Perspectives in Environmental Studies


Book Description

Environmental Studies pertain to a systematic analysis of the natural and man-made world encompassing various scientific, economic, social and ethical aspects. Human impacts leading to large scale degradation of the environment have aroused global concern on environmental issues in the recent years. The apex court has hence, issued directive to impart environmental literacy to all. In this book the fundamental concepts of environmental studies have been introduced and analysed in a simple manner strictly as per the module syllabus designed by the U.G.C. for undergradute courses in science, humanities, engineering, medicine, pharmacy, commerce, management and law. Besides the undergraduate students of all disciplines the book will also be useful for those appearing in various competitive exams since environmental issues now find a focus in most of such examinations. The contents of the book will be of interest to all educationists, planners and policy makers. Key features of the book include a simple and holistic approach with illustrations, tables and specific case studies mainly in the Indian context. The basic terminologies have been defined in the text while introducing the topics and some useful terms mentioned in the text have been explained in the glossary for an easy grasp by students of all disciplines.




Environment and Society


Book Description

The sixth edition of Environment and Society continues to connect issues about human societies, ecological systems, and the environment with data and perspectives from different fields. While the text looks at environmental issues from a primarily sociological viewpoint, it is designed for courses in Environmental Sociology and Environmental Issues in departments of Sociology, Environmental Studies, Anthropology, Political Science, and Human Geography. Clearly defined terms and theories help familiarize students from various backgrounds with the topics at hand. Each of the chapters is significantly updated with new data, concepts, and ideas. Chapter Three: Climate Change, Science and Diplomacy, is the most extensively revised with current natural science data and sociological insights. It also details the factors at play in the establishment of the Paris Agreement and its potential to affect global climate change. This edition elevates questions of environmental and climate justice in addressing the human-environment relations and concerns throughout the book. Finally, each chapter contains embedded website links for further discussion or commentary on a topic, concludes with review and reflection questions, and suggests further readings and internet sources.




Perspectives on Environment and Behavior


Book Description

The inception of this volume can be traced to a series of Environmental Psychology Colloquia presented at the University of California, Irvine, dur ing the spring of 1974. These colloquia were held in conjunction with Social Ecology 252, a graduate seminar on Man and the Environment. Although the eight colloquia covered a wide range of topics and exemplified a diversity of research techniques, they seemed to converge on some common theoretical and methodological assumptions about the na ture of environment-behavioral research. The apparent continuities among these colloquia suggested the utility of developing a manuscript that would provide a historical overview of research on environment and be havior, a representation of its major concerns, and an analysis of its concep tual and empirical trends. Thus, expanded versions of the initial presen tations were integrated with a supplemental set of invited manuscripts to yield the present volume of original contributions by leading researchers in the areas of ecological and environmental psychology.




New Perspectives on Environmental Justice


Book Description

Women make up the vast majority of activists and organizers of grassroots movements fighting against environmental ills that threaten poor and people of color communities. [This] collection of essays ... pays tribute to the ... contributions women have made in these endeavors. The writers offer varied examples of environmental justice issues such as children's environmental-health campaigns, cancer research, AIDS/HIV activism, the Environmental Genome Project, and popular culture, among many others. Each one focuses on gender and sexuality as crucial factors in women's or gay men's activism and applies environmental justice principles to related struggles for sexual justice. Drawing on a wide variety of disciplinary perspectives, the contributors offer multiple vantage points on gender, sexuality, and activism.-Back cover.




Innovation in Environmental Leadership


Book Description

Innovation in Environmental Leadership offers innovative approaches to leadership from a post-industrial and ecological vantage point. Chapters in this collection are written by leading scholars and practitioners of environmental leadership from around the globe, and are informed by a variety of critical perspectives, including post-heroic approaches, systems thinking, and the emerging insights of Critical Leadership Studies (CLS). By taking the natural environment seriously as a foundational context for leadership, Innovation in Environmental Leadership offers fresh insights and compelling visions of leadership pertinent to 21st century environmental and social challenges. Concepts and understandings of leadership emerged as part of an extractive industrial system; this work asks its readers to re-think what leadership looks like in an ecologically sustainable biological system. This book provides fresh insights and critical perspectives on the vibrant and growing field of environmental leadership. It shows the latest state of knowledge on the topic and will be of interest both to students at an advanced level, academics and reflective practitioners. It addresses the topics with regard to leadership theory and environmental leadership and will be of interest to researchers, academics, and students in the fields of sustainability, environmental ethics, natural resource management, environmental studies, business management, public policy, and environmental management.




Organizational Perspectives on Environmental Migration


Book Description

Over the past decade, international organizations (IOs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have increasingly focused their efforts on the plight of environmental migrants in both industrialized and developing countries. However, to date very few studies have analysed the influence and rhetoric of advocacy groups in the debates on environmental migration. Organizational Perspectives on Environmental Migration fills this lacuna by drawing together and examining the related themes of climate change and environmental degradation, migration and organizational studies to provide a fresh perspective on their increasing relevance. In order to assess the role of IOs and NGOs in the environmental migration discourse and to understand their interaction and their ways of addressing the topic, the book contains a wide-range of contributions covering the perspectives of organizational sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, geographers, lawyers and practitioners. The chapters are organized thematically around the perspectives of key actors in the area of environmental migration, including IOs, courts and advocacy groups. The geographically diverse and interdisciplinary range of contributions makes this volume an essential foundational text for organizational responses to environmental migration. This volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of migration studies, international relations, organizational sociology, refugee law and policy, and development studies.




Feminist Perspectives on Environment and Society


Book Description

For courses in Environmental studies, Environmental Sociology, Environmental geography and Development studies; Women's studies and Women's issues options on a wide variety of degree courses. Combining theory with practice, this concise, accessible text provides a comprehensive introduction to the concepts, theories and results of environmental sociology from a feminist perspective. Within an international context it portrays in full the different feminist perspectives on environment and society, which are marginalized in mainstream research, and shows how the feminist critique on environmental sociology contributes to a more general feminist critique of society. Part of the Feminist Perspectives Series providing stimulating introductions to key feminist topics and debates written by well-known, experienced teachers in each field.




Anthropological Perspectives on Environmental Communication


Book Description

In the continuous search for sustainability, the exchange of diverse perspectives, assumptions, and values is indispensable to environmental protection. Through anthropological and ethnographic analyses, this collection addresses how interests, values, and ideologies affect dialogue and sustainability work. Drawing on studies from three continents - Europe, North America, and South America - the paradoxes and the plurality of meanings associated with the creation of sustainable futures are explored. The book focuses on how communication practices collide with organizational frameworks, customary practices, livelihoods, and landscape. In so doing, the authors explore the meanings of environmental communication, pushing beyond environmental advocacy rhetoric to emphasize stronger anthropological engagement within communities to achieve more impactful environmental communication practice. Empirically the book's chapters explore a diverse set of issues, ranging from coastal management in the European north to Native American place naming in Alaska. They further share findings from studies of contaminated land remediation in Sweden, conflicts over water resources in Chile, management of heritage and national parks in Northern Arizona, and cultural transmission in Slovakia. This is an open access book.




Companion to Environmental Studies


Book Description

Companion to Environmental Studies presents a comprehensive and interdisciplinary overview of the key issues, debates, concepts, approaches and questions that together define environmental studies today. The intellectually wide-ranging volume covers approaches in environmental science all the way through to humanistic and post-natural perspectives on the biophysical world. Though many academic disciplines have incorporated studying the environment as part of their curriculum, only in recent years has it become central to the social sciences and humanities rather than mainly the geosciences. ‘The environment’ is now a keyword in everything from fisheries science to international relations to philosophical ethics to cultural studies. The Companion brings these subject areas, and their distinctive perspectives and contributions, together in one accessible volume. Over 150 short chapters written by leading international experts provide concise, authoritative and easy-to-use summaries of all the major and emerging topics dominating the field, while the seven part introductions situate and provide context for section entries. A gateway to deeper understanding is provided via further reading and links to online resources. Companion to Environmental Studies offers an essential one-stop reference to university students, academics, policy makers and others keenly interested in ‘the environmental question’, the answer to which will define the coming century.




Soils and Societies


Book Description

Described in Nature as 'a delight for the soil aficionado', this multi-authored collection examines the complex interrelations between societies in different parts of the world and the soils they relied on from the perspectives of geomorphology, archaeology, pedology and history. The geographical spread includes Mesoamerica, Africa, Europe, Australia, India and Easter Island. Few things are more important to human survival than the fertility of the soils from which so much of our food comes. Yet few aspects of the relationship between human society and the environment get so little attention. This book explores some of the enormous variety in the ways that people have worked with, thought about, damaged and restored soils. It also shows some of the ways in which soils, their properties and their histories have influenced human affairs. Soils are the substrate of all human society: from the palaeolithic to the present, their history is our history