Product Description

Global Change and the Earth System describes what is known about the Earth system and the impact of changes caused by humans. It considers the consequences of these changes with respect to the stability of the Earth system and the well-being of humankind; as well as exploring future paths towards Earth-system science in support of global sustainability. The results presented here are based on 10 years of research on global change by many of the world's most eminent scholars. This valuable volume achieves a new level of integration and interdisciplinarity in treating global change.

Product Description

Mountain regions occupy about a quarter of the global terrestrial land surface and provide goods and services to more than half of humanity. Global Environmental Change threatens the integrity of these systems and their ability to continue providing the goods and services upon which humanity has come to depend. This book provides an overview of the state of research in the various fields pertaining to the detection, understanding and prediction of global change impacts in mountain regions. More than 60 contributions from paleoclimatology, cryospheric research, hydrology, ecology, and research on sustainable development are compiled in this volume, and each contribution also provides an outlook on future research directions.

Product Description

Terrestrial carbon balance is uncertain at the regional and global scale. A significant source of variability in mid-latitude ecosystems is related to the timing and duration of phenological phases. Spring phenology, in particular, has disproportionate effects on the annual carbon balance. However, the traditional phenological indices that are based on leaf-out and flowering times of select indicator species are not universally amenable for predicting the temporal dynamics of ecosystem carbon and water exchange.

Phenology of Ecosystem Processes evaluates current applications of traditional phenology in carbon and H2O cycle research, as well as the potential to identify phenological signals in ecosystem processes themselves. The book summarizes recent progress in the understanding of the seasonal dynamics of ecosystem carbon and H2O fluxes, the novel use of various methods (stable isotopes, time-series, forward and inverse modeling), and the implications for remote sensing and global carbon cycle modeling.

Each chapter includes a literature review, in order to present the state-of-the-science in the field and enhance the book’s usability as an educational aid, as well as a case study to exemplify the use and applicability of various methods. Chapters that apply a specific methodology summarize the successes and challenges of particular methods for quantifying the seasonal changes in ecosystem carbon, water and energy fluxes. The book will benefit global change researchers, modelers, and advanced students.

Product Description

Tropical rainforests are disappearing due to agricultural intensification and climate change, causing irreversible losses in biodiversity and associated ecosystem functioning. Ecosystem properties and human well-being are profoundly influenced by environmental change, which is often not considered during land use intensification. Understanding these processes needs an integrated scientific approach linking ecological, economic and social perspectives at different scales, from the household and village level to landscapes and regions. The chapters in this book cover a broad range of topical research areas, from sustainable agroforestry management, climate change effects on rainforests and agroforests to integrated concepts of land use in tropical landscapes.

Product Description
This comprehensive, current examination of U.S. law as it relates to global climate change begins with a summary of the factual and scientific background of climate change based on governmental statistics and other official sources. Subsequent chapters address the international and national frameworks of climate change law, including the Kyoto Protocol, state programs affected in the absence of a mandatory federal program, issues of disclosure and corporate governance, and the insurance industry. Also covered are the legal aspects of other efforts, including voluntary programs, emissions trading programs, and carbon sequestration. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Good synopsis
Very good overview-level synopsis of the legal landscape as it shapes regulation of greenhouse gases in the U.S.Unfortunately, it was published just before the 2007 Massachusetts decision, so it does not address these implications directly.

Global warming hype meets environmental ambulance chasers
The premises of this volume rest upon the intellectual and scientific quicksand which underlies the entire phenomenon of "global warming" hysteria. Like the vast majority of those who have jumped onto the "global warming" bandwagon, the editor and contributors to this volume bring no scientific expertise to the project, being content to blindly accept the extreme hypotheses of some scientists on the federal grant gravy train and run with them. But this will make little difference to those lawyers who are looking for new avenues in which to peddle their "services," just as they sign up for the latest specialized conferences on Vioxx litigation and the like. Cap and trade, however, will provide a virtual goldmine to litigation-happy lawyers for years to come as it drives a stake into the heart of the American economy. It will, in its dire effects, constitute the most far-reaching, and totally unecessary, case of economic masochism in American history.

Nevertheless, it's astounding what a negligible increase of 0.8 degrees Celsius in the world's temperature over the past 150 years, coming at the end of the Little Ice Age, will do to fuel the collective, and collectivist, mindset among the nations and citizens of the world.These temperatures have variously risen and fallen for eons. Indeed, some of the most highly qualified climate scientists have painstakingly documented the existence of a 1,500-year climate cycle over the entire globe. In a monumental 1983 study of mile deep Greenland ice core samples by Denmark's Willi Dansgaard and Switzerland's Hans Oeschger (results confirmed a few years later on Antarctica, and by scores of proxy studies) revealed a 250,000-year world climate history which reflected the moderate climate cycles of the sun.What characterizes the present era, however, is a lot of bad science anxious to tap unlimited sources of government funding for climate research, a gullible media, quasi-religious environmental organizations, and the nefarious influence of politics upon the scientific enterprise. The fruits of that "research" include Michael Mann's now thoroughly debunked "hockey stick" representation of the most recent 1,000 years of climate history, which, nevertheless, became a prominent feature of Al Gore's global warming sideshow, and which finds naïve acceptance by the editor of this volume (see Figure 1-1). The "presentist" mindset, which interprets the current climate experience as a unique and threatening phenomenon, reveals a sorry lack of historical perspective. Most significantly, the carefully documented climate record reveals that temperatures were 2-4 degrees higher in the medieval warm period (900-1300 A.D.) than they are today, when CO2 levels are higher, and that CO2 levels are actually an 800-year lagging indicator of global warming, not a causal factor.Many of the scientists who contributed to the 1996 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) documented these findings, concluding that no such "human fingerprint" had been found in the recent global warming, but their statements were shockingly removed from Chapter 8 of the IPCC's 1996 report by U.N. bureaucrats and U.S. politicians in the Clinton administration anxious to manufacture "consensus" regarding anthropogenic global warming.This is the context in which books like the Global Climate Change and U.S. Law are produced.Regardless of the flawed presentation of the science presented in this volume, however, lawyers stand to make a good living off the complex legal and regulatory schemes detailed in this book, including the implementation of an elaborate system of emission cap and trade programs, as well as the more benign efforts to conserve energy, and develop renewable energy sources.

Building upon this flawed scientific analysis, Part I of this volume describes the national and international framework of climate change regulation, the impact of the Kyoto Protocol on U.S. business, clean air regulation, civil remedies, climate change in facility permitting, and international trade and development. Part II describes the emerging regional, state and local actions, together with a 50-state survey of state responses to climate change. Part III examines a variety of corporate actions, including disclosure issues, fiduciary duties, insurance and climate change, and subsidies, tax policy and technological innovations. Part IV examines the legal aspects of efforts to reduce greenhouse gases, such as voluntary efforts, emissions trading, and carbon sequestration. It also includes a list of important resources, a glossary of climate-related terms, a list of acronyms; endnotes, and index. Twenty-four authors contributed to this volume under the editorship of Michael Garrard, a partner in the New York office of Arnold & Porter LLP, where he heads its environmental practice group. The views of the individual authors stand alone, irrespective of the views of the other contributors.

For more authoritative and balanced views of the science of global climate, see Fred Singer and Dennis Avery's Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007); Lawrence Solomon's "The Deniers" (Richard Vigilante Books, 2008);" Iain Murray's "The Really Inconvenient Truths" (Regnery, 2008); Roy Spencer's "Climate Confusion" (Encounter Books, 2008); and Henrik Svensmark and Nigel Calder's The Chilling Stars: A New Theory of Climate Change (Icon Books, 2007), which argues that the interplay of clouds, the sun, and cosmic rays has a far more profound effect of climate than carbon dioxide.Readers are also directed to Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas' metanalysis of studies related to the existence of the climate cycle, the Medieval Warming Period, and Little Ice Age (see "Reconstructing Climatic and EnvironmentalChanges of the Past 1000 Years: A Reappraisal," Energy and Environment 14, no. 2/3 (March 2003), 233-296.They discovered 112 studies about the Medieval Warming Period, 92% of which showed evidence of warming, 124 studies from around the world addressing the existence of the Little Ice Age, 98% of these confirming the era's cooling.Finally, they examined 102 studies containing information on the question of whether the 20th century was the warmest on record, 78% of which found earlier periods lasting at least 50 years that were warmer than any period in the 20th century.

Ironically, despite all the hoopla about "global warming" or, as it isincreasingly called as temperatures have fallen, "climate change," global mean temperatures are now at roughly their 3,000-year average.

The EPA, led by Lisa Jackson and its socialist "global warming" czarina Carol Browner,has now declared carbon dioxide to be a "pollutant."This is surely the most scientifically unfounded decision and the most damaging to our economy and freedom in the history of that agency. And, if implemented, it will rank with the banning of DDT as the most deadly action every perpertated by the U.S. government on the world's poor.But that won't stand in the way of thousands of lawyers trying to make a buck off their, and our, misery.

**Since this review was written, the so-called "Climategate" scandal has implicated the Hadley Centre's Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in the UK, a leading source for the U.N.'s climate data, in an orchestrated effort to fudge climate data and impugn the integrity and publication efforts of those who fail to toe the alarmist line.Among those exposed by more than a thousand e-mails were the Center's director Phil Jones, and Michael Mann, author of the infamoushockey stick graph.As a result of the fallout, many scientists have admitted a much higher degree of uncertainty in the climate record than previously acknowledged.Thus, this review, which was written before the scandal erupted, has been largelyvindicated by subsequent events; and public concern for the alleged threat of "global warming" or "climate change", has declined significantly. ... Read more

Product Description
In recent years, scholars in international relations and other fields have begun to conceive of security more broadly, moving away from a state-centered concept of national security toward the idea of human security, which emphasizes the individual and human well-being. Viewing global environmental change through the lens of human security connects such problems as melting ice caps and carbon emissions to poverty, vulnerability, equity, and conflict. This book examines the complex social, health, and economic consequences of environmental change across the globe.

In chapters that are both academically rigorous and policy relevant, the book discusses the connections of global environmental change to urban poverty, natural disasters (with a case study of Hurricane Katrina), violent conflict (with a study of the decade-long Nepalese civil war), population, gender, and development. The book makes clear the inadequacy of traditional understandings of security and shows how global environmental change is raising new, unavoidable questions of human insecurity, conflict, cooperation, and sustainable development.

Contributors: W. Neil Adger, Jennifer Bailey, Jon Barnett, Victoria Basolo, Hans Georg Bohle, Mike Brklacich, May Chazan, Chris Cocklin, Geoffrey D. Dabelko, Indra de Soysa, Heather Goldsworthy, Betsy Hartmann, Robin M. Leichenko, Laura Little, Alexander López, Richard A. Matthew, Bryan McDonald, Eric Neumayer, Kwasi Nsiah-Gyabaah, Karen L. O'Brien, Marvin S. Soroos, Bishnu Raj Upreti ... Read more

Product Description
Examines the importance of climate as one of the major forcing functions in the global environmental change process.Emphasizes both humaninduced climatic change and natural climatic change.Provides a comprehensive historical context and important projection for the future. Softcover. ... Read more

Product Description
This book describes how humankind can more fully industrialize our society without overwhelming the Earth's natural systems.In the five main parts of this book, contributors discuss the industrialization of society; the main natural systems cycles; toxic chemicals in the environment; industrial ecology in firms; and policy-making with respect to industrial ecology. The book will appeal to professionals in a wide range of environmental fields. ... Read more

Product Description

This volume examines the various drivers of global change, including climate change, and the use of agricultural knowledge, science, and technology, as well as the outcomes of global change processes, including impacts on water quality and human well-being. Several authors examine potential policy and institutional solutions afforded by globalization to the challenges ahead, particularly the role of trade policy. Financing water development in a more globalized world and adapting to global warming are also examined.

Product Description
This second edition of Richard Turco's successful book, Earth Under Siege, provides a basic understanding of how our physical environment functions and how human activities affect it. Intended to educate the lay person-especially the policy makers, business administrators, and political leaders of the future-about some of the most pressing problems facing our modern world, this important book effectively describes the realities of environmental pollution and global change. It provides a comprehensive description of the natural environment and builds a foundation on which the science and policy of current environmental issues can be understood, including key local, regional, and global issues and their implications for society and human life. ... Read more

Product Description
The second edition of Dessler and Parson's acclaimed book provides an integrated treatment of the science, technology, economics, policy, and politics of climate change. Aimed at the educated non-specialist, and at courses in environmental policy or climate change, the book clearly lays out the scientific foundations of climate change, the issues in current policy debates, and the interactions between science and politics that make the climate change debate so contentious and confusing. This new edition is brought completely up to date to reflect the rapid movement of events related to climate change. In addition, all sections have been improved, in particular a more thorough primer on the basic science of climate change is included. The book also now integrates the discussion of contrarian claims with the discussion of current scientific knowledge; extends the discussion of cost and benefit estimates; and provides an improved glossary. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

climate Con: How It Pays Off
What if CO2 emissions from 6,000 older inefficient PCs in Duluth could be reduced by half by replacing them with one big 5-acre computer in Des Moines run by just 88 people? Think of what we'd save in CO2 emissions!
We'll establish another UN bureaucracy with green jobbers to monitor this mitigation plan! And we'll finance it all - and a make a ton of money - with an annual fee per ton of CO2 emissions saved - paid by New Yorkers required by law to pony up - every year for the life of the computer in Des Moines, estimated at 20 years. We'll charge fees for any files printed in Des Moines and delivered to Duluth (but ignore the CO2 emissions generated in transit).
Along with the Teamsters, NGOs and bureaucrats, New Yorkers will be thrilled by this plan since these are green jobs and, after all, we're saving the planet!
And what could possibly be better than that?

[...]

Ludicrous right wing baloney.
Ludicrous right wing baloney. There have now been thousands of peer-reviewed professional papers published by seasoned relevant researchers demonstrating, not only historically out of bounds global climate CHANGE (not all of it will be warming), but statistically driven proof of human causality. How many peer reviewed studies have been published demonstrating a LACK of human causality? Anyone? Oh, that's right. It is zero, zip, nada. Right wingers lie about climate change but scientists go by the results, even if they contradict their possible pre-existing beliefs. I have seen quite a few professionals who have abandoned their prior skepticism about climate CHANGE (not all of it will be warming). Why is the British government leading the global effort to deal with the issue. Because they are scared spitless by the increasingly rapid loss of the Greenland icecap. NASA satellite measurements have recently shown that the loss rate has been twice that predicted only about 5 years ago. This leads to a great increase in 'bergs' being calved off of the edge of the icecap. These bergs float out into the northern Atlantic and slowly melt when they get in the warm current coming across from the Gulf. This influx of cold fresh water decreases the salinity of the so-called 'Atlantic conveyor' which carries heat from the warmer southern waters up to the area of the British Isles. The heat is released there, often in the form of warm precipitation, and the cooler resulting water sinks to the bottom due to its high salinity and flows back towards the south. Seabed deposits show that the Atlantic conveyor has totally stopped several times (at least) in the last 100,000 years. That is very much not a good thing. The loss of the added heat from the Atlantic conveyer basically makes the British Isles and much of western Europe almost uninhabitable and destroys any form of agriculture. Only the most incompetent leader would stand back and watch that sad fate developing without taking immediate strong action. I firmly believe that Tony Blair tried to maintain close ties with the current administration to get more influence over U.S. climate change policy. It remains to be seen whether that worked. And, yes, there have been numerous warming and cooling periods on Earth historically. Primarily driven by the increasing well understood Milankovitch cycles. The cycles run the earth's climate system with a little help (!) from the sun. The statistical variance in a cycle comes from other influences including human intervention.

Global Warming:Reality
Dessler and Parson have provided a welcome contribution on the subject of climate change. It is, of course, a nightmare for the climate change denial folks. Clearly written and making the critical distinction between science and political decision making, the authors lay out the case for a rapid response to a looming disaster. The book provides a counter balance for the nonsense being spewed forth by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Joanne Nova and Senator Orrin Hatch. It will not change the minds of politicians whose campaigns are funded by the energy industry, but it should sway the opinion of a literate public with its compelling arguments: 'We have met the enemy and he is us.'

excellent, brief introduction to the science and politics
In my effort to learn about climate change, I found it admittedly very difficult to read the lengthy IPCC reports (e.g. Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis), so it's wonderful to have Dessler's and Parson's short, inexpensive book to give a guide to the findings of the IPCC, as well as to explain some of the politics in a calm, rational way. I think that any citizen genuinely interested in this topic should try to become familiar with the actual IPCC findings.

What is the IPCC ?What have they concluded ?How uncertain are the conclusions ?How have the policy makers reacted ?What are the scientific criticisms ?These issues are explained in this nice compact book.A very good aspect of this book is that it conforms to the standard practice of scientific argument: it shows data, describes theories (models), discusses how the theory fits data, explains the uncertainties, and (importantly) cites references.When looking into this subject, I suggest the reader beware of books or articles that are primarily "expert opinion" with no, or very little, reference to actual data.

The only reasons I didn't give 5 stars are: a) I would have liked it if the book could have covered the 2007 edition of IPCC report (maybe they will update it ?), and b) The book has a somewhat dry, academic style which probably will not make it very popular with a mass audience, hence limiting it's impact.At least it's short, though. Perhaps when they update it they can bring in a science writer to improve the style.

Eschew Obfuscation
I was disappointed in the writing.The book reads like a scientific treatise.The authors write, "This tangling of positive with normative claims, and of explicit arguments with unstated assumptions, obstructs reasoned deliberations on public policy."(p. 22.)OK.No doubt this is true.It borders on common sense and needs to be said.The problem is that, for the non-scientific person to whom this book is addressed, such language obstructs understanding.We don't talk that way.I gather that the authors are keen to be as objective and sound in their discussion as possible.Certainly this is commendable.Do they need to speak in these kinds of terms in order to be objective?Do they need to speak in such language in order to convey these basic concepts?Not to the degree they have done so.I give the book only four stars because I was anxious to learn more about this topic, and I was annoyed when an "accessible primer" is made unnecessarily difficult.I'm not planning in taking a degree in the subject. ... Read more

Product Description
The volume discusses global commons against the complex global political relations. It explores the nature of the global economic crisis, the search for finding a solution to the climate change problem, and efforts to conserve biodiversity in their centres of origin. The narratives from within India-the desert terrains of Rajasthan, the hills of Darjeeling, and the Western Ghats-reach across the borders to the world of industrial complexes in the North that produce and spew chemicals for disposal and re-use in the South, the soft belly of the globe. ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description
The international community is increasingly confronted with global environmental problems, which lead to distributional conflicts, unresolved equity issues and asymmetric distribution of the costs and benefits of environmental policy. The complexity of such problems requires the development of an international institutional framework, capable of coping with the long-run international aspects of global environmental change.

This book analyses some of the difficulties in the construction of such a framework and offers suggestions on how they might be overcome. The contributions in The Economics of Global Environmental Change address international trade, land-use change, biodiversity preservation, the management of water resources and the composition of water-related conflicts, global warming and strategic aspects of international environmental agreements.

This book provides an in-depth insight to the current state-of-the-art for both economists and non-economists interested in global environmental change. It will also be of great interest to those wanting an introduction to the economic perspective of an increasingly relevant environmental core problem, as well as to students and researchers in political science.

Contributors include: M. Cogoy, J. Eyckmans, M. Finus, E. Fraser, B. Friedl, B. Gebetsroither, M. Getzner, K. Hubacek, T. Kluge, S.A. Mason, A. Muller, K.W. Steininger, C. Van Beers ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Will prove to be of immense and timely interest
The latest edition to the Edward Elgar Publishing series 'New Horizons In Environmental Economics', "The Economics Of Global Environment Change" is co-edited by Mario Cogoy (Professor of international Economics, University of Trieste, Italy) and Karl W. Steininger (Professor of Economics, Wegener Center for Climate and Global Change, University of Graz, Austria). Benefitting from the contributions of acknowledged experts in their fields, this informed and informed compendium of information is organized into three main sections beginning with an introduction and overview of the subject of global climate change and its economic implications. Four major papers comprise the section on 'The Economics Dimensions of Global Environmental Change"; three contributions comprise the third section addresses issues related to 'International Cooperation in Global Environmental Change'. The contributors address the issues of distributions conflicts, unresolved equity issues, asymmetric distribution of the coasts and benefits of environmental policy, the d4evelopment of an international institutional framework, long-run international aspects of global environmental change; international trade, land-use change, biodiversity preservation, management of water resources and conflicts, as well as global warming and strategic aspects of international environmental agreements. An impressive and seminal body of work in compliance with the highest standards of research and scholarship making it an essential addition to academic, corporate, governmental, and environmental organization reference collections, "The Economics Of Global Environment Change" will prove to be of immense and timely interest to economists, environmentalists, academicians, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the economic impact of global warming. ... Read more

Product Description
Climate Change and the Media brings together an international group of scholars to discuss one of the most important issues in human history: climate change. Since public understanding of the issue relies heavily on media coverage, the media plays a pivotal role in the way we address it. This edited collectionthe first scholarly work to examine the relationship between climate change and the mediaexamines the changing nature of media coverage around the world, from the USA, the UK, and Europe, to China, Australasia, and the developing world. Chapters consider the impact of public relations and fictional programming, the relationship between public understanding and media coverage, and the impact of the media industries themselves on climate change. At a time when governments must take action to alleviate the catastrophic risk that climate change poses, this collection expertly details the pivotal role the media plays in this most fundamental of issues. ... Read more

Product Description

Climate change has become an important topic on the business agenda with strong pressure being placed on companies to respond and contribute to finding solutions to this urgent problem. This text provides a comprehensive analysis of international business responses to global climate change and climate change policy.

Embedded in relevant management literature, this book gives a concise treatment of developments in policy and business activity on global, regional and national levels, using examples and systematic data from a large number of international companies. The first part outlines the international climate policy landscape and voluntary initiatives taken by companies, both alone and together with others. The second part examines companies’ strategies, covering innovation for climate change, as well as compensation via emissions trading and carbon offsetting.

Written by well-known experts in the field, International Business and Global Climate Change illustrates how an environmental topic becomes strategically important in a mainstream sense, affecting corporate decision-making, business processes, products, reputation, advertising, communication, accounting and finance. This is a must-read for academics as well as practitioners concerned with this issue.