Unnatural Resources

Unnatural Resources PDF Author: Michael Camp
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 0822987015
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
Unnatural Resources explores the intersection of energy production and environmental regulation in Appalachia after the oil embargo of 1973. The years from 1969 to 1973 saw the passage of a number of laws meant to protect the environment from human destruction, and they initially enjoyed broad public popularity. However, the oil embargo, which caused lines and fistfights at gasoline stations, refocused Americans’ attention on economic issues and alerted Americans to the dangers of relying on imported oil. As a drive to increase domestic production of energy gained momentum, it soon appeared that new environmental regulations were inhibiting this initiative. A backlash against environmental regulations helped inaugurate a bipartisan era of market-based thinking in American politics and discredited the idea that the federal government had a constructive role to play in addressing energy issues. This study connects political, labor, and environmental history to contribute to a growing body of literature on the decline of the New Deal and the rise of pro-market thinking in American politics.

Unnatural Resources

Unnatural Resources PDF Author: Michael Camp
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 0822987015
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 312

Get Book Here

Book Description
Unnatural Resources explores the intersection of energy production and environmental regulation in Appalachia after the oil embargo of 1973. The years from 1969 to 1973 saw the passage of a number of laws meant to protect the environment from human destruction, and they initially enjoyed broad public popularity. However, the oil embargo, which caused lines and fistfights at gasoline stations, refocused Americans’ attention on economic issues and alerted Americans to the dangers of relying on imported oil. As a drive to increase domestic production of energy gained momentum, it soon appeared that new environmental regulations were inhibiting this initiative. A backlash against environmental regulations helped inaugurate a bipartisan era of market-based thinking in American politics and discredited the idea that the federal government had a constructive role to play in addressing energy issues. This study connects political, labor, and environmental history to contribute to a growing body of literature on the decline of the New Deal and the rise of pro-market thinking in American politics.

Unnatural Resources

Unnatural Resources PDF Author: Mindy Uhrlaub
Publisher: Permanent Press (NY)
ISBN: 9781579626402
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
When her Congolese village is destroyed by an invading militia group, eleven-year-old Therese is injured and outcast. Stranded with only her little brother's best friend in a war-torn jungle, she is forced to make a choice: lie down and become another victim of the war or stand up and survive. Desperate to find her mother and beloved brother, Felix, she uses her greatest gift, her knowledge of English, to navigate the vast web of humanitarian aid groups. Along the way, she meets the charismatic one-legged teenager, Robert, who takes her on an adventure with a film crew which becomes her lifeline back home. Luna, Therese's mother, has been taken as a slave and concubine to the handsome and evil leader of the militia, The General. In a harrowing act of bravery, she uses her own knowledge of languages to make the difficult choice to escape into the mountainous jungle. In her struggle to reunite with Therese and Felix, some of the least likely people become her friends. With its themes of women's empowerment, Unnatural Resources is a stunning and unflinchingly brutal redefinition of the meaning of family. This book tells the story of a young Congolese girl who becomes a symbol of hope in the worst place in the world to be female.

Unnatural Emotions

Unnatural Emotions PDF Author: Catherine A. Lutz
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022621978X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
"An outstanding contribution to psychological anthropology. Its excellent ethnography and its provocative theory make it essential reading for all those concerned with the understanding of human emotions."—Karl G. Heider, American Anthropologist

The Unnatural History of the Sea

The Unnatural History of the Sea PDF Author: Callum Roberts
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1597265772
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 649

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Book Description
Humanity can make short work of the oceans’ creatures. In 1741, hungry explorers discovered herds of Steller’s sea cow in the Bering Strait, and in less than thirty years, the amiable beast had been harpooned into extinction. It’s a classic story, but a key fact is often omitted. Bering Island was the last redoubt of a species that had been decimated by hunting and habitat loss years before the explorers set sail. As Callum M. Roberts reveals in The Unnatural History of the Sea, the oceans’ bounty didn’t disappear overnight. While today’s fishing industry is ruthlessly efficient, intense exploitation began not in the modern era, or even with the dawn of industrialization, but in the eleventh century in medieval Europe. Roberts explores this long and colorful history of commercial fishing, taking readers around the world and through the centuries to witness the transformation of the seas. Drawing on firsthand accounts of early explorers, pirates, merchants, fishers, and travelers, the book recreates the oceans of the past: waters teeming with whales, sea lions, sea otters, turtles, and giant fish. The abundance of marine life described by fifteenth century seafarers is almost unimaginable today, but Roberts both brings it alive and artfully traces its depletion. Collapsing fisheries, he shows, are simply the latest chapter in a long history of unfettered commercialization of the seas. The story does not end with an empty ocean. Instead, Roberts describes how we might restore the splendor and prosperity of the seas through smarter management of our resources and some simple restraint. From the coasts of Florida to New Zealand, marine reserves have fostered spectacular recovery of plants and animals to levels not seen in a century. They prove that history need not repeat itself: we can leave the oceans richer than we found them.

Managed Annihilation

Managed Annihilation PDF Author: Dean Bavington
Publisher: UBC Press
ISBN: 0774859504
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
The Newfoundland and Labrador cod fishery was once the most successful commercial fishery in the world. When it collapsed in 1992, many pointed to failures in management, such as uncontrolled harvesting, as likely culprits. Managed Annihilation makes the case that the idea of natural resource management itself was the problem. The collapse occurred when the fisheries were state-managed and still, two decades later, there is no recovery in sight. Although the collapse raised doubts among policy-makers about their ability to understand and control nature, their ultimate goal of control through management has not wavered and has been transferred from wild fish to fishermen and farmed cod.

Mississippi River Tragedies

Mississippi River Tragedies PDF Author: Christine A. Klein
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479825387
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
Read a free excerpt here! American engineers have done astounding things to bend the Mississippi River to their will: forcing one of its tributaries to flow uphill, transforming over a thousand miles of roiling currents into a placid staircase of water, and wresting the lower half of the river apart from its floodplain. American law has aided and abetted these feats. But despite our best efforts, so-called “natural disasters” continue to strike the Mississippi basin, as raging floodwaters decimate waterfront communities and abandoned towns literally crumble into the Gulf of Mexico. In some places, only the tombstones remain, leaning at odd angles as the underlying soil erodes away. Mississippi River Tragedies reveals that it is seductively deceptive—but horribly misleading—to call such catastrophes “natural.” Authors Christine A. Klein and Sandra B. Zellmer present a sympathetic account of the human dreams, pride, and foibles that got us to this point, weaving together engaging historical narratives and accessible law stories drawn from actual courtroom dramas. The authors deftly uncover the larger story of how the law reflects and even amplifies our ambivalent attitude toward nature—simultaneously revering wild rivers and places for what they are, while working feverishly to change them into something else. Despite their sobering revelations, the authors’ final message is one of hope. Although the acknowledgement of human responsibility for unnatural disasters can lead to blame, guilt, and liability, it can also prod us to confront the consequences of our actions, leading to a liberating sense of possibility and to the knowledge necessary to avoid future disasters.

Unnatural Selection

Unnatural Selection PDF Author: Mara Hvistendahl
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 1459614577
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 546

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Book Description
"Lianyungang, a booming port city, has China's most extreme gender ratio for children under four: 163 boys for every 100 girls. These numbers don't seem terribly grim, but in ten years, the skewed sex ratio will pose a colossal challenge. By the time those children reach adulthood, their generation will have twenty-four million more men than women. The prognosis for China's neighbors is no less bleak: Asia now has 163 million females "missing" from its population. Gender imbalance reaches far beyond Asia, affecting Georgia, Eastern Europe, and cities in the U.S. where there are significant immigrant populations. The world, therefore, is becoming increasingly male, and this mismatch is likely to create profound social upheaval. Historically, eras in which there have been an excess of men have produced periods of violent conflict and instability. Mara Hvistendahl has written a stunning, impeccably-researched book that does not flinch from examining not only the consequences of the misbegotten policies of sex selection but Western complicity with them"--

Unnatural Texas?

Unnatural Texas? PDF Author: Robin W. Doughty
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 162349706X
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
The story of introduced species in Texas is long (hogs were introduced by European settlers in the 1500s) and fraught with controversy. In Unnatural Texas? The Invasive Species Dilemma, Robin W. Doughty and Matt Warnock Turner introduce the “big hitters” of invasive species in the state. They profile the usual suspects—feral hogs, salt cedar, and fire ants—and also lesser known invasives, such as cats and sparrows. Blending natural and environmental history with geography, this book is a much-needed, balanced exploration of invasive species in Texas. The distinctions between native and invasive are not hard and fast, and perceptions of what is invasive have changed over the centuries. A striking example, free-ranging cats—domestic, stray, and feral—can wreak havoc on small mammal and bird populations. There is not a one-size-fits-all solution for invasives, and removal or complete eradication may not be possible or even desirable. The dilemma of what to do about invasive species also raises moral, social, economic, and cultural questions. This engaging introduction to the concept of invasive species in Texas will provide context for readers and will educate people on this important issue facing the state.

Unnatural Law

Unnatural Law PDF Author: David R. Boyd
Publisher: UBC Press
ISBN: 0774840633
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 490

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Book Description
While governments assert that Canada is a world leader in sustainability, Unnatural Law provides extensive evidence to refute this claim. A comprehensive assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of Canadian environmental law, the book provides a balanced, critical examination of Canada's record, focusing on laws and policies intended to protect water, air, land, and biodiversity. Three decades of environmental laws have produced progress in a number of important areas, such as ozone depletion, protected areas, and some kinds of air and water pollution. However, Canada's overall record remains poor. In this vital and timely study, David Boyd explores the reasons why some laws and policies foster progress while others fail. He ultimately concludes that the root cause of environmental degradation in industrialized nations is excessive consumption of resources. Unnatural Law outlines the innovative changes in laws and policies that Canada must implement in order to respond to the ecological imperative of living within the Earth's limits. The struggle for a sustainable future is one of the most daunting challenges facing humanity in the 21st century. Everyone - academics, lawyers, students, policy-makers, and concerned citizens - interested in the health of the Canadian and global environments will find Unnatural Law an invaluable source of information and insight. For more information on Unnatural Law visit David Boyd's site, www.unnaturallaw.com.

Unnatural Rebellion

Unnatural Rebellion PDF Author: Ruma Chopra
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813931169
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Book Description
Thousands of British American mainland colonists rejected the War for American Independence. Shunning rebel violence as unnecessary, unlawful, and unnatural, they emphasized the natural ties of blood, kinship, language, and religion that united the colonies to Britain. They hoped that British military strength would crush the minority rebellion and free the colonies to renegotiate their return to the empire. Of course the loyalists were too American to be of one mind. This is a story of how a cross-section of colonists flocked to the British headquarters of New York City to support their ideal of reunion. Despised by the rebels as enemies or as British appendages, New York’s refugees hoped to partner with the British to restore peaceful government in the colonies. The British confounded their expectations by instituting martial law in the city and marginalizing loyalist leaders. Still, the loyal Americans did not surrender their vision but creatively adapted their rhetoric and accommodated military governance to protect their long-standing bond with the mother country. They never imagined that allegiance to Britain would mean a permanent exile from their homes.