Climate Change


Book Description

"Everyone needs to understand how climate change will directly affect their lives and the lives of their family in the years to come. This is the first general audience book aimed at giving you and your family the knowledge you need to know to navigate your future"--




Energy, Environment, and Climate


Book Description

An engaging exploration of energy's impact




Simply Einstein: Relativity Demystified


Book Description

With this reader-friendly book, it doesn't take an Einstein to understand the theory of relativity and its remarkable consequences. In clear, understandable terms, physicist Richard Wolfson explores the ideas at the heart of relativity and shows how they lead to such seeming absurdities as time travel, curved space, black holes, and new meaning for the idea of past and future. Drawing from years of teaching modern physics to nonscientists, Wolfson explains in a lively, conversational style the simple principles underlying Einstein's theory. Relativity, Wolfson shows, gave us a new view of space and time, opening the door to questions about their flexible nature: Is the universe finite or infinite? Will it expand forever or eventually collapse in a "big crunch"? Is time travel possible? What goes on inside a black hole? How does gravity really work? These questions at the forefront of twenty-first-century physics are all rooted in the profound and sweeping vision of Albert Einstein's early twentieth-century theory. Wolfson leads his readers on an intellectual journey that culminates in a universe made almost unimaginably rich by the principles that Einstein first discovered.




How to Avoid a Climate Disaster


Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NATIONAL BESTSELLER In this urgent, singularly authoritative book, Bill Gates sets out a wide-ranging, practical--and accessible--plan for how the world can get to zero greenhouse gas emissions in time to avoid an irreversible climate catastrophe. Bill Gates has spent a decade investigating the causes and effects of climate change. With the help and guidance of experts in the fields of physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, political science and finance, he has focused on exactly what must be done in order to stop the planet's slide toward certain environmental disaster. In this book, he not only gathers together all the information we need to fully grasp how important it is that we work toward net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases but also details exactly what we need to do to achieve this profoundly important goal. He gives us a clear-eyed description of the challenges we face. He describes the areas in which technology is already helping to reduce emissions; where and how the current technology can be made to function more effectively; where breakthrough technologies are needed, and who is working on these essential innovations. Finally, he lays out a concrete plan for achieving the goal of zero emissions--suggesting not only policies that governments should adopt, but what we as individuals can do to keep our government, our employers and ourselves accountable in this crucial enterprise. As Bill Gates makes clear, achieving zero emissions will not be simple or easy to do, but by following the guidelines he sets out here, it is a goal firmly within our reach.




Introduction to Bioenergy


Book Description

Explore a Major Component of Renewable Energy Introduction to Bioenergy takes a look at energy from biomass (thermal energy, power, liquid fuels, and biogas) and envisions a sustainable future fueled by renewable energy. From production to conversion to heat, power, and biofuel, this book breaks down the science of bioenergy and explains the major processes for its production, conversion, and use. Covers Solar Energy, Bioenergy, and Biomass Resources The book begins with an introduction to solar energy (the source of bioenergy) and then moves on to describe bioenergy, biomass, chemical conversion, and the renewable energy processes involved. The authors cover measurement energy parameters, analysis of data, and the prediction of energy production for different bio products. They also consider the institutional, environmental, and economic concerns surrounding bioenergy. An all-inclusive resource covering a rapidly-advancing field, this book: Explores the impact of climate change and global warming on the production of biomass Describes the positive and negative effects of biomass production on ecosystems and biodiversity Illustrates the use of biomass for the production of electricity Considers the replacement of fossil fuels with biofuels, biofuel production, and emerging technologies Addresses institutional and environmental issues relevant to bioenergy Discusses factors impacting the economic feasibility of renewable energy systems Introduction to Bioenergy defines major processes for the production, conversion, and use of bioenergy. A book suitable for coursework or self-study, this essential work serves students and practicing professionals in the renewable energy, environmental science, agriculture engineering, and biology fields.







Niche Construction


Book Description

The seemingly innocent observation that the activities of organisms bring about changes in environments is so obvious that it seems an unlikely focus for a new line of thinking about evolution. Yet niche construction--as this process of organism-driven environmental modification is known--has hidden complexities. By transforming biotic and abiotic sources of natural selection in external environments, niche construction generates feedback in evolution on a scale hitherto underestimated--and in a manner that transforms the evolutionary dynamic. It also plays a critical role in ecology, supporting ecosystem engineering and influencing the flow of energy and nutrients through ecosystems. Despite this, niche construction has been given short shrift in theoretical biology, in part because it cannot be fully understood within the framework of standard evolutionary theory. Wedding evolution and ecology, this book extends evolutionary theory by formally including niche construction and ecological inheritance as additional evolutionary processes. The authors support their historic move with empirical data, theoretical population genetics, and conceptual models. They also describe new research methods capable of testing the theory. They demonstrate how their theory can resolve long-standing problems in ecology, particularly by advancing the sorely needed synthesis of ecology and evolution, and how it offers an evolutionary basis for the human sciences. Already hailed as a pioneering work by some of the world's most influential biologists, this is a rare, potentially field-changing contribution to the biological sciences.




Tools to Aid Environmental Decision Making


Book Description

This book is unique in identifying and presenting tools to environmental decision-makers to help them improve the quality and clarity of their work. These tools range from software to policy approaches, and from environmental databases to focus groups. Equally of value to environmental managers, and students in environmental risk, policy, economics and law.




The Topkapi Scroll


Book Description

Since precious few architectural drawings and no theoretical treatises on architecture remain from the premodern Islamic world, the Timurid pattern scroll in the collection of the Topkapi Palace Museum Library is an exceedingly rich and valuable source of information. In the course of her in-depth analysis of this scroll dating from the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century, Gülru Necipoğlu throws new light on the conceptualization, recording, and transmission of architectural design in the Islamic world between the tenth and sixteenth centuries. Her text has particularly far-reaching implications for recent discussions on vision, subjectivity, and the semiotics of abstract representation. She also compares the Islamic understanding of geometry with that found in medieval Western art, making this book particularly valuable for all historians and critics of architecture. The scroll, with its 114 individual geometric patterns for wall surfaces and vaulting, is reproduced entirely in color in this elegant, large-format volume. An extensive catalogue includes illustrations showing the underlying geometries (in the form of incised “dead” drawings) from which the individual patterns are generated. An essay by Mohammad al-Asad discusses the geometry of the muqarnas and demonstrates by means of CAD drawings how one of the scroll’s patterns could be used co design a three-dimensional vault.




Essential University Physics, Volume 1, Global Edition


Book Description

For two- and three-semester university physics courses Richard Wolfson’s Essential University Physics, 3rd Edition is a concise and progressive calculus-based physics textbook that offers clear writing, great problems, and relevant real-life applications in an affordable and streamlined text. Essential University Physics teaches sound problem-solving skills, emphasises conceptual understanding, and makes connections to the real world. Features such as annotated figures and step-by-step problem-solving strategies help students master concepts and solve problems with confidence. Essential University Physics is offered as two paperback volumes available together or for sale individually. The full text downloaded to your computer With eBooks you can: search for key concepts, words and phrases make highlights and notes as you study share your notes with friends eBooks are downloaded to your computer and accessible either offline through the Bookshelf (available as a free download), available online and also via the iPad and Android apps. Upon purchase, you'll gain instant access to this eBook. Time limit The eBooks products do not have an expiry date. You will continue to access your digital ebook products whilst you have your Bookshelf installed.