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Environmental Studies and Nature

Environmental Governance Reconsidered

Challenges, Choices, and Opportunities
Edited by Robert F. Durant, Daniel J. Fiorino and Rosemary O'Leary

This survey of current issues and controversies in environmental policy and management is unique in its thematic mix, broad coverage of key debates and approaches, and in-depth analysis of concepts treated less thoroughly in other texts. The contributing authors, all distinguished scholars or practitioners, offer a comprehensive examination of key topics in environmental governance today, including perspectives from environmental economics, democratic theory, public policy, law, political science, and public administration.

Environmental Politics and Policy in Industrialized Countries

Edited by Uday Desai

The world's industrialized nations are the major consumers of the Earth's resources and major sources of environmental pollution. Environmental protection plays an important role in the politics of most of these nations. Although a large and growing body of literature exists on environmental problems and policies in the developed world, most of it focuses on government policy in individual nations. A smaller body of literature compares specific environmental policies in two or more nations.

International Relations and Global Climate Change

Edited by Urs Luterbacher and Detlef F. Sprinz

This book surveys current conceptual, theoretical, and methodological approaches to global climate change and international relations. Although it focuses on the role of states, it also examines the role of nonstate actors and international organizations whenever state-centric explanations are insufficient.

Globalization and Environmental Reform

The Ecological Modernization of the Global Economy
By Arthur P.J. Mol

Many writers either glorify globalization or vilify it, particularly for its destructive environmental effects. In this book environmental sociologist Arthur Mol provides a more balanced understanding of the relationship between globalization and environmental quality. Mol bases his arguments on his theory of ecological modernization, which holds that although processes of modernization and globalization often result in environmental degradation, they also can encourage policies and programs designed to arrest degradation and improve environmental quality.

Environmental Evolution, Second Edition

Effects of the Origin and Evolution of Life on Planet Earth
Edited by Lynn Margulis, Clifford Matthews and Aaron Haselton

In this book fifteen distinguished scientists discuss the effects of life—past and present—on planet Earth. Unlike other earth science and biology books, Environmental Evolution describes the impact of life on the Earth's rocky surfaces presenting an integrated view of how our planet evolved. Modeled on the Environmental Evolution course developed by Lynn Margulis and colleagues, it provides a unique synthesis of atmospheric, biological, and geological hypotheses that explain the present condition of the biosphere.

The Computational Beauty of Nature

Computer Explorations of Fractals, Chaos, Complex Systems, and Adaptation
By Gary William Flake

In this book Gary William Flake develops in depth the simple idea that recurrent rules can produce rich and complicated behaviors.

The Effectiveness of International Environmental Regimes

Causal Connections and Behavioral Mechanisms
Edited by Oran R. Young

To be effective, an international regime must play a significant role in solving or at least managing the problem that led to its creation. But because regimes—social institutions composed of roles, rules, and relationships—are not actors in their own right, they can succeed only by influencing the behavior of their members or actors operating under their members' jurisdiction.

Eco-Pioneers

Practical Visionaries Solving Today's Environmental Problems
By Steve Lerner

Following the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Steve Lerner spent four years searching out people he came to call "eco-pioneers"—the modern pathfinders who are working in the American pragmatic tradition to reduce the pace of environmental degradation. In this book, Lerner puts a human face on Earth Summit rhetoric, finding out what sustainable development actually looks like in the United States.

Nature's Purposes

Analyses of Function and Design in Biology
Edited by Colin Allen, Marc Bekoff and George Lauder

Within the natural sciences, only biologists take seriously teleological statements about design, purpose, and adaptive function. Some biologists claim that to understand the complex morphological and behavioral traits of organisms we must say what they are for, which is to give a teleological explanation of why organisms have them. Others argue that the theory of natural selection, in providing statistical explanations for the same phenomena, obviates any need for teleological thinking.

Global Governance

Drawing Insights from the Environmental Experience
Edited by Oran R. Young

Much of our experience with innovative approaches to governance at the international level involves natural resources and the environment. Whereas the Cold War bred an intense concern with the preservation of existing institutions, the emerging environmental agenda has prompted an awareness of the need for new arrangements to achieve sustainable human/environment relations.