John L. Allen

Annual Editions: Environment 06/07

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

This twenty-fifth edition of ANNUAL EDITIONS: ENVIRONMENT provides convenient, inexpensive access to current articles selected from the best of the public press. Organizational features include: an annotated listing of selected World Wide Web sites; an annotated table of contents; a topic guide; a general introduction; brief overviews for each section; a topical index; and an instructor's resource guide with testing materials. USING ANNUAL EDITIONS IN THE CLASSROOM is offered as a practical guide for instructors. ANNUAL EDITIONS titles are supported by our student website, www.dushkin.com/online.

Produktdetails

• Annual Editions: Environment
• Verlag: Dushkin Publishing
• 2006-2007
• Seitenzahl: 209
• Erscheinungstermin: März 2006
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 274mm x 211mm x 12mm
• Gewicht: 513g
• ISBN-13: 9780073515427
• ISBN-10: 0073515426
• Artikelnr.: 21387123

Autorenporträt

McGraw-Hill authors represent the leading experts in their fields and are dedicated to improving the lives, careers, and interests of readers worldwide

Inhaltsangabe

UNIT 1. The Global Environment: An Emerging World View
The Economist, July 6, 2002
In a series of six interconnected short essays, the editors of The
Economist present an up-to-date summary of global environmental issues,
including sustainable development, the amount of information available
on the environment, climate change, and the role of both technology
and market forces in helping to shape the future of environmental
systems.
The Futurist, July/August 2004
The process of globalization has produced increasing modernization
among both contemporary and modern cultures. Will human adaptability
be enough to offset the massive culture changes that accompany such
meta-trends as development of a global economy and society?
3. Globalization's Effects on the Environment, Jo Kwong, Society,
January/February 2005
Globalization, which was supposed to be such a good thing, has become a
polarizing issue for policy analysts, environmental activists,
economists, and others. The idea of removing barriers to the movement
of goods and services has meant an increasing impact on environmental
systems through the alteration of economic systems.
The Humanist, November/December 2003
According to a National Academy of Sciences report, around 1980 the
collective demands of humans upon Earth's resource base exceeded the
regenerative capacity of global environmental systems. In economic
terms this has produced a "bubble” economy that will keep expanding
until it bursts—or until humans decide to stabilize population growth
and climate and eliminate both environmental change and human poverty.
UNIT 2. Population, Policy, and Economy
Environment, April 2000
A general consensus exists among scientists that the roots of the
current environmental crisis are to be found in a combination of
population growth, affluence, and increasing technology. No such
consensus exists, however, about the ultimate cause of either
population growth or the desire to consume. Notwithstanding this lack
of agreement, society needs to sublimate the desire to acquire things
for the good of the global commons.
6. A New Security Paradigm, Gregory D. Foster, World Watch,
January/February 2005
Most people think of national security in terms of protecting a country
against another World Trade Center disaster and think of the answers to
such events in military terms. But there are many security dangers that
do not involve rogue states or terrorists. There is an important area
where environmental conditions and security issues coincide. Is it more
important to preempt al Qaeda or global warming?
World Watch, May/June 2003
The spread of factory farming—the intensive raising of livestock and
poultry in enclosed conditions—has allowed meat to become a more
important part of diets worldwide. It has also reduced local diversity
of breeds and increased the dangers from animal diseases. As more
developed countries place stricter environmental regulations on factory
farming, this industrialized agriculture spreads to developing
countries with weaker or no legislation.
8. Where Oil and Water Do Mix: Environmental Scarcity and Future Conflict
in the Middle East and North Africa, Jason J. Morrissette and Douglas A.
Borer, Parameters, Winter 2004-2005
Much of the past history of conflict in the North African/Southwest
Asian culture realm has been based in religion, ideology, and
territory. Future conflict in this area is more likely to be based in
environmental scarcity such as too little oil and not enough water to
support the population growth that is far outpacing economic growth.
9. The Irony of Climate, Brian Halweil, World Watch, March/April 2005
Modern climate change is certainly producing problems for the world's
farmers: changing weather is bringing the potato blight to areas of the
high Andes and Kansas wheat farmers operate in an uncertain environment
where rains come at the wrong time. The threat of global warming could
even change the character of the monsoons, altering agriculture in the
world's most populous area—South Asia.
10. World Population, Agriculture, and Malnutrition, David Pimentel and
Anne Wilson, World Watch, September/October 2004
Late in the 20th century, the population growth finally outstripped the
increase in food production. Earth's farmers have used up just about
all the available arable land and have increasingly limited access to
fresh water. As the world population continues to grow—even if it grows
more slowly—more people will have to share less land, food, and water.
UNIT 3. Energy: Present and Future Problems
Audubon, December 2002
In the vast open spaces of the American West, energy development in the
form of natural gas extraction competes with livestock raisers for the
same land. Much of the problem lies in the curious nature of mineral
rights in which the owners of the minerals under the land are often
different from the owners of the land itself—and mineral rights nearly
always take precedence over surface rights.
The Futurist, July/August 2004
Several facts about energy consumption need to be recognized: any use
of energy is going to have some negative environmental impacts, current
reliance on fossil fuels cannot continue, most alternative energy
systems (such as wind or solar power) are still inefficient enough to
be very expensive. The solution that many energy experts are seeking is
a scaling down of energy production and control—from huge power plants
to those that power small areas such as cities or neighborhoods
13. Wind Power: Obstacles and Opportunities, Martin J. Pasqualetti,
Environment, September 2004
Wind power is one of the oldest energy sources, used by power mills and
water pumps for thousands of years. It is now one of the most promising
of the alternative energy strategies. But in spite of its environmental
attributes, wind power meets with considerable local resistance because
of aesthetics, noise, and potential damage to bird populations. The
proper strategy is to develop wind power in sites where it meets the
least resistance.
Across the Board, May/June 2004
Everyone from the President of the United States to the hopeful
consumer has jumped on the hydrogen energy bandwagon. This will be the
energy of the future: cheap, non-polluting, and infinite in supply. But
many energy experts warn that, as an alternative to other sources,
hydrogen is just "a better mousetrap” when it comes to solving energy
shortages. More important, it is still a mousetrap that is a long ways
away from being able to catch a mouse.
UNIT 4. Biosphere: Endangered Species
Environment, July/August 2004
For hundreds of millennia, species emerged and stayed in relatively
discrete geographical regions. With the expansion of worldwide
transportation systems and goods of all kinds being moved about the
world, many species have gained the capacity for movement. These
invasive alien species are contributing factors in approximately 30
percent of all the extinctions of plants and animals since 1600.
Environment, July/August 2004
The traditional approach to the protection of biodiversity has been
government action and financing. As both money and action has been
diverted to other purposes, those concerned with conservation of
biodiversity have turned increasingly to market oriented funding
sources. Private funding sources often recognize the economic benefits
of preserving biodiversity more quickly than do governments.
UNIT 5. Resources: Land and Water
17. Dryland Development: Success Stories from West Africa, Michael
Mortimore, Environment, January/February 2005
Nearly 40% of the African continent is dryland with rainfa ll
insufficient for intensive agriculture. In some African dryland areas
desertification, or the conversion of formerly productive land to
desert through overuse, has occurred. Yet, experiments in Nigeria and
elsewhere have shown that careful ecosystem management can overcome
environmental obstacles.
Mother Jones, May/June 2003
In the drought-stricken American West, a new round of water wars has
erupted, with farmers, fishermen, ranchers, and urban dwellers all
contesting for an increasingly scarce water resource. The first major
river system to become a casualty in the conflict for water is the
Klamath River of northern California and southern Oregon where
federally mandated irrigation rights produced enough water withdrawal
to cause a massive salmon dieback.
19. How Much Is Clean Water Worth?, Jim Morrison, National Wildlife,
February/March 2005
When the value of a clean water resource is calculated in monetary
terms, it becomes increasingly clear that conservation methods make
both economic and ecologic sense. The tricky part is manipulating the
economic system that drives our behavior so that it makes sense to
invest in and protect natural assets—like clean water.
World Watch, January/February 2003
More than half of all the world's freshwater resources are now consumed
by humans and their agricultural and industrial systems. As a
consequence of increasing uses of water for irrigation, we are now
seeing not just humans competing with humans—but farmers against
factories—for water. What is now emerging in some areas of the world is
interspecies competition for a dwindling resource.
UNIT 6. The Hazards of Growth: Pollution and Climate Change
Environment, May 2004
The environmental dangers of many agricultural pesticides and other
chemicals have been recognized in the United States and other
industrialized countries for decades. But the tradeoffs between
increased agricultural production and the use of these chemicals is a
difficult one for developing countries where their use has increased
rather than decreased.
The World & I, May 2003
The United States is far ahead of much of the world in cleaning up its
surface water supplies, due to the passage of the Clean Water Act in
1972. Although water pollution problems persist in the United States,
those problems are less severe than in most of the world's
less-developed countries. It has been estimated that nearly one-third
of the world's people suffer from diseases associated with polluted
water.
World Watch, November/December 2003
Chemicals, whether natural or man-made, have a way of not only working
their way into environmental systems but becoming concentrated in those
systems as a result of the process of bioaccumulation. As materials
such as perchlorate—a primary component of rocket fuels—escapes from
military containment and enters groundwater systems, it often appears
in dangerous concentration in vegetables that use that water.
24. How Did Humans First Alter Global Climate?, William F. Ruddiman,
Scientific American, March 2005
A controversial new interpretation of climate history suggests that our
ancestors who first developed agriculture may have prevented a new ice
age by engaging in land use practices that led to global warming. If a
handful of farmers with primitive technologies could alter global
environments, what can modern fossil-fuel based technologies do?
25. Can We Bury Global Warming?, Robert H. Socolow, Scientific American,
July 2005
By increasing the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, human
kind is engaging in an uncontrolled experiment. Once in the atmosphere,
this greenhouse gas is difficult to remove. An experimental method of
injecting CO2 into underground formations of sedimentary rock, however,
might allow for carbon sequestration that would be sufficient to reduce
the threat of global warming.
26. Dozens of Words for Snow, None for Pollution, Marla Cone, Mother Jones
, January/February 2005
While the Arctic is often thought of as one of the world's last
pristine environments, in fact, it is one of the most polluted.
Pollution of the northern high latitudes is the result of wind and
water currents that carry toxic industrial wastes from cities and
factories in Russia, Europe, and North America into the Arctic Ocean
and, thence, into the food chain that feeds the people of the Far
North.