Geo-environmental Issues Facing the Americas

Geo-environmental Issues Facing the Americas PDF Author: Emir José Macari
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
Contributing researchers and practitioners from academia, government agencies, and industry provide data and information relating to geoenvironmental issues in developed and developing countries of the western hemisphere. Contributors discuss environmental regulations, site assessment, remediation, and education, as well as landfills and containment systems and the transfer of new technologies. Issues and problems in Latin America, cost effective technologies, and a theoretical framework for simulating sustainable geoenvironmental technologies are reviewed. Thermal treatment of contaminated and neat soil, sedimentation and consolidation of a neutralized red mud, alternative barrier layers for surface covers in dry climates, and bioaugmentation of hydrocarbon-impacted sands are additional topics covered.

Geo-environmental Issues Facing the Americas

Geo-environmental Issues Facing the Americas PDF Author: Emir José Macari
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 232

Get Book

Book Description
Contributing researchers and practitioners from academia, government agencies, and industry provide data and information relating to geoenvironmental issues in developed and developing countries of the western hemisphere. Contributors discuss environmental regulations, site assessment, remediation, and education, as well as landfills and containment systems and the transfer of new technologies. Issues and problems in Latin America, cost effective technologies, and a theoretical framework for simulating sustainable geoenvironmental technologies are reviewed. Thermal treatment of contaminated and neat soil, sedimentation and consolidation of a neutralized red mud, alternative barrier layers for surface covers in dry climates, and bioaugmentation of hydrocarbon-impacted sands are additional topics covered.

The American Environment Revisited

The American Environment Revisited PDF Author: Geoffrey L. Buckley
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442269979
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 383

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Book Description
This innovative book provides a dynamic—and often surprising—view of the range of environmental issues facing the United States today. A distinguished group of scholars examines the growing temporal, spatial, and thematic breadth of topics historical geographers are now exploring. Seventeen original chapters examine topics such as forest conservation, mining landscapes, urban environment justice, solid waste, exotic species, environmental photography, national and state park management, recreation and tourism, and pest control. Commemorating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the publication of the seminal work The American Environment: Interpretations of Past Geographies, the book clearly shows much has changed since 1992. Indeed, not only has the range of issues expanded, but an increasing number of geographers are forging links with environmental historians, promoting a level of intellectual cross-fertilization that benefits both disciplines. As a result, environmental historical geographies today are richer and more diverse than ever. The American Environment Revisited offers a comprehensive overview that gives both specialist and general readers a fascinating look at our changing relationships with nature over time.

Rediscovering Geography

Rediscovering Geography PDF Author: Rediscovering Geography Committee
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309577624
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
As political, economic, and environmental issues increasingly spread across the globe, the science of geography is being rediscovered by scientists, policymakers, and educators alike. Geography has been made a core subject in U.S. schools, and scientists from a variety of disciplines are using analytical tools originally developed by geographers. Rediscovering Geography presents a broad overview of geography's renewed importance in a changing world. Through discussions and highlighted case studies, this book illustrates geography's impact on international trade, environmental change, population growth, information infrastructure, the condition of cities, the spread of AIDS, and much more. The committee examines some of the more significant tools for data collection, storage, analysis, and display, with examples of major contributions made by geographers. Rediscovering Geography provides a blueprint for the future of the discipline, recommending how to strengthen its intellectual and institutional foundation and meet the demand for geographic expertise among professionals and the public.

Why Geography Matters, More Than Ever

Why Geography Matters, More Than Ever PDF Author: Harm de Blij
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199913749
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 367

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Book Description
"This work was first published by Oxford University Press in 2005 as Why Geography Matters: Three Challenges Facing America."

The Geography of North America

The Geography of North America PDF Author: Susan Wiley Hardwick
Publisher: Prentice Hall
ISBN: 9780130097279
Category : Cultural geography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This book explores the geography of North America, using engaging examples to understand the cultures of Canada, the U.S., and Greenland.Helps readers understand the physical geography and environmental constraints and opportunities that underlie human settlement in comparative regions of North America. Conveys a sense of place, focusing on the richness of North American cultures, peoples, and places throughout with discussions of topics such as pop culture, music, foods, sports, and other topics of interest to help define and explain each region. Offers a superior, reader-friendly cartography program. For anyone interested in learning more about Canada, the U.S., and Greenland.

Mexican Americans and the Environment

Mexican Americans and the Environment PDF Author: Devon G. Peña
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816550824
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
Mexican Americans have traditionally had a strong land ethic, believing that humans must respect la tierra because it is the source of la vida. As modern market forces exploit the earth, communities struggle to control their own ecological futures, and several studies have recorded that Mexican Americans are more impacted by environmental injustices than are other national-origin groups. In our countryside, agricultural workers are poisoned by pesticides, while farmers have lost ancestral lands to expropriation. And in our polluted inner cities, toxic wastes sicken children in their very playgrounds and homes. This book addresses the struggle for environmental justice, grassroots democracy, and a sustainable society from a variety of Mexican American perspectives. It draws on the ideas and experiences of people from all walks of life—activists, farmworkers, union organizers, land managers, educators, and many others—who provide a clear overview of the most critical ecological issues facing Mexican-origin people today. The text is organized to first provide a general introduction to ecology, from both scientific and political perspectives. It then presents an environmental history for Mexican-origin people on both sides of the border, showing that the ecologically sustainable Norteño land use practices were eroded by the conquest of El Norte by the United States. It finally offers a critique of the principal schools of American environmentalism and introduces the organizations and struggles of Mexican Americans in contemporary ecological politics. Devon Peña contrasts tenets of radical environmentalism with the ecological beliefs and grassroots struggles of Mexican-origin people, then shows how contemporary environmental justice struggles in Mexican American communities have challenged dominant concepts of environmentalism. Mexican Americans and the Environment is a didactically sound text that introduces students to the conceptual vocabularies of ecology, culture, history, and politics as it tells how competing ideas about nature have helped shape land use and environmental policies. By demonstrating that any consideration of environmental ethics is incomplete without taking into account the experiences of Mexican Americans, it clearly shows students that ecology is more than nature study but embraces social issues of critical importance to their own lives.

The Environmental Advantages of Cities

The Environmental Advantages of Cities PDF Author: William B. Meyer
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 026231410X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
An analysis that offers evidence to challenge the widely held assumption that urbanization and environmental quality are necessarily at odds. Conventional wisdom about the environmental impact of cities holds that urbanization and environmental quality are necessarily at odds. Cities are seen to be sites of ecological disruption, consuming a disproportionate share of natural resources, producing high levels of pollution, and concentrating harmful emissions precisely where the population is most concentrated. Cities appear to be particularly vulnerable to natural disasters, to be inherently at risk from outbreaks of infectious diseases, and even to offer dysfunctional and unnatural settings for human life. In this book, William Meyer tests these widely held beliefs against the evidence. Borrowing some useful terminology from the public health literature, Meyer weighs instances of “urban penalty” against those of “urban advantage.” He finds that many supposed urban environmental penalties are illusory, based on commonsense preconceptions and not on solid evidence. In fact, greater degrees of “urbanness” often offer advantages rather than penalties. The characteristic compactness of cities, for example, lessens the pressure on ecological systems and enables resource consumption to be more efficient. On the whole, Meyer reports, cities offer greater safety from environmental hazards (geophysical, technological, and biological) than more dispersed settlement does. In fact, the city-defining characteristics widely supposed to result in environmental penalties do much to account for cities' environmental advantages. As of 2008 (according to U.N. statistics), more people live in cities than in rural areas. Meyer's analysis clarifies the effects of such a profound shift, covering a full range of environmental issues in urban settings.

Global Environment Outlook - GEO-6: Healthy Planet, Healthy People

Global Environment Outlook - GEO-6: Healthy Planet, Healthy People PDF Author: UN Environment
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108707661
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 744

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Book Description
Published to coincide with the Fourth United Nations Environmental Assembly, UN Environment's sixth Global Environment Outlook calls on decision makers to take bold and urgent action to address pressing environmental issues in order to protect the planet and human health. By bringing together hundreds of scientists, peer reviewers and collaborating institutions and partners, the GEO reports build on sound scientific knowledge to provide governments, local authorities, businesses and individual citizens with the information needed to guide societies to a truly sustainable world by 2050. GEO-6 outlines the current state of the environment, illustrates possible future environmental trends and analyses the effectiveness of policies. This flagship report shows how governments can put us on the path to a truly sustainable future - emphasising that urgent and inclusive action is needed to achieve a healthy planet with healthy people. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Nature's Geography

Nature's Geography PDF Author: Karl S. Zimmerer
Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press
ISBN: 9780299159146
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
Developing countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America are increasingly influenced by human-induced environmental changes. It is crucial that sustainable development be based on insights into these expanding processes--conservation as well as deterioration. Nature's Geography offers a new perspective on the geographical nature of these changes. The book reveals how human-environment relations must be understood at multiple scales and time frames. Editors Karl S. Zimmerer and Kenneth R. Young have forged an exciting group of case studies from distinguished geographers focusing on high mountains, tropical forests, and lowlands, as well as humid and arid-semiarid landscapes. Each chapter analyzes the implications for meshing environmental protection and sound resource use with development. The case studies evaluate three topics: spatial habitat fragmentation and forest dynamics; disturbances in mountain ecosystems; and the major activities of settled areas, chiefly farming, livestock-raising, and forestry. Included are analyses of interactions involving wildlife, such as primates and wild pandas; assessment of fire impacts and road-building; long-term forest management as well as recent techniques; and the role of environmental variation and ecosystem properties in agriculture and rangeland. Nature's Geography demonstrates the vital importance of advancing a new approach to geography. This definitive study of landscape change and environmental dynamics will have wide appeal for those interested in geography, ecology, environmental studies, conservation biology, and development studies.

American Geography

American Geography PDF Author: Sandra S. Phillips
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781942185796
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Drawing from the vast photography collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, American Geography charts a visual history of land use in the United States From the earliest photographic records of human habitation to the latest aerial and digital pictures, from almost uninhabited desert and isolated mountainous territories to suburban sprawl and densely populated cities, this compilation offers an increasingly nuanced perspective on the American landscape. Divided by region, these photographs address ways in which different histories and traditions of land use have given rise to different cultural transitions: from the Midwestern prairies and agricultural traditions of the South, to the riverine systems in the Northeast, and the environmental challenges and riches of the far West. American Geography also looks at the evidence of older habitation from the adobe dwellings and ancient cultures of the Southwest to the Midwestern mounds, many of them prehistoric. SFMOMA's last photography exhibition to consider land use, Crossing the Frontier (1996), examined only the American West. At the time, this focus offered a different way to think about landscape, and a useful way to reconsider pictures of the region. American Geography expands upon the groundwork laid by Crossing the Frontier, providing a complex, thought-provoking survey. Photographers include: Carleton E. Watkins, Barbara Bosworth, Lee Friedlander, Stephen Shore, Debbie Fleming Caffery, Mitch Epstein, An-My Lê, William Eggleston, Alec Soth, Mishka Henner, Trevor Paglen, Victoria Sambunaris, Emmet Gowin, Robert Adams, Terry Evans, Dorothea Lange and Mark Ruwedel, among others.