeed.
If you want the best account of what can be done and what is being done, look no further than this book.

China's burgeoning environmental crisis.......2005-10-22

"The River Runs Black" by Elizabeth C. Economy is an intelligent analysis of contemporary China and its burgeoning environmental crisis. This engaging book helps us understand how globalization is reshaping China and issues an urgent plea for international cooperation to help monitor and rectify an increasingly worrysome situation.

Ms. Economy tells us how China's environment has been steadily deteriorating over the past centuries due to wars, political power struggles and overpopulation. However, today's problems
are attributable to specific policy decisions by China's government that has favored rapid economic development through engagement with the international business community. Unfortunately, the particular kinds of economic development favored by China's rulers has led to myriad environmental problems including deforestation, desertification, and air and water pollution. The collusion of local government and business interests has made it difficult to obtain reliable data or to implement solutions where it is feared that plant shutdowns might
result in mass unemployment and social unrest, making difficult problems seem untractable.

Environmental consciousness in China has increased as the problems have become more visible and as the country has engaged with the world economy. Ms. Economy profiles some of the courageous and inspirational individuals who have struggled for conservation, urban renewal and grass-roots democracy such as Tang Xiyang, He Bochuan, Dai Qing and others. While environmentalists have achieved some successes (such as protecting endangered species of monkeys and antelopes), the author believes that the government's championing of highly destructive projects such as the Three Gorges Dam proves that much more needs to be done.

Ms. Economy recounts the experiences of the former Communist nations of Eastern Europe to gain insight into how China might resolve its environmental problems. The Chernobyl disaster catalyzed local environmental groups into pushing for political reforms that brought down the Communists in the USSR and elsewhere. Recognizing that China's Communist Party is a "patronage machine committed to rapid economic development" and devoid of any ideological purpose other than self-perpetuation, Ms. Economy believes that increasing democratization in China could easily undermine the country's single Party system. Of course, China's leaders are keenly aware of this threat and consequently have tightly circumscribed the activities of environmental organizations, but the author is hopeful that the contradictions between increasing environmental degradation and the lack of a meaningful democracy will eventually force China's political system to change.

In the last section, Ms. Economy speculates about the manner in which China may develop in the future. The author envisions three possible scenarios: China goes green; inertia sets in; and environmental meltdown. Ms. Economy thinks that the U.S. should take the lead in encouraging China to develop its regulatory system and implement green technologies so that the country can embark on an environmentally sustainable path. Indeed, the unpredictable consequences of a Chinese environmental meltdown should give the international community pause to consider how it might help China -- and by extension all of us -- to avoid a worse case scenario.

I highly recommend this superbly written book to everyone.

powerful, well documented.......2005-09-23

Not an easy read, but one that many Americans probably should...it demonstrates well how our life styles here in the US increases demand for cheap consumer goods, resulting in corporations poisoning other parts of the planet to supply them quickly and without major expense to us.

Incredibly sickening injury to the planet is well documented and presented in a professional way, and the book is very readable.

Recommended for all of those who need a greater repetoire of evidence that we are rather quickly destroying the planet, and as a means of strengthening arguments against "globalization" and consumerism.

A Great Perspective for Everyone!.......2004-07-09

For anyone with even a hint of environmental concern, this book provides a great look at what can and will go wrong. The problems in China outlined here teach us first hand that if economic and technologic advancement go unchecked, the cost will be the environment, and we will all pay. A copy of Dr. Economy's book should be sent to all current politicians and policy makers so that history is not repeated, in the US, or anywhere in the world, and that immediate steps be taken to reverse all environmental insults that are taking place. I really enjoyed this excellent political and economic commentary in which myself, as a common reader, can appreciate the importance of environmental salvation. Let's learn from this author's teachings.

The Vulnerable Planet: A Short Economic History of the Environment (Cornerstone Books (New York, N.Y.).)

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A sound framework for understaning environmental degradation
Slender but potent

The Vulnerable Planet: A Short Economic History of the Environment (Cornerstone Books (New York, N.Y.).)
John Bellamy Foster
Manufacturer: Monthly Review Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 158367019X
Release Date: 1999-09-01

Customer Reviews:

A sound framework for understaning environmental degradation.......2001-06-30

There's a lot of information out there about the destruction of the planet, but an understanding of where it comes from is harder to come by. Vulnerable Planet is a very useful starting point. Using historical materialism to trace the roots of environmental degradation, Foster breaks down some of the key debates, showing that it is not over-population, industrial production or humanity in of itself that is the problem. Rather the way that production and distribution are organized under capitalism that consistently puts the drive for profit above environmental sustainability. This book is short, but packed with information, statistics, and crucially a sound political framework from which to understand both the roots and the solution to the problem.

Slender but potent.......2000-07-29

This is a little book, but very informative, although some may be put off by its Marxist point of view. Environmental destruction, as Foster shows, is as old as humankind. Nevertheless destruction of the natural world has increased at an astonishing rate during modern times making ours a very vulnerable planet. Foster links this increase to a specific social system, capitalism, instead of industrialism in general as many other critics do. This is a thought-provoking connection to make, since our media is usually silent on this topic. According to Foster (and Marx), it seems our system, capitalism, has an inborn need to turn everything it can into a saleable commodity in order to make money. Moreover it has to keep expanding commodities into ever new fields in order to return profits on money already invested. Like Topsy, then, the laws of its development tell it to either grow or die. Thus, when venture capitalists look at nature, they don't see what is living there; they see limitless raw material to be processed and sold, and if they don't do it, some competitor will. It is this relentless engine of development and destruction that has made the planet vulnerable. Thus Foster blames the problem on the way our economy operates, and not on technology in general. Critics should examine his arguments.

A couple of other subjects Foster discusses are worthy of review, given how they are usually talked about. On the topic of population and poverty, Malthus, an 18th century clergyman, famously blames poverty on the poor. The poor keep having kids when they shouldn't, he argues, which is why there are more hungry mouths to feed than food to feed them. So, the lesson is don't feed them, they'll just have more kids. Being a parson and a kind of Newt Gingrich of his time, he would leave the wretched to the mercies of God. On the other hand, Foster (and Marx) take an historical perspective on overpopulation. Capital must have the poor, because wage levels depend on having an excessive number of poor people around. Employers need them as so-called replacement workers, should their own employees strike for higher wages. Without that threat, wages would rise and employers would lose money. The poor are not God's creation, they are man's. (Considering how our chief cental banker Alan Greenspan acts by encouraging unemployment, Foster's approach makes sense.) Ecology is another important part of our planet's mounting crisis. In making his case that our economic system is the main cause of the problem, Foster discusses Barry Commoner's four informal laws of capitalist ecology. They are worth mentioning. 1) Only the cash nexus (money) is lasting; 2) Waste can go anywhere as long as it's out of the capitalist loop; 3) The free market knows best: 4) nature is the possession of the private property owner. Together these provisions make up capital's marching orders in its assault on nature. Provision #3 seems particularly destructive since it replaces the complex web of millions of years of natural evolution with profit-driven human decision. Moreover, these provisions pretty much describe how big corporations act in the real world.

Anyway, friends will find ammunition; foes will find points to ponder; and the appropriately curious will be rewarded. Foster's is a suppressed voice that really needs to be heard.

Human Frontiers, Environments and Disease

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Will the mental health of humans 'born of the Pleistocene' be our downfall?
Thought provoking
This book sets the agenda for the 21st century
Ecology - human, animal, vegetable and planetary

Human Frontiers, Environments and Disease
Tony McMichael
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
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ASIN: 0521004942

Book Description

Charting the relentless trajectory of humankind across time and geography, Tony McMichael highlights the changing survival patterns of our ancient ancestors, who roamed the African savannahs several million years ago, to today's populous, industrialized, and globalized world. McMichael explores the changes in human biology, culture, and surrounding environments that have influenced patterns of health and disease over the course of humankind's history, arguing that the health of populations is primarily a product of the interaction of human societies with the wider environment, its various ecosystems, and other life-support processes. Tony McMichael is professor of epidemiology, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He has held positions in Australia, USA, and UK, and has taught widely in Asia, Africa, and Europe. He has advised WHO, UNEP, the World Bank and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on public health issues. His previous book, Planetary Overload (Cambridge University Press, 1993) was a widely acclaimed and influential account of global environmental change and the health of the human species.

Download Description

This compelling account charts the relentless trajectory of humankind, and its changing survival and disease patterns, across place and time from when our ancient ancestors roamed the African Savannah to today's populous, industrialised, globalising world. This expansion of human frontiers - geographic, climatic, cultural and technological - has encountered frequent setbacks from disease, famine and dwindling resources. The social and environmental transformations wrought by agrarianism, industrialisation, fertility control, social modernisation, urbanisation and mass consumption have profoundly affected patterns of health and disease. Today, as life expectancies rise, the planet's ecosystems are being damaged by the combined weight of population size and intensive economic activity. Global warming, stratospheric ozone depletion and loss of biodiversity pose large-scale hazards to human health and survival. Recognising this, can we achieve a transition to sustainability? This and other profound questions underlie this chronicle of expansive human activity, social change, environmental impact and their health consequences.

Customer Reviews:

Will the mental health of humans 'born of the Pleistocene' be our downfall?.......2006-11-22

While the author does mention the issue of mental health in relationship to our wacked-out species within the planet's growing urban population, I think he misses an opportunity to consider the obvious that the human ecologist Paul Shepard covered in his book NATURE AND MANDESS: our species developed into what it is biologically and psychologically in the Pleistocene. When that 'world' ended thousands of years ago, our species--in the blink of eye evolutionarily speaking--was not equipped in its brain to deal with the changes. The birhrate, and humane methods of raising children changed over night as well. Shepard seems to argue that we literally went 'nuts' as a result (agriculture, wars, walled chaotic cities, shorter life spans of dubious quality during the rise of ag, psychotic leaders, strange other-worldly monotheistic religious-belief systems, George Bush..need I go on?)
I bring up Shepard because this author is aware of his work. McMichael says on page 21: "We can thus understand, says Shepard, the inner human needs for contact with wilderness, with animal species, and with symbolic place. To depart from the conditions, the rhythms, and the interdependence of the natural world is both to stunt our own human essence and to risk damaging the environment's support systems."

Here is the health/environment connection that McMichael only alludes to but which may end up being THE most critical:
Our species--now alomost completely devoid of ANY connection to a rapidly disappearing natural environment--, and which is now rapidly cramming itself into urban slums when it's not waging wars,(See Davis, Planet of Slums), has virtually gone crazy, will continue to get crazier, and because of such large-scale 'mental illness' if you will, has little hope of gettig the 'treatment' Shepard called for in his book.

The prescriptions and predictions in McMichael's book are no more or less than what one finds in other recent evironmental books (i.e., will we use our brains and survive, or use our brains to kill ourselves?) Perhaps the question is more accurately: can a neurotic species like man ever regain its mental health in time to save a dying planet?

Thought provoking.......2005-01-28

I have read this book twice - not because I found it difficult to read but because it contains so many layers of knowledge that you can think about once and again. What the book gave me was an understanding of the current ecological global situation and its implications for health, but also many "cognitive tools" to increase my understanding of the science behind the facts.

This book sets the agenda for the 21st century.......2001-12-31

McMichael's synthesis is the evolutionary synthesis and he is ruthless in his rigour. People are humans ... are Homo sapiens ... are one of the primates ... one of the animals ... one of the planet's living species. By any objective criteria humans have reached plague proportions and our future is bleak.

McMichael takes Darwin's theory of natural selection, with its three elements, variation, competition and differential reproductive success and extends Darwin's approach using the more recent ideas of self-organizing complexity and of emergent properties.

He considers the way humans have diverged in the last 10,000 years from the pattern established over 5 million years of evolution. This diversion has (a) lead to many diseases and unhealthy conditions and (b) modified the local and global environment in ways which have clear health implications for the human species.

I do not have space here to go through his description of the diseases and conditions, so will merely list some of them and refer you to the book for an illuminating, scientific discussion of their causes, why they have become more common over the past half century and their possible treatments. Auto-immune diseases, polio, childhood asthma and hay fever, inflammatory bowel diseases such as Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, insulin-dependent (childhood onset) diabetes, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, lactose intolerance, skin cancer.

McMichael also deals with the contentious issue of genetically modified foods. This is one of the best parts of the book as it takes the non-specialist reader carefully through the underlying science and presents the pros and cons of GM. McMichael invokes the 'precautionary principle' to come down - at the present time - against GM, an unusual position for a trained scientist. His position is based solely on science, not on emotion, tradition, or any mystical notion of what is "natural".

The book also deals with the pressures human population is putting on the survival of all the other species on the planet. Here he brings up to date the work of Joel Cohen's 1995 book (How Many People Can Earth Support) and uses the 'ecological footprint' methodology to consider the number of people the planet can (a) feed, (b) supply with fresh water, (c) supply with energy, (d) support without reducing biodiversity.

His answers, of course, depend upon the consumption levels which are assumed for the population, but in almost all cases, these answers are less than the planet's present six billion people. How can this be?

There are two reasons. First because of 'ecological deficit budgeting' or, in the catchy phrase of Tim Flannery, because Homo sapiens is a 'future eater'. (See Flannery's two books The Future Eaters, and The Eternal Frontier - check my review of the latter here at amazon.com.)

Secondly because of the time lags which accompany environmental change. McMichael brings this home with the fact that, if we can halt the build-up of greenhouse gases by 2070, the world's oceans will continue to warm and expand for another thousand years! One of the key questions for our time is: Can our opinion leaders and decision makers give such unfamiliar time frames their due weight?

As a member of the International Panel on Climate Change, McMichael also has a useful presentation, explanation and discussion on global climate change. The recent fires in the US, freezing and floods in Europe and climatic records (extremes) have brought home to ordinary people, non-scientists, that something unusual is happening. This book explains why, explains how and looks into the future for the effects of climate change on human health. McMichael concludes that "It will be reasonable from here on to regard each extreme weather event as containing at least some human-induced component".

The book addresses the issue of globalization. The author paints a picture of deregulation reducing labour and environmental controls and increasing disease and social disruption in both the West and in low-income countries.

What of the future? McMichael considers far more than I can squeeze into this review, but an interesting observation concerns the importance of the way in which the tension between two evolutionarily-determined human mental attributes is played out. Humans have a long standing expertise at dealing with urgent crises, 'flight-or-fight'. But this tendency has got us to our present environmental predicament. The question is whether can we use our more recently acquired abilities for long-term planning, sophisticated scientific reasoning and information technology to rescue us from the short-termism of flight-or-fight.

The book uses brilliantly conceived and very telling graphs which are powerful examples of a picture being worth a thousand words. Each repays careful study.

Each chapter ends with a useful 2-3 page summary and conclusion. There are 36 pages of annotated bibliography, many references from 2000, even 2001.

If you'd like a taste for the fast pace of the book and the author's scientific approach, I recommend his account of Lyme disease on page 117.

Ecology - human, animal, vegetable and planetary.......2001-07-29

This is a tour de force, a brilliant, densely packed account of human evolutionary biology and ecology, setting the progress of the human race and its civilizations and cultures in the context of shifting environmental, climatic, social, cultural and ecological forces over the lifetime of our species. Tony McMichael describes and explains how we have reached the present human situation, the interplay of our species with the plants and animals that supply our food, and the microbes that often shorten our lives. In the short period since the industrial revolution we have made spectacular progress in every way imaginable, but now our own ingenuity and industries may threaten our very survivsl - we are at risk of endangering our life support systems to an extent that could harm them badly enough to raise questions about our own prospects for survival as a species. This is an important book for everyone who cares about life - our lives, and the lives of other species with which we are interdependent.

Pollution in a Promised Land: An Environmental History of Israel

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University Research Paper
The definitive text on Israel's environmental history
Engaging History of Institutions and Activism
Engaging read - Fascinating stories - a real lively book.

Pollution in a Promised Land: An Environmental History of Israel
Alon Tal
Manufacturer: University of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0520234286

Book Description

Virtually undeveloped one hundred years ago, Israel, the promised "land of milk and honey," is in ecological disarray. In this gripping book, Alon Tal provides--for the first time ever--a history of environmentalism in Israel, interviewing hundreds of experts and activists who have made it their mission to keep the country's remarkable development sustainable amid a century of political and cultural turmoil.
The modern Zionist vision began as a quest to redeem a land that bore the cumulative effects of two thousand years of foreign domination and neglect. Since then, Israel has suffered from its success. A tenfold increase in population and standard of living has polluted the air. The deserts have bloomed but groundwater has become contaminated. Urban sprawl threatens to pave over much of the country's breathtaking landscape. Yet there is hope. Tal's account considers the ecological and tactical lessons that emerge from dozens of cases of environmental mishaps, from habitat loss to river reclamation. Pollution in a Promised Land argues that the priorities and strategies of Israeli environmental advocates must address issues beyond traditional green agendas.

Customer Reviews:

University Research Paper.......2007-01-11

I recently completed a university research paper on air pollution in Israel and found this book to be an important source. The closest copy of this book was hundreds of miles away. The book was purchased and used for the paperand then donated to the university library. I found this book to be the ultimate source for information on the topic.

The definitive text on Israel's environmental history.......2002-10-05

Pollution in a Promised Land is a masterpiece of research and compilation written by the one Israeli who probably is as responsible as anyone in the country for moving the nascent Israeli environmental movement into the 21st century. If it is not already Pollution in a Promised Land is surely bound to become the text of choice for anyone interested in the development of the Israeli environmental movement in response to the environmental challenges faced by Israelis. Alon Tal has captured it all and told a very interesting story.

Engaging History of Institutions and Activism.......2002-09-10

This is an engaging book describing the economic and institutional development of the Holy Land from the time of the Turks, through the British Mandate period, to the present day. Despite the heft of this volume, the book is a very enjoyable read, and provides a fascinating perspective on the development of the institutions of the State of Israel, the priorities of the naescent state that led to environmental degredation, and the individuals, public interest groups, and government institutions that have tried and often succeeded to stem the tide.
The author, as a founding member of Israel's premier environmental legal advocacy group, has a unique, often first hand view of many of the recent events.

Engaging read - Fascinating stories - a real lively book........2002-08-05

It's really refreshing to read something about Israel that isn't focused, yet again, on the Arab-Israel conflict, but on an entirely different universe of challenges. If you like history that relies on interesting anecdotes then you'll really like this book.

Book Description

Among the most far-reaching effects of the modern environmental movement was the widespread acknowledgment that human beings were inescapably part of a larger ecosystem. With this book, Linda Nash gives us a wholly original and much longer history of "ecological" ideas of the body as that history unfolded in California's Central Valley. Taking us from nineteenth-century fears of miasmas and faith in wilderness cures to the recent era of chemical pollution and cancer clusters, Nash charts how Americans have connected their diseases to race and place as well as dirt and germs. In this account, the rise of germ theory and the pushing aside of an earlier environmental approach to illness constituted not a clear triumph of modern biomedicine but rather a brief period of modern amnesia. As Nash shows us, place-based accounts of illness re-emerged in the postwar decades, galvanizing environmental protest against smog and toxic chemicals. Carefully researched and richly conceptual, Inescapable Ecologies brings critically important insights to the histories of environment, culture, and public health, while offering a provocative commentary on the human relationship to the larger world.

Japan in the 21st Century: Environment, Economy, and Society

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At last - Glenn Trewartha work is continued

Japan in the 21st Century: Environment, Economy, and Society
Pradyumna P. Karan , and Dick Gilbreath
Manufacturer: University Press of Kentucky
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Economic Conditions | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0813191181

Book Description

The ancient civilization of Japan, with its Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples, is also closely associated with all that is new and modern. Looking outward, Japan sees what it has become since Hiroshima: the world's second-largest economy, a source of fury and wonder, a power without arms. Looking inward, Japan sees old ways shaken and new ones developing at a hectic pace.

Japan in the Twenty-first Century offers compelling insights into the current realities of the country and investigates the crucial political, economic, demographic, and environmental challenges that face the nation. A combination of text, maps, and photographs provides an essential understanding of Japan's geography, cultural heritage, demography, economic and political development, and of many other important issues.

Pradyumna P. Karan explores the obstacles and opportunities that will shape Japan and affect the world community in the coming years. He highlights strategies and policies that will facilitate economic and political change and stimulate the development of effective institutions for long-term, sustainable prosperity and economic vitality. Unique field reports drawn from direct observations of events and places in Japan illuminate Japanese traditions and sensibilities.

The first full-length English-language textbook on Japan's geography, culture, politics, and economy to appear in nearly four decades, Japan in the Twenty-first Century will be a vital resource for researchers, academics, general readers, and students of Japan.

Customer Reviews:

At last - Glenn Trewartha work is continued.......2005-01-26

This is a regional study looking at many aspects of Japan, including its physical setting, history, population, agriculture, politics, urban areas, economics, environment, and future challenges, all liberally laced with illustrative photos (B&W), maps, and diagrams. Before the publication of this book, the only comprehensive work on Japan was done by Glenn Trewartha, last published in 1965, a 1945 update. With the relevance of Japan in today's world, it's surprising that something hasn't been done sooner.

Each chapter has a valuable list of references at the end, with dates from Ellen Churchill Semple's time to modern journal articles published in 2002, which make an interesting work in itself.

99% of the photos were taken by the author, so this is more of a first hand account of what's there than a library study.

This is a good book to find out what's actually occurring in Japan and why.

Global Energy Shifts: Fostering Sustainability in a Turbulent Age

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Global Energy Shifts: Fostering Sustainability in a Turbulent Age
Bruce Podobnik
Manufacturer: Temple University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Popular Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 1592132944

Book Description

In the latter part of the nineteenth century, the citizens of Great Britain faced a formidable challenge: coal resources seemed destined to run out and commentators were unable to foresee a viable alternative fuel. To address the crisis, military strategists were urged to seize control of coal in foreign lands, and companies were encouraged to increase domestic production of the resource.

In Global Energy Shifts, Bruce Podobnik draws intriguing parallels between the "coal panics" that once swept through Britain and the "oil panics" that grip the world today. His concise history of global energy use contextualizes the coal and oil scares, demonstrating how the convergence of specific geopolitical, commercial, and social conditions can generate rapid and far-reaching transformations in the energy foundations of our world.

Book Description

The American Revolution gave birth not just to a new nation, but to a new landscape. America was paradise to its native inhabitants, while to the colonists, it was an unlimited land of opportunity, a moral and physical wilderness from which they could create paradise. Powerful people like Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton struggled to shape it to their opposing visions. Over the ensuing two hundred years, many other visions shaped the American landscape. Today, their imprints form a complex layering of messages--past and present, physical and cultural, public and private, local and national--that tell a story of many interwoven meanings. John Warfield Simpson traces this fascinating story in Visions of Paradise, providing a fresh perspective from which to understand not only our landscape but also the way we steward our environment.
Simpson describes the transformation of America from wilderness into an agrarian and suburban landscape as the nation expanded westward after the Revolution. He highlights the role of influential people in this transformation and the critical policies and programs they used to acquire, survey, and dispose of the public domain. He shows how their actions reflected changes in our traditional values that considered land as property and a commodity primarily for functional use.
This transformation in values has yielded a landscape of contradictions: It is at once a landscape of freedom and opportunity, order and disorder, permanence and transience. Ours is an egalitarian and litigated landscape shaped by reason and mobility, he argues, one that reflects our historical sense of separation from and superiority over a limitless land of endless abundance and resilience. These perceptions, he shows, have blinded us to the environmental consequences of our actions and created a people who behave as though they are temporary occupants of the land rather than residents who enjoy a deep connection to the land. That connection, he concludes, holds the key to our contemporary environmental debate.

Customer Reviews:

very wordy.......2003-03-11

The book has some good content, but the auther him-haws around. I enjoy a good book that can get to the point and drive it home. This book does not do that. It jumps around a lot and is hard to follow in places. I wouldn't recommend this book to other readers.

A Revelation.......1999-06-04

I am not a 'landscaper' in the grand or even minimal sense (tending to let my own backyard become overgrown), but I do have a layman's interest in history. Perhaps for those reasons I found 'Visions of Paradise' to be an enthralling introduction to the history of our American landscape. Simpson was able to engage my interest quickly with his obvious feeling for and sensitivity to our culture's rather short-sighted treatment of the natural landscape. As a native midwesterner I was particularly interested in his regional references but really found the entire volume to be captivating. He truly helped me to understand the national landscape as 'ours' in a collective sense. For the first time I have an informed appreciation of our land and believe that I have a role, however small, in its future. I will never be able to take a trip by car or plane in the same way again - Simpson's book has helped me understand the importance of my examining the nuances of all parts of our landscape, and being able to take a stronger position regarding its appropriate uses (even my own yard, which I am now cultivating more carefuly).

Quick, but not a light read,...........1999-06-02

..it's a great book. The personal anecdotes will speed you through a book more scholarly than it first appears. With the clean slate that North America presented the world upon it's discovery, it's amazing how well it's held up, considering all the different hands on the chalk!

Excellent landscape book.......1999-05-12

Every now and then a book comes along that evokes our experience of the landscape, books by authors such as William Least Heat-Moon, John Hanson Mitchell, Donald Meinig, John Stilgoe, or J. B. Jackson. With Visions of Paradise, John Warfield Simpson joins the group and goes beyond. He offers a wide ranging and readable description of the forces that shaped our landscape from conflicts in landscape values to public policy and law. Visions is a wonderful book filled with personal anecdotes that engage. Anyone interested in cities, suburbs and environmental stewardship hould have a copy of this handsome book

Wonderful look of USA's beginnings, transitions, and present.......1999-03-08

Mr. Simpson's book is an unparalleled look at this nation's beginnings, transitions, growing pains, and its current situation. To understand today's problems and land-use ethics, one must read this book. Through elbow grease, endless research and a fascination with the land, Mr. Simpson has created a classic that anyone involved with the land must read. On a personal note, Ohio residents will find this book particularly interesting, the development of Columbus is used as a typical example of settlement and expansion.

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