Paul J. Crutzen: A Pioneer on Atmospheric Chemistry and Climate Change in the Anthropocene


Book Description

This book contains texts by the Nobel laureate Paul J. Crutzen who is best known for his research on ozone depletion. It comprises Crutzen’s autobiography, several pictures documenting important stages of his life, and his most important scientific publications. The Dutch atmospheric chemist is one of the world’s most cited scientists in geosciences. His political engagement makes him a tireless ambassador for environmental issues such as climate change. He popularized the term ‘Anthropocene’ for the current geological era acknowledging the enduring influence of humankind on planet Earth. This concept conceives humans to be a geologic factor, influencing the evolution of our globe and the living beings populating it. The selection of texts is representing Paul Crutzen ́s scientific oeuvre as his research interests span from ozone depletion to the climatic impacts of biomass burning, the consequences of a worldwide atomic war – the Nuclear Winter - to geoengineering and the Anthropocene.




Paul J. Crutzen and the Anthropocene: A New Epoch in Earth’s History


Book Description

This book outlines the development and perspectives of the Anthropocene concept by Paul J. Crutzen and his colleagues from its inception to its implications for the sciences, humanities, society and politics. The main text consists primarily of articles from peer-reviewed scientific journals and other scholarly sources. It comprises selected articles on the Anthropocene published by Paul J. Crutzen and a selection of related articles, mostly but not exclusively by colleagues with whom he collaborated closely. • In the year 2000 Nobel Laureate Paul J. Crutzen proposed the Anthropocene concept as a new epoch in Earth’s history • Comprehensive collection of articles on the Anthropocene by Paul J. Crutzen and his colleagues• Unique primary research literature and Crutzen’s comprehensive bibliography• Paul Crutzen’s scientific investigations into human influences on atmospheric chemistry and physics, the climate and the Earth system, leading to the conception of the Anthropocene• Reflections on the Anthropocene and its implications• Bibliometric review of the spread of the use of the Anthropocene concept in the Natural and Social Sciences, Humanities and Law







Civil Society and Peacebuilding in Sub-Saharan Africa in the Anthropocene


Book Description

This book examines civil society's peacebuilding role in sub-Saharan Africa in the context of climate change and the pursuit of environmental peace and justice in the Anthropocene. Five main research themes emerge from its 20 chapters: · The roles of environmental peacemaking, environmental justice, ecological education and eco-ethics in helping to mitigate the impacts of climate change · Peacebuilding by CSOs after violent conflicts, with particular reference to accountability, reconciliation and healing · CSO involvement in democratic processes and political transition after violent conflicts · Relationships between local CSOs and their foreign funders and the interactions between CSOs and the African Union's peace and security architecture. · The particular role of faith-based CSOs The book underlines the centrality of dialogue to African peacebuilding and the indigenous wisdom and philosophies on which it is based. Such wisdom will be a key resource in confronting the existential challenges of the Anthropocene. The book will be a significant resource for researchers, academics and policymakers concerned with the challenge of climate change, its interactions with armed conflict and the peacebuilding role of CSOs. · This pathbreaking book shows why peacebuilding analysis and efforts need to be urgently re-oriented towards the existential challenges of environmental peace and justice. · It explains the emerging conceptual frameworks which are needed for this new role. · It explains the critical role that CSOs - local and international - will play in implementing this new peacebuilding approach, with particular reference to sub- Saharan Africa.




War and Algorithm


Book Description

New military technologies are animated by fantasies of perfect knowledge, lawfulness, and vision that contrast sharply with the very real limits of human understanding, law, and vision. Thus, various kinds of violent acts are proliferating while their precise nature remains unclear. Especially man–machine ensembles, guided by algorithms, are operating in ways that challenge conceptual understanding. War and Algorithm looks at the increasing power of algorithms in these emerging forms of warfare from the perspectives of critical theory, philosophy, legal studies, and visual studies. The contributions in this volume grapple with the challenges posed by algorithmic warfare and trace the roots of new forms of war in the technological practices and forms of representation of the digital age. Together, these contributions provide a first step toward understanding—and resisting—our emerging world of war.




Addressing Global Environmental Challenges from a Peace Ecology Perspective


Book Description

Addressing global environmental challenges from a peace ecology perspective, the present book offers peer-reviewed texts that build on the expanding field of peace ecology and applies this concept to global environmental challenges in the Anthropocene. Hans Günter Brauch (Germany) offers a typology of time and turning points in the 20th century; Juliet Bennett (Australia) discusses the global ecological crisis resulting from a “tyranny of small decisions”; Katharina Bitzker (Canada) debates “the emotional dimensions of ecological peacebuilding” through love of nature; Henri Myrttinen (UK) analyses “preliminary findings on gender, peacebuilding and climate change in Honduras” while Úrsula Oswald Spring (Mexíco) offers a critical review of the policy and scientific nexus debate on “the water, energy, food and biodiversity nexus”, reflecting on security in Mexico. In closing, Brauch discusses whether strategies of sustainability transition may enhance the prospects for achieving sustainable peace in the Anthropocene.




Science, Technology, Policy and International Law


Book Description

This book presents innovative insights into the intersections between science, technology, and society, and particularly their regulation by the law. Departing from the idea that law and science have similar methods and objectives, the book deals with problems, and solutions, that source from these interactions: concerns on how to integrate scientific evidence into trials, how to best regulate new technologies, or whether technological innovations could improve democratic legitimacy, create new regulatory tools or even new spaces of regulation, and what is the impact on the society. The edited collection, by building on a functionalist and comparatist approach, offers answers to how to best integrate law, science, and technology in policy-making and reviews the current attempts made at the transnational and international levels. Case studies, ranging from emerging technologies via environmental protection to statistics, are complemented by a solid theoretical framework, all of which seek to provide readers with tools for critical thinking in the reassessment of the relationship among theory, practice, political goals, and international regulation.




Atmosphere, Climate, and Change


Book Description

What's the reliability behind the claims and counterclaims of environmental doom resulting from the greenhouse effect, the global impact of pollution, and holes in the ozone layer? While many media reports focus on recent trends, such as variations in average temperature over a decade or two, these accounts tell us little or nothing about how changes in climate actually occur, or what long-term significance they may have. In Atmosphere, Climate and Change, world renowned experts on the chemistry of the atmosphere Thomas E. Graedel and Paul J. Crutsen take us behind the scenes of local climate change to reveal the workings of the atmosphere in its larger context, as a component of Earth as a system. By exploring the causes of long-term climate change and the sources and pitfalls of scientific prediction, they give us a new understanding of what changes are likely to occur in the future and what can be done about them.




Through Time and the City


Book Description

Through Time and the City: Notes on Rome offers a new approach to exploring cities. Using Rome as a guide, the book follows familiar sites, geographies, and characters in search of their role within a larger narrative that includes the environmental processes required to generate enough space and material for the city, the emergent ecologies to which its buildings play host, and the social patterns its various structures help to organize. Through Time and the City argues that Rome is made and unmade by an endlessly evolving chorus that has, for better or worse, gained geological legitimacy; that the city absorbs and emits countless artifacts in its search for collective identity; that the city is a platform for the constant staging of negotiations between agents (humans, buildings, plants, animals, pathogens, goods, waste, water) that drive and are driven by the entanglements of climate and culture. This book provides textual and visual frameworks for identifying the material traces, emergent patterns, or speculated futures that expose a city as inseparable from its capacity to change.




Tropical Ecosystems: Structure, Functions and Challenges in the Face of Global Change


Book Description

The book brings together research topics having a broad focus on human and climate change impacts on the terrestrial ecosystems in the tropics in general and more specifically from the most significant and vulnerable Himalayan ecosystem. A total of 16 contributions included in the book cover a diverse range of global change themes such as the impacts of changing temperature and precipitation on soil ecosystems, forest degradation, extent and impacts of invasive species, plant responses to pollution, climate change impacts on biodiversity and tree phenology, environmental changes associated with land use, importance of traditional knowledge in climate change adaptation, timberline ecosystems, and role of integrated landscape modeling for sustainable management of natural resources. The book is a collective endeavour of an international multidisciplinary group of scientists focused on improving our understanding of the impacts of global change on the structure and functioning of tropical ecosystems and addressing the challenges of their future sustainable management. We hope that the book will help researchers working in the areas of ecology and environmental science to update their knowledge. We also expect that natural resource managers and policy planners will find explanations for some of their observations and hypotheses on multiple global change factors impacting tropical ecosystems and especially Himalayan ecosystems.




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