Today's Hours:
The 2011 Mineral, Virginia, Earthquake, and Its Significance for Seismic Hazards in Eastern North America by
"The 2011 Mineral, Virginia, earthquake, the largest to occur in the Appalachian region in more than 100 years, provided new seismologic, engineering, geologic, hydrologic, and geophysical data. This volume makes these results available for geoscientists, engineers, and decision makers interested in understanding earthquakes and seismic hazards in eastern North America and other intraplate settings"--
Carbon Neutrality by
This book offers a fresh, comprehensive outlook on a paramount global challenge: climate change, seamlessly integrating intricate themes like climate science, innovative technology solutions, strategic business models, essential investments, and societal impacts. The book targets decision-makers, business leaders, educators, and those seeking a comprehensive grasp of this critical issue. It imparts insights into the necessary strategic alignment to understand and address the diverse elements required for mitigating and adapting to climate change effects. As a practical guide, it delineates a clear roadmap for implementing solutions and driving essential transformations. By fusing these multifaceted aspects, the book constructs a comprehensive framework that offers astute guidance for navigating the path towards achieving global carbon neutrality and effectively combatting climate change.
Industrial Farm Animal Production, the Environment, and Public Health by
Essential essays on the environmental impacts of factory farms on public health. The rapid--and relatively recent--concentration of food animal production into factory farms makes meat plentiful and cheap, but this type of agriculture comes at a great cost to human health and the environment. In Industrial Farm Animal Production, the Environment, and Public Health, editors James Merchant and Robert Martin bring together public health experts to explore the most critical topics related to industrial farm animal production. The environmental impacts of these concentrated animal-feeding operations endanger the health of farm and meatpacking workers, neighbors, and surrounding communities. Factory farms create public health hazards such as antibiotic-resistant bacteria due to the overuse of antibiotics in livestock, as well as water polluted with nitrates, microbes, and other harmful chemicals. Despite the clear need for greater worker protection and oversight to mitigate the environmental harms of these practices, factory farms are notoriously difficult to regulate. Industrial animal operations are located predominantly in rural areas, often next to poor communities and communities of color. Food companies have driven independent producers nearly to extinction, sapped the economic vitality of rural communities, and amassed sweeping political influence at both the state and national levels to effectively prevent mitigation efforts. Essays in this volume cover pertinent topics such as the history, structure, and trends in the factory farming industry; water and air pollution; infectious disease health effects; community and social impacts; environmental justice and sustainable agriculture; and the impacts of COVID-19 among meatpacking workers.
Novel Approaches Toward Sustainable Tilapia Aquaculture by
The global human population will reach nine billion by 2050, and seafood is projected to be the primary food source to sustain such a large population. According to a recent World Bank report, aquaculture will be the prime source of seafood by 2030. Tilapia is one of the promising species for commercial aquaculture and one of the second most farmed fish worldwide. Given the issues raised by Antibiotic misuse in intensive aquaculture, such as the occurrence of resistant bacteria, it is necessary to develop environment-friendly strategies that could be used to improve production in a sustainable manner. Also, there is a need to establish the best aquaculture practice (BAP) approaches to avoid significant disruption to the ecosystem, the loss of biodiversity, and substantial pollution impact on the environment. The book covers the recent findings regarding sustainable tilapia farming through environment-friendly approaches. This book contains chapters that cover the current status of world tilapia farming and the concept of sustainability of tilapia culture (Chap. 1). Chap. 2 discusses the health management of tilapia with a particular focus on various diseases and treatments. Chap. 3 provides an updated view of the possible effects of feed additives on tilapia reproductive performance. Chap. 4, 5, and 6 cover the recent findings on the gut microbiota of tilapia with a particular focus on structure and modulation. Chap. 7 focuses on the use of medicinal plants for sustainable tilapia farming. Chap. 8 provides insights into the application of alternative protein sources to decrease fish meal consumption. Chap. 9 highlights the importance of culture systems for the development of sustainable tilapia aquaculture. We believe the current book will be very helpful to academics, researchers, and policy-makers in aquaculture.
Climate Change and Human Health Scenarios by
The objective of the present edited book is to encompass studies from both developed and developing countries of Asia, Africa Europe, and Americas, to understand and present a comparative scenario of the climate change and other environmental determinants of health and disease in geographically diversified countries. Environment and health perspective dates back to Hippocrates treatise written 400 B.C.E. In his book On Airs, Waters and Places, Hippocrates described diseases as associated with environmental conditions, "Whoever wishes to investigate medicine properly, should proceed thus: in the first place to consider the seasons of the year, and what effects each of them produces for they are not at all alike, but differ much from themselves in regard to their changes. Then the winds, the hot and the cold, especially such as are common to all countries, and then such as are peculiar to each locality. We must also consider the qualities of the waters, for as they differ fromone another in taste and weight, so also do they differ much in their qualities. In the same manner, when one comes into a city to which he is a stranger, he ought to consider its situation, how it lies as to the winds and the rising of the sun; for its influence is not the same whether it lies to the north or the south, to the rising or to the setting sun". There has been a greater emphasis in the last four decades on understanding environmental factors which affect human health, after United Nations established Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988 aimed at to evaluate research on changing environmental condition, particularly climate change and its impacts on human wellbeing, including human health, as consequences of extreme heat waves conditions, sea level rise, forced migration, air pollution, droughts, and wildfires. From these studies, risk levels of vulnerable populations and regions can be assessed and level of resilience of healthcare infrastructure that may be used in environmental health policy and equity of these countries.
Big Box USA by
Big Box USA presents a new look at how the big box retail store has dramatically reshaped the US economy and its ecosystems in the last half century. From the rural South to the frigid North, from inside stores to ecologies far beyond, this book examines the relationships that make up one of the most visible features of late twentieth-century and early twenty-first-century American life. The rise of big box retail since the 1960s has transformed environments on both local and global scales. Almost everyone has explored the aisles of big box stores. The allure of "everyday low prices" and brightly colored products of every kind connect shoppers with a global marketplace. Contributors join a growing conversation between business and environmental history, addressing the ways American retail institutions have affected physical and cultural ecologies around the world. Essays on Walmart, Target, Cabela's, REI, and Bass Pro Shops assess the "bigness" of these superstores from "smokestacks to coat racks" and contend that their ecological impacts are not limited to the footprints of parking lots and manufacturing but also play a didactic role in educating consumers about their relationships with the environment. A model for historians seeking to bring business and environmental histories together in their analyses of merchant capital's role in the landscapes of everyday life and how it has remade human relationships with nature, Big Box USA is a must-read for students and scholars of the environment, business, sustainability, retail professionals, and a general audience.
Life Cycle Assessment by
This book is a uniquely pedagogical while still comprehensive state-of-the-art description of LCA-methodology and its broad range of applications. The five parts of the book conveniently provide: I) the history and context of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) with its central role as quantitative and scientifically-based tool supporting society's transitioning towards a sustainable economy; II) all there is to know about LCA methodology illustrated by a red-thread example which evolves as the reader advances; III) a wealth of information on a broad range of LCA applications with dedicated chapters on policy development, prospective LCA, life cycle management, waste, energy, construction and building, nanotechnology, agrifood, transport, and LCA-related concepts such as footprinting, ecolabelling,design for environment, and cradle to cradle. IV) A cookbook giving the reader recipes for all the concrete actions needed to perform an LCA. V) An appendix with an LCA report template, a full example LCA report serving as inspiration for students who write their first LCA report, and a more detailed overview of existing LCIA methods and their similarities and differences.
Natural Disasters and Risk Communication by
Natural Disasters and Risk Communication: Implications of the Cascadia Subduction Zone Megaquake asks and addresses how we communicate about natural disasters and what effect our communication has on natural disaster education, understanding, assessment of risk, preparation, and recovery. The chapters of this book present expertise, analyses, and perspectives that are designed to help us better comprehend and deal with the natural risks such as the Cascadia Subduction Zone. It seeks to move past primal, fear-induced physiological and emotional responses to crises with the understanding that if we accept that the disaster will occur, expect it, and learn how we can prepare, we can calm the collective panicked beats of our hearts as we wait for its first tremors.