Grand Challenges in Environmental Sciences

Grand Challenges in Environmental Sciences PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309072549
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 107

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Book Description
Scientists have long sought to unravel the fundamental mysteries of the land, life, water, and air that surround us. But as the consequences of humanity's impact on the planet become increasingly evident, governments are realizing the critical importance of understanding these environmental systemsâ€"and investing billions of dollars in research to do so. To identify high-priority environmental science projects, Grand Challenges in Environmental Sciences explores the most important areas of research for the next generation. The book's goal is not to list the world's biggest environmental problems. Rather it is to determine areas of opportunity thatâ€"with a concerted investmentâ€"could yield significant new findings. Nominations for environmental science's "grand" challenges were solicited from thousands of scientists worldwide. Based on their responses, eight major areas of focus were identifiedâ€"areas that offer the potential for a major scientific breakthrough of practical importance to humankind, and that are feasible if given major new funding. The book further pinpoints four areas for immediate action and investment.

Grand Challenges in Environmental Sciences

Grand Challenges in Environmental Sciences PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309072549
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 107

Get Book Here

Book Description
Scientists have long sought to unravel the fundamental mysteries of the land, life, water, and air that surround us. But as the consequences of humanity's impact on the planet become increasingly evident, governments are realizing the critical importance of understanding these environmental systemsâ€"and investing billions of dollars in research to do so. To identify high-priority environmental science projects, Grand Challenges in Environmental Sciences explores the most important areas of research for the next generation. The book's goal is not to list the world's biggest environmental problems. Rather it is to determine areas of opportunity thatâ€"with a concerted investmentâ€"could yield significant new findings. Nominations for environmental science's "grand" challenges were solicited from thousands of scientists worldwide. Based on their responses, eight major areas of focus were identifiedâ€"areas that offer the potential for a major scientific breakthrough of practical importance to humankind, and that are feasible if given major new funding. The book further pinpoints four areas for immediate action and investment.

Environmental Engineering for the 21st Century

Environmental Engineering for the 21st Century PDF Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309476550
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 125

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Book Description
Environmental engineers support the well-being of people and the planet in areas where the two intersect. Over the decades the field has improved countless lives through innovative systems for delivering water, treating waste, and preventing and remediating pollution in air, water, and soil. These achievements are a testament to the multidisciplinary, pragmatic, systems-oriented approach that characterizes environmental engineering. Environmental Engineering for the 21st Century: Addressing Grand Challenges outlines the crucial role for environmental engineers in this period of dramatic growth and change. The report identifies five pressing challenges of the 21st century that environmental engineers are uniquely poised to help advance: sustainably supply food, water, and energy; curb climate change and adapt to its impacts; design a future without pollution and waste; create efficient, healthy, resilient cities; and foster informed decisions and actions.

Apocalypse Never

Apocalypse Never PDF Author: Michael Shellenberger
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0063001705
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 482

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Book Description
Now a National Bestseller! Climate change is real but it’s not the end of the world. It is not even our most serious environmental problem. Michael Shellenberger has been fighting for a greener planet for decades. He helped save the world’s last unprotected redwoods. He co-created the predecessor to today’s Green New Deal. And he led a successful effort by climate scientists and activists to keep nuclear plants operating, preventing a spike of emissions. But in 2019, as some claimed “billions of people are going to die,” contributing to rising anxiety, including among adolescents, Shellenberger decided that, as a lifelong environmental activist, leading energy expert, and father of a teenage daughter, he needed to speak out to separate science from fiction. Despite decades of news media attention, many remain ignorant of basic facts. Carbon emissions peaked and have been declining in most developed nations for over a decade. Deaths from extreme weather, even in poor nations, declined 80 percent over the last four decades. And the risk of Earth warming to very high temperatures is increasingly unlikely thanks to slowing population growth and abundant natural gas. Curiously, the people who are the most alarmist about the problems also tend to oppose the obvious solutions. What’s really behind the rise of apocalyptic environmentalism? There are powerful financial interests. There are desires for status and power. But most of all there is a desire among supposedly secular people for transcendence. This spiritual impulse can be natural and healthy. But in preaching fear without love, and guilt without redemption, the new religion is failing to satisfy our deepest psychological and existential needs.

GIS and Environmental Modeling

GIS and Environmental Modeling PDF Author: Michael F. Goodchild
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 9780470236772
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 536

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Book Description
GIS and Environmental Modeling: Progress and Research Issues Michael F. Goodchild, Louis T. Steyaert, Bradley O. Parks, Carol Johnston, David Maidment, Michael Crane, and Sandi Glendinning, Editors With growing pressure on natural resources and landscapes there is an increasing need to predict the consequences of any changes to the environment. Modelling plays an important role in this by helping our understanding of the environment and by forecasting likely impacts. In recent years moves have been made to link models to Geographical Information Systems to provide a means of analysing changes over an area as well as over time. GIS and Environmental Modeling explores the progress made to date in integrating these two software systems. Approaches to the subject are made from theoretical, technical as well as data stand points. The existing capabilities of current systems are described along with important issues of data availability, accuracy and error. Various case studies illustrate this and highlight the common concepts and issues that exist between researchers in different environmental fields. The future needs and prospects for integrating GIS and environmental models are also explored with developments in both data handling and modelling discussed. The book brings together the knowledge and experience of over 100 researchers from academic, commercial and government backgrounds who work in a wide range of disciplines. The themes followed in the text provide a fund of knowledge and guidance for those involved in environmental modelling and GIS. The book is easily accessible for readers with a basic GIS knowledge and the ideas and results of the research are clearly illustrated with both colour and black and white graphics.

Progress in Environmental Engineering

Progress in Environmental Engineering PDF Author: Janusz Tomaszek
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1315685477
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 101

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Book Description
Progress in Environmental Engineering contains theoretical and experimental contributions on water purification, new concepts andmethods of wastewater treatment, and ecological problems in freshwater ecosystems. The issues dealt with in the book include:(i) Causes and control of activated sludge bulking and foaming(ii) e use of new support material

Politics of China's Environmental Protection

Politics of China's Environmental Protection PDF Author: Gang Chen
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9812838708
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 199

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Book Description
As the dazzling economic and social changes in China have imposed substantial impact upon the quality of environmental governance, it is time to review the problems and progress in the politics of China''s environmental protection. This book analyzes the factors in China''s governance and political process that affect and restrain its capacity to handle the mounting environmental problems. It argues that solutions to China''s ecological woes to a larger extent lie in the political and institutional changes rather than in engineering, technological and investment input. The book talks about new policies and reform measures in the green area taken by the government since 2007, arguing that some of them may be quite effective in the long run, as long as they alter institutional factors and the OC growth-firstOCO mindset that obstruct the green effort. The book also includes discussion of China''s climate change policy not only because global warming has come under the limelight of the international community in recent years, but also because it offers a unique dimension to analyze the country''s environmental diplomacy and domestic bureaucratic structure on emissions cutting and related energy issues. China is currently at the crossroads of further political and economic reform, and the intensified public attention to environmental pollution may help the Chinese Communist Party to decisively push forward the long-sluggish political reforms.

The WTO

The WTO PDF Author: Merit E. Janow
Publisher: Juris Publishing, Inc.
ISBN: 1578232325
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 31

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Book Description
This volume brings together essays by world-renowned leaders in the field of international trade examining the operation of the WTO and its dispute settlement system. The experts who have contributed to this book include policymakers, scholars, lawyers and diplomats. Two major areas of inquiry are undertaken. The first half of this volume examines the governance and operation of the WTO and the international trading system. It pays particular attention to issues that affect developing country members of the WTO. The second half of this volume contains a detailed examination of the performance, operation, and challenges of the WTO's dispute settlement system. This book is an outgrowth of a conference held at Columbia University in New York in the spring of 2006. The conference was the last of a series of five regional gatherings held around the world to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the WTO and its dispute settlement system. This volume includes essays that shed further light on some of the themes raised in those discussions, as well as edited transcripts from that conference.

Still Only One Earth

Still Only One Earth PDF Author: R M Harrison
Publisher: Royal Society of Chemistry
ISBN: 1782622179
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Forty years since the first UN Conference on the Human Environment was held in Stockholm, how has the situation changed? We still have only one Earth but are we caring for and maintaining it? This book, written by leaders in the field, discusses the key environmental issues affecting the Earth today including atmospheric science, the marine environment, waste management and a specific chapter looking at changes in attitude to environmental issues. Aimed at policy makers, students, environmental scientists and thinkers, this title will be an important review bringing the reader right up to date with current opinions and attitudes.

Science for Environmental Protection

Science for Environmental Protection PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309264898
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
In anticipation of future environmental science and engineering challenges and technologic advances, EPA asked the National Research Council (NRC) to assess the overall capabilities of the agency to develop, obtain, and use the best available scientific and technologic information and tools to meet persistent, emerging, and future mission challenges and opportunities. Although the committee cannot predict with certainty what new environmental problems EPA will face in the next 10 years or more, it worked to identify some of the common drivers and common characteristics of problems that are likely to occur. Tensions inherent to the structure of EPA's work contribute to the current and persistent challenges faced by the agency, and meeting those challenges will require development of leading-edge scientific methods, tools, and technologies, and a more deliberate approach to systems thinking and interdisciplinary science. Science for Environmental Protection: The Road Ahead outlines a framework for building science for environmental protection in the 21st century and identified key areas where enhanced leadership and capacity can strengthen the agency's abilities to address current and emerging environmental challenges as well as take advantage of new tools and technologies to address them. The foundation of EPA science is strong, but the agency needs to continue to address numerous present and future challenges if it is to maintain its science leadership and meet its expanding mandates.

Building a Foundation for Sound Environmental Decisions

Building a Foundation for Sound Environmental Decisions PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309057957
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 104

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Book Description
Over the past decades, environmental problems have attracted enormous attention and public concern. Many actions have been taken by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and others to protect human health and ecosystems from particular threats. Despite some successes, many problems remain unsolved and new ones are emerging. Increasing population and related pressures, combined with a realization of the interconnectedness and complexity of environmental systems, present new challenges to policymakers and regulators. Scientific research has played, and will continue to play, an essential part in solving environmental problems. Decisions based on incorrect or incomplete understanding of environmental systems will not achieve the greatest reduction of risk at the lowest cost. This volume describes a framework for acquiring the knowledge needed both to solve current recognized problems and to be prepared for the kinds of problems likely to emerge in the future. Many case examples are included to illustrate why some environmental control strategies have succeeded where others have fallen short and how we can do better in the future.