Chesapeake Bay Blues

Chesapeake Bay Blues PDF Author: Howard R. Ernst
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN: 0742573036
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
The Chesapeake Bay restoration effort has been touted as the nation's premier environmental restoration program. Yet the Bay and the living systems it supports remain in dismally poor condition, with fisheries in decline and drinking water in danger. This book addresses the Chesapeake Bay as a political problem and reveals how the political process has worked against the interests of science, the public, and environmental advocates all at once. Author Howard Ernst shows that the forces driving environmental degradation are sown deeply into the political soul of America, posing menacing challenges to those fighting to restore large ecosystems like the Chesapeake Bay. The book serves as a political roadmap for the future, suggesting how a different course of policy action is needed to 'Save the Bay.'

Chesapeake Bay Blues

Chesapeake Bay Blues PDF Author: Howard R. Ernst
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN: 0742573036
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 219

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Chesapeake Bay restoration effort has been touted as the nation's premier environmental restoration program. Yet the Bay and the living systems it supports remain in dismally poor condition, with fisheries in decline and drinking water in danger. This book addresses the Chesapeake Bay as a political problem and reveals how the political process has worked against the interests of science, the public, and environmental advocates all at once. Author Howard Ernst shows that the forces driving environmental degradation are sown deeply into the political soul of America, posing menacing challenges to those fighting to restore large ecosystems like the Chesapeake Bay. The book serves as a political roadmap for the future, suggesting how a different course of policy action is needed to 'Save the Bay.'

Fight for the Bay

Fight for the Bay PDF Author: Howard R. Ernst
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0742563243
Category : Chesapeake Bay (Md. and Va.)
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description
"In this important new book on the declining health of one of America's leading environmental treasures, Howard Ernst reveals a Chesapeake bay that has become functionally dead. He argues that the Chesapeake Bay succumbed to a "light green" environmental movement that has too often adopted a philosophy of compromise over confrontation and that has fueling a "political dead zone" where political leaders posture but fail to make the hard decisions needed to achieve real improvement in the Bay's health. While blunt in his evaluation of past and present failures to restore the Bay, Ernst believes that there is still time to turn the restoration effort around and sets out new "dark green" strategies to do so. In the concluding chapter, five long-time bay activists provide first-person accounts of their battles and hopes for the future. Hailed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as "a must read for anyone concerned about environmental protection," this challenging book provides a wake-up call for everyone concerned about the future of the Chesapeake Bay and other ecological treasures through out America."--pub. desc.

Baltimore Sounds

Baltimore Sounds PDF Author: Joseph E. Vaccarino
Publisher: Mjam Press
ISBN: 9780975408407
Category : Musicians
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description


Shifting Baselines in the Chesapeake Bay

Shifting Baselines in the Chesapeake Bay PDF Author: Victor S. Kennedy
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421426552
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 167

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Book Description
This environmental history of America’s largest estuary provides insight into how and why its former productivity and abundant fisheries have declined. The concept of “shifting baselines”—changes in historical reference points used in environmental assessments—illuminates a foundational challenge when evaluating the health of ecosystems and seeking to restore degraded wildlife populations. In this important book, Victor S. Kennedy examines the problem of shifting baselines for one of the most productive aquatic resources in the world: the Chesapeake Bay. Kennedy explains that since the 1800s, when the Bay area was celebrated for its aquatic bounty, harvest baselines have shifted downward precipitously. Over the centuries, fishers and hunters, supported by an extensive infrastructure of boats, gear, and processing facilities, overexploited the region’s fish, crustaceans, terrapin, and waterfowl, squandering a profound resource. Beginning with the colonial period and continuing through the twentieth century, Kennedy gathers an unparalleled collection of scientific resources and eyewitness reports by colonists, fishers, managers, scientists, and newspaper reporters to create a comprehensive examination of the Chesapeake’s environmental history. Focusing on the relative productivity and health of its fisheries and wildlife and highlighting key species such as shad, oysters, and blue crab, Shifting Baselines in the Chesapeake Bay helps readers understand the remarkable extent of the Bay’s natural resources in the past so that we can begin to understand what has changed since, and why. Such knowledge can help illustrate the Bay’s potential fertility and stimulate efforts to restore this pivotal maritime system’s ecological health and productivity.

The Chesapeake in Focus

The Chesapeake in Focus PDF Author: Tom Pelton
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421424754
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 279

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Book Description
Looking to the future, Pelton offers a provocative vision of the hard steps that must be taken if we truly want to save the Bay.

Chessie

Chessie PDF Author: Eric A. Cheezum
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421449056
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
"This work breathes new life into Chessie, the Chesapeake Bay's local sea monster that has not only become part of the region's mythology but also a harbinger of tremendous cultural transformation around the Chesapeake Bay"--

Achieving Nutrient and Sediment Reduction Goals in the Chesapeake Bay

Achieving Nutrient and Sediment Reduction Goals in the Chesapeake Bay PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309210828
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
The Chesapeake Bay is North America's largest and most biologically diverse estuary, as well as an important commercial and recreational resource. However, excessive amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment from human activities and land development have disrupted the ecosystem, causing harmful algae blooms, degraded habitats, and diminished populations of many species of fish and shellfish. In 1983, the Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) was established, based on a cooperative partnership among the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the state of Maryland, and the commonwealths of Pennsylvania and Virginia, and the District of Columbia, to address the extent, complexity, and sources of pollutants entering the Bay. In 2008, the CBP launched a series of initiatives to increase the transparency of the program and heighten its accountability and in 2009 an executive order injected new energy into the restoration. In addition, as part of the effect to improve the pace of progress and increase accountability in the Bay restoration, a two-year milestone strategy was introduced aimed at reducing overall pollution in the Bay by focusing on incremental, short-term commitments from each of the Bay jurisdictions. The National Research Council (NRC) established the Committee on the Evaluation of Chesapeake Bay Program Implementation for Nutrient Reduction in Improve Water Quality in 2009 in response to a request from the EPA. The committee was charged to assess the framework used by the states and the CBP for tracking nutrient and sediment control practices that are implemented in the Chesapeake Bay watershed and to evaluate the two-year milestone strategy. The committee was also to assess existing adaptive management strategies and to recommend improvements that could help CBP to meet its nutrient and sediment reduction goals. The committee did not attempt to identify every possible strategy that could be implemented but instead focused on approaches that are not being implemented to their full potential or that may have substantial, unrealized potential in the Bay watershed. Because many of these strategies have policy or societal implications that could not be fully evaluated by the committee, the strategies are not prioritized but are offered to encourage further consideration and exploration among the CBP partners and stakeholders.

The Environmental Case

The Environmental Case PDF Author: Judith A. Layzer
Publisher: CQ Press
ISBN: 1071870254
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 518

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Book Description
Answers to environmental issues are not black and white. Debates around policy are often among those with fundamentally different values, and the way that problems and solutions are defined plays a central role in shaping how those values are translated into policy. The Environmental Case captures the real-world complexity of creating environmental policy, and this much-anticipated Sixth Edition contains 14 carefully constructed cases, including a new study of the Salton Sea crisis. Through her analysis, Sara Rinfret continues the work of Judith Layzer and explores the background, players, contributing factors, and outcomes of each case, and gives readers insight into some of the most interesting and controversial issues in U.S. environmental policymaking.

Striper Wars

Striper Wars PDF Author: Dick Russell
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1597260908
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
When commercial overfishing sent striped bass populations into free fall in the 1980s, Dick Russell emerged as a key spokesman in a long-shot crusade by dedicated fishermen to save them. Striper Wars is Russell's vibrant account of their thrilling, yet tenuous victory, complete with heroes and villains. In one of nature's great comebacks, groundbreaking moratoriums allowed the striper population to rebound more than tenfold. Yet today, the striper faces new threats, including a deadly bacterial disease. While perils persist, Dick Russell's inspiring account offers fundamental lessons about the power of civic action and the necessity of a holistic approach to conservation.

The Oyster Question

The Oyster Question PDF Author: Christine Keiner
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820337188
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
In The Oyster Question, Christine Keiner applies perspectives of environmental, agricultural, political, and social history to examine the decline of Maryland’s iconic Chesapeake Bay oyster industry. Oystermen have held on to traditional ways of life, and some continue to use preindustrial methods, tonging oysters by hand from small boats. Others use more intensive tools, and thus it is commonly believed that a lack of regulation enabled oystermen to exploit the bay to the point of ruin. But Keiner offers an opposing view in which state officials, scientists, and oystermen created a regulated commons that sustained tidewater communities for decades. Not until the 1980s did a confluence of natural and unnatural disasters weaken the bay’s resilience enough to endanger the oyster resource. Keiner examines conflicts that pitted scientists in favor of privatization against watermen who used their power in the statehouse to stave off the forces of rural change. Her study breaks new ground regarding the evolution of environmental politics at the state rather than the federal level. The Oyster Question concludes with the impassioned ongoing debate over introducing nonnative oysters to the Chesapeake Bay and how that proposal might affect the struggling watermen and their identity as the last hunter-gatherers of the industrialized world.