Food, Energy, and Society


Book Description

Since the publication of the first edition of Food, Energy, and Society, the world's natural resources have become even more diminished due to the rapid expansion of the global human population. We are faced with dwindling food supplies in certain geographic areas, increasing pressure on energy resources, and the imminent extinction of many




Food, Energy, and the Future of Society


Book Description




Energy and Society


Book Description

Energy and Society (Revised) When first published in 1955, this book was among the first interpretive treatments of the connection between a society's energy conditions and evolution of its culture. The book begins with a basic discussion of the earliest forms of energy uses and evolves through a discussion of how the evolution of alternative energy converters has impacted the growth of civilization. Dr.Cottrell takes us from food gathering societies up through the beginning of the industrial revolution into the age of nuclear power. With each step of change, he discusses how society has changed and the impact these changes have had on economic, moral and social issues. Today, more than any time in history, the questions of energy sources, energy conversion, energy uses and energy distribution are among the greatest challenges faced by civilization. In this book, Dr. Cottrell does not give you answers or predictions but takes you through the thought processes necessary to overcome the multible barriers we face in moving into the future.




Our Renewable Future


Book Description

"Over the next few decades, we will see a profound energy transformation as society shifts from fossil fuels to renewable resources like solar, wind, biomass. But what might a one hundred percent renewable future actually look like, and what obstacles will we face in this transition? Authors explore the practical challenges and opportunities presented by the shift to renewable energy."--Page 4 of cover.




Future Foods


Book Description

Future Foods: Global Trends, Opportunities, and Sustainability Challenges highlights trends and sustainability challenges along the entire agri-food supply chain. Using an interdisciplinary approach, this book addresses innovations, technological developments, state-of-the-art based research, value chain analysis, and a summary of future sustainability challenges. The book is written for food scientists, researchers, engineers, producers, and policy makers and will be a welcomed reference. Provides practical solutions for overcoming recurring sustainability challenges along the entire agri-food supply chain Highlights potential industrial opportunities and supports circular economy concepts Proposes novel concepts to address various sustainability challenges that can affect and have an impact on the future generations




Farming for Our Future


Book Description

Farming for Our Future examines the policies and legal reforms necessary to accelerate the adoption of practices that can make agriculture in the United States climate-neutral or better. These proven practices will also make our food system more resilient to the impacts of climate change. Agriculture's contribution to climate change is substantial--much more so than official figures suggest--and we will not be able to achieve our overall mitigation goals unless agricultural emissions sharply decline. Fortunately, farms and ranches can be a major part of the climate solution, while protecting biodiversity, strengthening rural communities, and improving the lives of the workers who cultivate our crops and rear our animals. The importance of agricultural climate solutions can not be underestimated; it is a critical element both in ensuring our food security and limiting climate change. This book provides essential solutions to address the greatest crises of our time.




The Future Is Rural


Book Description

The Future is Rural challenges the conventional wisdom about the future of food in our modern, globalized world. It is a much-needed reality check that explains why certain trends we take for granted-like the decline of rural areas and the dependence of farming and the food system on fossil fuels-are historical anomalies that will reverse over the coming decades. Renewable sources of energy must replace fossil fuels, but they will not power economies at the same scale as today. Priorities will profoundly shift, and food will become a central concern. Lessons learned from resilience science and alternatives to industrial agriculture provide a foundation for people to transition to more rural and locally focused lives.Jason Bradford, a biologist and farmer, offers a deeply researched report on the future of food that reveals key blind spots in conventional wisdom on energy, technology, and demographics. The Future Is Rural presents Bradford's analysis from his career in ecology and agriculture, as well as a synthesis of the historical and scientific underpinnings of the astonishing changes that will transform the food system and society as a whole.




Transforming Power


Book Description

In 1934, Lewis Mumford critiqued the industrial energy system as a key source of authoritarian economic and political tendencies in modern life. Recent debate continues to engage issues of energy authoritarianism, focusing on the contest between energy-driven globalization (the spread of energy deregulation and the simultaneous consolidation of the oil, coal, and gas industries) and the so-called "sustainable energy" strategy that celebrates the local and community scale characteristics of renewable energy. Including theoretical inquiries and case studies by distinguished writers, Transforming Power is divided into three parts: Energy, Environment, and Society; The Politics of Conventional Energy; and The Politics of Sustainable Energy. It interrogates current contemporary energy assumptions, exploring the reflexive relationship between energy, environment, and society, and examining energy as a social project. Some of these have promised a prosperous future founded upon technological advances that further modernize the modern energy system, such as "inherently safe" nuclear power, environmentally friendly coal gasification, and the advent of a wealthier, cleaner world powered by fuel cells; and the "green technologies," said by advocates to prefigure a revival of human scale development, local self-determination, and a commitment to ecological balance. >br> This volume offers a timely engagement of the social issues surrounding energy conflicts and contradictions. It will be of interest to policymakers, energy and environmental experts, sociologists, and historians of technology. John Byrne is director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy (CEEP) and Distinguished Professor of Public Policy at the University of Delaware. Noah Toly is a research associate and Ph.D. candidate in the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy at the University of Delaware. Leigh Glover is policy fellow and assistant professor in the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy at the University of Delaware.




Food Energy Water: The Foundation Systems of Modern Society


Book Description

Why does our society or any society function as it does? Many of the activities were established by social systems created in the past and are currently being maintained by the larger society. Other organized patterns of behavior seemed to have occurred spontaneously, without any specific organizing effort, but continue to control and govern behavior for very long periods of time. ? Why are certain animals used for domestic stock and not others? Why is the method of farming in China and India so different from farming in America and Europe? Why are there so many more people in Asia and India than in the rest of the world? Was there some guiding principle that determined which patterns of behavior would dominate? To understand these process one must first understand the layers of systems controlling our world.




Food and Society


Book Description

The importance of food is undeniable. Yet, because it is so close and obvious, we often fail to pay attention to it. In Food and Society: A Sociological Approach, author William C. Whitt attempts to develop a multi-level, multidisciplinary approach to the relationship between food and the larger world. Organized from the experiences of food consumption through its preparation, distribution, storage and production, this book discusses the role of food in past societies, the basics of nutrition, contemporary issues, including body size, food and culture, food production, world hunger and food innovation.