Ethical futures: bioscience and food horizons


Book Description

In an ever changing interconnected world, the agriculture and food system faces constant challenges in many forms, such as the impacts of climate change, uncertainty surrounding the use of novel technologies and the emergence of new zoonotic diseases. Alongside these challenges professionals working in the food system are faced with opportunities to improve food production and distribution. As decision-makers attempt to balance these threats and opportunities in order to secure more sustainable production systems, the key question that arises is: What do we envisage as the future for agriculture and food production? With numerous voices advocating different and sometimes conflicting approaches, ranging from organic farming to wider use of GMOs through in vitro meat production, this discussion of the future raises significant ethical questions. The contributions in this book bring together a diverse group of authors who explore a set of themes relating to the ethical dimensions of the agriculture and food futures, including the role of novel technologies, the potential issues raised by the use of biofuels, the ethics of future animal production systems, concepts of global food security, as well as chapters on food governance priorities and educational aspects. It is intended that this volume serves as an interesting collection and acts as a source of stimulation that will contribute to wider debate and reflection on the future of the agriculture and food system.




Controversies in Science and Technology


Book Description

When it comes to any current scientific debate, there are more than two sides to every story. Controversies in Science and Technology, Volume 4 analyzes controversial topics in science and technology-infrastructure, ecosystem management, food security, and plastics and health-from multiple points of view. The editors have compiled thought-provoking essays from a variety of experts from academia and beyond, creating a volume that addresses many of the issues surrounding these scientific debates. Part I of the volume discusses infrastructure, and the real meaning behind the term in today's society. Essays address the central issues that motivate current discussion about infrastructure, including writing on the vulnerability to disasters. Part II, titled "Food Policy," will focus on the challenges of feeding an ever-growing world and the costs of not doing so. Part III features essays on chemicals and environmental health, and works to define "safety" as it relates to today's scientific community. The book's final section examines ecosystem management. In the end, Kleinman, Cloud-Hansen, and Handelsman provide a multifaceted volume that will be appropriate for anyone hoping to understand arguments surrounding several of today's most important scientific controversies.




Oxford Handbook of Nutrition and Dietetics


Book Description

Fully updated, the Oxford Handbook of Nutrition and Dietetics, second edition is a practical quick-reference guide to nutrition in the prevention and treatment of disease and the maintenance of good health.




Climate change and sustainable development


Book Description

Climate change is a major framing condition for sustainable development of agriculture and food. Global food production is a major contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions and at the same time it is among the sectors worst affected by climate change. This book brings together a multidisciplinary group of authors exploring the ethical dimensions of climate change and food. Conceptual clarifications provide a necessary basis for putting sustainable development into practice. Adaptation and mitigation demand altering both agricultural and consumption practices. Intensive vs. extensive production is reassessed with regard to animal welfare, efficiency and environmental implications. Property rights pay an ever-increasing role, as do shifting land-use practices, agro-energy, biotechnology, food policy to green consumerism. And, last but not least, tools are suggested for teaching agricultural and food ethics. Notwithstanding the plurality of ethical analyses and their outcome, it becomes apparent that governance of agri-food is faced by new needs and new approaches of bringing in the value dimension much more explicitly. This book is intended to serve as a stimulating collection that will contribute to debate and reflection on the sustainable future of agriculture and food production in the face of global change.




Live, Die, Buy, Eat


Book Description

Live, Die, Buy, Eat. These words represent a chain of events which today is disconnected. In the past few years, controversies around meat have arisen around industrialization and globalization of meat production, often pivoting around health, environmental issues, and animal welfare. Although meat increasingly figures as a problem, most consumers’ knowledge of animal husbandry and meat production is more absent than ever. Tracing a historical process of alienation along three distinct axes, the authors show how the animal origin of meat is covered up, rationalized, forgotten, excused, neglected, and denied. How is meat produced today, and where? How do we consume meat, and how have our consumption habits changed? Why have these changes occurred, and what are the social and cultural consequences of these changes? Using Norway as a case study, this book examines the dramatic changes in meat production and consumption over the last 150 years. With a wide range of historical sources, together with interviews and observation at farms, slaughterhouses, and production units, as well as analyses of contemporary texts and digital sources, Live, Die, Buy, Eat explores the transformation of animal husbandry, meat production and consumption, together with its cultural consequences. It will appeal to scholars of anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, geography, and history with an interest in food, agriculture, environment, and culture.




On Animals


Book Description

This book presents an authoritative and comprehensive survey of human practice in relation to other animals, together with a Christian ethical analysis building on the theological account of animals which David Clough developed in On Animals Volume I: Systematic Theology (2012). It argues that a Christian understanding of other animals has radical implications for their treatment by humans, with the human use and abuse of non-human animals for food the most urgent immediate priority. Following an introduction examining the task of theological ethics in relation to non-human animals and the way it relates to other accounts of animal ethics, this book surveys and assess the use humans make of other animals for food, for clothing, for labour, as research subjects, for sport and entertainment, as pets or companions, and human impacts on wild animals. The result is both a state-of-the-art account of what humans are doing to other animals, and a persuasive argument that Christians in particular have strong faith-based reasons to acknowledge the significance of the issues raised and change their practice in response.




The Biotechnology Debate


Book Description

This book grounds deliberative democratic theory in a more refined understanding of deliberative practice, in particular when dealing with intractable moral disagreement regarding novel technologies. While there is an ongoing, vibrant debate about the theoretical merits of deliberative democracy on the one hand, and more recently, empirical studies of specific deliberative exercises have been carried out, these two discussions fail to speak to one another. Debates about animal and plant biotechnology are examined as a paradigmatic case for intractable disagreement in today’s pluralistic societies. This examination reveals that the disagreements in this debate are multi-faceted and multi-dimensional and can often be traced to fundamental disagreements about values or worldviews. “One of the acute insights to emerge from this examination is that deliberation can serve different purposes vis-à-vis different types of problem. In the case of deeply unstructured problems, like the modern biotechnology debate, the aim of inclusion is more appropriate than the aim of consensus. This book highlights the importance of political culture and broader institutional settings in shaping the capacity and propensity of citizens to engage in deliberation and the degree to which governments are prepared to relinquish authority to deliberative mini-publics." Robyn Eckersley, University of Melbourne, Australia




Disaster Studies


Book Description

This book covers several dimensions of disaster studies as an emerging discipline. It is the inaugural book in the series ‘Disaster Studies and Management’ and deals with questions such as “Is disaster management a field of practice, a profession, or simply a new area of study?” Exploring intersectionalities, the book also examines areas of research that could help enhance the discourse on disaster management from policy and practice perspectives, revisiting conventional event-centric approaches, which are the basis for most writings on the subject. Several case studies and comparative analyses reflect a critical reading of research and practice concerning disasters and their management. The book offers valuable insights into various subjects including the challenge of establishing inter- and multi-disciplinary teams within the academia involved in disaster studies, and sociological and anthropological readings of post-disaster memoryscapes. Each of the contributors has an enduring interest in disaster studies, thus enriching the book immensely. This book will be of interest to all the students and scholars of disaster studies and disaster management, as well as to practitioners and policymakers.




The Right to Vegetarianism


Book Description

This book argues that vegetarian and vegan people should be guaranteed the right to eat according to their beliefs. The author claims that the right to vegetarianism is backed by the human and civil rights recognized in the constitutions of several nations. The first half of the book is based on the history of the main philosophical issues involved in eating plant food, from Phytagoras to Francione, while the second part is intended to compare different western legal systems and their report with human and animal rights. The Right to Vegetarianism represents a cross between animal and human rights and also serves as a proposal to support veganism from a different approach: not just as an animal right not yet recognized by the law, but also as a human right, already enforced by the law.




The Handbook of International Crisis Communication Research


Book Description

The Handbook of International Crisis Communication Research articulates a broader understanding of crisis communication, discussing the theoretical, methodological, and practical implications of domestic and transnational crises, featuring the work of global scholars from a range of sub-disciplines and related fields. Provides the first integrative international perspective on crisis communication Articulates a broader understanding of crisis communication, which includes work from scholars in journalism, public relations, audience research, psychology, political science, sociology, economics, anthropology, and international communication Explores the topic from cross-national and cross-cultural crisis communication approaches Includes research and scholars from countries around the world and representing all regions Discusses a broad range of crisis types, such as war, terrorism, natural disasters, pandemia, and organizational crises